“Ooow!” yelled the troll, as the arrow hit it straight through the left eye.

  “Yes!” Rye said, doing a fist pump as he stood up.

  “Great shot!” yelled Balthazar from the road.

  The monster grasped its face with one hand, writhing in pain as it howled.

  Suddenly, the troll lowered its hand and spoke, but in a pletely different void tone.

  “Alright, time out!” said the troll in a lower pitd less slurred way than before, while tapping his palm on the fiips of his other hand, making a “T” shape.

  “Huh?” the adventurer said, fused.

  “What the…” said the crab.

  “Really, mate?” the bridge guardian said, looking at Rye with one eye while pulling the arrow from the other. “Right in the peeper?”

  “You talk?!” excimed Balthazar, skittering his to the bridge, o the archer.

  “O′course I ! I was doin’ it before, wasn’t I?” the indignant troll said, tossing the arrow into the water as his eye quickly regeed back to its inal state.

  “I mean, talk… coherently, like people do,” the crab tried to expiween awkward shrugs.

  “Ain’t that rich, in’ from a talkin’ crab?” He turo Rye again. “But you, d! What’s with shootin’ me in the eye? That’s a low blow, don’t ya think?”

  “I… But… I mean…” the young man said between stutters. “It was the obvious oint.”

  “Oooh, alright then!” excimed the creature, frowning at the shrugging boy. “So that makes it fio poke someone’s eye out like that, huh? How would ya like it if I gave your berries a flick?” The troll held his huge bulky hand in front of the human, the tip of his index finger held against the tip of his thumb. “That your oint too, ain’t it?”

  Rye gulped. “Hey, e on now, that’s not fair. I mean… I… you regee your eye! You just did it!”

  “Sure, but that don’t mean it don’t hurt like hell when ya shoot it!” yelled the troll, throwing his arms up.

  The crab and the human exged fused gnces.

  “What the hell is happening?” muttered the archer.

  “I have no idea,” respohe mert.

  “Bah, ya know what?” said the creature, turning away. “Just go. Cross the bridge. I don’t even care no more.”

  Slumping his shoulders, the troll dragged his feet towards the parapet of the bridge and leaned on it, holding his head on his hand as he stared at the running waters of the river.

  Rye looked back at Druma and Blue, who were standing by the road, staring at them and waiting, then at the crab o him.

  “So… should we just… go?” he asked with a shrug.

  “I mean… Now it kind of feels wrong, doesn’t it?” replied the crab.

  With his i piqued, Balthazar cautiously approached the troll.

  “Uh, hey… pal. You got a name?” he asked tentatively.

  The troll, resting his on the palm of one hand, looked at the crab from the er of his eye without turning. “Yeah. Bricker.”

  “Bricker? That’s your he crab said, cog aalk.

  “It is. Ya got a problem with it?”

  “No, no. Not at all. I’m Balthazar, by the way. Say, Bricker, how e you were pying dumb before? You seem intelligent enough to chat with and know how to t s.”

  The troll sighed.

  “Oh, ya know, it’s all part of the job. A’venturers e through ‘ere, they see a bri’ge, they expect a big ugly troll guardin’ it, and they expect me to be as dumb as a sack of bricks. Gotta deliver a good act.”

  Balthazar was suddenly reminded of Tom and all the other skeletons down in their dungeon.

  “Huh. Alright, but then what’s wrong?” asked the crab. “Why did you drop the ad are all… bummed like that now?”

  Bricker let go of his , letting his hands hang from the parapet.

  “Because what’s the point? Things just ain’t what they used to be! Ba the day, we’d get a ‘andful of a’vehrough here every day. Real a’venturers! Noble knights, mighty barbarians, proper wizards. They’d fight a good and fair fight. A troll could feel proud and fulfilled about his job. A knight cuts off one o’ your limbs, and you got a tale to tell ter at the tavern. A wizard sends ya flying all the way to the hills, and ya feel like a million s.”

  The mopey creature slumped down again, this time resting his on the parapet itself.

  “But now? No one es through here no mo’! Weeks go by without me seein’ a soul. And when they do, it’s always some a’veill wet behind the ears, who don’t even know how to hold a sword straight, or they just be fightin’ dirty. There’s no more ‘onor or pride in them a’venturers. It’s all about how to get what they want, as fast and ‘ffit as they .”

  “That’s… rough,” the crab said, awkwardly. “If things are so bad, why haven’t you sidered, I don’t know… a ge of occupation?”

  The troll stood back up straight, turning to the mert with a frown.

  “And do what?! I’m a bloody troll, mate! Not a whole lot of job opportunities for me kind out ‘ere! It’s either guardin’ a bri’ge uardin’ a cave, and I got asthma, I ’t deal with all the ‘umidity in a cave.” He paused and exhaled sharply. “We ’t all be lucky like me cousin, got himself a nice cozy gig at some castle in the middle o’ the mountains, has the catabs all to himself. I hear he gets to spend his days sg little kids. Easy life, that one.”

  Balthazar gnced back at Rye, who stared back at him. They both shrugged.

  “Sounds like you don’t really enjoy this whole thing anymore,” said the crab.

  “I want to!” excimed Bricker. “When I was a wee troll, this was all I wanted. I wao be like my pa’, and his pa’ before him. Bri’ge trolls, colle’ riches from either tribute to pass, or spoils o’ defeated a’venturers. It was a respectful livin’ back then, ya know? But now? Look at me, livin’ alone uhis ol’ decrepit sorry excuse o’ a bri’ge, too poor and ‘shamed to even brin’ a dy here and start a family.”

