Standing in the dusty street, she pulled back her hood so the dwarves could see her. Expressions of shock and disbelief marched across their faces, followed by overwhelming joy. Her long-lost friends held her tightly, clapping her on the back as she trembled.
She drew in a shuddering breath, let go of her friends, and stepped through the open door. Crossing the threshold, she glanced back at the great pillar of stone looming overhead.
A thick chain of unbreakable steel trailed from her chest, reaching into the sky toward the pillar, all the way to a shimmering crystal hanging from the ceiling of a wide stone chamber.
She flew upward, through stone and fire and stone again, emerging into a forest glade as someone else: an elf woman, holding a glowing wand to a little rodent, dangling from its furry tail. Tiny legs kicked in the air—once, twice, and then stilled forever. Blood pooled on the ground beneath the carcass. Sighing, she tossed it into the waiting jaws of a hungry cat.
A rope of blood ran from her chest, reaching across the forest city to a glade with a pool at its centre, where a naked heart pulsed between the branches of a serpentine tree.
Drifting through the trees, she became a male elf, swinging at a straw dummy with his glaive. Sweat dripped from his brow, but he didn’t stop until the dummy was reduced to a pile of smouldering straw at his feet.
From his chest trailed a slender, leafy vine. Following the vine, she plunged back down through earth, water, fire and air, back to the city of stone spires, and into a room filled with metal cages. In one of those cages lay a snoring troll.
Flicked from an adjacent cage, a pebble bounced off the troll’s forehead and clattered to the floor.
Her eyes snapped open. Surging to her feet, Saskia clonked her head against a low, hard ceiling, and fell back onto her butt. It didn’t hurt; not one bit. But she felt every bit of the sting against her pride.
Dazedly, and with rising panic, she looked upon the unyielding bars of the sturdy metal cage that enclosed her. Thick chains ran from a metal collar around her neck to heavy anchors embedded in the stone floor at each of the four corners of her little prison.
This cage was one of many stacked in a warehouse-sized room. Some of the other cages sat empty, while the rest held an assortment of strange beasts with twitching mouth parts, pointy teeth, claws, spines, stingers and suckers. A few of the species she’d seen before—or at least some of their close relatives—in the caverns above, or roaming the hills of the Underneath. In the cage opposite hers were a pack of very familiar-looking creatures, dogpiled together into a fuzzy white lump. A thin layer of ice spread across the floor around their cage. The air had a definite bite to it.
They kidnapped the adorribles too! Those donkholes! Who would do that!? Wait…what the hell is place? Some kinda freaky pet store?
Something small and hard pinged off her head and went down the back of her neck, where it lay wedged between her shoulder blades. Letting out a growl of annoyance, she pulled at her armour until the offending pebble fell out the bottom of her wormhide cuirass, landing by her feet.
A low, guttural chuckle emerged from the cage right next to hers. She turned toward the culprit, baring her teeth—and came face to face with another troll.
He sat cross-legged in a neighbouring cage: a muscular male with a scraggly copper-coloured beard. His skin had the same granite texture and hue as hers, but it was much rougher. Unlike her, he’d presumably never had his rock-hard skin worn smooth inside a deepworm’s gizzard. If she was a river stone polished to a shine, he was a hunk of volcanic rock pulled straight from the ground.
Oh, and he was naked, save for the collar around his neck.
Seemingly of their own accord, her eyes drifted downward and saw that a certain part of his anatomy was as big as one might expect on a creature this size. And…oh wow, that thing was covered in barbs…
He gave another laugh.
Wrestling her eyes into submission, she turned her gaze back to these absolutely riveting bars of her cage.
Her stomach gurgled discontentedly. She could eat a horse. Maybe two. According to her oracle calendar, nearly two full days had passed since those dwarves tranqued her.
Her minimap told her that this room was one of several that lay below a circular building ringed with what looked like raised seats. It resembled a small sports stadium…or an arena.
Now she remembered what one of the dwarves had said. Something about a fighting pit…
The pit lay near the northern edge of what was quite obviously a city—Torpend, presumably—with stone spires arranged in rectangular and hexagonal blocks. There was a wide river to the east of her position, and a lake to the south.
The troll in the adjacent cage began to speak in a language she hadn’t heard before. It was an actual language, she was pretty sure, not just animal sounds, but she couldn’t understand him yet, so she made no reply. Despite the fact that he’d thrown stones at her, she sensed no malice or contempt from him. He pestered her out of boredom and curiosity and…something else.
