“Where’ve you been, dickhead?” asked the larger of the two, swaggering over, chest puffed out.
Terry didn’t answer, just stared at the blood on his hands.
“They sent a search party out here looking for you lot,” said the weaselly one with the raisin eyes set too far apart. “Day after day, night after night. Must have cost a fortune.”
“Yeah, and whose taxes paid for that?” said the big one, as if he’d ever paid taxes in his life.
“Yeah,” agreed his crony, jabbing Terry in the ribs with his skinny index finger. “Well? What you gonna do about it, mate? You gonna pay up?”
Terry brushed his hand away. He’d had enough of their shitty attitude, not to mention the shittier smell of their Lynx body spray. He went to push by, but the two thugs refused to budge.
“Going somewhere, bruv?” sniffed the top dog. He grinned, showing a mouth of teeth like a half-demolished graveyard. “Not such a big man without your bird about, are ya?”
Blood surged through Terry’s muscles. Without thinking, he pulled back his arm and delivered a fist to the centre of the bully’s face.
Crack.
His nose exploded with a satisfying crunch and he dropped to his knees with tears streaming from his eyes.
“What was that for?” the stricken bully cried, his tees swapped for dees. “We were only mucking around, mate!”
Terry didn’t bother to stick around. He just walked by and took himself home.
WHEN CLIVE SNYDER stepped out of the cable car and set foot on the far side of the Durkon Chasm, he didn’t run. He knew his enemies would assume that he would. Would take it for granted that he’d head as far away as possible to spare himself their wrath. But Clive knew he’d never outrun them. So he didn’t. He made camp. He made camp in the last place anyone would ever think to look for another human being. He made camp in the cursed burial pit from which Carnella’s troll army were born. The rancid cocoon that churned with an evil so putrid, so utterly loathsome, that it was able to give birth to a breed of living malevolence.
Despite his earthly senses telling him to steer well clear of the old mine, Clive’s magical intuition told him to do just the opposite. To go there and harness its power. To make it his own. So, into the depths he descended, to a place that no living soul had seen in generations. A place of old meat and broken bone. He conjured a glow to light his way; a steady, red flame that sprang from his palm and illuminated the hideousness his surroundings. The stinking viscera that crept up the walls. The thick sludge of decomposing corpses that pooled about his knees. The body parts that bobbed to the surface, puffy and pale, like dumplings in a vile stew.
Still, Clive would not be deterred. Still he pushed on through the charnel house, refusing to blinker himself to its horrors. It was only reality after all. Stuff and matter. Malleable things that a man of magic could to bend to his will. His ability to do so was intuitive now. Effortless. He required neither incantations nor grimoires to transform the natural world. All he needed was imagination, and imagination was something he had in no short supply.
Escapism had long been Clive’s salvation. Every punch he’d taken, every cruel word spat in his ear, had transported him to a place like this. A place the bullies couldn’t touch him. A place where he held the power. And now he’d finally arrived. Arrived in an actual world of magic. Here, his imagination was no longer an escape hatch, it was a weapon. Anything he could dream up, he could make real. All he needed was time to recoup his power. Just a little more time.
Clive spent a week building up to his revenge. While his former allies celebrated a false victory back at the citadel, he manifested a real one. He plotted. He brooded. He raged. And after seven days of brewing, Clive’s hatred finally came to a boil. Gripping the Durkon rod of power, he channelled a blast of raw spite into the pit’s cancerous heart. Into the mountain of corpses that for decades had rained down from the shaft above. Into the mass of indistinguishable atrocities that provided the meat of the troll army.
The festering mass of congealed bodies shuddered at the touch of Clive’s magic. Hundreds of black pods sprouted from the mountain like something from a Jan Švankmajer film, each of them growing ten feet tall before breaking off and rolling to the bottom of the meat pile. The pods wriggled there, crawling over one another like maggots, until they tore apart to disgorge the creatures within. Trolls. A thousand of them at least, rising from a musty slumber, and all at Clive’s command. He cocked his head to one side like a painter admiring his handiwork. This was no masterpiece though. This was merely the canvas upon which to render it.
