By the time my clothes were dry enough to pack away, the sun had started its slow climb up the sky, though it didn’t do much to brighten the forest or the path in front of me. I made a torch to replace my old one by cutting off a piece of driftwood — I didn’t dare lift my blade at a living tree — and tying some of the horse’s mane around it. It proved pleasingly flammable.

I attempted to gather some meat to dry, but the horse’s flesh smelled of days old decay and the blood was dark and viscous. I doubted eating any of that would be good for my health, so I left the body to rot.

I followed the river upstream as it twisted and turned through the forest. The tracks were plenty — many resembled paw prints, while others were obviously feet. Some were light and tiny, the size of half my finger, barely visible in the mud. Others were big and clumsy, murky ponds left in each step. A giant had walked through the water and into the woods on the opposite shore, leaving broken branches and trampled bushes in its wake. I shuddered. I could kill a horse, at least when it posed as a human, but a thing that size? It’d take one step and I’d be done for.

I found a decent spot to sleep in, a small hole beneath an overhanging rock complete with soft moss for bedding and plenty of camouflage to hide me from prying eyes. I couldn’t say I had a decent day’s sleep, as I kept waking up at the smallest sound, but it was better than nothing, and I was ready to move again at dusk.

As the sky grew darker, the forest turned restless. Through the rushing water came sounds that shouldn’t belong here. Perhaps the residual fear made me paranoid. Between the incoherent whispers, children giggling, and the flap of wings above me, I wondered which of those sounds were the product of my imagination and which were real.

That’s when something sharp stung my left calf.

“Ow!”

My flesh tensed around the needle as another one pierced my thigh. I cursed and yanked out the one in my upper leg — it looked like a thin, sharpened branch, but hollowed out, the inside glistening with a sickly green liquid. Before I could spin around to see my attackers, my left leg grew numb and folded under my weight.

“It’s down!” something screeched among the trees.

“Not yet!” yelled something else.

I tried to crawl towards the water, dragging my sleeping leg behind me, when another dart hit me in the shoulder. I tore it out of my skin and kept on crawling, but the numbness began to spread through my arm anyway.

Shit. I wouldn’t be able to swim away even if I could reach the water, not like this. I had to find a way out, to grab my hatchet, call for help, anything. My entire body was soon heavier than lead, and my head hit the earth as the poison reached my neck.

I couldn’t move. All I could do was to lay there and hope it would be quick.

Half a dozen small creatures toddled out of the wood. They looked like misshapen children; one had a pig snout for a nose, another had bulging goat eyes, a third had the head of a giant frog.

All had sharp teeth revealed in wide grins and quick, hungry eyes.

“It looks like one of them elfs!” Pig Snout hissed as strings of spit stretched from its mouth. Wearing what looked like armor made of bark and a mossy cape, it appeared to be the leader. It lowered its spear and poked me hard between the ribs.

I could only groan in pain.

“It’s weak for an elf!” exclaimed Frog Head. Its lips moved in a distorted, grotesque way to shape the words. “Smells wrong, too!”

“Are you lost, not-elf?” giggled Goat Eyes and tapped me with his wooden mallet. “Where are all your not-elf-friends?”

“Its tongue is numb, mudbrain,” said Pig Snout. “Let’s take it back.”

Two of them tied a rope around my feet, but five were forced to pull the ends to move my body. They took my food and complained about it being inedible and disgusting before throwing it away. My weapons they left alone. I wanted to keep track of where they were taking me, but I couldn’t move my head to see anything but the dark blue sky and the branches caught in the light from the creatures’ torches.

“Should we blindfold it?” one of them suggested, and a small foot with sharp toenails kicked my head.

“Why? King’s probably going to eat it anyway.”

“I hope he leaves something for us.”

Through sheer force of will, I commanded my sleeping muscles to move and felt nothing but my little finger curl in towards my palm. Was it moving because the poison hadn’t reached it yet, or because it was wearing off? I kept moving it, and as they dragged me further into the forest, the movement soon spread to three of my fingers.

That sliver of hope quickly vanished when more voices came to meet the party. We had reached our destination.

“What is that?” someone screeched as more of the creatures surrounded me, poking and prodding with sticks and spears.

“Stop! The king said not to kill any prey before he gets here! And this one looks like an elf!”

Their king wasn’t here yet. Maybe I’d have time to recover. I closed my hand — which was uncomfortably tucked in under my body — into a fist and realized movement had returned to my elbow. Still nothing from my feet or legs, which would be more important in making an escape.

I’d bide my time. Better to feign weakness for now and run only when they had their attention turned elsewhere.

