This story is copyrighted by Reality Simulations, Inc. (around eight years ago).  Thanks are due to Steve Hartley for the creation of the Wanton Troll.  RSI runs a play-by-mail game called Duelmasters, a game of gladiatorial combat and role-playing set in the fictional world of Ghea.  This story takes place during the Rirorni War, when the frontier settlement of Rocanis is under siege by the invading Rirorni Horde.  If you would like to look into Duelmasters a little further, here's a link:

       The red stallion's hooves danced tirelessly over the rough terrain, eating up the distance in hundred-yard strides.  Mila reflected wryly that after all the time they'd spent crossing the Spirit Land in these last few months, his horse was spoiled for regular rates of travel.  Shaddan had been terrified by the Spirit Land at first, but now he always acted frustrated when they came out of the portal and suddenly his strides were only about four or five feet long.

         They were on their way from the Isle of the Eye back home to Rocanis, to check on the progress of Mila's team, Redhorse (silly to name the team after his horse--but it was a really good horse).  It was a two-day ride overland, plus another half-day in the Spirit Land.  They were approaching Rocanis now, and he kept a watchful eye out for the arcane patrols of the Rirorni.  Once they passed the spirit of an old man, walking into the west.  The dead always headed west.  Mila sometimes wondered what would happen if he followed one of them.  Where would they lead him?

         Suddenly the big stallion reared and whinnied, almost unseating his rider.  Reining in the horse, Mila reached for the bow slung across his back, and scanned the rough landscape for enemies.  He expected to see a Rirorni mage or priest.  He'd bought some enchanted arrows on the Isle, and wanted to see if he could shoot through those damned shields of theirs.

         Instead, he saw a reddish fog drifting up over a curve in the rolling plain.  The Spirit Land had weather, of sorts--it was always dark and gloomy, sometimes stormy, and occasionally foggy--but the fog was black, not red.

         "What the... wonder if these fancy arrows will hit that sucker," he muttered, stringing his bow.  But as he pulled a shaft from his quiver, it occurred to him that he ought to find out what the red mist was, before shooting at it.  "Come on, Shaddan."  Urging the nervous horse forward with his knees, he turned off the path and rode toward the mist.  It continued to flow over the rise until all of it was in view.  It was hard to judge the true size of things in the Spirit Land, but he guessed it was maybe twenty feet in diameter and ten feet high.  It was thickly translucent, like blood diluted with water.  It didn't move like fog.  Portions of it seemed to break off like chunks of rock and vibrate into new positions, making an unpleasant crackling noise.

         Shaddan trembled.  Mila realized that the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck were standing up.  The mist thickened and rose up in the shape of a column.

         A sudden hot agony blasted through his head.  With a loud cry, he clamped his hands over his temples, sending the bow and arrow spinning to the ground.  Something impacted against his side, and he knew vaguely that he'd fallen off his horse.  The sound of galloping hoofbeats receded into the distance.

         <<Heed me, mortal!>> a voice thundered in his head. <<I have need of you.>>

         "Oh, gods," Mila mumbled, "it's a manager trying to recruit me for his team."  Lifting his head off the rocky ground, he raised his voice.  "Go away!  I've already got a team of my own!"

         <<Team?>> the voice thundered. <<What are you babbling about, mortal?>>

         "What do you want?" Mila yelled.  With an effort, he sat up.  Blood dripped onto his arm.  He thought he'd cut his head on a rock, but then something tickled his upper lip.  He brushed it and his hand came away crimson.  "What did you do to me, you son of a bitch?"

         <<WATCH YOUR MOUTH, MORTAL!>>

         "I'm no mortal, you stinking fart!  I'm a Lord Protector!"

         <<When you die, your soul will walk to Ahringol's realm along with all the others until the witch of the Isle pulls you back, mortal.  I am Drkkiliakh, the Elkarrish of Rocanis, guardian of the dead.>>

         "Drkk--" Mila tried to pronounce the name, and coughed.

         <<Very good, mortal.  I need you to banish the Barvokk of the Rirorni.>>

         "The what?"

         <<The gatherer of souls.  My counterpart.  When the dying begins, I will take the dead to Ahringol where they will be judged and then reborn, or the Barvokk will take them to Mytori, where they will be tormented and then devoured.>>

         "I'm no wizard.  Why don't you banish the damn thing yourself?"

         <<The Barvokk is protected by many priests.  I cannot approach it.>>

         "Oh yeah, I know those shields of theirs.  Do you think a magic arrow could get through?"

         <<I do not know.  But I will bring you a weapon which will cut the shield.  Expect me in Rocanis tonight.>>

         "Cut it?  You mean, like, up close?"

