The Rest

This is the conclusion to the previous post, a story Justin and I decided to work on together.

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From my time as a soldier and scout, I was a proficient hunter and forager, so I did not need much to survive. When I did need something, there was usually a job or two at the various towns I passed through on my travels. Such a job had led me to this troll cave.

The last village I had entered had appeared barren and lifeless at first. No animals roamed the streets, no children ran across my path, and no adults were around to glare suspiciously at me. I made it to the town square before I saw the first sign of life. A large man in armor appeared, and I finally received the suspicious glare I had been expecting.

“Why are you here, stranger?” he asked.

“I am either a traveler just passing through or a skilled hunter and tracker looking for work, depending on what you prefer. And if I may ask, who are you? You do not much look like a village elder. And where is everybody else? I have never seen a village so empty.”

The man visibly relaxed. “I am called Sten, and I am the leader of this village. Our elder was slain by a marauding troll, which has been terrorizing the town of late… everybody is in hiding to try and limit the number it makes off with. So, a hunter is just what we need. Would you be interested in killing the troll for us? We would pay, of course.”

I thought on that for a moment. “Well, we could use the money, but a troll is dangerous business. Let me consult with my colleague.”

Sten tensed once again. “Colleague? We saw no one else with you.”

I smiled and whistled. Almost as a ghost, Snow appeared out of nowhere beside me. I scratched behind his ears and whispered “Nice touch”. Then, more louder and theatrically, I asked him “Well, what do you think? Shall we kill this troll for the villagers?”

Snow nodded his head, and I grinned. The villager looked surprised for a moment, and then smiled. “Nice trick. We appreciate your services then. The troll always comes into town from the north, so we would guess it has a cave in that direction.”

“That would make sense. Now, you mentioned payment…”

The man nodded. “Let me confer with the other villagers and see what we can offer you.” He started to walk towards the largest building in the town, and I started to follow. He stopped, however, and barred my path. “If you will, sir, our village has been through quite a lot as of late, and we would prefer if you would stay out here. I will be back shortly.”

I shrugged, starting to feel slightly uneasy with the secrecy, but decided it was understandable given their fear. A few minutes later, the man returned carrying a bag of coins. He tossed it to me, and said “We are prepared to give that to you now as a down payment, and triple it should you return with proof that the troll is dead.”

I looked into the bag. It wasn’t a lot of money, but it would be enough to get me through for awhile, so I nodded. It was fairly obvious they would not want me to spend the night in the town before venturing off, so despite how tired I was after several days of difficult traveling, I said “This is sufficient. I will be back shortly” and headed out.

The troll was not difficult to find, as they are not exactly the most careful of creatures. Once I was north of town, I could very easily see a trail of knocked-down trees and battered grass. So, I followed that until I reached the mouth of the cave, and that brings us back to the present.

I looked up from the fire, and the troll was still staring at me. “You know, if you wanted to come out here, we could get this over with” I said sarcastically. The troll seemed to glare at me, then stepped out and roared. Be careful what you wish for. I sighed and stood up. “Ready to go to work Snow?”

There was no response. I looked down, and the wolf was nowhere to be seen.

“Great…” I started to say, and the troll charged. I unsheathed my sword, grabbed my shield, and sidestepped the troll’s charge. He crashed into a tree on the far side, and I got into a stance to be more prepared for the next attack. The trick with a troll is to go to the neck. Much of the troll’s body is covered in thick scales that are better than most armor as protection; as a result, the target is either the eyes or the throat. Of course, reaching the eyes and throat of a ten foot tall troll is a bit of a challenge.

The troll approached slower this time. It swung one of its huge fists at me, so I rolled to the side. When I came to my feet, it tried to shoulder push me into its cave. I slide between its legs and shoved it with my shield. I don’t think it moved even an inch. It swung its arms around in reaction, and I took the brunt of the hit on my shield. The force threw me back and dented the shield, the force numbing my shield hand. Not a good sign.

The troll tried to press its advantage, lurching forward and trying to grapple. I rushed forward inside its arms, surprising it. I slashed at its throat, and it just barely managed to pull back. My sword traced a faint line across its neck, drawing a thin line of blood. The troll continued backing away in surprise, and I moved back as well. We stood momentarily staring at each other in reevaluation. The battle wasn’t really going the way either of us wanted.

