Page 2 of Stealing the Troll’s Heart

Raz’jin

“Blizzek, are we any closer?” I’m growing impatient with all this tromping through the woods.

We make an unlikely pair of trollkin, Blizzek and I, but our partnership works well enough. He comes equipped with a handy ore detector, which he’s holding up now to measure if we’re still going the right way. The indicator wiggles around at the halfway point. When he turns it one direction, the indicator flies upward.

“That way,” he says, pointing.

There had been talk of gold in this area, but it was just talk. I wanted to see it for myself and evaluate if we could strike it rich, so we took some horses and crossed the wide-open plains for these abysmal mountains.

We’ve been wandering around the woods for days now, and finally this morning we got a read. Now we just have to find where it’s buried and hope it’s not too far down to get to. If we find something but can’t extract it, we might be able to sell off the mining rights for a pretty penny.

First come, first find and all.

There aren’t a lot of creatures out in the Sandteeth besides birds, rabbits, and a few big cats, but I could swear that I see something move out of the corner of my eye. A flash of something metallic, a small face. But before I can turn my head, it’s gone.

Must have been a deer.

But a few paces later, I realize it was no deer. There’s a ballof something dark falling from above, and I receive a massive blow to the head that sends me stumbling backwards. Pain shoots through my skull. When I regain my balance, there’s a tiny, metal point pressed against my throat.

I stop moving instantly. There’s a human woman standing in front of me, her dagger ready to plunge through my neck. I’ve taken a lot of hits—my scars are my proof—but I wouldn’t survive that one.

Blizzek is on one knee, blunderbuss held out with the horn pressed against the side of the human’s head.

Stalemate.

The human is panting, her bright green eyes glowing like whole emeralds. Not much of her skin is visible under her jerkin and long leather pants, but what I can see is pale and freckled. She hollers something in her language at us, first at me, and then at Blizzek.

“Can’t understand a word,” I say to him, pretending there’s not a dagger pointed at my throat. I can’t let her think she’s got me scared.

“Probably bargaining for her life,” he says. He presses the blunderbuss more firmly against the woman’s head, and she falls still. Some of her red hair slips out of the tie at the top of her head, tumbling in front of her eyes. The fierce look on her face shows me that she’s a killer; that she’s taken before and will take again if we give her the chance.

Damn. She’s kind of hot.

“It’d be my life, too,” I say. “You shoot that gun and I’m gutted like a fish.”

Blizzek cocks the gun, but the girl doesn’t flinch.

“That was a bad call on your part, Raz,” he says. “Letting a little thing get one over on you like that.”

My only option might be to work something out with her. Convince her we’re going to let her go, and then go infor the kill when she thinks she’s free. I might not even end her life right away. Someone back in Hargoth might want to buy her. It would be up to them what to do with her after that.

Such a pretty creature, though. It would be a shame to see her covered in mud with a chain around her ankle or tied to some orc’s bed.

I slowly raise my hands in surrender. The tip of the dagger presses even further in, barely nicking my skin. She’s quite serious, I can tell that much.

“Can we figure this out?” I ask her. “A truce, maybe?”

She just narrows her eyes at me, clearly not understanding what I’m asking. I’m sure she only speaks Freysian, the language the humans have always used.

I gesture to the ground. The human never takes her eyes off of me.

“Put down weapons,” I say slower, as if that will help her understand. “Go our separate ways.”

I reach for my hand axe, and she digs deeper with her knife. I choke a little.

“It’s all right.” I try to use a soothing voice. When I slide the axe out of its holster, I drop it to the ground. Then I hold out a hand. “Let’s put the weapons down. Okay?”

She would be an idiot to fall for this, but I can see she’s considering it. She doesn’t have a way out of this, either. The only one who might survive would be Blizzek. This would be a really stupid way to go out—a tiny pretty thing getting a dagger through my esophagus.

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