         No answer.

         Holding his head, Mila scrambled to his feet and looked around.  The red mist was gone.  "Hello!  Anybody there?"   His voice echoed off the distant contours of the land.   "Where the hell is my horse?"

         "I want to lick your ear."

         The door of the Wanton Troll flew open, and Beulah, the wanton one herself, batted her six-inch-long false eyelashes and turned her head, presenting a large green ear.  Sound poured through the archway behind her: A band of humanoid frogs with tubas blasted out their arrangement of "The Full Moon Polka," with everyone in the establishment swaying back and forth as they shouted out the lyrics.  A black orc dressed in underwear, a garter belt, fishnet stockings, and stiletto heels teetered past the archway, bearing a tray of drinks.

         Mila hesitated, looking at the troll-woman's ear.  No one had told him the pass-phrase could have consequences like this.  Still, this would make it all the more difficult for the Elkarrish to find him here.  He stood on his tiptoes--for Beulah was as tall as she was fat--rested his hands tentatively on her massive, magenta-satin-draped form, and inserted his tongue in her ear.

         Giggling hysterically, Beulah turned, swept him into her arms, and bent him over backwards to give him a passionate kiss.  Mila's arms flailed, and muffled sounds of alarm issued from within the kiss.  After what seemed a long time she set him gently on his feet again, straightened his buckskin tunic, and said, "You're cute!  I haven't seen you here before."

         "Uh... yeah.  I heard about this place, but this is the first time I've been here."  He looked around, blushing.  Through a stone archway he could see the main taproom, where several gladiators seated at nearby tables were grinning wickedly at him.  One of them gave him a friendly wave.  "There's going to be someone in here looking for me," he said to Beulah.  "Someone I really don't want to meet.  Could you, uh, kinda steer him away?"

         "Sure!"  She clamped her massive green arm around his shoulders and squeezed.  "What's he look like?"

         "Well..."  Mila had heard that the Elkarrish took the form of whatever you feared the most.  He supposed he had fears, but he didn't think about them much, now that he was grown up.  When he was a boy, living in a tribe with no notion of plumbing, he'd been terrified that a stingerweed would scratch him on the butt when he was squatting to do his business, and they couldn't put a tourniquet on it and it would swell up to ten times its normal size and he'd die a deformed child, but he wasn't exactly sure how an Elkarrish would reproduce a phobia like that.  "I'm not sure.  Probably some mysterious-looking dude in a black cloak with a skull face and glowing red eyes," he said.

         "Oh, is your manager looking for you?" the troll-woman asked sympathetically.

         "No, it's not my manager, it's Drkk--" he coughed.  "--Elkarrish of Rocanis.  He wants to give me something."

         "Something bad?"  Beulah followed him into the taproom.  "Stretch!  A Flaming Hobbit for my friend--what's your name?"

         "Mila!" he shouted above the din.

         "Isn't that a girl's name?"

         "No, it's not!  My father's name was Mila!"  He was straining his voice to be heard over the music and its enthusiastic fans.  Another gladiator, seated near them, had clearly had a few more than his limit and was bellowing out his own version of the song's lyrics.

         "A Flaming Hobbit for my friend Mila!"  Beulah paused by the one empty table in the room, fluttering her ridiculous eyelashes at him.

         "Thanks!" he shouted, pulling out a chair and sitting down.

         The troll-woman pouted for a second or two, then pulled out the other chair and settled herself into it; it creaked ominously.  "So," she bellowed, "what is it this person wants to give you that you don't want?"

         "A weapon!"

         "Well what's wrong with that?"

         As the band swung into the song's finale, he yelled, "It's not the weapon, it's what I'm supposed to--" He stopped; the music had ended and he was shouting into the sudden silence.  ‘It's what I'm supposed to do with it.  The Elkarrish wants me to kill a Barvokk."  It wasn't that he was afraid--well, maybe he was, a little--it was mainly that he didn't want the responsibility.  He was a caravan raider, damn it, not a war hero.

         "What's a Barvokk?" Beulah asked.

         "I don't know, really, but it works for the Rirorni and it's supposedly pretty dangerous."

         "Well, good for you!"  The troll-woman reached over to pat him n the cheek, then pulled him across the table and gave him a wet kiss.  "There's my brave lad!  That Barvokk doesn't stand a chance!  Boys!"  She beckoned to some of the other patrons.  "Come over here and congratulate Mila!  He's going to kill us a Rirorni Barvokk!  Drinks on the house for Mila and his friends!"  Several people from nearby tables crowded around to express their appreciation and share in the drinks.  Someone proposed a toast.