The creatures bickered among themselves and a fight broke out over whether they should take a nibble of my toes or not, but those that stayed out of it dragged me onto a crude net and hoisted me up into the air. With my head resting against my shoulder, I could finally see where I was: a settlement built around a large bonfire, surrounded by a rather short wall of sharpened logs, pointing skyward to discourage invaders from climbing them. Around the fire were small huts and what seemed like female members of the race surrounded by or nursing young, but they all had such strange faces I couldn’t tell for certain.

They’d hung me up from a large oak within the settlement, its gnarled branches spreading out as though protecting it from the very sky. Other nets dangled from it, some empty, others containing animals and creatures which had been … I suppose “disemboweled” is the closest word for what I saw.

A large crowd had gathered beneath me, all ogling and gasping and pointing. Some threw small rocks or pine cones, while others tried to reach me with sticks.

“What is that?”

“It smells wrong! Do you think the king will eat it?”

“It looks like an elf! But its ears are small and ugly!”

One of the smaller ones threw a pebble that struck my cheek. The muscles in my neck awakened by instinct and twisted my head away.

“It moved!” someone squealed with delight, and they all cheered.

“Make it move again!”

What followed was an excruciating quarter-hour as the creatures threw whatever they could find with all the strength they could muster at my limp body. I stayed immobile and hoped they’d get bored and give up soon, and after a couple dozen rocks and pine cones, they lost interest and left me alone.

My thighs were responding again and I flexed them over and over, carefully, so none of them would notice and give me another dose of poison. My right arm and most of my upper body had regained mobility as well, but the muscles felt weak, like I’d been sick and bedridden for days.

Eventually, the creatures retired to their homes and their chatter died down.

I’d just begun to hope they’d all gone to sleep when a low, rumbling horn sounded in the distance. Four of the creatures dragged the eastern gates open and another six entered the settlement, all atop snarling, horse-sized wolves. Leading the party was the largest of the things I’d seen so far. He wore a crown of roses with thorns that had pierced his forehead and sent dark blood running down his sickly pale face. This was surely their king.

He spotted me as soon as he came through the gate. His black, swollen lips pulled back over sharp teeth in a wicked grin.

“A human,” he said.  

The phrase echoed between the remaining creatures as they finally realized what I was. They gathered below me again, led by their king, who chuckled as he approached.

“It’s been some time since I’ve feasted upon human flesh. This one looks young and sinewy.”

The king slammed his crooked staff into the ground and the oak shivered and groaned. It slowly, obediently bent down, lowering my net toward the king. He leaned in, still grinning, and the stench of fish and mold forced its way into my lungs. If I hadn’t been indirectly starving myself for the last few days, I’d have thrown up.

“Wait!” I shouted. “You can’t eat me!”

“I am the king of the trolls. I can eat whatever I want.”

When he spoke, the muscles of his face stretched and moved under his pale and almost translucent skin. His black eyes darted back and forth eagerly, like he was already thinking of which prime cuts of my meat he’d claim. The sight of him did nothing to calm my gut, but I forced myself to look at him, to show no fear.

“I’m related to a high fae. You wouldn’t want to anger him, would you?” I blurted.

The troll king leaned closer, aiming to smell my shoulder. I tried to move away, but his small and clawed hand had a tight grip on the net. He inhaled deeply, and whatever skin above his eyes that passed for eyebrows moved closer.

“There is magic in its blood … but distant. You can’t use it, can you?” He let go of the net. “Then tell me, human, which elf lord squirted you out?”

“Gaetan!” It wasn’t entirely a lie.

The troll king moved away, frowning, and I think disappointment and confusion crossed his face, though it was hard to tell with how strange and bloated it was.

“So we won’t eat it?” said Pig Snout, outraged.

“Not yet. We will wait until dawn. If the elf lord hasn’t claimed it by then, we will kill it.”

The king’s subjects cheered. A large group of them had once again gathered near me, but nobody dared go past their leader to touch me.

Dawn. I’d bought myself some time.

Pig Snout, the one who had been heading the group that had captured me, didn’t appear to be as pleased as the others.

“But what if the elf lord comes later? He will punish us if we eat his squirt!”

The troll king smacked him upside the head with the thick end of the staff, and spoke over his pained cries, “If this fool Gaetan truly wanted it to find him, he wouldn’t let it wander like this. Now that it’s here, I’m giving him time to claim it. If he doesn’t, it will be his own fault.”

The king paused, eyes gleaming with hunger as he stared at me.

“Everyone knows what happens to humans in the Overgrowth.”