Too Many Trolls (21 Feb 2002) Agatha and Hannah encounter some very unpleasant denizens of Mirari.

Caer Bannuac
The snow is more sparse about this hill, though the air no less chill. From the crown of the hill rises a tower in ruin, which once split into two peaks, reminiscent of horns: one has now fallen, and the other shows holes in its roof. The door at the base of the tower stands ajar, letting in the bitter wind. The watchtower is surrounded by a cluster of cottages, most only a single story high. This simple town has been abandoned -- by faerie life, at least -- for several Years, judging by the disreputable state of the buildings.

On a snow-covered street between two of the derelict houses -- one single-story, and one two -- a battle takes shape between two riders and the trolls that now haunt this hamlet. A snowy stallion, ridden by a young red-haired woman, wheels on one troll, as his rider brings her lance to bear upon it. The troll, a gangly, grey-green creature with mottled skin, gets to its feet after a failed pounce, lifting a long club from the ground. It stands some nine feet tall, though its ropy, twisted limbs are not bulky, rendering it reminiscent of a warped, ugly tree granted humanoid form. It collects itself in time to see the steel lance aimed at its heart, and scrambles to get out of the stallion's path.

Across from them, a bay mare charges a second troll, her rider wielding a rapier that she brings about in an effort to deflect the strike of the troll's club. Ropy-limbed likes its fellow, the slightly shorter troll directs a blow gracelessly at the girl's head.

The troll in the sights of the red-haired girl slips in the snow as he tries to get out of the way, and the stallion bears down upon him. Agatha adjusts her aim to account for her lowered target, and the steel lance rips into the monster's shoulder. The troll roars in agony, a terrible, bone-chilling sound, unnatural in its intensity. Meanwhile, Hannah's efforts to parry the other troll's club do not go well -- she manages to deflect some of the blow, but even the club's glancing strike against her forearm causes pain to shoot up it. Hannah's fingers go numb around the hilt of her sword, almost causing her to drop it.

"Are you alright Hannah?" Agatha calls as she tries to pull her lance free of her opponent.

Hannah bites off a sharp cry, trying to shake off the pain as best she can and return with an attack of her own, now that the troll has followed-through with its swing. "Doing my best, Agatha," she says through clenched teeth, "but I may need assistance!"

Despite her numbed hand, Hannah retaliates with a slash to the troll's face as Fiona carries her to the troll, slicing a gash through its cheek that gives the monster pause. It steps back and to one side, trying to get some distance between itself and its smaller opponent, so that it can make use of its advantage in reach.

Agatha's attempts to free her lance from the injured troll go rather less well then her attack did. None of the films she saw or practice she engaged in covered how to get the lance out once you got it in. Ahearn skids to a halt over the troll, sensing his rider's difficulty in extracting the lance. He lashes out with his hooves, battering the wounded creature to keep it from either escaping, or launching another attack, while Agatha wrestles with the lance.

Giving up on the lance for the moment, Agatha lets go and draws her sword instead. "Keep him pinned, Ahearn!" the girl calls, and swings her leg over so she can slide off of the stallion's back.

Hannah curses under her breath in a most unladylike fashion as the troll backs away from her, out of easier striking distance. She lifts her rapier and strikes now at the arm with which it carries its club, hoping to do some damage -- or at the very least, cause it to lower its guard.

Once the girl has dismounted and abandoned her lance, Ahearn rears up, then brings his full weight to bear as he crashes his hooves towards the fallen troll. Vainly, the troll tries to roll aside, but the lance, still sizzling in its shoulder, gets in the way. Hooves rain like hammer blows upon it, with sickening popping, crackling, and squishing noises that suggest Ahearn is doing a good deal more than just keeping it pinned.

Gripping her sword with both hands, Agatha tries to get around the pinned Troll's flailing arms and behead it -- as much to end its misery as to dispatch it.

Hannah's thrust goes wide, but the troll, wary as it sees what's happened to its fellow, makes a clumsy counterstrike -- but still with enough force to glance against the girl's head and stun her. Fiona dances to one side, helping her rider keep her balance as the strike leaves her woozy. The troll gives a bellow -- answered by other, more distant cries.

