Date: Sat, 14 Mar 2015 16:22:24 -0400
From: George Gauthier <georgegauthierdc@gmail.com>
Subject: Elf-Boy's Friends 12

			Elf-Boy's Friends 12
			Trolls, Part III
			The War on Land
 			by George Gauthier

[The further adventures of characters from the novel 'Elf-Boy and Friends']

		Chapter 5. At the Rendezvous

"Hell's bells, Dekker. This report of your battle reads like an historical
romance set during the Corsair War."

Commodore Van Zant, commander of the naval squadron of which Captain
Dekker's own ship the Petrel was a part could hardly contain his
delight. Seated at his desk in his cabin aboard the flagship the officer
waved the report and continued:

"In the most remarkable single ship engagement in the history of the Navy
you sank fourteen longships and damaged another and sent over a thousand
trolls to the bottom of the sea. You also proved the value of infrasound
communications in naval warfare. And if anyone at the Admiralty was still
skeptical about war wizards on navy ships, you have taken the wind out of
their sails. I'd love to watch their faces when they read your report. It
sails with the hospital ship in the morning."

"Thank you sir, though I deeply regret the butcher's bill. Of our
complement of seventy only twelve men came through entirely hale and
hearty. Eleven were killed outright; three later died of their wounds; four
survivors lost limbs; and everyone else was wounded in one way or
another. Thanks to the assistance of the healers from the other ships of
the squadron almost all the wounded, save the amputees, have returned to
duty."

"I'll still need thirty replacements if the Petrel is to continue to
operate with the squadron. And we really need those two squads of naval
infantry if we are going to come to close quarters with the trolls again."

"You will get everything you need, Dekker. It is up to us to deal with the
trolls till help arrives. The High Seas Fleet should have put out to sea by
now, though we are too far from our base at Alster for even infrasound
communications. Next time we will station ships to relay messages all the
way to base."

"So it will be a week at the earliest before the Fleet can concentrate
against the enemy. By that time I fear the trolls will have rowed those
longships of theirs up the River Calyx which flows past Flensborg."

"Do we have any estimate of their numbers, sir?"

"At least five thousand, maybe six, all of them warriors. If this is part
of a folk migration, their females and whelps are coming with a later
wave. Now counting our sailors and the naval infantry we number fifteen
hundred. So I am open to suggestions."

"Can we send warning to the Frost Giants?"

"Not by courier. The trolls are between us and our allies ashore."

"Could the weather wizards aboard the scout ships combine their powers to
reach Flensborg?"

"Even if they could, to whom would they relay the warning? There has to be
another weather wizard at the other end to receive it."

"There is. I happen know that many of their colleagues ashore have taken up
new careers as local weather predictors. They have jobs on the staff of all
the major news-papers. Flensborg has a paper and it does publish weather
forecasts. I got that from my own war wizard Warrant Officer Liam whose
boyfriend Drew Altair is a journalist and familiar with the town."

"Then let's get on it immediately."

The commodore gave the necessary orders. Soon all six weather wizards were
at work sending the warning to Flensborg. At the speed of sound it would
take the better part of an hour for their transmission to reach there and
the same for an acknowledgement to come back. They would give it a half
hour and resend their warning and keep at it till they got a reply.

Meanwhile Liam was aboard the hospital ship saying goodbye to his lover
Ensign Nathan Lathrop. Liam presented his lover with a souvenir, the very
same axe that had taken his lower leg off just above the ankle. The blade
had been driven into the deck, and before the troll could yank it out, he
had been killed.

Ironically, it was that very blade, pressing against the end of Nathan's
wound that had kept him from bleeding out. It slowed his blood loss enough
for their ship's surgeon, Warrant Officer Durban, to get to him in time to
attend his wound. It was the surgeon who had retrieved the axe as a
souvenir for his patient. He had served in the Navy long enough to know
that it would appeal to the black humor that combat veterans develop as a
result of their experiences.

"Just brandish this in the faces of the old Army fogies in your
family. This and your Navy Cross. Black sheep indeed!"

Nathan laughed.

"You sound madder at them than I am."

"For you, they are still family. For me, they are justâ the Army."

"Now you sound like Captain Dekker."

"Seriously though, Nathan. Take care of yourself. I imagine that by the
time I get back you will already be up and about, stumping around on your
peg leg."

"A peg leg is for pirates in the old tales. These days medical artificers
create prostheses custom fitted for each patient. My stump will fit
perfectly in the socket and the base will be shaped just like a foot. I'll
even be able to wear my regular boots. It will look perfectly natural,
except I will walk with a limp since I cannot really flex the wooden foot
nor push off with my big toe. Otherwise no one could tell."

"Except the lover who shares your bed."

"Yes. I hope you won't find myâ well my loss a turn off. I understand
that sometimes happens to relationships after crippling injuries."

"Don't worry about that. If it were not against doctor's orders, I would be
taking advantage of you right now, as you lie there in bed helpless to
resist."

"No you wouldn't. Not with the doctor himself standing right here. Isn't
that right, Surgeon Durban?"

