As the hours trickled past and they were forced to fumble along in the dark, it became increasingly clear that the peeking troll wasn’t about to lose interest in them. Will could always sense it lurking right at the edge of his awareness. In the night, only its huge, milky-pale eyes were clearly visible, almost glowing.

It stalked them along the side of the road, slowly creeping closer until they could hear its heavy, panting breaths.

In the middle of it all, Bee reached Level 7—likely due to all their trekking. Engaging in a variety of activities helped with leveling, so in that sense all the walking was good for her. Not that she saw it that way.

They came across a group of caravans by the path, wagons arranged in a protective half-circle around its people, low fires chasing away the night. At the sight of them, the monster slunk back from view and made itself scarce.

Will considered ingratiating himself with the traders to talk them into letting them stay. It was quite likely that the troll would avoid attacking such a large group, and even if it did, they would have far more help in defending against it.

But the grim, forbidding faces of the caravan guards made him think better of it. They put hands on weapons as soon as Will’s group got near, and their body language alone made their wishes quite clear. ‘Keep moving, or else’.

So they did, allowing themselves to be swallowed up by the black once more.

Will’s second hope was that the peeking troll would be distracted by the larger group. Most of them were sleeping, after all, and the fires would make for an attractive beacon. But only a few minutes after they left the caravans behind, there it was again. Stalking between the trees. Staring at them. Panting and snorting, patiently waiting for a feast of human flesh.

Everyone was struggling badly, exhausted from a full day of walking and then some, tripping over themselves on the uneven path. Lauren and Min were just about at the end of their rope, having collapsed to the ground more than once before being dragged back up again.

“We’re gonna have to fight,” Will said. “I have a plan. Not much of a plan, granted, but it should be enough. Probably. Hopefully. I’ve only read about these things, haven’t actually ever fought one.”

He explained his plan to them while they kept on walking. For once, there was no backtalk, and once he finished they moved to obey.

Mongrel conjured all the rest of his boys, armed them with bows, and had them climb into the trees to join Number Two. Bee fetched her greatbow and readied it for use, nocking an arrow. Will retrieved a noxious ignition phial from his satchel and weighed the liquid-filled container in his hand. Gug fetched his brother, and Nix grew claws like sickle blades from her fingers.

As soon as they stopped moving, the peeking troll did as well. It held perfectly still, great white orbs darting between each of them. It even held its breath.

For the first time, Will fixed his gaze directly on the black silhouette. When he held his stare, the creature finally blinked.

Then, with a gurgling growl, it stepped forward out of the treeline and lurched towards them, its hulking form backlit by the barest green light reflected from the moon.

Will waited until it had come onto the road. He knew it was big, but he hadn’t appreciated quite how enormous it was until it filled half his vision and covered up the whole night sky, swallowing moon and stars alike.

He threw the phial with an underhand toss. The clay pot smashed against the monster’s chest and released a cloud of gas. Not that he could make it out in the dark. The troll halted midstep, blinking and sneezing, pawing at its face.

“Spark,” Will said, and flicked a tiny flame from his finger while he backed away.

With a whoosh, the peeking troll exploded into flame, instantly dispelling the night with a bright orange glow.

It let out a howling scream so loud it hurt Will’s ears, and it flailed its huge arms about while ineffectually trying to pat the flames out.

Trolls in general, but especially the more dangerous varieties, were known for their incredibly fast healing. Dealing permanent damage, short of killing them outright, was more or less impossible. Fire was effective due to carbonized tissues halting regrowth. Arrows, too, were useful, since a wound couldn’t fully heal if there was an object still embedded in the flesh.

Neither Bee nor the chimps had any real ability to see in the dark, so he figured a giant beacon of fire would serve as a better target, thereby ticking off both boxes at once.

Even Bee’s lackluster aim hardly mattered with such a big target. She loosed her greatbow with a loud twang, the arrow ripping through the troll’s upper right arm. The boys opened fire from the trees, peppering its shoulders and head with smaller projectiles.

The monster let off a putrid scent as it burned, like feces and rot. It fell to its knees and pounded the dirt in equal parts agony and rage, letting out an almost human cry.

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The fire began to die down, leaving great patches of blackened flesh across its scarred, warty hide. Bee loosed a third arrow that impaled its throat, then all of them stopped firing. It was Nix’s turn.

The demon had disrobed completely and handed her clothes off to Mongrel to avoid ruining them. She strode towards the monster without any urgency, and showed no discomfort when she got close enough for the flames to lick at her bare flesh.

When the peeking troll tried to rise up onto one knee, Nix leapt up with catlike grace and plunged her long claws into the side of its skull, sinking them in all the way until they bottomed out, surely piercing its brain multiple times.

She clung on as it reared back. It was seemingly unaffected by the cerebral injury except for crying out in pain, pain which only seemed to further stoke its rage.