The steel blade sizzles as it bisects the monster's neck, leaving the troll's face frozen in an expression of rage and pain. Agatha jerks the blade back to keep it from getting fouled further in the blood, and tries to keep her lunch down.

With that troll dispatched, the stallion whirls from it to charge the one engaging Hannah, head lowered and braced for the impact.

Hannah tightens her legs around her saddle for dear life, desperately trying not to fall out of it. She blinks several times, rapidly, trying to clear her vision, praying that another swing is not coming that would finish her off.

"How many more of these things are there?" Agatha grumbles as she hears the cries, and grits her teeth. Holding her sword in one hand, she picks up the troll's head by its gruesome nose and hurls it towards Hannah's adversary, yelling, "Catch!" in hopes of distracting it enough to keep it from countering Ahearn's charge.

The unwieldy head makes a poor projectile, almost slipping from Agatha's slick fingers and falling to the ground just a few feet from her. One of Ahearn's rear hooves catches on it, turning his charge into a clumsy skid through the trampled snow, as he struggles to get his balance. The troll decides to try to finish Hannah off before worrying about the fresh attackers, but Fiona's sidestep saves her rider, as the troll's club slashes through the air where the girl used to be.

Meanwhile, they can hear the thud of heavy footsteps, from somewhere behind the small cottage, and another troll comes charging out of the tower, while Hannah catches glimpse of a third emerging from a cottage beyond the two-story house.

"Crud!" Agatha curses, and wipes her hand off on her pants before gripping her sword again. "They're all over the place!"

Hannah finally clears her head and brings her rapier up into position once more. Guiding Fiona about to face the troll again, she calls to Agatha, "If you have anything resembling a plan, I'd love to hear it!" She tries one more time to attack the creature, as it recovers from its down-swing. She aims her rapier this time for the troll's unprotected side, hoping to pierce through it.

The white stallion scrambles to get his feet beneath him again, stomping his rear-hoof clear of the gore from the severed troll's head. He turns to bear on the live troll at the same time as Hannah's strike pierces the creatures grey-green hide. The troll yelps with pain, staggering away from the girl, and inadvertently backing towards Ahearn, who rears, preparing to take advantage of its distraction.

Looking over her shoulder to see the troll charging from the tower, Agatha says, "We've only seen one per building, so the tower should be empty. I say we take out the troll between us and it, and barricade ourselves inside!" She dashes back to the beheaded troll to try and wrest her lance free again, using her sword to help pry it out if necessary.

Without the added awkwardness of riding at the same time as trying to recover the lance, Agatha has an easier time retrieving the weapon. The stallion's hooves slice air, only glancing at the troll's side, as the creature abruptly realizes its peril and back-pedals, moving diagonally to try to escape both assailants. The troll from the tower is almost upon them, now, and another one is visible rounding the corner of the cottage, on the opposite end of the street, while the third reinforcement struggles through the snow in the yard of the two-story house.

Gripping her lance by the shaft, Agatha rushes to try and intercept the charging troll. Once she's in it's path, she plants the butt of her lance in the ground and holds the weapon at an angle with the tip aimed fro the monster's torso.

Hannah directs Fiona to back up, seeing Ahearn strike - and not wanting to be in the way. "Right! I just hope we can get this creature here to go down and stay down!" She sets up for another strike while the troll is distracted and backing up itself - this time for its chest, hoping to finish it off. Or at least wound it enough to get it to stay down.

The charging troll sees Agatha's set up with the lance, and slows in its rush, turning aside to avoid the shaft -- then slips on a patch of ice, and skids right into the steel. It howls and keeps right on going, knocking the red-haired girl from her feet despite her efforts to brace herself, and she finds herself entangled with the troll's long flailing legs as it struggles to escape the steel lancing through its side.

If Tom saw this, he'd never stop laughing, Agatha thinks as she tries to crawl out from under the troll without getting kneed in the face or worse. She doesn't even know if trolls have sensitive parts she can punch while stuck down there.

