The Protectors: Book 1 in the Protectors Saga (29 page)

“We meet again, Protectors.” The little troll said in
a high pitched voice that hardly sounded menacing.

“Who the hell are you?” Jade asked, from atop her
horse, directly behind Avery.

“Shut your mouth ugly human!” The troll yelled at
Jade, “You know exactly who I am. I am Beetlebat, your sworn enemy,
leader of the troll armies, and the harbinger of your imminent
death.”

Jade scoffed, “The only way you’re gonna kill me is
with your stench, you horrible little maggot bait.”

They didn’t have time for this. Avery dismissed the
diminutive troll in front of her, turning Phantom around to face
the other girls, “Bunny, Sasha, Skylar, you three go take care of
the trolls by the fields. Jade, you got the ugly twins over there,
torching everything. I’ll take Mr. Gigantic.”

The Protectors nodded, but before they could ride off
to follow Avery’s orders, in a loud high pitch shout, Beetlebat
screamed, “The Protectors are here!”

His voice carried farther than any of the protectors
would have thought with him being so tiny. Every one of the trolls
stopped what they were doing and looked over towards Beetlebat and
the protectors.

“Kill them!” Beetlebat shouted again, “Grind their
brains and bones into paste!”

The ground began to shake slightly as all six trolls
began to make their way over to the protectors. Avery quickly shot
down the panic aching to take over her entire body. The rest of the
protectors froze as well, trying to fight their own panic.

“Now!” Avery shouted at the girls, “Plan still
stands. Let’s go!”

Smacked back into the reality of the situation by
Avery’s words, Sasha, Bunny, and Skylar, turned their horses and
took off towards the three trolls making their way out of the
flower fields.

Before Jade rode off to take on the twin trolls, she
pointed her sword at Beetlebat, who stood on the ground grinning
from ear to ear, “I’m gonna knock every one of those teeth out of
your wormy little mouth, and then I’m gonna take my sword and chop
off your annoying little head.” She told him.

Beetlebat countered, “I’d like to see you try it,
pathetic weakling!” Although, he talked tough the smile had
completely left his face, and what ugly green color he had in his
face seemed to drain away.

“That’s a promise.” Jade said as she rode past
him.

Instead of riding to meet her troll, Avery let him
come to her. She got down off of Phantom and slapped him on his
hind quarters, making sure he got out of the way.

“You’re going to die, leader.” Beetlebat spat at her,
“You’re going to die…again.”

Avery still had a few seconds before the enormous
monster of a troll reached her. She walked up to Beetlebat, grabbed
onto his little hand that held his sword before he could do
anything with it, and punched him hard as she could in the nose.
Beetlebat uttered a small plaintive cry, and then fell to the
ground, unconscious.

The troll reached Avery and brought his club up high
above his head. Avery somersaulted out of the way as he slammed the
club into the ground where Avery had been standing. As Avery stared
at the crater the club had left in the ground, she knew she had to
get that club out of the troll’s hands.

The troll swung its club towards Avery and she
dropped to the ground, feeling the breeze from the swing swirling
her hair. Avery rolled onto her back and handsprung onto her feet,
flipping out of the way as the troll swung his club back around.
Avery was getting tired of being on the defensive. She knew it was
only a matter of time before the troll would actually land one of
his hits.

Deciding to take the offensive, Avery sheathed her
sword and grabbed her bow from where it was strapped onto her back.
She knew from the books Gumptin had made them read that arrows
weren’t always effective against the armor-like skin of the trolls,
but Avery wasn’t going to aim for its skin. She pulled out an
arrow, set up the shot, and took aim, all within a few seconds. Her
arrow ripped through the air, past the troll’s gigantic club, and
straight into his right eye. The troll howled in pain, but didn’t
go down. He dropped his club to the ground, pulled the arrow out of
his eye socket with one hand, and covered the wound, now gushing
thick blue blood, with his other hand.

