Power Playing (Trolled Book 2) Read online

  The balloon was rapidly losing lift. Nat knocked the lid off the lighter, struck the wheel and put the flickering flame to use. A fuse protruding from the end of the flask flared to life, showering the balloon’s crew with sparks.

  Another volley of bullets came their way, close enough to part hair this time. Now was Nat’s opening. The sight of the airship had brought the trolls out in full, and while they’d been busy focusing on the sights of their guns, they’d neglected to seek cover. That left them out in the open and vulnerable to attack.

  Nat hurled the sputtering flask at a cluster of trolls. It went up like a bomb, which of course it was.

  BOOM.

  Body parts flew in every direction. A platoon of trolls was gone, replaced by a blackened crater and the sickening stench of scorched ammonia.

  Immediately, Nat reached for a second flask, only to find that Eathon had already sparked it in preparation. She took the incendiary and delivered it into another group of soldiers, blowing them to pieces also.

  It was a massacre.

  The crew of the airship hooted in triumph as the surviving trolls scattered and bolted for cover. Nat instructed Galanthre to circle the vessel around for a final bomb run, but just as the elf succeeded in steering it west again they were struck by a fearsome blast.

  A fireball.

  Not a LARP fireball.

  Not an orange beanbag and a call for a lot of imagination, but an actual flaming ball of magic, hot and deadly.

  It landed dead centre of the balloon and tore a hole right through the other side, leaving two smoking holes in its path. The blast was so blisteringly hot that it evaporated the moisture from Nat’s eyeballs and dried out her throat as though she’d sucked on a hair dryer.

  Immediately, the fabric of the blimp began to incinerate, raining ash and cinder upon the vessel’s crew. Nat looked in the direction the blast had come from and found the figure dressed in flowing black robes. He pulled back his hood to reveal his face.

  It was Clive.

  Of course. It made perfect sense that he’d follow the sewer to wherever it wound.

  Far more surprising was his prisoner, the skinny one in the bloody loincloth with the fresh cuts across his belly.

  “Terry!” Nat screamed, right before the basket containing her took a dip and smashed into the citadel wall.

  Chapter Eight: Monster Camp

  THERE WAS ONLY one thing stopping the landing party’s wicker crate from finding its way to the bottom of the Durkon Chasm, and that was the balloon it was trussed to.

  Somehow, the deflated dirigible managed to make it over the citadel’s outer wall, smother Clive and Terry, and snag onto the other side. The violence of the collision turned the basket upside down, forcing its passengers to grab for the nearest available rope if they didn’t fancy the idea of being dashed on the floor of the crevasse. The captive drequon had no such recourse, and blazed like a dying comet on its way to the depths.

  PETA would be livid.

  The gang hung on for dear life as the basket jolted and dropped another few feet. The burning ropes mooring the crate in place weren’t long for this world, and neither were they the moment the ropes gave out.

  “Go, go, go!” Nat commanded, ordering her companions to bail out and climb to safety before it was too late. Galanthre and Ashley wasted no time in making their escape, scrambling up the ropes as fast as they could.

  Eathon hesitated. “You first,” he called back, and offered his hand.

  Nat slapped it away. “Get up there,” she told the elf. “That’s an order.”

  Eathon ignored her and grabbed her by the wrist, boosting Nat over his head and passing her to Ashley, who was waiting up top to pull her over the parapet. While Ash was busy pulling her up, Galanthre reached a hand down to her brother, but found him out of her grasp. Eathon attempted to close the distance, but his metal feet, unfit for climbing, could find no purchase. In his frustration, he became entangled among the mess of drooping cordage and was left swaying helplessly in the wind. Exhausted, he hung upside down as the flaming balloon he was attached to became untethered by his weight and the stresses of battle. He looked to his companions lining the parapet, their faces etched with horror.

  “Goodbye,” he said, offering them a weak smile.

  SNAP.

  The last rope anchoring Eathon to the citadel burned through, sending him plunging to his death.

  Nat saw the end of the snapped cord race by her and shot out a hand to grab it. Galanthre tried the same. They were both too slow. The hands that caught the rope—just as its flaming end was about to pass over the edge of the ramparts—belonged to Terry.

