Mettle & Steel: Parts One & Two
"The Troll" by Andrea Alemmano Mettle & Steel, Part 1 “All dogs have fleas.” Course they do. Mutts rooting around in the gutters, anyway. I’m sure there’s some high-strung pure-bred pup somewhere up in the white castles of Edinhal who’s never felt the sting of a flea on his perfectly manicured rump, but I’ve never met it. I joined up with my current band of mutts after too many days of baby-sitting them damn caravans. Back and forth across the plains, day after day, same rocks in the distance, same sparse clouds too far away, same whining voices. Not sure how I stood it. Guess I didn’t, in the end. Captain Wilberforce seemed to have his head on straight. No caravans for him. He’ll take the gray fens and the tangle-vines over consoling some fish-monger about the poor state of the weather. So I signed me up. Course, then we got into the marshes, and I was almost - almost - missing the banter of merchants and their bloated wives. The beast we were tracking - a great trol
