Black Troll

Bereth Blacktroll paused, catching his breath. He could sense the celestial passage of the sun and moon, telling him that twilight was settling across the landscape beyond the confines of the forest, but beneath the boughs of the canopy night was already upon him. The summer dark was heavy with humidity. A recent rain had cooled the soil from the heat of the day, conjuring a low lying mist that played about the druid’s feet. The shadows bloated and stretched, obliterating details and obscuring vital landmarks that Bereth had been so careful to take note of during his earlier foray in this direction. He had been able to infiltrate the nearby imperial camp, as was planned. He had stolen a number of documents that would help his people turn the tide of the war in the days to come, also as planned. Not planned, however, was being caught red handed sneaking the documents out of the strong box located in the captain’s tent. Neither had he planned on running for his life from a trio of imperial trackers.
Bereth took a deep, steadying breath, drawing comfort from the earthy smells of peat moss, black soil, and the cleansing scent of the recent rain. His legs trembled but he couldn’t wait any longer. He glanced over his shoulder, pale grey eyes rapidly scanning left to right, seeking some sign of his pursuers and finding none in the deepening darkness. He could still sense them, however, stalking him, far too close for comfort. He wasn’t going to lose them. His only other option was to make it back into friendly territory and raise an alarm, all the while hoping against hope that his allies would recognize him. He was still wearing the red and gold robes of an imperial priest. A few sweat dampened locks of long black hair fell in front of his eyes as he turned around again and he pushed them aside impatiently with one hand, pressing against the rough bark hide of a nearby tree with the other, launching himself into motion. The ground took a sudden rise and Bereth tripped over the hem of his priestly garment as it snagged on the end of a half buried branch. His stumble startled a screech owl which soared off to find a quieter roost, shrieking like a banshee foretelling the druid’s death. It was the kind of motivation Bereth needed in order to completely forget his aches and barrel desperately forward. Something suddenly caught the sleeve of his robe, jerking him to a halt and sending a spear of panic straight to his heart. Bereth tugged against whatever had caught him without looking back. He heard the fabric tear, but it held and Bereth cursed his luck quietly. The imperial gods were mocking him. The steady rhythmic chorus of the thousands of crickets that called the forest home was starting to sound a lot like the whispered laughter of a faceless deity.
Bereth shrugged the pack which carried the vitally important documents to the ground and wriggled free of the priests robe. He would be a laughing stock when he got back to his friends, running into camp in nothing but his boots and his small cloths; matted, muddy, and bloody like some madman from the deep wood. He didn’t care, so long as he survived. Bereth picked up his pack and shouldered it, tightening the strap to ensure that it was secured and then started at a run again before his legs could begin to protest. The earth began to slope gently downward and after only a few yards the slope became steeper. Bereth was forced to slow down or else risk tripping into a headlong tumble down the hill. Below he could see a break in the trees, instigated by the shimmering silver ribbon of a moonlit river cutting through the forest. It was the Hedron, the lifeblood of the west. Bereth had only to follow the river downstream to the first fork and cross Malik’s bridge, then he’d be home free. Rocks slid and gave way beneath his feet. Fallen limbs and branches snagged at his ankles, trying to trip him, but the river murmured in welcome as he approached its bank. Suddenly, something struck the back of his leg. Bereth cried out, startled, just managing to catch the nearby branch of a tree with an outstretched flailing hand, saving himself from a bitter dunk into the river. He didn’t have time to look down at the arrow feathering the calf of his left leg before a second arrow took him in the pit of his outstretched arm, puncturing his lung and knocking the wind out of him. Pain danced before his eyes in bursts of red and black. The fingers clutching the branch went numb. Bereth didn’t realize he had let go of the tree until he felt the sudden cruel embrace of the Hedron’s icy waters. Pain lanced through him, yet even as Bereth’s head split open on a stone jutting up from the river’s edge, he barely registered it all.
In truth, Bereth was in shock. His eyes, now blind from the damage caused by the rock, stared blankly at the shore. The water was too shallow to carry his body away. His blood streamed from the wound in his side, pooling in the gap between his torso and his still outstretched arm. Up on the shore three hooded men in leather armor appeared, looking down at the dying druid as the man struggled vainly for breath.
“Sneaky bastard,” said one man, pulling back his hood to reveal an older soldier living through his fortieth summer. The moonlight caught in his short hair, causing the silvering strands to stand out.
The man standing beside the first, shorter than either of his companions pulled back his hood as well, revealing a younger face, pitted and scarred and shaped like a block of stone.
“Not so sneaky now, eh Crate?” He asked.
