Prophet of Moonshae - Douglas Niles [106]
Grunting from the exertion, Hanrald swung his blade once more, lopping an arm off at the elbow. The beast hissed and recoiled as the blade swished past it again, the retreat causing the blow to narrowly miss the grotesque belly.
Hanrald stepped forward, but then he gagged in shock as he felt the dismembered hand seize him around the ankle. Hacking and chopping in a frenzy, he mangled the limb beyond all recognition, but by the time he again pursued the retreating troll, the creature had already begun to sprout a new hand. Nubs of claws formed on the gruesome member, and he saw them begin to grow.
His strength failing from the exertion of the deadly battle, Hanrald had to make a killing blow, and quickly, else the inevitably regained strength of the monsters would give the fight a grim and unavoidable close. Now, with his horse dead, escape wasn't even an option. Angrily he chastised himself for the thought; escape had never been an option! A knight did not flee from a fair fight once it was engaged!
"Stand, villain, and face me squarely!" Hanrald shouted taunts at the creature, but it only grinned evilly and backed away, beyond the reach of his keen, gore-drenched sword.
The knight realized that he lacked the endurance and, because of his plate mail, the speed to pursue the creature. Gasping for breath, he stood and watched the thing as the new arm slowly extended into fingers, and then those deadly claws curved, wickedly sharp, to gradually complete the limb.
Suddenly remembering his first foe, Hanrald looked at the ground, toward the once-mangled remains of the first troll he had slain and then slashed into pieces. Already it had begun to reform, though as yet the thing's regenerating legs remained too frail to raise it up. Immediately he stepped to its side and hacked brutally, again and again, ignoring the creature's screams and desperate blows until it had once again been reduced to a grotesque mass of chopped bone, meat, and ichor.
A sense warned him of danger, and he spun on instinct to see the second troll springing through the air at him, arms extended, face split wide in a gruesome, horrifying grin. Gasping, the knight placed all of his strength into a single blow, using both of his hands to bring the great blade around in a whistling, murderous arc.
The slimed steel met the troll's midsection as it neared the end of its lunge, and all the power of the knight's muscles, backed by the spiritual force of his faith and, so he thought, his virtue, drove the keen edge through wart-covered skin and tough, stringy muscle. The momentum of his swing pulled him through a complete circle, but when he again faced his attacker, Hanrald saw two pieces of the troll, both writhing furiously on the ground.
In the next instant, he leaped forward, driving his blade over and over again into each of the troll's halves, knowing that his only hope was to inflict the damage faster than the thing could heal itself. Finally, groaning and staggering with exhaustion, he leaned back, seeing that no piece of either troll moved.
Lifting his heavy helmet from his head, Hanrald gasped great lungfuls of air and felt the cool breeze start to kiss the sweat from his brow, but he knew that his task remained unfinished. He stumbled to the saddlebags of his fallen steed and quickly lifted out several flasks of oil that he had carried, fuel to light his lamp or even to coax a fire from wet kindling.
He returned to the corpses, pausing only long enough to chop at a hand that had once again begun to twitch. Pouring the syrupy liquid over the grotesque masses of gore, he kicked random pieces of the trolls onto the corpses. Then, with a spark from his tinderbox, he struck a flame from each oil-sodden