"Indeed it is. I am afraid you will have to curb your enthusiasm for a
while, Liam."

"You know, Liam. I'll be spending my convalescent leave with my family in
the capital and undergoing rehabilitation at the naval hospital there. We
can see each other then."

"Sounds like plan. I love you, Nathan. Very much. And I won't love you any
the less for your loss. Well, maybe just a tiny bit less. After all, there
is a little less of you to love now, isn't there?"

"Liam, that has got to be absolutely the very worst joke you have ever laid
on me. I have half a mind to take this axe to you and even things up!"

In response to his mock threat Liam bent down and hugged his friend.

"Mmm. That's better. I love the press of your body against mine, Liam. And
your body warmth."

They kissed and separated. Just before he went through the hatch [i.e. the
door] Liam half turned and with a cheery wave said:

"See you soon, Sparky."

He almost got away clean except Nathan caught him with an electrum spark to
his tush, eliciting a cry of "Yikes!"

Surgeon Durban's own eyes glistened at this reaffirmation of their love. He
had grown fond of them during their cruise, both the cute carrot-topped
youngster in the bunk and the raven-haired beauty with wizard's eyes who
was his lover.

. . . . . . .

"Ah Liam," Dekker said as the wizard returned to the Petrel. "Let's go to
my cabin so I can brief you on the Petrel's part in the coming operation
against the trolls and your own part in particular."

"So we are going after them sir, not waiting for the fleet?"

"That's right. Here, come inside."

They picked the thread up again in the captain's cabin.

"We cannot wait and leave the Frost Giants to face this threat alone. Their
population of fifty thousand is spread across a large country. That means
the trolls could overwhelm the various local militias that comprise the
Fyrd and defeat them in detail. Flensborg itself has only seven or eight
thousand inhabitants. Even drawing from the countryside out to a distance
of say two days' march, the Frost Giants could assemble maybe fifteen
hundred fighters in any one place on such short notice. They need us, our
own fifteen hundred strong right arms and our two war wizards and our
weather wizards. We can fall on the trolls from the rear."

"Also, and we cannot count on this, but Flensborg is linked by heliograph
to the Army base at Plainsville. The Army would certainly help if they knew
of the danger. Believe me, we could use several battalions of heavy cavalry
in the fight that is shaping up."

"Your job, Liam, is to lead us up the River Calyx. We will need your eyes
that can see in the dark to let us keep going even at night. The Petrel is
the lead ship because it carries a war wizard, unlike the other scouts
which carry weather wizards. Only the flagship bears another war wizard."

"You can count on me, sir. And by the time we get there. I will be back to
full strength, magically speaking, and somewhat stronger than before from
having made a maximum effort during the battle at sea."

"Excellent."

A few hours later the weather wizards got through to the Frost Giants. And
yes, Flensborg had passed the warning on to the Army at Plainsville via the
heliograph. They had also alerted the Commonwealth headquarters in the Far
West.

			Chapter 6.  Flensborg

"Gosh Finn, am I lucky or what?", the diminutive red-headed human said to
his gigantic friend who stood three feet taller. "I come here on assignment
to write about how humans, elves, and dwarves have fared in New Varangia
and find myself smack in the middle of the biggest news story of the year."

In the last year or so, Finn had shot up a foot to top out at eight feet
even and bulked out gaining two hundred pounds, all of it bone and muscle,
a fast growth spurt often associated with a manifestation of a powerful
magical gift.

Of course, all Frost Giants were magical in one way. Their huge bodies,
some of them nine feet tall, could hardly sustain themselves much less
extend their lifespans to nearly a thousand years without magic. But for
most Frost Giants, their magic was purely internal. Magical gifts like
Firecasting, Fetching, and even Calling Light manifested much less
frequently among the giants than among their human allies or even the
dwarves, much less the elves, a magical race themselves.

"What is so lucky about being caught up in another war, Drew?"

"Bearing witness to war is exactly what a war correspondent like myself is
supposed to do. I am a journalist. It is in my blood, a calling if you
will. And thanks to me the Capital Intelligencer will scoop all the other
papers in the Commonwealth, except the one here in Flensborg. That will
please my publisher and editor no end."

"You mean your father and older brother."

"Same thing."

Drew Altair was not unaware of the dangers. Like Finn Drew was a veteran of
the Second Centaur War and a number of other fights. So far he had never
used his powers to kill a human or a Frost Giant, the gods forbid, but he
had shown himself to be a deadly combatant thanks to his magical gift.
Drew had also used his powers in rescue work saving victims of floods and
earthquakes.

Fetching, as telekinesis was called on the Planet of Haven, let Drew wield
steel spheres the size of peaches, whirling them around or back and forth
at high speed to smash through the heads and bodies of his foes. At close
quarters he could shield himself by whirling his spheres in a short arc
back and forth one high one low to fend off his foes. In close quarter
combat he could blind a foe by yanking the eyeballs out his head. And he
could protect himself against arrows and slung bullets with his so-called
Missile Shield.

