Something didn’t add up here.
Calarian rose to his feet, and beckoned Lars closer. “How many attacks have there been?”
Lars wrinkled his nose. “I’ve been the duke since lunchtime. I don’t know.”
“Good point,” Calarian said. He beckoned Gunther over, and Gunther didn’t look very happy about it at all. “How many attacks have there been?”
“Six in the past four weeks,” Gunther said.
“Trolls usually attack in droves,” Calarian said. He wasn’t an expert by any means—he was a lowland elf, and proud of it—but if there was one thing he knew about mountain trolls, it was that they weren’t built for independent thought, so they always attacked in droves. Mountain troll attacks were notorious for being deadly both to the targets and to the attackers. To the targets, for obvious reasons. And to the attackers, because any troll who tripped and fell over got crushed by the wave of trolls behind them, because they were too stupid and had too much forward momentum to stop.
Lars’s broad forehead creased in thought. “They’re not really attacking though, are they?”
Gunther scoffed. “What else would you call it? If they manage to break through the walls and run amok the length of the town, they could cause untold havoc and destruction!”
“Yeeees... but it doesn’t seem like they’re trying to take over or anything. They’re just being trolls.” Lars pointed at the mountainous corpse. “He was just trying to run in a straight line through town. He would have, if the wall hadn’t got in his way.”
Calarian felt a sudden flare of interest that wasn’t entirely sexual. Lars was still wearing those leather shorts, so it wasn’t entirely not sexual, but the human had a brain! What an unexpected delight!
“Like water running down a hill,” he said, flashing a smile at Lars. “They’re not trying to get into the town at all. They’re simply following the easiest path, and the town is in their way. Mountain trolls are too stupid to go around!”
Lars’s answering smile was as bright as sunshine.
Benji sidled back into the conversation like a small black thundercloud, and glowered at Calarian, and then Lars, and then Calarian again. “I’m bored. This is stupid. I’m going for a walk.”
Calarian nodded, and shooed him away. He put a hand on Lars’s shoulder. “You’re absolutely correct, Your Grace! This isn’t an attack at all.”
Benji muttered under his breath as he stalked away. With his bat-like hearing Calarian could just make out the words “...stupid blond...stupid leather shorts...stupid trolls...didn’t even get to fuck...”
Calarian rolled his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He’d worry about Benji’s foul mood later—a blow job would no doubt solve it—but for now he had to concentrate on this mountain troll thing, because that was the quest.
Benji was terrible at quests. Even as children, back when they’d both lived in the collective, Benji hadn’t wanted to join in playing Houses and Humans. When Calarian and his friends had been busy writing out character sheets and rolling dice, Benji had been busy burning down schoolrooms. Well, just the one schoolroom, to be fair, but he’d done it more than once. Honestly, Calarian wasn’t sure why the collective had kept rebuilding it, since Benji could never resist a challenge.
When Benji's school reports had said Ebenjilarian does not play well with others, he’d taken it as praise. Or maybe not—perhaps that explained the schoolroom after all. The point was, Benji didn’t work well in groups. Unless you counted the reverse parallel pikemen, which took at least six people, four of whom needed moderate acrobatic skills. Benji was great at that. But sex notwithstanding, there was a reason he’d lived alone in a swamp.
“So, Your Grace,” he said, pulling his focus back to the issue at hand, “what do you suggest?”
Lars chewed his bottom lip for a moment, and then put his hands on his narrow hips as he surveyed the dead troll. “Well, we should probably bury that before it starts to stink the place up, right? And then...” He winced and shrugged and said, in something in a strangled tone that was like the offspring of a question and an apology all mushed in together: “Maybe we should let them through?”
“WHAT?” Gunther shrieked.
If Lars’s nose wrinkled any further, he would be able to plant bean sprouts in the furrows. He shuffled his shoes in the dirt. “Um, maybe we should let them through?” The questioning tone was still there, but it didn’t sound quite as pathetic this time. He cleared his throat. “If they’re not attacking, then if we opened the gates and cleared a path for them, then wouldn’t they just keep going once they got through town?”
“Hmm.” Calarian studied the lay of the land and decided it would be easy enough to grade the road so that the trolls were diverted to the town gates instead of straight into the wall. “I happen to agree with you, but if we’re wrong...”
“If you’re wrong, Lars Melker, then everyone in the town is in danger,” Gunther interrupted, and there was something almost gleeful in his tone, as though he wanted Lars to fail.
Lars sighed heavily. “This ruling business is really difficult, isn’t it? I just came into town to ask for help finding my cow and now I’m a duke. It’s all a bit much, if I’m honest.”
Calarian gave him an encouraging smile. “I think you’re doing really well.”
Lars turned pink and ducked his head.
“...fucking bullshit...” Benji muttered angrily from somewhere close by. Clearly his walk hadn’t taken him very far at all.
Despite Benji’s attitude, Calarian was feeling cautiously optimistic that things were going well. There had been a slight hiccup with the whole duke thing, but Lars seemed to be working out okay. Better than okay, even, since it was only his first day, yet he’d already spotted that maybe the mountain trolls weren’t attacking Tournel after all, and that Tournel just happened to be in their way. In practical terms it didn’t make too much of a difference—the town walls were taking a battering either way—but Calarian admired that Lars had not only figured out there was more at play here than it first seemed, but also that he’d already offered a creative, albeit incredibly risky, alternative to counter-attack.
And he couldn’t help but wonder if Duke Klaus had been thinking along the same lines as well, because he hadn’t raised an army either, had he? No, he’d asked for advisors from Callier, not soldiers. So in a way, Lars was very much a worthy successor to the man. Calarian liked to think Duke Klaus would have approved of their choice of successor, if they hadn’t accidentally killed him. He had a good feeling about Lars, and most of that good feeling wasn’t even coming from his dick. It was coming from his... Calarian concentrated. From his heart? That sounded fake, but okay.
Calarian straightened his shoulders and threw an encouraging smile at Lars. “So, like water running downhill, remember? If we can get the trolls through the gates, we’re going to need to figure out how to get them around all the buildings inside, or it’ll be a total disaster. Please tell me the main road runs straight from the front gate all the way through to the other side?”