Clive cast a second spell and the army of trolls began to huddle. They grappled onto one another, forming a single, black scrum, then they began to grow vertically, a hideous human pyramid, climbing upon one another, towering high. The huddle took on a new shape, its component parts knitting together tighter than a school of barracudas.
Melding into a single, almighty, troll giant.
The creature filled the cavern from floor to ceiling, standing fifty feet high. Clive marvelled at his creation: the complex tangle of interlocking bodies forming its four colossal limbs, its torso, the meat of its muscles, even the features of its horrific face. At Clive’s command, the monster took a step forward, swallowing him in stygian darkness as it cast its shadow upon him.
“Who am I?” he asked the monster.
The giant scooped Clive up in its massive palms.
Its quivering maw fell slack as dozens of troll mouths combined to form a single, bowel-loosening howl.
“Master,” it said.
END OF BOOK TWO
BOOK THREE: KILLING THE FANTASY
Chapter One: Wandering Monster
DRENSILA THE BLACK lay bobbing in the centre of a giant cobweb of her own making. It was all she could do to cushion her fall after that dreadful sow kicked her—literally kicked her—out of her own home. It was a wonder the exiled queen had been able to perform the magic necessary to construct a safety net as she plunged headlong into the abyss, but as the old saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention.
Drensila lifted the hem of her black dress to cast a fearful look at her leg. The girl’s enchanted blade had bitten deep into her shin; so deep that she panicked at the sight of the wound. If something wasn’t done to treat it soon, the safety net she’d created would serve as her deathbed.
She took a deep breath to marshal her wits. Much as she’d have loved to apply curative magic to the wound, Drensila the Black was no cleric. The spells she knew were motivated by spite, not kindness, and there was nothing in her arsenal capable of remedying the blow she’d been dealt. As she watched the blood drain from her body, she despaired. Death was a certainty. The interloper had won. That girl—that stupid, stupid girl—had beaten her.
No.
Not in this lifetime.
Not while a beat remained in the chambers of her dark heart.
Spite would see her through, as it always had. Drensila had no elixir, no spell of restoration, but she did have the means to stay alive.
She uttered a clipped incantation and a flame appeared in her palm, blazing and red. She’d performed this operation before, not for her own benefit but for her scorpion, Stinger, after he failed her in combat and returned with a severed pincer. Cauterising his wound hadn’t been a humanitarian undertaking, mind you – she’d taken pleasure in charring his stump, in listening to his pitiful squeal as his meat cooked. Such was the price of failure.
Drensila would take no such pleasure in this punishment.
She closed her eyes, bit down hard and pressed her blazing palm to the dripping cut. Before the flame had even touched upon the wound, she felt her blood sizzle like oil on a skillet. What followed was a pain so unimaginable that she almost passed out. A pure, inescapable agony that pinched the flow of time and dragged the moment on to an eternity. Inside the dark storm of suffering was a flash of something she had not known before. Of something beyond pain. An acknowle
dgement that she had inflicted this feeling upon others. That she, Drensila the Black, had done wrong. That, more than anything, was the message of this torment. The deep, abiding lesson that carved itself into the foundation of her being like a chisel into a tombstone.
Empathy.
Drensila’s eyelids snapped open. The wound on her leg had turned from red to black. She unclenched her jaw, the bone of which had almost turned to powder from biting down so hard. The flow of blood had been staunched. She was going to survive, at least so long as some forest creature didn’t claim her. She looked down at the finery she was wearing—fit for the throne room but hardly for the outdoors—and realised that this was as far as she’d ever been from the citadel. Half the world she ruled, yet she’d never set foot outside the place she was born.
A shiver shook Drensila’s body, part fear, part thrill.
NAT LAWLER WAS being looked after. While she sat by her bed chamber’s blazing hearth, Eathon poured her a chalice of mulled wine, sloughed off her Ugg boots and set her heels on a stool.
“Warm enough?” he asked, stoking the embers, his eyes twinkling in the firelight.