It was just dumb luck that had placed Drew in Flensborg just as word
arrived from weather wizards sailing with a squadron of the Commonwealth
Navy that a horde of trolls at least five thousand strong were on their
way. Even now the invaders were rowing up the River Calyx which flowed past
Flensborg and would arrive in a matter of days.

Oddr Bjarnson, the civic leader of the Frost Giants and elected governor of
New Varangia had declared a state of emergency. Harald Sigurdsen, the war
chief of the Frost Giants had called up the Fyrd, their militia. Too bad he
could expect only a little under fourteen hundred to assemble before the
trolls arrived. The population of the giants was widely dispersed over
their new homeland as the first settlers spread out in search of the very
best land to put under the plow. The centaurs they had taken the country
from had lived purely by the hunt.

The mounted constabulary manned by humans in the employ of the Frost Giants
would not take part in the coming battle. They were a police force, not
soldiers, and were dispersed in small contingents the length of the two
highways the Commonwealth had constructed across New Varangia to link it
with the Commonwealth proper to the east and the Flatlands of the Far West
of the continent of Valentia.

But that did not mean that the Frost Giants would fight alone. They had
human allies who would fire bows from horse-drawn mobile archery
platforms. Moving much faster than infantry, the wagons could attack or
retreat at will, firing arrows all the time from behind shields fixed along
their sides. Each wagon or stagecoach carried half a dozen archers, some
with longbows, others with crossbows, and all the ammunition they could
need.

The idea for the archery platforms had come from Finn Ragnarson, who had
been inspired by his trip a year earlier to the Far West. Though a
stagecoach journey was safe enough in New Varangia, they had later ventured
across the unsettled Flatlands. He and his friends Drew Altair and the
famous twins Jemsen and Karel, uncannily accurate archers thanks to their
gift of Unerring Direction, had readied themselves to repel bandits or
rebels or anyone else who might threaten their stagecoach.

The humans who lived among the Frost Giants were glad of a chance to show
their mettle and to prove their loyalty to the homeland they now shared
with their friends and neighbors the Frost Giants. Many of the young males
had been horse nomads on the Western Plains where the old ways of raids and
tribal warfare had long been suppressed by the Commonwealth.

Too big and heavy for horses themselves, the giants had welcomed humans in
their midst as grooms, handlers, and drivers of the freight wagons and
stagecoaches which brought visitors and commerce to their capital
city. Flensborg might just be a town right then, but the giants had big
plans. Within twenty years they expected immigration from their diaspora to
raise their population to half a million. Let trolls or anyone else
threaten them then.

So it would be an allied army of almost fourteen hundred Frost Giants and
three hundred humans against the trolls who threatened their
homes. Unfortunately the more recent immigrants, the dwarves in their
caverns and the elves in their enchanted vale were too few and too far from
Flensborg to help, though they had been warned.

With any luck, reinforcements would arrive in time from both the Navy and
the Army of the Commonwealth. A naval squadron with a contingent of naval
infantry and a pair of war wizards was sailing up the River Calyx in
pursuit of the trolls while the Army had dispatched a light regiment of
three battalions of heavy cavalry from Plainsville, a town at the southern
end of the Western Plains. That is west of the Commonwealth
proper. Confusingly, the Western Plains lay east of New Varangia.

Drew himself had no intention of holding back to merely witness the
impending battle. As a reserve ensign in the Army of the Commonwealth he
felt himself obligated to join in the defense of Flensborg, capital of New
Varangia, the second homeland of the Frost Giants. Besides, Finn Ragnarson
was one of his lovers and his very close friend and sometime comrade in
arms. No way he would not use his powers to protect him, just as Finn would
use his immense strength, twelve foot spear and long sword to protect
Drew. In close quarters Finn might even wield his war hammer, as he called
it. Finn had started out as a blacksmith.

In even closer quarters the pair made love, the huge giant and the
diminutive human. Finn was much bigger now in every respect. Yet Finn's
bigger size and strength made him all the more masculine and attractive to
a bottom boy like Drew.

Drew could still pleasure Finn orally but could take him only into his
mouth -- no more deep throating. Drew would just choke. Instead Drew licked
and smooched the knob of Finn's cock, prodded the slip with the tip of his
tongue, sucked the glans and licked the sweet spot just behind all the
while stroking the shaft with his small hands

For his part Drew loved to have Finn's huge hands touching him everywhere:
ruffling the auburn locks on his head, fingering his ribs, squeezing his
buns, thumbing his anal whorl and penetrating it with a questing finger
that would arouse him by stroking his joy knot. Finn was also a past master
at turning the boy on by tweaking and pulling the nubbins of his nipples,
one of Drew's most sensitive erogenous zones.

These days the young giant did not so much mount Drew as cover him,
supporting his immense weight on his limbs lest he crush his tiny human
lover. Drew could still take the young giant up his quim. One of the
benefits of the druidic magic that had transformed his body was greater
flexibility and not just in his joints. Though there were limits.

Drew's anal pucker could stretch enough to admit Finn's horse cock and he
could still take most of it up his ass. And when the giant came, he filled
the insatiable boy's guts with what felt like a gallon of gism.  Yet when
Finn withdrew he dragged the flesh of Drew's anal ring backwards, pulling
it out in an everted cone with a gaping hole in the middle. The shape
reminded Finn of a volcano except this one quivered and twitched then
pulsated a couple of times before collapsing into a normal crinkly whorl.

