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  Seconds flashed by like hours in front of Rufi. He saw the monstrous Troll lurch forward, using his knuckles to propel himself across the cramped hallway. His shoulders were so brawny and rocky, they scraped trenches into the wall either side of him. His maw opened wide enough to crush Rufi's skull in one bite. The Troll's skin was a greyish blue, thick, and leathery, with shards of hard scales the size of a man's face around his throat, shoulders, and upper chest. Rufi saw the spittle fly from the behemoth’s mouth. It closed the distance between them with terrifying speed. Rufi’s feet finally came unglued just as the Troll raised a fist the size of Rufi’s head. Spinning on his heels, Rufi threw himself into the stairwell next to him and time sped back up.

  The Troll slammed into the wall where Rufi had been, sending up a shower of plaster and bricks. Rufi took the stairs three at a time, tearing off his long coat as he did. The Troll spun, swinging a massive fist and forearm, trying to catch the fleeing Goblin. He ripped half the decaying bannister down with one hand and then lurched up the steps after Rufi. The stairs groaned and snapped up under the Troll’s tremendous bulk. Rufi hit the top of the stairs and threw his coat down at the Troll, temporarily blinding him. The Troll roared as the staircase began collapsing, clawing at the longcoat. With a mighty leap, the monster threw himself at the landing. His giant hand clawed at the walls, and he scrabbled and pulled himself over the precipice as if he weighed nothing.

  Rufi rounded the corner and threw off his suit jacket and ripped the buttons of his shirt open, freeing up his movement. He flicked his knife out and unholstered his tomahawk. He looked at the two weapons and cursed. They were perfect for the urban jungle, but this was a real monster, and they looked pitiful by comparison. The Troll pulled himself on to the landing and saw Rufi standing, weapons ready, legs spread, and it actually grinned at him. It was a stupid, mocking grin, but a grin nonetheless.

  “Silly Goblin,” the Troll uttered. His voice sounded like rocks in a grinder.

  “Fuck you!” Rufi snarled.

  The Troll pounced. It was astonishingly quick. Too quick for something so big. His massive frame swallowed up the entire hallway, the building sagging under his weight. Rufi leapt back and stabbed with his knife. The blade scraped against the Troll’s armour plate scales and turned away without even leaving a scratch. The Troll barreled into him, sending Rufi into the wall behind him like he was a small child. Rufi hit the wall, the breath knocked out of him, and the Troll roared, raising both his fists like a sledgehammer. He brought them down with another bloodcurdling battle cry. Rufi threw himself sideways through a doorway into a bedroom. The Troll’s fists smashed straight through the wall, turning bricks to dust in an instant. The Troll snarled in fury and followed Rufi into the bedroom. He could barely squeeze through the door, one massive shoulder getting through and the other stuck fast. Rufi bounced back to his feet and brought his tomahawk down on the Troll’s head. The obsidian tomahawk shattered across the Troll’s skull. Chips of obsidian and thick hide splattered across the room. The Troll stumbled back, a sizable flap of skin hanging from his scalp. If he noticed, he was unfazed. He roared and charged the doorframe, exploding into the room and ripping the wall apart. Rufi circled and tried to give himself some space. The bedroom was less cramped than the hallway, but his only means of escape was now blocked by the Troll.

  Why had he run upstairs? All the windows were boarded up here. He had no way of getting back out to the street, and the Troll had destroyed the stairs. He was trapped. He would either stand and fight or die. During his time at war, Rufi had found life to be so utterly simple. Wake up, survive, kill, go to sleep again that night. There was beauty in the simplicity of violence. Kill or be killed.

  Rufi was breathing hard, trying to force the panic back down. His hands shook as adrenaline thudded through his body. Then he tasted it: blood. He didn’t know if it was his, but it set off a primordial survival instinct. He felt the rage, the bitter fury, the unbridled aggression of generations of warrior Goblins pulsing through his body. He felt his muscles rippling and expanding. He could smell blood now. His vision was tinted red. He circled the Troll, snorting and snarling like an animal. How many generations had Troll and Goblin fought to the death like this? How many of his ancestors had slain Trolls with their bare hands? How many of his predecessors had died at the hands of monsters like this? Rufi would join those honoured ranks tonight, or he would meet his ancestors covered in the blood of their old enemy. He would kill or be killed.

