Chapter 46: Ch. 046 – (Then) Round Two

It was all supposed to be downhill after that. Well not in a literal sense, Jonathan thought; the path back to the compound was very slightly uphill from where they were, but all of the hard parts of their little trip were behind them already. They’d escaped from their brief stint of being buried alive, Erkom was pretty sure he knew where they were, and Jonathan was no longer in imminent danger of bleeding to death from his wound.Now they just had to get back so he could sleep for a couple days straight and everything would be grand.  As they walked the last mile of the rail tunnel they could hear loud banging sounds echoing very softly down the long tunnel.

“Is that a train?” Jonathan asked. He’d been ready to leap to the side and hug the wall for dear life at any moment on the walk back, even if his dwarven friend assured him that they’d hear the track hum for minutes before the train arrived. 

“Nah,” the dwarf said quietly as he strained his ears to listen, “Does that really sound like a locomotive to ye? It’s a fight - I’m certain sure of it.” Jonathan had to admit it seemed a little too intermittent for something as regular as a train. They had a certain rhythm to them that would probably sound more like a thrum than a banging at any distance - and this sounded almost like banging and roaring. 

“Who would be fighting this far down here?” Jonathan wondered out loud, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach. 

“I think ye already know the answer to that lad,” Erkom answered, walking a little faster, “Now let’s get a move on and see what we can do to help.” Jonathan sighed, but tried to keep up the pace with the dwarf despite his exhaustion. He wanted it to be something, anything besides that awful troll again, but Erkom all but confirmed it with that look, and asking him the question again in different ways wouldn’t change the answer. Was it the same troll? Are you sure it couldn’t have been a second one? Are there any other monsters that sound like trolls this deep? 

Despite everything they’d done, and the lives that had been lost doing it, that thing was still out there. Somehow it had survived an explosion, getting shot, being burned half to death, and having tons of rock dropped on it. Jonathan was beginning to understand why dwarves hated and feared these things so much that they’d developed specialized weapons just to fight them. If goblins that lived long enough grew into these monsters he had a much better understanding of why Dwarves hated goblins so much as well. They were living, breathing nightmares, and he felt foolish for ever thinking he could put one down with a little bit of fire. 

As they got closer to their goal the distant and echoing sounds slowly resolved into roars of rage and the clap of brands being fired, with the occasional sound of crumbling masonry to punctuate them both. “How horrible,” Jonathan said quietly just to try to spur conversation so he wouldn’t have to listen to the chaos and try to imagine how many people had lost their lives to it already. “If that really is the troll… They’ve been fighting it an awful long time haven’t they?” 

“Nah - the longer the fight goes on the better things are going.” Erkom reassured him. “If the Troll was winnin’ then everything would be silent by now and it would be gorgin’ on the bodies of the dead.” 

“You’re sure?” Jonathan didn’t see how anyone could be certain of something like that based purely on the sounds coming from down a dark tunnel, but Erkom just nodded. 

“Sure as can be lad. Ye’ll see. We may not have brought it down but we took a hell of a bite out of its arse.” Erkom seemed as confident as he sounded, but Jonathan wasn’t sure. At least, he wasn’t sure while they walked the last bit in silence, but when they turned the last corner and they could see the lights of the compound he could see that Erkom was at least partially right. The troll was there, raging against a partially collapsed wall on one side, and there were a few dwarven bodies scattered about, but progress was slow, and the Troll did seem to be losing. Once they got closer, careful to stay out of the line of fire, Jonathan finally understood why. The troll’s legs were almost entirely missing. Tiny little stumps had started to grow back, but they were useless. In addition to the legs, the creature was riddled with holes - and they were healing very slowly. Even with all that damage though, the thing still wouldn’t die. 

Jonathan was exhausted. He was in pain. It was the opposite of the state that he should be in to channel fire, but he couldn’t help it. Even after Erkom stopped a safe distance away, Jonathan kept advancing along the track. At this distance there was little he could do. He had to get closer. 

“Jonathan,” Erkom hissed, keeping his voice down, “Yer in no shape for this.” Jonathan ignored him though and kept getting closer. This was practically an obsession now. If he didn’t make sure this thing was dead with his own two hands he might never feel safe. He had to roast it alive or he’d never get a decent night’s sleep again.   

The burn started off slowly, as soon as he could feel the cookfire’s inside the prison. He started pulling from the stoves immediately, and the coal kept in the hoppers to fuel them soon after. This time he didn’t create a jet of flame to scare it away or draw its attention, he just kept heating up its flesh like it was an underdone steak that needed a few more minutes on the grill. Now that he was this close he could see the truth. He could see where the explosion had ripped out its side earlier today. The wounds it had sustained from crushing started to heal, but the wounds it sustained from his own private fireworks show had not. The only way to beat this thing was to cook it alive, until no part of it had enough life to regenerate again, so he redoubled his efforts. He reduced coal to ash until the troll started to steam, and it was only when smoke started to pour out of its body from the dozens of holes it had been riddled with that it realized it was in trouble. 

