The warmth of his flesh began to pulse against my skin and I took a breath. Sharp, the cold was so sharp, but it jarred me and I shook the snow from my hair. Howl pulled me to my feet and spun me around, laughing. Dizzy, I begged him to stop, but he continued the dance.
As we spun, colors began to twist around us and they turned into a carnival of sight and sound. His laughter infected me and I couldn’t help but return the mirth. And as I laughed, the shell of ice that had formed around my heart shattered and fell away.
When he stopped, holding me tight so I would not fall down, I tried to catch my breath. “Do you understand what happened, Lady Iris? Are you all right?”
I shook my head, unable to speak from the breathless dance.
“The Singing Spirit of the White Forest caught your attention. She must have felt your sorrow and fear. She is a mournful thing, a powerful spirit who plays on emotion and leads travelers astray to their deaths. Hearkening them to give up all hope, they drop into a melancholy catatonia and die of hypothermia.”
“These woods are truly cursed,” Smoky said in a low voice. “Even dragon-folk tend to avoid them. Come, we have a long way to go and there are dangers ahead.”
As I let out a long breath, shaking my head again to clear my thoughts, a low growl caught my attention. The others heard it, too, that much I could tell, and we immediately formed a circle with our backs to one another.
“Your people?” Camille asked Howl.
“No, not my people. They would never dare growl at my friends. No, I’m afraid we’re going to be facing a bloodier pack than mine.” He unsheathed a long knife with a bone fang for a blade.
“Trolls,” I said. “I recognize the cadence. I’ll bet you anything we’ve got troll blood following us.”
“Oh fuck.” Camille had fought trolls before.
She cleared her throat as Rozurial pulled out a blade and Smoky cracked his knuckles, his fingernails growing into long talons. I took out my Aqualine Crystal wand that I’d made, but then it hit me. My specialty was mist and snow magic, but that wasn’t going to cut it here. The creatures who lived in these climes were used to snow and ice. My spells would be useless on them.
Slowly, I put the wand away and pulled out a dagger I’d had made for the journey. I’d asked Carter, the half-demon, half-Titan researcher we knew, to enchant it with fire, and he’d put a flame on it all right.
As we waited, the growls continued, and then out of the wood stepped dark shadows against the snow.
Trolls. Just as I thought. Two of them. The only saving grace we had was that they weren’t dubba-trolls but mountain trolls instead. Dubba-trolls were two-headed and hard as hell to kill. Mountain trolls were still hard as hell to kill, but at least they only had one head per body.
“Trolls,” I whispered. “May I suggest we make quick work of them? We’ve a long way to go and the sooner they’re dead meat, the sooner we can move on.” There was no question but that we’d have to kill them. Trolls weren’t the type to respond if we asked, Pretty please, could you not bother us.
Camille began prepping what sounded suspiciously like one of her Moon magic spells and I took a healthy step away from her side. Camille’s Moon magic often backfired and it wasn’t a good idea to be too near when that happened.
Smoky let out a loud growl. “I don’t have enough room here to shift into dragon form.”
Howl shook his head. “There are only two. We can fight them. And remember: Fire will disrupt them faster than anything else.” He raised his bone knife and pulled out a bottle, sprinkling the blade with some sort of oil that smelled suspiciously like oranges. The next moment, he lit the blade and it burned brightly with a steady flame.
The trolls took a step back, staring at the flaming blade. Then they began to come at us, one from the right, one from the left, attempting to avoid Howl and his crackling sword.
“Here, we’ll see how they like my kind of toy,” Roz said, reaching inside his duster. The man carried an armory in there, reminding me of nothing quite so much as a weaponcrazed flasher or Neo from The Matrix. Only with Rozurial, a good share of the weapons he carried were magical. He did have a miniature Uzi, but kept it for special times.
Roz pulled out a little round ball that was as red as Camille’s lipstick. Oh hell, I knew what that was. Firebomb! I quickly backed up as he tugged on the wick and threw it.
The bomb landed near one of the trolls, who apparently had never seen one before and decided to pick it up. The troll, a seven-foot-tall warty gray skin-bag turned the ball over in his hand and promptly popped it in his mouth.
“Fire in the hole—literally!” Roz shouted and we all turned away to shield our eyes as an explosion rocked the area.
The troll stood there for a second, registering what happened, and then let out a scream of pain that ricocheted through woodland. It charged forward, unsteadily, arms waving like two giant sledgehammers.
“Watch out—it’s wounded and dangerous!” As I shifted to one side, trying to figure out how I could get in on the battle, Smoky raced in and sliced across its belly, his long talons eviscerating the creature. A stench of entrails poured forth onto the ground, hissing on the snow like steaming slime. I covered my nose. The putrid scent was enough to make me lose breakfast as well as last night’s dinner.
Howl let loose with a long swipe from his flaming blade and cut through the side of the troll, finishing the job. The monster began to fall and he was falling my way. I scrambled to the left, just as the troll hit the ground. If I’d been any slower, he’d have squashed me flatter than a hotcake. As it was, his innards came sloshing out before him and I managed to end up with troll slime on my cape. Ewww. That was going to leave a nasty stain. The second the creature hit the ground, he began to transform into stone. Mountain trolls always turned to stone when they died.
“Gah!” I let out a long sigh. Something told me that I wasn’t about to emerge unscathed, but if troll guts were the worst of it, I’d be lucky.
His brother apparently decided that it was time to charge and he came rampaging into the fray. Camille let loose with a bolt from the Moon Mother and it bounced against the troll’s head, leaving a smoldering patch of skin that sizzled like bacon on the grill. Troll #2 shrieked and slammed his fist down, hitting the ground right in front of her. The shock wave sent her flying back and she landed in a thick bank of snow.
Smoky lost it, going ballistic and raking his claws along the creature’s arm as Howl flanked the other side with his flaming sword. Rozurial pulled out a vial and sent it flying onto the troll’s clothing. A moment later, the furs the troll was wearing went up in a blaze, popping and hissing as the fire spread. The troll stumbled back but then wavered and suddenly headed my way.
I screamed and ran. If I jumped left, I’d end up jumping over the side of the trail into a deep gulch, and I wasn’t sure just how far down it went. A jump to the right and I’d slam into a tree. I raced back down the mountain with the blazing troll lurching behind me, bellowing from the pain of his wounds as the flames fanned higher.
Smoky zipped ahead of the creature and caught me up in his arms. When we reached a part of the path with a turnout, he veered to the side until we were out of the troll’s trajectory. The creature kept on track, downhill along the path, flailing against the flames and increasing their fury with every swipe.
Rozurial took aim with a handheld crossbow and the arrow flew true, piercing the behemoth’s back. Within seconds, the troll dropped to his knees, then fell forward, dead.
I glanced at Roz. “What was on that arrow?”