Terry looped the bowstring around each of the weapon’s limbs and drew it tight. As he did, he saw Nat across the way, striding along a separate catwalk and making a beeline for one of the treetop huts. He was about to call out to her, but instead chose to watch in silence as she rapped a knuckle on a hut’s door and waited for an answer. Terry continued to spy as the door opened to reveal the dwelling’s host. It was Eathon. Nat stole a quick glance over her shoulder—failing to notice Terry watching her—before disappearing inside the elf’s hut and closing the door behind her.
Stretched to breaking point, the bowstring in Terry’s hands snapped in two.
Neville, who had spent the last four hours toiling at Eathon’s forge, emerged into the daylight soot-faced and blinking. He wheeled out of the hut and raced along a catwalk, puffing on his pipe and trailing a fog of weed smoke. Stopping a passing villager, he made enquiries as to Eathon’s whereabouts and was directed to the elf’s home. There he found the elven leader, and quite unexpectedly, Nat. The two of them had been discussing war strategies she told him. Terry was nowhere to be seen. Whatever. Neville wasn’t her chaperon, and he had no desire to get involved in any Twilight-love-triangle nonsense.
“Here,” he said, and presented Eathon with a gift; a heavy package wrapped in a disc of animal hide.
“For me?” asked Eathon. He unwrapped the package to find a pair of curious-looking curved metal implements, each with a large cup on the end.
“I hope they do the job,” said Neville, “I had a root around your forge for the proper materials but I couldn’t find any carbon-fibre-reinforced polymer.”
Eathon turned the objects over in his hands. He clearly didn’t have the faintest idea what he was looking at. Neither did Nat for that matter.
“What are they?” she asked.
“Running blades,” replied Neville, exasperated. “Fix them onto your stumps and you’ll be back on your feet in no time... so to speak.”
“You wish me to walk on pegs like some sea pirate?” the elf scoffed.
“These are a bit more sophisticated than that. Back on our world they’re used by Olympic athletes.”
“What is Olympics?”
“It’s this big event where we compete to find out who’s the fastest and the strongest.”
“Ah,” said Eathon, “so it is like when two men fall for the same woman and enter the circle of death to determine which will win her hand?”
“Kind of,” said Neville, “but with medals instead of murder and misogyny.”
Eathon frowned and handed the running blades back to Neville. “I appreciate the thought, but I can’t make use of this gift. I’ll do whatever I can to save this village, but my fighting days are done.”
“Bullshit,” said Nev, rather matter-of-factly. “You've got two half-legs there. I'd kill for those.”
“But—” started Eathon, only to be shut down by a look that told him, in no uncertain terms, to put on the running blades and quit bitching.
With Nat’s assistance, Neville helped the reluctant elf into the apparatus, guiding his legs into place with an engineer’s precision.
“How did you lose them anyway?” Nev asked, noting the serrated scars on Eathon’s stumps.
“They were taken from me in battle,” the elf replied, dolefully.
“Lucky you,” said Neville. “Sounds a whole lot sexier than congenital amputation.”
He secured the running blades on Eathon with a pair of tough leather straps. “Go on,” he said. “Give them a whirl.”
Eathon sighed and set the metal feet on the floor. He climbed upright, unsteady at first, but quickly found his balance. He took a couple of steps, arms at his sides like a tightrope walker, then assumed a regular stride, walking to the opposite end of the room. By the time he turned around he was grinning ear to ear.
“These are incredible,” he beamed. “You’re a wizard. I can’t believe it, I’m actually walking!”
“Walking’s only the half of it,” Neville told him. “They’re designed to store kinetic energy like a spring. Try jumping.”
Eathon looked at Neville as though he dare not believe he was hearing.
“Seriously,” Nev assured him. “Give it a go.”
The elf crouched down, and with an enormous bounce, launched himself into the air. He pogoed so high that he managed to reach one of the hut’s roof beams, which he grabbed and used like gymnast’s high bar. The humans marvelled as the elf made effortless handstands then looped fearlessly back down in great in swooping arcs, transformed in a split-second from a cripple to an able-bodied man. An able-bodied superman even.
