NOVEL FROG Cavern Exile: Trolls' Blood
I have, I realize as I face down my two enemies, the worst possible weapon for fighting them. Spears are for precise strikes at vital areas, but the only method I can see to stop these monsters regenerating is to cut them apart and scatter the bloody chunks, unless there is some vital organ, some center of regenerative magic that I can pierce.
I’m not sure there is one.
The troll on the right lumbers forward and slashes with a vicious left hook. I duck and jab with maximum speed into its belly and out. Orange pours out the wound; the flow abruptly stops. The troll swings a right hook and I block it with my arm, roll with the blow to stop it from knocking me down. Sparks flash. Quickly I stab out again, head height. Heartseeker penetrates into the center of its forehead at an exact square angle and cuts deep into the brain. The lava troll spasms, collapses backwards.
The other swings out, preventing my follow-up attack. I step back out of range and then it spits. The glob is glowing like fire, burning with heat and flying directly at my face. I duck and hear it splatter and sizzle on the ground behind me. Glancing back, I see the troll Hayhek and Dwatrall killed is nearly reformed.
I stab at the second troll again. Its heart is where I aim. I feel Heartseeker probe into the wound after penetration and sense a slight resistance as its black blade pierces the troll’s toughened heartstrings. The troll makes to grab at Heartseeker's shaft. I rip out. Blood pours. The troll clutches its chest and stumbles backward, slumps to a sitting position.
Very purposefully, it cups its hands over the wound. Blood bubbles from its fingers and begins to form a black scab, and now I understand the source of their power. Blood is the key. After it forms a black crust over the gashes and cuts, its magic begins to work.
A look at the troll I stabbed in the head confirms this. Flakes of black are stuck around the now-healed spot where I stabbed its belly, and a swelling bubble of black and orange on its forehead shows me the healing process in its head is ongoing. More flakes of black where the pile of three lay shows me that their power is not limitless either. Healing from the chief's slashes took a lot of blood from them.
The solution then is simple—bleed them out.
The troll with the head wound stands up and, one hand still clasped to its forehead, charges me. I stab at its thigh and the major artery within. Heartseeker sinks in deep then twists of its own accord to maximize the flesh-cutting. The troll groans, stumbles: its charge is slowed and I dodge out the way. It staggers back around in a circle, thigh gushing with blood already forming a black film. I cut out at its head, a light jab just to distract it, then pull back and stab its other thigh.
It falls down to its knees bellowing. I can’t help myself—I laugh. The troll I faced in the arena felt far more powerful, but this armor of mine makes me stronger, faster, more accurate, the deadliest I’ve ever been.
I feint at its belly, then cut upward and stab its neck. Heartseeker spins as I rip it out, shredding the right carotid artery. Blood fountains out and splatters against the far wall.
The troll Hayhek and Dwatrall sliced up fully recovers. I stab out even as it crawls to its feet: low, center, high, center, high. It snatches at Heartseeker, tries to grab it, but I won’t make the same mistake twice. When I draw Heartseeker back from the second high feint, I adjust the angle so it draws against the troll’s wrist, severing every blood vessel in it. Blood sprays downward.
The cave smells like hot iron and sweat, heady and intoxicating.
The troll bellows in anger and slashes a left hook.
“Not very calculating, are you?” I scream-laugh as I shift to let the blow roll off my shoulder.
I draw cut its ankle to sever the tendon there. It staggers forward and I dodge back out of range, stab into both thighs in quick succession. Blood pours out and the troll falls to its knees: two more quick stabs severs both carotid arteries. Twin fountains paint the cave ceiling fluorescent orange.
A roar from behind startles me. I spin around with Heartseeker raised to guard, but I’m too late—the troll I stabbed in the heart is recovered and tackling me. It grabs me in a crushing hug then bodyslams me down. I feel my steel armor bend at the force of the blow. The troll straddles me and slashes at my face. I drop Heartseeker—useless at such close range—to block with my arm.
