Page 29 of Stealing the Troll’s Heart

Raz’jin

Despite our recent loss, our captains feel confident that our next assault will work. Maybe with enough bodies to throw at it, they’ll be right, and we can finally take this forsaken place. And perhaps this time, I’ll join the piles of the dead.

What we don’t expect are the massive balls of steel the humans start to hurl into our ranks. I watch as they fall and explode, sending shrapnel flying in every possible direction. I’m only saved from it thanks to my shield being in the right place at the right time, but I can sense that elsewhere, Blizzek isn’t so lucky.

Fifteen years I’ve traveled with him, all across the world, and now I don’t know if I’ll ever see him again.

The humans don’t even bother to leave their fortress as they rain hell down on us. But I do my job and advance on the walls, bringing my fire to the kindle laid all along the base of it. The fire catches, swells, and quickly starts to spread. From up above I hear the sound of screaming. I listen closely to it, searching out anything familiar.

A spear falls from above, and I’m forced backwards. I rejoin the soldiers standing under the shelter of the trees, where we’re partially protected from the shrapnel bombs falling on top of us, and watch as the fire spreads.

It’s not long before the gates open and soldiers start streaming out. My eyes are riveted on them, searching their ranks for a familiar head of red hair, when another ball of steel is launched over the flaming wall. It lands right in front of us and blasts apart, showering us with bits and pieces of swords and spears and breastplates. One catches me in the leg, sending splitting pain across every possible intersection of my body.

These soldiers aren’t here to fight us—they’re here to collect and scavenge what remains of us.

I stumble backwards, blood streaming from my unprotected leg. Now I’ll be here bleeding out until one of our enemies finally finds me and takes me prisoner or lets me die an excruciating death.

My leg can’t hold me up any longer, and I fall back to the forest floor into a bundle of dense brush. The thorns tear at my face, but the branches soften the blow.

Already the blood loss is making my head swim. Humans shout as they fan out across the land, some of them trying to put out the fire, others searching for remaining combatants.

I’ve wanted to die so badly, and yet I’ve fought so hard to stay alive. Why? Once again, I drag myself into the brush so maybe they won’t find me. Why am I clinging to life this way?

Because she’s still out there, and, as long as I know that, I’m going to keep fighting.

The world starts to spin overhead, and then everything goes black.

Chapter 14

Telise

Igot lucky. My first day on the job and we score a big win. Well,theydo, anyway—the people at the top who stand to benefit from this war. The more trollkin we kill, the more land we can snatch from them, and the big dogs can continue to expand their empires. Just how things have always been, and how they always will be.

The trollkin fell in great and terrible numbers, riddled with shrapnel. Most of them aren’t dead, just bleeding out and dying slowly. It’s now our job to find the dead and the living alike, scavenge what we can off of their bodies, then kill the dying and bring in the rest as prisoners.

Trollkin hate nothing more than being denied a valiant, honorable death.

As I step over bodies, each troll face I see looks like Raz’jin’s. One of them grabs my ankle as I walk by.

“Death,” she says. “Please.”

I can understand her enough that I crouch down and say inTrollkin, “I’m sorry.” Then I bury my dagger in her chest. I wait until the life drains out of her eyes before I take what I can off her body and drag it to the pile of weapons and armor growing along the charred remains of the fortress wall.

Some of the trollkin retreated into the woods when the bomb fell, so I duck into the trees and start looking. There’s blood everywhere, dribbling off of big leaves and pooling in crevices. The first two bodies I find are dead, with shrapnel to the head and throat. They had nothing to defend them—not a shard of metal on either of them. They weren’t even properly armed.

That’s when I spot a boot poking out from underneath some heavy brush. Something about that boot rings a distant bell. I crouch down and push the branches aside, hoping I’ll find another dead body and not someone else I have to kill. Then I grab hold of the boot and pull.

First a leg emerges, and then another one. One leg is covered in blood, thanks to a huge chunk of sword buried in the flesh.

Blue flesh.

My hands start to tremble as I push away more brush.

No.

I grab him by the waist and pull as hard as I can, and soon, he’s free. I take in his wild hair, his scratched-up tusks, and his familiar face. I know that face better than anyone’s.

My Raz’jin.

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