She tugged on a chain experimentally, but it was pretty clear it wasn’t going anywhere. These things could have held down a brontosaurus. Gripping the bars of her cage, she pulled with all of her strength, trying to prise them apart. The bars were thicker than her fingers, but she was pretty sure with her recently-enhanced strength, she should be able to bend them. Except they didn’t bend. Not even a little. She kept pulling and pulling, until at last she fell back in defeat, panting. Her claws proved similarly useless. They didn’t even leave a mark.
Must be either magically strengthened, or made of some super-tough material, she decided.
Finally, she tried hooking her claws around her collar and prising it apart. Unlike the chains attached to it, the metal of her collar seemed to give a little. But the moment she started pulling on it, there was an awful sizzling sound and an acrid smell of burning flesh. Her flesh.
She let go, and the burning stopped.
Her captors had thought of everything, it seemed. Being a rock troll made her a little more resistant to burns, but by no means immune. And the flesh of her throat, like that on the insides of her joints, wasn’t the same rigid shell that covered other parts of her body. If it had been, she wouldn’t have been able to move.
Out of ideas, she slumped back down, listening to the trow speak gibberish. Eventually, her translator should kick in, allowing her to understand his words—if they were words. She tried to make sense of them for a while. No insight came, so she lay back down and let the world go away.
Crack!
Saskia awoke with a groan, feeling the impact of another tiny stone against her head. And then another. She sat up, snarling at her tormentor.
“Not slumber, princess,” said the troll. “Dine.” He pointed at a tray piled high with maggoty meat that had been pushed through a gap in the bottom of her cage. There was no sign of the ones who had delivered it.
Saskia snatched up the meal and wolfed it down, growling softly as her teeth tore into the tender flesh. Even the maggots tasted good. Probably weren’t really maggots, but she didn’t care. They were food.
“You not dine like princess,” said the troll.
“Not princess,” she said around a mouthful of meat.
“Queen?” he said. “Shell smooth like Grongargian queen. But…too young. Princess more likely.”
“Not queen,” she said, shaking her head.
He shook his own head, echoing her gesture. “Only royal bloodline partake divine dust; enter scouring pools; become as polished stone. Must be princess in exile. Not be ashamed. I not judge.”
Scouring pools? Divine dust? Did he mean arlithite?
“I not princess!” she insisted.
He laughed. “You protest much. Like princess.”
She just scowled at him. For some inexplicable reason, his accent sounded Russian to her, even though he obviously wasn’t really speaking actual Russian. If her subconscious was truly to blame for this linguistic quirkery, Scottish dwarves made a weird kind of sense, but Russian trolls?
Oh…
Bad subconscious!
“Not be afraid, princess,” he said. “I protect you. We break free. Make many babies together. Babies galore.”
She stopped chewing. So much of what he said was setting off nope signals in her brain. “We break free,” she agreed. “But not make babies!”
His vigorous nodding ceased, and his ears drooped a little, but he seemed undeterred. “Making babies is best part! You will see. Much pleasure! Little pain too, but good kind of pain.”
“Not make babies!” She added a snarl to the end of that statement, for emphasis.
He shifted back a little in his cage. “Princess not fun.”
Saskia kept her glare on. If his idea of fun involved that thing going anywhere near her, then she wanted no part of it.
She sat silently for a time, watching as the beasts around them finished off their meals. Some of those meals were other beasts, which squealed and squirmed as they were devoured. Her mouth watered. Crap, now she wanted a squealy one too!
After a while, with nothing better to do, she turned to the troll, pointed to herself and said, “Saskia.”
“Sas-ki-a,” he repeated, brow furrowed. “That not trow name. More like squishy name.”
Little did he know how right he was. At least he understood her meaning though. Actually, come to think of it, he’d picked that up quicker than Ruhildi had.
“You name?” she asked, still struggling with her limited Trollish vocabulary.
“Name is Rover Dog,” said the troll, puffing up his chest.
Saskia stared at him, her lips twitching. “Rover Dog…?” He didn’t actually use the English word rover. That was just how it translated in her head. But the name that followed, by pure coincidence, sounded exactly like the English word dog. She didn’t think this world even had dogs.
“You know of I?” he said, nodding. “Not surprise. Everyone know Rover Dog. World-famous explorer, adventurer, lover of she-trows. What so funny, princess?”
