Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I scurried backward, but my boots slipped in the snow, so it was difficult to regain my balance. I managed to flick one of my daggers into my hand, and I launched it by the blade at the ice troll closest to me. The weapon bounced harmlessly off the creature’s massive ripped chest, and it roared out a threat in response that sent spittle flying into my face.
It must have some thick armored skin to be able to withstand my attack, and I scrambled to get some space between me and the beasts so I could think. There were five of them standing between me and the structure where my companions waited, but I saw Mahini aiming her bow from the entrance.
“No, wait!” I shouted in an effort to stop her, but it was too late, and her projectile was already arcing through the air toward one of the trolls’ backs.
The arrow bounced off the troll’s back in much the same way my dagger had, but it turned around and caught Mahini in its sights.
The beast roared and charged toward my wife on all fours, and my heart almost stopped beating.
I was running toward the hastily-built dwelling in my next breath, and I didn’t even realize I’d pulled out my panabas until I was swinging them through the air. The sharp steel could slice through metal armor and decapitate with ease, but the blades thudded against the troll’s flesh without even drawing blood.
The next thing I knew, a massive arm flew into my chest. The air was expelled from my lungs in a big whoosh, and I was sent flying across the snowy landscape. I landed with a thud on my side, and I groaned as I rolled back onto my feet.
Fuck, that hurt.
It had been a while since I’d faced a creature strong enough to knock me on my ass, but it was a challenge I relished. I just needed to fight smarter, not harder.
With me out of the way, the ice trolls had turned their attention back to Mahini, and they all barreled toward the tent with snapping maws. I wasn’t about to let anything happen to my pregnant wife, so I stomped my foot to activate the fleetness ability of my griffon feather boots, and I charged after the furry creatures.
I slammed into the back of the one at the rear of the herd, and it clawed at me without slowing down. Its massive paw-like hand
grabbed me by the hood of my cloak and flung me over its head toward the tent, and I crashed through the ice wall and flew inside the structure like a bowling ball into pins.
Kent, Mahini, Jaxtom, and Zenda attempted to jump out of the way as I was hurled toward them, but all of us ended up in a tangled heap against the back wall of the structure. Fortunately, I’d surrounded the tent with ice, so I had a hard surface to stop my movement with.
“Bash! Are you okay?” Zenda’s voice was full of worry, but I couldn’t see her around the tangle of limbs.
We all began to extract ourselves from each other, but the sounds of the ice trolls shuffling around the tent lent some speed to my actions.
“I’m good,” I said as soon as I was able to, and I flashed my companions a reassuring smile. “Weapons are useless against them. Their skin is too thick.”
“There has to be something we can do!” Mahini shot a deadly look at the tent entrance. “Perhaps their eyes are weak enough to penetrate.”
“Let me draw them away from here,” I suggested. “Then I’ll take them out one by one. I can’t focus on the fight since I’m too worried about you all getting hurt in the process.”
“You don’t have to fight alone,” my wife argued with a shake of her head. “Let me help you.”
“They’re bound to have some kind of weakness,” Zenda said in a thoughtful voice, and I could see the gears moving behind her intelligent sapphire eyes, but then her face brightened. “Bash, try magic!”
“Good idea,” I said.
“Be careful,” Jax said, and he placed a hand on my shoulder. “I ain’t about to deal with any of this shit without ya.”
“This is exactly why I suggested we continue moving despite the blizzard,” Kent muttered to himself as he sat in a corner of the tent and rocked back and forth. “They won’t hurt you if you don’t stop. They won’t hurt you if you don’t stop.”
He repeated himself over and over again in an almost trance-like state, so I kneeled down in front of him and gently shook him by the shoulders.
“Listen, man, it’s going to be okay,” I said. “But if you know anything helpful, now would be the time to share.”
“Nothing can hurt them,” Kent said, and he fixed me with the hollow stare of someone ready to face their own execution. “Once they find you, there’s no hope.”
“But it’s hard for them to find you if you’re not moving?” I frowned. “Are they blind or something?”
“Maybe they get snow blindness just like we do,” Zenda suggested.
It would explain why they hadn’t attacked since I’d disappeared inside the tent, but I wasn’t going to complain about getting some time to regroup and think of a plan. I thought about everything else I knew about ice trolls from movies and video games, and I remembered the Skyrim version of the creatures had a weakness to fire as well.
It was worth a shot.
I decided I’d gotten as much information about my enemies as I could during this run through, so I reset back to my save point with a wave of my will, and the inside of the tent vanished.
Chime.
