Moments before the first dwarves appeared from the side tunnels Jonathan decided that discretion was the better part of valor and ran towards the exit. There were already some dwarves milling around out there, along with more guards than he had seen in one place at the same time since he’d gotten here. The real tide followed after him less than a minute behind. Normally they took the convicts here in and out of the mines in small manageable groups, so you only ever saw the same 3-4 dozen dwarves. Today there were over a hundred milling about as the guards directed them forward like a herd of cattle.
Jonathan never saw Fedon emerge from the crush, but as he slowly resisted the tide of stone men that only came up to his stomach he eventually saw his friend and walked over to him. No sooner had Jonathan arrived at his side than the dwarf gave him a knowing smirk. “So how’d it go?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but if I did, I’d say now isn’t the time to be talking about it.” Jonathan responded defensively. That wasn’t what he wanted to say. He wanted to ask how in the hells the dwarf had known it was him, but he supposed that answer was pretty obvious.
“I wouldn’t worry ‘bout that Jon,” he said, speaking loudly enough while they were escorted back to their cellblock. “Ye see, most of these dwarves can’t speak a lick of Wenlish - but ALL of them know who would get in a fight with a certain friend of yers…”
“Do you think someone told the guards?” Jonathan asked, lowering his voice as much as he could, and leaning down towards Erkom without trying to seem too suspicious. “Is that what this alarm about?” The dwarf’s reaction was as unsubtle as you could get. He laughed uproariously, and for a moment everyone stared at the two of them.
“No… No lad,” he said finally after he contained his mirth and took in a long breath. “They wouldn’t evacuate the mines because of a scuffle, those happen all the time. They’re evacuatin’ because of the troll. The lives of prisoners don’t mean much to the powers that be, but… Well - ye remember yer goblin hunt? Same rules apply to trolls.”
“Wait, what? Hold on…” Jonathan stopped for a moment, but the crowd behind him almost immediately pushed him forward anyway. “There’s a troll here? How did a troll get into the mine?”
Erkom shrugged. “The underways are unknowable and very nearly unmappable, kid. There’s always a way to get somewhere if ye want it bad enough. Somewhere a barrier wall breaks and a gobbler will find a way in. It might even chew through the bricks itself if it’s hungry enough.”
“So what are we going to do now? Form hunting parties and kill it?” Jonathan’s voice was a mixture of excitement and fear. He’d come a long way since the fight with the gobbler months ago. As he’d very recently been reminded he wasn’t much stronger physically - but when it came to fire, he had no doubt he could really hurt something. Even something as big and mean as what Boriv had described to him on their hunting trip.
“Are ye crazy? A troll?” Erkom hissed. This time he was the one that was trying to keep his voice down. “Listen - gobblers are one thing - even a man like ye with a sword can fight a few gobblers - no offense, but for a troll ye need warriors. Veterans. With a specialized kit and plan. Do ye even know how they found out they had a troll on their hands?”
“I have no idea,” Jonathan said.
“Because guards missing one o’ their crews found a room spattered in blood with only a few pieces of their missing dwarves. Poor Bastards never had a chance.” Erkom added something under his breath after that in dwarvish, but Jonathan didn’t understand a word of it.
After that they were both quiet. There was nothing left to say. They walked in silence until they were back inside, and safely locked away by the guards. Death was on the loose in the mines, and until a train came they were trapped in here with it. Normally in this room people slept, or laid around in groups telling stories and laughing. Today there was neither sleeping or laughing though. Instead people stood around talking like they half expected the troll to rip down the walls any minute. Later Erkom confirmed not only that a situation like that was exactly what they were worrying about, but that if it did happen, the beast would start devouring dwarves like sausages. It was a horrifying image, but doubly so from a dwarf like Erkom that didn’t scare easily.
Trolls were eating machines apparently. Their impossible strength and nearly instantaneous regeneration came at the cost of an impossible appetite. They were always hungry, and the way his fellow prisoners told it, they liked nothing better than the taste of dwarf. They were scared. If Jonathan could see that - anyone could. He probably should be scared too - but as he sat there he discovered that he was tired of being scared. Most of the dwarves around him were here for a lot longer than a month, but that didn’t matter to them - they had hundreds of years of life left, but in most ways he had no life left at all. This might only be a month, but once he was back in Khaghrumer it would only be better by a matter of degrees. There would be better food and better people, but it wouldn’t exactly be different.
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Finally Jonathan rose to his feet. He’d made a decision. He was halfway to the door of the cell block before Erkom saw him, and it was much too late to talk sense into him. Still he got up and tried to intercept him. “I want to see the Warden,” Jonathan told the guard.