The remaining troll from the first assault barely manages to evade Hannah's assault -- only to find itself pummeled by blows from Ahearn's hooves. It tumbles to the ground beneath the force of the stallion's attack, scrambling to try to escape, but not having much luck. Go for the tower, Ahearn urges Hannah, watching as one of the reinforcements charges up behind Fiona. NOW! The bay mare doesn't stop to wait for further instruction from her rider -- she dances around the lord of the horses, and up the street towards the -- hopefully, now empty -- tower.

The red-haired girl -- now covered in snow and mud -- finally gets clear of the rubbery green legs, and tries to get her bearings.

The skewered troll is indifferent to Agatha's success, as it continues to flail around in a desperate -- and increasingly futile -- effort to escape the steel lance. The iron in it seems to madden the troll, and it's too crazed by pain to be willing to touch the lance to pull it out, for the mere touch of it is agony.

Hannah rides as hard as she can towards the tower until she reaches Agatha. She urges Fiona to stop, sheathes her sword, then takes her foot out of the stirrup facing the red-haired girl. She reaches down to her. "Try to climb on if you can," she says. "We'll make a charge for the tower!"

Agatha grabs the rear of Fiona's saddle and tries to get her foot into the stirrup so she can get on behind Hannah. "They better not break my lance!"

Fiona whinnies and fidgets in place, glancing back over her shoulder to where Ahearn is fighting with the trolls. The reinforcement has forced the stallion to back up, and the battered troll is regaining its feet, but lashing snaps from the stallion's teeth are keeping them at bay. Once Agatha is mounted, the bay mare springs forward once more, dashing for the tower, even as the club of the greenish troll that ran out from behind the two-story house comes down behind them.

Hannah gives Agatha a very brief lop-sided grin as they dash away. "It is made of iron; I doubt they'll want to come near it, now, after all the damage you did with it!" she calls back as they ride. "Hopefully we can retrieve it later."

Agatha glances back to check on Ahearn. She's sure he can outrun a troll, but not if he's surrounded.

As Fiona breaks into the clear in her dash for the tower, Ahearn whirls around to join them, darting around the third troll as its long legs try -- and fail -- to keep up with the black-and-brown Knightsteed. Fiona ducks her head as she races through the broad, open door of the tower, several lengths ahead of the troll, and a few before Ahearn.

The interior of the tower smells damp and old, with faded tapestries and sconces, their torches burnt almost to nothing, clinging to the cracked stone walls. The stairs look treacherous and uneven, but made of stone. It does not appear as if it had been inhabited for a long time.

Twisting around again, Agatha tries to see if there's any way to secure the door before a troll gets in.

The door still looks solid, and there's a heavy oak bar that can be laid over it. Fiona turns at the motions of her rider, once she's well inside, and Ahearn comes galloping in behind her.

Hannah tosses Fiona's reins aside quickly once Ahearn is well and truly inside, then dismounts. She runs for the door and tugs on it, hoping to close it before their pursuers have a chance to catch up with them.

From somewhere up the crooked stairs comes a faint yowl, as of an old cat.

Agatha slides forward on Fiona's saddle so that she can dismount as well, glancing warily at the stairs. "Do trolls eat cats?" she wonders out loud.

Hannah manages to grab the door and pull it shut just as the troll chasing them catches up! Its long fingers catch along the edge of the door, and she fights to keep it closed while the yelping troll struggles to pull it open again.

Climbing down from Fiona, Agatha rushes over to the door to press the flat of her sword blade against the troll's fingers.

The steel sizzles against its flesh, and with a smell like burning hair and tallow filling the air, the troll yanks its fingers free. The door nestles closed, and the two girls promptly slide the bar shut, securing the door -- at least for now.

"Do trolls hate sunlight?" Agatha asks as she leans back against the door. "It'd be a real pain if we have to fight our way back out in the morning."

Hannah tries to catch her breath after all her exertions. "Thanks, Agatha," she puffs. "That ... seemed to work well..." She looks around. "I hope that bar holds -- doesn't look like there's much here to barricade the door with."