It was early morning again, and we’d just packed away our campsite to start the day’s travel. Mahini was getting situated on the sled in front of Jaxtom, and Zenda was shoving some last-minute items into her pack before doing the same with mine. The skies were clear, and there were no signs of the blizzard that would soon send us into chaos, but I knew it would come before the end of the day.
This time I would be prepared, and the ice trolls wouldn’t catch me off-guard.
“Hey, guys, come here,” I called to my companions as I gestured for them to gather around. “I have to tell you something.”
Mahini and Jaxtom instantly frowned as their hands shot toward their weapons, but Zenda and Kent were less familiar with my prophecies.
“What’s going on?” Jax growled, and his eyes scanned the horizon. “What’s coming our way now, Bash?”
I smiled and waited until everyone was within earshot, and then I pointed at the clear skies.
“We are going to head straight into a blizzard before the end of the day,” I warned. “And once we’re lost in the storm, a herd of ice trolls will attack.”
“Ice trolls?” Kent’s eyes widened, and he turned to search the empty landscape for any signs of the monsters. “We should move.
Now.”
“I don’t disagree,” I said, but I held up the flat of my hand to halt him. “But before we run into all this shit, I want you all to promise me you’ll let me handle the trolls by myself. The last thing I need is for one of you to get hurt out here in the middle of nowhere.”
“Yes, Bash,” Zenda easily agreed.
“Aye, alright,” Jax grumbled.
“You intend to face them?” Kent’s face paled. “Do you have a death wish?”
“You won’t face them alone,” Mahini insisted, and she lifted her chin to a stubborn angle. “I will guard your back the whole time.”
“They are impervious to steel,” I said with a shake of my head.
“None of your weapons will do any good against them. You’ll just end up getting hurt, or worse, the baby will get hurt. I can’t let that happen.”
Mahini opened her mouth to argue, but then her hand drifted to her abdomen, and I knew she’d make the right decision when the time came. She had to rearrange her priorities now that it wasn’t just
her life on the line, but I knew she was the kind of woman who would always put others’ safety before her own. It was one of the things I loved most about her, but it also gave me more than a few premature gray hairs from worrying about her.
“Alright,” I said, and I rubbed my hands together. “Now, let’s get as much distance behind us as we can.”
Kent, Jaxtom, and I all whistled at our sled dog teams, and the canines charged through the snow toward the north. I took the lead this time, but our guide didn’t argue as I slid ahead of him. The sled’s runners glided across the frozen ground with a smooth, very satisfying whooshing sound, and the wind in my face was brisk and refreshing.
If there wasn’t a herd of ferocious ice trolls waiting for me at the end of the day, it would almost be pleasant.
We made camp long before the storm hit, and I took the time to create an impenetrable structure of ice around our tent to insulate and protect us, but then I prepared for the fight ahead of me. I had more than one fire spell to use and unlimited lifetimes to experiment with.
The God of Time always won in the end.
We huddled together inside the tent as the storm began to approach from off in the distance, and I wondered if it was no coincidence that the trolls followed the weather. Mahini and Zenda held my hands, but their grips were calm. Jaxtom leaned against the tent pole and half-closed his eyes, but Kent fidgeted with his gear in an anxious manner. The dogs had all curled up into piles around us, and the radiant heat they generated kept us all warm even without a fire, but I was eager to finish this fight so we could get some sleep.
Then I heard the howls and roars through the swirling vortex of the storm, and I made a new save point before I nodded to my companions.
“This is it.” I looked them all in the eyes with steely resolve.
“Stay here. I’ll lead them away before I take them out one by one, and then I’ll be back before you can say troll in the dungeon.”
Then I pulled the fur-lined hood of my cloak up over my head, and I dipped out of the entrance of the tent into the storm. The snow blinded me instantly, and I squinted into the sideways slanting pellets, but I couldn’t see any of the trolls.
I crunched through the thick bed of snow, and I marveled at how deep it had already become in the last hour. My griffon feather boots would be almost pointless in the thick drifts, so I’d have to plan
accordingly. Then a flash of white fur darted past me in my peripheral vision, and I swiveled to see the troll lumbering toward the igloo-tent structure where my companions waited.
“Fur!” I shouted with my palms outstretched.
The ice surrounding the tent would be enough to protect the fabric from the blaze, but the ice troll was not so lucky. The fire leapt across the distance between us in a long streak like a gas pipe suddenly springing a leak, and the tongues of flame licked against the monster’s white fur.
The fire caught, and the troll shrieked so loudly it hurt my ears.
Then the massive creature flopped into the snow to roll around, and the flames were extinguished, but they left an oozing sear across the skin of its back.
