Rayne's breath caught in his throat as the massive foot emerged out of the hole, then slowly the whole body revealed itself. The goblins that had grown quiet began chattering unanimously.
He briefly saw a few of them bowing before focusing on the creature that had emerged.
Just a glance at it made every instinct in his body tell him to run, to not look at it, to simply lower his head so he could ignore its presence. But he kept looking.
He knew what it was at first glance—the troll warlord they had been looking for.
Each step of it shook the ground, and it stood at twelve feet tall, far taller than any trolls he had come across. If he had to describe it, it was as if a nightmare had walked into reality.
A thick cloak made of stitched hides and skin clung to its greyish-green shoulders, dragging across the floor with each step. In both of its hands, it held a giant axe, and they still dripped blood.
Through the fur, Rayne could see countless scars and scorched flesh. It had two tusks around its mouth, both sharpened and looking like they could pierce through the flesh of any monster.
Around its neck hung a chain of trophies, skulls of all shapes and sizes. Some were cracked, others still had dried flesh clinging to them. One looked distinctly human.
But it was its eyes that made Rayne's stomach churn.
The warlord had a case of heterochromia. One of its eyes shone a bright green while the other was yellow, the colour of molten flame. Looking into them made him tense, and Rayne felt his heartbeat rising.
A silent pressure gripped him.
It wasn't only him. It seemed to grip the whole chamber, as with each step of the warlord more goblins and orcs kneeled to the ground, their heads kissing the dirt.
Rayne resisted the urge to do the same, knowing it was a skill of sorts.
With all his strength, he simply kept looking down as the warlord settled in the centre of the chamber, dropping both of its axes and sitting down. Even while sitting, it looked far bigger than any troll.
He wondered about its intentions, but didn't look away. Finally, once the silence had stretched enough, the warlord opened its mouth.
Its words came out in a sharp, gravelly voice as it spoke in the goblin tongue. Rayne almost cupped his ears, but managed to listen.
“The time has come for the hiding to end. For us glorious beings to step out of the darkness, to bask in the light and to live in it,” it said, speaking far clearer than any goblin or troll.
“Humans have killed us for too long, humans have used our bodies as armour for too long, humans have ruled the earth for too long with their feeble bodies and weapons of war.”
With each word, the pressure emanating off it intensified. Rayne gripped his sword tighter till his knuckles turned white.
“We can't let it be any longer. Trolls and goblins need more. We need what we deserve. We need more land, more food, and we need to conquer!”
The warlord slammed its hands on the floor. It shook the chamber once again. Rayne felt the walls trembling, even as dread filled him.
His luck was rotten. For everything he had survived, he still managed to end up in the warlord’s cavern during a speech of conquest.
The goblins and trolls slowly raised themselves up as the warlord spoke more. A frenzy of noise took place.
Goblins shrieked and slammed their weapons against the stone. Trolls pounded their fists, cracking the floor. The warlord didn’t flinch. He simply opened his arms wide, basking in their madness, and continued his words.
“Humans are outside the trees. The lands we rule. They have come this year just like the last time, to burn our homes, to kill us, to take our skin, but we will answer back this time…”
More shrieks and pounding followed. Rayne couldn't keep watching. It was too much. The pressure felt suffocating.
He snapped his eyes away and looked at the window on the other side. His party members watched in confusion, but they still felt the pressure emanating off the troll warlord. Nate lowered his head, hands around his skull, while Bran looked down in confusion and fear, taking it slightly better.
He wondered what they would think if they could understand the warlord as he could. Rayne didn't even know what he felt at the moment—a mixture of dread, fear, and nervousness clouded his mind.
As he kept looking, Bran's eyes finally met his. The veteran seemed unsure of what to tell him, then swept his gaze over the chamber. He made some hand signs, and Rayne understood none of them.
But then, he saw Bran pointing at the walls of the cavern. He followed his gaze and saw that there were some broken bits of rock and gravel, forming a ledge of sorts that connected to the window on the other side.
Rayne gulped, realising what he meant.
He almost wanted to reject it right away, but then he looked back at the tunnel where he had emerged. Only trolls, giant bats, and arcspiders awaited him there. Then he looked below, where the army of trolls and goblins still listened to the warlord, shrieking in cheers every other second.
His injuries weren't light enough for him to think he could walk away from the cave alone. Reaching his party and moving together was the only way.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
The monsters being distracted by the speech was another plus. He couldn't waste time.
Rayne nodded to Bran and slowly got up. He looked at the ledge and didn’t look down before putting one foot on it. Seeing it take his weight, he put the other, sticking to the wall as much as he could.
The noise of the goblins and trolls hastened him to keep moving. The tip of his feet overlooked certain doom, and from time to time, he almost shuddered from the warlord’s voice.
Despite everything, he kept moving, slowly circling the chamber and inching towards his party.
He kept his head stable, trying to balance himself as a man would on a rope in the circus.
Halfway through the crossing, Rayne almost dived right into the crowd of goblins, his step slipping. A foot hovered in the air before he finally balanced himself again. He felt as if he would have a heart attack at any moment.
Looking at his party, he could see all of them now, looking at him with wide eyes. Kesh seemed to mutter a prayer while Bran alternated between him and the danger below.
