Chapter 7 (conclusion)

That changed when the company reached the harbor. There the small troop of heroes encountered their first serious opposition. As they reached the pier, the companions were confronted by a solid knot of at least 40 trolls who, despite their antipathy for water, were being spurred onto the docks by a trollkin chief and his shaman. Urki and the other's drew their weapons as they clattered to a halt.

The chief and his shaman were distinguished from the other trolls by their jewelry. Each wore a thick band of silver around its arm. The chief was further distinguished by a crystal like the one Jerrod had found which hung from a chain around his neck and by his immense genitalia which waved proudly as he turned to face the companions. The rest of the trolls also turned to face this sudden threat, their backs now to the water.

Their chief roared a challenge and they began to move forward as one. The horses started to panic at the sight of so many hungry trolls roaring their rage. It was all the majority of the company could do just to keep their mounts. Fortunately, Urki was a bit better horseman than most of the others and was able to keep control of his mount. As the first troll reached him, he swung his sword as if the god of war himself powered his arm. The top half of the lead troll fell in one direction and the bottom fell in another. The rest of the trolls momentarily slowed at the sight of this fearsome stroke, then surged forward again.

By then, Derazha had regained control of her own mount and spurred forward to assist Urki in their desperate battle. The pack horses were a hindrance to the others. Their frightened shuffling and panicked efforts to avoid the trolls tended to obstruct the other members of the party from helping each other or the two facing the main body of trolls. Nonetheless, Enki tried to drive her horse through to her brother's side. Despite here best efforts she made little headway. There were too many horses frantically prancing about between them for her to succeed. Neun Ja slipped into the shadows, but the horses made it impossible for her to pass as well. Wolf seemed to have a calming effect on his own mount, but the attached pack animals were as wild as any of those of the others. Brianna had unhitched her axe but its tremendous size and weight made it a poor cavalry weapon. It was even less effective when the only flesh near enough for it to hew was that of her friends and their horses. Ordolf was too busy trying to control his mount before its mad bucking sent him careening through the air to be able to harness a spell.

The trolls had regrouped from their initial consternation at Urki's tremendous blow. The chief was urging his warriors forward and several had closed on Urki and Derazha. More pressed forward. The fighting quickly grew fierce. Urki and Derazha were fighting like champions. Trolls were falling to his blade and her claws at a fearsome rate, but for each one that fell another or even two more seemed to take its place. Nor were the two heroes escaping injury of their own. Despite their valorous efforts, their bodies were rapidly becoming covered with dozens of oozing wounds that had been opened by slashes from the claws of the trolls that they faced.

Jerrod watched the battle's progress from his bucking mount with dismay. He could see that his friends needed help. But he could barely stay on his horse let alone move it forward into the fray. Besides, he was no good with a sword. In fact, he didn't even have one. Jerrod only had one spell prepared, the lightning bolt he had prepared while in on the second floor of the inn. While it was indubitably deadly, it would only kill one troll and that hardly seemed likely to be enough. Thinking of his spell reminded Jerrod to check and make sure it was still hung properly. As he checked, he felt a strong tug on the nearby mana strands. Jerrod psychically followed the disturbance to its source and saw that it was the troll shaman preparing a spell.

Looking toward the shaman with his eyes as well, Jerrod saw much the same story. Gathering around the troll spellcaster was the black cloud of some sort of death spell like that with which Ordolf had so effectively dispatched the trolls earlier. As Jerrod watched, it rapidly grew more solid as the spell neared its completion. The shaman began to chant to direct his creation.

The night was suddenly rent by a bloodcurdling shriek of pain. It was quickly followed by howls of triumph as the trolls saw Derazha fall. Bleeding from a tremendous gash on her thigh, Derazha surged back up quickly, but the superior numbers of the trolls soon began to bear her down once more.

When Derazha fell, Urki became even more hard pressed than he had already been. No longer protected on his left side by his stalwart companion, Urki was now surrounded on all sides by trolls. He no longer could defend himself from all of the trolls' blows. More and more began to slip past his guards. He knew he would soon let a blow past his guard that would fell him.

Things seemed bleak. Derazha was being overborne and Urki was fighting a rapidly losing battle as the troll shaman was loosing a death spell. Their friends couldn't get past their own pack animals to aid them. In fact, things not only seemed bleak, they looked as if the couldn't get much worse.

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The old mage stopped his narrative for a moment, removed a pipe from somewhere amid his robes, tapped it lightly against the side of his chair to clear any remnants of its last load and determinedly began to rummage through his pockets with a frown. At last, after what seemed to his audience in the in he found whatever it was looking for and pulled out a pouch from one of his many pockets. He extracted a pinch of some sort of herbal mixture and stuffed it into his pipe. Putting the business end of his pipe between his teeth, with a mutter and a tap of his forefinger he lit the dried herbage in the blackened briar, closed his eyes and began to puff contentedly. After a moment, he opened his eyes and looked out at his audience once again with a smile as began to speak once more.

