The Troll-Human War

by Leah R. Cutter

  Good times.

  Right now, the ceiling reflected a vague image of Buddy, with his large nose, flabby lips, and ears that stuck on almost like wings on either side of his head. The moles and warts that covered his body were mere blemishes, and he couldn’t see the hair sprouting out of them. His pot belly almost looked flat, something that amused him greatly, though his legs still appeared scrawny.

  The bed itself was round so it was easy to place his partners exactly where he wanted them. Thick, soft rugs covered the floor (in case he didn’t make it to the bed) and he’d padded the walls as well. He tried to be thoughtful of his companions.

  “Yes, Lars did make a recruitment call. After he’d already started the war with my troops,” Buddy said. “He didn’t start the war with those volunteers, you know.”

  “Oh,” Sam said. She sat up on the bed, her black eyes blinking as she considered. “Yes, that makes sense.” She smiled at him, her blood-red lips outlining her white, pointed teeth. Her black, bat-like wings folded more tightly across her back as she settled down. She stuck her chest out at him, the nipples black against her pale skin. “How smart of you to see the brilliance of Lars so early! Before he’d started the Great War!”

  “Exactly,” Buddy said. “Lars wouldn’t be where he is today without the support of demons like me.”

  “Do you…” Sam paused, bit her lips, and looked away, coyly. “Do you think I could meet him someday?”

  “Of course,” Buddy said. He gave her a grin even though he felt like pounding his head against the nearest unpadded wall.

  “That would be wonderful!” Sam said. “What do you think he likes?” she asked, her voice taking on a dreamy quality.

  At least she’d gone back to her original actions, and was slowly stroking Buddy again.

  “Do you think he’d like it rough? Or no, he’d prefer a softer partner, one he could be master over,” Sam said, starting to sound a little breathless. Like she was getting off on the thought of being with Lars, instead of focusing on being with Buddy.

  “You know, men talk about these things,” Buddy said. Technically, that wasn’t a lie. Men didn’t necessarily talk about sex with each other as much as brag about it. “We compare things.” Not just dick sizes, though that was frequently what went on in those sorts of conversations.

  “Oh? Oh!” Sam said. She gave him a lascivious smile. “So I should do my best so that you can put in a good word for me?”

  “Yes, exactly…oh,” Buddy said as that mouth of hers finally stopped talking and got back down to business.

  Later that night after Sam had gone, Buddy found himself unable to sleep despite how well the succubus had performed. Generally, after a session like that Buddy was hard pressed not to immediately pass out.

  However, his brain kept going over not just what Sam had said, but the other things he’d heard. Like how many demons had raced to join Lars and the fighting once they’d started winning. And not just a few battles here and there, but major encounters. The reports that Lars sent to Buddy were torturous to read (kind of the point of any report). The text was small and dense, and Lars tended to bury the actual news on page three or even once, page seven.

  The demons were winning the Great War.

  Obviously, Buddy was going to have to have a talk with his own PR department to make sure that his name was more strongly linked with Lars’. Because in the grand scheme of things, it always made sense to be on the side of the winners, not the losers.

  Though Buddy still had some queasiness over Lars and his wins. Unless that had been the chile con queso that he’d had for dinner.

  Buddy gave a great belch, the sound echoing off the still-black ceiling. He patted his pot belly. It rumbled a moment under his scratchy palm, then settled back down.

  Nope. Not the cheese. Must be Lars.

  Buddy scratched himself idly as he pondered. It wasn’t that he was upset that Lars was winning the war. Far from it. Like Sam, Buddy was looking forward to the day when the demons were finally back in charge of all the races, running things as they should be run. Buddy had plenty of ideas in that department, from the proper enslavement of humanity to how to punish those of the kith and kin who didn’t immediately ally themselves with the demons.

  But that was just it. Buddy had some ideas about how to do all of these things.

  Lars had plans.

  And not only that, Lars had plans that worked. With demons who, Buddy had to admit, were the least likely of any race to actually follow a plan. Worse than cats. And Buddy was quite fond of cats. No, demons were like the hellish variety of cats, who would come up and demand to be petted before turning and clawing the hand that was petting them.

  What other plans did Lars have? Buddy had never given that much thought to after the war. He’d assumed that instead of winning, he’d be collecting Lars’ soul. That had been the bargain, after all, in exchange for the troops.

  Lars would demand a throne in Hell, to become one of the princes. The other demons would back him up.

  Did Lars intend to take over Hell?

  Of course he did. He was a demon.

  However, Lars was a demon who planned.

  He might succeed.

  And what would happen to Buddy then? Would he be remembered as the demon who first helped Lars? The one who saw the general’s brilliance early, before anyone else?

  Or would he merely be a footnote, with some wag of a historian noting how his true importance was just as the creator of rock and roll? Or the influence of that famous song about the devil and sympathy?

  That wouldn’t do.

  Buddy was a prince of hell. He might not look like one; he rarely acted like one. But he was damned if he was about to give up his throne to Lars.

  Now, even Buddy wouldn’t do something to affect the outcome of the war. He wanted to win as much as everyone else.