Neville put the flame of his Zippo to his pipe and took a satisfied toke. “How’s that for a life hack?” he said, exhaling a thick lance of smoke.
Clive had heard that he was going to war and Clive was furious. He’d asked one of the villagers how many fighting men the elves had at their disposal and was told two score and a hundred. When he’d asked how many Drensila had, he was told thousands. Thousands. The elves were outmatched to a comical degree, yet for some reason the decision had been made to ally with them. All because of some fortune cookie wisdom an idiot girl had gotten from a talking tree. It was as though common sense had become unmoored and begun drifting about aimlessly, bumping off the walls of logic.
Clive had gone to be on his own, retreating to the forest floor to get away from his companions and snatch some breathing room. The move failed to provide him with any calm. Instead, frustration consumed him and he began to vent his irritation by repeatedly throwing a dagger at a tree stump. He’d liberated the knife from an unattended hut while his colleagues were busy at the council meeting, figured he could use it to at least take one of Drensila’s goons with him when the time came. Judging by his skill with the thing though, he wouldn’t even be capable of that. No matter how hard he tried, the dagger refused to fly true, his poor aim causing it to go wide of its mark every time.
“This is bullshit,” he sulked, grinding his teeth. “An army of monsters is about to roll over us like a tank and I can’t even kill this stump. Why can’t anyone see we’re not playing a game anymore? When this encounter ends we won’t be tallying up hit points, we’ll be hacked up and dead on the ground.”
According to the villager Clive had questioned, Durkon Peak was only a two day march from their location. In forty-eight hours, Drensila’s army would arrive, and no amount of mystical mumbo jumbo or magic swords were going to stop her annihilating every last elf in these woods... not to mention human. What could he do though? It was too dangerous out there for him to forge ahead on his own. He was stuck. A dead man walking.
He hurled the dagger at the stump and again it embedded itself in the surrounding dirt. He let loose with a string of profanities that reverberated around the woods, sending birds rocketing from their perches and rodents scurrying for their burrows. He threw the dagger once more, and again it failed to find its target. Failed to find any target at all. Instead it halted mid-air and just hung there as if suspended by a piece of invisible string.
“What the hell?”
He stared at the floating dagger, eyes wide. This had to be a hallucination. Had to. Doctor Neel had warned him to stay clear of high-stress situations if he wanted to avoid upsetting himself, and now look where he was: in a land of make believe surrounded by elves and fairies. He sucked in some air. Stay calm. Mindful. Relax your muscles. He smiled. It all made sense now. He was unravelling, that was all. Everything that had happened since they found that portal was part of one giant, demented episode. He reached into his trouser pocket for his pills but came up empty. Must have left them at home. Not to worry, he knew where he was now. Knew what was what. The dagger still hung there, defying gravity, but that was okay. It wasn’t real. Nothing here was. He approached it. Made a circle of his arms and ran them around it like a magician with a steel hoop.
“Look, no strings!”
He was rocking back on his heels laughing when the dagge
r suddenly snapped back into his throwing hand like a yo-yo on a string. He felt the handle, hard and cold, and knew at once that he was wrong. This was real. All of it. The portal, the elves, the blade in his hand. He stared at the weapon as if it must be possessed. Somehow he knew it wasn’t though. Knew it wasn’t some enchanted item, like the sword that Nat had stolen out from under him. This was an ordinary, iron dagger, and he’d made it perform his bidding. Made it return to his hand using will alone. He laughed out loud. It sounded odd, high-pitched and cruel. It was a laugh he didn't recognise as his own.
He threw the knife again. This time it found its mark.
Chapter Eleven: Players and Slayers
SUNRISE. DAYBREAK. DOOMSDAY. A horn sounded from a crow’s nest, high up in the treetops. That was the signal. It had been two days since Drensila declared war, and now her trolls had been sighted, approaching from the east in a long, unbroken line. A driving beat accompanied them, the sound of weapons being pounded against shields as the trolls marched into battle. The menacing drums were threaded by a shrill, discordant whine. Bagpipes made of lungs prised from the chests of dying men.