Nix braced her feet against its smoldering chest and pulled back, dragging her claws all the way through its skull and out the front, shearing one of its eyeballs clean in half in the process with a spray of liquid. She came back to the ground with an effortless backflip, landing on her tiptoes like a trained dancer.

The troll tried again to stand, clutching desperately at its ruined eye, and Bee got off another shot that caught the monster right through its hand and out through the back of its head, blowing out little skull fragments.

Nix worked at its legs, slashing up its calves and leaving them in bloody ribbons.

They were doing good work, consistently keeping the monster on the back foot. But Will couldn’t shake a feeling of unease.

Nix worked her way through the troll’s right leg, chopping off chunks like it was a log until she was able to sever it entirely, sending the monster toppling down once more. The fire had almost all gone out, leaving it a smoking mess.

Nix danced out of the falling goliath’s way and let out a sadistic laugh. She reared back to spike its head for a second time when the troll tore its pinned hand free, breaking off the arrow in the process, and swiped for her with furious strength. It caught the demon across her side and tossed her clean off her feet, flipping end over end until she collided with a tree. She caught the trunk and swung fluidly around it with her claws scoring the wood, and she flew right back at the enemy after a full revolution.

She came at it feet-first like shot from a rocket, but the troll caught her leg in one great fist as it rose up with a guttural roar, and it slammed her into the ground with all its strength, sending mud flying. One, two, three, four times. Nix clawed off three fingers and worked her way free, cartwheeling out of reach before flipping back to her feet.

But the troll was already on top of her, staggering forward on a stump that was rapidly forming into a new foot. Its ruined eye inflated back out, the small pupil wheeling about its head until it was able to focus on the target ahead of it.

Bee fired and caught the monster in the shoulder, but the impact didn’t seem to slow it at all.

Nix’s feet sprouted claws as she went for a kick, piercing the troll’s blubbery stomach, but was thrown back as it charged into her, heedless of pain or injury.

“Should I go in?” Bee asked, lowering her bow a hair.

“You stay put,” Will said firmly. “I mean it.”

Nix was holding back. She wasn’t close to pulling out all the stops, and the reason was clear.

She doesn’t want Mongrel to see who she really is.

An insecure demon. I can’t fucking believe it.

Why do I get stuck with all the idiots?

She was getting smashed into the dirt, the troll driving its heel into her again and again and again, snorting and screaming. Nix’s healing was just as good as the troll’s, her broken body rearranging itself in moments after receiving countless injuries that would have been fatal for a human, but she couldn’t match it in strength. Not in that form.

The chimps peppered the troll with arrows from above, but they were doing negligible damage, if any, getting caught on the armored hide.

“Nug,” Will said. “Knock Mongrel out, please.”

“Wait, what?” Mongrel cried. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“Understood,” Nug said with a nod. “Power Word: Sleep.”

Mongrel’s eyes rolled back and he dropped like a sack of bricks. They were all so exhausted from their death march that it had no doubt been child’s play to force that command through.

With that crucial bottleneck out of the way, Will called out to Nix. “Mongrel’s out! Turn it the fuck up, please!”

Nix folded her body back into a contortionist’s roll and narrowly avoided the next stomp, then ducked away from a cinderblock of a fist. She made enough space between herself and the enemy to spare a glance back. Seeing Mongrel on the ground, she quickly grasped the situation.

When the troll hurled itself forward to belly flop on top of her, she exploded into a gaping maw of writhing arms, catching the monster like a net, the elongated limbs braiding together as they coiled taut around the creature’s limbs and torso. It thrashed against her, but she only gripped tighter.

Nix’s countless tentacles began to heat up with some internal power, and she gave off a soft glow as she went red-hot. The troll’s flesh sizzled, and as she grew brighter chunks of its carbonized tissues began falling away.

“Not like that!” Will called. “You’ll ruin the body!”

Nix let out a dry, contemptuous hiss. The glow slowly faded, and her great mass shifted as she went for another play. She extended one thin arm into the air, and rows of glinting daggers extended from it. She wrapped this limb around the troll’s neck, cutting through meat and tendons. The monster’s cries were silenced by constriction and its own blood. With a sharp tug, the arm snapped tight and severed its spine with a sharp crunch. The head rolled free of the body as the neck spurted a fountain of black blood.

Everyone watched the headless beast for the better part of a minute, but there was no regeneration. Even one of those abominations couldn’t live without a head.

Nix coalesced back into humanoid form, writhing tentacles compacting themselves down into normal arms and legs. She cracked her neck one way, then the other, and worked her jaw as she wandered back towards the group.

Bee ran forward to meet her, and held up her hand for a high five. “That was fucking badass!”

Nix reluctantly touched Bee’s palm with her fingertips. “Quite. Just don’t make hiding behind Mother’s skirts a regular occurrence, yes?”

Despite a few hiccups, that had gone better than expected.

Mongrel really needs to get a leash on that thing.