Otto ducked as the troll’s club swung over his head, hitting the limestone statue of a dead Paladin. He dived away as chips of stone rained down on him. For such a massive thing, the troll moved quickly, and Otto had to scramble to get out of the way every time it swung its club. There was no point in attacking with his sword.
He knew with the intimacy of a best friend how sharp his sword was, but the last time he struck the troll in the Underbelly, the skin of its hide had been so thick that his blade couldn’t cut it. Just to see if his memory served him correctly, he wanted to give it another try. After all, it was hard to imagine this monster couldn’t be cut.
He had to wait for an opening, but until then he was forced to dodge the monster’s every blow, which was becoming more and more exhausting. After running back and forward in the Castle in full armor, he had already been tired, but now his muscles were beginning to feel heavy, making his movements sluggish.
He was thankful for training every morning with Gregorro. Without it, he was sure he wouldn’t have had the stamina to keep up with the massive thing.
He had nearly been cornered by the troll, and seeing this, it raised its club high above its head—too high, for the end of it caught on the chandelier above him. Now was Otto’s opening. Unable to pull its club down, the troll’s position left its belly open, and Otto ran forward, thrusting his sword in a stabbing motion at its lower belly.
The troll stumbled back clumsily and released the club from the chandelier. Despite being sharpened to a razor’s edge, the tip nicked at the flesh before skating off again, leaving only a deep scratch that produced a single drop of blood. Otto’s mouth dropped, and he quickly realized he would need another tactic.
He didn’t get a chance to think of one before the troll grabbed hold of his leg and tossed him across the floor of the mausoleum. Otto flew, landed on his armor, and slid until he hit the base of one of the statues. The hard surface knocked the wind out of him, and the force of his collision caused the statue to wobble and nearly tip over on top of him.
An idea hit him then.
He might not have the weight to harm the troll, but these statues of his predecessors did. He almost shook his head in amusement, and he hoped the Paladins of the past would forgive him for what he was about to do. It was going to be hard, but it was either this or be crushed by the troll.
He breathed out a groan and got to his feet. Step one of his strategy was made clear to him as he noticed that the troll’s eyepatch, which must have been damaged during the chaos, was hanging from the troll’s face.
If this is going to work, I’m going to have to take out his other eye. Goddess give me speed.
He didn’t like his odds, but if the slow troll had given him one opening, he would just have to wait for another. The thing charged at him, swinging its massive club. While training with Gregorro, the expert swordsman had taught him what he called the Courting Dance.
“Read your opponent’s body, see where they are moving, and then you move only in response to that. Just like dancing with your sweetheart.”
With how slow the troll was, it wasn’t hard to read its lumbering moments. So long as he was focusing only on evasion, Otto found he could move with it like a dance partner, stepping and spinning at the right times to avoid its swings. It also helped that the troll was half-blind, so it was easy to see which side to dodge to.
However, when the troll noticed this, it stopped trying to hit him with its club and started to try and snatch at him with its meaty hands. Otto had been waiting for this, for when it reached down to grab him, it would bend low, allowing his sword a better opportunity to reach the monster’s face.
He had several chances, but none of them were good enough to take. If he failed his first attempt, the troll might catch on to his strategy and an opportunity to cut at its remaining eye would quickly run out.
“Hold still, you shiny little mouse!” the troll yelled in frustration.
“Come and make me!”
It bent lower still to try to scoop him up with its entire arm, giving Otto the opportunity he had been looking for. He vaulted over its tree-like arm, dashed in, and slashed out. Unfortunately, having a sword flicking in front of its face caused it to rear back instinctively, so Otto’s attack cut only its upper eyelid. But like with human eyelids, the skin was thin, so a thick stream of blood ran down from it, blinding the troll.
It wasn’t permanent blindness like Otto had hoped for, but as the troll tipped back, holding its bloody face, he knew what he achieved would work just as well for this fight. And now came step two in his strategy.
“You call me a shiny little mouse,” Otto said as the troll blinked to rid the blood from its eye. “What does that make you? A slimy fat rat?”
The troll growled at the insult and began to lash out blindly, catching a statue with his club and shattering it to slabs of marble. Otto ducked out of the way. The likeness of a past Hero was scattered across the marble floor.
But those Heroes were dead, and he was still alive.
Seeing that his taunt had worked, Otto kept going, hoping that he would get the monster to follow his voice closer as he started walking toward another statue. “No, you don’t have enough hair to be a rat—you’re more like an overgrown toad than anything!”