  The friction of the rope skinned his palms raw, but he managed to slow its passage just enough that Nat and the rest were able to take a second grab and connect this time. Together, the foursome heaved Eathon up the outside of the citadel’s bulwark, inch by agonising inch. Not that the pain much bothered Terry. He’d seen enough cruelty at Clive’s hands that it barely even registered.

  Ashley grabbed Eathon by the wrist and hoisted him over the parapet and onto solid ground. Using a boot knife, Galanthre cut her brother loose of his entanglements and wrapped her arms around him.

  “I thought I’d lost you,” she cried.

  Nat saw Terry, half-naked, knees and hands bloody cuts crisscrossing his belly. She threw herself his way and held onto him for dear life. “I love you, Terry,” she said, crushing him to her body so hard it’s like she was trying to absorb him through her skin. She tugged at the back of his neck and pulled his mouth to hers for a kiss.

  Terry came up for air, panting. “Thanks, honey,” he wheezed back, “but you’re kind of killing me right now.”

  “Sorry,” she blurted, loosening her grip and leaving Terry to flop to the ground like a marionette whose strings had been cut.

  Ashley piped up. “Wait a sec, guys… where did Clive go?”

  Nat turned to Terry, eyes wide.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I lost him under your balloon.”

  “There,” said Galanthre, picking out a fleeing figure with her elf eyes.

  Seeking to escape the wrath of his former friends, Clive had slipped away under the fog of battle and retreated to a safe distance. Meanwhile Thrungle and his remaining soldiers had emerged from cover and were racing up from the courtyard.

  Nat heard a scrape of metal as Galanthre drew her sword.

  “Let me and Ashley look after the monkeys,” she said, then gestured to Drensila’s keep. “You and my brother take care of the organ grinder.”

  Nat looked to Eathon, who was back on his feet and eager to prove himself.

  “Let’s end this,” he growled.

  Nat looked to Terry, who lay slumped on the ground, battered and spent. Much as she was eager to draw a line under this pointless war, the last thing she wanted was to lose sight of her boyfriend again.

  Terry wasn’t hearing it though. He propped himself up and gave her a determined nod. “I’ll be okay,” he said. “You two go get Drensila.”

  “Three,” a muffled voice corrected.

  “Where did that come from?” Nat wondered

  Dropping to her hands and knees, she dug beneath the shredded balloon to find the source of the distinctive voice. It was the voice of a milkman from a Carry On film. The voice of Cleaver.

  There he was, lying on the ground. Her weapon of choice.

  “Wotcha, Red,” the sword chirped. “Did ya miss me?”

  Nat hugged him to her bosom in a way that left Terry and Eathon feeling quite envious.

  “Hark at this one,” Cleaver chuckled, squirming in her grip. “Give over, ya soppy shite.”

  Nat weighed the perfect balance of his blade in her hand and felt her heart flutter. It was such a relief to have him back. Like regrowing a severed arm.

  “Come on, love, don’t just stand there like a pudding,” he said. “Let’s go cause some aggro.”

  While Nat and Eathon ran for Drens
ila’s tower of power, Galanthre and Ashley covered their exit. Soon the trolls arrived to greet the visitors, eight of them including Thrungle, and each armed with advanced ordinance. The first to arrive opened fire immediately, cranking their muskets and dusting the area with lead. Thankfully for the landing party, the trolls had a lot to learn about marksmanship, and the majority of the barrage soared past them. Some slugs ploughed the ground however, kicking up shards of stone every bit as deadly as the shots that caused them.

  Ashley, who was no stranger to being shot at in video games, knew better than to provide the gunmen with a static target, so drew his blade and weaved towards the closest of them in a tight zig-zag. Meanwhile, Galanthre used her acrobatic skills to carve a path between the bullets, cartwheeling towards the trolls and refusing to allow them a bead on her. At the end of her manoeuvre, still a few yards from her closest target, she performed a somersault and unleashed her boot knife. The blade flew so fast it could have melted a tunnel through a snowdrift, and found its way into the barrel of one of the troll’s guns. The resulting backfire caused the weapon to explode, rupturing the metal and filling the troll’s eyes with shrapnel. Taking advantage of the enemy’s distraction, the elf whipped out her sword and took his head with one clean swipe. Employing a second lightning quick advance, she stepped behind the flow of the next troll’s blade, sawed a portion off his midriff and lanced the gunner behind him right through the heart.

