Fighting monsters

What faced them threefold was green-brown with the characteristic troll shaped nose and fur that framed the face from ear to ear like a beard. What was particularly striking was that these three had no visible horns and each had an amazingly humanoid body shape!

"Have you seen any like these before? They do look a bit like the adult version of Quagawumps..." Zoe spoke quietly and with a strained tone.

Douxie indicated a shake of his head but froze when one of the three, whose hairy fur fell particularly long over one shoulder, bared its fangs, growling like a wild boar.

"Give me cat, human!"

Hearing these words, Archie winced on his shoulder and while his claws dug painfully through Douxie's shirt into his skin, a feeling of anger spread through the wizard's chest, increasing moment by moment.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?"

But apparently the obvious leader of the small group didn't seem to want to answer any questions. For Douxie could see anger reflected in the latter's eyes too.

"Give me cat, human! Or we eat you! Men destroys life forest, we eat men for it!"

'Life forest...' Douxie repeated the expression in his mind, and as if he had pushed open a door with it, he saw a book in front of him which his master had opened for him at a certain page. All right, it wasn't even half a page. Merely a marginal note to a text about troll species that had long been considered lost or extinct. That Douxie could remember the text word for word, however, was due to the fact that the book had been written in a language which was nowadays long since extinct. But at that time, some wizards had still mastered it. And if a Master Merlin was able to use a nearly dead language, his apprentice also had to learn it...

Oh, how Douxie had hated it at that time, to have to read out to Merlin individual text passages over and over again, until he had hit the pronunciation and had the translation flawlessly correct. But at this moment, facing these trolls, he was more than grateful to the old wizard for having drilled into him not only practical spells, but also seemingly useless theoretical knowledge.

With careful movements, so as not to provoke the leader, he tilted his head, not taking his eyes off the three in front of him for a second.

"You are forest trolls. But your habitat is the Amazon rainforest. What brings you so far north? Haven't you lived in peaceful coexistence with the native human people of your forest?"

"Who are you?" came the growled counter-question a moment later. But at least their leader straightened up a bit, and his posture immediately made him look less threatening.

Instead, one of the other two growled something that sounded suspiciously like "hungry".

"My name is Hisirdoux Casperan and this is my familiar Archibald and my companion Zoe Ashildr."

"Familiar?"

"Yes," Douxie confirmed with a firm voice. "That's why I can't give you Archibald. This cat form of him right now is only temporary. He's a dragon and-"

"Doesn't look like dragon. Wings are missing and clear mind."

"Yes, well," Douxie began to explain, shrugging his shoulders, which immediately earned him a displeased hiss from Archie and certainly a scratch or two more. "Unfortunately, catnip grows here and it always clouds his mind, so he won't be able to transform right now. He-"

"Hungry!" the third troll now groaned out as well, and Douxie narrowed his eyes at having been interrupted yet again.

"They certainly didn't learn good manners in the rainforest," Zoe muttered at the same time as the second troll also made his point.

"It doesn't matter if it's cat or dragon! Stomachs need to be filled and without wings at least it can't fly away. I say we get cat!"

"Go ahead and try," Douxie's words slipped out without a second thought, and his rising irritation activated his vambrace. He could see the blue glow of the runes in the eyes of their leader, who had been silently but unceasingly eyeing him since his question.

"Wizard," the latter now stated, and then his eyes suddenly reflected not only Douxie's blue magic, but Zoe's pink one as well.

"That's right! Come here, if you dare," Zoe sneered. "You wouldn't be the first monsters we've banished from this plane."

That, in turn, called trolls #2 and #3 back into action, who bellowed out an ear-splitting ruckus and bared their long teeth. But then just as quickly they fell silent again as their leader held up a hand. This, at the latest, was proof to Douxie of who he needed to attempt de-escalation with if this encounter was not to degenerate into a fight. And sure, Zoe and he would be quite capable of defeating three full-grown trolls, but unless Archie could keep himself safe in this state, he had no increased desire to get into a fight where they wouldn't be allowed any distractions. Because even if Zoe's garden wasn't in the rainforest, they were still in a forest right then and there. And "provoking forest trolls to fight in a forest is a foolish idea. Remember that, Hisirdoux!" he heard Merlin say, as if it were only yesterday.

So he lowered his left arm a little, hoping that this would be taken as a peace offering.

"We don't eat familiars of wizards. The dragon has nothing to fear. I am Toncor," the leader declared, obviously accepting the offer. "You are old," he nodded toward Douxies vambrace, "and know things. Perhaps you will be willing to help us? My tribe and wizards have always gotten along well."

"Oh, yeah? The two behind you speak a different language," Zoe countered. But Douxie shook his head.

"They're hungry, Zoe. And hunger pushes everyone to their limits." Then he sighed. "May we use your garden for further conversation, or would you prefer we continue it elsewhere?"

"Are you serious? They were going to devour Archie!"

"But not anymo-," he wanted to soothe her, but a sudden sense of danger from behind made him fall silent and turn around just in time for him, and not Archie, to be hit by an arrow, which landed in his right arm and hurled him to the ground by the force of the impact.

Even as Zoe stared at him in shock and then stood from one second to the next in an electrifying cocoon, emitting lightning bolts in all directions in search of the attacker, Douxie let out a scream at the searing pain that immediately spread from his arm to his shoulder.

Then a wave of infernal loud ruckus washed over him - hissing, shouting, growling... A paralyzing heaviness spread through Douxie, and only with difficulty could he turn his head in the direction from which he heard something brighter in the babble of voices than the adult voices of the trolls he had known until that very moment. And what he saw left him shocked. A sudden hand on his chest prevented him in the next second from trying to stand up and throw himself between Zoe's aggressively charged magic and the young troll child, who stood there with his face contorted in rage and a bow in his hand, obviously the one who had shot him.

"Monster!" the young troll suddenly shouted with fervor, deftly placing another arrow in his weapon as Zoe lashed out wide with both arms, positively sparking with electricity, to strike him down obviously thor-like with lightning as the body, that belonged to the hand on his chest, also screamed in panic.

"Tonrac! Run, my son!"

Run, my Douxie!

Everything inside him contracted with a jerk. And when his mother's voice slowly faded in his head and the troll leader's son and Zoe lunged at each other as if in slow motion, something in Hisirdoux snapped. His magic suddenly burst out of him as a powerful wave, hurling everyone around him to the ground. And when he also lost feeling in his legs, time seemed to return to normal. But alas, he was having none of it, as his eyelids also became heavy and his vision dim. That he somehow also seemed to have trouble breathing reminded him painfully of the night before, and with a sigh he willingly closed his eyes for a brief moment.

Only for…

… a short…

… moment...