Kiano hit the wet ground headfirst and moaned at the top of his lungs. It felt like he had plunged his cheek into a huge, slippery rock. His whole body ached. He lay on his stomach in the middle of a dense forest.

He forced himself up and looked around. A fairy ring somewhere on his left gave away where he was; this was the exact spot where his mum picked edible mushrooms every autumn. He despised mushrooms, so he stopped tagging along with her a few years ago.

The problem was, he noted too late, that he didn’t know his way around the deciduous forest. He used to just follow his mum around and pay no attention to their whereabouts – he never had to, really. It was no use following the fading trail a few steps away from him either since it forked into several other trails in the distance.

He was stuck here.

It was during these ramblings that he almost lost his footing and clutched to a nearby tree. The entire forest rocked like a ship on the Seven Seas. His heart skipped several beats. Why did this feel familiar to him? He frantically looked around the dense vicinity until he heard them, too.

Cackles! He gritted his teeth and cowered behind a thick bush to stay out of sight, just as the giants tramped down the trees and the innumerable trolls followed suit with their hideous sneers. Never before had he seen so many beasts gathered in one place! There were hundreds of them!

Just as he thought nothing could top the sight of the savage creatures, his eyes wandered to the last giant in the line. Derrick? Derrick! His hands were tied, and the giant was dragging him through the forest. There was another guy next to him, who was tied up in a similar manner.

He shadowed the creatures until they stopped in front of a massive boulder, which covered a third of a remote outcrop. The giant shoved Derrick and the other guy to the trolls before lifting the massive rock.

The trolls stormed into the cavern and tugged the two guys with them. The giant then put down the boulder at the drop of a hat and stomped away. The entire forest was almost turned upside down. He hid for as long as the giant rocked the damp ground, then hurried over to the boulder.

That thing was too heavy for him to raise, though. Besides, it was too dangerous to get involved with the hideous trolls and anger them. Despite knowing this, he couldn’t budge an inch.

He thought Derrick had been murdered all this time. Now he knew that wasn’t the case. He owed his life to that foolhardy guy. He couldn’t just abandon him and leave it at that, could he? His mum would never forgive him if he fled like a coward right now. There had to be another way in…

He wasn’t strong enough to raise the boulder even if he used sorcery, though. But, with some luck, maybe he could tilt it to the side and cram in through a small gap? Determined not to leave Derrick to his ill fate, he pushed against the side of the boulder and chanted a spell his mum taught him when he was younger.

They had found a squirrel trapped between two rocks, which someone wicked enough to hurt the poor thing had purposely placed. He insisted she teach him how to push the rocks aside, although she didn’t look so favourably upon it.

He had got the spell right on his first try. It was one of those spells he would never forget. He saved that squirrel’s life and witnessed how precious kindness was and would always be. It was nothing big or important to him, but for that squirrel, it meant it could return to its kits again – it was a miracle in its purest sense!

The boulder, however, didn’t move. He grunted. With gritted teeth, he chanted the spell again and turned bright red. Soon enough, he created a small opening between the outcrop and the boulder, but it fell short. His hands hurt. How did he get scratches this fast?

After taking a brief break, he repeated the chant and pushed with all that he had. A groan escaped his lips as he kept chanting the spell aloud. He then felt something grow out of his spine and give him strength. The boulder, thankfully, moved just enough for him to cram through.

He felt his spine and nudged something that disappeared as soon as he touched it. But there was not enough time to ponder on what it was or could be.

A shrill scream for help reverberated throughout the rocky cavern, and all thoughts left his mind as he concentrated on finding where it came from in the inky darkness. The cavern was too dark. It took a while to get used to the contours of hidden passages and bottomless pits that were scattered about everywhere at random. So much trouble to trap outsiders, he thought to himself.

The delayed echo came from deep into the cavern, somewhere several feet from where he was. He then noticed a flight of narrow stairs, which were a little too steep for his liking.

But it looked like the only path that actually led somewhere and was not some kind of death trap, like the hidden passages all around him. He descended into the unfamiliar shadows. Clinging to the rough walls, he took one step at a time. The last thing he wanted was to trip and alert the trolls – or worse – fall to his death!

The passageway at the bottom of the stairs was dimly lit, with torches lining only one side of the walls. Still, it was enough to calm his nerves. He could see his surroundings now.

