Paul frantically batted out flames from his scorched buckskins. His face was scorched red and his eyebrows were a singed memory. He winced as he emptied his waterskin over his burned skin, the cold water making him gasp in pain as it ran over his charred and bubbled flesh.

He took a deep breath and with a grimace began to lope down the tunnel in an uneven stride, favoring one leg. His left thigh felt like tenderized meat after being hit by a thrown boulder he was unable to dodge. Paul didn’t want to think about what he’d find once he peeled his buckskins away, but counted himself fortunate that the leg wasn’t broken.

His campaign of attrition through the cave system had resulted in a score more dead trolls, but he hadn’t escaped unscathed either. Aside from his blistered skin and lamed leg, cuts and abrasions covered his torso, and a long bloody gash stretched along his back from his shoulder to his flank, the result of him being surrounded during one of his last clashes with the trolls.

Not for the first time during the running battle through the tunnels, Paul wished that he had practiced using [Manifold Intent] with his light shield. The glowing barrier had averted dozens of potentially fatal blows, but each impact bled off a little of his intent, and Paul was all-too-aware of how depleted his reserves of will were becoming.

Grimacing as he propelled himself forward in his uneven gait, he mentally reviewed his defenses. The trolls had chased him through the first two-thirds of his carefully prepared traps, his pitfalls, deadfalls, caltrops, and other unpleasant surprises, inflicting a much higher toll than he had hoped.

The problem was the fire mage. With the magic-using troll guiding the rest of the horde, they were cautious where Paul had hoped them to be foolhardy and had worked quickly to remove the obstacles in their path. Whenever Paul lept in to try and kill or injure the leading trolls, he was quickly forced away by gouts of fire, scurrying around corners and pressing himself into shallow alcoves to narrowly avoid being immolated.

There was no way around it, Paul decided. If he wanted to protect his home, the mage would have to die.

He came to the end of the long corridor, retrieving his bow and quiver he had stashed there. Paul found that the twisting caves of the labyrinth usually made the range of the bow unnecessary, Paul’s short javelins proving more effective in the close confines of the caverns.

This long, straight corridor was an exception, and Paul took a series of deep breaths as he waited for the trolls to appear at the far end of the cavern. He didn’t get to practice with his [Archery] skill often, and he shifted his feet, trying to find the right stance, and waited.

The trolls came around the corner at a measured pace, peering carefully at the ceiling, the floor, and the tunnel walls for traps.

His first arrow went wide, leaving a shallow furrow along a troll’s arm, but doing no appreciable damage. He reached for a second arrow, taking a moment to still his breathing before letting it fly. It struck a troll between its ribs, and it went down with a rasping cry.

The trolls flung boulders at Paul in response, but they thudded to the ground well short of Paul, who nocked another arrow. It and the arrow after it only inflicted superficial wounds on the slowly advancing trolls, but the fifth took a troll in the gut, and it stumbled then fell to its knees, clutching at its stomach.

Now the trolls’ caution was a hindrance, giving Paul the time to nock and loose arrow after arrow. Some of the trolls made to charge forward but were brought back in line with a harsh grunt from the mage, who stepped in front of the pack, and advanced toward Paul.

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The next arrow flew toward the mage, but a stream of fire from the fire-mage’s palm burned the arrow from the sky, its obsidian tip cartwheeling harmlessly to the ground.

Paul lowered the bow, watching the fire mage approach, flames rippling from its long, bony digits. His instincts screamed at him to run, to flee down the tunnel to his next obstacle and to continue the fight there. Instead, he took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and focused.

When he opened them a moment later, six orbs floated behind his head, forming a half-halo of glowing light.

Paul barreled toward the mage, clenching his teeth as he forced his injured leg to propel him forward, and forcing his attention from the wound at his side to his opponent in front of him.

The troll snarled a challenge at Paul as the distance closed, but before it could spew fire toward Paul again, he activated one of his spheres. The corkscrewing ball cast wild shadows on the cave wall, missing the Troll’s head by inches, but causing the troll to flinch away from the wildly careening projectile and delay its spell.

Paul used its hesitation to close the distance, flashing a quick shield of light between himself and a swipe of the troll’s fiery claws. The troll’s talons skittered off the shield inches from Paul’s head, and he could feel the heat on his face. Ducking low, he tumbled through the Troll’s legs, drawing two knapped obsidian daggers as he rose, then cut both of the mage’s hamstrings.

It sank to its knees with an anguished, guttural cry as its legs refused to support its weight, and Paul turned and sunk both daggers into the sides of the troll’s neck. The troll gurgled wetly for a moment and collapsed, leaving Paul panting over its corpse.

Remembering the rest of the trolls, Paul turned back down the tunnel toward them, but none had followed the mage, and now they wore looks of horror, shirking back against the tunnel walls.

“Honestly, Seymore, that was easier than I thought it would be,” Paul said, bent nearly in half, his hands on his knees, struggling to recover his breath. He inhaled sharply as he straightened, the wound on his back sending waves of pain up his torso.

A bellowing roar vibrated the tunnel, and Paul turned his attention back to the far end of the cave. The trolls moved to the tunnel walls, making a path for another troll to lumber into the tunnel.

Paul swallowed hard as it came into view. It wasn’t any taller than the other trolls he had seen, but it was wider. Where the other trolls were gangly to the point of looking skeletal, gray skin stretched over long limbs, this troll rippled with muscle and moved with deadly, pantherine grace. In one hand it carried an enormous maul longer than Paul was tall, and it wore a necklace of bones and feathers around its thick neck.

Paul backed away slowly. Something about this troll made his every nerve scream danger, and he felt the hairs on his arms stand up. He was nearly back to the end of the long tunnel when the new troll - which Paul had begun to think of as the chief - reached the crumpled body of the mage.

Paul’s breath caught in his throat as he saw the chief fall to its knees in front of the corpse and lift it gently off the ground. It cradled the broken form to its chest, rocking back and forth before throwing back its head and choking out a mournful sound that made Paul think of whalesong.

The poignancy of the scene made Paul’s eyes water and his throat tighten, and guilt washed over him like he stood at the bottom of a waterfall. The realization that he had killed this troll's child nearly brought him to his knees.

He stood there dumbly for a moment, paralyzed by the scene, the breathless rush of adrenaline he felt coursing through his veins fading into sour nausea.

The massive troll delicately set the mage’s body back on the ground, and, for the first time, it locked eyes with Paul.

Paul staggered backward, the force of the chief’s gaze was like having the breath stolen from his lungs. In its eyes, there was pain and loss, but most of all a malice so palpable Paul could almost see it radiate from the troll like ripples in a crimson pond.

The troll rose and begun to stride toward Paul. For a moment Paul stood, transfixed, powerless against the simmering ire that made him feel as helpless and impotent as the day he died and appeared in the labyrinth.

Seymore bit his ear, hard enough to draw blood. Paul jolted, pushing his fear and the troll’s wrath aside. He considered his options for a brief moment, then turned on his heel and ran.