R. Salvatore - The Ancient

“A score-at least,” said Jameston.

“Then you need only kill three or four to do your share,” Vaughna interjected. She hoisted her two axes onto her shoulders. “We can’t let them walk right past us.”

“There is the greater good to consider,” Brother Jond protested.

“Spoken like an Abellican, to be sure,” Vaughna replied with a snicker.

Brother Jond sighed and looked to Bransen.

“We cannot just let them pass,” Bransen agreed. “I’d not sleep well on hard ground or soft bed alike for the rest of my days.”

“True enough and more,” said Vaughna. “We’re arguing as if we’ve got a choice, and none of us here is thinking that.”

Jameston’s eyes narrowed. “Do not underestimate trolls,” he warned.

“Killed a score of the ugly things already,” Vaughna retorted. “More than that. Let’s hit them and hit them hard.”

All heads nodded. Jameston just gave a resigned sigh and started to lay out a plan, but Bransen beat him to it, sending the scout down north of the group to pick off any trolls who would flee that way.

With Olconna and Crait moving farthest to the south, Bransen, Vaughna, and Brother Jond traveled straight down the hill. Bransen took the lead, directing the movements of the other two so that they remained out of sight until they were right above the path, the line of monsters and miserable captives rapidly approaching.

“You’re not too worn out to give a good fight, are you?” Crait whispered to Olconna as they settled into position.

Olconna looked at him curiously, even incredulously.

Crait’s smile nearly took in his ears. “Told you it was a ride worth taking,” he whispered.

Olconna’s cheeks turned as red as his hair.

With grace and speed and perfectly silently, Jameston moved undetected into position behind a clutch of boulders a dozen feet up from the trail and just ahead of the lead troll drivers.

One in particular caught his eye, a nasty-looking beast with half of its face torn away. It swung a whip easily, with practiced efficiency, and the way the others-trolls, and not just the miserable prisoners-cowered against its every word told Jameston that this was likely the leader of the group.

He drew out his finest arrow and set it to his bowstring. With steady arm, he drew back and settled perfectly. He didn’t want to shoot prematurely and ruin the surprise, but the moment the trolls became aware of the attack that ugly beast would die.

Jamestone nodded to himself. He still didn’t agree with the decision to engage, but he couldn’t deny that it would be great sport.

Thirty or more,” Brother Jond whispered breathlessly as he slid in between Bransen and Vaughan just above the road.

Neither could disagree with his assessment. Trolls milled all about the line of a dozen or so prisoners. The estimate of a score seemed inadequate indeed.

“Call it off,” Brother Jond whispered, grabbing Bransen by the arm.

For a moment Bransen seemed as if he would agree. But how? To their right Olconna and Crait were already settled, and too far away to be called back. And now the troll line had advanced and was right below them, barely a dozen strides away. There was no chance that they could sneak back up the hill unseen.

Bransen motioned farther back along the troll line to a cluster of the brutes about two-thirds of the way to the end. “Hit them harder,” he whispered. Vaughna nodded, and even Brother Jond had to concede that they truly had no options here.

They had committed. They had made their choice up on the hill. The trolls and prisoners flowed before them. They took up their weapons and set their feet under them. The first strike would be crucial.

Olconna and Crait had already surmised the higher-than-expected count and the challenges it would bring. They crouched low behind some brush, glancing over to their left, the north, waiting for the trio to begin the assault.

When that delayed longer than expected, the pair wondered if perhaps the added numbers had turned them about, but it was a brief consideration and nothing more, for as the largest cluster of trolls, nearly a dozen, moved under the trio’s position, Bransen and Vaughna leaped down on them, axes and that fabulous sword swinging hard.

“Cut the back!” Crait growled, echoing their earlier conversation, when they had decided their best action to be swinging around the rear of the troll line and driving the creatures forward in to a confused muddle. The toughened old warrior leaped up and started down, but paused as soon as he realized that Olconna wasn’t moving with him. He looked at his partner, and saw that Olconna was looking past him, was looking to the south.

“By Abelle’s skinny arse,” Crait swore when he glanced that way, when he realized that this group of trolls and prisoners was merely the lead, and that many, many more trolls were approaching from the south.

“Be quick, for we’ve got no choice!” the old warrior yelled, and tugged at Olconna’s arm, and the two charged down at the surprised creatures below.

The first few frenzied moments of that attack played out exactly as Bransen had hoped. He and Vaughna cut deep into the troll ranks, slashing and chopping the group apart. Any cohesion the trolls might have found in mounting a defense seemed scattered. Another troll fell before Bransen’s slashing sword.

To the north a squeal of agony told the attackers that Jameston would not disappoint, and for a few moments all three believed that whether it was twenty or thirty or a hundred trolls the day would be fast won!

Brother Jond’s cry brought them back to reality, though, followed as it was by shouts from Olconna and Crait.

Bransen managed a moment’s reprieve to look that way, and his heart surely sank. Olconna was in full flight, running toward him with a look of utter desperation. Behind him, straddling a dead troll, Crait stood with his back to Bransen, his arms up to ward off a barrage of flying spears. And beyond those came the trolls, so many more trolls, running and hooting.

“Free the prisoners!” Bransen yelled. “Give them troll weapons-anything!” He leaped toward the nearest humans as he shouted, but they shied away from him. Broken by days, weeks even, of tortured capture, not one of them appeared to be in any condition to fight. Those nearest fell to the ground, cowering, whimpering as Bransen approached.

A pair of trolls came in hard at him, but Bransen, too full of rage at that moment, turned aside both their spears with a single downward slash of his blade. He stepped in behind it, stiffening the fingers of his left hand and thrusting them into the throat of the troll on his left while retracting his blade from the double parry and slashing it back across, sending the troll on his right spinning to the ground.

He turned toward the south. Crait was down and squirming. Though it seemed as if he would make it, Olconna lurched suddenly and grabbed at his calf, where a spear had hit home. He stumbled down to one knee. Another spear clipped him across the side of his neck, and a fountain of red exploded about him. He fell facedown to the ground, curled and covered, groaning with pain.

Bransen rushed back to Vaughna and Brother Jond, pressed on two sides by trolls. Hope surged in him again as he marveled at Vaughna’s prowess, at the accuracy and power of her strokes. Behind her, Brother Jond lifted his fist and sent forth a bolt of bluish lightning, cutting the air above Crait and Olconna, meeting the troll charge head-on. As he let fly the bolt, so the mob of trolls let fly a volley of rocks, filling the air with missiles. Vaughna grunted and cursed as more than one smacked her hard.

Bransen had better luck-at first-twisting and dodging and snapping off a series of precise parries that deflected one rock, two, and then a third. With the third, though, the rock clipped aside but kept coming at him, right at his head. Bransen ducked it.