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MY DEPRESSION OVER my decision to cut ties with Ruen added to my general misery during the next week of travel. I’d lost Drake to the weredragon bimbo and now my sidekick was no longer bothering to pretend to tolerate me. Aurora knew I was feeling down, but there was nothing she could do to cheer me up.
“How much longer until we reach the scroll?” Ruen asked as we were approaching a tall mountain range. It dwarfed the other one we’d left far behind.
“It’s only going to take a couple more days to reach it once we get over this mountain,” she replied.
“I’m going to scout ahead,” he decided and dropped to the ground.
Aurora shifted so she was clinging to the middle of my back. “Do you want me to carry your hammer for you while you’re climbing?” she asked.
I shook my shaggy head despondently. My knuckles were just as tough as my feet. It didn’t bother me to have sharp rocks digging into my flesh. They couldn’t penetrate my thick skin.
Ruen quickly scaled the mountainside until he vanished from our sight. I began the climb, finding it easy to make my way upwards. An uneasy feeling hit me seconds before I sensed something on my radar.
Aurora felt my growl vibrate through me and tensed. “What is it?” she whispered.
I paused long enough to point at myself and she gasped quietly in fear.
“You can sense a troll?” she asked. I nodded, then held my hand up and opened and closed my fist several times. “You can sense lots of trolls?” she asked uneasily. I nodded again, then resumed climbing. “Shouldn’t we avoid the mountains if your kin are living here?” she asked, beginning to quiver in fear.
I shrugged and kept on climbing. Maybe we’d be able to sneak past them. Ruen didn’t seem to have a problem being in troll territory. He must have picked up on their scents by now. They’d left tufts of fur in the shrubs that grew sparsely on the range. They’d also marked their territory with urine and piles of stinky dung.
Doggedly scaling the mountain in the vampire’s wake, I sensed him on the summit. I felt trolls all around us, lurking in the caves that they’d chosen for their homes. They went on the move and my unease grew. I’d figured trolls were loners, but they appeared to be living in a tribe.
Ruen was hunkered down, studying the deep footprints that matched the shape of my feet. “I’m sure you’ve figured out that trolls are living in these mountains by now,” he whispered when we joined him.
“Yeah, Saige said there are a lot of them,” Aurora replied quietly.
“If we’re lucky, we can sneak down to the valley without them realizing we’re here,” he said craftily.
I shook my head and reached over my shoulder to pluck Aurora off my back. She let out a startled squawk, then sucked in a terrified breath when the first troll lumbered into view.
“Food!” the troll said in delight, then frowned when he saw me. “Who you?” he asked.
Amazed that I could understand him clearly, I sensed he was a carbuncle. So were the other trolls that moved to surround us. Fighting one alone would be a challenge. Battling thirty of them would result in death. “Visitor,” I replied, wracking my brain for a way out of this.
“Foe!” one of the other monsters declared. They all looked like me, with long, shaggy dark brown fur. The males outnumbered the females, but we were all roughly the same size and shape.
“Not foe,” I refuted. “Visitor.”
“What a visitor?” someone asked in confusion. I was dumb in this form, but compared to this lot, I was a genius.
“What are they saying?” Aurora whispered, clinging to Ruen fearfully.
“Food!” the first troll to spy us repeated, pointing at my companions.
“My food,” I warned him and moved to stand in front of them.
“Eat them. Kill you!” he retorted.
“Kill you. Eat you!” I retorted.
“Ew,” one of the females said in disgust. “No eat troll.”
They were big, strong and stupid, but at least they weren’t cannibals.
“Eat you all!” I threatened her, holding my hammer up warningly. “We go now. You not stop us.” They shared confused looks, trying to figure out what I was telling them.
I sensed more trolls coming and my dread intensified. A troll that was even stronger than the others climbed to the summit with another twenty of his kin trailing behind him. Taller and more muscular than the rest of us, he was a sepsis, which was level nine on my radar. I could take him in a fight, but it would be a fierce battle. “Who you?” he demanded, taking in the scene.
