by Jake Bible
“What? Why eat them?” the lead troll shouted. “Othersider sound dumb!”
“You dumb,” one troll said.
“No eat,” the other said.
They pointed at us at the same time, two massive, muscled versions of Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb.
“You help,” they said.
“You tell them help?” lead troll called.
Our trolls shrugged.
“They no help?” lead troll shouted. “Why no help?”
“Uh, we’ll totally help,” I said then looked down at my almost completely destroyed body. “Not sure how much help we’ll be, but glad to pitch in.”
They smiled, which was not pretty at all, and nodded.
“They help!”
“Phew! Had me worried!” lead troll shouted. “Bring Othersiders here!”
“This hurt,” the two trolls said as they reached down and one picked me up while the other picked Sandra up.
They were not kidding. Holy shit did it hurt.
They threw us over their shoulders like sacks of potatoes. I screamed. Sandra cried. We barely glanced at each other as the trolls forded the river once more and brought us to the lead troll.
“Tug,” the lead troll said as our trolls spun around so we could see him. “You?”
I struggled for breath and finally managed to grunt, “Steve.”
“Othersider Steve!” Tug announced.
“Othersider Steve!” the rest of the troll clan shouted as they raised their clubs and other various weapons.
“She?” Tug asked, pointing at Sandra.
“Sandra,” Sandra replied through gritted teeth.
“Othersider Sandra!” Tug announced with the rest echoing the name.
“You need our help?” I asked Tug.
“Need help,” Tug said and nodded then frowned. “You look shit.”
“I feel shit,” I said. “That’s why I said I don’t know how much help we’ll be. We aren’t in any shape to fight.”
“Fight? Tug no need Othersiders fight,” Tug said and laughed. “Little snack things fight! Ha ha ha ha ha!”
“Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!” the rest laughed.
They kept laughing, tears streaming down their huge cheeks for a long time, all the while the blood was rushing to my head and I was close to passing out. Sandra looked about the same.
“Oh, you funny,” Tug said as he blew his nose, sending a stream of snot flying onto the riverbank. “Othersider Steve funny.”
“Thanks?” I said.
He got himself under control and grinned at me with those massive teeth.
“Tug and clan fight,” Tug said. “Othersiders tell how.”
“Tell how?” I replied. “What are you fighting?”
“What do you think, Steve?” Sandra said. “The undead.”
“Oh, right, yeah,” I said. “What undead are we looking at here?”
“All undead,” Tug said. “We bring home. You see. Come.”
Like we had a choice.
Tug turned and started walking along the river with the rest of the clan right behind. Our trolls let everyone pass then followed. It was not going to be a comfortable trip.
Thirty
Uncomfortable was an understatement.
Each step the trolls took as the clan made its way along the river then up a steep switchback trail along a huge waterfall, was like a small death in of itself. I had to have lost consciousness at least five or six times along the journey. Sandra, to her credit, looked like she endured it while being awake the entire time.
Hours, days, weeks, years, decades went by before we were at the top of the waterfall and walking towards the clan’s village. Okay, it was probably only an hour or so, but Jesus Christ, it felt like painful eternity.
The village was three circles of huge huts, each made from entire trees. Not boards, not logs, but trees, limbs, needles, and all. They were bent and twisted at all kinds of angles, the branches woven together to make the roofs while the trunks made the walls. It actually boggled the mind to see. This was not primitive architecture. My entire thinking on troll intelligence changed a bit.
A bit.
They were still trolls and their behavior wasn’t exactly sophisticated, as was evidenced by the greeting we received from the rest of the clan in the village. There was a lot of laughing, pointing, a good amount of spitting, and I’m pretty sure the troll kids, which were as big as I was, were flicking pee at us.
Basically, like walking the Jersey Shore.
Sorry. Too easy.
We finally reached a huge hut that stood dead center in the village. Tug pushed open a door and walked in while the rest of the clan split up and went their separate ways. Our trolls carried us in, set us down on a pile of animal hides, then walked out without a word, leaving us alone with Tug.
