I edge backwards a few more paces and stop just before the trench. The trolls pause for a second. The one whose leg and arm I stabbed is hanging a little further back. There's a strange expression on its face. Pain? Maybe iron trolls cover themselves in armor because, unlike other trolls, they can feel it.
This won't make much difference if the fight's to be twelve on one. Should I charge? Briefly I consider it. I imagine myself leaping toward one troll, or another, diving this way or that.
Every scenario I consider through ends with the hulking brutes crushing me to scrap and red paste, but to run away would mean failure and shame in front of thousands.
So I come up with a better idea. Very slowly, and calmly, not taking my eyes off the trolls, not even blinking, I step backwards over the trench so that I'm just one pace ahead of the rest of the dwarves.
“Well?” I bellow. “What are you all waiting for?”
No response.
“You going to leave me to do all the work?”
“Be our guest,” the runeknight with the golden sword says.
“Too cowardly to go in, are you?”
“We're not hanging back to spite you, Zathar,” says the one in platinum. “Not everything centers around you, you know. Look back.”
“I'm not taking my eyes off the trolls,” I tell him. Does he take me for a complete fool? I'm not falling for that trick.
“Then listen carefully!” he snaps.
I frown, and do so. I can hear marching. I risk a quick glance back. My breath catches in my lungs—a phalanx of runeknights is coming up the slope, led by high-ranking examiners in their distinctive red cloaks.
“They've realized they fucked up. After that debacle in the initiates' exam, Thanic Guard Ratalak doesn't want to lose any more dwarves. So they're calling a halt to it. No need for us to do anything. They'll give us something easier.”
“I see.”
“So you should take a step back, if you want to live.”
“You're really happy to let them complete our examination for us?”
“Whelp. You don't get to live to forge as long as we do without learning how to pick your battles.”
“Is your guild watching you?” I ask.
“Of course. They'll understand.”
I laugh bitterly. “You don't feel any shame at all, do you? Any of you?”
I'm expecting silence, or a few insults, but to my shock, two of the runeknights step forward.
“He's right,” one says. “They're only trolls, for fuck's sake. And there's only twelve of them. One each.”
“Are you out of your mind?” says the one with the golden sword. “Just wait! They're calling it off!”
Another runeknight steps forward. His sword is curved, and glows greenish. “I heard that the initiates who ran from their monster are failed permanently. It won't look good if we do the same as them.”
“Permanent failure? Absurd. Just hang back.”
“Still won't look good.”
“Exactly!” I say. “Are we runeknights or cowards? Are we dwarves in armor, or elves wearing leaves and skins? Come on!”
I step over the trench. The two who backed me up follow suit. A few more do, then a few more. Then the one in platinum scales curses, pushes down his visor and steps across also.
“Morons!” spits the runeknight with the golden sword, as he becomes the last to join us, still shaking his head.
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I raise my pick and am about to shout charge, when the rest of them beat me to it. They scream and launch themselves forward. I hurry to follow. The trolls lumber to meet us, swinging iron-clad fists and lobbing chunks of rock. Their roars sound like plates of iron are being torn in two within their barrel-chests.
I duck a rock, and now I'm in the midst of the battle. I stab with my pick to the left, to the right, up to the soft parts under jaws and down to feet. The darkness is all fast-moving blurs, trollish roars, and shouts and screams of pain. I smell sweat and blood, violence. My armor quickly becomes so drenched that troll blood is soaking through the padding and congealing on my skin.
A fist hits me square in the chest. I feel my plate bend and I fly backward, manage to roll when I hit stone. I duck the attack of another troll and swing into its belly. The pick goes right through. It bellows, clutches at the wound as I tear my steel out. A second later, a glowing green blade sweeps clean through its knee. It collapses—my pick is raised before it hits the ground—the moment it does, I sink the steel deep into its head.
It falls onto its back with a crash. The runeknight with the green blade grins at me, then his lapse in concentration is punished brutally; a troll behind stomps him. Its foot hits his shoulder, forcing him down. The foot continues down, crushing his armor like it's a thin sheet of tin. His arm is flattened onto the stone. He screams. I bury my pick in the troll's stomach. It grunts, but that's all. This bastard's tougher than the others, bigger too. It hits me with a liver-shot, sending me airborne. I crash down the slope—it's thrown me clean out the battle.