The passage soon came to a fork and split the cavern in two. He was about to turn left when a strange chatter reached his ears. He realised someone or something was coming through, so he darted into the right path instead and kept close to the walls. Two trolls exited the left passage and went to the other side of the lair. They were cackling their heads out!

He didn’t wait to see where they went. It was too dangerous to be in plain sight. He just knew one thing: he had to find a place to hide as soon as possible. So he continued down the right path until a musty odour reached his nostrils.

It smelled like meat – just plain meat and nothing else. But the odour was too overwhelming for his senses. He retched and felt how his insides turned upside down in mere seconds. What was he heading towards?

He continued with wary steps until he finally reached a dead end and found the cause of the nasty odour. There was a cavity to the right. A handful of bubbling cauldrons as black as coal caused him to sweat buckets.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

But the grimy cauldrons were the least of his concerns. His attention was drawn to the two guys who hung from the ceiling. Their salty sweat dropped right into an enormous cauldron large enough to cook three grown-up humans in one fell swoop! He grimaced at the realisation that the trolls were, in fact, slow-cooking the boys.

Kiano hardly took a step forward when his eyes wandered to the opposite end of what he assumed was a kitchen. Two trolls were approaching, one skinny and one chubby.

He took cover behind one of the smaller cauldrons, which, luckily for him, had not been set on fire. He poked his head out as the trolls passed the two hanging guys and approached the cauldrons in the middle of the gritty kitchen. They were having an odd conversation.

“And, then I said, who you? Get out of my face, you thickhead!”

It was the scrawny troll talking. Though thinner, he wasn’t healthier than the other by any means, whereas the chubbier one had a belly as big as the moon. They got up on a wooden footstool; it was a mystery how that thing was large enough for them both. They stirred the soup, or whatever that sickening liquid was, with wooden ladles twice their size.

“That ought to teach him a thing or two!” the fat one replied bitterly, adding as he distorted his face. “Ugh! Just thinking about those ugly things gives me the chills! They are all about height, and not much else is going on in their dumb giant heads, I tell ya!”

They each took turns feeding the other and ended the taste test by smacking their thick lips so loudly that Kiano felt his stomach grumble despite the disgusting stench.

“It’s watery,” the slim troll confessed. “And a tad bland, I think. What’d you think, Buddy?”

The chubby troll took a sip of the mucus-coloured liquid for the third time and smacked his hideous lips in a race against himself.

“It tastes just right, yummy-yummy, and is as lovely as my mother’s sour socks! I still can’t forget how those tasted! You have to tell me the secret recipe, Bony!”

“Oh, I remember those, they were brilliant! But do you know what’s better than ripe socks fermented in juicy, decaying fluids?”

“I know, I know!” Buddy said. “It’s poop! Oh, I love me some poop cakes!”

Bony rolled his eyes and struck the other with the ladle full to the brim with the nasty soup, saying: “It’s human flesh, you—never mind, it’s a special occasion, so I’ll let you off the hook this one time.”

Buddy buttoned up, but not for long. He glanced at Derrick and the other boy, who were facing the cupboards. ”So, when do their scalps melt off, exactly?”

Bony sighed. “We just started cooking, it won’t fall off overnight.”

“I can’t say that to the boss.”

“But I can,” Bony said. “You stupid pea brain! I can’t believe I shared the same womb as you!”

“Don’t say that, it makes me sad…”

Bony groaned and sloshed the ladle back into the boiling cauldron. He picked up his brother by the collar and was about to cuss him out when something that shouldn’t have happened happened. Kiano winced as he met the troll’s twisted eyes and swore under his breath as he waited, hoping the troll would think it had hallucinated, but of course, that was not the case.

The entire kitchen had fallen into a deafening silence. In a heartbeat, he leapt to his feet and dashed to the other side of the kitchen, or rather, towards the two hanging guys, as quickly as he could under these circumstances.

“Intruder!” Bony yelled as he let go of Buddy, who stumbled into a burning cauldron. The nasty soup spilt all over the place! Seeing the mess, Bony punched the chubby troll on the head and pushed it with all its might – shrieking at the top of its lungs.

“Catch the kid, you stupid thing! Catch it now or I’ll turn you into soup myself!”

