The troll didn’t bother grabbing its club.
Instead it snatched up rocks and broken branches from the ground and started hurling them at the two kids like a raging machine.
The treetops shook violently.
Stones exploded outward like buckshot.
Wood chips flew everywhere, stabbing into Lucas’s body.
Ellie’s dragon-hide cloak rattled with impacts; one sharp fragment even sheared off a lock of her long hair and sent it drifting down.
One solid hit and they were dead.
“This isn’t working!” Ellie shouted.
She spotted a smaller tree nearby.
“We split up, make noise, keep it spinning in circles!
Then we run!
Remember—it’s stupid!
Eyes and the back of the head are its weak spots!”
“Ellie!”
Before Lucas could stop her, she waited for a gap in the barrage, scrambled up, planted her boots on the trunk, and launched herself.
Summer night sky, stars bright, moon hanging high.
The girl’s silhouette soared through the moonlight—golden-brown hair streaming, bright violet eyes flashing.
Ellie Jane MacFusty.
Lucas’s gaze followed her until she crashed through branches on the next tree with a loud rattle, dragon-hide cloak flapping around her.
“Hey, you ugly bastard!” Her voice shook with pain but stayed loud.
“Come and get me if you’ve got the guts!”
The troll’s head snapped toward her with a roar.
THUNK.
A thick branch slammed into its back—Lucas.
“You filthy, stinking piece of shit!” he yelled.
“Go eat crap!”
The troll bellowed, scooped up a massive rock to crush Lucas, but another broken limb cracked across its shoulder—Ellie.
“Come on, dumbass!
Is your skull full of rocks too?”
Back and forth they went, shouting and throwing whatever they could grab.
To the troll it was like a swarm of angry hornets buzzing in its ears.
It spun left and right, roaring, completely losing it.
Then—
BOOM.
It finally hurled the rock straight at Lucas.
The stone buried itself in the trunk beside him, shaking the whole tree.
Lucas frowned, staring at the red-eyed, screaming monster.
Hoping it would get dizzy and fall over?
Yeah, right.
They’d both be smashed to paste long before that happened.
“Ellie!” he shouted.
“When I say run, you run!”
What?
She didn’t even have time to answer.
A silver-white beam of blinding light stabbed out of Lucas’s hand—flashlight on full power.
The intense ray hit the troll square in its beady little eyes.
The creature howled, threw up an arm to shield its face, and staggered backward.
“Down the tree, Ellie!” Lucas yelled.
At the same time he hurled a plastic bottle that smacked the troll dead-center in the chest.
White powder exploded everywhere, coating its face and torso—his entire bottle of black pepper.
“AAHH—CHOO!
AHH-CHOO!!!”
The forest rang with earth-shaking sneezes.
The troll’s eyes burned, its nose and mouth on fire.
Tears and snot poured down its face while it flailed its massive arms like it was trying to beat its own head off.
“RUN!”
Ellie and Lucas dropped from the branches, hit the ground rolling, and scrambled up without even checking their wounds.
“The stream!” Ellie hissed through gritted teeth.
“Cross the water—wash off our scent—”
A thunderous rumble cut her off.
Maybe it heard her voice, maybe it was pure dumb luck, but the frenzied troll charged straight at Ellie like an out-of-control freight train.
“Ellie!” Lucas screamed.
She couldn’t react in time—
WHOOSH!
An arrow screamed out of the shadows and buried itself deep in the troll’s thigh.
Lucas tackled Ellie to the ground just as the troll’s one-ton body stumbled past them, crashed through a tree, and slammed into the ground with a deafening boom.
Who?
Who the hell shot that arrow?
Lucas lifted his head.
A figure stepped out from behind the bushes—the same delicate girl’s face they had glimpsed earlier in the firelight and flashlight beam.
His eyes dropped lower and his breath caught.
Ellie gasped out loud.
“It’s… it’s a centaur!”
A centaur girl.
Her upper body was that of a slender young girl, no older than eleven or twelve.
Moonlight-silver hair cascaded down her back.
Her features were finely beautiful, sapphire-blue eyes shining with tears.
She wore only a simple top woven from leaves, twigs, and plant fibers; her skin glowed pale and flawless in the moonlight.
Below her slim waist her body became the powerful form of a young horse, covered in the same silvery-white coat.
Her long tail flicked nervously.
She looked elegant, breathtaking—and fragile.
Under Lucas and Ellie’s stares she bit her lip hard.
The hand gripping her longbow trembled with fear.
“I—I’m sorry!” She stumbled back a few steps, voice cracking as tears spilled over.
“I didn’t mean for this to happen… It’s all my fault!”
“What?” Ellie and Lucas helped each other up, both of them covered in cuts and blood.
“You just saved us.
We should be thanking you.”
“No, it’s not like that.” The centaur girl shook her head fiercely.
“The troll was chasing me.
If it weren’t for me, it never would have found you.
I’m so sorry… really, I’m so sorry!”
Lucas understood instantly.
The troll had been hunting her the whole time.
While she fled, the campfire and the smell of their food had drawn her closer—maybe hoping for help—but they’d scared her off.
The troll had followed her scent straight to them.
“What’s your name?” Ellie asked gently.
“Xiya.” The centaur girl pawed the ground with her front hooves, head lowered.
“Xiya, I’m Ellie Jane MacFusty.” Ellie pointed at Lucas.
“And this is Lucas McGregor.
None of this is your fault.
Thank you for saving us.”
Xiya blinked her sapphire eyes, looking like she was about to cry again.
Ellie nudged Lucas and whispered, “Holy crap, she’s nothing like the centaurs I’ve heard about.
They’re supposed to be super arrogant, obsessed with star-gazing and fate, and they look down on humans.
But Xiya…”
“And a foal like her should be under heavy protection by her herd.
She shouldn’t be out here alone…”
Xiya opened her mouth, still sniffling, about to say something else—when a loud crack of breaking branches ripped through the trees.