"I wonder if we can make torches out of these old tapestries," Agatha says as she goes over to examine one of them to see how badly rotted it is.

After a few more gasps for air, Hannah replies, "As a matter of fact, they do dislike sunlight. So they prefer to stay indoors during the daytime. Lucky enough for us -- we barely made it out of this fight!"

Unless these are some new breed of troll, they will be averse to the morning sun -- assuming we hold out so long, Ahearn adds, dourly. He paces the length of the first floor, snorting at the must and the damp. Whatever furnishings once filled this large chamber are now gone. The tapestries look like they might burn -- they're not much good as decoration any more, moth-eaten and mildewed.

"I heard a cat upstairs," Agatha notes. "We should probably investigate. There might still be some furniture or wood we can use."

A pitiful yowl echoes from somewhere up the less-than-perfect-looking stairs.

Hannah turns her head in the direction of the sound. She then glances at the uneven stairs with a wary eye. "So it would seem," she muses quietly. "I wonder how a cat managed to survive out here for so long, though...? Perhaps it got fat on all the rats that run about the place."

Sword drawn, Agatha starts up the stairs, admitting, "I'm not a cat person."

Hannah smiles at this and shakes her head briefly. "Hopefully that won't matter to this one," she quips, then draws her own sword and follows behind Agatha.

The stairs are more sturdy and solid than they appear, a great deal of their irregularity being some sort of eccentricity about their construction, more so than the actual ravages of time visited upon so much else of the tower. After several turns, the two girls reach a landing where the stairs end, then split off into two separate stairs that branch off presumably to each of the two "horns" of the tower -- though one of the stairs provides a very short trip to open air, since that peak has long since collapsed.

At the landing stands a shrine -- a table with a stone crucifix set upon it, and religious imagery and knot work carved about the base and sides. And from underneath the table comes a wavering, "Meow?"

Agatha crouches down to peek under the table. "Hello?"

Hannah's eyes widen as she looks at the shrine. "This is what held the Grail...?" she asks in an awed whisper, more to herself than Agatha.

A little Siamese cat, scrawny and starved, looks back at Agatha with crossed blue eyes. "Meow!" the cat says, enunciated in such a way that sounds more like a child saying "Meow" than an actual cat sound. Dangling underneath her chin is a silvery pendant upon which is inscribed an emblem of two fish, each one biting the other's tail.

The cat darts out from underneath the table, toward Agatha's feet, and rubs up against her legs, purring loudly.

There are scraping and pounding sounds, faintly, from the front door below, but judging by the lack of any alarms from Ahearn or Fiona, the trolls are still trapped outside.

Agatha nearly falls backward when the cat dashes out, but manages to stand up. "Hey, be careful there, kitty," she says, and tries to pick up the cat.

"My name isn't Kitty," the cat clearly says as she's picked up. "It's Bragwaine."

Hannah's head swivels suddenly towards Agatha and the cat as she speaks. She looks from one to the other, totally surprised.

The redhead squeaks and nearly drops the cat. "Bragwaine! What are you doing here? Is your... boss... around too?"

"MEOW!" the cat yowls at nearly being dropped, and digs her claws into Agatha's clothes.

"Agatha -- do you know this cat?" Hannah asks, amazed.

Agatha grits her teeth. Must not throw cat out of hole in wall, she tells herself several times.

Bragwaine's claws retract, and she looks up to Agatha. "Do you?" She squints her eyes (which are still crossed), as if concentrating.

"Sort of," Agatha says as she tries to pry Bragwaine off of her. "From back home. She was part of a quest I went on with Tom, and the one that Simon went on too, to find the Holy Grail. Only all that became real in Mirari. Bragwaine was the assistant to Pelles, the wizard of Caer Bannuac."

Bragwaine makes a protesting noise as she's pried off, then squirms out of Agatha's grip and leaps to the stone floor."I still am assistant to Sorcerer Pelles," she corrects, haughtily, as she sits on her haunches, and starts to groom the areas where Agatha "messed up" her fur.

