The Lumberjacks

Chapter Nine of Under the Goblin Trees

Campaign adaptation by Thomas Kelly

“Help me prepare fire,” Myron commanded. Even I know that trolls must be burned in fire or their wounds will heal themselves. Once severed, a troll’s limbs might reattach while the beast fights on. Myron, Cirilli, and I searched the tower chambers for flammables, oil, grease, pitch, wax, and fat while our four warriors descended by a wooden ladder to the ground level of tower and out into the court to smite those lumberjacks.  

The Two Trolls

To either side of the Witch Tree stood the trolls, chained there by some heavy enchantment. If you have never seen a troll, count yourself blessed and favored of the gods. These long-limbed gangly horrors stand a man and a half tall and more. They would stand even taller if ever they righted their posture to stand up straight. They prefer to amble along hunchbacked and arched of spine with their long and carrot-shaped noses pointed toward the ground. The flexible nose twitches and bends, this way and that, as the troll sniffs out prey. A troll’s nauseating green and grey mottled flesh is oily, slippery, and reeks like urine. Nevertheless, the skin is tough like hardened leather, like the bark of a tree, and trolls typically need no armor or clothing, or if they do wear anything at all, only skins and rags and ornaments of bone in the most primitive of manner. They are long and sinewy creatures, always appearing emaciated and famished and without any fat on their visible bones, and indeed, their appetites are insatiable. The clawed hands on the ends of their long swinging arms are their most formidable weapon. Although the troll appears spindly of limb as it totters about on long lanky legs, it is strong as a giant. Its raking clawed hands can tear a man asunder as easily as one might open a loaf of bread. Atop the troll’s angular skull grows a mass of dark writhing bristles resembling hair. For a mouth, the troll has a gnashing maw armed with sharp flesh-stripping teeth set just above its jutting chin. Most unnerving of all, black and lifeless eyes set deep in the troll’s skull glare out with a dull animal malice. The blank eyes give the troll a terrifying aspect despite the ridiculous protruding nose. I have heard that a troll might have two, three, or more heads, but I have seen only single-skulled specimens.  

The two trolls left off their task of hacking at Nyssa’s oak and turned their great stone axes against our warriors, landing them with many a crushing blow. Bravely our men brought their blades against the over-towering beasts, but whatever wounds they did deliver, the devilish magic of the troll flesh closed over and healed again before their eyes. Again and again they exchanged blows while, back in the tower, Myron and Cirilli and I prepared such things we might as to add heat and flame to our offense.

“We are in straights most dire!” Merciful called out to us.

I hurried out to join the fight with what little good I might contribute. By the power of Benevolent Merikka and all the gods, I commanded the troll that still stood upon his feet to drop to the ground. A word of command like this is an old priest’s trick, but it only avails in such a situation rarely. To my surprise, the troll must have understood the word (spoken in our common tongue) for he obeyed as if stuck from heaven. He dropped to the ground between the roots of the Witch Tree. Merciful and Belvenore took what advantage they could and brought their weapons hard upon the monster. A moment later my simple word of command faded and that same troll rose back to his feet, now attacking with claws and teeth, now picking up his great axe again.

Ivan and Bruin made war on the other beast. Ivan fought mightily, dodging the blow of a stone axe, then landing his own, chopping at the sturdy legs as he might have chopped at the trunks of trees. One well-placed blow severed the troll’s leg at the knee. The creature howled in rage, hopped about on one leg, dropped his axe, and toppled to the ground. He scrambled about, trying to find the severed leg to reattach it. This posture invited a rain of blows from Ivan’s axe. 

“Now Cirilli, to the flame!” Myron shouted when the troll’s head fell from its shoulders. The troll’s green blood and ichor gore splashed about. The young girl and feeble illusionist dragged from the tower a cauldron of fat and oil and whatever else we had found that might burn. We doused the flailing decapitated body, and with a word of spellcraft from Myron, the fuel burst into flames.

Merciful Falls

Back up on his feet and wielding his axe again, the remaining hateful beast landed Sir Merciful such a frightening axe-blow upon the head as to cleave his skull. I saw the blow fall and understood at once that Sir Merciful would never rise again.

The three remaining warriors took positions round about the monster, flanking him so that every which way he should turn to ward off a blow, another would smite him from behind and beside. In this manner, they hacked at him until his limbs lay scattered about. Even then they did not cease to strike him until they had severed him into many squirming pieces, and these we cast upon the pyre to burn with the body of his companion.

