Free The Chaos Curse by R. A. Salvatore Page A

enough to prod Dorigen with her bow.
    Dorigen grumbled and started to come awake, then popped her eyes wide when Danica yelled out. An explosion went off to one side, one of Dorigen’s wards taking down a monster in flaring blue flames. But three more trolls rushed past their burning companion without regard for its terrible fate and crashed into the clearing, eyes glowing a fierce red, their stench nearly overwhelming the companions. The monsters’ long, thin frames towered over the group-one had to be nearly eleven feet tall-and, as they came into the light, their rubbery skin showed as putrid grayish green.
    Shayleigh’s bow was up and firing in the blink of an eye, three arrows blasting into the closest troll. The monster jerked with each hit, but came stubbornly on, its skinny arms waving its hands awkwardly in wide, arcing swipes.
    Shayleigh did not gain confidence from the awkward movements; the three fingers on those hands ended in long, sharp claws that could easily tear the hide from a bear.
    A fourth arrow hit the monster squarely in the chest, and Shayleigh hopped away, thinking it better to pummel this creature from a distance.
    Two flashes, one silver, one gold, went past the elf as Danica led with her daggers. The monk leaped up and spun head over heels over the fire, following the shots (both solid hits on the next troll) at full speed. She barreled in, jumped, and spun, her trailing foot flying about to slam hard into the troll’s midsection.
    Danica winced at the sickly, squishy sound of that impact, but she didn’t dare hesitate. She spun again for a second kick, then came up straight and landed a one-two punch on the lurching troll’s jaw.
    “Dorigen!” she screamed, seeing the third troll bearing down on the sitting wizard. To Danica’s knowledge, Dorigen had no weapons, and few, if any, components for spellcasting-not even a proper spellbook that she might have studied. The monk, too engaged with this monster, and with Shayleigh still battling the first troll, thought her new companion doomed as the troll reached down at the blanketed woman.
    There came a bright flash, and the troll fell back, holding the blanket and nothing more. That blanket flared suddenly with fire, scorching the monster’s arms, causing it to scream out in pain.
    Danica had no idea where Dorigen had come up with that spell, but she had no time to ponder the issue now. The troll swiped at her repeatedly, and she did a fair, twisting dance to keep clear of its deadly arms. She came in close, inside the monster’s reach, thinking to wriggle out the backside and score a few hits before the lumbering thing turned, but the troll proved faster and more resourceful than she believed, and she nearly swooned as the monster opened its wide, horrible mouth. The long, pointy teeth came within an inch of Danica’s face-she could smell the thing’s disgusting breath!-and the troll would have had her, except that the incredibly agile monk snapped her foot straight up before her, lifting it right in front of her face, though she had only a few inches to spare between herself and the troll.
    Her kick caught the troll on its long nose and drove the proboscis up and back with a loud crackling noise. Danica was down in a crouch in an instant, dodging the flailing arms, and out she slipped, under the troll’s armpit, around the back, where she exploded with fury, launching a barrage of heavy punches.
    Shayleigh continued to backpedal, firing arrow after-arrow into the pursuing troll. She knew that this would not do, though, for the troll’s initial wounds were already on the mend. Trolls could regenerate, their rubbery skin binding of its own accord, and could take an incredible amount of punishment before falling dead.
    No, not dead, Shayleigh realized to her horror, for even a dead troll, even a troll that had been cut into little bits, would come back to life, whole again, unless its wounds had been completely burned. That notion led the