Pantros could barely see the tip of a flagpole until he got closer. By the time he could make out the black and gold striped banner, he could hear people yelling.
"Battle?" Marc asked.
Sheillene ran ahead, nocking an arrow as she ran. "Come!" she yelled.
Marc drew his swords, and followed after her. Pantros followed as well but left his rapier sheathed. Looking back, to see if his sister followed, he saw Thomas holding his sword and staying close to Tara, both of them jogging along behind..
As they crested the hill, they passed Sheillene who'd stopped and was reloading her bow after releasing her first shot. Below, Pantros saw a stone archway with a tower beside it but his attention was immediately drawn by several armored men battling against large humanoids with greenish-gray skin.
"Trolls?" Pantros asked, setting his satchel on the ground.
"Yes," Sheillene said. "They're hard to kill, you have to pierce their heart or sever their neck."
"I was hoping not to have to do this again," Pantros said as he ran down the hill towards the fight. He drew his sword as he came within twenty paces of the back of one of the trolls. Marc had already engaged another. *Trolls!* the swords voice spoke in his mind.*You have to pierce their heart. It's the center of their bellies, not in their chest like a human or Abvi.*
Pantros didn't respond. He hoped to sneak up to the fight without being noticed. He approached a troll that was facing a knight. The grayish skinned troll stood twice as tall as Pantros, and he had to reach up to thrust his rapier through the center of the monster's lower back. The deerskin the troll wore draped over its shoulder did not hinder Pantros' blade. The troll spun, swinging a huge clawed hand at Pantros. It caught his shoulder and threw him through the air. Unable to get his feet beneath him, Pan hit the ground rolling. He came to his feet between the legs of another troll.
The troll looked down at Pantros with a grin of many large sharp teeth. Pantros quickly thrust his rapier up through the trolls chin and into its brain. The troll fell to the side. Pan thrust the rapier a few times through the creature's naval, just to be sure. *I got the heart,* his sword said.
Pantros looked around to decide where to offer his help next. Marc hacked through the neck of the troll he'd been fighting. Two of the Knights were still standing, both fighting the same troll. Pan was about to head over to get behind that troll when Marc yelled, "Pan, behind you!"
Pantros spun, swinging his rapier at whatever would be there. The sword bit into the thigh of a troll, but the troll didn't seem to care as it clawed at Pan's face. Ducking and parrying and giving ground, Pantros couldn't find an opening to launch a counterattack. A sharp pain tore through his left ear so he dove to the right as three arrows sprouted from the troll’s belly. The troll fell forward, missing Pantros as he rolled to his feet. Sheillene was standing only a couple paces away.
"Sorry about the ear," she said. "One scratch is better than the four you'd have gotten from that claw. Besides, I'm sure I keep my arrows cleaner than those fingernails."
The shreds of silk that used to be his shirt were now covered in blood. Much of it was his blood, and not all came from the nick in his ear. When the troll had tossed him, several of the troll’s talons had caught a little skin.
"We're done here?" Pantros asked noticing that none of the trolls still moved. *Clean me before you put me away,* his sword said.*unless you'd like to chat a little, maybe?*
"Maybe later," Pantros said, wondering if maybe he owed his sword some conversation time. He wiped the blade clean with the remnants of his shirt then sheathed it. "Do any of the fallen knights still breathe?"
"They got torn up pretty bad," Sheillene said. "That one laying over there by the archway looks to be in one piece and the two talking to Marc seem mostly fine." Marc and the armored men near him were also walking among the fallen, checking for life.
Pantros went to help the knight on the ground while Sheillene checked for others still alive. A groan coming from the visored helm gave Pantros hope.
"The battle's done," Pantros said, kneeling by the knight. "Can you stand?"
"I think not," the man in the armor said. "My leg's out."
Noticing a small pool of blood seeping from the dented metal plates over the man's thigh, Pantros could see how that would be problematic. It wasn't so much blood that the man's life was in immediate danger, but to be sure, Pantros pulled his knife and cut the leather straps, releasing the leg armor. After cutting through the cloth of the man's pants, Pantros could see blood seeping from a small lesion on a large bruise.
"Your leg's been crushed," he told the knight."It looks like you were hit so hard the blood burst from the far side of your leg."
"That's what happened," A woman's voice said. One of the other knights knelt beside Pantros. Without her helm, Pantros could see that the other knight was actually a woman. She prodded around the crushed leg with her hand.
"Meredith, stop," the man on the ground said. "That hurts."
"The bone's intact, David," she said to the knight on the ground. "You can probably walk with only severe pain. Not that you'd want to." She held her hand towards Pantros. "Lend me that knife, if you would.
Pantros flipped the knife in his hand and passed the handle to Meredith. She cut David's pants into strips and then tied them around the man's leg as a bandage.
"The others are all dead," Another knight said as he walked up with Sheillene and Marc at his side. The knight seemed to be a man about Tara’s age.
"I didn't think any had made it, your highness," Meredith said.
"Highness?" Pantros asked.
Sheillene motioned at the knight standing beside her. "Pantros, this is His Highness, Estephan, Prince of Relarch." She then introduced Pantros to the prince."Prince Estephan, this is Pantros Phyreshade of Ignea."
"Ah, Your Majesty," The prince said, then bowed to Pantros.
Pantros was unsure why a prince was bowing to him. He stood and looked around at his friends' faces for a clue as to what was happening. "I'm a little confused," he said.
Prince Estephan asked, "Are you not the same Pantros Phyreshade known as the King of Thieves?"
"Umm," Pantros said.
"He is," Sheillene said, looking away from Pantros. "He just might not know it. I don't tell the stories about him in Ignea and as far as I know, I'm one of a very few bards who travel between Ignea and the rest of the world."
"You tell stories about me?" Pantros asked.
"I'm not the only one," Sheillene said. "Other bards tell my stories about you too. That story about Grey Ed is pretty popular in Fork and some other towns around Relarch, not to mention Everton. It's not like I ever expected you to leave Ignea."
"I don't mean to be rude but should we bury the dead?" Marc asked. His shirt was also torn and he had four parallel shallow cuts across his chest.
"We will," Estephan said. "First, let's take David inside the tower. Today's stew might still be warm, if you're stomach will take food. You're welcome to join us for the evening meal."
"I doubt I can eat," Pantros said. "I'm not sure my stomach will hold whatever is in there now. Fighting like this and all the death are new experiences for me and not ones I'd like to get used to."
"It kind of made me feel more alive," Marc said. "Well, not kind of, definitely made me feel like this is what I was meant to do with my life."
"Again, you're sure you're not part ogre?" Sheillene asked.
A quiet somber mood stayed with them for the remainder of the evening as they buried nine knights. After a brief ceremony, Meredith began chiseling the knights' names into the stone of the archway, starting with each knights' initials while the other gathered the troll bodies into a pile. Their bodies were too big to bury or move far. As they retired to the tower, Estephan set the pile of trolls aflame.