It bellowed again, planting its great hands against the stubborn stone and heaving its head free from the wall's crushing embrace.

  Everything changed when they found him. Stone believed that from that pivotal day—when those dwarves, adorned in what appeared to be finery yet were every bit as destitute as himself, offered him work that might finally make him worthy of the name Stone the Rock Troll—he had been reborn. Within his chest, fury and vengeance rekindled, a ravenous flame that needed no fuel to consume everything in its path.

  The pain surpassed all his expectations. Stone shook his newly-freed head, dismayed to find the wall merely dented rather than breached. Consumed by hatred for Cynthia, he raised both arms high and brought them crashing down upon the scarred depression with all his considerable might.

  He had agreed to their scheme without hesitation, willingly becoming a living projectile to be hurled against Cynthia's defenses. The Rock Troll hadn't concerned himself with details—only whether he could exact revenge on those wicked Cynthian soldiers. One particular dwarf—black-bearded and solemn—had sworn to him that should he break through the Cynthian wall, he would be free to wreak bloody vengeance upon the soldiers within. Stone harbored no murderous intentions; his mother had raised him to respect laws, but delivering a sound thrashing to some Cynthian soldiers, teaching them a well-deserved lesson—that seemed nothing less than justice.

  Failure was inconceivable. Though the dwarves had provided no instruction for what came after, he knew what must be done. His fists, encased in hard sub-dragonglass, shed fragments with each impact against the wall, only for new layers to regenerate almost instantly. Every thunderous blow sent white-hot pain lancing through his arms—such punishment threatened to permanently strip away his symbiotic minerals, causing irreversible damage. Yet rage drove Stone relentlessly forward, sensing the final barrier was weakening. He recognized intimately the feel and dull resonance of each stone—even though the Wall of Cynthia towered formidably, thick and reinforced with ancient magical wards, Stone's unbridled fury and his dragon-tempered rocky hide slowly eroded this hallowed bulwark. The Rock Troll envisioned the Cynthian soldiers on the other side, their nerves frayed to breaking, withering like overcooked noodles at the mere sight of his imposing form. His blows intensified, each tremendous impact punctuated by a triumphant, primal roar.

  With a final, resounding crash, the millennia-old barrier gave way, and Stone's mission stood complete. Billowing dust clouds swirled through the fresh breach, momentarily blinding the troll. He advanced cautiously, barely needing to duck—the opening stood over five meters tall, just sufficient for his frame. Stone brushed aside the obscuring dust with hands now stripped entirely of their mineral armor, eager to behold the terrified soldiers.

  He found nothing. The forest beyond remained undisturbed, pristine in its tranquility, appearing untouched by the chaos of war. A profound sense of having been deceived washed over him. The Rock Troll resolved to continue until he found Cynthians, his true quarry. Then, hearing soft voices in the distance, Stone toppled a spindly sapling with a casual swipe and charged forward with a thunderous bellow.

  Before him sat two young women, collapsed upon the ground with unfinished needlework scattered nearby. One—slightly plumper than her companion—stared up at him with such naked terror that Stone had never witnessed its like before. This was wrong—he had come to terrorize soldiers, Cynthian soldiers specifically—not civilians, and certainly not young women in the flower of their youth. The other girl, more delicately featured, sat rigidly as though transformed to stone itself, seemingly unable to draw breath. Stone desperately wanted to convey that he intended no harm. He struggled to form words: "I... I..."

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  He got only screams for his trouble, and the desperate scrabble of flight. The rounder girl shrieked, pushed herself up, and fled blindly, crashing headlong into an oak and slumping to the ground, senseless. Her friend was lost already, whispering the same word over and over, a prayer to the darkness.

  "Godma... I... am not... I... not..." he stammered helplessly.

  Then Stone felt it -- a faint trembling in the earth, growing stronger. Hoofbeats. Thousands upon thousands of them. He knew then. Knew what he had done. Knew what was coming.

  Stone shook his massive head and sighed heavily. He turned and lumbered back toward the breach, his pace quickening into an ungainly run, until finally he dropped to all fours, scrabbling like a panicked baboon or a ghoul that had gorged itself past mobility.

  He wanted nothing more than escape—from this place, from the shattered wall, from Wymar Forest, from Cynthia itself. The gateway he had created would soon become choked with the corpses of others.

  He fled from war, from catastrophe, from the crushing guilt that now consumed his conscience. The calamity he had unleashed would be paid for with countless lives that were not his own.

  "Faster!" Toyef Bilinski screeched, his voice raw. "Blue! Get that gods-damned dragon tendon free! Time's almost up!"

  Blue Rascal wrestled with the winch mechanism on the ground, while Green Varmint balanced precariously atop the trebuchet, struggling to unwind the precious dragon tendon from splintered wooden components. The taut, resilient material had become hopelessly jammed in the damaged machine, confounding even these experienced dwarf twins. "Rest of you -- gather your gear! Move out!"

  "I truly never believed we'd succeed in launching that behemoth," Toyef remarked with a crooked grin to Walin Barklo Vaslov. "When you initially proposed catapulting a Rock Troll, I was convinced you'd had too much ale and were jesting. It appears your vision exceeded mine. Had we employed an ordinary boulder, that wall would likely remain unscathed."

  "I was gambling on uncertainty," Walin admitted, heaving another bundle onto their laden wagon. "Jim and I happened to overhear the Godmans discussing that particular Rock Troll. After deliberation, we determined it might prove worthwhile—we're all humanoid races, which facilitates communication. Moreover, trolls are notoriously simple-minded, easily persuaded, and remarkably durable—especially that hulking specimen with his sub-dragonglass coating. He possessed the capacity to breach the wall... though we neglected to provide instructions for afterward." The black-bearded dwarf sighed. "In all likelihood, he'll rampage through the breach, intent on vengeance against Cynthian soldiers, and ultimately perish—whether at Cynthian or Godman hands. That remains our debt to him."

  "Rock Trolls possess considerable resilience," the red-haired dwarf reminded him. "Our situation, however, may prove more precarious. I must ask—do your convictions remain unchanged?"

  "My resolve is absolute," Walin stated firmly. "The younger ones must depart first. Even should I remain alone, my position stands unaltered. But such extreme measures apply only if we find ourselves truly cornered. For now, opportunity remains—the Cynthians haven't connected this operation to our involvement."

  "So the Rock Troll has successfully drawn attention toward the wall breach?"

  "That was the notion, aye. Call me a black-hearted dwarf if you like. Makes no difference to me."

  Toyef Bilinski fell silent, observing the sweat-drenched twins with concern. "Perhaps," he ventured reluctantly, "we should abandon the dragon tendon."

  "That grade of tendon would require selling half our guild's timber reserves to replace even a fraction of it."

  "It's Godma's coin paying for it, not ours."

  "Which is precisely why we must recover it, regardless of cost. Surely you understand this." Walin Barklo Vaslov fixed him with a meaningful stare. "Should we return without the tendon, those damnable Godmans will manufacture some pretext to persecute us."

  "...If it comes to that, better to face their wrath than to lose one another forever."