The ice troll wasn’t dead, but it was injured, and I stalked toward it to finish it off. Before I took two steps, a ball of fur and claws lunged out of the snowstorm and knocked into me from the side. I fell to the ground, and I was suddenly grateful for the thick layer of snow as it cushioned the impact of my fall.
The creature fell on top of me, and it grappled for a hold around my neck, so I grabbed it with both hands on either side of its
face.
“Fur, motherfucker!” I groaned, but then the fire burned out from the palms of my hands and into the ice troll’s ears.
I held on despite the resulting sizzling flesh in my hands, and by the time I let go, the monster’s face was a crumpled, burned ruin.
Then I shoved the ice troll’s body off me, and steam erupted from the melted snow as its burned face struck the cold ground.
I didn’t have time to process the victory since the first ice troll I’d injured was loping toward me on all fours, so I held up the palms of my hands and prepared to finish him off once and for all.
“Furraz,” I said with cold determination.
The massive fireballs exploded from both of my hands, and they slammed into the ice troll’s chest one after another like a bucket of magma being poured directly on its flesh. The flames coated the creature’s white fur until only its roaring face was visible, and the sounds the dying beast emitted rang in my ears.
Efficient.
I liked it.
Sweat dripped down my forehead, and I was reminded of how much more energy magic required. The bigger fire spell took even
more than the basic one, but it was exponentially more powerful. A mixture of the two should work well against the rest of the herd, but for the moment I stood alone in the swirling storm.
I listened carefully to the sounds of the wind, and I thought I heard some animal-like grunts among the noises of the gale. I headed blindly toward it, but I shook out the tension in my hands and took a deep breath.
Then I spotted a flash of white fur, and I shot out a fire spell instinctively. The blaze illuminated the landscape through the rapidly falling snow, and the ice troll was silhouetted for a brief moment before the flames struck. The fire burned the creature’s fur, but it quickly leaped onto its back to extinguish the flames. Then another troll darted past my peripheral vision, and I stalked forward while throwing out fireballs in all directions.
“Furraz, furraz, furraz,” I chanted until I was panting for breath, but then I only paused for a moment to scan my surroundings.
The fireballs flew across the landscape like lanterns released into the sky, and they lit up the snowy ground enough for me to see a far distance in every direction. One of the blasts narrowly missed my igloo-tent structure, but it didn’t get close enough to do any damage.
Six more trolls darted toward the horizon, and I could tell they were trying to regroup. They were more powerful when they teamed up against me, and I marveled at the signs of their intelligence. They were smart enough to put out the fires before the flames killed them, and they worked together against me. It reminded me of a nature documentary about wolves hunting as a pack, but in this scenario, I was the buffalo.
It was eerie.
They didn’t seem very scared of the fire despite their weakness to it, but if I could get them off by themselves and away from the rest of the herd, then it would be easy enough for me to overwhelm them with my flame work.
I raced after the herd of ice trolls, and I groaned from the effort it took to trample through the thick snow covering the ground. Their massive legs and wide feet were much more suited to the environment, but I wasn’t about to be discouraged.
I was the God of Fire.
Once I was close enough for my spell to reach, I launched another fireball at the back of an ice troll, and the blaze crashed
against his spine. The creature fell face-first into the snow, and the flames quickly ate at the unprotected fur on its back.
It howled in pain and writhed in the snow, but then its companions turned and spotted me. They snarled and stamped their giant fists into the ground before charging toward me.
“Furraz!” I shouted as I brought my palms up to meet their approach.
The blaze struck the closest troll in the chest, but the beast growled and continued toward me while the flames engulfed its torso. It pounded across the distance between us faster than I could move through the heavy drifts, and then it jumped the final few feet.
“Oh, shit!” I gasped as I back-pedaled to get away from the flaming ice troll, and I lunged to the side just in time.
The ice troll rolled as it landed in the snow, and the flames on its torso went out, but they left angry red burn marks in their wake.
The beast snarled and clawed at the snow, and then it grabbed fistfuls of the frozen flakes to pack onto its chest. It never looked away from me, and the hairs on the nape of my neck stood on end.
Then I heard the scuffling sound behind me, and I cursed as I realized my moment of distraction had cost me the advantage. I
jumped to the side in the same instant an ice troll swiped at me from behind, and I felt the wind from the creature’s swinging arm as it passed by my face. More of the white-furred creatures surrounded me, and I gritted my teeth as I prepared to fight against the entire herd at once.
