Spring Break Story Stub 4
A fantasy vignette. Started with the idea of a weapon swinging through air, moved from there.
Rodin's hammer swung through through the air with a speed that seemed artificially slow and supernaturally fast, as if the hammer were stopping at every moment of its long arc to break the air in front of it. Rodin's arms strained with the force of the swing; veins bulged against his skin and appeard to create a tributary system of red rivers along his arms. With a hit that shook his entire body Rodin connected with the troll's head, chipping off large chunks of the troll's rock-like exterior and sending the creature sprawling across the battlefield.
"Behind you!" Screamed Kaira, and Rodin swung one-armed behind his back. The hammer collided against another craggy warrior and rebounded slightly as Rodin turned to face the new threat.
"We can't keep this up much longer!" Rodin yelled in reply as he deflected a swing of the troll's club with another well-timed arc of his hammer. He scanned the troll-horde arrayed before him in the clearing, and forced the energy of his anger and fear into his hammer's next attack. "We need to end this, soon!"
"We need to run," Replied Kaira, her battle-skirt whirling as she hacked at the two trolls flanking her. Her sharpened miner's picks gleamed in the evening light. "If we can get to the forest's edge, the elves - "
"Won't do a damn thing and you know it!" growled Rodin as he side-stepped an overhead swing of the troll's club and slammed his hammer at the creature's side in response. "They refuse to take sides because none of their people have been attacked. The think the fight is a 'petty scuffle' between trolls and humans."
"So why don't we make it their problem as well?" Head for the nearest elf city while making sure the trolls follow behind us."
"Force the elves' hand? We should just show up with a bunch of trolls, wait until an elf gets attacked and then say 'Oops we got lost, but let's kick some troll butt'?"
"Pretty much, yeah," Kaira replied, driving on the sharpened picks deep into a troll's eye and using the leverage to leap into the air, driving the other pick into another troll's skull.
"You're crazy!" Rodin exclaimed, swinging the hammer at his troll's knees. The troll fell, crippled. "There's a fair chance the elves will kill us for bringing troll aggression to their people!"
"You see another option?"
Rodin surveyed the carnage around him, and witnessed the utter destruction that had been committed against the human forces by the troll army. He cursed, loudly.
"Alright then. You lead, grab as many human survivors as can run with you. I'll take the rear, try to keep the trolls from killing us but not slow them down too much."
Kaira nodded, thin-lipped, and started running toward the forest's edge.