  Elsewhere, Ashley’s charge put him within killing distance of another gunner. Bringing his sword down on the enemy’s skull, he felt bones split beneath his blade like dry like firewood. He turned to his next opponent, but the troll was able to crank out a slug before he could strike. Thankfully, it was only a glancing shot that ricocheted off his shoulder, knocking him back a couple of feet and putting a divot in his armour. Ashley redoubled his attack and sank the point of his blade in the troll’s chest before he could draw his axe. The enemy refused to die though, and when Ash went to tug his blade from the wound and return a killing blow, he found it trapped between a couple of the monster’s ribs. He put his foot to the troll’s stomach and attempted to kick him free of his weapon but he held fast, squirming and trying for his axe. As Ashley fought, he spotted another gunner about to take a shot in his direction. With no other cover available, Ashley steered the back of the skewered troll towards the gunner, using him as a shield. The shooter wasn’t passing up this golden opportunity however, and cranked out a volley of lead that peppered his wounded ally and trapped Ash under the weight of his dead body. The gunner went to crank the gun again but the handle jammed. Steam issuing from his nostrils, the troll tossed the malfunctioning weapon to one side and drew a rusty machete.

  Ashley was pinned.

  He looked for his companion, but found Galanthre caught behind cover and held at bay by Thrungle, who peppered her surrounding area with gunfire.

  The machete troll closed in on Ashley, who wriggled frantically to get out from beneath the dead troll. He managed to get his head and arm out, but not much else.

  “Axe him,” Galanthre shouted over the gunfire.

  “Aks him what?” replied Ashley, moments from getting his skull caved in.

  “No, AXE him!” screamed the elf.

  Oh.

  Ashley spied the axe by his hand, the one dropped by the dead body he was lying under. He felt the machete troll’s shadow fall upon him and saw the beast pull back an elbow to raise his rusty blade. Quick as a flash, Ashley grabbed the discarded axe, closed his fingers around its haft and swung a low arc at his would-be executioner’s legs. The blade bit into the troll’s ankle and he folded like a lawn chair. Finally, Ashley was able to roll out from beneath the black corpse, clamber to his feet and put the hamstrung troll out of his misery with a deft chop to the neck.

  With Ashley out in the open, Thrungle made to gun him down, but a pull of the trigger only provided a harmless click, signalling an end to his ammo supply. Galanthre emerged from her hiding place to join Ashley’s side and the two heroes faced off against the last troll standing.

  A sea of carnage lay between them. A latecomer to the battle might have noted the mess of stray body parts and spilled organs, and arrived at the conclusion that the fallen trolls had somehow unwittingly walked into a giant propeller. Thrungle wasn’t about to let that intimidate him though. He threw down his spent musket and unsheathed a pair of wicked scimitars from his hips. The necklaces of plucked teeth that hung about his throat chattered and clacked. The fearsome troll looked at them with attack-dog eyes and offered some parting words. “Dying time,” he growled. “The master commands it.”

  Ashley’s brows drew together as he turned to Galanthre. “He means mistress, right?”

  From her window, Drensila watched the drama outside unfurl like a rolled-up rug with a surprise corpse inside. Somehow, the interloper and a mere handful of her disciples had found their way into the lion’s den and reduced her forces to gizzards. A quartet of raggedy no-hopers had arrived armed with little more than pluck and determination and laid waste to an army. They should have been chewed up and spat out the second they hoved into view, but instead, two of the intruders were skirmishing with her last remaining soldier, while the rest were on their way to infiltrate her inner sanctum.

  The girl and her elf crony were entering the foot of her tower and heading for her bed chamber, leaving the queen to fend for herself. How could this have been allowed to happen, she seethed. She really was absolutely furious. It was as though the devil had crammed all the world's loathing into one-hundred and ten pounds of flesh and called it Drensila.

  A calmer woman might have sought an escape in this time of crisis, but the Citadel of Durkon had been in Drensila’s family for generations, and she was damned if she was going to abandon it now. And certainly not to a mutilated elf and some daft trollop with wide hips and paltry blouse meat.

