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  “Keep firing,” Fibian shouted.

  Cyrus loaded another bolt. The bald water klops raised up, took aim and let loose. Cyrus hugged the ground, shielding his face behind his crossbow.

  The arrow hit the crossbow’s stalk, casting splinters into Cyrus’ eyes.

  “We’re going to die if we don’t do something.”

  The second water klops appeared, aimed, and fired. Fibian reached for the bolt. The arrow pierced his left palm.

  “I will draw their fire. Go!” he shouted, his voice strained.

  The two ghouls rose to their feet, snarling like jackals. They took aim at the wounded froskman. Concentrating, Cyrus fired at the one with the wispy hair. The arrow missed by several feet. Both creatures chuckled as they refocused their sights.

  Cyrus heard heavy footfalls coming from behind him. He closed his eyes, fighting back tears. Their chance of escape had vanished.

  Ahead, the black-haired klops fired. Fibian shielded his head. The bolt struck his false limb. The bald one hunched low, leveling his weapon. He took a deep breath.

  “Say goodbye to your wrong-eyed friend!” he shrieked.

  He squinted hard and licked his split lips.

  CRACK!

  An explosion echoed throughout the gully. The back of the bald one’s head ruptured. The corpse fell to its knees, then tipped over the edge. The second klops watched, his flesh growing pale, as his comrade tumbled lifelessly down the gulch. He snarled and spat at the intruders. Then he turned tail and scrambled up the pass.

  Cyrus looked about, frightened and confused.

  “Behind you,” Edward shouted, scurrying across Fibian’s shoulder.

  Cyrus turned and found Tier bounding up the trail. She held the smoking wood and steel staff in her right hand. In her left, she aimed a crossbow. She fired the weapon up into the trees. It was no use. The water klops had vanished.

  Cyrus loaded his weapon and turned it on Tier. Fibian clutched the bolt protruding from his chest and fell to his knees.

  “Fibian, are you all right?” Cyrus asked, breathing heavily.

  “Of course,” Fibian wheezed, his voice thick and strained.

  “The klops poison their bolts,” Tier said, her tone cold and remorseless, “Your friend is hard to kill, but no one survives klops poison.”

  “Cyrus, he’s going all pale!” Edward pleaded.

  Fibian fell to his side.

  “There’s no time,” Tier said.

  She drew a leather satchel from her hip and poured black powder down the hole of her staff. Then she loaded the staff with a lead ball.

  “Your friend is dead. If we do not stop that klops, the rest of us are dead as well.”

  Tier poured a little more powder into the weapon’s hammering mechanism, locked it, then half engaged the brass lever.

  Cyrus stepped forward, gritting his teeth. He trained his crossbow on Tier’s face. The yeti’s chest and shoulders were torn and crusted with dried blood. Tier snarled.

  “If killing you all would bring back my mother, you would already be dead. That klops is going to warn the others. If that happens, all those yeti back there, yeti that helped save your lives, they will all be in grave danger. My mother warned you of this. I am going to rescue my people, and you’re going to help. You owe us that much!”

  She pushed Cyrus’ crossbow aside and rushed up the pass.

  Cyrus scrambled to Fibian’s side.

  “What do I do?”

  “You must go,” Fibian whispered.

  Using his mechanical hand, he winced and broke the tip off the arrow piercing his left hand. Then he pulled the shaft from his palm.

  “I will live, but you must continue on, or that scout will surely warn the others.”

  “Fibian, I can’t leave you,” Cyrus pleaded.

  “I will catch up with you as soon as I can,” Fibian said, removing the second shaft from his forearm, “but for now, I will only slow you down. Go.”

  “Edward?” Cyrus asked.

  Edward moved across Fibian’s chest, inspecting the wound.

  “I can’t leave Fibian like this,” he replied, his eyes wavering.

  Cyrus stared at his best friend. What was happening? He nodded, as if he understood, a mix of emotions clouding his thoughts.

  “Come, there’s no time,” Tier shouted back, approaching the cliff, “We have klops to hunt.”

  Chapter 10

  TRAP

  RELUCTANTLY, CYRUS PULLED himself from Fibian’s and Edward’s sides and followed Tier up the narrow pass. Would it be the last time he saw his friends?