The troll flailed then, finally sensing the danger and feeling the burn. It looked around to retreat, but then it saw Jonathan and changed its mind. If it had still had just a little life left in it, it would have devoured him there and then. Even though it was already dead on its feet it still tried though. It crossed half of the hundred feet between them in one last desperate attempt to feed. Jonathan didn’t even try to run. He couldn’t. He could barely stand there while it advanced four feet at a time as it clawed its way across the stone towards him. All his strength was bent towards that one task of cooking this monster alive. The stoves in the kitchen were cold now, and the coal was almost gone. He switched to pulling fire from the powder of the defenders at last. They wouldn’t need it after this, and there was so much fire in it that as bleary as he was he had trouble redirecting such strength without burning himself in the process.

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If he’d been stronger maybe he would have burned it to ash already, he thought, as his vision started to fade. He wasn’t though. He was passing out. He might even be dying. He wasn’t sure. All he was sure about was that even if the troll consumed him, the meager bits of flesh on his skinny human limbs wouldn’t be enough to save it from the damage he’d inflicted on it. Jonathan smiled as he collapsed onto the rail bed. This time he’d remembered those stupid dwarven laws. This time no one could say anything bad about the good thing he’d done. 

. . .

Jonathan awoke sometime later in a bed, no - in two dwarven beds that had been pushed together to make one big enough for him to sleep on without curling up on his side. His head pounded, his arm ached, and even breathing was painful. He was as exhausted as he’d ever been, but he was alive. For a long time he just laid there listening to the stone men talking in the next room. Erkom was there, and maybe the Warden too, but it was only when Jonathan figured out who the third voice belonged to that he finally made the move to sit up. Fedon was in there - and no doubt he was trying to get Jonathan in trouble yet again. 

He rose to his feet, and by leaning heavily on the bed and then the wall he was able to reach the doorway, but only just. Jonathan would have collapsed right there if he wasn’t too proud to let his antagonist see him that weak. Fedon opened his mouth again, ranting again in the stone tongue as he pointed to Jonathan, but the Warden cut him off with a word. 

“Ah - the man of the hour,” the Warden said, rising from his seat and guiding Jonathan to a bench. “Ye look pale lad. What ye did to that monster must have taken a real toll on ye. Please - relax. Ye earned it. Ye both did. If not for the two of ye I might not be standing here breathin now.” 

“Thank you, Warden,” Jonathan tried to answer politely, but the words croaked out of his dry throat instead and he completely failed in his attempt to cover up his exhaustion. “But I want to know - what is Fedon charging me with now?”

“Don’t mind him,” the Warden said smoothly. “According to everything I’ve heard, ye did nothing wrong. The troll is dead - and Erkom here tells me that we have ye to thank for the terrible damage ye did to it in yer little firefight and the subsequent cave in, right?” 

“That’s right,” Jonathan answered cautiously. He was looking for verbal pitfalls that would get him into more trouble than he was already in. 

“Technically I have to keep you both until the end of your sentence. The law makes no exceptions for heroism, but as far as I’m concerned you’ve done all the hard labor you’ll be doing for the remainder of your stay. Please. Rest and recover until the train comes for you in a few days.” 

“I - thank you,” Jonathan wasn’t exactly sure what to say. He’d been so keyed up to defend himself for doing the right thing all over again that to be congratulated instead was a little baffling. Jonathan sat there for a few minutes before he felt well enough for Erkom to escort him back to their cellblock, but things got even stranger as they went. Everyone looked at them as they walked, guards and prisoners alike, but for once it wasn’t hatred or annoyance in their eyes. It was with happiness, or even admiration. 

Jonathan had no idea what to make of it, but when he was finally alone with Erkom he asked “Do you believe him? Do you really think this isn’t going to make more trouble for me?” 

“Lad,” Erkom laughed, “He’s going to have that thing’s head preserved and mounted on his wall. Ye really think that if he does all that he’s got a bone to pick with ye?” The dwarf didn’t wait for him to respond though. He just kept talking, “I’ll tell ye what I think - I think ye won’t have to buy yer own drinks for a long time. We just need to work on yer stone tongue a bit so ye can tell that story yerself, because ancestors know I’m going to get tired of telling it for ye eventually.” 

Jonathan smiled at that. Finally things were starting to look up - at least they would be as soon as he stopped hurting so badly.

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