Duval Estate.

Night began to fall as Ed-Gar lumbered through the forest in search of the promised sweet-meat that was man flesh. Back in their old home it wasn't a common treat, especially since the trolls started to follow them around, always taking the tastiest of treats for themselves and offering only the scraps to them!

The only time he and his brother got a taste of the fresh sweet-meat of man or even elf was when adventurers would show up in an effort to cull the trolls that followed them like a swarm of gnats! Always pestering them and bothering them when they tried to sleep in peace!

Yet no matter how many were killed by flaming arrow, burning sword, or even magical fire, more would flock to Ed-Gar. Like some pseudo god they would worship and fear them. They would eat the trolls and be done with them if not for the fact that eating troll meat while it was still alive and wriggling was a poor, and painful, way to die.

So the only time they could get any tasty treats was when the trolls would drive people towards their cave where they would then snack on their flesh before the trolls could get to them, or when Ed-Gar went out hunting themselves. If they were lucky they would come across a hamlet fat with sheep, swine, and man-flesh.

But it was almost always adventurers that they would encounter. That was actually how Ed-Gar got to this new world. A particularly stubborn group had managed to cut their way to their cave and were actually doing well in fighting them. But as the trolls began to pour in and it looked like they would meet a grisly end. A golden portal appeared and offered them sanctuary.

Which they never saw as Ed-Gar and the trolls pounced on them while they were distracted. One of their number, some kind of catfish person, managed to enter the, rather unstable looking, portal while his friends were being torn apart.

Naturally the trolls and ettin chased him through. The portal didn't care for that and struggled to both aid the fishkin and kick out the ettin and trolls. But then they found themselves in a new world that looked similar to their old one. Cold weather, hills and mountains. More trees than before but the ettin didn't care.

The fishkin, ettin, and the trolls poured out the portal. A few hundred trolls managed to squeeze through after them before the whatever force or nature controlled the portal slammed shut. Keeping the rest of the troll horde behind.

Ed-Gar wasn't sure about the nature of the portal as they fought over the fishkin with each other. But at least it meant less trolls to bother them now. They searched and found a cave not far from where they had left the portal where the ettin claimed its new home and rested.

But of course the trolls wouldn't leave it be as not long after, a day maybe two, did they hear and smell something on the wind and went to check it out. Of course the stone trolls were too dumb to relay anything important other than they found someone.

So a group of trolls went back and followed the scent of the ogres and goblins that had fled. From there they encountered a place that smelled of goblins, ogres, and humans.

Then they got beaten, ran back, bothered the ettin who now found itself salivating over tasting man-flesh once again as it lumbered in the middle of the army of trolls that followed and pestered them constantly.

Ed-Gar pushed and nudged the trees in its way. While the trees were taller than the some 15ft tall ettin was, they weren't as thick and required little effort to move or even break them if they so desired.

As they neared where the former battle occurred, the trolls rushed ahead with roars and guttural battle cries. Ed-Gar quickened their pace and left the now dark woods as the dreary day became gloomy night. As they did, they spotted a large green lake that bubbled ominously between them and a large army of strangely dressed goblins.

On the other side Ed-Gar could see goblins, what looked like a cross of a goblin and a human, something that looked like a human but smelled of goblin, two ogres, and a single human that stood on a raised platform, dressed in fine clothes that glinted and gleamed with fine metals in torch-light as he stared at the trolls and the ettin from the other side.

The trolls hobbled towards the lake, but stopped as freshly spawned goblins pulled themselves out of it and charged in a manic frenzy towards the trolls. They were simple to swipe aside, stomp, or even just outright eat. But the thought that the lake was a large spawning pool caused even the dumbest of trolls to pause and consider their actions.

Taking a dip in a goblin spawning pool was another painful fate, Ed-Gar thought. There was no telling if you would just be dissolved and used as food within the pool, or if you would be transformed as the pool broke down and remade you piece by piece.

The simple, and rickety, footbridge wasn't big enough for the trolls to attempt to cross. So they went around the 40-50 yard wide lake. But they wouldn't go unhindered. With a boom, something came flying towards the ettin at great speed. Gar raised a hand in an effort to catch the strange thing, and howled with rage as the cannonball shattered his hand!

He glared from his limp and useless hand to where the cannon sat while Ed snickered at his brother's misfortune. Ed used their right, and stronger, arm to pull and tear free a nearby tree and roared as he swung the tree back, carving a swath through the trolls nearby, before hurling the tree towards the cannon!

Goblins screamed as the tree sailed towards them and made to move. Some were fortunate and got out of the way in time, others found themselves turned to paste as the tree carved through them. But the cannon remained, and fired yet another iron ball towards the ettin.

They weren't foolish enough to try and catch it a second time and instead ducked out of the way of its path. The ball sailed harmlessly beside it, and into a couple trees and a line of trolls. But Ed-Gar didn't care. What mattered was making the human pay for harming it so!

The ettin lumbered off to the right, crashing through the trolls with reckless abandon. As they neared the halfway mark past the lake though, they felt something strange. Something slick and sticky.