  He crossed the dead klops lying at the foot of the cliff. The creature was larger than the one he had encountered on Rorroh’s ship. The corpse must have outweighed Aghamore by thirty pounds. The tip of his nose had been bitten off long ago, along with two of the four fingers on his right hand.

  Cyrus stared at the hole in the creature’s forehead. The villain’s gaunt face snarled in death as his gray flesh grew rigid and cold. Is that what Runa would have done to Cyrus, had Fibian not interfered? He looked up at the long, slender weapon in Tier’s grip.

  “Hurry,” she ordered, mounting the cliff face.

  She slung the staff over her shoulder and began to climb.

  “It’s a rifle,” she said, over her shoulder, “like the ones the enemy use. It requires their black powder. We found pouches of it on their dead after the attack.”

  The klops was dressed in a steel top with metal plates running horizontally around his shoulders and mid-section. Rust and scarring tarnished its smooth finish.

  “The armor is yeti made,” Tier growled, “I recognize the workmanship. My people are alive. Move!”

  Cyrus left the corpse and clambered up the stone handholds. Tier’s hulking form loomed overhead.

  Was she going to kill him? It was the reason she had been hunting them in the first place. How could she not? They had murdered her mother. It was self-defense, but did that matter? Would Cyrus be so understanding had it been Edward or Fibian? She would have definitely shot them had it not been for the klops. She believed Fibian to be dead already. Cyrus would not accept that. Was she waiting until the klops was dead before she turned her rifle on Cyrus as well?

  They reached the clifftop. Cyrus noticed that the wound on Tier’s shoulder was bleeding.

  “Wolves attacked me as I tracked you in the night,” she said, scrubbing the lacerations with snow.

  “I broke their necks and heaved them from a cliff.”

  She cast the bloody slush to the ground. Cyrus felt his nerves tingle. He mounted the bridge-way, careful of the rat and squirrel bones scattered across the deck. He reached the edge and retrieved his ill-aimed bolt. The enemy nest smelled of outhouse and rotten egg.

  “Hurry,” Tier demanded.

  Cyrus leaped from the bridge and found his second bolt in a nearby tree.

  Tier pushed on, tracking the water klops through powdery snow. The trail remained winding and narrow, with cliffs and trees on either side, ripe for ambush. As they sped around a fallen boulder, the creature’s prints vanished. Tier looked to the canyon walls.

  “It must have taken to the rock,” she said.

  Cyrus heard the thrum of a crossbow’s lath. He and Tier ducked instinctively. The enemy bolt zinged overhead. Cyrus spied the klops ahead up the path. Cyrus took a knee, flicked his yellow hair from his eyes, and fired. The creature scrambled off the rock like a frightened cat.

  Tier sprang forward. Cyrus followed. They leaped upon the klops’ perch. The fiend was gone, but dark, purplish blood stained the snow.

  “You hit it,” Tier said.

  Cyrus stared at the blood. It reminded him of the first life he had taken on the klappen island. He had slashed the creature’s throat. He had defeated the beast. He had won. He felt anticipation pumping through his veins. Is this what Edward felt?

  The hunters ascended higher into the mountains, entering a thick fog. Snow started to fall in sheets. Tier donne
d leather and copper goggles. The water klops’ trail grew faint, then vanished again.

  Tier paused and put an index finger to her lips. Cyrus felt sweat drip down his brow. He stood still as a tree. He heard a branch crack from the woods to their right. Then a rock bounced off a tree trunk to their left.

  “We must get off the trail,” Tier whispered.

  She led the way forward. They climbed up the pass, searching for a route out of the gulch. The steep walls began to recede as the path leveled off.

  “Do you smell that?” Cyrus whispered.

  It was the scent of wood smoke. Tier nodded. She unshouldered her crossbow and charged the weapon. They crept low. Cyrus fanned his crossbow left to right. They neared a clearing. Cyrus heard the snap of a crackling fire. Tier loaded her weapon with a bolt and locked it into place.

  To their right, they discovered a small campfire burning against a craggy backdrop. Cyrus peered about in search of the fire’s maker. He found only snow and trees. He turned to Tier. The giant’s expression became haunted. Cyrus followed the yeti’s gaze back to the fire.

  “Mountain troll…” Tier whispered.

