“Puff... Puff... Let’s ... Let’s go back ... and let the army ... deal with the monsters.” I proposed after climbing a particularly steep part of the trail.

  “It is not that bad.” Reassured Uther after pulling me back up. “We did not even needed ropes to get here.”

  I glared at him, but I was just too busy grasping for air to mount a reply. Also, coming here had being my (stupid) idea after all, so I had no grounds to complain.

  We hadn’t gone far into the forest, distance-wise. The beginning of the trail was especially difficult, the path was mostly uphill, over broken terrain. Because of that, we could not go with our horses.

  It did not take too long for me to realize that I had bitten way more than I could chew. I was just a servant used to domestic work; this kind of physical exertion was something much more intense than what I was prepared for.

  Unfortunately, there was not much I could do at that point except shut up and keep going.

  I leaned against a dried tree, trying to catch my breath. Uther used that break to check the crude map that the scouts got from the fishing village.

  “It looks like the worst is over, the rest of the trail should be even ground, but we need to walk a little faster or we will not reach a safe spot to make camp before nightfall.”

  I was about to make a very indelicate comment when I heard a crack, and the world started spinning.

  The tree I was leaning on was much rotten than it looked, and broke when I put a little too much of my weight on it. That made me lose my balance and fumble a couple of steps, just enough to put me at the edge of the hill.

  After that, it was just gravity doing its thing.

  The side I fell on was not as steep or high as the one we came from, but that offered little consolation as I rolled down hill.

  I hit rocks and bushes on my way down, trying instinctively to protect my head.

  Finally, I stopped.

  When something so abrupt occurs, the most common response is confusion. You try to make sense of what happened, reconstructing the image flashes into some form of event chain that could explain why I was on the ground with my entire body hurting.

  “Ow...”

  I think it was because of that confusion that I took some time to realize the gigantic humanoid shadow looming over me.

  I stood frozen, staring with wide eyes.

  “One That Speaks in the Name of the Gods?” Enquired the creature tilting its head.

  “Mister Troll?” I returned the question after a moment's hesitation.

  The creature I recognized as being the troll that we found in the road from Ravenwood not long ago.

  “Mister Troll, what you are doing here?”

  “I did what you suggested and came to the South.”

  I remember recommending that he should go south, because if he stood near that road he would soon be singled out by the knights from the capital. There was only one slight problem...

  “But here is west from where you were...”

  “I don’t know what direction is south.”

  “That... That explains it...”

  Uther arrived with his sword drawn.

  “It is ok.” I gestured Uther for him to lower his weapon. “He is that troll we found on the road.”

  “That troll? What is he doing here?”

  “He went south because I suggested it.”

  “But here is not...”

  “I know.” I said, interrupting him.

  With a grunt of pain, I sat and started to assess the damage. I had scratches and bruises all over, especially on my arms, but I was lucky that I was using one of Uther’s hand-me-down travel attires that had some leather bits to protect from accidents just like the one I suffered. That saved my skin, literally.

  The only injury that worried me was my left elbow. It did not look broken at least but was hurting and I had difficulty moving it, probably a sprain. It would be purple and swollen by the end of the day.

  Uther suggested that I drank the healing potion, but I talked him out of it. We only had one and none of my injuries were life threatening or severe enough to justify the use. I would need to content myself with some bandages and a sling for my arm. I always carried plenty of first aid supplies in my bag, so tending my wounds was not a problem.

  During that, I made some small talk with the troll, asking him about his trip and what he was doing in the forest. He was one of the most frightening creatures I had ever seen, but once I got used to him, he appeared to me no more threatening than any big and muscular human.

  Well, last time he had asked me if he could eat one of the caravan guards, so maybe I was becoming too naive for my own good.

  After tending my wounds, I looked at the top of the hill that I had just fallen over and sighed.

  “I really don’t want to climb that all over again...” I whined to no one in particular.

  “Don’t worry One That Speeks in the Name of the Gods, I will take care of it.”

