Macster - The Missing Links

Toward her left were several unused carts, and a road that wound its way up a rocky promontory. Her vision blurred then as she was suddenly jostled more severely with the increased stride of her captor. Without warning she was cast into the back of one of the carts on a pile of hard sacks, some dirty and very smelly animal skins, and dry, crackling straw. Her head swam and she only caught a glimpse of three forms climbing onto the driver's seat of the cart before one of them whipped the horse and they began to creak and groan along the rutted road.

Virginia's consciousness faded in and out after that, and it seemed like an eternity before she awoke enough to pay attention to her surroundings. When she did she blinked, then started to scramble backwards before her head throbbed and she had to stop. Then she looked again and realized what she was seeing. Towering above the roadway in the pale sunlight, on either side, were a series of immense statues of gruesome, ugly creatures in various pugnacious positions. Were they giants? Or Trolls? The former, she decided. Staring upwards, she shuddered. This did not bode well at all...

The road became a ledge on a sheer cliff face, then a cracked and pitted bridge spanning a yawning chasm. Ahead, the road wound up to a dark and forbidding mountain, and she knew, with the certainty of dreams, that that was their destination. Focusing on the driver's seat, she saw that her captors were the three Trolls she had locked in the elevator. She suppressed a groan.

One of the Trolls--the short, dark one--heard her anyway and turned. He nudged the female Troll with the orange hair. "She's waking up!" He grinned over his shoulder at Virginia. "Good morning..." All three Trolls chuckled nastily.

Virginia winced and fell back again. Her head ached as it never had before, and she could feel a lump forming on the right side. And--a scattering of pink Troll dust came off on her fingers. So that was what had happened at the prison.

Crossing the last bridge and winding up the final ledge, the cart finished its ascent of the mountain and pulled to a stop before an enormous, ugly castle rising against the dawn light. The structure was sprawling, covering the peak and even spilling down the granite sides, with jutting towers and crude battlements crowning the walls, looking disconcertingly like fangs and teeth. One tower, larger than the others, rose from the middle of the castle--the keep, Virginia thought the term was. Its top appeared to be sheared off, and numerous black silhouettes wheeled and darted about it--bats, or vultures. She shuddered. Things were getting very, very bad.

As the Trolls descended from the seat, several guards wearing terrifying spiked armor scrambled to their feet in the castle's arched entrance and then bowed. They carried staffs surmounted by eyeless, bleached skulls of some horned beasts.

"Welcome back, Your Majesties," they said in unison. The three Trolls gestured perfunctorily at the cart, and the guards approached the vehicle, grinning fearsomely as they reached for her.

Very, very bad indeed.