I'm rolling, rolling, down and down once more, but faster this time. I'm nearly at the examiners—I fly through a gap in their columns. I continue to bounce down the rock. My armor is making horrible tearing and grinding noises. I remember what weapon I'm holding and swing to try and stop myself, but the steel fails to bite. I swing again. I nearly get it, strike hard enough to slow myself.
Oh, shit. The same massive troll that sent me flying is charging after me. Its momentum is inevitable—one of the senior examiners steps into its path with shield raised and is smashed away. The runeknights behind him throw themselves to either side.
My pickaxe bites the stone deep. My spinning abruptly stops; my shoulders are nearly torn from their sockets by the sudden halt in momentum. But I've finally managed to stop my fall, though I'm now all the way down on the flat where the carriage first dropped us off. I stand up unsteadily. My head is ringing and my legs are shaking. I raise my pick and my side hurts something terrible. I glance down—my armor is a dented mess, the titanium torn in several places. My boots slide a little and my grip feels weak. My runes are damaged.
“I'll kill you!” I scream up at the troll. “Kill every one of you bastards!”
Its eyes are locked with mine. Shit! Why in hell's it going for me, rushing so fast, getting closer by the second? What's happened to the rest of the runeknights? Why isn't it fighting them? Are they all dead? Surely not.
Some irrational rage has taken hold of it. Maybe my hit to the belly was more painful than it seemed. Or maybe it just wants to go out in a blaze of glory, crushing me down so it can then meet a more glorious end at the hands of more powerful dwarves.
No. Somehow I doubt it understands the concept of a glorious death. All it's interested in is killing me.
Any moment now—now!—I swing. My strike is half a block, aimed at its oncoming fist. The steel goes right through its armored knuckles and sinks deep into its hand. Then, the force of the troll's punch swings me high. Air whistles past my helmet.
My momentum slows and stops. I look down and my eyes widen. I hadn't calculated for this; I'm in the air above the troll, hanging from its fist by my pick, and unable to extract it.
The troll draws back its other fist. I brace for a bone-shattering blow—the troll pauses. It grunts at me, then smiles. It opens its hand.
“Shit!” I scream as I realize what it's got on mind.
It reaches out. I kick, hammer my boots against its wrist. This has no effect. It grasps my right ankle. It starts to pull.
I grunt and desperately try to contort my body to resist the force. It's far too strong though. In a few seconds it's going to rip my leg from its socket—unless I let go of my weapon.
But then I'll be totally defenseless, and it knows this. The examiners won't be any help; the few that have broken from the main formation to come after the rogue troll are still quite far away. I need to find another solution, and quickly, yet pain is clouding my mind.
Get the pick out. That's the only way. How, though?
Twist it a little, stretch to get it out just a fraction, then angle it back and pull. The mechanics are clear to me, yet if I stretch, I'm just helping the troll tear my body apart.
My ruby amulet. If I had that on, maybe it'd be possible. It'd grant me the vitality I need.
The troll roars and pulls harder. I scream—I'm being stretched on a rack—I have to do this now! I twist the pick and hear the wet crunch of metal adjusting bone. I stretch my body and feel something give in my hip—painfully. But the head of my pick is an inch out, enough that I can, with a surge of upper-body strength, tilt it back. It slips out.
The troll still has me by the leg, of course, so I swing like a pendulum. I use the momentum to strike into its chest. It roars and drops me. I try to stand, but can't. I strike just above its groin from supine. It roars again, stomps. I take the blow. My breastplate cracks. The salamander skin runes on it burst briefly into flames then dissipate into smoke.
With the very last of my strength I slam my war-pick into the troll's knee and twist. It bellows once more and, with a stone-shaking crash, collapses to lie beside me. For a moment we're both still, breathing heavily. We both try to stand—but cannot.
Abruptly it coughs, then its breathing ceases. I turn my head to look. Its eyes are glassy and lifeless. I've won.
“Get him out his armor!” comes a distant yell from just a few feet away. “Get the healing chains! Get the...”
END OF ACT ONE