  I was trying to understand what he meant by that when I felt two huge hands grabbing me. He put me into his arms and started to climb, each step covering more ground than I could do in minutes.

  In the long list of weird things that happened to me recently, been princess carried by a troll still ranked high.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  We arrived at the top incredibly fast. This time it was Uther that was lagging.

  “Thank you, Mister Troll, your assistance was greatly appreciated.”

  “I am happy to serve, One That Speaks in the Name of the Gods.”

  “You can call me Gift.”

  “As you prefer, Gift from the Gods.”

  “No, I mean … whatever … Take care, Mister Troll, try to avoid going near roads or villages.”

  And we resumed our trip, accepting the fact that we would not reach a safe place before nightfall.

  ***

  Uther walked in front of me holding a torch in one hand and a drawn sword in the other. I was following him with one arm on a sling and using a stick to help me avoid any fumbles like the last time. Without the light from the torch, it would have been impossible to keep walking, but we could not stop.

  The reason reaching the cabin the villagers indicated before getting dark was so important was because making camp in the middle of the forest was certain death. Wargs were a breed of wolves infused with abyssal energy. Bigger, meaner, and doted of devilish intelligence, they hunted in packs at night, circling unsuspecting prey and attacking from behind before their target even realized they were in danger.

  In theory I could talk to them and ask to leave us alone, but if they bit my neck from behind or when I was sleeping, things could get ugly.

  “How much long until we get there?” I asked whispering.

  “Probably one hour.” Replied Uther, unable to hide the tension in his voice.

  I was tired, my body was hurting from all the minor wounds, and I could not move my left arm much. The idea that I still needed to walk an hour in the dark was disheartening.

  After the accident we discussed if we should go back, but it would be unlikely that we could convince the scouts to let us go alone a second time, so I resigned myself and asked Uther to keep going.

  At that moment, I questioned myself if that had been a good idea.

  This part of the trail was well in the middle of the trees, so the flickering light from the torch helped to worsen a situation that was already scary. The air was damp and chilly, with an almost pleasant smell of moist earth and leaves. The howling of the wind and the chirping of insects completed the mood.

  That was not the first time I travelled through a forest, but it had always been with a bigger party. Maybe I should have asked Mister Troll to accompany us, but that was the kind of thing I should have thought half a day ago.

  Uther stopped.

  There was a sound, faint at first but getting louder, of steps coming in our direction. Those were heavy steps in quick succession, probably a quadruped creature running.

  I considered two possibilities: it could be a monster, or it could be an animal.

  If it was a monster, my power would probably work, so talking to him was the best alternative. If it was an animal, Uther would be the most qualified to deal with it.

  “To whatever is coming in our direction, we don’t want to fight.” I said in a loud voice, almost a scream.

  There was no change in the rhythm of the steps.

  Uther assumed a battle stance.

  The noise of dry leaves crushing and twigs breaking added to the sound of the creature's gallop. It was close.

  At first all we could see was a shape, a bulky form darting in our direction. The first rays of light from the torch illuminate the creature, bouncing back on sharp edges and reflective surfaces in ways impossible to do in a living being.

  It was only then that the sound of gears and pistons could be distinguished in the cacophony.

  For one instant before it hit us, we could take a glimpse of our assailant, and it was none of the possibilities I considered.

  It looked like a big boar made of metal, a mechanical abomination.

  Mechanical abominations, sometimes abbreviated as mabs, were usually not aggressive because we do not share the same ecology. They don't eat meat, and no organic creature eats the metal they are made of. But that does not mean they are harmless; they can be territorial, bad tempered, or we could just be in the wrong place at the wrong time, as looked to be our case.

  We tried to get out of the way of the creature.

  Uther stepped to the side with no problem, but the boar had already changed his course slightly to avoid hitting him.

  Unfortunately, that course correction put me into his path.

  Uther tried to strike the mechanical boar at the hinder legs to at least slow it down, but it was just too resistant, and the blow had no effect. As he realized that there was nothing he could do, Uther screamed for me to dodge.