She could no longer contain her mirth. “Rover! Dog!” she gasped between hiccupy laughs. And his perplexed and slightly offended expression only made her laugh harder. It wasn’t really that funny. But she was stuck in a cage with a bunch of weird creatures and a naked troll named Rover Dog, so she’d take whatever silliness she could get.
Rover Dog was quite the chatty troll. Saskia soon picked up enough of a Trollish vocabulary to hold a conversation without sounding too much like…well, a troll. She learned that her fellow captive was from a place called Grongarg. He’d been taken recently while roaming the Underneath. When she asked what he was doing there, he said simply, “I explore.”
So he really was some kind of explorer then? It seemed absurd, looking at him, but maybe there was more to this troll than she’d initially thought.
Some time later, she became aware of a low, continuous noise rolling down from above, interspersed with thunderous cheers and thrumming shouts. On her map, she could see hundreds of creatures (probably dwarves) gathering around the pit. Something was happening up there. Something fighty, no doubt.
Through a wide stone archway marched a large band of heavily armoured dwarves bearing poles tipped with metal loops. The dwarves encircled one of the animal cages, unlocking the chains holding something that looked like an enormous turkey with bulging black eyes and stubby little wings. Its feathers looked so hard and sharp, they may as well be knives. The dwarves clipped the chains onto the poles—two poles per chain—and led the struggling creature out the opening.
As they were leaving, another group entered, heading straight for Saskia’s cage.
“Fight well, princess,” said Rover Dog. “Squishies blood you. Measure you. Not disappoint. Not break free if dead.”
Saskia bared her fangs at the approaching dwarves. These donkholes were going to force her into a deathmatch with some poor innocent carnivorous bug-eyed turkey monster!
She waited until they’d unlocked her chains, then spun about, yanking them sideways. Four of her handlers stumbled and fell.
“Not yet, princess,” called out Rover Dog. “Patience.”
“Why?” she shouted. “We can get out of here right now!” She just needed the key…
The collar around her neck burned. She went perfectly still.
“Aye, you feel that, don’t you, trow?” said one of the dwarves. “You’ll come quietly, if you ken what’s good for you.”
When she made no further move against them, the pressure and the burning subsided, and she could breathe again, though the pain remained. Without arlithite, it would take a long time to heal.
They led her out the door and up a wide spiralling ramp that emerged on the side of the pit.
Upon seeing the arena, her first thought was: That’s it?
This fighting pit was less like the typical gladiatorial arenas she’d seen in movies, and more like one of those underground fight clubs back on Earth. But with monsters and dwarves. The arena itself was perhaps ten times the size of her cage, and like her cage, it was surrounded on all sides by thick steel bars, separating her from the audience that swayed and shouted and jeered down at her. In the middle stood a thick iron portcullis separating her from her opponent.
Her handlers remained in the cage with her, still holding her chains. The ones on the other side of the gate did likewise with their captive. It seemed they’d remain there throughout the fight, ready to activate her collar at a moment’s notice.
Meanwhile, a beardy dwarf was drumming up the audience into a frenzy.
“Who wants to watch a blooding?”
“We do!” shouted the audience.
“I didn’t hear you!”
“We do!” screamed the audience, louder than before.
“Much better! Now hold onto your helms, my hail hardies. Our first contender needs no introductions, but I’m going to give him one anyway, elsewise Krabald will throw me in the cage between these monsters!” This brought a murmur of laughter from the audience, and the guy frowned. “I’m serious. What do you think he did to the last herald? And the one before that.”
A burly dwarf stepped up behind him, resting meaty hands on his shoulders. He flinched. “Jesting, jesting.” He gave a nervous laugh. “Now…coming to you from the daggerleaf thickets of Perilon, champion of over thirty matches, Groo the Gobbler!”
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“Gobbler! Gobbler! Gobbler!” chanted the crowd.
“And on the other side, a trow like none you’ve ever seen!” the herald continued. “Will this be the birth of a legend, or more meat for the Gobbler? I don’t ken about you, but my money’s on this gleaming giant of a trow. I bring you Aggaramba the Rock!”
The crowd roared their approval, but all Saskia could think was: The Rock? Seriously? I don’t look anything like that guy!
She repressed the urge to try to reason with the crowd or talk her way out of this—if they could even hear her over all that shouting. She’d seen enough gladiator scenes in movies and TV shows to know what would happen if she looked weak here. Instead, she glared at the dwarves, both inside and outside of the arena, baring her teeth at them and flexing her long claws. This earned her another roar from the crowd.