  The Troll roared and swung for Rufi. This time Rufi didn’t run. He ducked his head, tucked his chin into his chest, and rolled the blow across his shoulder. Even rolling with the punch almost knocked him off his feet. He got in close to the Troll and threw three quick punches. Two to the gut and one to his chin. The Troll, caught off guard, staggered around Rufi, his immense size working against him in the cramped confines of the room. Rufi stayed inside the swing of those massive fists and threw another uppercut. The Troll took this one and fired back with a blow of his own that rattled Rufi’s teeth. Rufi stumbled and took another heavy blow across the side of the head. He raised his arms to fend off the next punch and threw two quick jabs at the monster’s eyes, snapping his head back. Rufi took this chance to slam the heel of his foot into the Troll’s knee. He had hoped to hear a pop or a crack, but he might as well have tried to break a cement post.

  The Troll grabbed Rufi in a bear hug, and Rufi heard his own body pop and crunch as the monster squeezed. The Troll opened his mouth wide to tear through Rufi’s face. In a moment of blind panic, Rufi lashed out with his tusks and gored the Troll through the bottom of his mouth, just behind his chin. The Troll howled, his grip loosening as Rufi’s mouth flooded with the Troll’s steaming hot blood. Rufi tried to manoeuvre his tusks to get at the Troll’s neck, but it pulled him back. They locked eyes for a moment, and Rufi spat the creature’s own blood back into his eyes. Blinded, the Troll made the mistake of taking one hand from Rufi to wipe his eyes. Rufi pulled up his legs, dug his feet into the monster’s stomach, reared back his head, and then slammed it into the Troll’s nose. There was an awful crunch. Rufi felt like he had just headbutted a charging ram. His head whiplashed back and his vision went black for a moment. The Troll howled and flung Rufi into the chimney breast. There was a sickening crunch as Rufi’s body smashed through it. The Troll, still blind, lashed out wildly and slammed his forearm across Rufi’s chest, driving him further into the brickwork. Before Rufi could even wheeze in pain, the Troll grabbed him by the throat and whipped him into another wall with enough force to put him straight through it and into the next room.

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  Rufi hit the floor and skidded to a halt at the base of the furthest wall. His body twitched and spasmed. He could barely breathe from the impact. He groaned and rolled his limp body over, willing his battered body to rise, but he couldn’t coordinate his limbs. It was as if his whole body was malfunctioning. His legs shook as he gritted his teeth and tried to pull himself upright. He felt hot blood coursing down his neck and back. He raised trembling fingers to the back of his head, and they came back bloody. The Troll wrenched at the bricks and widened the hole Rufi’s body had made so he could step through. The beast's face was covered in blood. His nose, which was already squashed, now looked like a scrunched up ball of paper. Blood flowed in rivulets from his chin, and his jaw wouldn’t close properly, hanging open like a dog panting for breath.

  At the sight of the Troll, Rufi grabbed hold of the window sill and pulled himself back to his feet. He stood there, quivering with the effort of just standing, and raised his fists. The Troll stumbled forward and threw a massive fist at Rufi, who somehow ducked it. The punch shattered the board across the window. Splintered planks of wood rained down on them. Rufi scrambled for one and brought it down on the Troll’s head. He might as well have hit him with a pillow for the effect it had. The Troll shrugged off the blow and backhanded Rufi, sending him sprawling across the floor again. On his hands and knees, Rufi dragged himself out of the room. He had to put some distance between him and the Troll. His injury-addled brain couldn’t think of anything else but to get away from the murderous monster. As he crawled in the dust back into the hallway, his hand brushed something metal. His knife! His swollen fist curled around it, and he pulled himself towards the next flight of stairs leading up. He looked back and saw the Troll lumbering towards him. He had no choice. He had to go up.

  Rufi dragged himself up the stairs. His right leg wasn’t working properly. It felt limp and sluggish. The Troll grabbed Rufi around the ankle halfway up the stairs, dragging him back down like a sack of potatoes. Rufi turned just in time to see a hammer fist coming down. The blow hit him in the guts so hard he almost blacked out. Bile rocketed up his throat as vomit spewed down his chin. The Troll raised his fist again, and Rufi blindly brought the knife down onto the Troll’s face. The blade flashed in the half light. Rufi didn’t see where he stabbed the Troll but he was rewarding with a jolt as the blade bit and sunk into flesh. The knife was wrenched from his hand as the Troll howled and threw himself backwards. Rufi didn’t wait. He turned and crawled up the stairs, coughing and spewing thick ropes of bile, blood, and saliva as he went.