  No, what he needed to do was to make sure that Lars understood the consequences of his actions. Whether he won or lost.

  Time for the golden boy to pay a visit to Hell.

  Chapter Seven

  Vern hadn’t expected that the magical council would meet in one of the government buildings in downtown Seattle. He’d expected some place more, well, magical. Not a room with a podium up front from where a representative could drone on like any politician, chairs and tables on either side where the council members sat, as well as such a large audience.

  All in all, the room was very orange. The carpet was a red-orange, the walls a pumpkin orange, and the chairs a yellow orange. At least the long vertical shades pulled tightly across the windows on either side of the door were beige.

  It felt very academic in some ways, like a room where a student might give a speech. Or three. All very normal and mundane. The air still had a touch of industrial cleaner, and was filled with muted conversation.

  Although, Vern had to admit at least the audience was pretty swell. It was mostly composed of humans, though some of the kith and kin were there. Or at least, that was what Vern thought that tall tree-like looking being in the corner was. And he thought he recognized some pixies as well: three-foot tall human-looking creatures with long skinny fingers, big eyes, and a big mouth full of sharp, pointed teeth.

  However, most of the humans were hippy humans. The ones who didn’t just mouth the phrase “keep Fremont weird” but who lived it. No bankers or software engineers here. Nope. Patchouli-wearing bearded men with long gauzy skirts—at least half a dozen of them—formed their own cluster in the middle of the front row. Many of the women wore leather bustiers that they kept threatening to spill out of, complete with leather pants and boots.

  Why were some of them carrying wooden stakes and wearing crosses? Vern wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

  There were a few other old farts like him, more casually dressed, though the primary uniform tended to be T-shirts, jeans, loafers and no socks.

  Vern felt decidedly out of place, though not uncomfortable. There were very few times in Ve
rn’s life when he could recall feeling uncomfortable in a social setting.

  He still wished he’d been able to pass more of that ability along to Christine, his daughter, whether she was a troll or not.

  “Hi, there,” Vern said to the young woman who sat down in the empty seat next to him. “I’m Vern,” he added, trying to put her at ease.

  She looked over at him with big, scared eyes. Her blonde hair fell softly over her forehead, and her cheeks were round and pink, making her seem very young. She wore what Vern would call a “Little Bo Peep” costume—a white, short-sleeved blouse with puffy sleeves, a black, tightly laced corset that appeared to just be part of her outfit and not meant to show off her chest, a long blue-and-white gingham skirt and pointed black shoes.

  He wanted to joke with her and ask her about her sheep, but she looked too scared. Maybe later.

  “Hi,” she said shyly. “This—this is my first time here,” she said all in a rush.

  “Same here,” Vern admitted. “Was hoping that a youngster like you could show me the ropes.”

  The girl shook her head. “Should I go sit someplace else?” she asked, looking around the room. “So that someone different could sit here?”

  “No, no, you’re fine,” Vern assured her. “We’ll just have to learn the ropes together. Deal?”

  “Deal,” she said. “Oh, I’m Barbie, by the way.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Vern said, nodding his head her direction.

  He didn’t offer to shake her hand. He no longer did that, not unless he absolutely had to. Though he’d been raised to be more demonstrative, and he still held hands with his wife every chance he got, ever since his magic had blossomed, it bothered him to touch strangers.

  Blossomed. Bloomed. He could never think of another word for it. It wasn’t that it hadn’t been there before. Now that he knew what he was looking for, when he went searching for it inside of himself, he realized that it had always been there. Prior to being taught magic, the ability had been like a single bud on a scraggly rose bush, waiting for the right sunlight to be cast on it, the right amount of rain and soft winds.

  Now, it was a full field of brilliant flowers, a greater resource to draw on than Vern would have ever imagined possible.

  “What brings you here tonight, young Barbie?” Vern asked, curious. The girl seemed to still be shrunken in on herself. Why had she come here, to a crowded room, alone?

  “The war,” she said, her voice hoarse. “Isn’t that why we’re all here?”

  “Possibly,” Vern had to admit.

  He had more insight into the war than most, given that it was his daughter, Christine, fighting it. However, he didn’t see her regularly anymore. He missed the weekly Sunday dinners that they used to have. He tried to tell her how proud he was of her every chance he got, but that didn’t seem to be enough to raise a smile from her anymore.

  Christine would never say so out loud, but Vern suspected that the kith and kin were losing.

  He’d developed his magic. Learned he had some real skill.

  It was time for him to do his part for the war effort.

  How could he put his talents to their best use, though?

  Dennis, his son, had continued to recruit the kith and kin for Christine, as well as to sometimes talk those who wanted to leave the battles and turn away from Christine’s troops into staying. He’d cut back on the hours of his job so he could do his part.

  Vern felt bursting with pride for both his son and his daughter. It probably radiated out from all the seams of his being.

  As for his other daughter, Tina…she was still struggling. He’d tried to help her, but she wouldn’t see him, not after that first time. She’d actually accused him of stealing all her magical ability.

  Him! Vern would never steal anything. Not even a sucker from a demon baby.

