“You’re going to die, leader.” Beetlebat spat at her, “You’re going to die…again.”
Avery still had a few seconds before the enormous monster of a troll reached her. She walked up to Beetlebat, grabbed onto his little hand that held his sword before he could do anything with it, and punched him hard as she could in the nose. Beetlebat uttered a small plaintive cry, and then fell to the ground, unconscious.
The troll reached Avery and brought his club up high above his head. Avery somersaulted out of the way as he slammed the club into the ground where Avery had been standing. As Avery stared at the crater the club had left in the ground, she knew she had to get that club out of the troll’s hands.
The troll swung its club towards Avery and she dropped to the ground, feeling the breeze from the swing swirling her hair. Avery rolled onto her back and handsprung onto her feet, flipping out of the way as the troll swung his club back around. Avery was getting tired of being on the defensive. She knew it was only a matter of time before the troll would actually land one of his hits.
Deciding to take the offensive, Avery sheathed her sword and grabbed her bow from where it was strapped onto her back. She knew from the books Gumptin had made them read that arrows weren’t always effective against the armor-like skin of the trolls, but Avery wasn’t going to aim for its skin. She pulled out an arrow, set up the shot, and took aim, all within a few seconds. Her arrow ripped through the air, past the troll’s gigantic club, and straight into his right eye. The troll howled in pain, but didn’t go down. He dropped his club to the ground, pulled the arrow out of his eye socket with one hand, and covered the wound, now gushing thick blue blood, with his other hand.
Avery took advantage of the troll dropping his weapon. She threw her bow to the ground, unsheathed her sword and ran towards the troll. Out of his good eye, the troll saw her coming. It angrily grabbed at Avery with its left arm, but Avery spun under it. Then, it made a grab for Avery with his right hand, the hand he had used to hold his club. A second before he would have been able to get a hold of Avery, she back flipped over his hand, swinging her sword as she flipped and chopping off his thumb. The troll let out a bellowing growl as a spray of blue blood stained Avery’s white shirt.
The moment Avery’s two feet landed on the ground, the toll kicked out with his right leg, kicking Avery square in the chest. Avery was sent flying backwards, landing hard on her back. It took a second for Avery to register what had just happened. She had never remembered being hit so hard in her life. It felt like a charging bull had slammed itself into her chest. Avery tried to catch her breath, her ribs screaming as she inhaled. Her senses still weren’t fully intact when the troll appeared standing over her, blue blood streaming down his face and stomach. The troll looked down at her and roared. It lifted its left leg up and tried to bring it down on top of Avery. Avery rolled right, then left, then right again, trying to avoid his crushing feet. The troll slammed his right leg down and Avery was barely able to roll out of the way in time. She turned her head and saw the troll’s mud and blood stained foot an inch away from her face. Avery quickly reached to her belt and grabbed the dagger she kept there. She took the dagger and stabbed the troll through his foot with it. The troll hollered and staggered back a few feet, allowing Avery to lift herself up off of the ground.
Avery had just managed to get to her feet when the troll roared a guttural cry and came charging towards her. She tried to cartwheel out of the way, but the troll managed to get a grip on her arm with the four remaining fingers on his right hand. The troll clenched tightly onto Avery’s arm, pulling her in towards him. In the rushed momentum, Avery wasn’t able to free herself from its grasp. Avery struggled to free herself as the troll picked her up with both hands, but his grip was like a vice. Even though the troll had Avery’s arms pinned, she lifted her leg up slightly, so that she would be able to reach the knife she had stuck in her boot, but before she could get her fingers wrapped around the knife’s hilt, the troll threw Avery across the village with both his arms.
