Cupcake scented the ground near a small creek as everyone passed by, observing the trails of crystal-clear water flowing downhill. The she-wolf was certain she had caught onto a winter hare’s trail and wanted to give chase, but Emily ushered her to follow the rest of the Wandering Fangs. Over the last two days, their column had traveled over the plains, coming into contact with several bands of elves but not much else. Emily had been fighting near the front, securing quite a few kills of her own, totaling around twenty lives' worth of vitality.

At this point, her power was happily coiling through her body, and she had spent the last couple of days learning runes from Ashe to improve her spells. Alex even helped Emily in her downtime with a few of the more confusing runes that Ashe had given as homework. It was like learning a new language altogether, and Emily was enjoying every moment.

Their relaxed journey ended when Emily caught sight of their destination. She had first spotted it the previous afternoon and had watched it draw nearer ever since.

It turned out to be a range of mountains stretching towards the sky with numerous sharp peaks. Their summits disappeared into the clouds, and the mountains stood like a massive wall extending as far as the eye could see in either direction. Their jagged nature was reminiscent of a set of teeth breaking the horizon. Emily could easily understand why people thought of this place as a great beast's maw.

They had arrived at the base of these mountains late this morning and Kael had decided there was still plenty light to press forward. So they’d been taking a short rest while Atticus and his men sussed out the best direction to enter from.

Kael's voice started Emily from her reverie.

“Alright men, let’s move. We’ll be entering through the southern valley. Keep your senses about you and don’t underestimate the trolls, they’re slow but they pack one hell of a punch!”

With Tehila here the wandering fang's morale was at an all-time high as shouts went up from their group.

Emily clicked her tongue and Cupcake advanced along with all the others while she took the sights in.

The pass they were entering through was more of a narrow basin that ran between two large mountains. The moment they entered they moved to one side as a stream ran down behind them, joining with the larger pool of water at the bottom.

Emily also noted that as they proceeded through the valley, she could feel a gentle incline.

Soft soil gave way to darker rock and coarse sand, making it harder for the forest’s trees to follow them up.

At one point, Emily turned around and saw that they had completely left the treeline behind. The canopies of branches gave way to open skies, stretching out before them. They had found themselves in a large open expanse, the stone beneath their feet a dark grey, almost volcanic in appearance. The landscape only grew more drab as they continued to ascend. Emily was readjusting herself in the Cupcakes saddle when the Rime wolf suddenly went very still. Many of the wolves did the same as though sensing something approaching.

Emily glanced at Tehila behind her and saw the woman frowning up at her.

She placed a finger to her mouth –a symbol she’d had to explain meant quiet– and silenced Tehila’s harp.

The nearest sound of rock clattering against rock echoed off in the distance, this only further worried Emily as her hand lowered to her side.

With the trees no longer blocking their vision, they had an unobstructed view of everything around them, but at the same time, they had lost their tree cover.

Emily stood out in the open like a sitting duck as the rumbling turned to a low shaking, her eyes roaming the landscape but unable to find the threat.

Cupcake lowered her stance to prevent the trembling in the surrounding earth from throwing her to the ground.

The worst was at the front of the pack where Emily could make out that the ground was crumbling in front of them as something broke its way from the stone.

Emily glanced to her side just in time to see Ashe on Selia’s Rime wolf pointing to a much more nearby patch of ground.

“Get back, it’s coming!”

Being that she was a Green Mage Emily didn’t hesitate to put distance between her and the spot Ashe pointed to. She had Cupcake move away from that area, even though the she-wolf had to struggle to remain standing.

Then, as though to prove Ashe right, a nearby boulder—half-submerged in the earth—suddenly began to splinter apart. It wasn’t exploding, per se, but more like an animal emerging from its shell.

The creature that crawled out was more humanoid than Emily had initially expected. As its frame lengthened to its full height, Emily estimated it to be around three meters tall, with gray skin that blended in with the surrounding rock. Its skin was so glossy that it reminded her of volcanic glass, cracking and splintering every time its joints ground together.

The most disconcerting part of the creature’s body was its neck—or rather, the lack thereof. Its head seemed sunken into its chest cavity, which only made it look more unnatural, as its large maw began much lower than Emily was accustomed to. And what a maw it was, filled with rows upon rows of jagged teeth, not unlike the mountains they now found themselves in.

The creature’s limbs were thin, contrasting with its barrel-like core. Emily couldn’t understand how such monsters could exist.

From what Alex had told her, they slept most of their lives but when they were awake they subsisted on any living thing they came across, and even some non-living ones, yet that still didn’t seem like enough to sustain them. It was more accurate to say they resembled stomachs on legs.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Ashe shouted out to the men and women caught unawares.

“The trolls have arrived! One is in the center of the formation! Keep your distance!”

Having unknowingly walked over one of these creatures, the group was reeling as they shattered, buying time to figure out how to deal with these creatures. To make matters worse, an even bigger problem was making itself known up ahead.

On the path before them, Emily saw five more trolls awakening from their dormant states, pushing the rock aside as they crawled from the dry earth.

The one silver lining here was that while they had been surprised by the trolls, the creatures had not been able to take advantage of it. This was because their relative speed was easily dealt with.

When the long, twisted arms of the nearby troll reached out for the closest rider, it never even got close before the Rime wolf he was riding carried him to safety.

The troll opened its huge mouth and let out a ravenous cry, revealing a dark throat that wanted to consume people whole.

Its eyes were tiny, and it seemed to be searching its vicinity with a lazy hunger.