The ice trolls closed in, and they pawed at the ground and snapped their teeth menacingly. I kept my arms relaxed even though they itched for the comfort of my panabas, but my steel weapons wouldn’t do me any good in this fight.
Then I saw one twitch before it charged, and I was ready.
I turned and lifted both my palms at the beast running toward me, and I took a deep breath.
“Furraz!” I shouted at the top of my lungs.
Twin balls of flame erupted from my hands and arced toward the ice troll, but the blast hit the beast full-on in the face, and it flew over backward so hard its feet went up in the air. The snow exploded in a flurry around the point of impact, and the sizzling sound of the frost melting was the only thing I could hear.
The other ice trolls roared and charged toward me as one, and I stomped my foot to activate the fleetness ability of my griffon
feather boots. Despite the thick layer of snow slowing my pace, I was still a little faster with the speed boost, and I managed to evade the shrinking circle of trolls.
They thundered mere feet behind me as I raced through the snow away from the igloo-tent structure, and I threw fireballs over my shoulder as I ran. A couple of them made contact if the howls of pain were any indication, but I was quickly losing stamina while barely gaining any ground.
I needed some kind of melee weapon in addition to the spells.
It was time to reset and try a different route.
Chime.
I was back in the tent with my companions and the dogs, but I knew the ice trolls were already closing in on our location. I didn’t have much time to locate what I had in mind, but fortunately, I hadn’t brought much with me on this journey. The dragon cultists’ daggers were imbued with a fire spell, so they were worth a shot.
I was outnumbered by the beasts, and they’d proven themselves to be more intelligent than I originally believed, but this time I wouldn’t underestimate them.
“This won’t take long,” I promised. “I’m going to try to lead them away from our camp, and then I’ll pick them off one by one.”
“Good luck,” Kent muttered as he fidgeted with the straps of his pack.
“Bash doesn’t need luck,” Zenda said, and she pressed a kiss against my cheek.
“Signal me if you need help,” Mahini said.
“Don’t take too long,” Jax added, and he pulled the hood of his cloak over his eyes as he leaned back against the tent pole.
I twirled the daggers experimentally in my grasp as I slipped out into the storm, but once I found a comfortable grip, I took off with the wind in my face. I squinted through the storm as I searched for the ice trolls, but then I spotted a fast-moving blur of white.
The herd of trolls moved along with the air currents of the storm, and they ran on all fours like gorillas, but they were easily twice the size of the Earth primates. They hadn’t separated to surround the campsite yet, so I stomped my foot to activate the fleetness ability of my griffon feather boots, and I rushed across the distance between us. Then I raced in a circle around them, but the thick snow continued to slow me.
“Fur, fur, fur,” I chanted as I encircled the herd in a ring of flames.
I ran as fast as the dense snow would allow, but the more I ran in the same spot, the more packed it became. A moment later, a path formed that let me run at my usual lightning speed, and I pushed forward even faster.
“Fur, furraz, fur,” I continued to repeat, but I started throwing fireballs into the mix to really make an impression.
The creatures slid to a halt and sniffed the air as they searched for the threat, but I kept a constant wall of fire between us with my flame spells. Once they were clumped together and stood back-to-back, I began to dart in with the daggers to slice at their extremities.
The ice trolls growled and swiped at the air, but I filled the gap with more fire spells and continued my fast-paced circling, so they were pushed back by the fire. Fear appeared in their pale eyes for the first time, and I realized victory was within my grasp at last.
I rewarded the brave trolls with a fireball to their faces when they attempted to break through the wall of flames, and I killed three back-to-back before the others stopped moving.
The trolls stood waist-deep in the snow, but I had carved out a path a couple of feet below them. The frozen ground was quickly melting from the heat of my flame spells, and I was sloshing through what felt like a river current a few moments later.
“Furraz, furraz,” I said as I shot out two fireballs into the asses of trolls standing with their backs to me.
My targets burst into flames as the spells struck their back sides, and they tumbled into the rest of the herd, so the flames began to spread across their fur.
I darted in with daggers to slice the throats of all ice trolls too distracted by the blaze to notice my approach, and the fire-enchanted weapons cut through their armored skin like it was cutting into a live tree. I had to hack several times to draw blood, and I gritted my teeth as I finally ripped the serrated edge against a beast’s jugular. A spray of blue blood burst from the wound, and the creature howled out a wet choking sound as it clawed at its own severed throat.
I barely paused to make sure the creature dropped to the ground before I continued my onslaught of flame work. Between my fire spells and my enchanted cultist daggers, I quickly butchered the
remaining beasts trapped inside my circle of death, but I was drenched in snowmelt by the time I was done.
