Enemy of my Enemy
Grum'Bel in the Shadow Eclipse
If you haven’t met Grum’bel - Listen to his backstory
Mud squelched between Grum'bel's webbed toes as he tightened the final knot on the rope snare. The stench of stagnant water mingled with the bitter herbs he'd rubbed on his skin to mask his scent. Perfectly positioned at the eastern border of his swampland, this trap would catch any troll foolish enough to wander into his territory.
A grim satisfaction curved his lips upward. "Let them come," he muttered, voice gravelly from disuse. "Let them learn."
Overhead, birds suddenly scattered in panic. Grum'bel's hand instinctively dropped to the obsidian blade at his hip as darkness—thicker than any natural shadow—rolled across the sky like spilled ink.
His eyes, trained to see in the murky depths of swamp water, adjusted quickly. Something was very wrong. The darkness had texture—it moved against the wind, pulsed with malevolent purpose.
A vicious smile spread across his face. "Finally getting what they deserve," he growled, assuming the trolls of Troalstone were under attack. The thought warmed him despite the sudden chill in the air.
The swamp grew unnaturally quiet. Even the insects fell silent—a bad sign. Grum'bel crouched lower, his hatred momentarily overshadowed by survival instinct. Through the gloom, he spotted movement along the pathway from Troalstone. Not the careful steps of hunters or the purposeful stride of warriors, but the desperate scramble of something hunted.
A small figure burst through the reeds, splashing haphazardly through shallow pools. One of his traps triggered with a sharp snap, but the figure twisted away, only partially caught. Grum'bel heard a yelp of pain—high-pitched, young.
He should feel pleased. One less troll to grow up and threaten his swampland. But something dark and sinuous followed in pursuit, something that moved like no creature Grum'bel had ever seen.
Against his better judgment, he moved closer.
The trapped troll was a child, her leg bleeding where the snare had scraped her. She couldn't be more than fifty years old—a mere infant by troll standards. Her blue-green skin was pallid with terror as the darkness pursuing her took shape—flowing tendrils connecting to hooded figures whose feet didn't quite touch the ground.
"They took Papa," the child whimpered, sensing Grum'bel's presence without seeing him. "Please help me."
The words struck him like a physical blow. How many goblin children had begged trolls for mercy when their homes were destroyed? How many had been ignored?
"Not my problem, troll-spawn," he spat, but remained rooted to the spot as the shadows drew closer.
One of the shadow figures spoke, its voice a sound like drowning. "The vessel is young. Perfect for harboring the darkness."
The child sobbed, trying to free herself from the snare. Blood dripped into the swamp water, and Grum'bel felt a strange tightness in his chest.
"This is justice," he told himself, even as his hands clenched into fists. "This is what they deserve."
The closest shadow entity stretched out a tendril toward the child's face. Where it touched her skin, her color drained away, replaced by the same darkness that composed the Shadowcast.
Her scream cut through Grum'bel's carefully constructed hatred.
Before he could reconsider, he was moving. His blade flashed, severing the shadow tendril. The entity recoiled with a hiss like steam escaping a cracked egg. The wounded darkness writhed, its form temporarily disrupted.
"What is this?" another shadow figure demanded. "A goblin interferes? Take him too."
Grum'bel's hands moved swiftly, cutting the snare and pushing the child behind him. "Run for the crooked cypress," he growled. "Look for the hollow at its base."
The child hesitated. "But—"
"NOW!" he roared, brandishing his blade as the shadow entities surged forward.
Years of fighting for survival had made Grum'bel quick and vicious. He slashed at the approaching darkness, each cut earning an unearthly shriek. But for every tendril he severed, three more reached for him. Cold darkness wrapped around his ankle, burning like ice against his skin.
He dropped to one knee, fighting against the creeping numbness. The swamp—his home, his sanctuary—seemed to be darkening, dying around him.
Anger surged through his veins. This was HIS territory.
With a roar of defiance, Grum'bel plunged his obsidian blade directly into the muddy ground. The earth responded—gas bubbles rose from the depths, carrying the rotten-egg stench of the swamp's deepest anaerobic layers. The Shadowcast entities wavered, momentarily confused by the sudden eruption.
Grum'bel seized his chance. Crawling backward, he dragged himself toward the area where sinkholes dotted the swamp floor, disguised by innocent-looking mud. He made sure to step only on the solid patches he'd mapped over decades.
"Is that all you've got, troll-friends?" he taunted, his voice echoing strangely in the unnatural darkness. "Come get me, then!"
The shadow entities pursued, gliding over the swamp's surface. They didn't notice how the ground beneath them grew softer, more treacherous.
"The goblin will serve as well as the child," one hissed, reaching for him.
Grum'bel spat into the mud. "I serve no one," he snarled, then jumped sideways onto a half-submerged log.
The sudden shift in weight was all it took. The delicate balance of the swamp floor collapsed, and the sinkhole opened its hungry mouth. Mud churned and bubbled as the Shadowcast entities were pulled downward, their shrieks turning wet and muffled as the swamp devoured them.
Grum'bel watched with grim satisfaction as the last tendril of darkness disappeared beneath the surface. Only then did he allow himself to acknowledge the burning cold spreading from his ankle where the shadow had touched him.
Limping heavily, he made his way to the crooked cypress. The child was there, huddled in the hollow, eyes wide with fear and wonder.
"You saved me," she whispered, looking up at him.
Grum'bel grunted, uncomfortable with her gratitude. "Don't read too much into it, troll-spawn. I hate those shadow things more than I hate you. That's all."
The child considered this, then nodded solemnly. "My name is Blossom."
"Didn't ask," Grum'bel replied gruffly, though something in his expression softened imperceptibly. He glanced at his ankle, where dark veins were spreading slowly up his leg. "Can you walk?"
She nodded, though her injured leg trembled.
"There's an old troll healer at the edge of the swamp. Ugly old thing, but she knows her craft." Grum'bel pointed through the trees. "Head east until you reach the three boulders, then north until you smell smoke. Don't stray from that path if you want to live."
Blossom stood up shakily. "What about you?"
Grum'bel looked down at his infected ankle, then back at the child. For a brief moment, he saw not a troll but simply a frightened young being, not unlike himself when trolls had first driven his people from their homes.
"I have more traps to set," he said finally. "These shadow things aren't done with us yet."
As the child limped away, Grum'bel turned back to his swamp, which somehow seemed less like a refuge and more like a battlefield. The darkness was still spreading across the sky, and more shadow entities would come.
"So be it," he muttered, pulling herbs from his pouch to make a poultice for his ankle. "Let them come to my swamp. Let them learn what happens when you corner a goblin."
He wasn't fighting for trolls, he told himself firmly. He was fighting for his territory, for his right to hate trolls on his own terms, not because some shadow entity commanded it.
But the image of the child's frightened face lingered in his mind as he prepared his defenses, and for the first time in decades, Grum'bel questioned whether his hatred had made him blind to a larger truth: that some enemies threatened them all, troll and goblin alike.
