but by the time Percival got to the spot, Danica and Dorigen had grown tired of waiting for an answer to their knock and Danica had pushed open the unlocked doors and entered the foyer.
It was dark and quiet. Danica looked behind her and saw a heavy blanket stretched across the small windows above the doors.
"What is this?" Dorigen asked. She had never been in the library, but she surmised that this atmosphere was not normal for the place. Where were all the priests? she wondered. And why were the hairs standing up on the back of her neck?
"I have never seen the library like this before," Danica answered. The monk wasn't as suspicious or nervous as Dorigen, though. She had spent the last few years in the Edificant Library; the place had become home to her.
"Perhaps there is some ceremony going on," Danica reasoned, "one I do not understand."
Unsuspecting Danica could not begin to appreciate the truth of her statement.
"Phooey!"
Pikel scrunched up his little nose and waggled his head at the terrible stench. He turned suddenly and let fly a tremendous sneeze, showering his dour brother with spittle.
Not surprised (not after so many decades beside Pikel), Ivan didn't say a word.
Troll stench," Cadderly remarked.
"Burned troll," Ivan replied, wiping his face.
Cadderly nodded and moved cautiously down the path. They were only three days from the library, moving easily along the same trail Danica and the others had used. The path went up a short rise, then around a bend and some gnarly bushes, and into a clearing that had been used as a campsite.
Cadderly's heart beat wildly as he came near that camp. He felt certain that Danica had been here, and, it would seem, had encountered some wretched trolls.
The smell nearly overwhelmed the young priest as he clambered around the bushes, skidding to a stop in front of the gruesome remains of the battle.
Three large forms, three lumps of blackened flesfe, lay about the small clearing.
"Looks like they got 'em," Ivan remarked, coming in more confidently behind Cadderly.
Pikel started to chant "Oo oi!" but sneezed again instead, just as Ivan turned back to face him. Ivan answered by punching Pikel in the nose, to which Pikel responded by poking the end of his club between Ivan's knees, then diving to the^side, tripping his brother. In a moment, the two were rolling about the ground.
Cadderly, on his hands and knees, searched around to determine exactly what had transpired, paying the two bouncing dwarves no heed. They had fought a dozen times over the last few weeks, and neither of them ever seemed to get hurt.
The young priest inspected the closest troll, quickly surmising that Shayleigh had hit this one with a barrage of arrows before flames had consumed it. The next troll he went to, lying across the way, far from where the campfire had been, showed no signs that it had been downed or even wounded before flames engulfed it. Cadderly searched carefully, even shifting the charred corpse to the side. He found no brand, though, no trace that any torch had been brought out to combat the troll.
He rose and turned back toward the stone circle that had held the campfire, hoping to discern how much of a fire had been burning when the trolls attacked.
Ivan and Pikel rolled right across the ashes and scattered the rocks, too absorbed in their wrestling to notice the young priest's movements. They crashed into the body of the third troll, and the blistered skin popped open, pouring forth the creature's melted fat.
Tuck!" Pikel squealed, hopping to his feet.
Ivan hopped up, too. He grabbed his brother by the front of the tunic and heaved Pikel headlong into a bush, then coiled his muscled legs and sprang in after him, burying Pikel as he tried to stand once more.
Cadderly, worried for his absent friends and trying to confirm something important, fast grew impatient with the two, but still said nothing. He simply stormed over to the broken firepit and began his inspection.
He suspected that the fire could not have been high at the time of the attack, or the trolls, fearful of flame, would have lain in wait. He also knew that his friends would not have remained in this area after the fight - the stench would have been too great. And Danica, and particularly Shayleigh, who so revered nature, would not have left the camp with the fire burning.
As Cadderly expected, he found no charred logs of any significant size. The