They looked down to where the dirt and grass had gone from green to a pitch black. The ettin looked up and saw a strange metal tube with a lick of flame at the end rolled forwards on rickety wheels. It had a large metal tank behind it from where a goblin began to pump away on a handle and Ed-Gar wasn't sure what it was supposed to do.

Then fire spewed forth.

The blazing line sailed through the air towards them. Ed-Gar rushed forwards and under the flame. They didn't know what the black stuff underfoot was, but they didn't want to be in it when they found out.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

The ettin skidded through dirt just as the flame touched the black liquid. Ed-Gar watched with a healthy measure of fear as black dirt and grass roared to life and engulfed the slow and clumsy trolls! Dozens died in burning agony as they tried desperately to put themselves out. Some even threw themselves into the spawning pool in an effort to quell the flames.

"Stooped trollen." The ettin cursed.

Ed-Gar turned towards the other side of the lake and saw the same. Slick black dirt and grass being turned into a sea of flame that consumed the trolls like a hungry beast.

Ed-Gar roared as burning flame licked at their feet and back! They turned to where the contraption was aimed at them and spewed its flame! While the ettin's skin was thick and tough. It too would burn and scorch if they didn't halt the flamespewer.

So with a growl they kicked off the ground and barreled towards the device. The goblin crew scattering as the ettin swiped its right hand. The contraption now laid in pieces strewn about as did many of the goblins nearby. Ed-Gar turned towards the trolls that had made it past the black liquid before the flames closed their passage back.

They were charging towards the goblins with feral roars. The goblins cracked volley after volley of musket fire as they slowly retreated away from the trolls. Fire, retreat, fire, retreat. The trolls still on the other side of the spawning lake couldn't decide whether to try and cross or to find a longer, though safer, route to the battle.

Ed-Gar didn't understand why the goblins haven't broken yet. They should be breaking and fleeing before the trolls! Yet it looked like they were just buying time. But for what, the ettin thought.

Then the ettin saw them. Goblins covered in black and had a large cumbersome tank on their back and held a metal rod or pipe that connected to the tank with a tube. Then the ettin watched once again as flame poured forth from the goblins and engulfed the trolls as they advanced in rage and frustration right into the inferno.

Ed-Gar glanced up at the human who was barking relaying orders to the strange humanlike goblins, who then barked them to the goblins themselves.

"Hooman!"

The human glanced up as the ettin called out. The two ogres quickly blocked Ed-Gar's view of the sweet-meat that was proving to be an annoyance that needed to die first! The only thing the trolls were good for was overwhelming armies as they crashed into their lines and forced them to break off into a desperate melee! But now they were being burned and scorched so even their regeneration couldn't help them now!

But if he could kill the human giving the orders, then the goblins will crumble soon after.

So Ed-Gar rushed away from the pile of scraps even as the black liquid still clung to their dirty hide. The cannon was brought around to bear on them. They made to duck under another ball. But Ed-Gar found themselves blown onto their back as something it their chest!

They looked down at the peppering of shot that had hit them. The cannon hadn't fired a single ball but dozens. While it didn't pierce their hide enough to seriously harm or even kill them, it was like being hit in the gut.

The ettin was really starting to dislike the human and his contraptions. Ed-Gar rolled out the way as another scattershot blasted away at the ground where they were. They rushed and jumped over the goblin line and trolls to where they had saw the human. Their bulk crashed into the pavilion with a rumble.

They looked down in salivation as they picked through what was left. But they couldn't find the remains of the human or the ogres. Instead they found a few shattered barrels that flowed a thick black viscous liquid with vapors that burned their noses and stuck like sap to their feet and hands.

The ettin looked up as a whistle pierced the night.

He saw the human nearby. His clothes a little ruffled from where the ogres had quickly taken him away and a little pale and out of breath. In his hand though held a strange metal thing. With a flick of his thumb a flame sparked into existence.

Then he threw it into the black liquid.

-----

Morty wanted to say something awesome and badass as the flame erupted and burned at the legs and hands of the giant whatever-the-sisters-had-called-it. Eaten? Atein? Whatever it was sure burned good!

Which made Morty glad because his plan did not work AT ALL!!!

For one thing. The flamethrowers didn't work when they should've! Alot of trolls got past the oil slick before they managed to start working in time to fry them. Then the two headed thing ALSO managed to avoid getting, mostly, roasted! Which was about as bad as when it tanked a cannonball!

As the trolls had rushed their front line, the soldiers lent to him by the nobles had turned tail and ran! The cowards! They were supposed to be sacrificed in glorious combat so he could puppet the nobles!

The only good thing that happened was that the noble goblin leader had taken the liberty to outfit some goblins in leather and strap a couple tanks of oil to their backs, turning them into his very own flammenwerfer unit! Which he totally thought of and would absolutely take credit for if asked.

Then the damn giant whatcha-call-it took out one of his flamethrowers! The cannon crew were rushed and fired the grapeshot they had ready for the trolls when they got close. Good news? It managed to knock it flat on its ass. Bad? It didn't kill it.