At the sweep of the herald’s hand, a pair of dwarves outside the cage turned a crank, slowly raising the portcullis.
Saskia focussed on her opponent, Groo, who regarded her with those enormous black eyes while it tore grooves into the floor with its massive clawed feet. The sound it made set her teeth on edge. She stood at the ready, legs apart, arms wide, claws splayed. If they wanted a fight, she’d give them one.
The portcullis continued its slow ascent. The turkey monster ducked low and surged forward, scratching at the ground to try to pull itself through the gap, but its tail feathers caught against the metal bars. Saskia stared down at the ridiculous bird, feeling a mixture of pity and annoyance. This thing was really gunning for her. Had it been trained to be this aggressive, or were all of its species like this? Either way, there was no way around this. Better to just get it over with. She sighed inwardly.
Then she stuck her claws in its eyes.
Letting out a screech, Groo tried to back away, but she held on tight, flexing her claws to make sure she got both of its eyes.
Saskia felt a violent tug against her collar. The dwarves behind her shouted and tugged at her chains. She ignored them.
The gate finished opening. Now blind, all the bird could do was flail about, trying to snatch her up its huge beak, and slice her with the fan of knives that made up its tail. She deftly stepped aside, then went in for the kill, slicing across the underside of its scrawny neck. Groo flopped forward, legs and wings and tail twitching as it spilled its blood out across the cold stone.
Her collar began once again to sear her throat. She fell back with a choking gasp.
A shocked murmur rippled through the watching dwarves, broken only by the herald’s voice. “Would you look at that, my hardies! Straight for the kill! I…er, didn’t see that coming. But here we have it. A blooded champion arises: Aggaramba the Rock!”
A cheer broke out among the crowd, but there were more than a few angry curses too. Her handlers looked particularly annoyed with her. She glared back at them.
“What’s your problem?” she growled, pawing at her collar, which had ceased its assault on her neck. “Isn’t this what you wanted?”
It occurred to her then that maybe she’d killed the stupid bird too quickly, too easily. They’d gotten a victory, but what they wanted was a show.
Well frock that. Saskia wasn’t going to just roll over and die, but she had no intention of prolonging another creature’s agony just to appease their bloodlust.
Back in the cage, Rover Dog looked her over and said, “Princess fight well. Very quick. But maybe not kill next time. Squishies not happy.”
Saskia, who had been cleaning her blood-spattered hands with her tongue, paused mid-lick. “Wait…what? I didn’t have to kill…?”
“Squishies not like it when we kill,” he said, grinning at her. “Monsters expensive to replace. Only blood needed, not kill. Fight to death only on special occasion.”
“Then why’d you say I might die?”
“If not put up good fight, squishies kill you. Only need good fight, not win. Not kill.”
She groaned, smacking her palm against her forehead over and over. Why had she assumed this was a deathmatch? Because movie gladiators fought to the death in every fight scene? This wasn’t a bloody movie!
Next up for the arena were the adorribles from the cage across from hers, each of them dangling from the end of a pole carried by the dwarves. They faced off against something that resembled a snake with two tails. Poor thing did not fare so well against the fluffy little terrors. They came back caked in frozen blood and snot-coloured stuff that she had to assume didn’t come from them. It came back stiff as a board, with the end of one of its tails snapped off.
After that was a spindly praying mantisy thing versus a thresher. They were gone a while, and when the dwarves dragged them back, the praying mantis had one less leg than before.
Then Rover Dog was up, fighting an oversized crab…lizard? He returned streaked in blood, with vicious gashes across his arms and legs and…well, everything, really. It was impressive that anything had managed to get through his rocky hide. The wounds looked like they were already starting to heal though. Come morning, there’d be barely any trace of them.
The monster battles went on for about an hour, by which time an additional cage lay empty. She wasn’t the only one who had killed today, it seemed. Even if that wasn’t the intent of these matches, vicious monsters couldn’t always be kept under control.
Vicious monsters like herself.
The sound from above died down after that, and she lay back in her cage and settled in for another snooze. But now sleep wouldn’t come. She was too wound up. Too…angry. Angry with the dwarves, and with herself.
Unable to sleep, she decided that now was as good a time as any to check up on her frenemesis, Garrain. She reached for the mirror on her interface and…
In a shady gully beneath an arch of tangled branches, the elf sliced at the air with his glaive, Trowbane. She watched him practice with his blade for a time, admiring the ease with which he moved. It was like a dance.
