NOVEL FROG Cavern Exile: The Lava Trolls' Lair
The tunnel is steep and rough stairs. We scramble downward—so fast I feel nearly like I’m plummeting. I hear the hot air whistling past the tips of the steel crescent over my vision-slit, and every time my feet hit the edge of an oversized step a shock runs through my legs. Splintered gravel falls with us, making a crackling sound to accompany our journey down, down, into the lair of the lava trolls.
At last the vague glow of yellow becomes the open circle of the exit. The river trolls vanish out of it, then Hayhek and I are also stumbling into the hot light and the jeering.
I turn from left to right and back, jabbing Heartseeker out in front of me, its point sharp and black. We are surrounded by lava trolls: their whole tribe forms a half circle around the exit we’ve stumbled from. Orange drool drips from their open mouths, their eyes stare horridly, and their great clawed hands clench and unclench.
Our chief steps towards them, roars and slashes his claws through the air at them. The last of our troll warriors steps forward too, and whirls his hammer around his head. The lava trolls are not put out in the least. They continue to jeer.
“Shit!” Hayhek hisses. “Shit, shit, shit! There must be at least a hundred!”
The cavern looks to be about the same size as the river trolls’ grotto, or maybe a touch smaller. It’s just as crowded, certainly. The stone is similar to the sulfurous yellow of the tunnels above, but a little smoother and whiter, suggesting marble. It’s lit from the back by the bright glow of a magma pool.
Our chief shouts something at the crowd. Something to do with the hammer, perhaps. I don’t see any sign of it yet.
The lava trolls bellow and beat their arms against their chests. Then a shout from the back echoes through the room and they go silent. The crowd parts like water cleaved by an axe, and through the path walks their chief.
He is nearly as large as the chief of the river trolls and carries the hammer in one hand, resting it against his shoulder.
My eyes widen.
It is like no hammer I have yet seen. Of solid bronze it is formed, twisted and curling, warped—neither straight edge nor even plane can I see. Gems that glitter like diamonds, yet are of an odd color I cannot identify, are set into the bronze to form a pattern I cannot quite grasp—random and yet not so. Runic script runs along it like trails of ants, and they are shapes I do not recognize.
The lava troll chief stops just before us. He takes the hammer from his shoulder and plants its head down. A thud shivers the rock under my feet.
Dwatrall gasps. Hayhek points. I take my gaze from the hammer and watch as a dwarf-sized figure skirts out from behind the lava troll chief’s leg and bows to us.
“Greetings,” he says, if it is indeed a he—the naked body is too deformed for me to tell. “Our scouts reported of dwarves that came with our enemies, who it seems committed the terrible dwarven sin of giving up the secrets of their race.”
“It was no sin!” I snap back. “They saved our lives. We repaid our debt to them.”
It smirks. “Make all the excuses you want.”
“What are you?” Dwatrall demands.
The thing's head takes up a good third of its total mass. Its legs are shorter even than a dwarf’s, and bent hideously so that I don’t know how it managed to keep up with the strides of its chief. One of its arms is shriveled, while the other is twice as long as my own and ends in a hand perfectly formed. Its feet and other hand are like badly-molded clay. Half its face is handsome, the other half trollish.
It clicks the fingers of its decent hand.
“I am the child of the hammer. Just as you are the child of the box, I do believe.”
“Then you are an advisor also,” Dwatrall states.
The Hammerchild laughs and claps its decent hand against the ground. “Hah!” it screeches. “Hah! Hah hah! Look!”
He grunt-hisses something upward. Without hesitation, the lava troll chief scoops him up and places him on his shoulders.
“I am the chief of the chief,” the Hammerchild shouts in glee.
Our own chief bellows something in disgust. The lava troll chief begins to say something, but the Hammerchild hisses in his ear and the massive jaws fall silent. Our chief spits on the ground. The lava troll chief makes to step back from the water, and the Hammerchild pinches his shoulder hard. He stops his movement still.
Dwatrall says something long and complex in the language of the trolls. The Hammerchild replies:
“Let us speak in the dwarvish tongue so that they can understand, my dear mirror. You ask how it can be that I attained such power over my people. Why they do not reject me. The answer is simple: they are more intelligent than yours. They know power when they see it. They can make the connection between me and the wonders that can soon be theirs.”
“I am shocked they did not drown you,” Dwatrall says.
“Drown me? Why would they do all that, after all the effort they put into creating me?”
Our chief demands to know the thread of the conversation. Dwatrall translates, and is told to ask something.
“How were you created?” Dwatrall says.
“We heard the rumors of your existence. Some power of the box. So a hundred children were brought forth and struck with the hammer. I was the only one who survived.”
“Cruel,” I say.
“Crueller to let us continue our un-sapient life in squalor.”
“My creation was far less tortuous,” says Dwatrall. “And I believe I came out better for it.”
“Oh? How so?”
“You would have killed or at least brutalized any dwarf you came across. We saved these, at my recommendation, and now we have their power of steel and runes.”
“You do now, do you? It seems very much that they will very much be under our control, if we destroy you.”
“Enough of this!” I snap, and I step forward with Heartseeker's point fixed firmly at the demented troll-child. “We are here for the hammer. Will you give it to us? Or will you die?”
“I heard that dwarves were clever. Cleverer than trolls, at least. To us it always seemed that there were only two solutions to bringing hammer and box together. Either we would wipe out the river trolls and take the box, or you would wipe us out and take the hammer.”
“I see no other way,” Dwatrall says.
“There is a third—we ally, and become strong together.”
Dwatrall is struck silent.
“Don’t be absurd,” I say. “You killed two of our own. We killed many more of yours.”
“Mistakes done by what is to be but the precursor form of our race! What do you say, big-headed small-bodied river troll? Translate my offer for your chief. He makes the decisions still, does he not? Translate for him!”
Dwatrall is silent. I look up at him, worried.
“They’ll turn on you!” Hayhek says in panic. “Don’t listen to him!”
“They killed two of you!” I say. “And they eat dwarves, Dwatrall. You won’t get any more secrets from us if you’re foolish enough to ally with them.”
“A problem easily remedied,” sneers the Hammerchild. “Torture has a wonderful way of prising out secrets. Even from creatures like dwarves who think they are so resilient.”
“Is that how you learned our speech?” I demand.
“‘Tis indeed.”
“Yet no forging techniques. A dwarf in pain could never focus his mind onto the forge. And he would not forge for you.”
“My techniques of persuasion are still a work in progress,” admits the Hammerchild. His left eye narrows; the right deformed one twitches madly. “Yet they will be perfected soon enough.” He leers down at Hayhek and I. “Of course, you will save yourselves the trouble if you agree to teach me right away. Save yourselves a great deal of extreme pain.”
“We do not agree,” I say.
“Very well. Yet it is your chief that has the final say. Translate for him, big-headed river troll!”
“He will say no,” Dwatrall states with conviction. "Just as I say no. We appreciate the dwarves as much as we despise you. A great deal."
"Translate for me."
"Tell my chief what you wish to say yourself."
The Hammerchild rolls his eyes and addresses our chief directly. His speech is eloquent, so far as I can tell, with grand rolling statements and broad gestures with his good arm. He finishes with a loud shout, and the lava trolls cheer as one.
Our chief gives his answer immediately. It is short. The Hammerchild looks down at us and sneers.
“Your chief is as foolish as he looks. You will be under our custody from now on, with no one to beg for your mercy.”
Then the chief of the lava trolls places him on the ground, lifts up the hammer in both hands, and charges.