the night sky stretches glittering above him, interrupted by the poles of streetlamps, the spires of evergreens, the sharp corners of office buildings. once, he found this peaceful, sitting out on the front porch and letting the stars wheel their masterpieces across the sky. but his heart throbs too loud in his ears these days, dynamite in his lungs, each breath and his eyes dart around to see if jeremy’s still breathing too. he can almost feel it, too, like if he closes his eyes and reaches out he can feel jeremy, safe, in trollmarket, the first human to have ever been accepted as a member of trollmarket, not just a begrudging guest. the brightest light jim knows, burning just out of sight.
jim doesn’t need a flashlight, for the armor glows and the astrolabe points the way, his feet sinking into mud beside the highway, every once in a while a car kicking up the puddles at the shoulders. he knows how vulnerable and alone he is, here. his exposed back, the chinks between his armor, his sweaty grip ------ he closes his eyes, and this is how he dies. nothing is enough to save him. nothing is enough to save jeremy. and that’s the worst part. that’s the part that makes all this so unbearable. that’s what pulls him awake in nameless sweats, in unrealized terrors.
it used to be so simple, nothing large, nothing the team couldn’t take down, back-to-back and howling alive, limbs and blades whirling, adrenaline rushing through their bodies. but spurred by killahead, spurred by bular’s death, larger and larger gumm gumms have been pushing their way out of the darklands, finding long-forgotten passages, pushing at the magical limits of the darklands, following bular’s example. long past are the days of hunting goblins in the night. now he plunges his blade into creatures thrice his height, comes back with his armor dripping with blood and muck. now he loses battle after battle, his arms covered in band-aids, his ribs still aching from a tumble he took earlier this week.
an underpass stretches beneath jim, and he grips his blade harder, slick in his palms. there’s a reason for all those tales of trolls under brides, of tolls and treachery. and here, the goliath rises from the shadows beneath the overpass, a beast that in this darkness looks big enough to raze a house. jim goes cold and forces down a swallow.
he twirls his blade, and the blue light that dances around it illuminates hideous new angles of the beast. jim sets off toward it at a run, before he can change his mind, boots clattering and scraping against the stone. he has one shot at this, and he can’t risk failing. he can’t risk slipping up.