It got back up and glared at Morty before charging and JUMPING AT HIM! The sisters managed to get him away in time before the thing OBLITERATED his command post! At least it smashed the barrels of reserve napalm they had made, Morty thought.

All in all, he wasn't sure how this had all somehow worked in his favor, but it did and he was going to sell it like he stole it!

He put on a smug face as the thing howled and cried as the napalm burned away its hide, which smelled worse than the trolls and the only reason he wasn't passed out in his own vomit was because he had nose plugs in, which didn't really do much, especially when his sense of smell was assaulted by the burning smell of what amounted to B.O., hot garbage, and rotten meat.

The thing tried to put it out somehow but only managed to spread the sticky substance over its body more. Eventually the flames DID die. But by then the hulking thing looked little better than beef jerky. It growled and spat at Morty as he sauntered towards the twitchy burnt thing.

The trolls either routed and fled or stayed and watched what would become of their leader depending on which side of the lake they were on. The creature glared as he neared.

"Damnen hooman! Cursed flammen! Stooped trollen!"

"That's right! I beat you! So I claim your army as mine by right of battle!"

"Bah! Stooped hooman! Not minen!" The right, and more angry looking, head cursed at Morty.

"What do you mean not yours?! They follow you lead!"

"Bah!" The creature's left head spat.

"Dumb trollen! No lead-ed! Only follow-ed! Like-ed flies dey pester un annoyen us!"

"Well if you don't lead them then who does so I can beat them?!"

"Stooped hooman! No lead-ed trollen! Trollen too dumb to lead-ed!"

"Well... what about you then?" Morty asked. To the shock of the ogres and the creature both.

"What?! Mortimer you can't trust an ettin!" Orga hissed. He was actually caught off guard when she used his full name!

"They are untrustworthy! They barely get along with their own other head! It would be better to just kill it and be done with it!" Urga echoed her sister.

They have good points, Morty thought. But the idea of a hulking creature like that working for him was something he wasn't about to pass up! Plus, having it under his control would mean the trolls too! He could see it now! The giant thing-a-ma-jig clearing whole swaths of forest for him! Trolls in his army taking whole depots of bullets and walking it off like it was nothing! It was simply too good to pass up!

The dilly-whopper grumbled to itself, or maybe one another Morty wasn't sure, for a minute. Then it grumbled some more and bowed its two heads.

"We will serve-ed."

"Good! First order of buis-" Morty began to say as he raised his arm in a victorious gesture when a loud bang sounded off to his right.

He could HEAR the bullet rush through the air and saw as it pierced the skull of the right head. The left cried out in anguish as its entire right-side went limp even as blood and liquefied brain oozed out of the lolled head.

"BROODUR!"

It sobbed and turned towards Morty with a hateful, and surprisingly tearful, glare.

"TRICK-ED HOOMAN! YOU DIE!"

Just as it made to lunge at Morty, uncaring for the state of its still shattered hand, a second bang was heard and the remaining head flew back as the damn high caliber bullet punched right through the thick skull. Morty and the ogres just stared dumbstruck at what just happened. He looked up at the scared shitless trolls, in some cases literally as piles of troll shit now littered the ground in many places. Arm still raised he didn't even get a word out before the trolls turned tail and ran!

Some were so scared that they chose to run through the still burning oil slicks even as the flame engulfed them. Others jumped into the spawning lake. Yet more took the chance and rushed towards the goblins in fear, only to be set ablaze by the goblin flamethrowers. Some did manage to slip off to the sides where it was clear of anything serious to stop them.

Within a couple minutes, his dreams of a whatcha-ma-call-it clearing forests and trolls acting as living bullet sponges raced off into the night or to their own deaths.

"Well... fuck."

-----

Several miles away.

A black-glad agent looked down the scope of his anti-material rifle at the dead corpse of the ettin. His radio crackled to life.

"So how did it handle?"

"Curves to the left."

"We can fix that. Think it can take on that giant if it had to?"

"Not sure about that big fella. But I'll bet it wouldn't tickle."

"Great! Pack up and report in for official debrief!"

"Copy." The agent responded before packing up the AMR and heading back to the mobile unit.

Agent Mason leaned back in his seat back in the command van as he placed his hands behind his head.

"Well, we can call this a success ladies and gents!"

His team cheered as Mason smiled.

"Kept some seriously dangerous creatures out of the Duval's hands while also taking the head off the snake of a serious threat, had a successful field test, and all with minimal exposure!"

His team cheered again before going back to monitoring the estate. Sure the Duval will more than likely assume it was them. But assuming is different than knowing is what HQ is always saying. He should probably call them and tell them that the trolls have scattered into the wild and should take precautions. The lab rats should enjoy getting a couple of guinea pigs they can experiment with!

He grabbed his warm half-eaten burger from nearby and munched down as he flipped his monitor to a baseball game. Eh, he'll write the report when his field team gets back for debrief. Their accounts will look better on the report. Make it more "professional". Besides, the game is on and his burger and fries are getting cold.