The Sword of Retribution

Charlie - Part 4

     They arrived at the room in which the two trogs were waiting impatiently, a dark room lit only by the sunlight coming in through two small windows high up near the ceiling, and the two short but stocky humanoids jumped to their feet the moment they saw them. They were of typical trog appearance. About five feet tall, almost as wide across the shoulders and shrouded head to foot in thick layers of clothing except for a narrow gap across the face through which dark, suspicious eyes regarded them warily. Clusters of trophy cords hung from their heads like dreadlocks, braided and tied with scarlet ribbons. They had huge hands, twice the size of the hands of a human, and every finger ended in a sharp, cylindrical bullet of a fingernail protruding from the tips of their gauntlets. Thomas noted that the ends of those nails were chipped and scratched and remembered that they were said to be strong enough to claw through some of the softer kinds of rock.

     Their outermost layer of clothing was traditional trog battle gear, with breastplates of real steel on which was painted their clan emblem; a badger climbing over an anvil. They also wore strong leather boots with slennhide shin guards and steel helmets with a single, forward pointing horn. They held battle hammeraxes; double headed weapons with a hammer on one side and an axe on the other, and strapped across their backs were heavy picks, designed for hacking rapidly and efficiently through rock too hard and solid for their fingernails.

     They wore leather belts across their thick waists from which hung several pouches and an assortment of small stoneworking tools. Hammers, chisels and the like. One of the trogs, taller than the other by a couple of inches, also had some kind of tablet hanging from his belt, about six inches square and a quarter of an inch thick, and hanging next to it was a pencil, presumably for writing on it. Thomas’s forehead creased in puzzlement as he looked at them. That was a strange item of equipment for a trog to carry, he thought, and he made up his mind to ask him about it some time.

     At the moment, though, the trogs seemed to be in no mood for idle conversation. They were clearly furious about something, and the shorter of the two drew himself to his full height and pulled the bandages from his face before thrusting his pale, hairless chin out at them.

     “So you’re the crazy, stupid lankies who thought of asking a slaver to be our guide!” he shouted angrily. “Let me have a good, long look at you, I’ve always wondered what a suicidal half wit looks like.”

     “What?” exclaimed Thomas in confused bafflement. He glanced back at his friends, hoping for support, and Shaun came forward in response. “There’s no need for that kind of language,” he said softly. “Do you think...”

     “No call for that kind o’ language?” said the second, taller trog, equally angry. “I say there’s every call for that kind o’ language, aye, and more of it! I’d heard that humans were as brainless as a retarded toad, but now I think that description flatters you. Of all the beasties in the world who know the world below like the backs o’ their hands, you had to ask a slaver. Just what in the names of all the demons in Hell were you thinking of?”

     “There wasn’t anyone else!” shouted back Thomas in sudden anger. “They searched all over the island for someone else, anyone else, who knew the way, but there wasn’t anyone. It was either ask the slavers or forget the whole thing. Now the slaver is indispensable for this mission, but you’re not, so if you don’t like it you can just go home and we’ll do without you.”

     The two trogs glanced at each other as if taken aback by the wizard’s outburst. “Aye, and we would go straight home, if we hadn't been asked to accompany you by Lanaris himself. Make no mistake, human, it's only because of him that we agreed to this crazy venture. If anyone else had dared to suggest such a thing, you can be sure that we’d have told him in no uncertain terms where to go and what to do.”