The world went black for a moment then flashed into bright color as Avery tried to blink away the spinning going on inside her brain. The enormous troll had thrown Avery thirty feet through the air. When the world started to gain more focus, Avery realized she was lying on her stomach on the ground. She picked herself up onto her hands and looked around. Behind her, Sasha, Bunny, and Skylar had taken one troll down. It was lying on its back in a field, not moving. Bunny was still on horseback, firing arrows at the two remaining trolls. Sasha and Skylar were on the ground with their swords drawn. Avery saw one troll whack Sasha across her right side with his fist. Sasha went flying, and Skylar went running to her side, helping her up off of the ground before the troll could get to her. To Avery’s left, Jade was still battling with the twin trolls. One was crawling across the ground, blue blood oozing out from its mouth. Avery saw Jade look at her and saw the terror in her eyes as she tried to make her way over to Avery, but was stopped by one of the trolls punching her in the stomach and sending her wobbling backwards.
Avery felt a humongous hand grab onto the back of her vest and flip her over. The troll clamped his hand down on Avery’s throat and across her chest, successfully cementing her to the ground. As Avery tried to shove the troll’s tree limb of an arm off of her, the troll took a knife out from his belt the size of Avery’s arm. The troll lifted the knife up and for a split second the sickening thought that she was going to die flashed into Avery’s mind. Just as the troll brought his knife down towards Avery’s chest, Avery lifted her leg up and kicked the troll’s arm as hard as she could. His arm lurched to the side and the knife sliced down the side of Avery’s arm. The sharp pain snapped Avery back into action. No way was she going to let this ugly beast carve her up. Avery wrapped both of her legs around the arm the troll was holding onto her with. She jerked to her left as hard as she could, sending the troll rolling away from her. Avery stood up and retrieved her sword that she had lost when the troll had thrown her. She and the troll walked towards each other. The troll swung his left fist at her and Avery lifted up her sword, so that his fist slammed into her sword as opposed to her. He had been swinging his fist with such force that the sword went into his hand and arm all the way up to its hilt. Holding onto the grip of her sword, Avery swung it to the right while it was still stuck in the troll’s hand. This caused the troll to drop to his knees, snarling in pain. In a move that took less than ten seconds, Avery pulled the sword out of the troll’s hand, and then with a quick spin she slit the toll’s throat with the sword. Blue blood sprayed out from the wound, covering Avery’s face and shirt. The blue of the troll’s blood and the red of her own mixed to create a strange purple stain.
The troll gurgled and tried to gasp for breath, causing blue bubbles to form at the wound on his neck. He made one final lurch towards Avery; then fell to the ground dead.
Avery stood still for a moment, trying to push down the reality of what she had just seen, what she had just done, and what had just happened to her. Avery realized she was shaking, and she tried to tell herself that it was just because of the cold breeze and her clothes that were wet from blood.
A scream from Bunny focused Avery’s attention. Avery looked over in the direction of the scream and saw that Sasha, Bunny and Skylar were down to just one troll left. The troll had just knocked Bunny off of her horse with his bulky club.
Without hesitating for a second, Avery rushed over and picked up her bow she that had discarded at the beginning of her fight with the troll. Once she had the bow in hand, Avery whistled for Phantom, who came running out of the forest, stopping in front his master. Avery hopped up into the saddle and galloped Phantom over to where three girls were trying to take down their last troll.
Avery pulled up Phantom at the edge of the Everlily fields. She jumped down and grabbed an arrow out of her back quiver. The last arrow she shot into the other troll’s eye seemed to work pretty well, so she decided to try it again with this troll.
Whatever happened, she was not letting herself get tossed another thirty feet. Avery took aim and shot the arrow into the troll’s eye. Before the toll had a chance to reach up and pull the arrow out, Avery shot another arrow. This arrow smashed into the back tip of the first arrow, pushing it deep into the troll’s brain. The troll swayed to the left, then to the right, then fell with a loud thud onto the ground, dead.
The girls turned around and looked at Avery with shocked expressions on their faces.
“What?” Avery shrugged, “Apparently, I use to practice with this thing all the time.” Avery fitted her bow back into its back strap.
“Well, thank God for small favors.” Skylar said, limping over towards Avery. She was holding her side and Avery could see some bruising forming up and down her arm.
“You look horrible.” Sasha told Avery, looking her over.
