Chapter 12: Staking a Claim
After several hours of following tracks through the jungle, the party of pirates found themselves sitting at the treeline, observing a small village of trolls. There were very few trolls out and about at this time of night, many of them having headed into their crude mud huts for a night's rest. Arrien could see Jessi's fingers tightening around her sword as she clenched her jaw in thought.
"There's no saying that this is the only troll village on the island," Jessi whispered, "but we're going to have to take them out if we're going to even begin taking over here."
"But there are women and children in the camp," Arrien hissed in protest, then felt angry eyes digging into her back.
"And they'd serve you as a main course the first chance they'd get, Freckles," Jessi said, coldly, "we need to get rid of 'em now... and you're going to help." The young mage looked at the village in front of her and swallowed hard, hoping that most of its populace were warriors and hunters who would have, as Jessi said, butchered the lot of them just as soon as they'd say hello.
"They don't even suspect anything," a man next to Arrien said, a dark grin on his bearded face, "we'll take them completely by--- hhrrrk---" his sentence dissolved into a series of gurgles and choking sounds as he dropped to the grass, a crude axe buried firmly in the back of his skull. A jungle troll seemed to appear out of no where, followed by two more, letting out a fierce war cry.
The pirates whirled about, Arrien getting off a fireball that narrowly missed one of the trolls, her aim thrown off by another pirate jostling her arm in an attempt to load his gun. She could heard an alarm gong being sounded in the village, and a clamor starting up in the strange language of the trolls. As soon as the initial ambushers had been taken care of, one of them skewered on Jessi's cutlass, the other with a large hole in its face left behind by a blunderbuss, the pirates fell upon the village. At least six trolls fell before they were even able to get to their weapons as Jessi and her men opened fire. Combat was joined, the sound of the rough stone and wood weapons of the trolls clashing against the steel of the Bloodsails echoed through the night air. Arrien remained near the edge of the battle, her warblade drawn, but mainly casting a variety of spells to harass the trolls. She ducked behind one of the mud huts to catch a breath for a moment and heard a small cry from behind her.
"Nun! Kul'kar nun tyl nat!" Arrien spun around, her warblade ready, and saw a tiny form standing in front of her. A young troll was curled in a fetal position on the ground, covering his large ears, trembling from head to toe. The mohawk of bright red hair that sprouted from his head matched the tribal tattoos on his face, and Arrien quietly wondered to herself how young the trolls received those markings. He looked up at the mage with large, fearful eyes. She crouched down next to him and softly shushed him, jumping a bit as she heard an explosion coming from the inside of the hut she was hiding behind.
"It'll be okay, little one," she whispered, rummaging through her spell components pouch to find what she needed. Her hand produced a small bit of gum arabic and an eyelash. She pressed the two items together and muttered a few words of power, touching the young troll's arm as she did so. The troll looked up at her, confused. "You need to run," she hissed, mimicking the motion of running with her fingers and pointing towards the coast, "run as fast as you can, do you understand me?" The troll looked down at his arm where the mage had touched it and looked in shock to see that it was no longer there apparently. He reached with his other hand to touch it and confirm that it was, indeed, still there.
"RUN!" Arrien shouted, jumping to her feet and pulling the troll up with her. She gave him a firm push and he started off towards the treeline, soon vanishing so that only his footprints remained behind in the sand.
The mage leapt out from behind the building again, only to find herself facing a very angry looking troll, his battle axe about to come down upon her skull. She lunged forward with her warblade, catching the troll in the chest. He groaned and fell to the ground, clutching at his wound, which Arrien saw was quickly starting to heal up. The troll now looked much, much angrier and before Arrien realized what was happening, it lunged at her from the ground, his eyes glowing a murderous red. The mage steeled herself, shouting out a spell and stretching her arms forth, beams of light springing from them and encompassing the troll, who began to shrink rapidly and grow more fuzzy. Half a second later, a sheep crashed to the ground before Arrien, who looked down at him with a satisfied smirk.
"Baa?" Was the only thing the troll managed to say before he was transformed once again: this time, into well-done mutton. Arrien stepped over the corpse of her wooly foe and looked at the village, the majority of which was now on fire, the streets littered with bodies of troll men and women, and, although Arrien averted her eyes and tried to tell herself differently, a few child-sized corpses were strewn about, as well, butchered the same as the other trolls.
"That's the last of 'em!" One of the pirates confirmed gleefully. A few of the men sheathed their blades, looking a bit disappointed that there was no one left to kill.
"Good job, boys," Jessi said with a cheering whoop following it, "not too bad there, either, Freckles," she chuckled at Arrien's victim, still a smoldering sheep in appearance. Jessi reached into her pack and produced a folded up piece of cloth and grabbed a spear from one of the dead trolls, sticking it firmly in the ground. Arrien moved closer to the group, feeling a bit of a chill in her spine despite the plentiful fire. The blonde pirate worked quickly, tying the cloth to the spear, where it fluttered in the gentle wind, unfurling to reveal a black twin-masted ship set against a blood red sun setting on a black sea, "I claim this island in the name of my father, Duke Falrevere, and for the Bloodsail Buccaneers... lads... welcome to Plunder Isle!" A series of bloodthirsty cheers erupted into the night. Arrien glanced back at the small footprints in the sand and prayed quietly that the troll had made it somewhere safe. She looked back down at the corpses of the trolls, and the relatively few corpses of the pirates who had fallen in the battle and sighed to herself, for the first time, simply wishing to be back home in bed.