“Many years ago,” Xy expined, “Gren’s tribe migrated into the hills north of my forest. At first there was trouble, because the trolls wao cut dowo help build their vilge. I killed several trolls, and then I reached an agreement with their chief, Gren’s father.

  “I allowed them to e into the forest once every fifteen days, in groups of no more than four, to gather the trees that had fallen naturally, but had not yet rotted away, and also to cut dowhat were dead but had not yet fallen. I even had the squirrels guide them to the dead trees. It was not ideal for either me or them. They did not get as much wood as they wanted, and the wood perhaps was not quite as good as wood from live trees. Arees are also part of the life of the forest. Many creatures find homes in rotted logs, so in the long run it would have beeer to leave them in pd let Nature do as she does. But at least it meant peace.”

  “You, against a whole vilge,” I said.

  “In the forest I move much faster than any troll, and I hide. I disguise myself as a tree, which meant I could be anywhere, even at the very edge, watg them, without them knowing, and strike at the time of my choosing. I did not have to use vihat had no thorns with you, Abby, when we first met. Outside the forest would be a different thing, but ihey would have to move in very rge groups to be safe, and even then, I might be able to pie off at a time.”

  I nodded. I wondered what would have happeo me had I looked more dangerous. “So what ged?”

  Gren spoke. “A few months ago four males came to our vilge. One was the son of woman who died during the initial misuanding. And another was a fire wizard, named Baradzem.”

  Pyromancers. They are called pyromancers. she’ll be calling me a “Mage of Death.” Actually, that’s pretty good.

  “Apparently they don’t like me much,” Xy said.

  Gren shrugged. “Not sure they care about you, beautiful green girl with facile fingers. Not really. I think you are an excuse. But she is right. The fan to set the town against the deal we had made, against Xy of the taleongue, and against my father the chief, who they said had a bloated belly.”

  Gren frowned. “It is rather round,” she admitted. “He is getting old, and does not move about the way he once did. And he is getting more foolish, too, but I still think he is more wise than these four strife stirrers.”

  “What we do about it?” I asked.

  Gren shrugged. “I fear it is too te to do what really o be dohey have my father a prisoner in his own home. I objected, and they sought to do the same with me, but I fled to the forest, with three of the four on my heels. Only Baradzem stayed behind, but I run very fast, and once I was in the forest, of course I khe ways better. Also, Xy came and stopped them.”

  “I should have killed them,” Xy said. “But I did not know what had happeo old chief Gavabar.”

  “My father,” Gren said, proudly, although she’d already made that clear. “They ran back to the vilge, like frightened rats.”

  “It is the pyromahat worries me most,” Xy said.

  “We must rescue my father!” Gren said.

  “I don’t know if that’s possible,” Xy said. “You know that outside the forest I am not very powerful. But Abby might be able to help.”

  Gren grinned. “I have my bow, with which I am deadly.” Humility did not seem to be a troll value, or at least, it wasn’t one of Gren’s strong points.

  “I don’t know that I do much,” I said cautiously.

  “There are things you have done,” Xy said, somewhat cryptically.

  I thought about what she meant. Sure, I had a saw. And Life Drain. And Xy didn’t even know about Dimension Step. And maybe, just maybe, if we won a battle I could make some zombies, and that might make a differen a war. Make zombies, have them kill people, make more zombies — sure, I could maybe take over the vilge that way, at the cost of a lot of death aru. I was relut to go that route for several reasons. One was that I was just pin squeamish. But the other was that it seemed like a horrible way to win the hearts and minds of the people in the vilge. “How many trolls are in the vilge?” I asked.

  Gren thought about it. She had obviously hought to t. “Two hundred?”

  “That’s a lot. And how do they feel about your dad?”

  “I think they used to like him a lot. Until the four fiends came, our vilge knew peace, and we were growing. We have not always had enough beer for an y every month, but usually. That is ahing. The quartet of quarrelers cim that in the forest are fruit that ferment quickly, and that the green witan is stopping good trolls from getting drunk.” She shrugged at Xy. “That is what they call you. Green witan.”

  “Dryad. I am a dryad,” Xy said.

  “They are ignorant, and they have not had a ce to appreciate your bountiful breasts and tantalizing tongue.”

  “Nor will they.”

  But we have, hmm?

  I tried to get the discussion ba track. “How do the vilge trolls feel about your dad now?”

  “I think the town is divided. Most like Gavabar, but they are afraid of Baradzem, the fire wizard. Things have happeo those who stood against Baradzem. Acts, supposedly. Those who were hurt do not talk about what happened. her does the one who died by falling into his firepce, or the one who fell off a cliff with a curiously cut in his neck from the rocks below.”