  She shouldered her crossbow and raised her rifle towards the fire.

  Cyrus’ head swiveled, searching the clearing. Nothing. Then it moved. A hulking mass of white and brown sat hunched on a log beside the glowing flames. The creature’s stout body was covered in a moss-like fur with parasitic twigs and branches growing from its snow-covered back and bearded head.

  “It was there the whole time?” Cyrus gasped.

  He aimed at the brute. The creature raised its muddy hand and, with its index finger, welcomed them to the fire. Its sooty, wrinkled face grinned with brown, crooked teeth, and its tiny yellow eyes glared with wanting.

  “As children, we were warned of this,” Tier said, “It’s a trap.”

  The creature began to grunt and chuckle as it picked at its large, pockmarked nose. Another mountain troll emerged from the woods to their left. It held a large bow and arrow, charged and at the ready. From their right came a third. The twelve-foot giant wielded a dead tree trunk.

  “What do we do?” Cyrus asked, shifting his aim from troll to troll.

  “You die,” spat a high-pitched voice.

  The wispy-haired water klops staggered from the forest. The fiend clutched its pierced belly with its bloody left hand. With its right, it aimed its crossbow at Cyrus’ head.

  Chapter 11

  TROLLS

  THE WATER KLOPS’ FINGERS tightened around the crossbow’s lever.

  “An attack on the Queen’s guard is the same as an attack on the Queen herself.”

  The fiend began to squeeze the trigger.

  “Stygl,” ordered the troll, sitting nearest the fire.

  The skinniest of the three brutes, holding the bow and arrow, turned his aim on the water klops. Stygl’s fur was patchy in places, with only a few twigs growing from his back.

  “What is this?” the injured klops asked, the gills in his neck flaring.

  “The yeti and its little friend are ours,” the campfire troll growled, “Leave now, while you still can.”

  “These trespassers must pay for what they have done,” the water klops screeched.

  His ratty eyes shifted between Cyrus and the trolls.

  “Their heads are to be prizes for the Queen.”

  The klops too wore yeti-made armor, but to its misfortune, the plating only protected its chest and left arm, leaving its stomach exposed.

  “You won’t survive the night with that wound, cannibal,” Stygl sneered, putting a gnarled thumb to his nostril and clearing his nose, “So bugger off and die, and stop wasting our time.”

  The klops’ face tightened with pain and rage.

  “Over my dead bones, you inbred swine.”

  “Heslig,” the campfire troll ordered.

  The largest of the three trolls brought his club down hard over the klops’ head. The villain’s entire body crumpled under the blow and became like minced ham. His arrow fired off into a nearby rock and shattered.

  “What in Kingdom?” Cyrus breathed, his legs becoming jelly.

  “Heslig, you idiot,” Stygl barked, “How are we supposed to cook him now?”

  The troll nearest the fire raised a bow and arrow towards Tier.

  “Don’t call me an idiot,” Heslig snarled, his deep voice distorted by a thick underbite.

  “What now, Grim?” Stygl asked.

  “Tie ‘em up,” the campfire troll said.

  Heslig moved to take Tier’s weapon. The yeti refocused her aim on the advancing troll. Cyrus heard Grim’s bow tighten.

  “I’ll put an arrow right through your neck,” he warned.

  Cyrus’ heart drummed in his chest. They were trapped! He dropped his crossbow. Tier growled, then did the same. Heslig forced both chest-first to the ground. The snow was impossibly cold on Cyrus’ face. Heslig huffed in his ear. The creature smelled like rotten cabbage mixed with footy cheese. We’re going to die, Cyrus thought. He pictured his brother, Niels, months before, hanging from that fracture in the earth. Had he suffered in death?

  “Don’t bruise the meat,” Stygl squawked.

  Heslig grunted, then hogtied Cyrus and Tier with twine.

  “Gut and skin the klops, I’ll ready the spit,” Grim ordered.

  “But the meat’s all squashed,” Stygl whined, “Let’s cook one of these two instead.”

  “Then what are we going to have for breakfast?” Grim shouted. “Now get to it.”

  Chapter 12

  MISFIRE

  DAY BECAME NIGHT. Cyrus and Tier lay helpless in the snow at the campfire’s side.