“Visitor,” I said. He looked at me blankly, not recognizing the word. “We go now,” I added, pointing at the valley below.
“Food!” he said, turning to my companions. “Take!” he commanded his minions.
Two trolls stepped forward to grab Aurora and Ruen. I kicked one of them in the stomach and sent him flying, then backhanded the female. She staggered into her friends and growled at me. Neither of them had been hurt, proving it would be death to try to fight the entire tribe.
Their leader frowned at me and seemed to go deep into thought. “Mate!” he declared.
“What?” I asked in confusion.
“My mate,” he said and I shook my head in denial. “We mate now,” he added and one of the females gasped in outrage.
“Me have mate,” I said in refusal as his current squeeze stomped forward.
“That vampire,” he said in disdain, sneering at Ruen. “It food.”
His mate shoved her way through the crowd and stomped over to me. “Kill you!” she roared.
“Me have mate!” I roared back. “He yours!” I added, gesturing at their leader.
“Kill her. You new mate,” he said in unconcern.
His mate’s response at being discarded like trash was to ball her fist and punch me in the eye. It didn’t hurt, but now I was pissed. I didn’t want her mate, but they were too stupid to understand I was already taken. Okay, that was a lie, but it was obvious I was going to have to fight my way out of this predicament.
It wouldn’t be fair to fight my opponent with a weapon when she didn’t have one. “Hold this,” I said to Aurora, but it came out in troll speak. She took it from me, figuring out what I wanted. Ruen moved them both back to give us room and the trolls copied them.
“Kill you,” my opponent vowed harshly. “Stomp head. Poke out eyeballs. Pull out tongue.”
She was the troll version of Ruen with her method of torturing her foes, apparently. My instincts kicked in as we circled each other and I was compelled to taunt her back. “Tear off head. Wear as hat.” I mimed pulling her head off and putting it on my own head. The crowd gasped and leaned forward in anticipation of her comeback.
“Pull out guts,” she retorted and snatched at the fur on my stomach. I sucked in my gut so her fingers missed me. “Tie to neck,” she added, pretending to wrap my entrails around my throat.
Her kin roared in appreciation of her imagination and she grinned in triumph. It seemed trolls enjoyed threatening their foes before a fight. It gave them extra status if they were inventive. I’d learned a few ways to torture people from listening to Ruen in his murderous trances, so I had plenty of ideas to call on.
“Pull out fangs. Put in butt.” They were confused about that, so I mimed pulling out her teeth and shoving them where the sun didn’t shine. They murmured together, then decided it was an excellent threat and roared in delight.
I wasn’t done yet and kept going. “Pull off skin,” I taunted her. “Turn to rope. Hang you.” I mimed the actions so there could be no mistake.
Her triumph faded and she was now looking wary. It had a different effect on the males. They were getting excited and most of them were sporting erections. Their leader watched me avidly, waiting for me to kill his mate so I could take her place.
“Dear lord,” Ruen muttered. “They’re going to go into a mating frenzy soon.”
Aurora brightened and grinned in excitement. “Will my magic work on them, Saige?” she asked.
I nodded, still circling my opponent as she tried to come up with a retort.
“Brace yourself,” she warned me, then unleashed a sex fantasy on the closest trolls.
Their leader turned to the closest female and they crashed to the ground, grunting and moaning as they mated. I leaped out of the way when a male tackled my opponent. Racing over to my companions, I turned to see the entire tribe were engaging in an orgy. Even the ones who hadn’t been caught up in the fantasy were going at it like rabbits, caught up in the excitement.
Tossing Aurora and Ruen onto my back, I sped down the treacherously steep mountainside as fast as I could. Some of the trolls would be knocked out by the spell after they climaxed. With luck, the rest wouldn’t follow us. If they did, I might have to fight them. I was good, but not good enough to take on that many carbuncles and a sepsis.
