Troll Mountain: The Complete Novel

Chapter 11

Clang!

Another sword appeared in front of Raf’s nose and parried the incoming blow.

It was Ko’s. The old man now stepped in front of Raf and engaged the hobgoblin.

At the same moment, Raf saw three more hobgoblins leap down from fissures in the cavern’s walls, armed with rusty swords. Three quickly became six, which quickly became eleven. The gang of hobgoblins came running toward him.

“Raf! Run!” Ko called as his sword clashed with the first hobgoblin’s. “We must get up that path! Go! I will be right behind you!”

Raf ran.

Raf and Düm dashed across the low wooden bridge spanning the steaming lake.

Hot moist air wafted around them, rising from the thermal pool. Raf didn’t know how hot the lake was, but he guessed it was not far short of scalding.

As he and Düm reached the base of the path on the other side, Ko managed to sidekick the first hobgoblin away and race after them, pursued by the gang of hobgoblins.

Raf looked back in horror at the pursuing creatures.

They were about five feet tall and they ran on their legs and knuckles, clutching rusty swords in tight fists. In the dim light of his torch, he saw their black leather-like skin, pointy ears, snub noses and hunched backs.

They cackled meanly as they ran.

“Fly, little birds!”

“Run, rabbits, run!”

“Oh, yes, we like a good hunt!” their leader called. “A kill is a kill, but when I bury my blade in a victim who is white with fear, it is so much the sweeter!”

Raf pushed Düm up the path as Ko joined them. Raf stepped forward to meet the first hobgoblin and the clash of their blades rang loudly.

Raf had the higher ground, which helped him hold off the creature’s blows, but the sheer number of hobgoblins was going to be too much for him to handle. Then, suddenly, a huge brown blur whooshed past Raf and struck the first hobgoblin, sending the little creature flying backward into the lake with a howl. It landed with a splash and screamed in agony as the water scalded its skin. It went under, shrieking.

Raf turned to see Düm swinging his long sledgehammer again. “Master Raf! Duck!”

Raf ducked and the big hammer swooshed over his head again and sent another hobgoblin splashing into the sizzling pool.

It gave Raf the moment he needed and he bolted up the path to join Düm and Ko.

And that was how it went: a running sword-battle as Raf, Ko, and Düm ascended the path, pursued by the furious hobgoblins.

They scaled the railless path, clashing swords, parrying blows, always moving, never stopping. They traversed the first drawbridge — the one that was in the open position — but stopped short when they came to the second.

This drawbridge towered high above the floor of the immense cavern, two hundred dizzying feet above the steaming lake.

Raf called out the plan: Ko and Düm would hold off the hobgoblins while he dashed inside the two-story guardhouse and lowered the drawbridge.

Raf hurried inside the little structure and clambered up a wooden ladder to its upper level. He emerged inside a small chamber, where he beheld a large cogwheel around which the drawbridge’s chains were spooled. The chains stretched out through a small rectangular window in the wall.

A low growl made Raf freeze.

Raf turned to see a large shape emerging slowly from the darkness …

It was a mountain wolf.

Wait. No.

It was three.

They stepped out from the shadows of the chamber. They were massive, their shoulders easily four feet off the ground. Their eyes were pitiless, their fangs cruel.

Raf didn’t stop to stare. He dived for the cogwheel and released its lever, causing the cogwheel to spin furiously and the drawbridge outside to fall and land on the other side of the void with a loud bang!

Then Raf ran for the window through which the chains exited the chamber — just as a hobgoblin appeared on the ladder poking up through the floor and raised his sword, only to be bowled off his feet by one of the wolves. The wolf proceeded to tear the hobgoblin to shreds as Raf grabbed a chain and slid down it, out of the chamber.

Ko and Düm stepped backward across the drawbridge, fending off the hobgoblins as Raf came sliding down one of the drawbridge’s chains, overtaking them.

Düm swiped a hobgoblin off the bridge, sending the creature flying two hundred feet down to the pool, a high-pitched shriek following it all the way down.

But then the three mountain wolves emerged behind the hobgoblins and the goblins didn’t know what to do — suddenly, they were hemmed in both in front and behind by deadly enemies.

“Düm!” Raf called as they stepped off the bridge and onto the path again. “Destroy the bridge!”

Düm held the big hammer aloft and brought it down on the brackets where the chains were attached to the drawbridge. Two blows and the brackets came loose. Three more and the bridge fell from its chains, plummeting down the rock wall, taking three hobgoblins and one mountain wolf with it.

The remaining hobgoblins were left on the guardhouse-side of the void, with the two remaining wolves. Their fate would not be kind. The wolves pounced on them and the hobgoblins’ death screams filled the air.

Raf sucked in a deep breath.

He and the others were safe on their side of the void. With a final look back at the realm of the hobgoblins, he ascended the last few turns of the path and disappeared through the ornate door at its summit.

Moments later, he, Ko and Düm emerged from the mine onto a small ledge cut into the side of Forbidden Mountain.

Raf was about to ask Düm how far it was from here to Troll Mountain, when he stopped himself. He didn’t need to. The ledge on which he stood faced to the north-west, and laid out before him was the most spectacular and sinister sight he had ever seen in his life.

He was looking at Troll Mountain.