Staked (The Iron Druid Chronicles, #8)(58)
It would be smarter to fight in camouflage now, but Greta’s not finished shifting yet. She’s yelping and howling through the change, and a few of the trolls are wondering what that’s all about—if they were released from Time Islands, like me, they wouldn’t know anything about werewolves. They might be thinking she’s a wounded animal right now—which I suppose she is—instead of an imminent threat. I don’t want them paying too much attention to her, so I have to remain both visible and annoying. I lumber up on me three legs, charge back toward the blue lad, and, with an assist from Gaia, leap up far higher than should be possible—a trick that finally gets Greta to stop calling me Teddy Bear and calling me Air Bear instead. Blue Bones can’t get out from underneath, and he throws up a forearm to block me attack. The brass claws shear right through his arm, rake down his chest, rip apart his skull necklaces, and then dig into his guts, pulling some of them out. He worries about putting them back in with his remaining hand after that, and I don’t have to worry about him. I have five other trolls to worry about, because I have secured their undivided attention. Leather Lad has a real club; the other four have saplings. The guys with actual trees have to slam overhead if they want to hit me; they can’t swing in an arc to catch me, because other trees get in the way. I can dodge them. It’s Leather Lad I have to watch for. He’s got a club with spikes on it, and if he connects I’ll have to go to that fecking hospital again.
He moves forward, growling, and I hobble in reverse, growling back. He lunges and swings the club in a long, sweeping arc, and I have to leap away and fall on me right side to dodge it, though it still clips me with one of the spikes and leaves a deep scratch. Bears are strong but not terribly agile on the ground, so I’m vulnerable. He steps forward with a “Raahh!” to take advantage, cocking his arm back for another swing, and the lads behind him are grinning and cheering him on, anticipating the kill.
We’re all surprised, but none more than Leather Lad, when Greta leaps at his unguarded neck and her teeth sink in, taking him to the ground. When he hits the ground, her momentum carries her a bit beyond, but she never lets go of that throat, so she tears it out and takes it with her. She shakes the flesh a couple of times from side to side and then flings it away, showing lots of bloody teeth to the other trolls and barking an angry challenge at them.
“That’s not a normal wolf,” one of them observes. Quite the scholar for a troll. “Not a normal bear either. Animals shouldn’t be able to do that to us.”
Ah, he’s referring to the natural armor of troll skin. Well, werewolves shrug off magic, especially low-level stuff like armored hide, and Creidhne’s brass knuckles represent far stronger magic than theirs.
Four against two now. They’re wary, strong, and slow. It occurs to me that I’m also strong and slow as I struggle to me feet. Greta, though, is faster than a bowel movement after eating a pound of dried figs. She’s also much faster than a troll can think.
She bunches her muscles and leaps forward, charging the nearest one, and he wastes precious time figuring out that he can’t lift up a tree and smash her with it before she gets to him. So he lifts up the trunk end and hides behind it, effectively blocking Greta from reaching his throat. She bounces off, scurries behind him, and tears up the tendon behind his right ankle, the one that modern people named after some Greek warrior. The troll falls on his arse, and Greta makes sure she isn’t underneath. The tree falls down on top of the troll, and while that doesn’t do him terrible damage, it does mean his hands are busy trying to throw it off instead of protecting his throat. Greta tears it out for him and then scampers away as another troll tries to pound her to jelly with his makeshift club. He misses and smashes his friend’s face instead. I’m on the move, though still slow, but the remaining three trolls are not paying attention, because Greta is now far more dangerous in their eyes. They’ve all raised their clubs and are just waiting for Greta to move into smashing range. I’m so hobbled that I can probably do more good as a distraction than anything else, so I position myself behind them and roar as loudly as I can. Two of them are still mighty worried about Greta, but one looks around for me, and he’s the one that Greta goes for. A couple of bounds and a leap and she’s flying at his throat. He catches on at the last split second, instinctively drops the tree, and just swipes at the air in front of his torso in a desperate attempt to ward off her attack. It works: His arm, almost club-like in itself, bats her aside, and she tumbles less than gracefully to the ground.
“Ha!” one of them crows. “Now we smash—” But he is so very wrong. By choice, Greta’s not a pack leader, but she has all the charisma of one, and in the absence of Sam and Ty her wishes are paramount. Through the pack link she called the parents of me apprentices and their translators, and they arrive in time to swarm the last three trolls and tear them up. A couple start to come for me—they’re so excited they can’t tell friend from foe right now—but they pull up short and turn their heads to Greta. She has them firmly under control. They return to finish off Blue Bones and make sure all the trolls are well and truly a buffet for vultures.
It’s awkward to stay in bear form with me shoulder so messed up, so I shift back to human and yell about it because the pain gets amplified—an out-o’-place bone shard can wind up somewhere tender during a shape-shift and make the problem worse. Still, that’s six trolls down and the kids were never threatened. I shout, “I love it when we kick arse together!” Greta shakes herself all over and lets her tongue loll out to the side in a canine smile. “I’m going to get me clothes and check out that Old Way.” She lifts her head a couple times in an approximation of a nod and I pick me way downhill, wincing, trying to figure out how to get me cocked-up shoulder bones back to playing nicely together again. It’s going to bother me a good while.