Path of Dragons

Book 8: Chapter 9: The Camp

“What do you think?” asked Miguel, glancing to the leader of the expedition. She was the shortest and stoutest dwarf Miguel had ever seen, with a beard thick enough that he’d originally mistook her for a man. But despite her wide-as-she-was-tall stature, she’d established herself as a solid woodswoman, a good fighter, and more importantly, extremely well-organized. Miguel couldn’t have asked for much more from a leader of the expedition from Ironshore to Argos.

At first, he’d expected to be the one in charge, but in retrospect, he recognized how silly that notion was. He was stronger than most fighters, but he wasn’t even close to the highest level in the city. On top of that, despite his experiences, he couldn’t escape the issues that came with his young age. Putting a teenager in charge of anything was just a bad look.

Thankfully, Katis was more than up to the job, and due to her leadership, the trip to Argos had gone off without a hitch. They’d left Wilhelm and a couple of diplomats behind, then begun the trek back after only a couple of days in the city.

For his part, Miguel had used that time to visit his mother’s memorial, which had become a hotbed of activity. The city’s Healers had taken their cues from Elijah, and they’d set up shop within. There, they offered their services to anyone in need. It was a fitting tribute to his mother’s memory, but the crowd made trying to pay his respects a lot less personal than it should have been.

He’d also tried to find Zoe, the thief he’d once met in the city. At one point, he’d been a little infatuated with her. Their meeting had been brief, but she’d held a prominent place in his mind, though he’d kept those thoughts mostly to himself. Now, though, he just wanted to make sure she was okay – and maybe to show her that he had, indeed, made himself useful. However, he found no sign of her in the city, so he was forced to end his search unsatisfactorily.

Otherwise, the visit to Argos had been mostly pleasant. The city was even better developed than Ironshore, and it had a human flavor to it that the other city never could. Miguel didn’t exactly feel out-of-place in Ironshore, but at times, he definitely felt like an outsider. There was nothing of that in Argos, and he enjoyed the two days he spent in the city.

But then, the time to head home had come, and though he’d wanted to run their nearby tower, that would have to wait until he’d done his duty. Once the spires were up and operational, it would be easy to go from one place to another.

Now, though, two days after they’d left the city behind, they’d run into a problem.

Katis scratched her beard, turning her attention to the scout who’d brought the news. Rasana was a tiny gnome with a shock of blue hair that she chose to wear in something approximating pigtails. It made her look incredibly young, but she claimed that it was a traditional hairstyle for powerful warriors among her people. “Are you sure?” asked Katis.

“And you say it was abandoned?” Miguel asked.

The gnome nodded. “Not a soul in sight,” she answered. “There were some tracks leading off to the south, but I wanted to report back before I followed.”

“Smart,” Katis grunted. “We investigate together.”

Then, she signaled to the entire column of soldiers – there were fifteen in the group, plus an addition they’d picked up in Argos – and the party shifted directions. After that, they followed Rasana’s lead for a little more than a mile. Along the way, Miguel noticed signs of the dark elves’ passage. They were decent woodsmen, but he had the advantage of his experiences backing him up. So, he noticed their tracks as well as – if not better than – Rasana.

After about half a mile, Trevor returned to the group. He’d grown a little in the past few months, and he was beginning to look more and more like his father. His antlers weren’t nearly as expansive, but it wouldn’t be long before he cut just as majestic a figure. But with his maturity had come a bit of an independent streak. Most days, he went off on his own, exploring the wilderness around them. He always came back, though, and usually with a prance in his step that signaled how proud he was of himself.

“What do you think he gets up to out there?” asked Isaak, the new addition to the party. The Sorcerer had practically insisted on going back to Ironshore with them, and because he had plenty of power of his own, Katis had allowed it. Still, he quite obviously was not a woodsman, and the two days since they’d entered the forested hills around Argos had been characterized by his discomfort.

Miguel answered, “Not sure. Deer things, I guess.”

“Oh. I thought…I don’t know what I thought, actually. You’re bonded to him, right?”

“We have an understanding. We’re friends, but I don’t know his thoughts any more than you do,” Miguel stated. Over the past year, he’d researched his bond with Trevor, and while it wasn’t entirely unique, the shape it had taken was different than anything he’d read about. Most bonds with beasts were entirely one-sided on the part of the tamer, and that gave that person incredible insight into the minds of his contracted animals. It also gave them control, which just didn’t sit well with Miguel. By comparison, his bond with Trevor was one of equals, which was practically unheard of.