Now the three warriors collapsed from their efforts and wounds. Cirilli and I dispatched the last of what healing powers we could invoke to staunch the worst of the open gashes and lacerations the survivors had incurred. Then I attended to the remains of Sir Merciful while Myron attended to the remains of the trolls, ensuring that every piece of troll flesh burned.

Sir Belvenore gathered stones, fallen from the cracking of the tower, to erect a cairn for his fallen countryman. Though such sorrow weighed heavily, we shed no tears for Merciful. He died valiantly and heroically, a Ramping Manticore of the Watch, and he would not have us over mourn him. The men stacked his cairn betwixt the great roots of the Witch Tree for which he had given his life. I spoke a brief eulogy and commended his soul to Valiant Heironeous and all the true gods. So we laid him to rest with his weapons still clutched in his hands before we covered him over with stones.

A Night in the Tower

With these matters at a conclusion, we set to thoroughly search out the tower lest some fiend remain hidden within. None we found. All of the vermin had fled. In the chambers of Sir Bartimaeus, we laid hands upon a chest which Bruin hacked open. Therein we found some small fortune in platinum, some scrolls of a priestly nature which I determined to be certain charms and wards against lycanthropes, and other religious effects that could only have belonged to some ill-fated cleric of the March. “These may prove useful,” I remarked. I took the scrolls and priestly items into my own keeping, and we distributed the coin among ourselves.

Ivan went out to our camp of the previous night to fetch our steeds and our bags, but he returned distraught. He explained, “I found one of the ponies slain, and the others are gone. Some fiend cut the tethers.” I was sorry to learn that the slain pony was my own.  

We made a cheerless breakfast inside the tower, but by then, the hour was well past midday. Our fighting men were all much injured, and, without steeds, we felt we had no choice but to take shelter in the tower that day so that I might nurse their wounds. Cirilli and I bandaged their sores and changed blood-soaked dressings. The wounds to the Nyssa’s oak, however, seemed beyond our skill to heal. The axes of the trolls had left deep gashes in the trunk, and sap oozed from the wounded tree like blood.

Sorrowful of heart and with no little hurt to ourselves, we made ready to close up the gatehouse as secure as we might in order that we might rest the night, nurse injuries, and regather both strength and healing prayer. I hoped that, with the coming of a new day, the gods might vest me with spiritual strength to better mend our mens’ bodies. None much relished the prospect of sleeping in the goblins’ quarters, but the air under Nyssa’s tree seemed fair and sweet despite the lingering stench of burned troll. We set a watch from the gatehouse corner, taking shifts through the night, and the rest bedded down together at the foot of the Witch Tree, near the cairn of Sir Merciful, and as far as we could get from the stinking charred embers of the trolls.

William and the Horses

During the first watch of the night, I dreamed the tree was all ablaze, a fire burning in its crown. Great flames licked at its ancient branches, and I feared for Nyssa in my sleep. The dream ended abruptly when Belvenore’s voice broke in and summoned me back to consciousness, for the watch heard horses neighing in the glade. Cirilli called out, and, beyond all hope, her pony answered with a whinny. She and Belvenore roused us, but we feared to open the gate lest the goblins may have laid some ambush and only used the hoses as bait for us. As we debated our course of action, we heard William’s familiar voice, “Masters, I have fetched your steeds, and a difficult business it was. Open for me that I might lead them in, for these woods are no safe place for a pony unattended.”

We brought torches and confirmed the matter, opened the gate and gave the fellow entrance. True to his word, he led behind him all our mounts and the pack pony too. Cirilli and Ivan attended to the horses and led them away to stable them where they might while William groveled and beseeched us for mercy. “Did I not find thy ponies and bring them to thee?”

“You’re the devil who cut them free and slew one too,” Bruin stated as a matter of fact. “Not so difficult to fetch the animals you stole.”

William objected. He claimed to have come upon the horses wandering on the path back to Wulurich’s estate. “I said to myself, ‘William, you must make all haste to return these steeds to their worthy owners.’”

I believed not a single word of his tale, but neither did I have fortitude or patience enough to argue with a goblin. Despite his protests, we put him out of the tower and closed the doors up tight.

“Keep an eye lest he climb that tree, enter the tower, and slit our throats in the night,” Myron sniffed and hissed. That warning made for an uneasy remainder of the night. I slept fitfully, waking often, tossing and turning. At one point I woke and rose shivering in the cold. I took some steps away from our bedrolls to relieve myself. The night was dark. Only a faint crescent of Luna remained, and Celene also waned. It seemed to me that the cold air carried a scent of smoke. From a far away distance, I heard the sound of a wolf baying.

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