Switching to a one-handed grip, he drew something out of his satchel and held it before him in a clenched fist. She felt the familiar warmth of essence being drawn from her. A disc of rippling light formed in the air around his hand, solidifying into a recognisable shape. It was a shield, she realised, made out of what looked like hardened amber. There was a notch in the side through which he slotted the handle of his glaive. She’d never seen this spell before. Her oracle interface wasn’t even providing a name for it.
“Impressive,” she said.
Garrain flinched, and the shield wavered and dissipated. “What is it this time, Saskia?”
“Nothing really. I’m just locked in a cage. Oh, and I’m being forced to fight a bunch of other monsters.”
There was a long pause, before he answered. “That sounds rather…dire.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “Not that there’s anything you could do. You’re literally on the opposite side of the world. I’ll find my own way out of this mess.”
“Indeed, I’ve no doubt you will. Is there a reason you called on me?”
“No, just passing time,” she said. “Don’t mind me.”
“In that case,” said Garrain. “Abellion be with you, Saskia.”
“Um…Garrain, do you have any idea what your god tried to do to me?” She sighed. “Never mind.”
“Who were you talking to, ardonis?” came a soft voice from behind him.
He flinched again, and through his eyes Saskia saw that dark-haired beauty of his—Nuille, he’d called her—stalking toward him. The elf woman held a small wand at her side, tipped with glowing arlium. Remembering her dream, Saskia shivered inwardly.
“No-one important, my light,” said Garrain.
Nuille’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t see anyone else here.”
“She just left.”
“She?”
“Indeed, she is most definitely a she.”
Her eyes contracted into slits. “If you think our little hiatus gives you the right to fuck around with Sarthea’s alvessi of the night…”
“No!” he all but shouted. “I would never—”
“Good,” she said, her voice dropping to a purr. “Because I’ve changed my mind.” She reached for the strap of her gown and waggled her hips.
“Oh thank deus,” he breathed, moving toward her in a flash.
Nuille held up her hand, forestalling him. She snapped the strap back in place. “I’m thinking…not one but two more fivedays. And an apology. And your word that you’ll never try to tell me what I can and can’t do—ever again.”
With that, she turned on her heels and sashayed away. Garrain let out a groan.
“I think I like this girl,” said Saskia.
Before he could reply, she snapped back to her own body, and found herself staring up at the bars of her cage.
“Princess speak forest tongue,” said Rover Dog.
“Ye—” Saskia paused, frowning. Rover Dog hadn’t spoken in Trollish. He’d spoken in Elvish. She switched to the same language. “I didn’t know you could speak this tongue, Rover Dog.”
“I speak many squishy tongues,” said Rover Dog. “Explorer need tongues like warrior need claws.”
“What about the stone tongue?” she asked in Dwarvish.
“Stone tongue too,” he replied in kind.
Wow okay, this guy was full of surprises. A multilingual troll? Weren’t other trolls supposed to be…kinda dumb? Rover Dog may be weird, but he seemed far from stupid.
Each day that followed, the dwarves would pit her against a different beast. Now that she understood the nature of the fights—that the dwarves didn’t actually want her to kill her opponents—she was a lot more comfortable in the arena. She only needed to score a few non-lethal hits with her claws, and the handlers would separate them. If it weren’t for the cages and the collar around her neck, this might almost be fun.
On the fourth day, she found herself facing off against the six bundles of cuteness from the cage next door. She had no desire to hurt the adorribles, but to her annoyance, the little floofballs didn’t hesitate to demonstrate their willingness to hurt her.
The gate separating them had barely begun to open when they darted underneath it, straining against their chains, and sunk their needle-sharp teeth into her ankles. Or at least, tried to sink their teeth into her ankles. They were pretty tough ankles.
Worse than that was the creeping cold seeping into her legs. A thin layer of ice was already beginning to form across the surface of her skin.
“Seriously, give it a rest, will you,” she told the flailing creatures as she tried to shake them off. A couple of the more adventurous specimens climbed up her leg and made it halfway up her back before she tore them off. But they kept coming, and the cold creeping over her body was like none she’d ever felt before. Desperation flared. If this kept up, it’d be popsicle time.