  At the top of the stairs, he looked over his shoulder at the rampaging Troll. He was snarling and crying out, slamming his body against the walls, the knife sticking out just below his right eye. Somehow, Rufi had stabbed the Troll straight through the cheek, almost to the hilt of the blade. The Troll gripped the blade and tried to yank it out. He let out a piteous whine of agony when the blade didn’t budge. Rufi’s head swam. His breathing was ragged. He felt like he was going to black out. The Troll let go of the blade and then focused on Rufi. The eye above the blade swivelled in blind madness, but the other locked onto his prey with murderous intent. He stumbled onto the stairs and began climbing after Rufi.

  Rufi gritted his teeth and crawled into the hallway, willing his broken body to function. The Troll was halfway up the steps by the time Rufi had managed to drag himself to his feet. He looked around and then yanked one of the spindles out of the bannister and held it like a club. His vision swam, and he could hear a clicking sound every time he drew a laboured breath. The Troll tumbled to the top of the stairs. The monster was moving sluggishly now. His movements were uncoordinated and lethargic. Blood was still dripping from his chin and now his mouth was bleeding as well. He raised a hand in front of him and closed in. Rufi summoned up the last dregs of energy he had left. The Troll grabbed Rufi’s ripped shirt. Rufi gritted his teeth and swung the spindle. He cracked the Troll across the temple. The creature stumbled and swayed. Rufi reared back and smashed him across the forehead, then the ear. The Troll’s good eye lost focus, his body went limp. Rufi let out a battle cry that shook the foundations of the building and swung again. He cracked the Troll across the temple again. The Troll toppled, his body going slack. He fell backwards, crashing through the bannister and over the edge, dragging Rufi with him. They plummeted onto the second flight of steps, smashing through the decrepit woodwork, straight down through the missing staircase, to the concrete of the ground floor. The Troll's body made a sickening, wet, fleshy sound as he hit the concrete, Rufi landing on top of him. A great cloud of dust and blood flew into the air as rotten shards of wood rained down on them.

  The building fell still.

  Rufi blinked but only saw darkness. He wasn't sure if he was dead, unconscious, or awake and totally paralysed by the fall. He knew he wasn’t dead when he felt air whistle out of his mouth. He knew he was conscious when the dust settled and he saw a beam of light from outside. And he knew he wasn’t paralysed by the great rivers of pain flooding through his broken body. He was sure he had only survived by landing on the Troll. He then felt the Troll’s massive chest rise arithmetically as the creature drew a stuttered breath. He heard a groan escape the monster. Rufi rolled himself off the Troll and lay there as splinters of wood continued to rain down on them. After what felt like an eternity, movement returned to his extremities. He twitched his fingers and then felt his feet moving.

  Rufi heard the Troll wheeze, his breath little more than a weak rattle. Rolling over, Rufi dragged himself to the Troll’s side on his elbows. The monster was in a bad way. One of his legs was bent at an unnatural right angle, and a shard of bone was sticking out of his shoulder. There was also a pool of blood slowly spreading around his head. Rufi slapped the Troll’s face and saw his eyes flicker open.

  “Who… sent… you?” Rufi panted through clenched teeth.

  The Troll groaned and turned his head away. Rufi raised a trembling hand and grabbed hold of the knife still sticking out of the Troll’s cheek and yanked it towards himself. The Troll screamed in agony.

  “Who… sent you? Was it… Tiko?”

  “No hurt,” the Troll mumbled through his broken mouth.

  “Who was it?” Rufi snarled, spraying blood and bile across the Troll’s face as he wrenched at the knife again, feeling the blade scrape against bone.

  The Troll shrieked and then whimpered, his broken body flailing as he tried to desperately defend himself.

  “Who…”

  “Little creatures!” the Troll cried out. “G-g-gnomes! They pay me to kill Goblin!”

  “Who was it? Was it Tiko?”

  The Troll drew a quivering, desperate gasp of air.

  “They want me kill Goblin..." The Troll wheezed, his eyes lost focus and his mouth drooped. "But Goblin kill me…” The Troll’s death rattle echoed around the building as its final breath escaped its ruined mouth.

  Rufi’s body sagged. He collapsed against the dead Troll’s chest. His vision began to darken, his breaths coming shorter and quicker. His lung felt like they were shrinking. There was a muffled bang and a scrape at the front door. He heard voices. But he couldn’t stay awake…

  The last thing Rufi saw was the door break open, and then his world went black.