The blood kept running down the wounded part of the troll’s face. It was quickly learning that it couldn’t keep a hand to its face, as that blinded it completely, but letting the blood run into its eye blurred what was left of its vision. It advanced on Otto, swung, and missed completely.
“No, you’re not even a toad. Your boss looks like more of a toad than you do. You’re just the lackey of a toad.” Otto sheathed his sword and reached the largest stone statue in the room: the statue of the first captain of the Paladins, the Great Galant. “You’re just an overgrown tadpole, swimming in a scum bucket that’s so toxic it should have killed you.”
He began to climb the statue, first the base, then higher using the stone armor as handholds. The troll bared its teeth in fury. Unable to see, Otto knew it would be trying to focus on his voice to find him, and Otto kept talking so that it would know where to charge.
“But no, you just absorbed that toxic filth, didn’t you?” Otto got behind the statue, wedging himself between the first captain and the wall, the base of his feet on the back of its neck. “You continued consuming and sucking it up, becoming the biggest, most sickly creature you could so even mother toad didn’t want to lay eyes on you.”
Its pointed ears flickered to where his voice was coming from. Without its eyesight, however, it no longer seemed confident enough to charge at him, despite being enraged. Otto would have to give it a reason to not see him as a threat anymore.
“And now this living embodiment of a scum bucket is just a servant of the most cowardly creature.” He withdrew his longsword. “And it can’t even defeat one man half his size. That’s the most pathetic thing, at least a bucket can be clean and have use . . .” He then tossed his blade over the statue and heard it clatter to the marble floor before crying, “No, my sword!” in the most terrified voice he could make.
The troll smirked, and taking the bait, he roared and bowled toward where he had heard the sword fall, arms spread wide to grab the most space around it as possible. Otto gritted his teeth and pushed with all his might. Strength he didn’t even know he had possessed him then, and the statue leaned forward, wobbled, and with a final, desperate kick, toppled.
Otto fell to the floor just in time to see the first Paladin-made-giant delivering the most staggering headbutt. The thump as the troll’s body hit the marble floor vibrated under Otto’s back. Half of the statue’s head had come off in the impact, and Otto thought he should thank whoever made the statue so sturdy. The rest of the statue rolled off the troll’s body onto the floor.
He sighed in relief and climbed to his feet, so utterly exhausted that he nearly fell in his attempt to pick up his sword.
Behind him, there was a rattle at the locked door to the mausoleum followed by a thump as it was kicked inward. Princess Sapphire and Aelyph ran in, swords drawn and raised.
“Otto, Aelyph told me that he remembered where the smell was from. It was one of the Dark Consul’s . . .” Princess Sapphire trailed off when she saw what was on the floor before her and her eyes widened in shock. “Wow, Otto—dragon slayer and now troll slayer as well?”
“The creature embodying the seneschal is a shapeshifter, one of the Dark Consul’s spies. I feared he would lead you into a trap and we came running, but it’s almost like our help is no longer needed,” Aelyph said in amusement.
“I’ve just learned about the seneschal myself.” Otto shook his head. “But no, your help is needed now more than ever. The shapeshifter is currently taking over the Paladin election while in my form. We have to go there now!”
Princess Sapphire nodded. “Lead the way.”
Otto managed to catch his breath and strode from the room, making for the stairs. However, the last fight had taken it out of him, and he felt for the banister to stay on his feet.
“Otto, are you all right?” Princess Sapphire asked as walked by his side.
Otto shook his head. “That last fight went on for too long. I’m exhausted, and I can barely stand.”
He caught Aelyph’s gaze. No Paladin would trust a Riftling who’d come barging into the Council Chamber, even if he was accompanied by a princess. Nevertheless, Aelyph nodded and looked to Princess Sapphire.
“Let’s go ahead.”
“Are you sure?” Princess Sapphire asked.
Otto grinned, and despite the weakness that possessed him, said, “I’ll be right behind you.”
Princess Sapphire nodded. “All right. Aelyph, let’s go.”
The two of them climbed the stairs ahead of him. More than anything, Otto wanted to follow on their heels. However, as he took another step, he thought he would collapse. He bared his teeth and made another.
“Slow and steady, Otto,” he sighed, taking one step at a time. “Pretend you’re less than you are, and then you will always surprise them.”
Even when he thought another step was impossible, his body moved to make it, acting as though separate from himself.
His vision spun and darkened, but his body still moved.
He wasn’t going to make it to the top, and although his mind knew this fact, his body didn’t seem to acknowledge it. And so he climbed.