Rise of the Dragons (Kings and Sorcerers--Book 1)

Chapter 12

Vesuvius, King of the Trolls and Supreme Ruler of Marda, stood in the enormous cave beneath the earth, on a stone balcony a hundred feet high, and he looked down, surveying the work of his army of trolls beneath him. Thousands of trolls labored in this huge cavernous underground, hammering away at rock with pickaxes and hammers, chopping away at earth and stone, the sound of mining heavy in the air. Endless torches lined the walls while streams of lava crisscrossed the floor, sparking, emitting a glow, brightening the cave and keeping it hot while trolls sweated and gasped in the heat below.

Vesuvius smiled wide, his troll face grotesque, misshapen, twice the size of a human's, with two long fangs, like tusks, that emerged from his mouth, and beady red eyes which enjoyed watching people suffer. He wanted them his people to toil, to work harder than they'd ever had, for he knew it was only through extreme toil that he would achieve what his fathers could not. Twice the size of a typical troll, and three times the size of a human, Vesuvius was all muscle and rage, and he knew he was different, knew he could achieve what none before him had. He had hatched a plan that even his ancestors could not conceive, a plan that would bring glory to his nation forever. It would be the greatest tunnel ever created, a tunnel to bring them beneath The Flames, all the way into Escalon—and with each fall of the hammer, the tunnel became just a little bit deeper.

Not once, in centuries, had his people figured out how to cross The Flames en masse; individual trolls were able to pass through here and there, but most died on these suicide missions. What Vesuvius needed was an entire army of trolls to cross together, at once, to destroy Escalon once and for all. His fathers could not understand how to do it, and they had become complacent, resigned to a life here in the wilds of Marda. But not he. He, Vesuvius, was wiser than all his fathers, tougher, more determined—and more ruthless. One day, while brooding, he had thought, if he could not go through The Flames, or over them, then perhaps he could go under them. Captivated by the idea, he had set his plan into motion at once and had not stopped since, rallying thousands of his soldiers and slaves to build what would be the greatest creation of the troll kingdom: a tunnel beneath The Flames.

Vesuvius watched with satisfaction as one of his taskmasters whipped a human slave, one they had captured from the West, chained to the hundreds of other slaves. The human cried out and fell, and he was lashed until he died. Vesuvius grinned, pleased to see the other humans work harder. His trolls were nearly twice the size of the humans, much more grotesque-looking, too, with bulging muscles and misshaped faces, filled with a bloodlust that was insatiable. The humans, he'd found, were a good way for his people to vent their violence.

Yet as he watched, Vesuvius was still frustrated: no matter how many people he enslaved, how many of his soldiers he put to work, no matter how hard he lashed them, how much he tortured or killed his own people to motivate them, the progress remained too slow. The rock was too hard, the job too massive. At this rate, he knew, they would never complete this tunnel in his lifetime, and his dream of invading Escalon would remain but a dream.

Of course, they had more than enough room here in Marda—but it was not room that Vesuvius wanted. He wanted to kill, to subjugate all humans, to take all that was theirs, just for the fun of it. He wanted it all. And he knew that if he was to get there, the time had come for more drastic measures.

"My Lord and King?" came a voice.

Vesuvius turned to see several of his soldiers standing there, wearing the distinctive green armor of the troll nation, their insignia—a roaring boar's head with a dog in its mouth—emblazoned across the front. His men lowered their heads out of deference, looking to the ground, as they had been trained to do when in his presence.

Vesuvius saw they were holding a troll soldier between them, wearing tattered armor, his face covered in dirt and ash and spotted with burn marks.

"You may address me," he commanded.