Avery thought this funny considering Avery had never seen Sasha look worse than she did now. The left sleeve of her shirt was ripped off. Her shoulder was bleeding. Her face was smeared with dirt, sweat, and blue blood. She had a gash on her forehead dripping blood down the side of her cheek, and for one of the first times in her life, Sasha’s hair was sticking up in every direction, mangled and frizzy.
Bunny stood behind Sasha and Skylar. Her clothes were dirtied, and she had a long cut running across her collar bone, but other than that, she appeared to have escaped the combat without any serious injuries.
After Avery was sure they were all alright, she turned her sights to Jade, who was still fighting. One of the twin trolls Jade had been battling with was lying dead on the ground, Jade’s sword sticking out of the middle of its skull.
Avery ran towards the village where Jade and the other twin troll were fighting in between two houses. Jade had the troll pinned to the ground with a pitch fork stuck through its shoulder. As Avery rounded the corner to where Jade and the troll were between the two houses, Avery saw Jade jump on top of the back of the troll and place her crossbow directly up to the back of the troll’s head, firing two arrows into his brain. Jade jumped down off of the troll and gave him a hard kick in his side.
“Are you alright?” asked Avery.
Jade turned towards Avery, her eyes filled with relief at the sight of her.
“Thank God.” She said in a whispered voice, more to herself than to Avery.
Jade walked towards Avery, and Avery opened up her arms to Jade, thinking she was going in for a hug, but instead, Jade placed both of her hands on Avery’s shoulders and looked Avery over.
“Are you alright?” Jade asked, staring at Avery’s blood stained shirt, “That looks bad.”
Avery shook her head, “I’m fine.” She told Jade, “It looks worse than it is.”
Jade lightly touched Avery’s side where the blood stains were the most prominent, and Avery couldn’t help but flinch. Her ribs were still screaming at her from the kick she had received from the troll.
“Really, it’s fine.” Avery told Jade through gritted teeth.
Whether Jade believed her or not, it didn’t matter. There was nothing Jade could do about it. They were in the middle of a destroyed village, miles away from home after doing battle with a group of nightmarish trolls.
For as worried as Jade was about Avery, Avery noticed that Jade didn’t look to unscathed, herself. She had a large bruise forming on her lower jaw. Blood was dripping down her arm from a deep slice on her shoulder, and a small trickle of blood was coming out of her nose.
They walked together to join the other girls who were now standing back at the entrance to the village. Avery stopped a few feet before she reached the girls. She stood in the smoke filled sunlight, glancing around at the scene surrounding her. The air was thick with smoke from the burning houses, lending to the surrealism of the moment for Avery. It made everything around her appear as if it was clouded by a thin gray curtain, like in a dream.
A group of villagers were putting out the flames on a small section of the Everlily fields that the trolls had managed to light on fire. Some of the villagers were walking around in a daze. Some were working to put the fires out in their homes. Others were holding each other and crying. Avery couldn’t help but stare at a woman kneeling on the ground, cradling the body of her dead husband and wailing at the top of her lungs. Avery looked down to the ground around her feet. She could barely see the green of the grass or brown of the dirt beneath the blanket of red and blue blood.
Avery slowly lifted her head up as Jade’s voice languidly seeped into her brain, “Well, well, well,” she heard Jade say, “look who’s trying to crawl back to his sewer.”
Beetlebat had regained consciousness and was on his hands and knees, trying to crawl away into the forest. Jade walked over and picked him up by the scruff of his shirt.
“Unhand me, pathetic mortal!” Beetlebat yelled at Jade, swiping his small arms at her, trying to land a punch.
“I made you a promise.” Jade said, holding Beetlebat at arms distance, so he wasn’t able to touch her.
Jade drew her arm back to stab the tiny troll straight through the chest, when Avery yelled, “Stop!”
Jade looked at Avery, wide eyed, “What?” She asked, glancing back and forth from Avery to Beetlebat.
“Don’t kill him.” Avery told Jade, walking up to her.
“You have to be kidding me?” Jade said, still holding tightly onto Beetlebat.
Avery shook her head, “Let him go.”