“What for?” one of them asked in broken Wenlish.
“I want to kill the troll,” Jonathan declared. “I think I can—”
“Don’t listen to him,” Erkom interrupted, before switching to dwarvish and presumably arguing that Jonathan was nuts.
“I can do this,” he said, shouting over his friend. “I have a plan and I want to talk to the warden about it.” All three dwarves gave him a strange looks, but after a few seconds the one with the keys shrugged and opened the door.
Moments later he and Erkom were being escorted to the third floor, which was presumably slightly safer than the rest of the building. The spaces were cramped for Jonathan - especially the stairs, so he had to hunch most of the way, and his friend took these opportunities to try to reason with him. “Ye don’t have to do this Jon. Ye don’t know what ye are askin’ for.”
“I’m just asking for a chance to do something instead of waiting around to die.” Jonathan countered tersely.
“And that I understand - permanently stuck in a place ye’d rather not be and will never belong in. I feel for ye.” Erkom said, “But just because ye are stuck at a job ye hate doesn’t mean ye should be looking to clock out early. Who knows when a new opportunity will come through the door?” Jonathan appreciated the rare bit of sympathy from the dwarf, but it took him a few seconds to realize that clocking out was a metaphor for death, or even perhaps suicide. He wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter - all too soon their conversation was cut off when they reached a richly decorated office.
The guards knocked, and once they were given permission to enter they had a conversation in dwarvish. Eventually Erkom joined in, and the conversation turned into an argument. Jonathan considered interrupting them but after recalling how that went in the court room he decided that they were more likely to listen to him if he waited for his turn to speak, which eventually came in the form of the white beard Warden turning to him and speaking passible Wenlish. “So ye wanted to fight the troll, do ye? Can’t say I’ve heard that one too many times before.”
Jonathan looked at the Warden, and it suddenly struck him that he shared the same title as his father had. The difference was that this Warden ran a prison while his father had governed a region on behalf of the king, but it was still an interesting parallel. The old dwarf spoke Wenlish and had worn a beard for at least decades, so he’d certainly been to the surface before. It was funny how many little cues he’d started to pick up on after all this time down here. “I find that hard to believe sir,” Jonathan said respectfully, taking a chance to try to impress him. “Well traveled as you are, I'm sure you’ve seen and heard an awful lot.”
“Often then,” the Warden corrected himself, looking at the Man before him a bit more curiously. “Not many seek to slay a troll. Troll slayers are rare - almost as rare as the beasts they hunt. Even if I send a messenger back to Khaghrumer now, and they actually make it there without being eaten themselves, there’s no guarantee that the city will have such specialized warriors to send. We could be under siege for days or weeks until they sort it all out.”
“All the more reason to give me a chance then,” Jonathan declared, allowing himself to smile cautiously. “I’m sure you use fancy dwarven magic to fight these beasts - but no matter how you do it, it ultimately comes down to fire, right?”
“Phosphorus coated bullets, black powder,” the old dwarf nodded, agreeing with him. “When it comes to trolls it always comes down to fire and tactics. It’s true.”
“Well - would burning the beast from the inside out and cooking it alive before it had the chance to regenerate be a valid tactic then?” Jonathan asked, his tone rising almost to the point of impertinence before he pulled himself back from the brink.
“As fine a plan as I ever heard,” the Warden agreed, “Would ye be using magic to do this? We were warned about that when ye arrived.”
“So if a plan involves magic you’re not interested,” Jonathan asked defensively, “Because I—”
“I didn’t say that lad,” the Warden cautioned, “So don’t be putin’ any words in my mouth. I just wanted to make sure I understood.”
“I apologize,” Jonathan said stiffly, “Dwarves seem to react badly to my affinity with fire, and trying to help is what got me sent here.”
The Warden nodded but said nothing, so he continued. “Fire blooded magic lets me take a lot of fire from one object and move it to another close by. Just like I did with the train - I pulled the heat out of the steam and put it into the ground. There’s no reason in the world I can’t take all the heat out of a bonfire and put it into the troll. It might be able to regrow its claws after you strike it with a battle axe or stab it with a sword, but I doubt very much it can recover from being burned to a crisp.”
“Ye just can’t do it here,” The Warden cautioned. “But as long as ye know that - I’m listening. Normally I’d want nothin to do with magic, but it’s not like any of us have any better options right now.”
“Alright then - here’s what I think we should do,” Jonathan said, looking from Erkom to the Warden and back again. He was sure he could do this - or at least that he could die trying, and a death like that was worth a lot more to him right now than the life he had, any future he could see.