Chapter Fourteen: Troll

Fourteen

The scout was fast. Dane leveled his tracking skill to F-2 as they followed after the Aji-Abami. Tolic’s corpse had collapsed and the spirit floated along, inane chattering flowing in an unstoppable stream.

“So we’re robbing this stage and the owner hops out and you’re not going to believe it, it’s a woman!” Tolic continued on his story as Dane saw a scuffed piece of bark on a tree, his skill tugging at his attention.

“Why is this surprising?” Dane asked half heartedly.

“There’s no women on my planet! They live on the habitable moon. So, as you can imagine, we were shockingly surprised when a woman came out of the carriage. She was gorgeous, Dane! Ten and half feet tall and her musculature looked like she was carved from marble.” The spirit sighed as he floated along, lost in his reverie.

“And seeing as you’re damned, I assumed you did foul and grotesque things?” Dane said, shooting the spirit a hard look.

“Dane, she ripped my lower arms off and beat my fellow bandits to death with them. They made good clubs since my arms are so big,” Tolic followed up his pseudo-brag by flexing his biceps.

“That’s the day I died. And developed a fetish but that’s not really material to this discussion,” Tolic said.

“Tolic, I don’t think any of this was material to our discussion. I wanted to know if you know anything about how to advance a demonic bloodline!” Dane spat out through his gritted teeth as he finally peeled his gaze away from the hints of a trail he was following.

“I’m not a demon. Why would I know about how to develop a bloodline?” Tolic said with a blank look of confusion. Dane took a deep breath and looked up into the sky and wondered if there was a chance that banishing Tolic would allow him to spawn a new spirit or if he really was stuck with this one.

“I can hear fighting up ahead,” Tolic said, straightening up and looking serious suddenly. Dane exhaled and looked down and cocked his head to try to listen. Aji-Abami yips and growls, so faint he could hardly hear them.

“Alright, let’s go. Quietly,” Dane said to the spirit and the two of them moved together heading toward the sounds. His eyes kept picking up hints of the trail, but they didn’t need it anymore as the trail led directly to the sounds of fighting.

CRACK

An explosion of sound as a tree was shattered and Dane froze behind a tree, looking around the edge and into a fight that he was shocked to see. It was a troll. A basic monster that often appeared with integrations. Eight feet tall with leathery mossy green skin with wide folds that rolled over its body. It had two ears on each side of its wide head, wide and batlike; they swiveled about constantly as the troll stepped back and roared at the line of figures around it.

Aji-Abami troops with long spears stabbed over and over at the troll, slashing apart the skin like it was paper thin, runny pink blood flowed like rivers to pool on the ground as the troll swung a chunk of a tree around in wide, awkward brutal swings.

Dane looked at the Aji-Abami who were fighting the troll and realized they were much bigger than the scouts he had been fighting for the majority of the last week. Half a head taller with broad shoulders and in full armor, they used shield and spears to keep the troll at bay, but their efforts hadn’t been without losses. A trio of still figures were laying about and two others were moaning softly at they twisted and turned in agony, limbs broken and twisted.

“Can you take one of those wounded bodies?” Dane asked Tolic. The spirit looked at the torn and broken bodies and then back at Dane and raised an eyebrow.

“You want me to use one of those bodies? I should just take the troll.”

“Can you take the troll?” Dane asked in genuine surprise. Tolic had needed that monster they had fought earlier to be gravely injured.

“Not at the moment. But trolls have powerful regeneration talents that are weakened or completely countered by fire. You have fire.”

“I only have one shot before I need to cool down. There’s eight Aji-Abami there, including the scout who will undoubtedly tell them about us,” Dane replied. He didn’t want to lose his most powerful ability on just wounding the troll. The thought of not engaging the Aji-Abami and troll didn’t cross his mind.

“Exactly. You can’t kill all of them with your one ability. You can hurt the troll enough for me to take over it. I am the second half of your ability skillset, don’t forget that.”

“I hit the troll with flame, you hop in it and then you kill all of them?”

“What? No. You hit it with fire and then I help you kill the rest of them. That troll is big and strong but slow. I doubt I can kill them all before I’m cut to ribbons. Especially if it’s all burnt up. You’re going to have to use that sword.”