I cut across the last ice troll’s throat as it nursed a massive burn on its chest, and I took a moment to catch my breath as it slowly bled to death. The snow around me was stained blue with their strange blood, and as I looked around, I realized I’d gotten out of sight of my igloo-tent.
The frozen landscape all looked the same, but the falling snow had already covered most of the tracks the trolls and I had made during the fight. The wind was at my back, but I was covered in a thin layer of sweat, so I could feel every crack it penetrated. It would be dangerous to be stuck out in the blizzard for much longer, but in the worst-case scenario, I could always reset and kill the trolls again without losing sight of camp. I backtracked until I could see the icy dome shape, and I let out a breath of relief before I lumbered through the thick snow toward my shelter.
Mahini heard my approaching footsteps and opened the tent flap as I arrived, and I hurried into the warmth of the tent.
“You’re alive!” Kent gasped, and he peered out the tent entrance as though I’d led the herd back to them. “You killed them all?”
“Every last one.” I was shivering as I moved around the clumps of sleeping dogs, but then Zenda and Mahini were pulling off my wet clothes.
“I’ll, um, look away,” Kent said from behind me, but he continued to mutter under his breath. “I’ve never seen anyone survive a troll attack, let alone kill an entire herd…”
Jaxtom still hadn’t woken up from his nap, and I marveled at his ability to relax while danger lurked nearby. It just showed how much he trusted me to handle the situation, and a proud smile twisted my lips.
I was dressed in warm, dry clothes a few moments later, and then I wrapped my arms around both of my women’s shoulders.
“How did it go?” Zenda asked.
“He won, of course,” Mahini said.
“She’s right,” I laughed. “I trapped them in a fiery death circle.”
“I wish I could have seen it,” the Zaborian historian said in a wistful voice. “I’ve never seen an ice troll up close before.”
“You don’t want to,” I assured her. “But if it helps, I’ll describe them, and you can draw pictures.”
“I will help you eliminate them next time,” Mahini promised. “I can wield a cultist dagger just as well as you can.”
“I’ll consider it,” I chuckled.
We continued to talk and joke around until we fell asleep, but with Zenda on one side and Mahini on the other, I stayed plenty warm all night long. The tent was almost too hot when I woke up the next day, but it wouldn’t feel that way once we hit the road again, so I enjoyed it while I could.
Kent eyed me with awe as we headed out, but he paused to let me take the lead. I inclined my head as my team of dogs pulled ahead of his, and the guide saluted like a soldier.
I chuckled to myself as I turned my attention to the road ahead, but I couldn’t help the wide smile spreading across my face as I watched the dogs eagerly pulling me across the snow.
“Woo!” Zenda shouted and raised her arms over her head like she was on a roller coaster ride. “Faster, Bash!”
“Hiya!” I snapped the reins to signal the dogs into a faster pace, and the lead canine burst forward with renewed energy.
I glanced over my shoulder to make sure the other two sleds were managing to keep up with us, but once I spotted them, I turned
back to the bright smile on my lover’s face.
Then, in my peripheral vision, I spotted a trail of melted snow in the shape of footprints.
I inhaled sharply and pulled on the reins to signal for the dog team to stop, and they had to turn in a wide circle to wind down their fast pace. We drew closer to the trail, and my suspicions were confirmed.
Dragon cultists had been this way.
I scanned the path ahead, and the footprints wound around a large, snow-covered hill before they curved out of sight.
“What’s wrong, Bash?” Zenda asked from the sled.
The others pulled to a halt behind our sled, and Mahini had her bow strung with an arrow nocked.
“Dragon cultists.” I pointed to the tracks.
“Let’s follow them,” Mahini suggested.
“Follow them?” Kent gasped. “You have to be insane.”
A mischievous grin spread across my face.
“I’m the God of Time, Kent,” I explained. “It’s kind of my job to go toward trouble.”
The guide didn’t seem encouraged by this, but he didn’t argue as we angled our sleds in the same direction as the melted footprints. The poor man probably hadn’t realized what kind of adventure lay ahead of him when he’d agreed to the job, but he’d make it back to Northwatch in one piece.
Once I got what I was looking for, that is.
The only thing standing in my way was the cult of dragon worshippers trying to bring back the fire-breathing assholes, but they would be easy enough to take care of.
I’d conquered pirates, the God of the Purge, dukes, werewolves, dragons, griffons, and kobolds. I’d traveled across the world and gained followers from unlikely places, but I was far from being finished.
I would reach Mount Pacay, and I would forge my dragon armor at last.
The God of Time was ready to dominate the north.