Frustration crept over Jade’s face. She looked like a child being asked to give up their favorite toy, “Avery,” she said, refusing to let go of the tiny troll, “this little cockroach is not something you want to let live.” She shook Beetlebat back and forth, the troll hollering at her the whole time.
“He seems harmless enough.” Bunny said, earning her a scolding from Jade, telling her to, “Stuff it!”
“He has to live.” Avery told the girls, “He has to go back and tell the Emperor what went down here today.”
As much as Jade wanted to slaughter Beetlebat, Avery could see in her conflicted face that Jade understood Avery’s reasoning.
Avery reached under Beetlebat’s chin and turned his face towards her, “Listen to me,” Avery said, pulling hard on his chin, making sure she had his full attention, “You’re going to go back to your Emperor and tell him exactly what happened here. You tell him we’re just as strong as we ever were. Tell him he’s just going to lose more of his soldiers if he sends them our way again.”
Avery made sure she sounded a lot more confident than she actually felt. She thought it a good thing to give that illusion to Beetlebat.
Beetlebat made a bite for Avery’s fingers, and Jade pulled him back sharply, giving him a hard slap to his head.
Jade gave one last unsure look towards Avery, and then reluctantly let Beetlebat go.
“I’ll tell him you are all just as stupid and pitiful as you always were!” Beetlebat spat out.
Avery hadn’t wanted Jade to spare Beetlebat’s life just because she thought it important that the Emperor see the Protector’s as strong, but also because she hadn’t wanted to witness any more killing. She felt she had already seen more than enough for a lifetime. Of course, that didn’t mean she still didn’t want to wring the little troll’s neck.
With that thought in her mind, Avery told Jade, “Why don’t you give him something to remember you by.”
Without hesitation, Jade landed a hard punch directly into Beetlebat’s face.
Beetlebat fell backwards; then sat up slowly, moaning. As he spit a small amount of blood out onto the ground, one of his front teeth came out with it.
“We’ll work on the rest of your smile another time.” Jade said to him before she, Avery, and the rest of the Protectors turned their backs on him and walked away.
“This isn’t over!” Beetlebat screeched from behind them, “Next time we meet you will taste my blade! I will make a maggot feast of you!”
Completely ignoring Beetlebat’s threats, Jade
said to Avery, “I don’t know if it was wise to let toad boy live. He’s a vicious little thing.”
Avery knew that Jade had a point, and that someday she may come to regret her decision, but at the moment, she couldn’t have imagined making a different one.
“Thank you.” A man’s voice said from behind Avery and Jade.
The girls turned and saw a man in his late thirties. His clothes were tattered and his face was covered with a mixture of blood and soot. Avery and Jade just stared at him. At first Avery couldn’t understand why some strange man would be thanking them.
“News of your return has been spreading.” The man said, and as he talked more villagers began to walk over and stand with him, until a large group of about thirty had formed. “We weren’t sure we should believe it, but thank goodness it was true.”
A woman wearing a brown dress, her hair tangled, with a long scratch down her face, told the girls, “You saved us.” Her eyes began to swell with tears as she said it.
Throughout the group of villagers that had formed, were words of gratitude and ‘thank you’s’. Avery wasn’t sure what to say. A minute ago she had been thinking about the tragedy of the situation, about what a shame it was they couldn’t have done more. Now, here they were, being thanked by over thirty people for what they had done.
“You’re welcome,” was all Avery could think to say, “I’m just so sorry we couldn’t have stopped them sooner.”
The man who had first thanked them, said to Avery, “Without the five of you, we wouldn’t have a village left to live in. Most likely, we would all be dead.”
Hearing him say that gave Avery a new perspective on what had happened. There was no way she was ever going to get the image of the human bodies lying dead around her out of her mind, but now, she thought, maybe she could try and focus on the ones they had saved.
“You’re very welcome.” Avery said again.
“I’m Markin,” the man said, sticking out his hand, “the mayor of Lilydale, and you have our undying gratitude.”
The Protectors: Book 1 in the Protectors Saga Page 22