“Remember! Don’t try to block them! Just keep moving!” Kael shouted over the crowd.

They had discussed the kinds of monsters they might encounter out here, and besides the elves, trolls were the next most likely candidates. Unfortunately, the tactics for dealing with trolls were a little different.

Emily urged Cupcake forward while their group maneuvered around the troll. As she got closer, she let her energy flow into the scepter and launched an attack at its face.

The impact detonated against the troll’s head, causing it to swing its arms wildly as it fell backward. Even as it crashed down, people kept moving, maintaining a growing distance from the creature. The attack Emily had launched hadn’t even left a mark, and she grunted in frustration, realizing that Alex had been right.

Trolls were incredibly slow, but their true threat lay in their endurance. They could withstand an incredible beating before their bodies began to shut down. This meant they needed to approach these creatures differently. Engaging them directly was out of the question, as their brute strength could turn rock to powder.

Running away wasn’t an option either.

Trolls had an exceptional sense of smell, making them relentless trackers, even in the harshest environments. Though they were slow to start, once they got going, they could chase their prey down at impressive speeds. They would follow creatures for hundreds of kilometers with single-minded focus and endurance to spare. The only things that could dissuade them were death or a distraction that crossed their path.

This left them with only one solution: kill them on the move."

They had to slow down their speed to outpace the trolls by a hair while their ranged fighters rained down death on them from afar. It was an incredibly wasteful method, but the creatures were so resilient to all forms of attack that they didn’t have much other option.

Only the fastest melee fighters had the chance to move in and retreat before they were surrounded. One of those was Kael and the other was Atticus. They moved in with their spear and twin sabers and attempted to cut into the marble-sized eye sockets but even with their full attention, it was a hard target to hit. Not to mention the eyelid proved to be just as tough as the rest of their body.

Alex was another one who tried to get in close before fleeing on mist, but all their attacks seemed only to make the trolls angrier. Fortunately, they weren't the smartest creatures.

Emily decided she wanted to these creatures' resilient capabilities. So she gave Tehila the reins and turned around in the saddle, maneuvering around to the back end of Cupcake.

“Get me as close as you can old girl! I’ll make sure you reward you!” Emily grinned as she slapped Cupcakes rump and the she-wolf slowed begrudgingly.

The six trolls were already in chase mode, and while their people had managed to do some damage to two of the creatures they were still far from dead.

The trolls charged after the group of Rimewolves like six angry freight trains, completely unfazed by the peppering of attacks raining down on them.

Emily drew her scepter into her left hand and began by letting her source freely flow into the weapon. To add to that Emily fixed her gaze on the one near the middle of the pack and opened her bridge using the stream method. The grey source was everywhere here and it flooded her body, rushing towards the artifact.

By now there was a large amount of source in the scepter and it was practically vibrating in her hand.

“Alright, let’s see how much you can handle—”

Bringing her arm down, Emily triggered the spell, sending a ball of energy toward her chosen target. The first projectile was not even halfway to the troll before she charged another one and released it. A third shot followed quickly, and the first ball hit the troll dead center in the chest. It hardly slowed, but then the next one arrived. When the third and fourth shots struck, the troll's movement began to slow, each impact pushing it back just slightly.

Emily paused to give the creature time to pick up its pace again, then released another four attacks in quick succession. With each hit, the troll looked worse for wear.

As she launched her next volley, Emily quickly realized that while trolls were nearly impervious to most attacks, they weren’t immune. When the twelfth hit landed, the troll stumbled, its chest partly caved in as its entire sternum collapsed.

Still, it somehow kept running, battered and bruised in ways that would have killed any other human.

Emily laughed freely as she prepared her next volley. “It has less self-preservation than brains!” she chortled.

When the fifteenth shot hit the troll, it hobbled to a stop, unable to move on. The skin on its front had been tenderized to a soft texture, and the organs in its barrel-like frame had been turned to slurry. The creature kept trying to take a step forward but seemed incapable until it finally fell to its knees. Before Cupcake pulled them out of range, Emily fired one last ball aimed at its nonexistent neck. There was a clear sound of something cracking inside, and a wave of life force poured into Emily, easily worth five lives on its own.

“Okay, so it only took sixteen to kill one—easy,” Emily snickered.

The truth was that using the scepter sixteen times had tired her out, but not nearly as much as it should have.

She could still go for a while it was better to conserve energy. While she had been busy The wandering fangs had not been idle, they had rained down attacks and taken down another two. While Kael had taken out one on his own.

Atticus and Alex had worked together and their one was almost dead, so that just left the slowest one still coming after them, even after it had seen all of its brethren die, it didn’t hesitate.

Ashe was running just ahead of Cupcake and she had Selia slow the mount to be parallel to Emily before glancing over at her and winking.

“The Green source is so plentiful here!”

Surprised by her friend's playfulness, Emily watched as she made several long hand gestures and then it all made sense. She was a Green Mage surrounded by loose earth and sand, she was truly in her element. All at once earth rose up around her and condensed into the air above her. Rapidly taking the form of a spear, only this one was easily the size of a lamppost as it spiked downward and stabbed into the remaining monster. The troll was then encased in a layer of rock and stone as the medium opened up a hole in its chest and allowed its hardened guts to fall out into the gravel.

Emily looked over at the woman with a grin, who still had the decency to look queasy at what she'd done. Over all the entire fight had taken over half an hour on wolf-back, and they were well and truly in the maw.

Blood points: 187