  She watched Thrungle about to do battle with the elf woman and her human cohort, and went to issue him a command to dispatch them as quickly as possible that he might come to her aid. When she reached inside her sash though, she found it empty.

  The Durkon rod of power was gone!

  Stolen from her person as if by magic. No, by magic. Her apprentice! He must have used his sorcery to spirit the item away from her, just as he’d teleported Cleaver from her trophy cabinet.

  Drensila grimaced.

  The lion tamer had lost control of her cats.

  As Galanthre deflected Thrungle’s first stinging attack, she noticed that the arm swinging the sword was significantly more muscled than its partner, as though it had been taken from a larger specimen and grafted on somehow. It was a curious detail to notice in the midst of a pitched battle, but her keen eyes spotted it nonetheless.

  Ashley attempted to launch a sneak attack on Thrungle as he spun right at his accomplice, sacrificing his opposite flank, but the troll was too fast, turning back and knocking his blow aside with ease. Thrungle fought well, managing both opponents at once, holding his own like an octopus playing whack-a-mole. It was an impressive display of ambidexterity, ruthless and efficient, for the troll was a formidable warrior and knew better than to engage in a life or death melee unless victory was assured.

  “Enough of this,” he announced, whirling his scimitars. “I’m going peel off your faces and make a loincloth of them.”

  Thrungle rained down another welter of blistering attacks on his already exhausted challengers, wearing them down bit by bit. Galanthre failed to step back from one of Thrungle’s swings fast enough, and earned a pommel strike to the temple for her hesitation. It landed so hard that it almost felt good. She wobbled and her world went dim and cosy, like she’d just stepped into a warm bath. She longed to shut her eyes and let her head slip beneath the black water, but she had to stay awake. Had to.

  Her vision returned, along with the rest of her senses, and she planted her feet, determined to see the battle through. She wasn’t done yet. Just a touch of blunt force trauma, no
thing to worry about.

  Ashley sought retaliation, running full tilt at Thrungle. Unfortunately, the troll saw him coming a mile off and reacted fast enough to stop the human slipping by his defences. The first blade he sent missed Ashley by a finger’s width. The second did not. The sword sliced into Ashley’s chest, sending him sprawling to the ground. Thrungle was quick to take advantage of his adversary’s misfortune, and seized his neck between the sharp edges of his twin scimitars. Galanthre took a step forward but the troll cocked an eyebrow, daring her to take another.

  “Any closer and his head rolls, she-elf,” Thrungle assured her.

  Galanthre hesitated. She had failed. As a fighter. As a friend. As anything more.

  Thrungle smiled and ran a forked tongue over his slobbery fangs. Galanthre could see it in his cruel yellow eyes. He was going to kill Ashley no matter what. The troll drew his blades wide, ready to scissor the human’s head from his neck. Galanthre made to pounce—

  —Then Thrungle’s arm came off. The larger of the two—the one that had been poached like the teeth decorating his necklaces—fell clean from his shoulder and landed on the ground with a hot slap.

  Ashley landed a moment after that, free of the monster’s grasp. The next thing to happen was the tip of a sword puncturing the troll’s chest. It all happened in a moment; spores exploding from the wound as if from a twelve-gauge, coating Ashley and Galanthre in foulness.

  Thrungle staggered about in a half-circle to meet his assassin.

  He found Terry.

  Despite his mortal wound, the troll managed a laugh. It was a funny thing after all. For all his scheming, for all his clever ideas, for all his machinations, he’d met his end at the hands of a feeble little man. Even funnier than that, he’d been led to that death by a second feeble little man, and before that he’d taken his marching orders from a feeble little woman. He hadn’t been able to see it before, but here and now, in his death throes, he finally understood the truth. Everything that had happened to him—everything—had been at the whim of another. He’d lived his whole life a slave. A pack animal that fancied itself a lone wolf. A craven mutt sniffing at the back of the throng, feeding off the big dog’s scraps. Now he was to die, unloved and unmourned. He gurgled like an unstopped drain and crumpled, letting out one final dusting of spores as his lungs emptied their last.