Agnar and more warriors emerged from the trees, spreading wide around Elvar.
The troll was naked, a young bull, judging by the sharp, stubby antlers curling from its thick, moss-covered skull and its swollen testicles, swinging like two rocks in a sack. Tusks jutted from its lower jaws, legs thick as pine saplings, its scaled skin scabbed and patched with moss and lichen.
“MINE,” it roared again.
“No, that man’s mine,” Agnar growled, though Elvar knew the troll was referring to the land. To its territory.
“MINE!” the troll bellowed, spittle flying, eyes and veins bulging with rage, and it swung its club, the man stumbling away, the weapon crunching into a tree, a ripping sound as roots tore and the tree swayed, toppled. The iron nails stuck in timber, dragging the troll off balance, and the man stepped in and lunged with his spear, scouring a red line along the troll’s ribs.
With a bellow of pain the troll ripped its club free in a spray of splinters as it spun to face the man.
“Best be putting that troll down. I need that man,” Agnar shouted. “In pairs, no shield wall; it will only give the beast a better target.”
Sighvat reached into the sack at his feet and pulled out a hammer and a thick iron pin, lifted the thrall’s chain and dragged him to the nearest tree, then threaded the pin through the chain and hammered it into the trunk. He returned to the sack and pulled out a new collar and more chain.
Elvar stepped forwards, then paused as movement from the mother and child caught her eye. The mother took something from within her cloak, shaped like a wax tablet or parchment book, though Elvar had only seen a handful of those in her life, and all had been in the courts of wealthy jarls. The woman pulled her arm back and threw the item through the air, spinning high and arcing down into the pool of fire. Flames were erupting from it before it even touched the molten rock. A hiss and it was gone. The woman yelled something to the man fighting the troll, who bellowed back at her, and then the woman was tugging the child away, both of them breaking into a run and climbing a steep slope of scree, studded with pine, a twisting path among them. Elvar touched Agnar’s shoulder and pointed at them.
“Good.” He barked commands and four warriors ran for the slope and path.
Elvar hefted her spear and hurled it, but saw it skitter off the troll’s scaled shoulder. With a hiss she drew her sword as Grend stepped close to her. Together they strode towards the troll and man, lifted their shields, locking tight, Elvar’s sword raised high, pointing out over her shield’s rim. The snow turned to sludge underfoot as they drew closer to the molten pool, waves of heat rippling across them. Other warriors moved forward in twos, scattered wide, approaching in a loose half-circle.
Someone hurled a spear, the blade slamming into the troll’s back. It was well thrown and pierced the thick troll hide, but not deeply. Blood seeped in a line down its back, ran in the folds of muscle.
The troll roared its pain, reached around for the spear in its back, ripped it out and spun away from the man it was trying to crush, its slabbed brows knotting in confusion. It looked at the spear in its fist, then it saw these new warriors approaching it. Its face twisted and bunched, muscles bulging, veins and tendons in its neck standing rigid.
“MINE, MINE, MINE!” the troll screamed, loud enough to make the world shake, and it broke into motion, thick nails on its huge three-toed feet sending up gouts of snow and earth. The sight of these new intruders in its domain must have sent it into a greater level of apoplexy, because it forgot it held a club and just lowered its head and charged with its antlers and tusks, as it would against a rival bull competing for mating rights.
Warriors leaped away, but despite its bulk the troll was fast, and it clipped the shield of one warrior. His shield exploded like so much kindling and antlers and tusk punched through mail and skewered the warrior’s torso. The woman he had been partnered with flew through the air and crashed into the molten pool. A scream cut short as she was incinerated with a hiss of sizzling flesh and then a few flakes of ash floated on the heat thermals.
The troll skidded to a halt, raised its head, the warrior impaled upon him screaming even as he chopped feebly at the troll’s head with his axe. The troll grabbed the warrior’s arm and shook his head, blood pouring like rain. A savage wrench, the warrior’s screaming rising in pitch as flesh, tendon and muscle ripped, bone cracked, and then the warrior’s arm was dangling in the troll’s fist. It shook its head, muscles in its back and neck rippling, and the dying, whimpering warrior fell from its antlers, crashing into two more warriors.