A Troll And Sorceress in Middle Earth: 2

Jim pulled himself up from the wrecked tree he’d landed in. It hadn’t hurt him, but it’d been a long fall, through a dense mass of tree branches until he’d landed… here.

Where am I? He’d never heard of a forest like this, anywhere near Arcadia. And where was everyone else?  He’d lost—

“Claire? Claire!” Jim called out, then shouted.

Claire, Claire, Claire… nothing but echoes answered him.

We beat her, and Claire is alive. I just have to find her. And the first thing to do was to get out of this forest, find some place with a phone and get back home.

Maybe this is Yosemite?  It didn’t feel like that… I felt kinda creepy.

“On the bright side, I don’t have to worry about the sun,” Jim said to himself. Choosing a point at random, he set off to get out of the forest.

****

Several hours later, Jim swore at his stupidity, when he ran into the place he’d fallen through the canopy. The light was dimming to night, and he could see, but…

Okay, gotta think. I gotta make a path. But I don’t want to wreck the forest, because yeah, I bet the rangers would be pretty angry.

On the other hand, when Jim had climbed one tree, he hadn’t recognized any of the constellations.

Maybe Morganna had knocked Claire and Jim a lot further away? The Southern Hemisphere, maybe?

“Okay, first thing…” Jim looked around. It was really getting dark and even if he could see, he couldn’t see as well as he could when it was lighter. He might miss something.

Maybe someone can find me? Jim nodded and pulling out eclipse, started hacking at the falling tree, his trollish strength easily taking hunks of wood and piling it into a mass, even as he moved other bits away. The forest was damp, but nobody would thank him for starting a forest fire.

Using Eclipse, he quickly made a pile of logs, chopped up and shredded bits serving as tinder. Then Jim pulled one of his throwing glaives out and drew it along Eclipse’s edge, the metal striking sparks into the tinder, which quickly caught fire.

“Hah!” Jim said. “Scouting practice for the win!” The fire quickly spread, and soon there was a bright yellow blaze, the light driving back the dark and damp, and Jim was grateful for the heat. He might be half-troll, but he was half-human and human Jim had never enjoyed being cold.

Around him, eyes gleamed out from the woods, but none of them looked dangerous, and Jim didn’t hear anything moving in the forest. Nothing big, not like a troll.

Right. Tomorrow I’ll figure a way to move through the forest without getting turned around and then I’ll find Claire.

With that, he leaned against a tree, and watched the fire burn.

But his were not the only eyes that watched it…