“I-I came to warn you,” the youth whispered. The urgency in his voice assured their attention.
“Of what? Why did you leave the others?” Halloran’s anger filled his voice.
“The others!” Jhatli’s indignation came through as scorn. “This is where 1 should be! 1 told you, I will be a warrior, not one who spends his life fleeing enemies like the rest of my people.”
“Warn us?” interjected Erixitl quietly. “Warn us against what?”
“There’s an ambush up ahead. Monsters-big, green ones! They watched you enter this canyon, and now they wait at the rim to kill you!”
Halloran squinted at Jhatli, but he believed the lad immediately. “Trolls. That was courageous of you. How far away are they?”
“I will show you, but first let us get out of this low place!”
They scrambled up a shallow draw in the slope. Once again on the slopes above the deep floor, they felt vulnerable. But they moved carefully, and could see no sign of the trolls as they emerged from the canyon.
They crept forward no more than a hundred paces, however, when Jhatli pointed. They saw three of the green humanoids crouched at the rim of the canyon, peering expectantly downward.
“There are more-six or eight-on the other side,” Jhatli explained. “But I saw only these three over here.”
“Let’s try to slip away while they’re still expecting us down below,” Erixitl urged. The plan made sense, so they worked away from the canyon, slowly moving from one sheltering mound to another. Fortunately the rough ground made concealment easy.
It was almost good enough.
“Let’s pick up the pace a bit,” suggested Hal after they had left the trolls some distance behind. Accompanied by Jhatli now, they started toward the distant ridge, scrambling over, around, and through the many jagged obstacles in their path.
The roar from beside them was their first warning of attack. A pair of massive trolls reared up on a boulder, howling and barking, obviously calling to others of their kind.
Daggrande reacted instantaneously. He raised his heavy crossbow and let fly a thick steel bolt. The missile tore into the chest of the nearest troll, exploding from its back in a shower of gore. Bellowing, the creature toppled backward, out of sight.
The second troll leaped toward them, but Hal’s reaction was nearly as quick as his old companion’s. He felt the tingling of pluma around his wrists, the tiny cuffs of feathers adding to his strength. Helmstooth carved a silver arc in the air and sliced right through the troll’s midsection. Soundlessly the two halves fell to the ground, wriggling in a growing pool of black blood.
But Hal’s gullet rose in horror as the two halves of the troll didn’t cease their movement. With horrifying determination, the torso began to crawl forward, using its taloned hands to pull itself along. The trail of black blood spurting from the wound slowed to a trickle and finally ceased altogether. Even as Halloran moved away, a tiny pair of legs sprouted from the wound, growing slowly, but with visible and inexorable progression, Hal stumbled backward, gagging in horror.
The legs, meanwhile, kicked randomly. That portion, too, quickly ceased bleeding. Though the regeneration proceeded more slowly, a small lump of flesh formed at the wound and began to sprout upward.
“Look out!” Erixitl screamed, and Halloran saw movement beyond the boulder. Horrified, he saw the troll that had been shot by Daggrande slowly claw its way back onto the rock. Then he saw more green heads-a whole file of trolls-moving up to attack.
“Run!” he shouted, swinging the deadly blade until his companions started to move away. He heard the chunk of Daggrande’s weapon, and a second quarrel transfixed the troll’s forehead.
But now six, eight, even more of the beasts swarmed toward them. Halloran spun and raced after his companions, his heart chilling at the thought of Erixitl’s peril. Once again he stopped and turned, driving the first troll back and lopping a hand off another, a hand that continued to crawl, horribly, after its escaping quarry.
They dashed along a dusty path that slowly twisted upward along a narrow ridge. Halloran turned frequently to hack at the nearest trolls. Apparently the beasts felt pain, for they cowered back from his crushing blows, though they quickly leaped back to the pursuit as soon as the man turned away.
Daggrande paused to load and launch another missile. The force of the bolt knocked a troll from the narrow ridge, sending the beast tumbling in a cloud of dust to the gully below. Halloran knocked another into space with a clobbering blow from Helmstooth, but he faced the grim realization that all he could do was slow down their advance. He could not kill them.
Jhatli threw rocks, revealing a surprising strength in his youthful body as he lifted good-sized boulders over his head and pitched them at the green-skinned monstrosities. In the
lead, Erixitl tried to pick the safest route along the crest of the eroded sandstone ridge. It narrowed perilously until they worked their way along a trail only a foot or two wide, with steeply sloping drops to either side of them.
Halloran stumbled, almost rolling off the ridge. He caught himself with his free hand but then looked up in horror. A troll lunged for him. Still off-balance, he knew he could not counter the creature’s attack.
Then a black and white shape soared across his vision as, with a shrill cry of defiance, the great eagle darted past them. The bird’s powerful talons seized the monster’s coarse black hair and pulled it roughly to the side. With a harsh bark of anger, the troll tumbled from the narrow crest, the eagle releasing its hold to pull powerfully upward again. Screeching and howling, the creature slid and bounced down the jagged slope, until it finally stopped, broken and motionless, against an outcrop of rock. Even from this height, they could see the twisted limbs and gashed, bleeding skin slowly start to heal.
Halloran sprang to his feet, recovering his guard in time to meet the next troll. The beast, drool spattering from its black, fang-studded maw, growled savagely but stayed just beyond reach of the deadly steel. Hal lunged and stabbed and slashed, but always the gangly creature, towering high over the human’s head, stepped nimbly out of the way. Loose rocks rolled from beneath the mans feet, bouncing and tumbling into space on either side of the ridge.
Halloran briefly considered casting a spell-one of the few he had learned as an apprentice magic-user. He quickly discarded the thought, knowing a magic missile or enlarge spell would be of little use.
“C’mon! Keep moving!” Daggrande snapped in frustration from behind Hal. The dwarf itched for a chance to bring his keen axe to bear, but the ridge was too narrow, and in any event, he knew that the swordsman, with his enchanted sword and the power of pluma in his arms, could do far more damage to their enemies. Instead, the dwarf loaded another of his dwindling supply of quarrels into his crossbow, remaining alert for a chance to shoot.
Halloran backed along the ridge, barely holding the lead troll at bay. Then his boot snagged on an outcrop of rock and he fell heavily. In that same instant, the troll sprang.
But Daggrande was there. He released his missile, and the heavy bolt tore into the troll’s chest, right through the brand of the Viperhand- With a gurgling howl, the beast tumbled away, and by the time the next of the monsters lunged forward, Halloran had regained his feet. He met the charge with the bloody edge of Helmstooth, and again he managed to hold the rear for his retreating party.
The companions followed the serpentine landform for a half mile, staying just ahead of the trolls. Several of the beasts followed their progress at the foot of the ridge, and each of the humans knew that any misstep would send him rolling straight into deadly talons and fangs.
Suddenly their progress halted. Hal risked a quick glance at Erixitl and saw that she stood at the brink of a sheer drop. There was no way down, and still the trolls pressed at the rear. Below, several of the beasts had started to scramble up the steep sides of the ridge.
“A neat trap, this,” grunted Daggrande. He fired another bolt at a climbing troll, sending the creature tumbling back to the bottom. “Two left,” he said ominously as he reloaded.
With a chorus of growls and snaps, the trolls rushed forward to the attack.
From the chronicles of Coton:
Amid oceans of disaster, a small island of plumage holds us afloat.