When Finn described this 'geological' phenomenon to his lover, he added
that it seemed for a while that his anus might never close up.

"You would have to revert to diapers, my friend. And what a shame that
would be!"

"That is not the least bit funny."

"Well, you had to have been back here to see it."

"Harrumph!"

"Sorry Drew, but you simply cannot harrumph convincingly. That is reserved
for elderly curmudgeons or at least for men of middle years. You are far
too young, far too small, and much too pretty to pull it off."

			Chapter 7. The Battle for Flensborg

"First let's all agree that the town and this fort are indefensible."
asserted Harald Sigurdsen, the war chief of the Frost Giants and commander
of the Fyrd, their militia.

The members of the council of war nodded. Everyone knew that the wooden
palisades of fort and town had been erected as protection against raiders
or remnants of the centaurs who had originally lived in that country. The
town itself had long ago spread beyond its walls. As for the fort, it
served well enough as a headquarters and armory. The council met in a
chamber there, but the fort no longer had any military significance.

"We have to take the fight to the trolls and meet them in open
battle. Outnumbered as we are, we must bring the trolls to battle on ground
of our own choosing, a place where we have the advantage of position."

"Fine," said Oddr Bjarnson, the civic leader of the Frost Giants and
elected governor of New Varangia, "but where would that be exactly."

"We'll need maneuver room for our mobile archers in their wagons." the
leader of the human contingent, Ranald Drayk reminded them.

"Room for your wagons, yes, but we must otherwise hem the trolls in so they
cannot spread out and overlap our flanks."  Bjarnson replied.

At Oddr Bjornson's side sat Finn Ragnarson, his protege for
intergovernmental relations and his own personal lucky charm. Harald
Sigurdsen was flanked by Old Arn, the senior non-commissioned officer in
the Fyrd who could speak for the rank and file.

Also in the room was the human journalist, Drew Altair: war correspondent,
reporter for the Capital Intelligencer, veteran of the Second Centaur War,
and a Giant-Friend.

Ragnar Svenson, an influential shipper in Flensborg, spoke up.

"We must force them to land south of town, just downstream from the
slipways of the shipyards. The ground is spongy there and turns to
marshland south of there. That will hem them in and slow down their
deployment. Our own forces will take a position on the firm level ground
back from the riverbank."

"That would be perfect for our wagons to operate," Drayk agreed, "but why
should the trolls land there instead of rowing upstream all the way to the
docks at Flensborg?"

"We block the river so they can't. I happen to know that are three ships
under construction on the ways right now, big ships built for service on
the the Great Inland Freshwater Sea. The river there is just deep enough to
float their empty hulls. We can launch them just before the trolls
arrive. The ships won't stay afloat for long, incomplete as the work on
them now is, especially if we smash a few holes in them. They will sink
fast and block the river."

"The trolls will have to land at the slipways or go back downstream and
look for a landing place beyond the marsh. The first suitable place is two
miles downstream. No, they will land right where we want them."

All members of the council nodded their agreement. It was a good plan.

.  . . . . .

"This steady south wind which the weather wizards have called up for us is
a godsend, Liam, even though keeping it going for days on end has exhausted
them."

"Actually sir restoring equilibrium to the weather systems behind us is
what has really drained their energies. The wizards had to turn the wind
systems right around, replacing the normal off-shore wind which blows out
to sea with a steady south wind blowing northwards. That kind of
manipulation is exhausting. I am afraid they won't have anything left for
when we confront the trolls."

"Maybe not but we will have two war wizards with us, you and what's his
name on the flagship."

"Warrant Officer Braeden."

"Right."

"We are so lucky to have had you on the foredeck like this these past three
nights, Liam. Thanks to your night vision, we have not had to heave to at
night but could continue sailing upstream. You must have the eyes of a cat
to see just by the light of the stars and the smaller moon."

"It's not just my wizardly night vision sir. I use the same tricks as
anyoneto get the most out of my night vision: don't stare, shift your gaze,
don't look at lights like the lanterns or fires ashore, or if you do, close
one eye to preserve its adaptation to low light."

"Another thing that has helped up get up the river so handily Liam, is that
the river runs fairly straight with a deep channel within well-defined
banks. I hate rivers that meander all over the landscape. They are all
shallows and sandbars."

"The only thing worse is trying to sail up a braided river. I was once
ordered to do that by an armchair admiral who referred to a map rather than
a proper chart. Maps show rivers as squiggly lines with no information
about them other than length Ñ nothing about width, depth, volume of
flow, or obstacles to navigation like weirs, rapids and cataracts."

"Why did the admiral use a map and not a naval chart?"

"It was all the man had to work with. The Navy does not chart river
channels and depths in foreign lands."

"I take it then there was not enough water under the keel?"

Dekker snorted.

"Enough to float a child's toy boat but not a frigate."

"The good news is that we are now hard on the heels of the troll horde,
Liam. It looks like we will get there in time."