Avery took advantage of the troll dropping his
weapon. She threw her bow to the ground, unsheathed her sword and
ran towards the troll. Out of his good eye, the troll saw her
coming. It angrily grabbed at Avery with its left arm, but Avery
spun under it. Then, it made a grab for Avery with his right hand,
the hand he had used to hold his club. A second before he would
have been able to get a hold of Avery, she back flipped over his
hand, swinging her sword as she flipped and chopping off his thumb.
The troll let out a bellowing growl as a spray of blue blood
stained Avery’s white shirt.

The moment Avery’s two feet landed on the ground, the
toll kicked out with his right leg, kicking Avery square in the
chest. Avery was sent flying backwards, landing hard on her back.
It took a second for Avery to register what had just happened. She
had never remembered being hit so hard in her life. It felt like a
charging bull had slammed itself into her chest. Avery tried to
catch her breath, her ribs screaming as she inhaled. Her senses
still weren’t fully intact when the troll appeared standing over
her, blue blood streaming down his face and stomach. The troll
looked down at her and roared. It lifted its left leg up and tried
to bring it down on top of Avery. Avery rolled right, then left,
then right again, trying to avoid his crushing feet. The troll
slammed his right leg down and Avery was barely able to roll out of
the way in time. She turned her head and saw the troll’s mud and
blood stained foot an inch away from her face. Avery quickly
reached to her belt and grabbed the dagger she kept there. She took
the dagger and stabbed the troll through his foot with it. The
troll hollered and staggered back a few feet, allowing Avery to
lift herself up off of the ground.

Avery had just managed to get to her feet when the
troll roared a guttural cry and came charging towards her. She
tried to cartwheel out of the way, but the troll managed to get a
grip on her arm with the four remaining fingers on his right hand.
The troll clenched tightly onto Avery’s arm, pulling her in towards
him. In the rushed momentum, Avery wasn’t able to free herself from
its grasp. Avery struggled to free herself as the troll picked her
up with both hands, but his grip was like a vice. Even though the
troll had Avery’s arms pinned, she lifted her leg up slightly, so
that she would be able to reach the knife she had stuck in her
boot, but before she could get her fingers wrapped around the
knife’s hilt, the troll threw Avery across the village with both
his arms.

The world went black for a moment then flashed into
bright color as Avery tried to blink away the spinning going on
inside her brain. The enormous troll had thrown Avery thirty feet
through the air. When the world started to gain more focus, Avery
realized she was lying on her stomach on the ground. She picked
herself up onto her hands and looked around. Behind her, Sasha,
Bunny, and Skylar had taken one troll down. It was lying on its
back in a field, not moving. Bunny was still on horseback, firing
arrows at the two remaining trolls. Sasha and Skylar were on the
ground with their swords drawn. Avery saw one troll whack Sasha
across her right side with his fist. Sasha went flying, and Skylar
went running to her side, helping her up off of the ground before
the troll could get to her. To Avery’s left, Jade was still
battling with the twin trolls. One was crawling across the ground,
blue blood oozing out from its mouth. Avery saw Jade look at her
and saw the terror in her eyes as she tried to make her way over to
Avery, but was stopped by one of the trolls punching her in the
stomach and sending her wobbling backwards.

Avery felt a humongous hand grab onto the back of her
vest and flip her over. The troll clamped his hand down on Avery’s
throat and across her chest, successfully cementing her to the
ground. As Avery tried to shove the troll’s tree limb of an arm off
of her, the troll took a knife out from his belt the size of
Avery’s arm. The troll lifted the knife up and for a split second
the sickening thought that she was going to die flashed into
Avery’s mind. Just as the troll brought his knife down towards
Avery’s chest, Avery lifted her leg up and kicked the troll’s arm
as hard as she could. His arm lurched to the side and the knife
sliced down the side of Avery’s arm. The sharp pain snapped Avery
back into action. No way was she going to let this ugly beast carve
her up. Avery wrapped both of her legs around the arm the troll was
holding onto her with. She jerked to her left as hard as she could,
sending the troll rolling away from her. Avery stood up and
retrieved her sword that she had lost when the troll had thrown
her. She and the troll walked towards each other. The troll swung
his left fist at her and Avery lifted up her sword, so that his
fist slammed into her sword as opposed to her. He had been swinging
his fist with such force that the sword went into his hand and arm
all the way up to its hilt. Holding onto the grip of her sword,
Avery swung it to the right while it was still stuck in the troll’s
hand. This caused the troll to drop to his knees, snarling in pain.
In a move that took less than ten seconds, Avery pulled the sword
out of the troll’s hand, and then with a quick spin she slit the
toll’s throat with the sword. Blue blood sprayed out from the
wound, covering Avery’s face and shirt. The blue of the troll’s
blood and the red of her own mixed to create a strange purple
stain.