  I panicked and tried to jump to the side, but darkness and bad spatial awareness made me not notice a salient tree root behind me.

  My foot got stuck and I tripped.

  I was on the ground as the mechanical boar trampled my legs.

  There was a distinct snap sound.

  “Please be a twig. Please be a twig. Please be a twig...” I kept repeating in my mind as the creature disappeared into the forest, the reason for that stampede was a mystery.

  Reluctantly, I looked down.

  It was not a twig.

  There were some hard and fast rules to diagnosis that helped with triage, one of them is: “If you can see the bones poking out, it is bad”. So ... it was bad.

  I yelled some unkind things about the (probably nonexistent) mother of the mechanical boar as the initial shock was replaced by searing pain.

  It stepped below the knee of my right leg, and the tree root I had tripped on acted as an anvil to make the damage as gruesome as possible.

  Two stupid accidents in just one day, such was my luck. I was starting to hate trees, hate this forest, but most important, hate myself for even suggesting this plan. What was I even thinking?

  Uther hurried to my side. He assessed the injury to my leg and, at the same time, looked for signs of threat in the vicinity. We were terribly vulnerable. “I suppose you will not object to using the healing potion now. This is not something you can just sleep off.” Uther said euphemistically.

  I was too busy bawling my eyes out to mount an intelligible response, so I just nodded.

  Healing potions are a blessing from the gods, they can heal the most terrible wounds, but they have some rules that you need to follow for them to work.

  First, you need to be able to drink the potion in its entirety. There is no fractioning. It works, or it does not work, no middle ground.

  Second, you need to prepare the wound for the reconstruction process, that means removing obstructions, encrusted material or anything that would make it difficult for the member to get back into shape.

  Third, one can safely use only one potion per day. A second one might work if you are lucky, but more than that not only does it not heal, but it is poisonous. Also, excessive use creates resistance, and they could start to not work anymore.

  And finally, the potion will only heal wounds caused up to one hour before the administration. It will not affect anything before that.

  Uther started, with the utmost care, to take the shoes and socks from my mangled leg. After that he cut the cloth from my trousers, and I could at last see the extent of the damage.

  The leg was broken in at least two places, with one exposed fracture and terrible lacerations. If not for the potion, I would count myself lucky if I could just save it, let alone ever use it to walk again.

  I reached for my bag and retrieved the potion, that was nested in the middle of cloth to avoid breaking in a fall.

  I was hesitant and afraid to ask Uther, but I could not afford a botch, so I took a deep breath and said:

  “I need you ... sob ... I need you to straighten the leg.”

  It was just too bent and could cause problems during the reconstruction.

  I bit a leather strap in preparation for what would come.

  It was just as agonizing as I thought it would be. I wailed as it was realigned.

  At that point I was just a mess, crying, sweating, trembling, on the verge of passing out, so I gulped the potion with intent.

  It had the taste of cheap wine, a small mercy, it was not bitter like the last one I drunk, three or four years ago.

  The first thing a felt was numbness, a detachment from my own body. It lowered the pain to the level of minor discomfort.

  Then there was ... it was difficult to explain ... it was like been in two places simultaneously. I could see vague images I saw not long ago, overlapping with what I was viewing.

  My leg started to move and flow as if it was made of a viscous fluid. The exposed bone retreated, lacerations closed, the bend straightened.

  The process finished abruptly. First there was this dreamlike state, and then there was the cold and damp ground that I was lying on. I moved my leg carefully, afraid that the pain would flare back at any moment, but it didn't. The potion worked, and my leg was restored.

  My arm was still swollen, and there were all the other wounds I had from my fall from the hill, but compared to the agony from my leg, those minor pains were barely an annoyance.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “I think I am fine now.” I replied, drying my tears.

  I did one final inspection to make sure that the bone was mended back. I put my shoes back on, we were not out of the woods yet ... literally ... and needed to go to safety before something even worse happened.

  We got back to our trip, hoping that I had already spent all my stock of bad luck.