Suddenly, Snow appeared out of nowhere, jumping down from above the troll’s cave. He went right for the throat, tearing it out in a flash. The troll stared at me in surprise, gurgled, and sank to its knees. Blood spurted over the ground, and it finally fell forward, dead.

I stared, momentarily stunned. And then I started laughing. The wolf stared at me.

“You did it backwards!” I shouted between laughs. “You’re supposed to be my distraction, not the other way around!”

Snow rolled his shoulders in a shrug as if to say “Hey, it worked, didn’t it?” I walked forward and cut the troll’s two largest fangs out in proof of the kill, and considered my next action. It was still night and rather cold, so I decided I would head back in the morning. I settled back in front of the fire, with Snow lying down beside me, and drifted off into sleep.

In the morning, I decided to take a look around the troll’s cave before heading out. Unsurprisingly, it smelled awful and was cluttered with the remnants of humans and animals alike. What was a surprise, however, was a large volume of armor pieces either still attached to the bodies or flung around the cave. The armor was leather and dyed red, typically the kind worn by bandits. I had not heard of any groups operating out this area, so something did not quite add up to me, but I could not quite put my finger on it. Nothing else of note struck me in the cave, so I walked out and heading back to town.

I was rather tired and sore after being the troll bait yesterday, so the journey back took a bit longer than the trip to the cave, causing me to arrive around the middle of the night. Once again, I could see no villagers as I entered, but since it was the middle of the night, this did not strike me as unusual. I wandered around, looking for anybody, before arriving again at the town square. The village elder did not come out to greet me, so I considered going back into the forest to sleep when I saw light coming from the edges of the door of a large building at the edge of the square, likely the town hall. The windows were all boarded up, but as I walked closer, I could tell that it was definitely torchlight emanating from any gaps in the building.

I approached the door and was just about to knock on it when I heard Snow whine. I paused and looked around, but I saw nothing, so I started to knock again. This time, Snow growled, so I decided to investigate more first. I leaned down and tried to look through the crack at the bottom of the door, but it was too small. Once down there, however, I could hear voices… and they were chanting.

That’s never good.

I got up and looked back at Snow, but he was gone yet again. Looks like it was still my turn to be bait. Without wasting any more time, I kicked the door in and strolled into the building in time to see about a dozen men in a circle stand up quickly and look at me in surprise. Six children and six women were chained in the center of the circle with strange sigils painted on their faces, and a circle of flames was between them and the men.

“Am I interrupting anything?” I asked, and the men charged at me. I took out the nearest two quickly, but the others were smart enough to stay together and surrounded me.

“I don’t suppose I can make a last request to know what the hell is going on, can I?” I inquired.

Sten laughed, a sound that lacked the pleasantness usually associated with such an act. “Sure, why not. We didn’t think you would survive, so we are summoning Anazas the Toll Bane to take care of our troll issue.”

I looked at him incredulously. “Wait, you are summoning something that eats trolls? Is that all he eats?”

Sten looked uncertain a moment. “Well, we just have the name… figured he’d go find other trolls. That makes sense, right?”

“Uh huh. Look, before I kill all of you, I’d just like to ask how the hell you planned on stopping something that literally eats trolls for breakfast. And you’d sacrifice your own women and children to bring that thing here? That’s despicable.”

Sten laughed again. “These aren’t our women, and this isn’t our town. We are bandits, we captured this village awhile back, killed all the men that wouldn’t join us, and made the women and children our slaves. It worked out great for awhile, but we didn’t know when we attacked that the town had a troll problem. Bad luck on our parts. He killed a lot of us before I remembered this book we had found from a grave we’d robbed earlier, so we decided to use it.”

“Ah, okay. So, you guys are bandits, murderers, and grave diggers. Thanks for the information, now I don’t have to feel bad for what I’m about to do.” I snapped my fingers, and Snow burst through one of the boarded up windows, tearing into the circle of men around me. Surprised, the men turned outwards towards this new threat, and I went on the offensive. Between the two of us, the bandits didn’t stand a chance, and it was not long before we were the only ones left.

The bandits had placed buckets of water around the building to control the flames, so I quickly used them to extinguish the flames around the women and children. A quick search of Sten’s body resulted in the keys to their chains, so I freed the women and children. Tears were shed and they thanked me profusely, but I was still overcome with disgust at what the bandits had done and had tried to do. And they wonder why I hate people.