CHAPTER 5

TROLL

Artemis Fowl was waiting for Holly. She looked her jailer in the eye.

"Ye are, of course, still bound by the promises made earlier tonight. . . ."

Holly stuck out her tongue and turned to sprint down the hall

"So, basically, our situation hasn't changed. Ye are still me hostage!"

Holly put her hands over her ears. Any further commands meant nothing if she couldn't hear. She grabbed the mirror.

"Someone ye are tryin' to contact?" asked Artemis.

"Send troll," she said into it. "Troll. Troll. Troll." Her nails left scratches on the glass because of how tightly she clutched it.

"Tis not polite to ignore yer host."

Holly snarled. She snapped her fingers to make cotton appear in her ears, then pulled back her fist, and swung with extra magical strength at Artemis' nose. "D'Arvit!" she used an elvish curse.

"Oof." He collapsed onto his rear end. Artemis propped himself on his elbows. "Ye hit me," he said.

Holly threw back her head and laughed. "Want a lollipop, human?"

"I don't like lollipops." He had forgotten to put together a database of witty responses for the kidnapping.

Artemis pulled himself up to tell Butler he was going to have to kill a troll.

Not ten minutes later, a Forest Troll shambled through the chandelier light. It was an elephant-sized warthog with thick tusks and brown fur, hanging off its body in dirty drapes. Yellow claws scraped the marble floor. It was sniffing.

Its shaggy head froze, and its snout pointed directly at Butler's hiding spot. The bodyguard stood behind a suit of armour under a mounted sword with a ruby hilt.

The troll sprang across the lobby, brushing the armour aside; it clattered to the floor with a deafening rumble. Rounds from Butler's machine gun pelted off its skin like dead flies with an even louder noise that would leave all their ears with permanent damage, until he was out of ammunition.

The troll only had a small wound. It ran to the bodyguard, and its tusks pierced Butler's abdomen, sticking his lung. Butler cried out. Gouts of his blood matted the troll's fur as it pawed at him on the ground, then flipped Butler's body into a wall.

Holly jumped up and down, clapping. Butler moaned as blood dripped from his chest to the floor.

Holly put her finger in the red hole in Butler's heart. She shrieked, "Kill! Troll kill mud-worm!" and did a demented jig.

The troll reared its head, and stuck her with its tusk. Green blood sprayed from Holly's forearm and a scream tore through the air. Quickly, she healed her wound, and aimed her heel at the troll's head. Her foot bone shattered against its skull.

"BAD TROLL!" she hollered, and used her magic to bathe him in green light. Her weakening spell made the troll's injuries worsen, and it staggered to the left. Then she shot a golden healing spell into Butler's chest, and yelled, "KILL!"

Butler woke up. The bleeding from his chest had stopped, and his lung had been magically reconstructed. He jumped to his feet.

Holly hid in the folds of a tapestry.

Butler strapped on the suit of armor, closed the visor, and hefted the ruby encrusted sword from the wall. He stepped back, paused, then charged, ramming the blade into the troll's heart. Thick black liquid pooled over the stone floor as a sound worse than a howling banshee filled Butler's eardrums.

He pulled the weapon out with a sucking sound. The beast laid on its side, lame and blinded by blood. Venom dripped from its tusks as Butler breathed heavily and the troll bleated and gasped.

In a final stroke, Butler brought his weapon down, breaking bones, tendons, and muscles, chopping off the troll's head. Soon it was reduced to a heap of quivering fur that went still. He gave the head a kick, and it flew across the floor as he let his weapon clank to the floor.

Butler collapsed to the ground in exhaustion.