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Fortunately, they did or this tale would hardly be worth telling. In fact, things began to improve remarkably swiftly. Jerrod realized that now was the time use his stored spell. If he killed the trollkin spellcaster with it, not only would the troll die, but its spell would be aborted. At the very least, that would protect from the party from the troll's dark magic. Better still was the possibility that the chained magic which the troll was harnessing would even loose itself with dire effect upon the those nearest it -- the trolls. Crossing his fingers, Jerrod released his spell at the troll shaman.

As Jerrod hurled his bolt of mana, Enki finally negotiated the maze of horseflesh that was preventing her from engaging the trolls. She spurred to her brother's side and quickly alleviated some of the pressure under which Urki was beginning to wither by adding her sword to the fray.

Neun Ja, too, had found a way out of the wall of horses that had kept her hemmed in. Instead of going through, she went over. Still wearing her cloak of shadow, she leapt lightly from the back of her horse to the back of another nearer the fray. From that steed she leapt to another, and, from there, to another and another until she had reached the melee in front of her. Once she had reached the battle front, she brought her blade to Derazha's defense.

Blood appeared from first one troll's throat and then another as if by magic. And indeed it was by magic or least magically aided. Neun Ja's shadow magic made her invisible to the trolls as she slipped from one to another slitting their throats with her keen dirk. Unlike the second troll she had slain in the tap room of the Laughing Cavalier, none of the trolls they faced saw her. She had no more than begun her grisly work when Derazha surged up once more flinging trolls from her as if they were matchsticks.

The troll chief howled his dismay. His caterwaul was suddenly joined by his shaman's scream of agony as Jerrod's spell struck it. The death spell dispersed, releasing its energy in random bolts of deadly energy which thinned the rear ranks of the trolls.

All of this happened in the blink of an eye, but the sudden reversal of fortune did not break the trolls' spirit. It might well have done so under ordinary circumstances. Now, however, the trolls were caught between the water on the one side and the deadly blades of the adventurers on the other. While a human might well have leapt into the garbage floating in the harbor to escape, one threat was as bad as the other to the trolls. The trollkin chief screamed his defiance and exhorted his followers to press the attack forward.

The trolls still had numbers on their side and it was a near thing, but the octet of heroes slowly slew their enemies. Perhaps if there had been more room so they could bring their greater numbers to bear, the trolls would have prevailed. Instead, one by one the trolls fell. Finally, only their chief was left.

Facing Derazha, the troll leader struck his own massive chest with a fist and waved an enormous battle axe as he roared something at Derazha in the language of the trolls. The half-troll stared mockingly at the bristling troll commander. She snarled her contempt as her right arm moved like lightning and her claws caught him by the throat. With a twist, she ripped his head from his body and tossed it aside with a howl of triumph.

Jerrod breathed a sigh of relief. The battle was over. Each of the companions had survived. Still, Jerrod was troubled. When Derazha had torn the troll chieftain's head from his body and tossed it contemptuously aside, it had landed near him. It had had a grin of triumph on its face despite the slaughter of the chief himself and all his forces. That disturbed Jerrod. It couldn't be important. The path to the Mermaid's Tit was now clear. The trolls were either slain or behind them ravaging elsewhere in Nova Ekirigilio. Still, for reasons he could not explain, the grinning skull frightened Jerrod nearly as much as the trolls themselves had. Mayhap, the troll's last words to Derazha would explain its triumphant mien. Jerrod resolved to ask her at his next opportunity.

Having dispatched the trolls, the party made swiftly for their ship. As they neared its moorage, they saw that the ship was leaving its slip. Apparently, the sight of so many trolls on the dock had convinced the captain that the half of an hour which he had promised Neun Ja had elapsed or that there was no way that his passengers could make it back to the ship.

Urki's bloody face was the picture of frustration. "After all that! First, we are captured by trolls. Then, we escape thanks to Neun Ja. Finally, we overcome more than two score trolls on our way to our ship. Only to find out it is sailing without us? If it wasn't for bad luck, why we would have no luck at all!"

Wolf smiled at the younger warrior. "Don't be so hasty, lad. Take another look. The captain is coming back!"

And indeed, Wolf was right. The captain had apparently seen what had transpired on the dock between Jerrod and his friends and the trolls. Seeing the last of the trolls fall, he had ordered his crew to return to the quay.

The Mermaid's Tit drew slowly to a halt. It then began making its way into its slip. Its deck was swarming with activity as the crew made ready to receive its newly arrived passengers. Hatches, having just been closed, were being reopened. Ropes were being made ready to fasten to the cleats on the docks. And most importantly, of course, for Jerrod and company, the gangplank was being made ready for lowering.

As the ship bumped the pier, the gangplank hit the ground and sailors leapt over the sides of the Mermaid's Tit to fasten it temporarily to the quay once more. The adventurers showed no less haste then the crew. Leaping off of their mounts, they quickly grabbed the horses lead reins and led their horses on board the ship.