'D'Arvit!'

'Don't touch that screen, by the way.'

'Oh, ha ha. We have time for jokes now, do we?'

'No, actually. Anything?'

The snow settled into recognizable shapes.

'That's it, hold it there. We've got a signal.'

'I've activated the secondary camera. Plain old video, I'm afraid, but it'll have to do.'

Root didn't comment. He was watching the screen. This must be a movie. It couldn't be real life.

'So what's going on in there? Anything interesting?'

Root tried to answer, but his soldier's vocabulary just didn't have the superlatives.

'What? What is it?'

The commander made an attempt.

'It's… the human… I've never… Oh, forget it, Foaly.You're going to have to see this for yourself.'

Holly watched the entire episode through a gap in the tapestry

folds. If she hadn't seen it, she wouldn't have believed it. In fact, it wasn't until she'd reviewed the VT for her report that she was certain the whole thing wasn't a hallucination brought on by a near-death experience. As it was, the video sequence became something of a legend, initially doing the rounds on the Amateur Home Movies cable shows and ending up on the LEP Academy Hand-to-Hand curriculum.

The human, Butler, was strapping on a medieval suit of armour.

Incredible as it seemed, he apparently intended going toe to toe with the troll. Holly tried to warn him, tried to make some sound, but the magic hadn't yet reinflated her crushed lungs.

Butler closed his visor, hefting a vicious mace.

'Now,' he grunted through the grille. 'I'll show you what happens when someone lays a hand on my sister.'

The human twirled the mace as though it were a cheerleader's baton, ramming it home between the troll's shoulder blades. A blow like that, while not fatal, certainly distracted the troll from its intended victim.

Butler planted his foot just above the creature's haunches and tugged the weapon free. It relinquished its grip with a sickly sucking sound. He skipped backwards, settling into a defensive stance.

The troll rounded on him, all ten talons sliding out to their full extent. Drops of venom glistened from the tip of each tusk. Playtime was over. But there would be no lightning strike this time. The beast was wary, it had been hurt. This latest attacker would be afforded the same respect as another male of the species. As far as the troll was concerned, his territory was being encroached on. And there was only one way of solving a dispute of this nature. The same way that trolls solved every dispute…

'I must warn you,' said Butler, straight-faced. 'I am armed and prepared to use deadly force if necessary.'

Holly would have groaned if she could. Banter! The human was trying to engage a troll in macho repartee! Then Captain Short realized her mistake. The words weren't important, it was the tone he employed. Calm, soothing. Like a trainer with a spooked unicorn.

'Step away from the female. Easy now.'

The troll ballooned its cheeks and howled. Scare tactics. Testing the waters. Butler didn't flinch.

'Yeah, yeah. Real scary. Now just back out of the door, and I won't have to cut you into little pieces.'

The troll snorted, miffed by this reaction. Generally his roar sent whatever creature was facing it scurrying down the tunnel.

'One step at a time. Nice and slow. Easy there, big fellow.'

You could almost see it in the troll's eyes. A flicker of uncertainty. Maybe this human was…

And that was when Butler struck. He danced under the tusks, hammering home a devastating uppercut with his medieval weapon.

The troll staggered backwards, talons flailing wildly. But it was too 227late: Butler had stepped out of reach, scooting across to the other side of the corridor.

The troll lumbered after him, spitting dislodged teeth from pulped gums. Butler sank to his knees, sliding and turning, the polished floor bearing him like an ice skater. He ducked and pirouetted, facing his pursuer.

'Guess what I found?' he said, raising the Sig Sauer.

No chest shots this time. Butler laid in the rest of the automatic's clip in a ten-centimetre diameter between the troll's eyes.

Unfortunately for Butler, due to millennia spent butting each other, trolls have developed a thick ridge of bone covering their brows. So his textbook spread failed to penetrate the skull, in spite of the Teflon-coated load.

However, ten Devastator slugs can't be ignored by any creature on the planet, and the troll was no exception. The bullets beat a sledgehammer tattoo on its cranium causing instant concussion. The animal staggered backwards, slapping at its own forehead. Butler was after it in a heartbeat, pinning one shaggy foot beneath the mace spikes.

The troll was concussed, blinded by blood, and lame. A normal person would feel a shard of remorse, but not Butler. He'd seen too many men gored by injured animals. Now was the dangerous time. It was no time for mercy, it was time to terminate with extreme prejudice.

Holly could only watch helplessly as the human took careful aim and delivered a series of crippling blows to the stricken creature. First he took out the tendons, bringing the troll to its knees, then he 228abandoned the mace and went to work with gauntleted hands, perhaps deadlier than the mace had been. The unfortunate troll fought back pathetically, even managing to land a few glancing blows. But they failed to penetrate the antique armour. Meanwhile Butler toiled like a surgeon. Working on the assumption that the troll and human physiques were basically the same, he rained blow after blow on the dumb creature, reducing it to a heap of quivering fur in so many seconds. It was pitiful to watch. And the manservant wasn't finished yet. He stripped off the bloodied gauntlets, loading a fresh clip into the handgun.

'Let's see how much bone you have under your chin.'

'No,' gasped Holly, with the first breath in her body. 'Don't.'

Butler ignored her, jamming the barrel beneath the troll's jaw.

'Don't do it…You owe me.'

Butler paused. Juliet was alive, it was true. Confused certainly, but alive. He thumbed the hammer on his pistol. Every brain cell in his head screamed for him to pull the trigger. But Juliet was alive.

'You owe me, human.'

Butler sighed. He'd regret this later.

'Very well, Captain. The beast lives to fight another day. Lucky for him, I'm in a good mood.'

Holly made a noise. It was somewhere between a whimper and a chuckle.

'Now let's get rid of our hairy friend.'

Butler rolled the unconscious troll on to an armour trolley, dragging it to the devastated doorway. With a huge heave, he jettisoned the lot into the suspended night.

'And don't come back,' he shouted.

'Amazing,' said Root.

'Tell me about it,' agreed Foaly.