The leader of a trio of hungry-looking trolls.
“Slim pickings lately,” the scarf-wearer went on. “But time now for a feast, yes.”
Something to the ranger’s right suddenly let out what would have been quite a telling epithet if not for the gag that smothered the words. Twisting her head as best as the carefully tied ropes allowed her, Vereesa saw that Falstad, too, still lived, albeit for how long she could not say. Rumors had long persisted, even before the days of the Troll Wars, that these hideous creatures saw anything other than themselves as fair game for food. Even the orcs, who had accepted them as allies, had been said to ever keep one eye on the nimble, cunning fiends.
Fortunately, due to both the Troll Wars and the battle against the Horde, their foul race had dwindled in numbers greatly. Vereesa herself had never seen a troll before, only knew them from drawings and legends. She found she would have much preferred to keep it that way.
“Patience, patience,” murmured the scarf-wearer in a mock sympathetic voice. “You’ll be first, dwarf! You’ll be first!”
“Can’t we do it now. Gree?” begged the one-eyed troll. “Why can’t we do it now?”
“Because I said so, Shnel!” With one hard fist, Gree suddenly struck Shnel in the jaw, sending the second creature rolling.
The third troll hopped to his feet, encouraging both of his companions to more blows. Gree glared at him, literally staring the bald troll down. Meanwhile, Shnel crawled back to his place by the tiny fire, looking completely subdued.
“I am leader!” Gree slapped a bony, taloned hand against his chest. “Yes, Shnel?”
“Yes, Gree! Yes!”
“Yes, Vorsh?”
The hairless monstrosity bobbed his head over and over. “Yes, oh, yes, Gree! Leader you are! Leader you are!”
As with elves, dwarves, and especially humans, there had existed different types of trolls. Some few spoke with the sophistication of elves—even while they tried to take one’s head. Others ranged toward the more savage, especially those who most frequented the barrows and other underground realms. Yet Vereesa doubted that there could be any lower form of troll than the three base creatures who had captured her and Falstad—and clearly had still darker designs for them.
The trio went back to some muffled conversation around the tiny fire. Vereesa again looked to the dwarf, who stared back at her. A raised eyebrow by her was answered by a shake of his head. No, despite his prodigious strength, he could not escape the tight bonds. She shook her head in turn. However barbaric the trolls might be, they were true experts in knot-tying.
Trying to remain undaunted, the ranger peered around at her surroundings—what little there was to see of them. They seemed to be in the midst of a long, crudely hewn tunnel, likely of the trolls’ own making. Vereesa recalled the long, taloned fingers, just perfect for digging through the rock and earth. These trolls had adapted well to their environment.
Despite already knowing the results in advance, the elf nonetheless tried to find some looseness in her ropes. She twisted around as cautiously as she could, rubbed her wrists nearly raw, but to no avail.
A horrific chuckle warned her that the trolls had seen at least her final attempts.
“Dessert’s lively,” commented Gree. “Should make for good sport!”
“Where’s the others?” groused Shnel. “Should’ve been here by now!”
The leader nodded, adding, “Hulg knows what’ll happen if he doesn’t obey! Maybe he—” The troll suddenly seized his throwing ax.“Dwarves!”
The ax went spinning through the tunnel, passing just a few inches from Vereesa’s head.
A guttural cry followed but a moment later.
The walls of the tunnel erupted with short, sturdy forms letting out battle calls and waving short axes and swords.
Gree pulled out another, slightly longer ax, this one evidently for hand-to-hand combat. Shnel and Vorsh, the latter crouched, let loose with throwing axes. The elf saw one squat attacker fall to Shnel’s weapon, but Vorsh’s went wide. The trolls then followed the example of their leader and readied stronger, bulkier axes as the newcomers surrounded them.
Vereesa counted more than half a dozen dwarves, each clad in ragged furs and rusting breastplates. Their helmets were rounded, form-fitting, and lacking any horns or other unnecessary adornments. As with Falstad, most had beards, although they seemed shorter and better trimmed.
The dwarves wielded their axes and swords with practiced precision. The trolls found themselves pressed closer and closer to one another. Shnel it was who fell first, the one-eyed beast not seeing the warrior who came in on his blind side. Vorsh barked a warning, but it came too late. Shnel took a wild swing at his new foe, missing completely.
The dwarf drove his sword into the lanky troll’s gut.
Gree fought the most savagely. He landed one good blow that sent a dwarf tumbling back, then nearly beheaded another. Unfortunately, his ax broke as it collided with the longer, well-built one wielded by his latest opponent. In desperation, he seized the dwarf’s weapon by the upper handle and struggled to take it out of the shorter fighter’s grip.
The well-honed blade of another ax caught the troll leader in the back.
The elf almost felt some sympathy for the last of her captors. Vorsh, eyes wide with the knowledge of his impending doom, looked ready to whimper. Nonetheless, he continued waving his ax at the nearest of the dwarves, almost landing a bloody strike by sheer luck. However, he could do nothing to stem the tide of foes who now advanced in an ever-tightening circle, swords and axes ready.
In the end, Vorsh’s death approached butchery.
Vereesa turned her gaze away. She did not face forward again until a steady voice with a hint of gravel in it commented, “Well, no wonder the trolls fought so hard! Gimmel! Ye see this?”
“Aye, Rom! Much better sight than what I’ve found over here!”
Thick hands pulled her to a sitting position. “Let’s see if we can get these ropes off ye without too much damage to that fine form!”
She looked up into the face of a ruddy dwarf at least six inches shorter than Falstad and built much stockier. Despite first appearances, however, his expert handling of the ropes quickly informed the ranger that she should not take him or any of his companions for clumsy, especially after the manner in which they had dispatched the trolls.
Up close, the garments of the dwarves took on an even more ragged appearance, not surprising if they had been subsisting, as Vereesa suspected, on whatever they could steal from the orcs. A distinctive odor also prevailed, indicating that bathing had also long been at a premium.
“Here ye go!”
Her ropes fell away. Vereesa immediately pulled free the gag, with which the dwarf had not bothered. At the same time, a long string of swearwords from her side indicated that Falstad, too, had now been completely released.
“Shut ye mouth or I’ll stuff that gag back in permanent!” Gimmel snarled back.
“It’d take a hand’s worth of you hill dwarves to bring one from the Aerie down!”
A rumble of discord indicated that their rescuers could readily become new captors if the gryphon-rider did not quiet. Stumbling to her feet—and recalling at the last moment that the tunnel did not quite match her height in this area—the anxious ranger snapped, “Falstad! Be polite with our companions! They have, after all, saved us from a horrid fate!”
“Aye, ye have the right of it,” Rom replied. “The damn trolls, they eat anything of flesh—dead or alive!”
“They mentioned some companions,” she suddenly recalled. “Perhaps we had better leave this place before they come—”
Rom raised his hand. His crinkled features reminded Vereesa of a tough old dog. “No need to worry about them. That’s how we found this trio.” He mused a moment longer. “But ye may be right, nonetheless! It’s not the only band of trolls in this region. The orcs, they use ’em almost like hunting hounds! Anything other than an orc that crosses these ruined lands is fair game—and they’ve even taken one of their own allies from the mountain when they’ve thought they could!”