Nat nodded. Eathon had been nothing but good to her since her boyfriend upped and left. To say she hadn’t coped well with Terry’s departure would be an understatement. Just thinking of him turned her heart into broken glass. All the effort she’d spent to get him back, all the blood she’d spilled... and now he was gone. If only she’d gotten to him sooner. Before Clive carved him up and fled to who knows where. The guilt bored holes in her. Without Eathon’s shoulder to cry on, Nat would surely have begged Elderwood to send her home.
But no.
The elf had convinced her to stay and finish the job. To finish what Clive had started. He was out there somewhere, and he had to be stopped. Allowing technology to fall into Drensila’s hands had been a costly mistake, but the threat Clive presented was without limit. His powers were flourishing, nurtured by his pain, the strength of his magic growing parallel to his anger. As Cleaver had put it in one of his more sombre moments, “That boy’s seen a lot of cruelty in his time, and cruelty has a way of biting back.”
Eathon read Nat’s grave expression. “Come now, is this really so bad?” he joked, sweeping a hand across the room. “Feet by the fire, a drink in your hand?”
He clinked his drink to hers but Nat’s mind was elsewhere, leaving his chalice to bounce from her inert cup with a hollow thunk.
“I’m sorry,” she apologised. “I was miles away.”
Eathon took a seat by her side. “No, you weren’t. You were here, in this moment, exactly where you belong.”
Nat took a sip of wine. There was truth to what he was saying. Despite everything that had happened since she arrived in The Broken Lands, the place felt like home now. She’d long shaken the feeling that she was stuck in a renaissance faire that just wouldn’t end. Since going native, she’d made a new circle of friends. A whole new family. It made sense for her to be here. After all, what did she have to look forward to back in Ongar? Endless exam revision broken up by arguments with her alcoholic mother? No wonder she’d chosen to stick it out on this side of the veil.
She took another drink of wine—a glug this time—and sank into her chair. She’d earned this moment of calm. Carrying the mantle of the Chosen One was like carrying a suitcase full of rocks. Why shouldn’t she enjoy a rest? A moment to relax. The muscles of her face arranged her features into an unfamiliar expression. She was smiling. Smiling for the first time since Terry left.
“There, that’s more like it,” said Eathon, leaning over to top up her glass.
Tears sprang up in Nat’s eyes. Eathon was so good to her. What had she done to deserve him? He looked so gorgeous in the glow of the fire, so utterly perfect, that she almost leant in and kissed him. Instead, struck by a sudden sense of guilt, she placed a hand over her chalice and forced a yawn.
“Thank you,” she said, hiding behind a tuft of red hair, “but I’m really tired.”
Eathon did what he could to mask his disappointment. He nodded. “Then rest,” he said, and made for the door. He turned as if to say something before he left, then thought better of it and removed himself from the chamber.
Nat stared into the fire for a good long while.
CARNELLA THE CRUEL was unbound. Not a plucked soul, set adrift in purgatory; a wisp of something immaterial dancing at the whims of another. No more. Now, thanks to her daughter’s misplaced trust, she was a being of flesh and blood. Substantial. Vital. Even better, since Drensila’s welcome demise, she was answerable to no one. She was a free agent, embedded within the ranks of the enemy, hidden in plain sight. The fools didn’t even question why the citadel’s previous keeper, who was hardly known for taking prisoners, had chosen to incarcerate a single, aging woman. No, all they’d seen was someone to take pity upon. Carnella would see to it that they suffered for that. For turning her throne room into a mess hall. For tearing down her sigils and banners. For the simple temerity of breathing her air.
Before long, the Night Queen would see the interlopers’ heads on pikes, but she knew better than to mount her attack too early. While it was infinitely tempting to strike from the shadows and murder their laughable excuse for a leader, everywhere the girl went she was accompanied by that simpering elf with the metal legs. No, to retake her throne, Carnella would need help. She would begin by reacquiring her family heirloom, the Durkon rod of power, which she would use to amass a fresh army. She assumed the rod had been retained somewhere within the walls of the citadel, but by eavesdropping on the locals, she came to learn that the artefact had fallen into the hands of the traitor they called Clive.
