The more they walked the quieter the forest became, as if the owls that hooted so tirelessly fell silent all of a sudden.

Where were they even heading? They called out to the troll’s brother for several hours now.

The giant troll no longer needed support either, although it still limped. Doubt overcame her.

Why was she so adamant about not listening to Hain? Was it because he got on her nerves when he shouldn’t have?

Elise stopped moving and looked around herself. Huh? A foul smell hit her nose and made her shudder with disgust.

Her brows arched down and she wrinkled her nose. It was so pungent that there was no way the troll couldn’t have smelled it too.

“What’s that stench?”

The troll peeked over his shoulder.

“Stench?”

“It smells like… like…”

“Cadavers?”

The troll gestured towards the wilting grass to her right, past some thickets and whatnot. At first, she saw nothing on the damp ground.

Then her eyes landed on what she thought was a pile of huge rocks.

Rabbits. Their fur slit off and guts bowled out of their open bellies in a neat cross.

An urge to vomit took hold of her as she stumbled backwards and as far away from the cadavers as possible. How did she fail to notice something so grotesque, even?

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Before she knew it, something caught in her foot. She followed the troll’s startled eyes.

She trampled on a huge chunk of animal gut. Shrieking on top of her lungs, she tried to get rid of the rotting flesh from her feet.

Too lost in the moment, she didn’t notice that the giant troll kept trying to hush her and looking around with darting, antsy eyes as if it feared someone or something would come out of the shadows and seize them.

Then it said something that broke her off.

“Hurry back! Oh, you must hurry back! Before Ude lays eyes on you, you must leave!”

“Ude…? What are—what was that?”

A strange noise cut through the murk and interrupted her. She shifted her focus from the nervous troll to the surrounding area. What in the world was going on?

“It’s my older brother! He must not see you! If he does…”

The giant troll fell silent. His quivering eyes landed on something behind her. His green face turned pale.

Before she could see what caught his attention, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her behind him, protecting her from whatever it feared was closing in.

“What- what is it?”

The troll hushed her. His alert eyes kept searching the eerily silent woods. What was the matter with it, she thought, and what in the world did it see?

Then a voice came through from behind them and caught them both off guard.

“Watch your back… little brother.”

Elsie shrieked. Something grabbed her by the hair and dragged her through the dirt and grime.

She looked up.

A pair of yellow eyes identical to the giant troll’s met her gaze. But this wasn’t the giant troll. It was smaller in size and skinnier.

The troll grinned, cackling like the wicked thing it was, and dragged her faster and faster.

The cadavers scattered all around stuck to her cloak and smeared it with rotting flesh and old blood.

Even the howling wind drowned out her cries until they faded away for good, helping the trolls in their unlawful hunting.

She hit her head on something. Perhaps a stone. Groaning from the soaring pain reverberating throughout her tense body, her vision became blurry and her head spun like a top.

The taste of iron seeped in through her parted lips.

In the distance, she caught a glimpse of the giant troll. It met her gaze with an apologetic expression on its face, perhaps regretting bringing her to this place.

Everything plunged into darkness.

She passed out.

Ude dragged her into the cave at the end of the fading trail covered with moss, or rather, the lair of trolls in these forgotten parts of the woods.

He wore a proud smile on his hideous face. For once, his stupid little brother actually caught food for supper.