Elf Defence (Adventures in Aguillon #2) - Lisa Henry Page 0,9
wall, and studied the odd scene.
“It sure is a bad day to be the street sweeper in Tournel,” Benji said, his boots crunching on the dirt as he came to stand beside him. He stretched and then dropped his hand and began to play with Calarian’s hair.
Calarian pulled his head away. “Shh. I’m concentrating.”
Benji sighed loudly and stomped away again. Benji really only enjoyed two things, orgasms and revolution, and he got cranky when he was denied either of them.
Calarian studied the corpse of the mountain troll: it was large and leathery, a greyish colour like some sort of subterranean slug, if slugs were made entirely of muscle and bristly hair. It was wearing a loincloth, thankfully, and also a helmet of some kind. Unfortunately it had been wearing the helmet on its elbow for some reason, so it hadn’t done a thing to save its skull when it had crashed into the wall of the town. Mountain trolls weren’t very smart. They were honestly some kind of miracle of nature, because nothing that stupid had any business walking around upright and trying to breathe at the same time. But mountain trolls were stubborn as hell. They basically said “fuck you” to evolution the moment they were born, and kept living just to be arseholes about it. They were tenacious in the same way that mould was. Or genital warts.
Calarian pivoted slightly and looked over his shoulder. Dusk was creeping in, and the dark mountains loomed up behind him. He could see the path the mountain troll must have taken—being as stupid as they were, they tended to follow the path of least resistance, like water trickling down a slope. There was a hedgerow with a troll-shaped hole in it several hundred feet away, and furrows in the dirt road that led down from the nearest mountain, like something very big and heavy had dug its heels in trying not to trip and fall.
And yet, if this was a mountain troll attack, why wasn’t there a single weapon on the troll? Apart from the helmet and the loincloth, the thing was completely naked, defenceless apart from its sheer bulk.
Something didn’t add up here.
Calarian rose to his feet, and beckoned Lars closer. “How many attacks have there been?”
Lars wrinkled his nose. “I’ve been the duke since lunchtime. I don’t know.”
“Good point,” Calarian said. He beckoned Gunther over, and Gunther didn’t look very happy about it at all. “How many attacks have there been?”
“Six in the past four weeks,” Gunther said.
“Trolls usually attack in droves,” Calarian said. He wasn’t an expert by any means—he was a lowland elf, and proud of it—but if there was one thing he knew about mountain trolls, it was that they weren’t built for independent thought, so they always attacked in droves. Mountain troll attacks were notorious for being deadly both to the targets and to the attackers. To the targets, for obvious reasons. And to the attackers, because any troll who tripped and fell over got crushed by the wave of trolls behind them, because they were too stupid and had too much forward momentum to stop.
Lars’s broad forehead creased in thought. “They’re not really attacking though, are they?”
Gunther scoffed. “What else would you call it? If they manage to break through the walls and run amok the length of the town, they could cause untold havoc and destruction!”
“Yeeees... but it doesn’t seem like they’re trying to take over or anything. They’re just being trolls.” Lars pointed at the mountainous corpse. “He was just trying to run in a straight line through town. He would have, if the wall hadn’t got in his way.”
Calarian felt a sudden flare of interest that wasn’t entirely sexual. Lars was still wearing those leather shorts, so it wasn’t entirely not sexual, but the human had a brain! What an unexpected delight!
“Like water running down a hill,” he said, flashing a smile at Lars. “They’re not trying to get into the town at all. They’re simply following the easiest path, and the town is in their way. Mountain trolls are too stupid to go around!”
Lars’s answering smile was as bright as sunshine.
Benji sidled back into the conversation like a small black thundercloud, and glowered at Calarian, and then Lars, and then Calarian again. “I’m bored. This is stupid. I’m going for a walk.”
Calarian nodded, and shooed him away. He put a hand on Lars’s shoulder. “You’re absolutely correct, Your Grace! This isn’t an attack at all.”