  “Meat’s too tough,” Heslig said.

  The troll had grease smeared across his craggy, bark-like skin.

  “Should’ve pounded it, like ya did mine,” Stygl complained, holding up a fractured bone of stringy meat.

  The three trolls sat in a triangle, on logs around the fire. Cyrus and Tier rested between Stygl and Grim. Cyrus stared at the scabby claw marks etched across Tier’s broad back.

  “Stop your squabbling and eat up,” Grim ordered, “We gots an early morning tomorrow.”

  The troll ate the klops heart like a grape. Purple blood squirted down his mouth and into his beard.

  Slowly, Cyrus rolled onto his left shoulder and tried to pull free of his bonds. Were he and Tier really going to be roasted on a spit? Cyrus could not let that happen.

  He pulled at the thick twine. It was tied so tight that his hands and feet tingled.

  “What if the klops queen comes for us?” Heslig asked, crunching on a narrow bone.

  “She won’t,” Stygl said, wiping his mouth on the back of his knobby hand, “This ain’t the first klops we’ve picked off.”

  “But what if she does this time?” Heslig replied, “We ain’t never taken one of her road guard before. They report regular, don’t they? When this one doesn’t check in, ain’t they gonna come lookin’?”

  “If they come lookin’” Grim said, “We run. We don’t want no part of that queen, or her sorcery. You’ve seen what she’s done to those klops. Pure evil, that one is.”

  Cyrus’ jaw tightened. The queen, a sorcerer? Pure evil? This sounded like Rorroh all over again, but this time he did not have dragon’s blood. What had he gotten himself into?

  Stygl picked up Tier’s rifle and began to tinker with the weapon.

  “What’s it do, breakfast? Or would you prefer I call you lunch?”

  Tier ignored the troll’s taunt.

  “They’re not playthings,” Heslig said, “they’re food. Leave ‘em alone, or you’ll sour the meat.”

  Chunks of cooked klops dangled from the large troll’s underbite.

  “Were you going to stab us, or beat us with it?” Stygl asked, spying down the rifle’s barrel.

  “Put that down before you get hurt,” Grim shouted.

  Stygl peered at the weapon’s trigger. He fingered the lever ever s
o slightly. It wiggled like a loose tooth. The troll pointed the muzzle at Tier’s head. Cyrus’ skin prickled. He tried to roll away from Tier’s side. Stygl pulled the trigger.

  CLICK.

  Nothing happened.

  “Stupid bauble, ain’t it?” the troll said, shaking the gun.

  “I said put that down,” Grim barked, tearing a foot off the roast water klops.

  Stygl fumbled with the rifle’s locking mechanism.

  “Ay, lunch, what’s this do?” the troll asked, thumbing the hammer.

  BANG!

  The cannon bucked in Stygl’s lap. Black soot clouded the troll’s eyes.

  “Damn you, I told you to leave it,” Grim shouted.

  He flung the klops foot at Stygl’s head.

  A large groan, mixed with a burp, gurgled from Heslig’s throat. Then the largest of the three trolls collapsed to his side. The creature’s heavy head crashed to the snow in front of Cyrus and Tier. Both had to curl up to avoid being struck by the large twiggy skull. Blood dripped from Heslig’s blistered lips. Cyrus stared, mouth gaping, into the troll’s unmoving eyes. Grim and Stygl looked over, their faces pale.

  “Heslig?” Stygl whispered, cocking his head and leaning closer.

  Grim stood up and moved to Heslig’s side.

  “What’s this?”

  The troll crouched down and touched his partner’s chest. Red blood stained Grim’s muddy fingers.

  “You idiot, he’s dead.”

  Stygl jumped from his seat and kicked the rifle away.

  “Yeti magic,” he snarled.

  “I told you not to toy with that thing.”

  Grim marched over the fire, searing his backside, and began to beat Stygl with a stick.

  “Look what you’ve done. Now there’s only two of us left.”

  He struck Stygl with fore and backhand blows. Stygl cowered on the ground, whimpering. Grim began to huff and wheeze. He dropped the stick, and with his hands on his knees, gathered his breath.

  Cyrus stared at the strange scene. The two brutes seemed to turn as still as stone, as they mourned their forever-lost friend. Then both trolls turned and considered the fallen giant.