"How far is it to Flensborg now, Captain Dekker?"

"Only a few miles. We should arrive by noon. Thanks to your infrasound
dispatches we know that the trolls are indeed landing just where the Frost
Giants want them to. We ourselves will land south of the marshy area. The
naval infantry and the sailors in our landing parties will form up and
march overland the few miles to the battlefield. With any luck we can fall
on their rear just as the trolls engage the Frost Giants."

As it turned out, part of the troll horde had picked the same landing spot
south of the marshes, perhaps two thousand of them to judge from the number
of longships drawn up on the bank. The trolls had split their forces hoping
to catch the Frost Giants in a pincer move when their columns converged.

But two could play that game. The naval force made its own landing and set
off in pursuit of the trolls. Dekker was disappointed he had to remain in
command of the squadron and the skeleton crews of the ships.

"I am relying on you Dekker to pull these ships out of here if things go
badly for us on land." Commodore Van Zant told him. "If we don't get back,
take the squadron down river and rendezvous with the fleet.

"But sir, you are our commodore. Isn't your place aboard your flagship?"

"In a sea action, certainly. Not in a land battle. Besides, I can expect
that if we succeed the Admiralty will promote me. As an admiral I will
never again get a chance to lead a landing party. And I will have you know,
Captain Dekker, that I can still swing a pretty mean cutlass. No, my
friend, I am going ashore. You covered yourself in glory in the sea
battle. Now it is my turn for some fun!"

"Good luck, sir."

An hour later, the Frost Giants and the main body of the trolls were locked
in combat near the slipways.

Frustrated in their hopes of rowing all the way to the docks at Flensborg,
the trolls had landed only to find that the ground was spongy which
hampered their ability to deploy and form their shield wall.

The worst part of the landing was the way the pesky humans took advantage
of the disorder in their ranks, swooping down on them in those fast wagons
of theirs all the while firing arrows and crossbow quarrels at them.

Unfortunately, once the trolls pushed forward to firm ground they dressed
their lines and presented an unbroken shield wall to the archers. Behind
their shield wall, the trolls' own archers engaged the humans, firing right
over their lines, sending plunging fire into the attacking humans.

At first the trolls aimed at their human enemies. but their arrows could
not penetrate the shields fixed to the sides of the wagons. Then the trolls
got smart and shifted their aim to the horses drawing the wagons. Their
greater strength let the trolls draw bows more powerful than those of the
humans. That let them outrange even the long bows of the human archers not
to mention their crossbows, a short range weapon in any event.

Troll arrows hit a few of the closer teams of horses, causing the humans to
abandon those wagons and scramble aboard others. In one case, a teamster
cut a wounded horse out of the traces and drove his wagon out of
danger. Faced with an unanswerable threat to the mobility that protected
them, the humans were forced to withdraw.

Still they had given a good account of themselves and had gotten the better
of the exchange. The Frost Giants raised a cheer as the humans withdrew
safely to their lines.

In close quarters it was the Frost Giants who had the advantage of reach
and not from their size alone. The trolls wielded axes against twelve foot
spears and longswords. Also the giants were a trained militia, able to
execute the difficult maneuver called a passage of lines where their front
line fighters stepped back as the second line stepped forward between them
and took their places. That pitted fresh giants against tired trolls.

There were over four thousand trolls against fewer than fourteen hundred
giants but each giant was worth two trolls. Clouds of arrows flew between
the armies. The trolls deployed more bowmen but the humans had a much
larger supply of arrows. They kept firing even after the trolls ran
dry. Their round shields could stop an arrow but could not shelter every
part of them all the time. The arrows of the humans took their toll.

The battle surged back and forth, neither side gaining any clear
advantage. The giants took heart. A stalemate would amount to a victory,
since the trolls would have to withdraw, leaving the giants in possession
of the field and the town. The Fyrd could draw reinforcements from a
population of fifty thousand. The trolls had to win this key battle for the
capital or lose the war.

Then the troll reinforcements arrived. The second column was two thousand
strong and threatened to roll up the giants' line. The giants disengaged,
pulling back as both armies paused to reassess the situation before
maneuvering for a final confrontation.

At that critical moment a tremendous clap of thunder shook the battlefield
as a giant eight feet tall stepped forward all alone, armed not with a
spear nor a sword or but with a war hammer, and protected by only light
armor: a buckler, breastplate, vambraces, and leather gauntlets their backs
covered with overlapping steel scales.

Proportioned for a Frost Giant, the hammer's hardwood haft was a yard long
and thicker than a human could get a hand around. It was made of resilient
ash which was wrapped with straps for greater strength. The head was as
heavy as that of a sledge but with cheeks that tapered to small faces front
and back to concentrate the force of the blow.

The giant raised the hammer to the sky drawing lightning bolts to himself
but taking no harm from them. Electricity crackled all over his body and
his armor as he cocked his arm and threw his war hammer at the general in
charge of the main body of the invaders. The hammer flew across the
intervening space while small lightnings playing across its steel
head. When it struck, the general's body exploded in a cloud of blood and
gore and bits of leather and metal.