Just as she was about ready to up the ante, a thought occurred to her. There was a way to counter this without wholesale slaughter…
A moment later, she was once again seeing through Garrain’s eyes. He stood in a grove of trees with bright turquoise leaves. In the middle of the grove, Nuille knelt over a wriggling cat. She gripped a bloody paw in one hand, while her other held a brightly glowing wand to the wound.
“Garrain…I’m cold,” said Saskia. “Could you warm me up?”
He let out a long sigh. “Too long have I been waiting to hear those words, but not from you, Saskia.”
“I’m serious. Cast some spells for me!”
“What? Why?”
“Just do it!”
With another sigh, Garrain stepped toward his wife, who had released the cat.
“Let that be a lesson to you, Morchi,” said Nuille. “Spinefish are not to be trifled with!”
“If you’re finished with that, my light,” said Garrain, “would you care to spar with me?”
Nuille’s eyes narrowed in obvious suspicion. “What kind of sparring?”
“The magical kind.”
She raised her eyebrows. “You want to duel…me?”
“Indeed I do,” said Garrain. “Is that a problem?”
“No! It’s just that you’ve never…” A smile lit up her face. “Of course I’ll spar with you!”
Saskia could hear his heart beginning to thump harder in his chest. He sucked in a breath. “Fair warning, my light, I won’t go easy on you.”
Nuille’s smile morphed into a playful smirk. “I’ve no doubt you’ll press me hard, ardonis.”
“We shall see…” said Garrain, taking his place in front of her.
Saskia didn’t wait to see how their duel went. She hopped straight back into her own body, now covered in furry passengers. The adorribles hadn’t had much luck biting through her tough skin, and seemed content to hug her to death instead. A shell of ice now encased most of her body, and her limbs felt like lead. She could barely even blink.
The handlers had just begun begun to pull her little attackers off her when a gentle warmth stirred from within, turning to pulses of heat, coming one after another in rapid succession. Steam rose from her body. The adorribles leapt off her back and scattered, chittering in alarm.
She snatched up two of the fleeing beasts—one in each hand—and held them at arms length. “Shall we call it a draw then?”
Saskia could barely hear her own voice over the gasps and cheers and raucous shouts of the audience, but the adorribles’ ears perked up, and their struggles ceased.
She set the pair gently on the floor, where all the little furballs gathered together in a tight bundle, round eyes flicking back and forth between her face and her claws. She sat cross-legged before them, folding her hands in her lap.
And so they came to an understanding. There would be no blood spilled today, and no clear victor.
A few of the audience cheered and whistled, but most jeered so much, one might think she’d just murdered their puppies. Or perhaps given the nature of these dwarves, failed to murder their puppies.
“Go to hell!” she shouted up at them.
Something resembling a riot ensued. Food and ale and…other stuff splashed across her back, and the air was filled with angry shouts, and calls for a rematch.
Her handlers tugged at her chains, preparing to lead her back to her cage. It was in that moment that sudden insight struck. Insight that in hindsight should have been incredibly obvious.
Collar hot. Adorribles cold. Combine the two…
Well it was worth a shot.
Saskia gestured to the fuzzy critters, then pointed at her collar. “Keep this thing cool for me, and I’ll set us all free.”
Several of the adorribles hopped forward tentatively. She snatched up their chains, yanking their handlers off their feet, then set the creatures on her shoulders. A shock of cold crept onto her body, but it was still being somewhat countered by the residual heat from Garrain’s spellcasting. Icy paws reached out and gripped her collar. At the same moment, she hooked her claws around it—and pulled. Steam jetted from her neck as the adorribles’ cold fought the collar’s heat to a stalemate. Straining with all of her strength, she ripped and tugged at the collar. It began to buckle, and with a loud crack, it burst open. She lifted the mangled wreck—with chains still attached—and swung it around her head, sending her handlers tumbling and sliding. Some of them fled down the stairs, while a few of their braver companions turned weapons on her. She backhanded them into the walls of the cage.
The audience sat rigid and silent, every gaze fixed on her. Someone cheered. Maybe he thought this was part of the show?
Some of the adorribles’ handlers tried to make a getaway with their captives, but Saskia leapt across the arena, tearing the poles from their nerveless fingers, raking at their armoured bodies with claws, and stomping them into the floor. The sight of blood and twisted limbs and the sounds of their screams made her want to throw up. But there was no time for that.
She hurriedly tore away her fuzzy allies’ smaller collars, while at the same time dodging from side to side as crossbow bolts began to rain down on her from outside the arena.
