CHAPTER 22

Blob: The Steak Sauce

The Battle of the Forest Trolls started off better than expected.

It turned out I had been gone a lot longer than my companions had anticipated. And so rather than sitting around a campfire casually cooking up dinner and telling funny Dwarf stories, the group was already on high alert, fully armed, and ready to send out a search party looking for me and Blob.

Which means they met the five Trolls charging behind me through the woods with a thunderous clang of weapons and spells.

First, someone (either Ari, Glam, Tiki, or Sentry Five, being that they were the only ones in our group besides me with the Ability) cast a spell that lit up a huge wall of fire across the path behind me, theoretically cutting off or slowing the Trolls’ pursuit. Unfortunately, the wall of fire did basically nothing, and the Trolls charged right through it like they were fireproof.

Next, Glam came flying in from above (apparently she had been perched up in a tree the whole time). Her fists transformed into boulders as she landed on one of the Forest Troll’s shoulders. She pummeled the Troll in the head and face repeatedly.

Stoney was probably our best asset, in terms of translations (he spoke fifteen languages, including Forest Troll), navigational skills, mission knowledge, generosity, geological aptitude, and, most of all, combat. And he wasn’t going to sit this one out, blind or not.

He charged toward the thundering rumble of the Trolls’ massive footsteps. Even though he was at least seven feet shorter and weighed probably three or four hundred pounds less, he still collided with one of the Forest Trolls with enough force to send them both sprawling into the trunk of a massive spruce nearby. The tree split in half and crashed down into the forest behind them, taking several smaller trees with it.

At that very moment, I actually thought we were going to win.

Foolish me, I’d never learn.

Because a short time later, we realized how tough these things really were. Literally nothing fazed them; nothing seemed to injure them, not even magic.

I did seem to remember something from Monsterology class about the Forest Troll’s legendary resiliency. Which is a word that sounded harmless on paper (and thus was easy to forget), until you actually saw it in action.

For instance:

• No matter how many times Glam battered the Troll in the face and head, her Glam-smash boulders merely bounced right off the thing as if they were made of foam. Even the blows that did appear to inflict a wound, or split its head open, didn’t slow it down or seem to cause any real pain. A few moments after she’d landed on its shoulder, the Troll simply flicked her off like she was a bug.

• The Trolls broke through magical vines like they were made of brittle straw, were completely unfazed by magically summoned winds and fires, and didn’t seem to care at all when a magical lightning bolt was fired from the sky and hit one in the arm, singeing its biceps black with a smoking sizzle.

• Even Stoney couldn’t seem to hurt these things as he battered them with rock-like blows, twisted their limbs, and fought with all the fury of a fellow Troll. Through all his brutal assaults, they swatted him easily away, laughing as if he were a gnat and not a two-ton Rock Troll with unimaginable strength.

• Our weapons mostly bounced off their tough skin without leaving so much as a mark. Froggy somehow managed to stab one of them in the left eyeball, surely partially blinding it. But the beast didn’t even flinch as it plucked Froggy from its shoulder and then pinned him to the ground under one of its knobby, stinking, bunion-covered bare feet. The Troll grinned triumphantly, purple blood oozing down its cheek from its eye socket as Froggy futilely squirmed under his foot.

To put it bluntly: we were completely outmatched.

We stood no chance against these things. Just ten minutes after the battle had started, it was over, and we had lost.

The remaining Sentry guards (unwilling to stop fighting and surrender like the rest of us had, once we realized we couldn’t win) were all dead. Stoney (our one chance to negotiate with these beasts) was nowhere in sight and presumed missing in action, or worse. Glam, Froggy, Ari, Tiki, Lake and I were all lumped on top of Blob near our campfire, in a heaping, injured pile of broken Dwarves.

The five Trolls loomed over us, ensuring we wouldn’t try to escape. But the truth was, we were all too sore and tired and defeated to do anything but tend to our wounds and wonder what horrible fate awaited us.

It didn’t take long to find out.

The Trolls quickly engaged in some sort of heated conversation. Their native tongue sounded like just a bunch of primal grunts, growls, and raspy wails.

“I think they’re having an argument,” Ari said, wincing as Tiki wrapped her badly wounded arm in a loose piece of cloth while also attempting a healing spell.

“What do you think it’s about?” Glam asked.

The rest of us shrugged, as Blob slowly oozed out from where we sat and gathered himself back into one slab of slime next to us.

“Whether to eat us raw like tartare,” Blob answered, “or butcher us and grill our steaks over a fire.”

We all turned to look at him in horror and shock.

“I totally forgot back in the cave that I can actually speak Forest Troll,” he said. “Ha-ha, silly me. I’m always forgetting which languages I can or cannot speak. Rather amusing, no?”

Nobody else found it funny at all. Instead, we swallowed back our urge to vomit everywhere, knowing we were about to become Troll food.

“They’re . . . they’re really going to eat us right here and now?” Ari asked, her face pale—whether from blood loss or fear, I wasn’t sure (but probably both).

“Indeed, it seems they intend to eat us,” Blob confirmed as the Trolls continued their argument.

“How can we get out of this?” I asked.

Nobody responded. We all knew there was no escape. We were no match for these things, even with magic. Magic suddenly didn’t seem so, well, magic anymore. Or perhaps we simply didn’t know how to use it to the fullest extent of its power. We still hadn’t technically completed our training yet.

The Trolls finally stopped arguing, and one of them produced a massive knife with a curved blade longer than two of us put together. Another stalked off into the woods. A third lifted his huge shield and spit a glob of Troll saliva onto the concave side in what I can only assume was a futile attempt to clean it.

“Oh, it seems they’ve made their decision!” Blob said as if this was good news. “Apparently, they’re going to butcher you and go with the seared-Dwarf-steak option! And they’re going to use me as the steak sauce!”