The general was not the only troll to fall to that first hammer throw. The
hammer blasted a swath through both ranks of the enemy host before slamming
into a tree.

As the trolls let out a collective moan, the giant called out the name he
had given to his war hammer, a name celebrated in song and story.

"Mjolnir!"

Then all watched with mouths agape as Mjolnir the Mountain Crusher, the war
hammer of the legendary Thunder God flashed back into his hand. He held it
high in triumph as lightnings played all around him, then directed further
bolts from the sky down at the trolls, killing anyone who looked
important. Between lightning bolts and further hammer throws he killed
dozens of trolls.

The trolls did not know what to make of it all, but the Frost Giants
certainly did. They could see with their own eyes that in their hour of
need a great hero had arisen among them, a mythic figure from the days
before the old galactic empire. Harald Sigurdsen, the war chief of the
Frost Giants, lead the cheers.

"Thor! Thor! Thor!"

The giants felt like they were in the presence of an avatar, as he seemed
to be, of their thunder god of yore, though many recognized him as none
other than Finn Ragnarson. His magical gift had finally manifested itself
conferring on him powers shaped by his memories of the old tales he had
heard as a youngling. That was often how magic worked on Haven.

Taking heart from this sign, the Frost Giants reengaged the enemy, not only
with edged weapons but now with fire globes just then brought up, which
wreaked havoc among the trolls. The flaming oil clung to their clothes and
armor as it burned, literally cooking them alive. The stench of burning
hair and flesh joined the miasma that arose from the unwashed bodies of the
trolls.

The troll reinforcements tried to take the giants in the flank but they had
waited too long to make their move. Instead of attacking they found
themselves under attack as the Navy fell on them from their own right
flank.

The naval infantry and landing parties of sailors had maneuvered into an
advantageous position behind a Concealment raised by the two war
wizards. It wasn't that difficult even with troops untrained in marching
under concealment since the attention of the trolls had been on the battle
between the giants and the main body of the trolls. No one was even looking
their way.

Commodore Van Zant sensibly stationed himself with his reserves behind the
forward edge of the battle line as he orchestrated the attacks of the naval
infantry and the contingents from the various ships in his squadron. At one
point the trolls rallied and pressed hard against the naval forces. Van
Zant showed then that he really did swing a mean cutlass, personally
cutting down three trolls and saving two of his men.

The battle grew disordered from that point on, with no one really in
control. Clusters of fighters surged back and forth. One powerful cluster
formed around Thor, that is Finn. Fighting now at close quarters with
trolls in front and giants to either side, Finn had no room either for
lightning bolts nor hammer throws, though his body and armor still crackled
with electricity making it perilous for any foe to grapple with him, as
more than one troll found out.

Finn wielded his hammer with his right hand, maneuvering a buckler in his
left to fend off blades. Now a buckler is of little use against arrows but
Finn had nothing to fear from them either. As big a target as he was,
arrows simply swerved away from the giant as Finn used the magnetic field
of the planet to make them miss. Mjolnir took a fearsome toll of the
trolls, shattering the blades of their axes and smashing through the
shields of the trolls to crush their chests or break their shoulders or
take their heads off.

Another cluster formed around the commodore and his two war wizards,
Braeden the firecaster from the flagship and Liam of the Petrel. Braeden
directed streams of flame at the enemy or cast great clinging balls of fire
at compact groups. Liam either yanked the eyeballs out of the trolls' heads
or flashed his steel spheres back and forth to smash through the heads and
bodies of the trolls. At one point the commodore saw an opportunity and had
the wizards cut loose with white fire to scythe a swath through dozens of
the enemy opening the way for an attack by the naval infantry.

And yet a third cluster formed around a diminutive red-headed human who
'shadow boxed' his way through the ranks of his enemies, scything them down
with flashing steel spheres, his back and flanks protected by a bodyguard
of Frost Giants led by by his good friend Old Arn.

The trolls finally disengaged, then joined forces still nearly three
thousand strong and formed up on high ground back from the river. By then
the number of effectives among the allies was only about twenty-four
hundred. Still the allies had done better than the trolls had. Giants could
take more punishment than trolls, so they lost three combatants to wounds
for every one killed outright, whereas almost all of the fallen trolls were
dead.

It looked like more grim work ahead with a heavy butcher's bill still to
pay, but then trumpets sounded the charge of the Commonwealth cavalry. Wild
cheers rose from the throats of the giants, the archers, and the Navy, as
they watched three battalions of lancers, more than 1200 men, ride the
trolls down from behind. No sooner had they cut their way through the
trolls than the Frost Giants closed with those who were left. It was a
massacre.

Afterwards the cavalry and humans in their archery wagons chased down those
few trolls who tried to flee. None got away. The defeat of the invaders was
total, as was the victory of the defenders.

			Chapter 8. Aftermath

"Drew!" Finn cried happily as he embraced the diminutive red-head who had
played so valiant a part in their victory. "I am so happy to find you still
in one piece."