Once the collars were loose, Saskia tried to pull aside the bars separating her from the audience—and the world outside. It was useless. These were even thicker than the bars of her own cage.
Still, the very attempt seemed to shock the multitude out of their stupor. Pandemonium erupted. Drunk dwarves shouted and ran and staggered and fell and were trampled by their comrades.
She ran back down the stairs to the room with the cages, followed by six fuzzy ice-makers. Seeing Rover Dog still trapped in his cage, Saskia bounded across the room to one of the fleeing dwarves. She snatched him up, tearing off his helmet and holding him level with her face.
“The key to the cages!” she snarled in Dwarvish. “Give it to me!”
He held up a small object in trembling fingers: a hexagonal block with grooves cut around its edges. It didn’t look much like a key, but it was the same as the ones she’d seen them use to unlock her own cage.
Saskia took the key and threw him aside. With the adorribles’ help, she got Rover Dog’s collar off.
He grinned at her. “We break free sooner than expected. I protect now. Follow.” He ran toward the stairs.
“Uh, not that way, Rover Dog. There’s no way out from there. Also, crossbows.”
“Princess not look hard enough,” he said.
“Wait, should we…?” She looked at the other caged beasts, before dismissing the idea. They’d probably just attack her, and besides, unleashing a bunch of dangerous monsters in the middle of a city seemed like a pretty horrible thing to do, no matter how much its people had wronged her—and the monsters. “Never mind. Let’s go.”
Back in the arena, Rover Dog shimmied up the bars of the cage. Her mouth dropped open as he tore open a hatch on the high ceiling that she’d completely overlooked. Whoops.
Squeezing through the small opening, they ran across the top of the cage, then leapt down into the amphitheatre. Only a few stragglers remained out there, along with the ones who lay bleeding and broken on the floor, trampled by their fellows. Sickening though that sight was, most of her attention was drawn to the dwarves with crossbows and an assortment of pointy things levelled at her.
Running full-tilt for the exit, Saskia ducked and weaved out of the path of several shots telegraphed by her oracle interface. Behind her, there was a grunt as Rover Dog received a crossbow bolt in the back. She grabbed hold of his arm and yanked him through the exit.
They emerged into the cobbled street beyond, followed by a swarm of tiny white furballs scuttling underfoot. It was the middle of the second dark, and the only source of light was a flickering street lamp. Not that Saskia had any need of such things. She looked around hurriedly, trying to get her bearings. Overhead, an immense pillar of stone loomed. Having seen this impossible landmark from afar, she now had a pretty clear idea of where she was in the city.
“Escape delayed, princess. Now we stomp pestiferous little squishies.”
Rover Dog’s words brought her attention crashing back down to the ground. Four cloaked figures were moving against the tide of fleeing dwarves. An intimidating bunch, bristling with weapons, their faces hidden beneath heavy hoods.
One of the approaching figures stood a good two heads taller than the others; a veritable giant among his kind. She looked at his big hammer and big shield, and the huge beard trailing from beneath his cowl, and decided right then and there that he could be a contender for the title of dwarfiest dwarf who ever dwarfed. At his side stalked a more reasonably-sized dwarf holding an unreasonably-oversized crossbow with not one but three bolts nocked—each on a different string. A third figure, sleek and slender, and distinctly feminine, moved with the grace of a dancer, twirling a pair of daggers between nimble fingers. The fourth held no visible weapons, but there was something about that stout little figure…
Saskia halted, peering closer. Was that…?
The pursuing dwarves ran out the doorway behind her, still shouting.
A crossbow triple-twanged. Daggers flew.
In that instant, she took in the trajectories of the blades and bolts, and her suspicions were all but confirmed. They weren’t aiming at her, nor Rover Dog, nor the little creatures at their feet.
Three of their pursuers fell, gasping and gurgling, clutching at their throats and chests. The rest shouted and turned their attention from the trolls to the oncoming dwarves. Rover Dog took that opportunity to stomp on one. Two took a warhammer to the face, while the last fell with the tip of a slender sword sticking out of his ribs.
A trio of latecomers emerged from the doorway, took one look at the carnage, and noped back inside.
Saskia regarded her mysterious rescuers warily. Were they really here to help, or…?
One of them slid back a familiar wormhide hood.
“Thank the forefathers you’re safe, Sashki,” said Ruhildi, flashing her a weary smile. “We’re a little late—and mayhap unneeded—but I brought some friends to deal with those shitebags.”