  The crab couldn’t help but find himself almost feeling sorry for the stinking creature.

  “How did things get like this anyway?” he asked the troll.

  “Oh, ya know, times ge. These new a’venturers are not like they used to be. They don’t see fels like us as worthy oppos, challengin’ foes to best in bat. We just walking bags of ‘experience’ or whatever it is they call it. There was one a while back who used me livin’ spader the bri’ge as a toilet! Ya know how disrespec’ful that is?! But the real pro’lem is that there’s just no traffic ‘round these parts no more. With the nearby town gone, every farm, lumber mill, fishery, and dungeon business around slowly disappeared, ‘til there was no oo e bridge.”

  Town?! Does he mean…

  “I ‘member my first year on the job,” the troll rambled on. “I’d squeeze this farmer every week for a sack o’ apples whenever he passed through to the market. Good ol’ days. I miss him. Really squishy ribs, that one.”

  “Hang on, Bricker,” Balthazar interrupted. “That nearby town you just mentioned. What was it called?”

  “The town? Huh… Been a long time. I think it was… tor? Somethin’ like that?”

  “dor?!” the suddeed crusta excimed.

  “Yeah, that was it,” the green monster said. “dor was the name o’ the town. Nice pce, I heard. Never visited it. Or any other human town, in fact.”

  “Do you think you could point me in the general dire of where that town was?” the hopeful mert asked.

  “Yeah, yeah, sure ,” Bricker said, turning to the end of his bridge and raising a thick finger in its dire. “Go down that road all the way to the fork on the road, then take a left ‘til you reach the pins. Ya should see some farms—or what’s left of ‘em—and somewhere after that there should be the ruins o’ the pce. At least I think so. Again, never been there meself.”

  Balthazar turo Rye with a wide smile, ready to get going towards their destination, but then his smile faded slightly.

  Turning back to the dejected troll, who was back to resting his elbows on the parapet, staring longingly at the stream below, the crab spoke. “Hey, uh… how much for these dires?”

  Bricker flicked an eyebrow at the mert. “I ain’t charging for no dires. I still got morals.”

  With a long sigh, the greeure went back to his depressed ption.

  “I wonder what the o smells like. I hear it’s nice.”

  Uo shake the bothersome feeling in the back of his shell, Balthazar persisted.

  “Why don’t you go out and travel a bit?” said the crab. “See the sights, visit different pces, have a ge of airs.”

  The baffled troll stood up straight, looking at the mert like he had just spontaneously grown a ninth leg.

  “You crazy or somethin’, crab? Go travel? And leave me bri’ge unattended? I don’t think ya uand, this is me business!”

  “Oh, trust me, I get it. I have my own busioo,” Balthazar said. “And from what you’ve said, it seems your business is pretty dead these days. Don’t you think you deserve a holiday? Some ‘you’ time?”

  “But…” Bricker hesitated, as if the very notion being preseo him had never even crossed his mind. “I’m a bri’ge troll. My pce is ‘ere, under me bri’ge, not out in the world, travelin’!”

  “Says who? Look at me, I spent my whole life in my little pond. I have a big trading business bae. A, here I am, backpay shell, friends by my side, traveling these roads aing myself in trouble!”

  The troll looked fused, but also intrigued.

  “I mean… really?” he said, rubbing the moss on his . “It just feels wrong, don’t it?”

  “Why?” said the defiant crab. “Just because life gives you a role doesn’t mean you have to stick to it, to stay in your ne and never dare step out of it. It’s your life! If you want to go see the damn o, you should!”

  “But… I… What if some a’venturers show up to cross the bri’ge and I ain’t ‘ere?!”

  “So what? Do you have a boss? No. You were already going to let us pass for free, weren’t you? The bridge will be fine, but you’re not. You o worry about yourself too, or else you will end up like this bridge, old, falling apart, and fotten in time.”

  “I… bloody hell, crab, ya make some pretty good points. Who taught ya to be such a good speaker?!”

  “I did,” said Balthazar, puffing up his shell. “Crab or troll, you go and do whatever you want, if you set your mind to it. You just have to want it hard enough to break the s holding you in pce.”

  Bricker walked up to his dropped club, picked it up, and pced it on his shoulder again.

  “Aye! Ya know what? Ya lit up me fires there. I’m gonna pack up me spare loincloth, kiss me mushroom garden goodbye, and go downstream ‘til I find the sea!”

  “That’s the spirit!”

  As the troll ducked uhe stone bridge, the crab rejoined his panions. Rye had a sly smile on his face.

  “What?” Balthazar asked.

  “Nothing. Just w how much of that speech was about the troll, and how much was about you.”

  “Oh, shut up. We got a free crossing, didn’t we? Let’s go find this town already.”

  ***

  After another hour of walking from the bridge, the crab and pany finally spotted the end of the forest, where the surrounding trees opened up onte pin fields of brown grass.

  “Alright, we should be getting close to where dor supposedly is,” said Balthazar. “Let’s keep a for…”

  The mert’s words trailed off as the group passed the mound on the road and got a full view of the pins in front of them.

  “What happened here?” said the archer.

  The crab’s hopeful expression turned grim.

  “I don’t know, Rye, but I think you should keep your bow at the ready.”