  “Gotcha.” If there was still sympathy for the old chief, it seemed unlikely an army of zombies would help.

  “I have not shared your secret ways,” Xy said.

  She certainly gossiped about some things. Did “way” mean the portal, or teology, or my neantic abilities? I suspected all of the three, although I hadn’t talked to her much about the neancy. “Well, I don’t think I go into town and face down a couple of hurolls. I just don’t have that kind of power. Even with the aid of your no doubt prodigious bow.” I had a thought. “The troll whose mother died. Is his father still in the vilge?”

  “Probably,” Gren said.

  “Don’t suppose he’s one of the ones who likes Gavabar, and could maybe be talked into talking some seo his son?”

  Gren shrugged. “I don’t have any way of knowing who the father was,” she said. “How would anyone know?”

  Troll womehat easy? But Enash had implied they didn’t actually like having sex with troll men.

  “Perhaps an expnation of troll mating s would help,” Xy said.

  “Oh,” Gren said. “Everyoalks about it. Everyone knows. You ’t go anywhere among the other races without them bringing it up and asking rude questions.”

  “Abby often does not know the things everyone knows, and she knows things that no one knows,” Xy said.

  Gren shrugged. “Female trolls seek pleasure from other females. Only when drunk do they mate with males. Males only get it up when they are drunk. That is why beer is so important to us. No beer, no children, unless women make supreme sacrifiating while sober, but male trolls are so ugly. We have big parties, and everyos drunk and mates with many. Only the chief ever mates one oh a female.”

  “Ah,” I said. It didn’t sound like a sustainable evolutionary strategy. There were still trolls, obviously. And maybe evolution wasn’t the ecies came into being on Amaranth.

  “I know,” Xy said. “It sounds great, doesn’t it? A giant y! Except for the male trolls. But maybe if they were elves, instead. No insult intended.”

  “No insult taken,” Gren said. “Elves have tiny dicks, though. Still prettier to look at. Elf wome, though, and male trolls think about elf women a lot, I think.”

  I cleared my throat. “Ba track, here.”

  “Yes,” Xy said. “We o protect the forest from these evil trolls.”

  “We o kill Baradzem and his terrible three, and free my father, so that we resume the peace,” Gren said. “That is the best way to protect the forest.”

  Gren saw the bigger picture, it seemed, but how to do any of that without luring them into the forest, where Xy owerful, first? They wao recapture Gren, so maybe we could use her as bait, but that seemed risky.

  . Get the dryad to kill some trolls, raise a zombie army, make the trolls do your bidding or face your wrath. You use this Gavabar as a puppet, to make the woman happy, and you get yourself io all the troll ies. Is this not obvious? Of course, having a wand would help.

  It sounded like the perfect way to be the person I did not want to be.

  Xy and Gren were looking at me, waiting.

  “I don’t think we have a way to go against them right now. But I have some magiy own, and with a wand I’ll be more powerful. I have clues to where one is.”

  “But it’s guarded by zombies,” Xy said, looking at Gren.

  Gren shrugged. “How many?”

  “Don’t know,” I said.

  “So we fight the zombies, get you your wand, then you use your wand to cast magic to free my vilge?”

  “That’s the rough idea.” I still had no idea how to make it all happen. But I khat if I had a ged attack our odds would be better than without one.

  “I ot help much, inside a cave,” Xy said. “But I guard the forest while you two retrieve the wand.”

  “It sounds like the sort of quest the gods would give heroes,” Gren said. “I am in. When do we start?”

  “I have a few things arouo do, still,” I said. “Perhaps if the two of you were to, um, go somewhere?”

  “Allies should have s,” Gren said.

  Yeah, well, the fate of two worlds might be at stake. A little lie wouldn’t hurt. “I have magical things to do, things that might bst the soul of a no.”

  Xy’s eyes widened. Well, I’d have to fill her in ter.

  “Yoing to keep him under trol, aren’t you, Abby?”

  She means me. She knows that this is not the natural order of things. She feels the wrongness of your trol in her bones. Branches. Whatever she calls them.

  “Yeah, I won’t be taking any risks with that,” I told her.

  “e, Gren, “Xy said. “I’m sure we find things to do. We will be along the path toward the cave.”

  I nodded. I wondered what kind of things they were going to be doing, and if I was missing out on a threesome, but I really had no choice. Ohey were out of sight, I buried the two keyboxes. I got the pass and loaded some freshly charged batteries into my backpack. I hefted my saw.

  Alright, zombies. Here I e.