“Not so sneaky now,” the third man sneered, climbing down the bank to stand over Bereth’s body. Grinning in the shadows of his hood, he pulled another arrow from the quiver at his back, knocked it and, after taking aim at Bereth’s buttocks, shot an arrow into the druid’s right cheek. “Looks more like a porcupine than a priest,” he said.
The second man howled with laughter but Crate’s mouth twisted in a look of distaste.
“Enough,” he barked, “Just get the damn papers back and let’s go.”
Still chuckling, the tracker on the river bank put down his bow and turned Bereth over, giving the dead man’s head a shove under the water before cutting the strap of the druid’s pack with his knife. He was climbing back up the bank when the second man suddenly yelped.
“What?” Crate asked, “What is it?”
“He moved,” the second man said, staring wide eyed at the corpse in the river.
“He’s dead,” the third man replied, “They do that.”
“Nah,” the second man was shaking his head, “T’was different than that.”
“Shoot him again if you like, “Crate said, shrugging the matter into indifference as he turned and started climbing the slope back up the hill.
The second man nodded, pulling an arrow from his quiver and sighting up the middle of Bereth’s back. As he watched, the druid’s body twitched again in a violent spasm that caused the leg of the corpse to kick at the water with a loud sploosh. Then the skin tore, right up the spine where the second man was about to plant his arrow. Like a seam it split, spreading up and down the length of the druid’s back, releasing a torrent of blood into the river. The body shuddered again and the druid’s pale skin slide away from something black and glistening that seemed to almost bubble from the widening wound.
“Crate!” the third man screamed, panicked. He held his knife in one hand, the druids pack in the other, but like the second man, he was frozen in place.
The mass bulging up from the druid’s corpse burst free with a spray of gore and as Crate came running back to the river bank all three men could see that it was an arm, long and black, corded with muscle and wet with blood. It waved about as if searching for something to grasp. The second man finally loosed his arrow at it but the shaft missed and disappeared into the river beyond. A sickening crack, followed by a wet crunching sound heralded the appearance of a second arm, identical to the first. Now both free, the arms reached up and around, digging into the skin behind the druid’s head with long hooked talons. The split in the skin spread up the corpse’s throat and through the scalp. There was a brief glimpse of blood coated bone, followed by a sharp POP, and the druid’s skull broke open like shattered pottery. From the mess that had been the druid’s head; a new head emerged at the end of a short, heavily muscle neck. The creature forced itself to rise, swelling in size as it freed itself of the druid’s body. With a final tearing sound, it grasped the remains of the druid clinging to its skin and cast the rent flesh aside like discarded rags.
The monster was impossibly large. Its shoulders were wider apart and broader than the druid’s had been. They slumped forward like an old man bending to the weight of time, its long arms dangling close to its bent knees. Even at a slouch, the creature had to stand well over seven feet high, thin and spindly like a bipedal spider, yet corded with taught muscle beneath an abyssal black hide. Thin wisps of blood matted hair hung lank from its scalp and behind long pointed ears that sat high on the creature’s head. It turned to look at the three trackers, snarling. Eyes, like orbs of ebony, glittered in the moonlight beneath a heavy brow. It sniffed the air through a long hooked bill of a nose, smelling the soldiers’ fear and its lips curled in something like a smile, revealing sharp yellow teeth and a black tongue that flicked eagerly along the length of two curving tusks growing from the monster’s lower jaw. Instinctively the second tracker took a step back, turning to look at Crate both perplexed and frightened as he mouthed the word, “Troll.”
The troll bellowed, turning on the third man who still stood closest. A swipe of the monster’s long arm broke his neck and he fell like a sack of stone, the druid’s pack still clutched in his hand. The second man turned to run but the troll clambered up the river bank easily and caught the back of his jerkin, yanking him off his feet. Crate ran as well, driven at first by the agonized scream of his comrade, and then by the sudden silence which followed. Something struck the back of his knees, knocking him flat. Crate rolled over in time to see the second man’s head rolling away back down the hill. The troll was over him then, blocking the moonlight in a demonic eclipse.
“Gods help me,” Crate muttered as the monster reached for him.

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Bereth stood for a moment after the trackers were dead, flexing his troll hands, testing their strength. Druids of the Claw, like many druid orders, had totems to aid them. Unlike other druids, however, who could summon their totems in combat, Bereth’s order transformed into their totem animal in the moment of death. In a few hours he’d have the strength to regain his human form. For now he would hide and wait. The empire would send another group to search for this one eventually. With a troll’s form came a troll’s appetite, and Bereth was very hungry.