Late one evening Tara was preparing a supper when a sound caught her attention. An odd rustling in the bushes. She picked up her sword and waited, backing against a tree so that she couldn’t be attacked from behind. The rustling grew louder and then she heard the stomping of large feet. An incredibly tall and ugly creature lurched out of the woods towards her. It was a sickly greenish brown colour with tufts of coarse hair speckling its body. The face was wrinkled with a mouth full of sharp teeth.
For a moment she gagged on the stench coming of off it. It shrieked at her and brandished a set of sharp claws.
It dawned on her that she was looking at a troll. She had seen pictures of them before but the pictures hardly did the foulness of these creatures justice. A movement behind the creature told her that there was more than one. As the first one moved towards her, Tara began to focus her energy, focussing her inner passion and calling on the elements.
A streak of blue lightning jumped from her fingers and covered the first troll like a net of light. As the electricity crackled across the tufts of hair it leapt to the second troll. They screamed in rage and ran at Tara. She managed to dodge out of the way of the first one but the second slammed into her. It seemed to have lost its own footing and sent both of them tumbling. As it struggled to stand up its claws tore small cuts in her flesh up her side. She twisted onto her side, wriggling her legs out from underneath it and moving into a position next to it so that she could stab it in the side. Blood gushed from the wound in its side. It shrieked and swung a clawed hand at her, catching her on the side of her face and raking its claws along her cheek as she fell backwards. The world swum around her and for a split second she was certain that she would lose consciousness.
This is it, she thought to herself, I’m going to pass out and they’re going to kill me. She braced herself.
The troll that had been on top of her was struggling with its own wounds and was having difficulty getting up. The other one was moving towards her, but the injured troll was in its way. Tara managed to shake off the dizziness before it lunged at her and rolled out of the way.
Calling upon the elements again Tara sent flames at the troll. The tufts of hair on its skin smoked and ignited and it rolled on the ground screaming. She dragged herself to her feet and stood over the burning troll. For a moment she just stood there trying to balance herself, then she brought the sword down on it, leaning all of her weight on the hilt. The troll screamed and writhed, eventually growing still. Tara started to pull her sword out of it when a sudden sharp pain in her leg caused her to collapse. She had forgotten about the other troll in her determination to kill the one lunging at her and now it had taken a sizeable chunk out of the back of her leg. Warm sticky blood was dripping down her leg.
She cast a fire dart at the troll but it kept moving towards her. Its claws slashed at her, one slicing into her abdomen, the other into her upper arm. She struggled to get away, unable to pull her sword out of the other troll. One last fire dart brought the troll down in a heap at her feet. She kicked it a couple of times to make sure that it was dead. Then she went and retrieved her sword, quickly so that she could retrieve it before the shock of her injuries had worn off and she would be unable to function.
The sword felt ten times heavier as she pulled it out and tried to put it back in its scabbard. She failed to put it back in the scabbard, her fingers simply lost the strength to hold it. It fell to the ground with a loud thump and Tara collapsed next to it.
“Okay,” she said to the air, “maybe I’m a bit more injured than I wanted to admit.” Her eyes were growing heavy. “No Tara,” she told herself, “if you let yourself fall asleep you’ll just keep bleeding and you won’t wake up.”
She dragged herself up to a sitting position and looked over her injuries. The moment she looked down at herself she wished that she hadn’t. Blood had completely soaked through the pants on her lower left leg and was starting to drip down over her boot. Her side was also bloodstained, but appeared to have stopped bleeding on its own in most places. Her upper right arm was also dripping blood, though not as heavily as her leg. She reached up and touched the side of her face. The moment she touched her face a sharp stabbing pain shot through the claw marks that covered her cheek and she let out a cry.
Grabbing a shirt out of her pack, Tara used a dagger to cut it to strips and bandage her wounds. She bandaged her arm first, using her teeth to help her tie it. Once her arm was bandaged enough to be useable she turned her attention to the wound on her leg. She cut the lower half of her pant leg off, peeling it back from the wound and wrapped her leg as tightly as she could. Tightening the bandage sent waves of pain through her body. She gritted her teeth, forcing her fingers to keep moving until she was done. Then she let the shock overtake her again and she lay back, watching the world spin. She knew that she should get up and move away from the site, the stench of blood and dead bodies could bring other predators. But she could not force herself to stand. Instead her eyes drooped and eventually closed. |
