Macster - The Missing Links

Ducking down to peer into the darkened interior of the dragon skull, the Huntsman listened to the dripping of water, the sifting of dirt from the ceiling, and the sound of pebbles rattling to the ground. Farther away his sharp hearing could distinguish voices and the sound of pickaxes. The Dwarf mines. And he could also smell the undeniable stench of Trolls--three separate scents, most likely the Trolls who also served his mistress.

But none of that mattered. What mattered was the tracks of the dog and his companions led here, and so he too would enter the dragon. It had taken him a long time to scale the mountain, much longer than he would have liked, but he was relentless, and his fiery willpower had succeeded in getting him this far.

Tossing the wooden staff he was using for a crutch inside the skull's jaw, the Huntsman climbed in between the incredibly sharp and massive teeth and reached for his knife as he passed into the shadows, becoming one with them--until the moment when he found his prey and struck the killing blow...

Outside the caverns, on the mountain's slopes, the waterfall churned and crashed and roiled, sending mist and spray billowing high. The landscape was astonishingly beautiful, but its esthetic value was lost on both the three Trolls and the Huntsman. He had led them out of the mines with his unerring sense of direction, finally bringing them from an ice cave onto this shelf, and now he was lying against a residual boulder, his ear pressed to the rock and his eyes squeezed shut. Blabberwort inclined her head on the side and tried to figure out what he was doing. So did her brothers.

Reaching out with his keen senses, his innate power of the hunt, the Huntsman stretched his consciousness into the very rock and soil of the earth. With the swiftness of a fox he sent his thoughts forth, dashing and darting along the riverbank, down the slopes of the mountains, into the forest and fields. The cry of the eagle, the roar of the bear, the hoofbeats of the deer--he heard them all.

And then, finally, faintly, the sound of voices. The girl and her father, conversing as they walked... "It was my fault...I rushed into marriage, but she was sick even then. She was seeing a shrink. Every day she was taking pills. And she didn't even want a child..."

The Huntsman opened his eyes, which glinted in satisfaction, and then pushed back from the boulder and rose to his feet. He turned to the Trolls. "I hear them. Right on the edge of the Royal Estate."

Slowly, ferally, the three Trolls smiled.

At last the witch would face their wrath.