“What do you think we’ll find?” Isaak asked.

“Dark elves, probably. You’ve fought them before, right?”

Isaak nodded. He was one of the reasons the dark elves hadn’t attacked Argos with numbers as they had Ironshore. He and Artemis – his cat who’d stayed behind to guard the city – had been killing dark elves for the past year.

The slender teenager adjusted his glasses, answering, “Not really fighting. More just stumbling upon them and burning them to a crisp. Usually only a few at a time, though. And I always had Artemis with me.”

“Well, you’ve got us backing you up now,” Miguel said, reaching out to pat the Sorcerer on his shoulder. It was surprisingly muscular, suggesting that the young man was more than the weedy and bookish teenager he appeared to be. Of course, that should have been obvious, considering the kill count Isaak had racked up. “It’ll be fine.”

Trevor snorted his agreement.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

After that, Katis called for silence, and the group progressed accordingly. The terrain was hilly, but there weren’t many obstacles barring their way. In addition, the trees were well spaced, and with the group’s attributes, the changes in elevation weren’t difficult to manage. Eventually, Rasana signaled that they’d arrived at their destination. When Miguel joined them on a slight rise overlooking a mostly barren valley, he saw what had caught Rasana’s attention.

The camp had clearly been occupied by dark elves, judging by the layout and the style of the tents. Miguel had seen plenty of dark elf camps, so he recognized both easily enough. What didn’t fit was that the fire had been allowed to burn down to the coals, which still smoked slightly. The dark elves had abandoned the camp without breaking it down or smothering their fire.

“Tracks leading away?” he asked in a whisper that was probably unnecessary.

“West,” Rasana answered. “Something big was following them, though.”

“Some sort of beast?” asked Katis.

Rasana shrugged. “It was bipedal, with feet like a giant. Stride length suggests around nine feet tall. Maybe a bit shorter or taller, depending on proportions.”

“Ain’t seen nothin’ like that ‘round ‘ere,” Katis remarked.

“It can send twenty dark elves running. It has to be dangerous,” Miguel stated.

“We need to investigate. Don’t want ‘nother orc invasion or some such,” Katis said. Then, to Rasana, she gestured toward the camp and ordered, “After you.”

After that, the group fell upon the camp, scavenging what they could. There wasn’t much, and what was there wasn’t terribly valuable, but they took a few scattered pieces of equipment as well as the tents, which had been enchanted with temperature control. They also took the time to properly smother the fire.

Then, they were off.

Rasana led the way, but even someone as inexperienced as Isaak could have followed the trail. The dark elves were still as light-footed as always, but whatever had chased them away from their camp didn’t care about leaving a wide path in its wake. So, they made proper time until, at last, they found their quarry.

Or what was left of them.

“What in all the hells happened here?” muttered Katis as she stared at the aftermath.

It was difficult to match all the pieces into individual dark elves, but Miguel suspected that there had been no survivors. Certainly, there were enough detached limbs and bloody torsos to suggest that ever single member of the party had been slain.

Rasana swallowed hard, obviously trying not to vomit. “The trail keeps going,” she said in her squeaky voice, pointing past the scene of the massacre.

“It looks like they fought the thing here,” Miguel said, kneeling next to one of the torsos. It had once belonged to a male dark elf, but the flesh had been shredded right down to the ribcage. Those had been crushed, suggesting that something with immense strength had authored the blow.

Of course, that wasn’t some great revelation. Some of the bodies had been ripped in half, and given that each one of the dark elf fighters probably had at least a few levels under their belts, it would have taken a truly mighty creature to accomplish that feat.

“And lost,” added Isaak. Unlike the others, the young man seemed entirely unaffected by the carnage. Despite his inexperience as a woodsman, the young Sorcerer was no stranger to the realities of combat. Like anyone with a combat class who’d managed to reach any level of significance, he’d probably seen plenty of terrible things since Earth’s transformation.

“We need to find the beast,” Miguel stated.

“Aye, we do,” Katis agreed. “Ain’t nothin’ good can come of lettin’ somethin’ what could do this run loose. Looks like it was injured, too.”