“Hungry?” Tug asked as he shoved some mostly picked-clean bones aside and pulled out a giant thigh bone of some animal that had gray flesh hanging off it. “Seasoned.”
He took a bite and held out the bone. It stank so bad that I started to gag. Tug frowned, shrugged, and ate the rest of the rancid meat before tossing the bone back onto the pile.
“We need medicine,” Sandra said. “Or herbs. I can make medicine from the herbs.”
“No need herbs,” Tug said.
“Yes, we need herbs,” Sandra insisted. “We are badly wounded. I don’t believe we’ll make it through the night.”
“Gonna agree with that,” I groaned. The angle I’d been set down at was excruciating, but I was terrified to try to shift to a different position for fear of half my body falling apart. I risked it and felt something pop inside me, sending white-hot pain up my body. “Oh, shit…”
“Steve?” Sandra asked. “What is it?”
“No need herb,” Tug said as the door to his hut opened and the oldest, ugliest, smelliest troll I’d ever seen came hobbling in.
I’m pretty sure the guy was caked in his own shit.
“This Heg,” Tug said.
“Me Heg,” the old troll said.
“Heg fix,” Tug continued. “Heg has herbs. Heg has medicine. Heg want fix Othersider long time.”
“Yes,” Heg said and nodded up and down so hard I thought his wizened old head was going to come off his wrinkled neck.
“Do you know Othersider anatomy?” Sandra asked.
“Heg know heal,” Heg said and smacked himself in the chest. He stumbled back a couple feet then steadied his legs and grinned at us with a toothless mouth. “Heg best.”
“Heg best,” Tug said.
Heg sat down on a different pile of hides and rummaged through a bag he’d brought in with him. After a few minutes, he pulled out a large clay jar and yanked out the cork.
And the olfactory assault just kept on coming. Even Tug waved his hand in front of his face.
“Who fart?” Tug said and laughed.
Heg laughed with him then dipped two fingers in the jar, coming out with something that looked like rotten hamburger mixed in rancid mayo. “Heal good.”
He left the jar on the ground, struggled to his feet, and crossed the hut to us.
“What is that?” Sandra asked.
“Medicine,” Heg said and shrugged. “No have name.”
“Medicine medicine,” Tug said and began digging through his bone pile again.
Heg reached us and held his fingers close to my face. “Lick.”
“Oh, yeah, no, I’m gonna have to not lick,” I said, my already empty stomach trying to strip its own lining so it could throw something up.
“I’ll lick,” Sandra said.
“Ha!” Tug laughed and pointed at me. “Ranger pussy! Priestess balls!”
“Lick,” Heg said and shoved his fingers in Sandra’s face.
Damn if she didn’t lick.
“Not all,” Heg said as Sandra really threw herself into it. He pulled his fingers back. “Only small lick.”
Sandra began to convulse then went still. Her eyes closed and
her breathing evened out. After a second, the grimace of pain that had been perma-frozen on her face eased and she kind of looked peaceful.
“You lick,” Heg said, offering me his fingers again.
“What the hell,” I muttered and licked.
The taste was so bad that it sent me into a different dimension. There was no way intellectually that I could even comprehend a taste like that. But, holy shit, the feeling that raced through my body!
I knew I was convulsing, could sense my limbs and muscles shake and shiver, but I didn’t feel it at all. Once, when I was a teenager, I’d gotten hit by a car while riding my bike. I was in the hospital on morphine for two days. That stanky-ass shit Heg gave me made morphine look like baby aspirin.
When my eyes popped open (I didn’t even remember passing out), all I felt was some soreness and itching. A lot of itching. Pretty much my whole body itched.
“Hey,” Sandra said as she propped herself up on one elbow next to me and gave me a happy smile. A genuinely happy smile.
“Hey,” I said.
She looked great. Her skin was completely wound free and she was almost glowing. She had a vitality that was incredible.
