A bloodshot, swollen eye, a nose dripping with blood and a broken arm. That was the best possible outcome after Bluthauer had approached the camp of their group with Djar’Ku and Haki. Two scouts from the Wandering Trolls’ community had ambushed the three of them, suspecting that Blood Tusk, due to his imposing stature and weaponry, was holding Haki and Djar’Ku hostage. Fortunately, Djar’Ku had asked the giant not to kill anyone long before they had encountered the scouts, and he had kept to it. The two wounded scouts were driving the returnees in front of them, in the direction of the camp.

  “Argh, not so slow!” Kriz’kriz cawed in Trollish. She was sitting upside down on Blood Tusk’s shoulder, looking down at the dejected scouts. ”And lift your chin! Or there’ll be another smack!” The batparrot had been persuaded by Ja’Jen to stay with the gladiator’s company for a while as a translator and language teacher. The bird tried to get the best out of that.

  The scouts shot the cheeky bird warning looks, and it was clear that the animal was best roasted over the fire. “How quickly the tone has changed,” Djar’Ku remarked. “Now that Blood Tusk, the strongest, is near this annoying bird, it is completely tame towards him.”

  “He’s stupid but big and powerful!” Kri’kriz said when she turned to face them. ’And I can make up for his stupidity with my wits. We’re a good team!”

  “Of course you are.”

  “Nargh, crumble to dust, old fart”

  Djar’Ku laughed dirty. ’Bet I live longer than you flying roast club?”

  “Remember! Ja’Jen’s curse will befall you if anything happens to me.”

  “Maybe,” Djar’Ku replied indecisively. ’I’m still weighing whether the curse is worth it or not.”

  “I won’t dignify that with an answer!’ Kriz’kriz decided and she preferred to concern herself with preening her feathers.

  Blood Tusk tolerated the cheeky, partly incomprehensible cawing of the bird because he could communicate with it. However, it remained to be seen whether that would be enough for the foreign trolls, who now spotted the giant from the edge of their camp.

  “Come here, everyone!” one of the male guards shouted into the camp. The whelps were the first to follow his call, followed by some warriors, and then the rest of the group. “Look at this!”

  Spears were raised, bows were drawn and soft growls vibrated in some throats, but the natural respect for a troll as big and war-like as Blood Tusk was written on the faces of many.

  A male made his way between the trolls. “What in the name of all spirits and tiki is going on here?!” Sa’Thuk asked. He was no Jatal, but he was the most dominant troll and the unofficial leader of the group. “What is this and where were you for so long?!”

  “Sa’Thuk,” Djar’Ku greeted him with a raised hand. He found the troll, who had not been part of his tribe before, to be too hot-headed, but he respected his protective instincts. ”It’s a bit of a long story, but let me tell you right away – it’s a blessing for our group.”

  “You sound like the old fools of my former tribe who believed a miracle would save us,” Sa’Thuk replied, unconvinced. Around his neck, he wore a dried pair of eyeballs on a loop, and all the skin around his left eye was completely wrinkled and leathery from a long-ago burn. ”And you took one of our best females with you. But her fertile womb is of no use to us dead.”

  While Kriz’kriz translated very quietly into Blood Tusk’s ear, Haki stood up for herself. “Since I’m the one who received the blessing first, I wouldn’t have tolerated staying here in the camp. And as far as us are concerned, that remains to be seen.”

  The fact that the two returnees spoke of a blessing with such certainty brought the group of trolls into a curious whisper. “Blessing, blessing. Blessing,” Sa’Thuk repeated as he took a closer look at the gladiator. However, he could not approach him because Haki and Djar’Ku were standing in between. “Speak more clearly. Is it about this colossal troll? Where did you get him? I’ve never seen a troll like him before.”

  “Exactly!” Haki confirmed calmly. ”It’s about Blood Tusk. I’ve never seen a more powerful troll, and a priest has confirmed it. There is something special about him, apart from his obvious strength.”

  The gladiator’s name made some of the trolls and even Sa’Thuk murmur in puzzlement. “Blood Tusk, what an odd name,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “And what kind of priest said that?”

  “Some of us may have heard his name before,” Djar’Ku replied. He took out a seal of Yani that Ja’Jen had made and that was considered a significant sign of respect among trolls that should not be defiled . ”His name is Ja’Jen, a voodoo witcher and priest of the Jatal of the Dark Sea.”