Agatha stares at the cat, and says, "Well, is Pelles around? How about changing back into a girl now?"

Hannah doesn't know what to be more shocked about -- the fact that the cat is actually speaking, or the mention of Simon finding the Grail. "I see," she says uncertainly. "But I thought ... I mean, the legends always said that Sir Lefallon was the one who recovered the Grail. Now you tell me that Thomas' friend Simon discovered it -- but on the mortal side?"

The cat blinks at this. "Change into a little girl? Don't be silly! And, well, Sorcerer Pelles is around somewhere. But definitely not anywhere near all these trolls. They chased me up into this tower. Meow! They want to eat me!"

Nodding, Agatha says, "As Sir Simon Lefallon, actually. And I was the Bandit Queen. What we do over there changes things here." Turning back to the cat, she says, "Aren't you a shape shifter though, Bragwaine? Why else would you be able to talk?"

The cat giggles. "No, silly, I'm not a shape shifter, I'm a familiar! There's a big difference. I'm a cat. Oh yes, and I'm also a messenger. I almost forgot. I've got a letter for you ... uhm ... somewhere." She looks around and about, and even gets up and looks down as if to see if she might have been sitting on it.

"A letter?" Agatha asks, sounding confused herself now. "From Pelles? How'd you know I'd be coming this way?"

Hannah closes her eyes briefly at this and passes a hand across her forehead, as if certain pieces of a puzzle were suddenly falling into place for her. "So it is as I feared..," she murmurs to herself, troubled. After another moment, she blanks her expression and sheathes her sword, turning her attention solely to Agatha and Bragwaine.

"Hee hee hee! No, silly, not from Pelles. From -- Oh, wait. You are Knight Redmane, aren't you? You look sort of young to be her, but what with you talking about all this, I sort of assumed...." The cat looks uncertainly between Hannah and Agatha.

"I'm ... Knight Redmane, yeah," Agatha claims. "I had an accident that made me young again."

"Ohhhhh," Bragwaine says. "I guess that sort of thing happens now and then." She nods knowledgeably. "Oh! I remember now! Well, since the Grail isn't there anymore...." The cat leaps up atop the shrine, and opens up (without hands?) a box-like structure, revealing ... a letter, folded in half. She bites it and picks it up with her mouth, then bounds back down to the floor, and pads over to Agatha. "Hmph it iph!"

Agatha reaches down to pluck the letter from the cat's mouth, then opens it up to read it.

"Knight Redmane," the letter begins, looking to be hastily scrawled. "I figured you might come look for me, so I'm leaving this note for you to find. I'll go right to the point; I cannot tell you the route in which I travel. Times are much too dangerous; the enemy listens with one hand cupped to his ear. And to make matters worse, I suspect he knows of my old path, anyway. So, I cannot head straight west. To do so would only bring me sorrow. And yet, I must make my journey short, for we have little time. Wish me luck, old friend. I will surely need it to avoid the pitfalls ahead, and keep true to my purpose."

"Your friend, Thomas, Lord Explorer, Late of House November, Year 53 of Mirari, the Time of Endless Winter."

"It's from Thomas," Agatha says, handing the letter to Hannah. "He's not going to wait for us."

Hannah takes the offered letter from Agatha and reads over it. Her eyebrows raise as she sees who it is signed by. "How in the Lord's name did a letter from Thomas get here?" she wonders aloud.

"He gave it to Bragwaine, that's how," Agatha grumbles. To the cat she asks, "I don't suppose you know which way he's going, do you?"

The cat looks back up to Agatha, blinking and mewing, "I'm pretty sure he already told you, now didn't he?"

Agatha sits down on the steps and gets out the map, which she spreads across her lap. "Where was he when he gave you the letter, and how long ago was it, Bragwaine?"

"It was just yesterday morning, before the trolls came," Bragwaine meows, "though I'm not really sure -- maybe two days, as I was hiding ever since then. He had a pretty fairy lady with him, and Sir Lefallon, too."