“You look incredible,” I said.
“You don’t look half bad yourself,” she said.
“You two cute,” Tug said from the doorway of his hut. No clue where Heg was. “Get up. Come here.”
“I don’t know about getting up,” I said.
“You can get up,” Sandra said and stood, offering her hand to me.
I hesitated then took it and she pulled me up so fast I got a head rush. What I didn’t get was any pain at all. The itching was still there, but no pain.
“Well, son of a bitch,” I said as I looked myself over.
My clothes were mangled, but my body wasn’t.
“Stop talk, come here,” Tug ordered.
His tone said that fun time with Tug was over. We’d been brought to help and he was going to show us why.
“Follow,” Tug said and left the hut.
I felt like I’d just woken up from a deep, deep sleep, but it was one of those amazing, refreshing sleeps, so other than my legs being a little wobbly, following Tug through the river troll village wasn’t a problem.
Until the troll kids started up with the pee tossing again.
“Go!” Tug yelled. They went. No sign of pee throwing river troll kids for the rest of our walk.
Tug didn’t look back to check on us once as he led us out of the village and up a steep trail to a rock outcropping that overlooked the entire valley below.
“That help need,” Tug said and pointed to the far-off end of the valley where the trees were shaking and being felled like a lawn mower was moving through them. “They come kill us.”
“What are they?” I asked.
“Army,” Tug said. “Dead army. Othersider lead.”
“Othersider lead?” Sandra asked.
We looked at each other.
“Jeremy,” we said at the same time.
“That name?” Tug asked then nodded. “Othersider Jeremy lead dead at us.”
“He’s dead too,” I said.
“Othersider Jeremy dead?” Tug responded and shook head. “Bad shit.”
“Yeah, bad shit,” I said.
“Really bad shit,” Sandra said.
“You Othersiders,” Tug said. “You bring death to EverRealm. You know kill death?”
I shrugged, but nodded. “Well, yes, we know kill death.”
“Tug knew it,” Tug said. “Tug say to elders, Othersiders know kill death. Tug not know dead Othersider lead dead army, but Tug knew Othersiders kill death.”
He smacked himself on his chest and smiled at us.
“What Othersider Sandra and Othersider Steve need kill death?” Tug asked.
“An army of our own would be good,” I replied.
Tug stroked his huge chin.
“Tug get army,” Tug said. “Not easy. Troll clans fight. Troll clans argue. Tug stop fight and argue so troll clans kill death.”
The reality of what he was saying hit me hard. I cautiously asked, “How many troll clans?”
“What?” Tug asked. He tapped my forehead, which hurt, but the pain was gone almost before it began. “You dumb?”
“Nope, just asking,” I said.
“All troll clans,” Tug said, smacking himself in the chest again. “No easy, but Tug do.”
“Wow,” Sandra said.
“Wow,” Tug replied, pleased at her response.
“Hot damn,” I said and stared at the quickly dwindling forest as the undead army within continued its march towards our end of the valley and the foothills we stood on. “All of the troll clans.”
“All troll clans,” Tug said. “Now plan. Come. We drink. Plan. Then kill death.”
I held up a finger. “Not sure drinking is a good idea before battle,” I said.
Tug looked at me like I’d grown a penis from my chin.
“No Ranger pussy again,” he said and clapped me on the shoulder. “Othersider Steve drink. Plan. Fight. Kill death.”
“Drink. Plan. Fight. Kill death,” Sandra said and took my hand. “We can do that.”
“Good!” Tug shouted.
There was a huge roar behind us and I spun about to see that the entire village of river trolls had followed us to the overlook. Followed us without making a single sound.
Damn…
Thirty-One
I don’t know what I ended up drinking, but holy shit was it good. I mean really good.
It was like God blessed a bottle of Booker Noe bourbon by sprinkling Pappy Van Winkle over it while at the same time imbuing it with the Earth goddess goodness of real, still-made, Appalachian moonshine.
I liked it.