  So there had to be something else that Vern could do.

  Just what, he wasn’t sure. So he came to meeting tonight to hear what the council had to say, to find out how the humans and the magic council were supporting the war being fought by the kith and kin on the behalf of the humans.

  Because once that first line of defense failed, the demons were coming after the humans.

  And by then, it would be too late.

  The meeting started with the council all introducing themselves. Some of them, Vern would swear, were bankers. No software developers though.

  The mix of twelve council members was more varied than the Seattle city council, which probably wasn’t saying that much. It was at least half women, though Vern wasn’t certain about the pronoun that was appropriate for the one individual sitting on the end of the table at the right. They had a full, luxurious black beard, yet at the same time, beautifully filled out a blue velvet evening gown—tall, thin, and buxom.

  At least two of the council members appeared to be of south Asian heritage, based on the saris the women wore. There was one brown face who gave a First Nations name, and two black men. The rest, of course, were white and well to do.

  Vern glanced at Barbie out of the corner of his eye. She appeared rapt, hanging on every word of the initial reading of the minutes from the last meeting.

  He just couldn’t get a read on her. Something about her seemed off to him. Possibly her age. When he thought about it, she struck him as someone much older than she appeared, though her hands looked as young and fresh as her face.

  Or maybe it was how scared and shy she’d first appeared. Now that the meeting had started, all that fear had melted away and she looked eager and confident.

  Finally the old business was all taken care of and they moved onto the agenda for the evening.

  First up, the war.

  “The Hunulary, Val’tian, and Rosinium have all been taken,” said Thaxton, one of the banker-type men. “And battles have broken out between the Leafanders and Boxilays.”

  Vern nodded. He’d heard about the fallen three, but not the others. Christine had taken those losses personally, feeling as though she’d not moved in enough troops quickly enough.

  She had no reliable crystal ball that she could use for reading the future. The demons continued to strike out in random places, or at least without a pattern that Christine and her generals had been able to read.

  Kanishka, one of the Indian women, spoke up. “Wait, did you just say that the Leafanders and Boxilays were fighting? The demons? Or each other?”

  Thaxton shrugged. “We aren’t certain. There are definitely demons involved; however, there also appear to be troops of the Leafanders on the plane of the Boxilays.”

  Loud murmurs filled the audience.

  Vern had no idea what that sort of fighting meant, though he could tell it was bad.

  “What does that mean?” he asked out loud, as no one else appeared willing to fill in the blanks for the rest of them.

  “Ah, we have some newcomers, yes?” Kanishka asked.

  “Exactly,” Vern said.

  The woman gave him a quick, hard stare. Vern would say that his spidey-sense tingled abruptly, as if she was testing him magically for a moment.

  The feeling passed with a cascade of goosebumps down his spine.

  Kanishka blinked, then nodded. “Welcome,” she said. “What it means is that the kith and kin are turning against each other.”

  “Or it means that the Leafanders have allied themselves with the demons in order to prevent themselves from being annihilated,” another council member pointed out.

  “What’s the difference?” Kanishka said. “We don’t know, and will never know, the true cause of their feud. Just the outcome.”

  Vern bobbed his head to side to side. He did but didn’t agree with Kanishka. While the outcome did matter more, why that particular group of the kith and kin had started fighting might be relevant to how to get them to stop.

  Reluctant allies could possibly be turned again. Though never trusted. Not fully.

  “We continue to send magical supplies up the line,” Thax
ton continued, reading from his notes. “The latest batch of protection charms and magically enhanced armor were well received and much appreciated.”

  Vern felt himself perk up. The humans were supplying artifacts? Cool. Maybe that was a way he could help the war effort, to go and enchant something for the troops.

  He was aware that enchanting anything took a lot of effort, between the ingredients as well as the magical power. But he was up to the task.

  “Reports of demons on the human plane continue to skyrocket,” Thaxton continued. “They haven’t amassed in any single location that we can track. But they keep coming. Many of them appear to be traveling over the fairy bridge, located in the Arboretum.”

  Vern frowned at that. Christine was responsible for that bridge. She’d strengthened the defenses of it specifically so that it would turn away any demons trying to cross it.

  Were the reports wrong? Or was there something wrong with the bridge? He was going to have to check.

  And why hadn’t anyone told Christine about this?

  Thaxton then listed the battles that had been won, the kith and kin races that had been saved, or at least, the demon attacks fended off.

  Many more battles were reported as won than as lost. Given the way that Thaxton was phrasing things, it appeared more hopeful than Christine had been saying.

  Was the war actually going well?

  While Thaxton read out a list of needed supplies, Vern thought about it. No, the war was still going badly. The battles that had been won were merely singular skirmishes. On the losing side of the equation, they’d lost entire races and planes of existence to the demons. Fewer lost battles were being reported, but the ones that they had lost were massive compared to the many tiny fights that had been won.

  When Thaxton finished his report, Kanishka spoke up. “Since we have some newcomers in the audience, I will open a five-minute discussion time and take questions from the audience.”

  Barbie’s hand shot up, like an A-student who desperately wanted to answer the teacher’s questions.