Carnella waited until nightfall to find a private space in the citadel, then, using a bowl of water and a scrying spell, went about discovering the rod’s whereabouts. She was able to locate it easily enough. It was less than fifty miles away and—just as she had heard—in the hands of her daughter’s former apprentice. And what a promising young student he had turned out to be! Carnella watched, awestruck, as Clive was borne across the land in the gentle grip of a hideous, black giant. She examined the creature closer, marvelling at its complex form. This monster, this mighty golem of incredible power, was more than just a titan. This monster was a sum of many parts. A fusion of creatures combined into a whole, working together to form a single entity. What’s more, the creatures were of her making. Her own trolls, assembled in a way she could scarcely have imagined. This Clive, this unwelcome visitor, had trespassed onto her territory and shown her magic beyond the limits of her reckoning. Just as his giant shaded the sun, so had he overshadowed her every accomplishment. And yet she couldn’t find it within herself to be angry; not while his weaknesses were so plain to see. This was no man. This was a spoilt boy, wiping his nose on the hem of his mother's skirt. Impressionable. Malleable. Ripe for the plucking.
Chapter Two: Regeneration
THE MUSCLES OF Clive’s giant bunched as the individual trolls making up its legs worked together to carry him across a range of undulating hills in great swinging strides. Clive smirked. This was what harmony looked like. This was teamwork. Not some high-handed Mary Sue calling the shots. Forcing everyone to do her bidding. Turning friends against each other. No, this was real unity, and Clive would show Nat exactly what it looked like.
The earth trembled under the giant’s mighty footfalls. The grass beneath them became a green paste. Trees were knocked aside, collapsing upon each other as if in a lovers’ embrace. Clive had never felt so alive. So in control. Not like before. His old life in Essex had played out like a long, unskippable cutscene from a bad videogame. He had no agency. He was weak. Pathetic. Queer Clive they called him... thanks to Terry.
Queer Clive.
Queer Clive.
Queer Clive.
A troubled kid with no future who could barely operate without the right balance of pills.
Not anymore.
Now he had a handle on his destiny. He’d a
rrived in the place he belonged and it had given him power. So much power he barely knew how to accommodate it. He felt incredible. Like someone had cracked open his skull and scrubbed clean the sad old blob of meat inside. His bones were electric, his thoughts rock solid, crashing about his mind like a thousand marbles, hard and kaleidoscopic.
The forest creatures that were fortunate enough not to get crushed underfoot scattered as the troll giant etched its swathe of destruction across the land. From his elevated position, Clive saw a low-hill settlement in the distance and steered his abominable steed towards it. His target was a small, idyllic hamlet made up of chocolate box cottages with round doors and windows. A river ran alongside it, on the bank of which sat a small figure wearing an ornamental waistcoat. The little man was dozing, his hat over his face and a fishing rod tucked between the toes of his great hairy feet. As the halfling lay there, a shadow fell across him, cold as moonlight on a gravestone. Rousing from his slumber, he woke just in time to see the sole of something monstrous pressing down upon him.
TERRY STOOD AT the polished front door of his mum and dad’s place, staring at the brass knocker, wondering what to do next. Home seemed like an old sun-bleached photograph now. How long had he been away exactly? His time in The Broken Lands felt like a waking dream, a distant memory drawn with as much clarity as a child’s finger painting.
He knocked on the door and his mum answered, her eyes red-rimmed, her hair a bird’s nest. She cried for about five minutes after seeing him – a great, heaving, snotty mess of a cry. Dad was even worse – like one of those dogs from a YouTube video whose master comes back from Iraq. It was a real scene. They thought he was dead, they told him, beating their fists on his bony chest. Thought all of them were. Five missing teenagers. The whole community was up in arms. Concerned locals combed the woods with torches looking for them, and when that didn’t work, the police went in with sniffer dogs. Still they found nothing.
Trolled: The Complete Saga (The Trolled Saga) Page 30