The Troll's Trove Ch. 00

NOTE FROM AUTHOR: As currently written this is an 89k word manuscript with 93 chapters. You do the math. My chapters are short. Some are very short. I currently plan to publish one at a time on a very regular basis but publishing timing depends greatly on Literotica.com's totally awesome staff. They do a lot of hard work in order to permit me to share my stories with you. Many, many thanks to them!

Prolog - A Monster is Born

T

urls jabbed his sword towards the troll, Raum, upslope. The great beast, taller than six men, roared a challenge and leapt towards Turls. A wave of ice-clad stone burst free of the mountainside upon the troll's impact. The monster surfed the cascade to within paces of Turls's perch. Raum swung his battering-ram fist.

Turls hurled himself from the outcrop and the monster's blow splintered stone. Turls's world tumbled. Blue sky. Black stone. White ice.

Gudrun—! He thrust his arms out before him. Three finger-widths of rock-hard ice imploded upon impact. Pain lacerated Turls's face. Pink snow trailed in his wake.

Behind him, Raum vaulted Turls's abandoned post. Tree trunk legs smashed to the shale upon either side of Turls. Death threw back its fist.

A deep-throated blast clove the mountain air.

Raum froze. His gaze dragged off Turls and over his shoulder. The jagged edges of his broken horn dipped towards Turls. Its ragged break matched the engraved bell of the shofar upon King Lorn's lips.

Lorn ripped forth his sword. "Men, to me!"

A hundred throats added their voices to the King's cry. Boots dug for purchase amongst the ice. Rivulets of shale slid down the slope. Men battled the mountain to claw their way to their liege.

Raum's gaze never left the shofar. He picked at his broken headgear.

Lorn slung the horn over his back.

Raum snorted.

"Pike ready!" Lord Arild a little man with a big voice bellowed.

As one the soldiers obeyed. Ice and shale ground together under anchored boots. Spear-butts smashed down to brace against the bones of the mountain. A porcupine pelt of solid oak and steel barred the path between troll and King.

Raum's fist dug a furrow in the mountain's slope. A ripple passed through the upright pikes.

Arild advanced a pace. "Steady!"

Raum the Gargantuan charged. Spears shattered. Men scattered. A blizzard of blood painted the snow.

King and beast met. Lorn's sword scribed a thin, white line across the monster's basalt hide. Raum backhanded Lorn, King of Whitewall.

Many strides distant the King splashed beside Turls. His horn made a hollow note when it struck stone. Lorn's sword lanced the mountain a pace from the King's corpse.

No! Turls crawled towards his liege. Tor - No! His eyes rose to meet the troll's. He wobbled to his feet. He dragged the tip of his sword up. The blade quaked in his hands.

Raum's obsidian gaze left the horn to hammer Turls. A single leap and the monster's tree trunk legs smashed to the ground mere strides upslope of the shaking man.

Turls swallowed. Turls, you fool!

Raum bent until he was nose-to-sword with the puny man. He roared.

His sword abandoned Turls's gauntlets smashed over his ears. Rancid wind battered him and hot spittle washed his face.

Staggering back Turls grasped blindly for a defense. Raum's fist drew back. Turls's fingers curled about the King's sword. Raum swung.

Turls dove inside the troll's reach. He drove the King's weapon like a lance. Momentum and desperate strength rammed the blade a finger-width into Raum's stony hide.

The troll jerked back and Turls's arms cracked like a whip. The hilt of the King's blade tore from Turls's fingers. Raum punched and a battering ram force slammed into Turls face.

Bone broke. Blood erupted. Pain exploded. Turls tumbled down the side of the mountain. Red and white turned black. Oblivion's mouth opened wide.

***

The void spit Turls back out. Agony shredded his flesh. A glass-shattering pitch howled in his ears and elicited a groan.

At the utterance his head and shoulders were hauled from the snow. Wilhelm, Prince of the Realm and Turls's best friend, screamed, "You failed him!"

Turls pried open a blood-gummed eye. Pain stabbed, flaying his mind. "Gudrun's tits, stop! Will, stop!"

"You failed him!" Saliva flecked Wilhelm's lips. Tears wet his flaxen beard. He sounded as if he were a hundred paces away.

Wilhelm shook Turls again. Turls's broken thistle-top head rolled about helplessly.

"You failed the King! You let Father die!"

"No-I—" His thick, blood-swollen lip split. Fresh pain silenced him.

Wilhelm snarled. He released the iron collar of Turls's armor and let Turls flop back into his bed of snow and scree. Wilhelm jabbed an accusing finger down at the crumpled, rag-doll man at his feet.

"You—"

Turls flinched.

"—who let my Sire die are hereby banished! No aid, no succor, no help is to come to thee or thy descendants from any corner of this land save by those who would be counted amongst traitors!

"I, Wilhelm, son of Lorn, King of Whitewall, Lord of Longwater, First Knight of the Realm decree this, to never be revoked for as long as my Kingdom endures! So I have spoken. So it shall be!"