Derrick and the other guy flinched from where they hung, but they were facing the cupboards and couldn’t see a thing.

Even if he avoided these two trolls, Kiano reasoned, there was no escape from the cavern itself. The cavern was riddled with trolls – trolls that would become alarmed the second he, against all odds, reached the steep stairs. So he did what he did best – he enchanted the cauldrons.

The ugly trolls backed away as soon as they realised what was happening but failed to escape in the end. It was too late. They both melted into the vast pool of spilt soup, and their deafening screams persisted for some time. He felt bad about this, all right, it wasn’t like he intended to hurt anybody, but this was the only way for him to save Derrick.

There was no time to waste. He rushed to the hanging boys. First, he realised, he had to move the cauldron. That was the only way he could help those two. Yet how? He stared down at his bare hands as Derrick tried to turn his head repeatedly.

The other boy was as still as the dead. He took a deep breath and then grabbed the hot cauldron, only to writhe in pain. But this was the only way to enchant it and make sure the boiling soup didn’t splash over the two guys. With his painfully singed hands, he moved the cauldron just enough to be able to catch Derrick and the other boy. The question was, how was he going to cut the guys free?

“Do you need help?” Kiano flinched and cast a glimpse at the unfamiliar boy, who had somehow twisted the rope in his favour so that he had a splendid view over the kitchen and the mess Kiano had caused. “I can help if you want me to.”

He cocked his head. “How, exactly—?”

The boy turned into a raven and broke free from the rope. It resembled the ravens that had pursued him on the edge of the cliff back in Lordôm. With its tiny beak, it seized the twisting rope around Derrick’s ankles and gestured for him to fetch a knife from a drawer. And so he did.

Derrick fell down as soon as the raven guy cut him free and moaned. It wasn’t until he raised his eyes off the cold ground that he saw Kiano. The surprise in his wide-eyes was easy to tell.

“I thought—wait, what are you doing here?”

“I should be the one asking that,” Kiano said.

The raven turned into its former shape next to them. “You two know each other?”

Derrick stood up. ”He’s… he’s the guy I talked to you about.”

“Ah, that explains a lot. He was spared because he’s a sorcerer… but what is your deal, then?”

“How would I—” Derrick frowned as if he had just realised something. “Hold on, how did you… You were a sorcerer all along?”

“Took you long enough to figure that out.”

“But how? I mean, how did you get into Belzcakir, then?”

Kiano wet his lips and interrupted the duo. “Like sorry to interrupt you two, but we need to get the heck out of here, like right now.”

That was when the distant clamour grew so loud that they knew right away that the trolls were on their way. With Kiano in the lead, they sprinted and never looked back.

The looming footfalls were louder than ever as they reached the passageway and continued. Derrick almost tripped halfway through the passage. He was visibly limping. The dreadful torches went off one after the other as they passed.

Kiano peeked over his shoulder as he was the first to arrive at the bottom of the stairs and witnessed the brutal sight of raging trolls on their heels. He climbed the stairs after the two guys took off, stopped halfway up and then turned around.

The trolls were racing up the stairs at a rate of knots! In a sweat, he conjured the stairs to twist to the other side. But he was too antsy to get it right the first time around. The spell didn’t work until his third attempt. Three trolls jumped in the nick of time and followed him up the rest of the stairs. As he reached the top, he knew he had to be quick.

As he was struggling to slide through the tight gap between the cavern walls and the boulder, one troll snatched his arm and the rest were at great pains to yank him back inside the darkness. He punched the troll repeatedly until it finally let him go.

The wicked trio then fell on top of each other. He escaped and flung himself to the other side of the cavern. The two guys were already enchanting the jagged boulder when he joined them.

The boulder gave in to their pleas! A troll stuck between the boulder and the outcrop as they finally made it budge, and the hideous troll spat out blood and passed away on the spot.

They collapsed on the cool ground and panted like never before. All kinds of thoughts bombarded them in the prolonged silence. Their anxious eyes wandered from the dead troll with the purple tongue to one another.

The raven boy, whose name he still didn’t know, burst into a peal of laughter. Kiano joined in without knowing why, and Derrick followed suit. They looked like a group of maniacs. But who cared? They had just made it out of the trolls’ cavern without a scratch!