#troll bridge

The mage swung the thing off his shoulders overhand and planted its blade into the dirt. It was the first truly threatening staff Breaker had ever seen. The blade on its end was almost as long as the haft itself, counterbalanced at the end by a polished lump of amber larger than a goose's egg. The damn thing looked more like a polearm than a casting aid.

Breaker waited a few moments to see if the human was going to respond to his question. He didn’t. Part of him, the proud part, was happy to finally be taken seriously. The smart part of him suspected he was going to miss the advantage of being underestimated.

Breaker unslung his massive warhammer from his shoulders, its half-slowed fall still weighty enough to be felt through the mages thick work boots, loud enough to be felt in both of their chests.

Then he blitzed the length of the bridge.

The mage’s eyes widened, his wizened hands beginning to twitch out a ward. Breaker knew there wasn’t time. The gap was too short. He was already beginning his overhead swing of the hammer, half falling, the full power of his speed, strength, and weight poured into one crushing blow. He knew that the secret to hitting a mage was giving them everything you had, as hard as possible, as fast as possible, as close as possible. The more time they had to think and react, the more dangerous they’d become, and the more time he had needed to chase and smash, the more tired he’d get. Thank the Gods this was gonna work. Extended fights were-

The wizard grinned.

A spell went off. Not a ward. Simpler. A small jet of flame shot out of the amber orb, rotating the blade to vertical in a fraction of a second. The wizard half relaxed as he planted the staff in the gravel, looking forward like a huntsman versus a charging boar.

Breaker knew he couldn’t slow down. He couldn’t dodge. The one mercy he could see was that the tip was aimed at his chest, not his gut. He’d rather choke on blood than rot from the inside. He closed his eyes before impact, not wanting to see the blade sink into him.

It didn’t.

He heard the crunch of gravel give way to the crunch of his nose as the mage threw a haymaker into his sidestep, staff moved helpfully to the side. He was half glad for the blow because it helped him get his center of balance back under him again. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to get a blow in with the hammer again, it needed too much time to build momentum, but he still turned to face the wizard, every instinct insisting that he couldn’t take his eyes off the little man for more than a moment.

He turned out to be right. If he’d turned his head half as fast he wouldn’t have had enough time to dodge the cudgel end of the staff, swung like a bat at the back of his skull. If he hadn’t been outmaneuvered at every step of this fight, he’d have assumed that swinging from the direction his bad eye was on was just luck. The fact that he knew it was intentional implied that his opponent had a level of martial expertise that even most knights lacked.

With no space to use the hammer, he used the next best weapon in his arsenal: His body. His leg snapped out hard, his massive height letting him connect the blow easily with the old man’s chest. He felt something give, and watched with some small satisfaction as the human went bouncing down the bridge’s center path

Well, he didn’t need an invitation.

He couldn’t move quite as the fast as he’d launched the mage away, but it was a close thing. The pause gave him time to get the momentum he needed to swing the hammer. He felt like an ox behind a cart, the weight behind building into something unblockable, undodgeable, un-

Unbelievable.

The little man ended his tumble on all fours, splayed like a tree frog. The hammer was already bearing down on him, too late in the swing for Breaker to change course, even as he watched the final twitch that signaled a ward was cast. The hammer slammed into the mages hunched back harmlessly, the force of the blow charging the ward like a magical battery. The maniacal grin the little man had worn ever since that first blitz widened half a step further, silver molars on full display, and then-

He flew. Rather than directing the force into some sort of attack, rather than buying himself time and space, the two classical friends of all mages, the little bastard directed all of his stored up energy downwards. The blast launched him up, bringing him from all fours at shin height to eye level in a fraction of a second. He probably would’ve headed up another six or seven feet if he hadn’t grabbed ahold of Breaker’s left horn. His upward momentum swung him full circle around it, his journey ending abruptly as he drove the armored soles of both of his decidedly un-wizardly boots into the back of Breaker’s skull.

If Breaker had been an ogre, or a nightkin, or even a giant, he’d have been out cold. But Breaker was a full-blooded troll, and the horns on his head weren’t just for ornamentation. If he charged a brick wall there was a coin flips chance he’d be the winner. The boots never stood a chance.

The wizard managed to get two more vicious, if slightly panicked kicks in before Breaker’s fists managed to catch up. They grabbed him by the collar of his coarse green robe and yanked him forward, over his shoulder. The old man looked slightly sheepish, dangling from the inhumanely large hands of his opponent.

Breaker cut to the chase.

“You could’ve killed me on the first charge.”

The mage nodded. There wasn’t a whole lot else he could do. His robes were caught so tightly in the troll’s grasp that they acted like a straitjacket.

“Why didn’t you?”

The wizard went for earnestness. He’d been told it was his saving grace.

“You did not deserve death. This is your bridge. I just could not afford the toll.”

The robe tightened further as the troll’s fist clenched.

“Do you wish that you killed me when you had the chance?”

The wizard snorted.

“Murder you, for the price of a goat? No. If I could make a wish, I’d wish I could swim.”

The troll let go with one fist, its thumb trailing back to its mouth. A large, sharp tooth clamped down on the meaty pad of the digit, drawing a thick bead of green blood. The wizard’s confusion blossomed into disgust as the ichor was smeared from his forehead to his chin.

“The fuck-”

His curse was interrupted by the troll.

“I have decided to make you kin. And my first gift to you, great kin, is to grant you your wish.”

The second fist, the one still gripping the front of the wizard’s robes, flung itself forward. The wizard barely had a moment to curse before plummeting into the water below.

Several seconds passed.

Breaker waited.

The wizard arose, sputtering, from the depths. He turned, trembling from the cold, the rage, and the sheer disbelief of what he was experiencing.

“It’s four feet deep.”

Breaker nodded.

“Yes.”

It was almost heartwarming, the way the wizard laughed as he began wading his way towards the far shore. Breaker’s hands gingerly roamed over the goose eggs growing from the back of his head, larger than his own horns had been when he’d passed the trials of manhood.