Inside the communal hut the commotion rattled window latches and caused dust to drift down from the roof beams. Nat had endured a fitful sleep that night, and none of this was doing anything to improve her mood. Her body ached and her brain felt like scrambled eggs. She pulled her blanket over her head as though it would afford her some protection from the converging horde, but a sound like cooking pans being slammed together roused her from her cocoon.
Cleaver was thrashing back and forth in the sword rack Nat had stored him in, clanging off the other weapons like a bell clapper. “Wakey wakey, you lucky people,” he roared. “Time to tool up and leather some slags.”
Nat rubbed sleep from her eyes and sat up. Terry was doing his utmost to feign sleep, even after Nat had whipped the deerskin bed sheet off him. He was only revived by the application of a courteous kick up the arse, finally stumbling out of the bed nook like a newborn foal. Hand pressed against a wall for support, he tugged on his harlequin patch tunic and wriggled into his tights. The elves had offered Terry a fresh set of clothes but he’d refused, insisting that his was “proper elf gear.”
Nat had exhibited no such pride and took whatever the elves were offering. A villager had been kind enough to offer her a cotton blouse and some breeches to wear, though a seamstress had been forced to let both out to accommodate her less than willowy frame. Unfortunately, the elves didn’t truck with shoes, so the Ugg boots stayed on. It could have been worse. She could have showed up to The Broken Lands in Crocs.
Around the room the rest of Nat’s companions began to stir. Ashley, who had spent all of yesterday sparring with Eathon’s sister to improve his swordcraft, strapped on the banded leather breastplate she’d given him to replace his ruined carpet armour. He warmed up his aching weapon arm with a few shoulder rotations and massaged his thigh muscles as though he were limbering up for a marathon.
Nev perched his glasses on the bridge of his miniscule nose and shifted into his wheelchair, which he’d stripped of its decorative surround and equipped with a weapon holster containing a decidedly non-LARP-regulation short sword.
Clive was there too, having slunk back into the hut late last night from who knows where. He slithered from under his bedsheets and swung his calloused feet over the edge of his sleeping nook. Hunched over, with the ridges of his spine poking through his sallow skin, he cleared his throat and hawked a wad of phlegm onto the floorboards. Nat cast him a look of disgust but he made no apology, just met her eye and stared her down with equal contempt.
The lodge’s circular door swung open and Eathon filled the frame, stood tall atop his new legs. “It’s time to rally the troops, Nat Lawler,” he said.
She nodded and took a good long puff on her asthma inhaler.
Nat stepped outside to greet the stark morning sun. Shielding her eyes with the back of her hand, she gazed out into the distance, angling for a look at the enemy. The approaching army was only just visible to her human vision, no larger than ants at this range but terrifying in their sheer number. She imagined this is how Frankenstein’s monster must have felt when he saw the village mob coming his way with their torches and pitchforks, except this time the mob were the monsters, and not just metaphorically.
The gang joined their elves, who hurried about the treetops making final preparations. All hands were on deck. Soldiers were equipped with weapons and armour, positions were taken and guard posts manned. By the time the enemy came to a halt on the outskirts of the village, the defending army were as ready as they’d ever be. Nat watched from her elevated position as the creatures came together like mould spreading in a petri dish, a black tide blotting out the forest greens.
“So these are trolls?” she thought. They certainly were a long way from the punk-haired plastic dolls of her childhood.
The trolls ceased their funereal dirge as one of their number broke off and approached the village boundary, stopping just short of the bubble of enchantment that cloaked it from the outside world. The herald wore a bone skullcap upon his head. He was larger than the others and wrapped in a tattered cloak. His skin was blacker than a miner’s lung, and he brought with him a stench like a corpse left to bloat in the midday sun. In his fist he wielded a huge, serrated meat-cleaver that looked as though it belonged on a giant's chopping block. The lattice of silvery scars upon his body told the story of a hundred fights, and just as many victories. Unlike the rest of the soldiers, who arrived by foot, this troll rode the saddle of a scorpion. A giant, one-clawed scorpion.