  Even before the name was mentioned, several trolls had cautiously recoiled at the mention of the seal. “You... asked a Yani priest?” Sa’Thuk asked uneasily. “Of all the possible tiki, a Yani priest?”

  “And Ja’Jen, too?!” one of the three older trolls in the small group asked in astonishment. His name was Ataz and in the former tribe of Djar’Ku he had been the most experienced fisherman. ”And he let you live? Unbelievable.”

  “He can be reasoned with,” Djar’Ku played down the encounter. ”And we had little choice. Our group has no priest and Ja’Jen is a hermit who also has mastered the art of the common tongue. We needed him to talk to Blood Tusk, because he doesn’t understand us.”

  “The troll doesn’t know the language of his people?!” Sa’Thuk exclaimed, finally managing to see past the giant to the slightly wounded scouts. ”And what happened to you?!” The scouts pointed at the gladiator and Sa’Thuk clutched the handle of his curved one-handed sword. “How dare you attack my trolls?!”

  Blood Tusk kept his eye on the weapon, but although he was surrounded by potential enemies, he only looked at the speaker.

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  “Now stuff a banana down your throat, Sa’Thuk!” Djar’Ku demanded a little louder. He might no longer be the youngest of them all and no longer a candidate for Jatal, but he was still a good warrior who could make himself heard. In addition, there was the seal, which he demonstratively displayed. “We want to tell the group everything in peace and Blood Tusk is not our enemy. We have made a deal with him that Ja’Jen has approved of. So we and he will keep our word, or do you want to bring the tiki’s resentment down on us before we are reborn as a tribe?”

  Sa’Thuk squinted from side to side. He saw the others looking at the seal appreciatively. “In that case, of course we will keep to what has been agreed,” he conceded. “Tell us about it, but without this stranger.”

  “Yes, I think that’s better for the time being,” Djar’Ku agreed. He suspected that tall the trollish talk, despite the help of Kriz’kriz, might be too much for the rather simple-minded gladiator. ”But our big friend could do with a bite to eat. Please give him something to eat.”

  “Is that part of your deal too?”

  “No, that’s called hospitality,” Djar’Ku replied, initially unsophisticated, while casting a scrutinizing glance through the rows. ”Unless the Mercy of Mirihiji is of no importance to you.”

  No one objected, and several glances went to the side. Even Sa’Thuk was among them. “Fine. Who will feed the giant?” he asked, and although an important custom, a command of a Tiki, was at stake, Sa’Thuk saw hesitant trolls.

  Haki’s eyes searched for the same, but the hesitation of their group was not necessarily because they all wanted to disobey the grace of Mirihiji. Nobody dared to approach blood boar and Haki recognized that. “Nira’theba... could you?”

  The widowed female stood with her whelps almost outside the gathering. ‘M-me?’ she replied with her eyes downcast. Two of her children clung shyly to each of her legs, while she pressed her youngest, almost nine-month-old daughter to her shoulder. “Are you sure?”

  “Hardly anyone cooks as well as you,” Haki nodded calmly. “Trust me. He won’t hurt anyone.”

  “All right.”

  “That being said,” Sa’Thuk grumbled as he turned around. He instructed the wounded trolls, as well as two new guards. ”You two get patched up and you two get your bows strung. The second he makes one wrong move, you fill him full of arrows. Everyone else, march over to my fire!”

  Blood Tusk remained calm and he watched as they all went to the other end of the modest camp and formed a large circle of sitting and squatting figures. Only the aforementioned trolls remained with him.

  “Our resting place is in front,” Nira’theba said cautiously. ”Cooking will only take a little time.”

  Again, Kriz’kriz whispered every word into Blood Tusk’s weakly twitching ear before replying in common tongue. “I can wait,” he replied, following the mother to her meager bed.

  It consisted only of a weakly burning fire, a carefully gathered pile of utensils and a few supplies, as well as a half banana leaf tent that seemed just big enough for all the whelps to fit under it and the mother to lie in front of it, half-hidden under the protective leaves.

  Despite the translation by the batparrot, the foreign tongue was slightly unpleasant for Nira’theba. The guards seemed amused, whereas the whelps showed a mixture of silliness and curiosity. “Ma’ma, why does he speak so strangely?” Nitha asked. At nine years old, she was the oldest of the children.

  “Well, that’s,” Nira’theba murmured uncertainly. She didn’t know. ”He must come from a far, far away tribe.”

  “It must be huge, very far away.”