Good thing I had Sandra around to cut my ass off before I started singing Neil Diamond and tried to wrestle one of the trolls. Heg had given her a ton of medicinal herbs and ingredients so she could refill some new pouches and she handed me a bit of bark to chew on. Effects of heavy drink went goodbye after a couple chews and that eye-twitching feeling you get with too much coffee came sweeping in.
Sandra sighed and had me take one last sip of the drink to dull the edges of the bark speed then we set about coming up with a plan.
“What are we looking at exactly?” I asked as I stood over a crudely drawn map of the valley.
Not that the map mattered a lot since by the time the army got to us, all of the trees would probably be downed, and it’d be a wide-open space, but the map helped with visualizing what we were up against.
All the trees would be downed…
“We burn it,” I said, pointing at the dark smudge that represented the trees. “We set fire to this end and let what’s left of the forest burn. It’ll take care of a lot of that army before it even gets to us.”
You know that phrase, “Two steps forward and one step back?”
Yeah, well, as the hut went dead quiet, I realized I’d just taken about thirty steps back.
Tug glared at me.
“You burn forest?” he asked after several long, tense minutes of that glaring.
“Yes?” I replied. “They’re going to destroy it anyway.”
“You want burn forest?” Tug asked again, his voice lower, deeper (if that was possible), and filled with more menace than I cared for.
“Steve does not want to burn the forest,” Sandra said and stepped in. “No one wants any damage to come to the forest at all. But he may have a point.”
“Point?” Tug asked. He held out a hand and a very large knife made of some kind of bone was slapped into his palm. “This point. I make this point in Steve belly. He like that point?”
“No, no, Steve not like that point,” I said, trying to back away, but I was stopped in my tracks by a wall of troll flesh behind me. “Tug, man, come on. Jeremy and his undead army are tearing the trees down. They are using them to build war machines.”
Sandra gave me a questionin
g look.
“Okay, maybe they aren’t using them to build war machines,” I said and shrugged. “I saw that in a movie.”
“Othersiders and they movies,” Tug snarled. “I see movie one day and kill it!”
The hut of trolls cheered loud enough I thought my ears would bleed.
“You do that, big guy,” I said. “Kill that movie. Stupid, bad movie.”
“Steve,” Sandra said under her breath, her eyes wide and insistent.
“Right, yes, okay, listen up,” I said and pointed at Tug. “You want your clan to live, yes?”
“Yes,” Tug said and nodded.
“You want all troll clans to live, yes?” I asked.
“Yes,” Tug said and narrowed his eyes. “Duh.”
Sandra stifled a giggle when Tug said duh. I would have laughed too because it sounded like a two-ton teenager giving attitude. But that wasn’t the time to laugh at Tug.
“Can we stop the undead army from tearing down the trees?” I asked and pointed at the map.
I traced my finger along the route the army had already taken, making sure Tug saw the speed of Jeremy’s progress. I then moved my finger along to the remaining forest, which was dwindling fast as we spoke, and tapped that.
“By the time we’re done chatting here, a quarter of what’s left will already be gone,” I said. “Another quarter will be destroyed before we even engage. If we set the forest on fire here,” I tapped the map a couple miles into the forest, “then we can save this part by digging some fire trenches and cut off Jeremy’s undead army at the same time. If we’re lucky, we’ll burn a good amount of them to cinders before we even have to start fighting. It makes sense.”
“Make sense you,” Tug said. “You human Othersider no care about EverRealm. Tug and clan care about all EverRealm. Care about forest and river most. We no set fire.”
“Jesus Christ!” I shouted and slammed my palm down on the map. “Jeremy is going to wipe it all out anyway! Why won’t you listen?”
Sandra grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the encroaching trolls and over to the wall of the hut. She held up a finger, waited for Tug to nod and stop his clan from ripping me apart, then yanked me out of the hut and into the night air.
“What is wrong with you?” she snapped. “You’re the one not listening. They won’t burn the forest. Do you know why?”