"If I am it is entirely thanks to Arn here and to his men who protected
me. The battle was so furious, I devoted all my energy to offense and did
not raise my Missile Shield, which wouldn't have done me much good anyway
fighting as I was at close quarters against trolls armed with axes. Arn and
his men kept me alive."

"You should have seen our young friend out there. The smallest fighter on
the field of battle but the one with the biggest heart." Arn assured Finn.

Ever the inquisitive journalist, Drew said:

"So I gotta ask, Finn, what happened to you? How did you become the avatar
of a thunder god?"

"Obviously I am not an avatar of a god, much as I like the sound of
that. No, I am still Finn Ragnarson. I woke up this morning with a full
realization of my transformation. My powers arise from a magical gift
manifesting in an unusual way. The magic drew on my memories of the old
tales of the Aesir, the gods of the Norse. Hence my powers are a weird
variation on gifts like magnetism and throwing lightning bolts or maybe
weather magic and my strength is doubled from energy drawn from the sky. I
may not be the biggest of the Frost Giants, but I am now the strongest."

"How do you work those tricks with the hammer?"

"Well the throw itself is fairly normal. I fling the hammer by main
strength with an assist from the leverage of the haft, so it carries
farther than a crossbow quarrel and nearly as far as a bowshot. To some
extent I can guide it using the magnetic field of the planet. Now I cannot
send my hammer whirling in all directions like you do your spheres. I just
make its path deviate a little left or right, so I don't miss. I also make
sure it rotates just right to hit the target business end first. Retrieving
Mjolnir is straight-forward enough. Magnetism attracts iron and steel and I
can concentrate the effect on a single object."

"Now when I call lightning bolts they don't flash from me to the target as
with those who throw lightning bolts, but I can call a strike from the
clouds or even from a clear sky. I don't really need the hammer for that. I
raise it to the sky for dramatic effect."

"The upshot is that I am endowed with a facsimile of the powers of a mythic
hero from our past."

"Wow! What a story! What a scoop! Bestseller and third Writers' Prize here
I come."

. . . . . .

"We meet again Liam. Last time we saw each other you were an inoffensive
coach-boy whom I befriended. Yet you have repaid me by alienating the
affections of my boyfriend Drew Altair. You and another boy, this Axel
Wilde, the third member of a threesome openly sharing rooms as lovers in
the capital." Finn noted.

"Unfortunately for you, Liam, I am very much the jealous type." Finn
growled. "You are courting doom, foolish mortal."

"Ah, but Finn or Thor or whatever you call yourself. Thanks to druidical
healing magic I am no longer mortal in the ordinary sense of that word. Nor
am I any more foolish than you for falling in love with Drew Altair, a
splendid boy who is certainly worthy of more than one lover. What I am is a
powerful war wizard of the Commonwealth. Which is why I won't be meeting my
doom any time soon."

"So you can drop the histrionics, my large friend." Liam added.

"I know perfectly well that with you feigned jealousy is a very old joke
and a regular part of your schtick."

"Damnation! He has unmasked me, Drew. What now?"

"As one of the heroes of Flensborg as well as the battle at sea, Liam bears
the tattoo of a Giant-Friend. What choice do we have, Finn, but to offer
him hospitality and welcome him to our bed?"

"Sounds like a plan", the Frost Giant cum Thunder God agreed.

. . . . . . .

"There is another message for you sir." Liam said to Dekker. "It also came
over the Army heliograph."

"I hope it is more good news."

The last message from the Admiralty earlier in the day had reported a
successful fleet action against a force of trolls twice as large as the one
that had been crushed at Flensborg. The First Sea Lord said they could not
be sure whether this force was a second wave directed at New Varangia or
was headed for some other target.

The fleet had deployed a reinforced squadron to leeward of the longships
hidden behind a Concealment that made them look like a clutch of helpless
fishing boats. The trolls took the bait only to find themselves trapped
between the squadron and the main body which had the weather gage on
them. The capital ships ran many of them down, ramming and sailing right
over them.

Each of the capital ships of the fleet was armed with four ballistas, two
on the foredeck and two aft plus catapults to lob clusters of fire globes
in a high arc to fall on the enemy. These were particularly useful against
the cargo ships the trolls had seized to carry provisions and supplies. By
ship action alone they devastated the enemy fleet. Then came the turn of
the mages.

The fleet had only one war wizard with the flagship but its capital ships
bore teams comprised of at least three mages drawn from weather wizards,
water wizards, firecasters and fetchers, a variation on the teams with each
field army. The job of the weather wizard was infrasound communications,
weather predictions, and stand-off combat by raising a waterspout. The
firecaster burnt the enemy vessels. As for the fetcher, he dropped ballast
stones from a height or flung them in a flat trajectory at the hull of the
enemy vessel, aiming at the water line. Two or three such holes would sink
the largest vessel.

Water wizards raised waves in pairs against groups of longships, catching
them in the trough between converging waves which crested and broke over
the enemy vessels driving them to the bottom.

Very few longships had escaped. The rest of the creatures had been killed
or had gone down with their vessels with modest losses to the High Seas
Fleet. The trolls had swarmed aboard two frigates and slain their crews to
a man. In revenge the firecasters on the capital ships set them ablaze as a
funeral pyre for their heroic dead.