  “That may be. The roots of our jungle extend seemingly endlessly.”

  “Nonsense,” Kriz’kriz exaggerated spitefully in Trollish, while Blood Tusk squatted down. ”This troll here is just as stupid as a rock, but just as hard and ten times as strong.”

  “WOW!” squeaked Nitha, just like her younger brother Jakhan, who was six years old. In the blink of an eye, all their fear of the giant, alien troll was forgotten and they approached the wall of muscle. None of the whelps had ever seen a batparrot, let alone heard an animal speak. ”You can talk! What are you?”

  Kriz’Kriz was glad she was sitting away from the childrens’ grasp. Although Blood Tusk was hunched, even the oldest of the whelps barely reached his upper arm, while Kriz’kriz sat proudly on his shoulder. “I’m the queen of the skies!” the bird croaked. “And I’m hungry too! Give me some nuts, fruit, or a piece of meat! Feed me!”

  The whelps were overzealous, but first they gave their mother a questioning glance. “I don’t think you should get too close to the troll,” Nira’theba said uneasily, while she hung a pot over the fire and pushed new logs into the weak flames. “He’s probably tired from his journey.”

  “I’m not tired and it’s not my bird,” said Blood Tusk. The adults were discreetly on guard with every slightest movement of his, since they didn’t share the now carefree recklessness of the whelps. ”If it wants to eat, give it food.”

  “Yes, give it to me!” Kriz’kriz agreed, and in a flash it was flying onto the gladiator’s knee. ”But keep your hands off me. If you paw me, I’ll bite you!”

  Once more, the whelps gave their mother a melting look before Nira’theba nodded silently. Hastily, Nitha and Jakhan grabbed a few nut kernels and approached the bird. In the end, the bird allowed them to feed it, like a pet.

  The fact that the children were standing in the shadow of Blood Tusk made this cute scene somewhat abstract. The giant barely looked at the whelps at his knee, as if he didn’t even notice it. On the other hand, he did notice the crawling and scrabbling movements of something else.

  Nira’theba was busy with the water and hadn’t noticed how her youngest daughter Ba’tha went on a voyage of discovery. The huge, shadow-casting lump of muscle by the fire was simply too amazing and, although it looked frightening, even this nine-month-old whelp saw the familiar face of a troll without condemning him for anything.

  When Blood Tusk held out his left hand, the guards and Nira’theba held their breath. While the mother froze and she didn’t dare to intervene, the bow and spear behind the gladiator were readied. Before the crawler could reach his foot, which was about the same size, Blood Tusk grabbed the little one by the back of her cloth diaper and lifted her into the air. He had rarely seen young trolls in the arena and when he had, they were 14 or older. He had only seen whelps as young as Nitha or Jakhan during the trials, and he examined Ba’tha hanging in front of him in disbelief, as if she were a foreign body. He wondered how something so tiny could eventually grow to be as big as a normal female

  Like many whelps of this age, Ba’tha had a bit of baby fat in the form of a tummy and cheekbones. With her mouth wide open and her eyes bulging, she looked at the gladiator, first blubbering to herself and then simply looking past him, because a butterfly was much more interesting to her again.

  What surprised Blood Tusk was that the whelp apparently had no odor of its own. At least he didn’t notice anything and approached a little closer, but then he stopped. A stinky, fetid smell crept through his nose and with a grimacing face, he stretched out his arm and the child a good distance away from him before setting her down in the grass.

  Ba’tha sat with her back to the giant and looked back unsuspectingly and innocently.

  “Why would she do that?“ Blood Tusk asked, wrinkling his nose.

  “She’s still very young. Whelps do that,” Nira’theba answered matter-of-factly. She held out her hands to her daughter. “Come to me. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

  “Do you do this often?” Blood Tusk addressed the two older children in front of him.

  They had been completely absorbed in feeding Kri’kri and hadn’t even noticed what their sister was doing, though the batparrot didn’t neglect its translation services. ‘Feed your bird?’ Nitha replied. ”If you like, yes!”

  “That’s not my bird.”

  “That would be even better!“ Kri’kriz shook her head. ’But you can always feed me.”

  Blood Tusk saw no problem with that. ’If it stops them from wetting their pants, let them do it.”

  “Eww, we don’t do that!” the whelps giggled. “You’re funny.”

  Blood Tusk scratched his head. He had heard a lot of things about himself, but funny? These trolls were once again a really strange bunch for him.