Upon seeing the intruder, Eathon’s face turned ash grey. He clutched a nearby balustrade for support.
“Are you alright?” Nat asked.
Terry hid a smirk. He understood the strategic disadvantage presented by Eathon turning catatonic, but could only enjoy the sight of the hunky elf pissing his breeches (in a manner of speaking).
Galanthre squeezed her brother’s hand. “Be strong,” she told him.
“Why’s he so scared of that one troll?” asked Terry.
“Not the troll,” replied Galanthre. “The troll’s mount.”
Eathon wasn’t afraid of the warlord with the skullcap, he was afraid of the scorpion clacking its monstrous pincer together with a sound like rocks clashing. All at once Terry understood the root of Eathon’s fear.
This was the creature that had taken his legs.
“Calm yourself, brother,” said Galanthre, and pointed to the remaining stub of the scorpion’s right pincer. “He is but half a monster now.”
“If that were true then I would only be half an elf,” he replied, curtly.
Cleaver offered some encouragement. “See how clean the cut is?” he said, flicking his eyes to the scorpion’s stump.
“What of it?” replied Eathon.
“You can thank you bruvver for that,” said the sword.
Eathon saw Gilon’s work and sketched out a smile.
Skullcap shouted into the treetops with a voice like thunder. “Dispel your concealments and I will see to it that your deaths are merciful.”
Nat’s thin voice arrived to him seemingly from nowhere. “If you want us, come and get us.”
Skullcap laughed. “You think this is a fairy tale?” he asked. “You think good will triumph over evil and light will chase away the dark?” He laughed some more. “I promise you, little girl, you won’t find your Happily Ever After here.”
Nat swallowed. The rest of the welcoming party looked to her fretfully.
Cleaver, who’d been drawn in readiness, sensed Nat’s hesitation and responded to the troll’s threat the only way he knew how. “Come and ‘ave a go if you think you're ‘ard enough,” he sang.
“Will you shut up?” Clive hissed, desperate to hush the sword’s literal sabre rattling.
Cleaver paid no heed and continued to chant at the trolls. “Who are ya? Who are ya?” he bellowed again and again.
Down below, Skullcap’s lips rolled back from his teeth. Maybe it was the jeers that spurred him to launch the attack, or perhaps a full-frontal assault had always been the plan. Whatever the case, the warlord raised his brutal blade and led his soldiers into the breach with a deafening roar. “Kill them all,” he thundered.
The trolls came charging in their hundreds, a seething wall of murder penetrating the sanctity of the elven domain.
“What are your orders, Nat Lawler?” asked Eathon.
A swirl of fear spread inside Nat, chilling her blood and numbing her bones. How she was able to summon the strength to do what she did next was a mystery even to her.
“Attack!” she screamed.
The trolls never saw it coming. Literally. As the first wave of shock troops careened through the village’s enchanted bubble, they became bewildered by potent magics. The elves offered them no mercy, swooping from the trees on an intricate system of vines and cutting through their ranks like scythes through stalks of dry wheat. Other trolls stumbled into strategically placed pits where they were impaled upon sharpened spikes, or set off tripwires that triggered vicious spears that whipped out from the undergrowth and pierced their bellies, pinning them two at a time. Others fell foul of elven soldiers waiting for them on the forest floor, who sprang from camouflaged holes like trapdoor spiders and sliced them to ribbons with razor-sharp blades. Many trolls—the more feeble-minded ones—simply broke ranks and went wandering home to the Citadel of Durkon in a sleepwalker’s trance.
The army was splintered. Only a fraction of iron-willed combatants managed to resist the spell of bewilderment and push on to the heart of the elf village. Skullcap was one such combatant. Carried aloft on his scorpion steed, he struck out at the attacking elves, slashing left and right and earning four more notches on the handle of his meat-cleaver as he beat a path to his target. He was almost upon his mark when a mohawked amazon leapt from a tree bough, caught him about the throat, and almost unseated him from his saddle.
Trolled: The Complete Saga (The Trolled Saga) Page 10