The troll gurgled and tried to gasp for breath,
causing blue bubbles to form at the wound on his neck. He made one
final lurch towards Avery; then fell to the ground dead.

Avery stood still for a moment, trying to push down
the reality of what she had just seen, what she had just done, and
what had just happened to her. Avery realized she was shaking, and
she tried to tell herself that it was just because of the cold
breeze and her clothes that were wet from blood.

A scream from Bunny focused Avery’s attention. Avery
looked over in the direction of the scream and saw that Sasha,
Bunny and Skylar were down to just one troll left. The troll had
just knocked Bunny off of her horse with his bulky club.

Without hesitating for a second, Avery rushed over
and picked up her bow she that had discarded at the beginning of
her fight with the troll. Once she had the bow in hand, Avery
whistled for Phantom, who came running out of the forest, stopping
in front his master. Avery hopped up into the saddle and galloped
Phantom over to where three girls were trying to take down their
last troll.

Avery pulled up Phantom at the edge of the Everlily
fields. She jumped down and grabbed an arrow out of her back
quiver. The last arrow she shot into the other troll’s eye seemed
to work pretty well, so she decided to try it again with this
troll. Whatever happened, she was not letting herself get tossed
another thirty feet. Avery took aim and shot the arrow into the
troll’s eye. Before the toll had a chance to reach up and pull the
arrow out, Avery shot another arrow. This arrow smashed into the
back tip of the first arrow, pushing it deep into the troll’s
brain. The troll swayed to the left, then to the right, then fell
with a loud thud onto the ground, dead.

The girls turned around and looked at Avery with
shocked expressions on their faces.

“What?” Avery shrugged, “Apparently, I use to
practice with this thing all the time.” Avery fitted her bow back
into its back strap.

“Well, thank God for small favors.” Skylar said,
limping over towards Avery. She was holding her side and Avery
could see some bruising forming up and down her arm.

“You look horrible.” Sasha told Avery, looking her
over.

Avery thought this funny considering Avery had never
seen Sasha look worse than she did now. The left sleeve of her
shirt was ripped off. Her shoulder was bleeding. Her face was
smeared with dirt, sweat, and blue blood. She had a gash on her
forehead dripping blood down the side of her cheek, and for one of
the first times in her life, Sasha’s hair was sticking up in every
direction, mangled and frizzy.

Bunny stood behind Sasha and Skylar. Her clothes were
dirtied, and she had a long cut running across her collar bone, but
other than that, she appeared to have escaped the combat without
any serious injuries.

After Avery was sure they were all alright, she
turned her sights to Jade, who was still fighting. One of the twin
trolls Jade had been battling with was lying dead on the ground,
Jade’s sword sticking out of the middle of its skull.

Avery ran towards the village where Jade and the
other twin troll were fighting in between two houses. Jade had the
troll pinned to the ground with a pitch fork stuck through its
shoulder. As Avery rounded the corner to where Jade and the troll
were between the two houses, Avery saw Jade jump on top of the back
of the troll and place her crossbow directly up to the back of the
troll’s head, firing two arrows into his brain. Jade jumped down
off of the troll and gave him a hard kick in his side.

“Are you alright?” asked Avery.

Jade turned towards Avery, her eyes filled with
relief at the sight of her.

“Thank God.” She said in a whispered voice, more to
herself than to Avery.

Jade walked towards Avery, and Avery opened up her
arms to Jade, thinking she was going in for a hug, but instead,
Jade placed both of her hands on Avery’s shoulders and looked Avery
over.

“Are you alright?” Jade asked, staring at Avery’s
blood stained shirt, “That looks bad.”