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

elf’s gaze to the fire, but the embers promised little help. It would take some time to coax that glow back into any sort of flame, and Shayleigh and her companions had no time at all. The elf looked to the side of the encampment, but found that the troll that had been consumed by the explosion (which Shayleigh did not fully understand) had fallen into the snow, and already the fires that had destroyed the thing were nearly extinguished. Shayleigh muttered an elven curse.
    Another arrow thudded into the troll, hitting the creature in the face. Still the stubborn thing advanced and Shayleigh looked down to her half-empty quiver doubtfully. She thought of running into the woods then, of leading this monster away, but one look at Danica told her that she could not, that her friend would not be able to follow.
    The troll that had gone unsuccessfully after Dorigen was after the monk now, it and its gruesome companion circling fast to find an exposed flank. Danica worked hard to keep up her guard against attacks from all angles, for with their long arms the trolls could simply reach around any straightforward defense.
    “Where did she go?” Danica cried to Shayleigh, obviously referring to the missing wizard.
    Shayleigh sighed helplessly and fired another arrow into the pursuing troll. Where indeed had Dorigen gone? she wondered, and she suspected that the wizard had determined this was a good time to escape.
    Danica’s powerful punch landed heavily against the side of a bending troll’s head with a sickly splatting sound. When she retracted the hand, she found a bit of the monster’s skin on her knuckles, along with some strands of the thing’s hair. Danica groaned in revulsion when she noticed the mess, for the troll hair was writhing of its own accord.
    She turned that revulsion into anger, and as the troll came about to swipe at her again, she stepped in close and pounded it repeatedly. Then she wisely fell to her knees and rolled fast to the side as the second troll came rushing at her back. Both monsters were on her as she sprang up to her feet, and up snapped her foot, knocking a lunging hand aside.
    “They heal as fast as I hurt them!” the tiring monk cried in frustration.
    Danica’s statement wasn’t quite true, as Shayleigh found out when her next arrow, her sixteenth shot, dropped the troll to the ground. She looked to her quiver, to the four arrows remaining, and sighed again.
    Danica went left, was forced back to the right, and backpedaled frantically as both trolls suddenly rushed ahead. An angled log at her back, a dead tree that had toppled to lean against another tree, ended her running room.
    “Damn!” she spat, and she leaped high, kicking out with both feet, scoring two hits on one of the trolls and knocking it back several steps. She realized that the other would hit her, though, and she twisted as she came down to protect her vital spots.
    As the troll started its attack, an arrow slammed into the side of its head. The monster’s momentum flew away in its surprise, and though the swinging arm did indeed hit Danica, there was little strength behind the blow.
    Danica spun completely to regain her balance, then she quickly lashed out, her flying foot slamming the monster several times in succession.
    “And when I’m finished with you,” she called defiantly, though of course the beast could not understand what she said, “i’ll hunt down a certain cowardly wizard and teach her about loyalty!”
    At that moment, as if on cue, Danica noticed a small sphere of fire appear in the air over the closest troll’s head. Before she could ask, the hovering sphere erupted, sending a shroud of hungry flames down over the troll’s body.
    The monster shrieked in agony and flailed wildly, but the flames would not let go and would not relent. Danica did well to slip away from the waving inferno. She kept her wits enough to concentrate on the second monster as it came around its burning companion (giving the