Dark Again

Chapter 5~ Damien

There are leaves on my face, was my first thought when I woke up. Apparently I'm under a log. A spider crawled past my face and I would have jumped out of my skin except I can't move. An acrid smell hangs in the air, and it burned in my nostrils. I looked down as much as I could, trying to see the ropes that must be holding me back. I tried to will myself to move, to do something but it's like I had no control over my own body. I couldn't even yell for help because my mouth wouldn't open. She must've drugged me. Or put a spell on me. Either way, I realize there's nothing I can do. But that doesn't stop me from trying. I slowly try to pull my mouth into a smile. It takes me forever just to accomplish this small feat. 

Then I heard a giant step. And another. And another. Closer and closer until it was almost on top of me. I heard something take a deep inhale through it's nostrils, and the log is ripped away with a roar. 

Yep, I thought to myself. This is how it ends. 

Turns out, it didn't kill me. It grinned at me with teeth the same size and shape of grave markers.

"Well well well..." it said to me in a voice that suggests it frequently gargled with gravel. "I'm sure da boss will find meeting you a real treat! Or should I say eating you? Ah, whatever." The troll picked me up and swung me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

He met up with his ugly buddy and they had a good laugh at my expense. And, of course, I couldn't say anything because the drugs that elf chick gave me still have me paralyzed. They carried me back to their camp, and it might have been just my imagination, but I thought I saw a pair of green eyes and a flash of auburn hair in the trees. The two trolls are chewed out for bringing me back instead of wood. One troll, I would guess it's a she, gave me a look that made me feel small and exposed. It sent chills crawling up my spine. Or that might've been a spider. I shivered, all the same. 

"This one..." she said in a smooth, low voice. "This one is the one the Master wanted."

She said "the Master" like they were an old friend. That might have scared me more than the fact that I was wanted by an unknown party. An unknown party that had trolls working for them. 

The lead troll grunted and inspected my face. "Fine," he growled. "You can have him. But he's your responsibility." He turned and said to me, "If it was up to me, I'd skin and eat you right here and now. So behave."  

Right, I thought. If it was up to me, I wouldn't be here in the first place. 

The lady troll started to drag me back to her tent, a ginormous fur blanket over a coarse rope. Then the person I had to thank for being in this situation leaped from the trees.

Her burning green gaze was like Greek fire, and once it was burned into your vision, it was there for good. She flicked a long silver dagger from her sleeve and pulled a really heavy looking sword from it's sheathe on her back with an ominous sssshhhiiink . It got all the trolls' attention. She leveled it at the she-troll.

"Set down the human. He was my mission. Not yours."

The she-troll bared her teeth. "You have already failed the Master. You are not stable. In fact, I'm not sure the Master would mind if you wound up dead. Best be careful there, sweetie. You're one of the last. Wouldn't want you to go extinct too, now would we?"

The girl's face was stone still. She looked down her straight nose at the offender. "Are you threatening me, Shalka? Because I don't take kindly to people who try to threaten me." A grin like a cat playing with it's food stretched across her tan and freckled face. 

The she-troll, Shalka, dropped me with a grunt and I saw spots as my head bounced against the ground. When my vision cleared, Shalka was circling the girl like a vulture. Something glittered in her hand just before Shalka charged the girl. I thought she was going to get crushed in a millisecond. But instead, she moved like a caged jaguar just released from it's cage. She met the she-troll midair with a slash and a blow to the nose. Her face was contorted with rage and unmasked hate. Shalka stumbled away, and her shoulder was dripping thick black blood, and her nose resembled a crumpled piece of can. 

"Want to go for a round two?" the elvish girl asked. 

"You're losing your touch," Shalka grumbled, "if I'm still breathing." 

In a flash of red hair and the glint of silver, Shalka was on the ground with black blood bubbling from the slit in her throat. The girl had a cruel smile across her face, and I noticed a scar that traced it's way along the back of her neck. "Better?" the girl asked. The last of her breath left Shalka's body. The fearsome maiden turned to the other trolls. 

All but their leader quickly bowed. She walked to him, cleaning both sides of her knife on the backs of his troops as she went. 

"Kneel," she ordered. "You are in the presence of the Master's Chosen One. You will show respect." The troll three times her size laughed. 

"You? Don't make me laughed. Oh wait, too late! You've fallen out of favor." The girl went red, and I thought she was going to slice him up the navel. 

"Not me," she responded. "Him." She pointed her knife at my prone body. His eyes widened. 

"No way."

"Way."  She jumped up and kicked him in the chest. The giant troll went stumbling back. Before he could react, she slashed him through. The look on his dying face said You have got to be kidding me. 

She turned from the corpse to the others. "Run," she said. They did. 

And I was alone with a maniac.