The Druid Queen - Douglas Niles [29]
Thus they entered the wine cellars by the simple expedient of bashing down their metal-banded, heavy oaken doors.
This was a sport where natural firbolg talent could excel, and thus it became a contest as one of the giants smashed his club, a foot, or perhaps a rock into the portal. If it didn't collapse-and it never did before the fifth blow-another would try, and so forth. The firbolg who actually smashed down the door then crawled inside and earned the honor of sampling the first keg.
Stars stood out in brilliant relief above Cambro as the chill of the night seemed to sap every bit of cloud and vapor from the air. The chieftain stood beyond the circle of buildings, near the impenetrable darkness beneath the forest canopy. He watched the pillage dispassionately, trying to dispel the worry that continued to nag at him. Where were the dwarves?
Thurgol pulled his cloak around him, grumbling about the unseasonal chill. More logs, as well as a few scraps of wooden furniture, added their fuel to the blaze in the center of town, and the bonfire surged higher and higher, challenging the darkness of the sky itself.
The firbolg heard increasingly raucous laughter, a gruff and bawdy song. Still discontent, Thurgol wandered around the village, peering anxiously into the shadows beneath the looming trees.
Harsh words barked above the din. A firbolg insulted the nose of a troll, calling it "short as a corncob." Immediately the chaotic festivities doubled in volume. Thurgol heard bets wagered, with odds going two to one in favor of the giant, and cheerful insults tossed in from the crowd. He returned to the circle of his comrades somewhat heartened by the prospective entertainment of a good brawl. Quickly seizing the keg from a small troll, the chieftain shouldered his way through the tightly packed throng of firbolgs and trolls to get a good look at the fight.
The firbolg participant was Hondor, a great brute of a giant-kin with tiny eyes and a perpetually confused expression on his drooping jowls. Though he couldn't be certain, it seemed to Thurgol that the troll was Essekki, a treacherous, gawking member of his clan who did in fact possess a very undistinguished proboscis. Now the two brutes, almost equal in height, though the firbolg weighed nearly double his opponent, circled each other menacingly. The first clasp had come to a draw, and they gasped for breath as they prepared to close again.
Essekki backed carefully away from the fire, which had temporarily died to a great mountain of glowing embers. Fire was the thing feared above all else by trolls, for the burning of their flesh was one type of wound that even their amazing regenerative powers could not heal. Thus the troll took great care not to leave himself vulnerable to the sizzling danger. Growling wolfdogs circled the fight, their eyes and fangs gleaming in the darkness. They wouldn't attack, Thurgol knew, but the fervor of combat agitated them just the same.
Hondor ducked in again, bashing sideways with a hamlike fist that somehow connected with the troll's head. Essekki flew through the air, crashing to the ground in a heap. In another moment, the firbolg leaped onto his stunned opponent's back, grasping the troll's nose and skull and twisting his head brutally. The snapping of the beast's neck shot through the night, silencing the crowd for the briefest of moments.
Then the din erupted again as winners demanded payment from losers and the latter protested vainly that the troll would regenerate. Thus, they claimed, the fight might not be over yet. It was an argument that had raged after hundreds of such fights since the trolls had come to Blackleaf. As always, the prevailing rule was applied: Once the troll died, the fight was over. If he wished to resume the contest upon regeneration, which rarely happened, the brawl would be considered a new fight.
Once again the band settled down to drinking