Commodore Van Zant's squadron had been ordered to return to base at Alster
to replace its losses in sailors and naval infantry.

"I am afraid the Admiralty requires an acknowledgment before you read this
one, sir."

"Really? That is highly irregular."

"NeverthelessÉ"

Mildly puzzled, Dekker shrugged then said:

"Very well, Liam. If the Admiralty wants an acknowledgement on receipt, so
be it. Make to Admiralty from CS Petrel, Captain-Lieutenant Jan Dekker,
commandingâ"

"I'm sorry sir," Liam interrupted, "but that's wrong."

"What is wrong?"

"What you said just now."

"I don't understand. I am Captain-Lieutenant Jan Dekker, am I not?"

"No sir, you are not. You are Commodore Sir Jan Dekker, Knight Commander of
the Inland Sea, and Sword of the Commonwealth. That's what is says right
here in this dispatch," Liam said, handing it to Dekker to read.

"Congratulations, sir!" Lieutenant Dahlgren enthused. The others seconded
the motion with "Hear, hear."

Crawley nodded, then said as an aside:

"A two jump promotion, a title, and the top medal. I think that is about
right. Though they really should have made him a peer while they were at
it."

He spoke just loud enough for Dekker to hear but not so loud that the
senior officer couldn't pretend he hadn't. The two of them had come up
together, since the day a newly commissioned midshipman Dekker had reported
for duty aboard the brig Aurora.

"And sir," Liam added, "If I may presume to give a superior officer a word
of advice. When the time comes for the award ceremony, just thank the
Admiral and be sure to laugh at his jokes."

Dekker started to smile at his own joke being handed back to him then set
his features in a frown.

"You know Liam, I have read this dispatch twice now, but I don't see where
it said I had to acknowledge receipt before I even looked at it."

"Actually sir, I made that part up," Liam admitted, "to set up my little
joke just now."

"Harrumph!" Dekker growled in largely feigned umbrage. Pointing an
admonitory finger he said:

"We'll let it goâ this time!"

His eyes twinkled as he said it, but the steel in his voice let Liam know
he must never again take liberties with Dekker's communications.

"Uh, sir if I may, you once expressed a hope that my friend Drew Altair
would help the Navy get some good press."

"Hasn't that already happened with those dispatches he sent to the Capital
Intelligencer? And I know the Admiralty will have already have released my
report of our earlier battle at sea, so the story is already in the
papers."

"Yes sir, but Drew's reports on the Battle of Flensborg are only the
beginning. Drew has another bestseller in the works, an entire book about
the campaign against the trolls, at sea as well as on land. He intends to
interview all who took part. He'll do Ensign Lathrop's interview when he
returns to the capital then travel to Alster to get the story from those in
the High Seas Fleet."

"Naturally his account will give due credit to the Fyrd of New Varangia and
to its human allies and to the Army, but the Navy's part here was just as
significant if not more so, your own role especially, if I may say so,
sir."

"That is something of an exaggeration, isn't it Liam? As captain of the
Petrel I can fairly claim credit for our first victory at sea. It was a
spectacularly successful single ship action against an enemy flotilla, but
I did sit out the land battle."

"Yes sir, but it was you who made our victory in that battle possible. You
saved New Varangia!"

"How so?"

"You were the one who put it all together, the man who brought all our
forces together. You remembered a casual remark I made on the flagship
about how the local paper in Flensborg had a weather wizard on its
staff. Then you got the idea to pool the strength of all six water wizards
in the squadron to reach that man with infrasound and warn the Frost Giants
and the Army."

"I should have seen it myself, weather wizard that I am, but the fact is
that I didn't. Thanks to you the Frost Giants and the Army mobilized in
time to unite with our naval force in the climactic battle. The way I see,
you were the indispensable man and the real hero. And I am sure Drew will
portray it that way too."

"You aren't trying to flatter me, are you Warrant Officer Liam?"

"No sir. Not at all. Everything I just said you yourself know to be
true. But I am trying to extend an olive branch, as it were, for my lapse
just now."

Dekker nodded and said:

"Olive branch accepted."

Liam beamed.

			Author's Note

This story is entirely fictional, with no resemblance intended to any
person living or dead.

If you have enjoyed this story and others like it, consider making a
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This story is one of an occasional series about the further adventures of
the characters introduced in the fantasy novel 'Elf-Boy and Friends' and
published by Nifty Archive. The chief protagonist of the novel, Dahlderon,
elf-boy and druid, will appear in these stories in a supporting rather than
starring role. Each story in the sequence stands on its own, with the focus
on one or just a few of the original characters.

Readers who like these stories might want to try my two series 'Daphne Boy'
and 'Naked Prey' in the Gay/Historical section of the Archive. My 'Jungle
Boy' series of Hollywood tales is posted in the Gay/Authoritarian section.
The recent series 'Andrew Jackson High' relates the trials and tribulations
of five of its gay students. For links to these and other stories, look on
the list of Prolific Authors on the Archive.

Comments and feedback welcome.