         Mila wasn't sure whether Beulah had honestly misunderstood him, what with the difficulty in hearing, or whether she had simply chosen to do so.  But he was willing to accept the free drinks, and in fact all the toasts and back-slapping made him feel distinctly better about this monster-slaying business.  He could do it.  He might even enjoy doing it.  After a couple of Flaming Hobbits he was starting to feel pretty good about the whole thing, when--

         "Hello, Mila."

         The voice was soft and sultry, but to his sensitized ears it cut through all the background noise like a knife.  Hairs prickled on the back of his neck.  "Jirrandil," he rasped, his throat suddenly dry.

         Throughout the crowd that had gathered to share in the free drinks, men groaned or whistled.  Beulah looked greener than normal.

         Jirrandil pulled a chair over to their table and sat down.  She was as beautiful as ever, with her creamy tan complexion, long dark hair, and that figure any man would kill for.  In fact, Mila had killed for her, more than once--anyone she happened to want dead.  "How long has it been?" she murmured, leaning her elbows on the table and gazing into his eyes.  Someone set a Flaming Hobbit in front of her.  The firelight lent a reddish glitter to her brown eyes, which was appropriate because she was, in every sense, a hell of a woman.  They'd been married once.  The marriage had ended--as far as Mila was concerned, despite the tribal laws--the day she stole his horses, his cattle, his money, his tent, his cooking gear, his bedding, several other horses that he had stolen for her, their infant child, and his father's sword--and ran off with his brother.  Still, the sight of her stirred longings in his groin that he thought he'd gotten over.

         "H... how's little Mila?" he croaked.

         She looked perplexed for a moment.  "Oh!  You mean Royland.  I changed his name.  He's fine.  He wants to be a caravan guard when he grows up."

         Mila winced, as caravan raiders are wont to do when they discover their firstborn sons have joined the opposition.  "How's my brother?"

         Again, Jirrandil looked perplexed.  "That would be... Dorvald.  Right?"

         "That's his name," Mila replied through gritted teeth.

         "He died in prison.  Sorry.  I'm with a much nicer man now."  She smiled as though expecting him to rejoice with her.

         "Well, how's Stormcloud?" Mila asked, referring to his favorite stallion of old, a legend within the tribe for his speed, intelligence, fertility, and spirit.  "My horse."

         "Oh, that beast?  It was too wild to handle.  My husband gelded it and sold it to some teamster."

         As his outrage rose in his throat and choked back his power of speech, Mila merely sat and stared at her.

         "I happened to be passing through town," Jirrandil said, which was odd, since Rocanis was under siege, "and I remembered hearing you'd moved here, so I thought I'd give you this."  Unhooking something from her jeweled belt, she placed on the table a rusty scimitar with a dirt-encrusted handle and a broken tip.

         "My father's sword," Mila gasped, recognizing the once-beautiful weapon.

         "After it broke, my husband was going to throw it away, but I thought you might want it."

         He stared at her.

         "I rode several blocks out of my way to give you this," Jirrandil said.  "If you can't even manage to be gracious enough to thank me, I might as well keep it."  She reached for it.

         His big hand dropped possessively onto the filthy hilt.  With a growl, he picked up the sword and stood up, knocking his chair over.  The busy room was a blur to him as he pushed his way through the throngs of people and burst out into the dark, quiet alley.

         A horse was tethered next to the door: Khalani-bred, a tall and well-formed sorrel mare with a beautiful head and large, intelligent eyes.  Her saddle and bridle were inlaid with silver that gleamed in the moonlight.  Assuming this was Jirrandil's horse (as there was no other around, and she said she'd ridden here), he jerked the tether free, swung up into the saddle and dug his heels into the mare's sides.

         As they galloped through the dusty streets of the town, it occurred to him that that couldn't have been Jirrandil at all.  The one person in the world he least wanted to see, showing up on this particular night and giving him a weapon?  It had to be Drkklliakh.  So this was not really his father's sword at all, but a magical gift from the servant of Ahringol.  The real Jirrandil was far, far away, if not dead at the hands of some outraged ex-lover.  Mila's harsh laughter echoed through the quiet streets.  That Elkarrish had really had him going.  In his tremendous relief, he felt capable of any feat of heroism.  "Look out, Barvokk!" he whooped.  "I'm comin' to get ya!"

         Rounding a corner at high speed, he almost barreled into a black-cloaked form with glowing red eyes and a huge, lopsided, deformed butt.  "Mortal, wait!" it called after him, producing a glowing battle axe from out of the folds of its cloak.  "You'll need this!"

         But Mila, laughing wildly as his stolen horse careened through the sleeping town, didn't notice the figure at all.