"They left from here?" Agatha asks, and checks the map. "If that's the case, then he probably won't head for the Bridge of Sorrows, since that's directly west. He may be trying to skirt the Wild Lands like we planned."

"But he could be heading for the Pit still," the redhead muses, "if he thinks he'll find an ally there."

The cat hops up onto the table and looks under Agatha's arm at the map. "You know, that's a pretty old map you've got there...."

"It's the one Thomas sent me," Agatha says. "What's out of date on it?"

"Well, to begin with," the cat meows, "it doesn't even show Caer Sidi on it."

"The 'pretty fairy lady' would be Rachel, of course," Hannah says, then grimaces. "And I suppose that's why the trolls were even here in the first place -- their presences attracted the trolls' notice...?" She trails off and her eyes drift to the letter in her hand, then she suddenly starts. "Just a second -- the wording of this letter is rather odd ... even by Thomas's standards."

Agatha blinks. "Where's Caer Sidi?" she asks the cat, and glances to Hannah. "Think it's misdirection; something he left for the trolls to find?"

The cat pouts, looking deeply insulted by Agatha's insinuation.

Hannah says, "Perhaps. This whole letter just doesn't seem Thomas's style, somehow. To be wordy and string together this many poetic phrases in a hastily written note? Doesn't make sense to me. So why write it this way at all?"

"He must be talking about the Bridge when he says going west will bring him much sorrow," Agatha points out. "It's the 'I must make my journey short' that I can't figure out."

"Avoid the pitfalls ahead," Agatha quotes from the letter. "That has to be a reference to the Icejaw Pit. Maybe he's saying that he is taking the bridge path...."

At last, after sulking sufficiently, the cat puts in, "Caer Sidi is a trade city, by the by, to the west of here, in the middle of Annwn. That oasis on the map there is all dried up now. I would have told Lord Thomas to take some more water with him for the journey across the desert, but ... uhm ... I forgot."

"Annwhat?" the redhead asks, unable to pronounce the odd name. "Is that where it says Point of Peril here on the map?"

Hannah grins at Bragwaine. "I'll simply consider that to be the Lord Explorer's just comeuppance for setting trolls upon us!"

The cat rolls her eyes at Agatha. "Goodness. Do I have to show you the way? And, no, that's not an offer. Though, it would be awfully nice if you could clear out the rest of these trolls before you leave...."

There's a loud thump and a crash from somewhere below, and some agitated whinnying.

Agatha snaps her fingers. "That's it, he's heading for the Point of Peril! 'Right to the point,' he says. What was that noise?" she asks, then rushes to look out of the gaping hole where the second tower used to be.

The cat's tail bottle-bristles. "Oh! Trolls! If you don't need anything more from me ... I think I'll go hide now. MEOW!" And with that, the cat shoots back underneath the shrine.

Hannah jumps at the sudden noise, then draws her sword again. "That doesn't sound good," she says in a low voice. "Have the trolls broken through? Can you see?"

From the hole, she can feel the icy blast of the wintry air outside, and see trolls -- maybe a half-dozen -- four of them clumped by one section of wall, the other two circling around the base. One of the trolls from the clump suddenly reels back from the section, clutching his nose, and Agatha can see a gap in the wall, and a white hoof briefly poking out of it, then pulled back in.

"They've found a gap in the wall," Agatha reports, and puts away her map. "I'm going to help fend them off with my sword. Can you see if any of these blocks are loose enough to drop down on their heads?"

Hannah nods to the red-haired girl. "I will," she says simply, then dashes over to take Agatha's place at the ruined part of the tower.

There are quite a few loose stones still up here, both from the stairs and from the collapse of the horn-shaped tower.

"Nooooo!" the cat yowls from underneath the shrine. "Don't tear apart the tower! It's all I have to hide in!" She meows pitifully.

Agatha rushes down the stairs as fast as she can, and calls back up, "You can ride out with us in the morning, Bragwaine!"

"Hopefully I won't have to use all of it to chase these things away!" Hannah calls in response, then grabs a stone and looks over the edge for a suitable target -- a nice, fat troll's head, preferably.

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