“On three?”

“No. Just shoot it!” Tolic sounded as exasperated as Dane felt. Dane swung around the side of the tree and drew forth the [ Hellfire ] into him and out through his left hand. His skin turned bright red as the violet-black flame left his hand and crossed the distance to strike the troll in its side with a thunderous blast. Fat and flesh burned away instantaneously and the troll’s wide head shot backward as it bellowed in agony.

Two of the Aji-Abami were thrown backward by the blast, but the others hunkered behind their shields. Tolic shot across the distance in a burst of speed that Dane didn’t think the spirit could achieve. All four arms dove into the burning wound and Tolic screeched in pain even as he wormed his way into the troll. The [ Hellfire ] had burned the spirit.

The fire can harm incorporeal creatures, good to know.

Dane drew his stolen sword and raced toward the closest of the Aji-Abami warriors. The warrior turned at the last moment to see him and spun around to meet his charge. A strong thrust sent the spear out toward him and Dane stopped dead in his tracks and twisted at the waist. Sharp metal passed inches from his sword arm and Dane slapped the shaft away with the flat of his sword as he accelerated toward the soldier.

His still red hot left hand grabbed the pommel of his sacrificial dagger from the back of his belt. Dane stabbed with his blade and the soldier blocked it with his shield as he backpedaled to create room to use the long spear. Dane kept close to him and rammed the dagger into the Aji-Abami’s gut.

Hot blood felt cool on his inflamed left hand. Growls rolled out of the Aji-Abami as it tried to get away, but Dane kept close as the dagger did its work. Within seconds the large warrior fell over, drained by the dagger as Dane looked about the larger battle. Tolic was keeping the rest of the warriors occupied but the scout they had tracked had drawn his own sword and was charging toward Dane.

Sidestepping clear of the body, Dane set himself to take the charge, as steel rang on steel. Clever footwork by the scout kept Dane on the backfoot for a moment before he saw through the scout’s defense. It was a matter of a few moments, trapping the scout’s sword with a fast twist of his own and stabbed him in the throat with the dagger.

Tolic was on a roll as spears stabbed deep into the troll’s body without harming the spirit. Two crushed bodies that looked like paste were by Tolic’s feet and the upraised log was the herald of doom for a third. The scout died and Dane pulled the dagger free just as Tolic dropped the log down with finality on his third opponent.

All three of the remaining warriors were so focused on Tolic that they didn’t even see Dane as he rushed behind them and stabbed the closest one with the dagger. It stiffened as the blade punched through its back and Tolic crushed the middle one, leaving only warrior left of the squad.

Dane left the dagger in the Aji-Abami’s back and stepped around the squashed middle soldier and toward the last of the Aji-Abami. The warrior drew a short sword as its spear was still stuck in Tolic’s borrowed body. They met with a series of testing strikes, Dane at the disadvantage as the bigger warrior still had his shield. Dane leaned back to let the edge of the blade pass by his neck, but his return blow was deflected by the round shield with a metallic clang .

They danced back and forth for a few minutes and Dane was beginning to grow frustrated as the fully armored foe kept just ahead of him. Each blow was slightly stronger, each recovery just a hair faster, all of it slowly neutralizing Dane’s advantage of being more skilled with the blade. It had earned levels and those levels had gone toward its physical growth in a way that Dane’s few levels couldn’t compare to.

Tolic kicked the Aji-Abami like he was punting a ball and the warrior pinwheeled across the sky to hit a tree. Even from a distance Dane could hear the cracking bones as the warrior fell from the sky and hit the ground with a resounding thud .

“I had him,” Dane said, looking accusatory at the possessed troll. Tolic shrugged his broad shoulders and then pointed toward the dagger and then toward his own broad chest.

“You’re going to hop out and you want me to collect it?” Dane asked. Tolic bobbed his big head and they did just that. Tolic knelt down and pointed a broad finger to where Dane should stab and then proceeded to rip his way out of the body. Dane stabbed the troll and watched as the red runes lit up with a vengeance as the troll looked around stupidly for a moment before collapsing.

Ding!