Supporting that notion was the fact that its trail was characterized by quite a lot of blood. In some places, it pooled into deep puddles containing gallons of the thick, gooey substance. It was red, just like human blood, but its consistency was far different. Like oil, almost.

In any case, it provided all the direction they needed. So, the group set out, their weapons ready as they stalked a creature capable of killing twenty dark elves. What was even more distressing was that it had sent them running. They’d tried to fight, there at the end, but Miguel suspected that had been because they could no longer outpace the creature.

Still, judging by the amount of blood it had shed, it was wounded. And Miguel was confident that his people made for a stronger force than the dark elves’, so it was with some surety that he and the others followed the trail.

His confidence was misplaced.

The first sign that they were getting close was the slightly less curdled puddles of blood, but the more impactful was the smell. Like the musty scent of a wet dog coupled with the rotting odor of a predator’s lair, it was wholly unpleasant and evoked a prey response that told them all to run for the hills.

Everyone in the group was experienced enough to ignore that impulse, but it still put them on edge. So it was with no small degree of caution that they continued to follow the trail, and eventually, they caught sight of their prey.

And it was like nothing Miguel had ever seen before.

At least nine feet tall, with a rangy build that reminded him of an NBA center, the thing was covered in long, stringy hair that had been matted from all the blood loss. It was also missing one arm and the lower part of one of its legs, which meant that it had been crawling along.

But most disturbingly, those limbs had already begun to regrow. The arm was little more than a nub, but the leg was fully shaped, even if it was a size more appropriate to a toddler.

“What is that thing?” Miguel whispered.

For a long moment, no one answered his question. But then, finally, Rasana mumbled, “Wild troll. This…this is a problem.”

Even as they watched the creature crawling through the woods – it was still fifty yards away, at least, so it hadn’t detected their presence – Miguel asked, “Why? It’s just a monster.”

“It ain’t just a monster,” Katis stated evenly. “Where there’s one, there’s always more. They ain’t s’posed to like the daylight, though. Most times, they stay underground.”

“It probably followed the dark elves up here,” Miguel reasoned. The species of dark-skinned elves were native to what they called the Hollow Depths, so his assertion made a lot of sense.

“We’ll need to investigate,” Rasana added. “People need to know if there are trolls in the area.”

“Agreed,” Katis said. “But we need to kill that thing first. If we don’t put it down for good, it’ll regenerate and…well, you saw what it did to them dark elves.”

After that, they made a plan to kill the troll. It wasn’t particularly complex, and it depended mostly on ranged attacks meant to whittle down the creature’s strength. Only when it was weakened would they descend upon it and hack it to pieces. That last bit was necessary because, according to Rasana, it was the only way to finish a troll off. Their Regeneration was off the charts, and a single lucky blow was never enough.

The first part of the plan went off without a hitch, and because the monster’s mobility had been sorely diminished by its previous clash with the dark elves, it couldn’t harness its reportedly high Strength to respond to their attacks. Soon enough, flight after flight of arrows had turned the thing into a veritable pincushion. It had long since collapsed into a foot-deep pool of blood, where it lay unmoving.

But it wasn’t dead.

Miguel and the other melee-specialized fighters stepped forward. With his attributes, which were still somewhat enhanced by his proximity to the grove, Miguel was far and away the strongest combatant, so he attacked it with vigor, hacking into it with the Blade of the Green Warden. It bit deep, but even as he withdrew his sword, the wound started to close.

The monster stirred, but by that point, a dozen other blades fell upon it.

What followed was a period of gruesome butchery that didn’t end until the creature had been hacked into dozens of pieces. Even then, the hunks of meat and bone needed to be separated from the others, lest they find their way back together. Miguel had expected decapitation to finish it off, but that was not the case. Instead, the monster – whose face looked like a combination of a goblin and a gorilla – just stared at him with unabashed hatred.

All in all, it took an hour of work until they each received experience for the kill. Even with the energy being split between twenty people, it was enough to push Miguel to the next level.

Fifty-four.

One more, and he’d get a new skill.

Even as that thought crossed his mind, he imagined finding more trolls. He shuddered at the thought, though. Killing even one that was already wounded had taken the combined efforts of twenty people. No – he never wanted to see another troll again.