A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 2102: King of the Land - Part 7
"You want to play cat and mouse with that? No thanks! We’ve done our duty! I’m going!"
The arm went racing out towards the voices, and just before it might have reached them, Oliver saw two figures, about the size of large rabbits, scramble their way on top of a rock.
Oliver was so stunned he felt the point of his sword lower. He’d never seen anything like them, nor even heard of anything like them. They looked like men, if not for their size. They had large noses that looked as if they had been drinking too much from their redness. And each of them sported a unique beard, and large pointed hats that fell down well over their eyes, and made him wonder how they ever managed to see anything at all.
Even hardly being able to see their faces, Oliver could tell that they were almost as shocked to see him as he was to see them.
"Who’s-- Argh! Not the time!"
"Run! Run! I don’t wanna be gobbled!"
The arm came racing out towards these little rabbit sized men at a rather shocking speed. Oliver watched, as one dragged a strange looking hammer behind it, going just a little bit too slow. Before he knew what he was doing, he was stood in front of them, warding the arm away again. He didn’t even try to cut it this time, he simply waved his blade in front of it, and that seemed to be enough of a warning that it once more hissed and shrank away.
"Eeeeek! Thank you!"
"Thank you!" The other echoed
"Wait! How can you see us?"
"Wait! How can you protect us?"
"He’s human?"
"Human!" The other cried in fright. "He’s going to eat us next!"
Still facing the strange goblin whirlwind, Oliver turned his head to speak to those odd little people. "I’m not eating anyone. What are you? And what is that strangeness that I see in front of me?"
They practically ignored his question, for just as he asked it, that arm once more reached out in a hurry, plunging its way into the waters of the river. It scooped up one fish after the other, and even more selfish in the process. The size of the whirlwind expanded, and another arm joined the first.
"Ohhh no! This is bad. This is realllllyyyy bad! No one’s going to be able to defeat that. It’s going to be a Hobgoblin isn’t it? Ohhhh, we’re done for. This is it! Time for us to move to a different forest!"
"Worse, I’d think... Worse," said the other, in a grave tone.
Oliver knew not exactly what he was facing, but even he could tell from the growing intensity of the whirlwind’s aura that letting it continue to ravage all that was around it unchecked would spell trouble. He took a step towards it with his sword held down low.
"No! Don’t be a fool, human!"
"Don’t be a fool! It’ll drag you up with it too! You can’t defeat a ball of potential, can you? Are you stupid?"
"Humans are stupid, I’ve spotted the truth! Slicing at potential is like slicing at air. You’ve got to wait until it stops."
"Wait?" Oliver said, ignoring their other remarks. He was beginning to feel very much like he was trapped inside a dream. The weight of their circumstance was struggling to hit him. It was all far too strange. "How long?"
"Ten more seconds! Can you manage that? Gods, you humans are so impatient!"
"I’ll wait."
"Oh, wait. He can manage that! Apologies!"
They watched the second hand dive into the river, and pluck fish after fish, and dozens more crayfish, hurtling them all together. The more it feasted, the more distinct its shape grew, and the taller it got. When those ten seconds were up – almost on the dot – the thing stabilized. The whirlwind disappeared, and what was left was something that Oliver could not name.
It was larger than a Hobgoblin, but he knew it not to be an Ogre, for the pictures that he had seen of those. There were small scales on its back, and a strange hunch to the way it walked, along with horns on its head.
"A TROLL! GODS BE GOOD, WE’VE LET A TROLL HATCH ON OUR WATCH!"
"Eee... I think now’s a good time to run, buddy."
The two went racing off, as the Troll turned its yellow eyes towards them, and its jutting fangs sneered into a smile. It held a hand out towards the river, and a stream of water came racing towards it, spraying and squirting, until it formed the length of a sword.
"...Now there’s an odd trick. A goblin doing magic. That’s the first I’ve seen of it. A strong monster, for true."
"Run, you idiot!" The two little men called out to Oliver. "You’ll only leave more of a mess for us to clean up later on! There’ll be a massive pile of resentment here, and no matter how many of us we bring in, we’ll never be able to get rid of it."
"Hm?" Oliver didn’t need to ask whether he could attack the creature now. He found that he understood what those odd little men were talking about after all. There was a distinct solidness to what it was now – it existed in reality, and no longer as potential. There was no chance for it to escape his sword.
The Troll gave a gruesome howl to the night’s sky that came fearfully close to the roar of a bear, and then came rushing over the rocks towards Oliver, swinging its sword of water with a surprising amount of speed and nimbleness.
Oliver sprang forward in the same instant, just a little bit faster. He didn’t attempt to block the strike coming his way. He hefted his sword higher, and did the strike that he was most confident in. That crushing clash from shoulder to hip.
Blood spurted, as the sword’s edge finally found something physical. It ripped straight through, slicing through the bone of the spine, and coming out again at the hip. The Troll’s strike continued, though with no hips to support it, when it did finally reach Oliver it came as no more than a light tap on the shoulder, only enough to tap the outer edge of the plate armour that he still had yet to unbuckle.