The force would be enough to send me flying away if I was standing, but of course I am not, so it drives down, bending my armor and rattling my brain. I feel a shiver of shock vibrate through my organs. Another blow comes, just as powerful. I block with my other arm. The claws scratch into my armor. Sparks fly, many sparks, like bright white stars.
Another blow comes. Another. The lava troll is unrelenting, and I can do nothing to attack: I have no time to take up Heartseeker and try to slice with it. All I can do is defend with my arms and fists like a boxer in a cheap miners' gambling pit, but how much more can my armor take?
The troll grabs my wrist on the next blow. It pulls upward, trying to take my arm off. I resist, strain with every ounce of rune-enhanced strength. It grabs my other wrist and spreads my arms open, exposing my face.
Hot steam begins to pour from its jaws. I cry out and try to force my arms back together, but the troll is more than equal in strength. I see the saliva bubbling up behind its teeth.
It spits. I wrench my head to the side so the burning spit does not go into my eyes and mouth—instead it turns the side of my helmet incredibly hot. A red glow fills the left part of my vision. The earhole is sealed—it’s automatically sealed when my visor is down—yet some of the saliva manages to get through and onto my ear.
I scream. I can feel my flesh blackening and crisping into ash.
Abruptly the troll lets go of my wrists and smashes down brutally with both fists at once. I cross my arms over my face, but the fists hit my chest. The steel flexes, my breath is crushed from me.
It raises its arms again.
Dwatrall’s hammer impacts its skull. The brain case shifts to the right while the jaw stays in the same position. Blood spurts from its nose, and its neck stretches, then it falls off me sideways. I roll up, already gripping Heartseeker for the kill.
I stab deep into the lava troll’s neck, severing both carotid arteries in one twisting, rage-fuelled strike. So deep is the wound I can see the spine behind for an instant before it’s obscured by a flood of orange.
The fight isn’t over yet. I spin to look at the other trolls I felled, see if they have recovered.
They have not. Hayhek is methodically removing their hands and feet and throwing them into a pile at the corner of the cave. And the lava troll who I last saw strangling one of the warriors has been cut to pieces by the chief, whose steel-scale is dripping with glowing blood. The two warriors are standing tall, one rubbing his neck and the other panting. His hammer is covered with soft orange blobs.
Peering behind them, I see three lava trolls with heads like splattered fruits and limbs cut to thin slices like sausages at breakfast. The fight is over, then. I lean against the cave wall and slump down.
“All right?” Dwatrall asks.
I remove my helmet and show him my left ear, or at least what’s left of it. It still burns like white hot iron pressed into my skin.
Dwatrall winces. “Going to take a long time to heal.”
“Heal?” I laugh weakly. “I doubt that’s going to happen. At least it didn't get into my earhole.”
He nods. “That was lucky.” He looks at my chest. “Your armor, though...”
I look down. The damage isn’t so bad, dented, and some of the runes in the center of where the twin blows landed are faded.
“I’ll be fine.”
“You did well, slaying two of them alone.”
He’s right—I've slain the second two I fought. Hayhek has removed their hands, but little blood is running from the stumps. My neck-strikes did the job. The sprays of blood on the walls and ceiling are crisping to black and falling down like ash.
“This one’s alive though,” Hayhek says, pointing to the one I first fought, the one that grabbed Heartseeker. Makes sense—despite my slicing of its carotids, it was never carved up quite as badly as the ones the chief slashed. It has enough blood left that it still draws shallow breath.
“I’ll finish it off,” I say, standing up.
“Wait!” Dwatrall says. “We need it alive.”
I halt. Yes, that’s right. We have to capture one. And it is this unlucky one, then, that is marked for torture.
“Cut its feet off, Hayhek,” Dwatrall requests. “We don’t want it escaping.”
As Hayhek begins to hack its ankles, I turn my head so the troll can see my ruined ear.
“An ear I can forgive,” I say. Then I hold up Heartseeker lengthways, spin it so the runes flash in the fiery glow of the blood-painted walls. “But you tried to break my weapon before. And a dwarf won’t forgive anyone or anything that tries to ruin his craft.”