A shiver of dread tickles me spine at a thought and I say to the troll, all smiles, “Mornin’, lad, good mornin’. How was Fand when ye spoke to her?”
“She is fine,” he says without thinking, because trolls are grand at that.
“Good to hear, that is. She’s very helpful, eh? Helping you find me and then arranging a path for you to get here. So kind.”
“She is good, yes.”
“And all that from prison!” A prison, I might add, chosen by meself and her mother, Flidais. I had acted as Brighid’s proxy in that matter to make sure Fand would be secure, and Flidais had come along to make sure her daughter was well treated and the Fae would have no cause to complain on that score. “She’s truly powerful.”
The bog troll’s gnarled gray face squishes and moves around with great effort of thinking. “Prison? She’s not in prison.”
That tickle o’ dread becomes the uncomfortable sound o’ me bowels liquefying, for he had just confirmed me worst fear. At some point Fand had quietly escaped and was now helping bog trolls hunt down Druids, in addition to whatever other shenanigans she could think of. Since starting a war in Tír na nóg was her last great idea, I don’t like to think of what else she might be up to now.
“Oh!” I says, chuckling at him. “That’s right, I forgot she’s out. Where is she now?”
“She’s at—wait.” The horrible accident of his face turns suspicious. “I’m not supposed to say.”
Damn. So close. At least I’d learned more than Fand would have liked.
“I’m here for my gold,” he rumbles. “You crossed my bridge and never paid. It’s time.” He twitches the tree trunk at me in a not-so-subtle threat.
Greta will never get me to buy a cell phone, but she did show me the Internet and get me signed up on this thing called Twitter, under the name @ArchdruidOwen, so I could learn how people today can socialize while being separated by hundreds or thousands of miles. And she told me about Internet trolls, which are smaller and less dangerous than bog trolls but may smell just as bad. I remember her first rule regarding them, which was actually me own rule two thousand years ago, and smile up at my uninvited guest.
“Sorry, lad, but I never feed the trolls.” And then I haul off and punch him hard, directly in the dong.
Troll skin is naturally tough and makes wearing armor unnecessary, and troll skin foreskin is no different. But me new brass knuckles could shatter rock, so I wasn’t quite sure what would happen when I made contact. In hindsight, I should have pulled me punch a bit, but I’m so mad that he’s there threatening me new Grove and that Fand’s escaped that I just go for it, which means I’m abruptly in a new kind of nightmare when me fist punctures the skin and keeps going.
I’m up to me elbow in spongy troll cock, and we’re both profoundly unhappy about it and yelling fit to beat a ban sidhe. He crumples inward by reflex, grabs with his massive left hand, and yanks me out of there and tosses me through the air a good thirty yards or so. I land on the exposed face of a half-buried boulder and it crunches me left shoulder blade, shooting pain through the whole arm before it goes numb and useless. I roll onto me right side in the bunch grass and lever my body up, staggering to me feet as the troll realizes he’s not going to die but just be permanently disfigured in his dank and smelly junk. He gets powerful angry about it and forgets all about getting his gold out of me. All he wants now is to stomp me to a smear in the mud. Or bash me on the head with that tree of his. He picks the latter option, bellowing and charging with the tree, though due to his injury he’s kind of lurching more than running.
The day I passively wait for a charge to arrive is the day you can dip me in a lake of salted whale shite. Speaking quickly, I throw off me robe and shape-shift to a ram. I charge him right back, lame left front leg and all—I’m still faster than he is by a far stretch. He’s a right-handed lad, so he’ll be planting his left foot to take his swing. That’s the leg I aim for as I lower me head, horns covered in the brass. He tries to adjust and take me out with his aspen trunk but whiffs over me head as I get inside his guard. I plow into his left shin and don’t completely take off his leg but it’s a near thing. The bones audibly fracture in a few places, and I stumble sideways, rocked by the collision. He goes down loud and heavy and won’t be charging me again: The bones have erupted through the back of his leg and stick up like spires.