Disciple of War Disciple of War (Art of the Adept #4) - Michael G. Manning Page 0,197

human in size and proportion, their strength would be much greater. Given their large size, though, they were immensely strong. With long legs, they could easily outrun a human athlete and were probably faster than horses as well.

Will had once been chased by them, and the only thing that had kept him from being caught was the fact that their mass made them less able to maneuver around trees and other obstacles. On an open field, he wouldn’t have had a chance. In virtually every way that mattered, trolls were physically superior to humans. Except for attractiveness, observed Will, though he supposed his opinion was subjective.

Mentally, trolls were slow learners, but given that they were effectively immortal, they had plenty of time to make up the difference. The troll chieftain, Clegg, was apparently thousands of years old, and as far as Will could tell, the ancient troll was as smart as most humans. The only real advantage humanity or other races had over trolls was the fact that trolls couldn’t use magic.

But that wasn’t much of an advantage in Muskeglun. The plane the trolls lived on had a very low ambient level of turyn, and according to what Arrogan had said, the trolls themselves didn’t possess an internal source the way humans did. Instead, their bodies generated turyn from the food they ate.

“You can take Gan,” said Clegg finally, indicating the massive troll standing next to Lrmeg on Will’s left. “He yours anyway.”

“Murra!” answered Gan enthusiastically, looking down at Will. “Gan veck Murra!”

Gan was Will’s troll child, and the term ‘Murra’ was a new troll word that Clegg had coined. It meant mother, and it was the reason for Will’s unique title, ‘Grak-Murra’ or troll-mother. When Will had last seen the troll-let roughly a year ago, the creature had been roughly the size of a tree frog. Now Gan stood more than ten feet tall and bulked larger than most of the trolls currently gathered around them. Gan was also unique in that he wore a strangely misshapen leather hat of some sort. It had a floppy brim and had a strange point on top.

“What did he say?” asked Will, directing his question to the chieftain.

Clegg laughed. “He say, Gan eat mother, but what he means is love.”

“Huh?” exclaimed Will.

Arrogan spoke up to clarify matters. “He’s only a year old. Trolls take decades to learn to speak their own tongue and the words for eat, love, and fuck are very similar. Basically, they learn the word ‘eat’ first, and later the subtler meanings arise such that they understand and start using the other two.”

“Oh.” Will turned back to Clegg. “I need more than just Gan. This is a war. I need many trolls.”

Clegg stared back, unconcerned. “So?”

“Without your help, the demons will probably destroy my world,” Will explained.

Clegg moved his head in an odd, circular motion that Will had already learned was the troll equivalent of a shrug. “So? They not come here.”

The troll chieftain was undoubtedly correct there. Muskeglun was uniquely unattractive to most other races. Not only were trolls completely useless to demonkind as sacrifices or as food, but their plane lacked ley lines. In fact, almost any invader would most likely find themselves as prey for the natives rather than the reverse.

“What can I offer you in exchange for your help?” asked Will.

“Last time wizard asked for help, my people were killed. None returned and some humans came here to hunt my people.” Clegg grinned. “They also not return home. Wise humans stop coming.”

“That’s plain truth,” agreed Arrogan. “And you can’t guarantee any of the trolls you take with you will return either. Fighting an army of demons is guaranteed to be dangerous, and if you lose, none of them will make it back.”

Will glared at the ring on his hand. “Whose side are you on?”

“The side with less stupid,” said his grandfather. “So far, that seems to be the trolls. You should have talked to me before coming here. You don’t even have a way to get them to Myrsta.”

“Tailtiu can help me—” began Will.

Arrogan cut him off. “No, she can’t. The fae don’t allow trolls in their realm. She would have told you that if you’d asked. If you think trolls are bad in the human realm, imagine how bad they might be in Faerie. There’s so much turyn there they might start multiplying without even trying—and that’s without considering whether they could be transformed into fae themselves or not.”

Well shit, thought Will. If the