Of Monsters and Men

Chapter 13 Hîth Lass

Like every other decision in my life, I regretted making my choice. As of this moment I was tearing quietly through the trees, making my way back towards our camp. I leapt into the small clearing where the ponies grazed and startled a few into rearing back but I didn't care for comforting it now.

My feet thumped hard – sending the vibration up my legs and throughout my body – and I ran up the hill to where the camp sat in silence. The soup that was being passed around had been burned and was clinging to the outside of the pot, just as much as within. It was the consistency of tar or mud, but I wasn't here for the soup. I was here for my swords, which were laying on the ground near the fire.

I bent and took them into my hands, listening to the woods around me. There was the sound of the sludge bubbling and the quiet scrambling of a small creature in the underbrush. My hands were stinging from the blisters I had sustained from using the fire from the troll's camp as a mystical punching glove.

I managed to grab my bag a pull a few small containers of white salt and sage; but I was exhausted; my head was swirling around like my brain had been washed down a thundering fall. I fumbled with the straps on my belt and found myself forgetting how to tie a propped knot. As I looked down at my hands fumbling around my belt I halted abruptly. My hands were bright red and bubbling with blisters. Second degree burns; I knew this because I had seen and treated them before.

They burned and I longed to spend what magic I had left to heal them. I stared at my hands for a moment and I could feel the strange sensation of vanity boil in my chest before I regained my sense. My friends – err my traveling companions – would endure much worse than burns; they could be bled like chickens on the rack or drawn and quartered. The horrific images born of my fear plagued my brain and I looked back the way I had come.

It took little less than a minute for me to find my way back to the troll's camp, and I slithered through the foliage of the forest floor. I found a large bolder and I quietly wedged myself in a perfectly placed crevasse and was able to just see the dwarves and the trolls that were crowded in the camp.

The dwarves were tied up in sacks and being piled onto of one another while a split was constructed. I lay in wait, and my eyes fiercely roamed about, and my ears allowed the chaotic chatter flood my head.

"You're cracking, Bert!" the taller of the tree trolls barked and grunted as be bent his knees to hoist up a log they'd probably fashioned from one of the trees they had uprooted. "There were thirteen of the dwarves, and one Burglarobbit!" He said and set the split turning long upon the stand and bushed offers large meaty hands.

"I am not cracking, William!" The aproned troll swung his ladle at the tall troll he called William, and instead he bonked the thin troll flat on N the head. "I know what I saw, and what I saw was another one of these!" he jutted his long finger out towards Bilbo who was tied up in a sack along with the others. "She hit me broad side with her 'and on fire." The aproned troll they had called Bert rattled on.

"Every side is your broad side." The thin troll grumbled, and the Bert troll turned on him and smacked him in the chest with the ladle before discarding it somewhere in the underbrush. I shuddered when I heard a clank somewhere near me and I looked up at the trolls who had begun to argue and I slowly slid out of my hiding place – crouched like a spider on its dewy web – slinking slowly across the ground of the forest floor.

Dirt and fallen leaves took a liking to my knees and boots while I slunk off a little farther into the woods; I was searching for a very common plant, and it would certainly make my daring rescue easier.

My hands dragged across the earth as I felt around the various plants and brush, searching good and hard without taking an eternity. I stopped when my hands brushed over something thick, fat, and squishy. I didn't shudder at the feeling and I immediately parted the long grass to find the plant I was looking for.