Rayne took a breath, then started moving again. Once only a quarter was left, he tried to eat up as much distance as possible. The noise and thumping from the warlord shook the cave with each step, and dust entered his nostrils, but he ignored everything.
He would die if he couldn't reach the window. Only that thought echoed in his mind.
As he reached the last part, he suddenly felt the ledge loosening under his feet. He panicked, moving over it just as parts of it fell into the chamber.
Rayne didn't wait to see if it hit a goblin. He simply jumped and hopped onto the passage. Hands moved forward to hold him as his body hit the ground. He took deep breaths, his body shaking from the fall he had escaped. If he hadn't jumped, he would have died.
The realisation hit him hard as he tried to stabilise his breathing. He sensed movement behind him and felt a hand on his left shoulder.
Bran's voice came in a low whisper. “Take deep breaths. You are safe now.”
Rayne nodded, and as he looked up, he saw John handing him a waterskin. He took it, gulping down every drop before thanking him.
“Where were you?” Nate asked. “We thought we lost you.”
“I thought the same about you all. I chased after you, but an arcspider caught me. When I killed it, I didn't see the light of the glowstone and kept wandering. I thought you all abandoned me,” Rayne replied, looking carefully towards each of their faces for any guilt, but there was none.
“We didn’t,” Bran replied. “We got swallowed in a hole that went down. Then we had to walk in a wide circle before we found our way up and to this chamber. Did you see Marco anywhere? We lost sight of him too.”
Rayne paused, hesitating a bit before nodding. “He's dead. I saw his corpse. A troll seemed to have bitten through him.”
Visible gasps echoed all around him at his words. Bran lowered his head and Heins went pale. The others sighed and frowned. Marco wasn't particularly talkative, but they had still burnt a lot of nests together.
The sombre atmosphere didn’t last long.
A screech echoed, followed by a lot more high-pitched guttural cries of the goblins mixed with the bellowing of the trolls. The voices sounded angry. Even without looking down, Rayne knew they’d been found out.
“We need to run. Move!” Bran barked, and Rayne felt a hand pulling him up.
The party didn’t need to be told twice. They bolted through the cave tunnels. John took the lead, followed by Kesh, with Bran and Rayne at the back. The walls seemed to narrow around them, but they kept running.
Heavy footsteps rang out behind them.
Rayne struggled not to look back. He feared he would see a sea of grey and green chasing him. He kept running, injuries long forgotten as they rushed through the caves.
“Do you know the way out?” he asked through the rush.
“Yes!” Nate replied. “We found it while searching for you and Marco.”
“No talk. Keep fucking running!” said Bran.
Rayne gulped, the sounds getting closer. The tunnels shook with the chaos behind him. Every screech and roar felt like a hammer on his nerves, urging him forward.
A sudden snarl from above drew his attention.
He raised his head, looking into the eye of a giant bat that lunged at him. Rayne dipped low in time as it crashed behind him.
He didn’t wait to see what happened to it as they slid into an even narrower path. He almost collided with Bran as they entered one by one and edged forward.
The shaking, the roars, the stomps never stopped. He never looked back, simply kept moving forward. Something in him told him he shouldn’t.
“How much longer?” he asked.
“We’re around the upward slope. Then we’re out.”
Rayne nodded as the tunnel opened up to another passage. Fortunately, he saw no monsters in sight. Bran took the lead as they charged through the left, the passage widening with each step.
Out of nowhere, he felt a jerk and almost clashed with Kesh.
Another roar echoed, but Rayne finally saw the upward slope. Light filtered out from the top, and for the first time in hours, hope budded in his heart.
A familiar shriek pulled his attention to the side, and his heart plummeted.
A group of arcspiders rushed towards them from the side. He gripped his sword, but John and Nate were already charging towards them.
John slammed into the first one with his sword, stabbing its neck with a twist before slashing at the next. Nate's shield smashed another arcspider into the wall, bones crunching. Bran fired point-blank, his arrows thudding into the hairy carapaces.
“Keep climbing. We can’t stop.”
Everyone nodded, and Rayne took the lead. He wouldn’t be any good with the spiders with his injuries. He slammed his boots on the slope and kept to the wall, moving forward.
Heins and Kesh followed him. Every second, he heard more dying screeches of the arcspiders. And when he finally dared to look back, he saw each of them dead, with everyone moving up the slope.
He hurried up the last part of it, taking hard breaths as everyone else came up.
“Just the last bit left. Don’t stop now!” Bran said as they ran through the last stretch of the cavern tunnels.
Rayne saw no trolls or goblins as the light of the outside air filled the cave. The shaking and pounding slowly died.
Finally, he stepped outside with the others, the same corpse they’d passed earlier still on the ground. But there were no signs of Thomas.
“Must have left to inform the others,” Nate said, stabbing his sword on the ground for support.
“We need to keep moving,” said Bran, looking at the sprawling forests in front of them. “Axel and Captain Edran will want to hear what we saw. And Rayne has to tell us what he saw when we broke off.”
Rayne nodded at that, looking back at the mouth of the cave. Rather than what he saw, it was what he heard. The voice of the warlord gave him chills even now as he began to walk with the others to Algar.
***
