The main road bustled, a strange sign so early in the night, and one that did not bode well. The street was alive with activity, but eerily devoid of conversation; worried-looking trolls hastily packed carts with their portable belongings, and grim-faced warriors stacked broken wagons and barrels and wooden crates into barricades in preparation for the inevitable fight. Some of them approached her, desperate for counsel; she offered a few encouraging words as she passed. She could not tend to them all right now, not when she was balancing two potential threats. Her spy had not returned from searching Angor's dwell, but that was the least of her worries. She had other matters to attend to, the first being getting a better idea of how much time the villagers had before Gunmar's horde broke over them.

The watchman loped up to her as she neared the main road. His expression was dismal; whatever he had to say couldn't possibly be good.

"Chief," he addressed her.

"Tell me," she said, ignoring all polite conventions. Now was not the time for pleasantries.

"They're moving faster than we expected. They'll be here by late nighttime."

"Blasted magic," she spat, half to herself. Gunmar must be driving his horde at a pace that would have caused any other troll to collapse long ago; a night ago the Gumm-Gumms had been at least two nights' travel away.

That, or his troops had arcane help, probably tied to the legendary enchanted blade that the warlord wielded.

"The pixies are already in place, but we don't have the numbers to defeat them, even if they are disoriented."

"The archers are ready?" she asked.

His frown deepened. "Yes, Chief, but you know they can't hit much."

"They believe that we can protect our village, and as their chief, I will stand with them, whether they succeed or fail."

He peered at her from beneath thick stony eyebrows, his eyes glimmering with concern. "Is that wise, Chief? Those fleeing need a leader."

"They also need time. If our village is to be overrun, the least we can do is protect them by stalling the en-"

A yell split the air, and she spun towards the source of the sound, followed the noise of splintering wood. She hefted her axe and ran towards the screams and breaking property. Trolls threw themselves out of her way as she cannoned through the streets. She caught flashes of their bewildered and worried faces in the flickering torchlight as she passed. Another scream echoed from her left; she cursed and bolted in that direction, rounding the corner. A ring of petrified onlookers watched the scene from extreme distance, hiding in the shadows of buildings. She charged through them and beheld the commotion.

A massive amorphous mud figure with troll-like proportions stood within the shattered remains of Angor's hut, swinging one of her guards by the legs as if he weighed no more than a branch. The guard had his sword out and swiped futilely at the creature with all the force he could muster. The creature was shaking him so hard that his face was a blur, his cries for help escalating and dipping in pitch based on his rapidly-changing elevation.

The counterspell formed on her tongue before she could even fully register all the details, waves of blue-white magic crackling off her like an aurora. The mud creature instantaneously collapsed, and the guard fell with a thick splat into the collapsing effigy. She gasped, the use of such powerful magic leaving her winded. She took a moment to catch her breath, then moved towards the remains of the battle, where the mud-covered troll was struggling to get up. She made her wat across the mud-slick ground and helped him up.

"What was that thing?" he asked, wiping mud off himself.

"Golem," she explained. "Did you find anything?"

"No, ma'am. I was attacked before I could. By that thing."

She looked around at the ruined dwell; everything was obscured with at least an inch of half-liquid dirt. The books, or what she assumed were books on the partially-buried table, were totally unreadable. Bits of candles and furniture stuck out from beneath the swamp that had parked itself in what used to be the kitchen of the dwell, but if there were any clues here, they'd be totally mired. It would take time to excavate anything of utility, time they did not have.

She turned to the center of the dissolving mud mountain and kicked it apart, her clothes-sullying search turning up a little stone figurine about the size of her hand, as she expected. She picked the item up and squeezed it until it snapped into two jagged pieces.

"You," she pointed to the filthy guard. "With me."

The guard followed her as she made her way quickly back towards her dwell, picking up a crowd of stragglers, their tongues stony catapults that lobbed questions at her. She hid from the verbal projectiles behind her own silence, her brain furiously churning, trying to come up with any possible solutions to the now-unavoidable problem in her peoples' midst. Hang Gunmar; if her so-called "guest" had hidden many more of those golems, then Gunmar wouldn't find anything left to ransack. Spirits only knew how many more other traps, arcane or otherwise, the hunter had set in place.

She stepped into her dwell, heedless of the mud she tracked everywhere, beckoned her guard inside, and barred the door.

"What do you need me to do, Chief?" He asked without preamble.

She rubbed a muddy hand across her forehead, completely at a loss for answers. While the golemn encounter certainly proved Angor's disregard for the safety of other trolls, it hardly proved that he was studying dark magic; animustotems fell far more into the realm of natural magic than evil arcane. Throwing false accusations would incite a panic among the worried population and anger the already foul-tempered sorcerer. And if there was a worry she did not need, it was an enraged magician threatening her people and further dividing her devoted but admittedly meager warriors.

"Make sure the other watch-trolls know what happened, but don't publicize it. The last thing we need is a panic. "

"And you, ma'am?"

"I have work to do," she told him, stepping over to the bookshelves and beginning to pull counterspell books off the shelves. A magic ward would be essential to winning the coming fight if there was to be one, but she only had time to cast a ward on one individual, and none of her warriors, however dedicated or skilled, had a hope of defeating Angor based on his abilities.

The candles slowly consumed themselves as she muttered spells as fast as possible, the books piling higher and higher around her. The door slammed open, and she whirled in alarm, knocking one of the precarious towers to the floor. Kaius stood behind her, his face grim, and she strode past him without a word, searching the murmuring crowd that had gathered around her door for the pale stranger. She spotted him, her gaze drawn to the book he was holding. She recognized the rune-marked cover. Certainty followed by abject fury washed through her.

"You!"

The crowd's collective gaze turned first to her, then to Angor, who looked up, dropped his book, and grabbed his dagger, his eyes narrowing.

"Gunmar is here because of you!"

Questions and accusations and confused demands burst from the gathered trolls, cut of suddenly by three distant, nearly percussive blasts of a horn, suddenly cut off. Fear seized her; she knew that signal, though ithad never been used before.

The village was under attack.

A/N: MAN it feels good to be back! I've been stuck in this chapter for far too long.
Apologies to the people who have had problems viewing new chapters. FFN is doing very strange things with the formatting and I can't make it work the way I want to without multiple submissions. I am very technologically inept, so if you have some suggestion to fix this, I'm all ears and would be very grateful.

Anyway.

I'm estimating the final showdown to go, and then we'll finally be able to get out of this Podunk and onto more interesting matters.

Major feels incoming.