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The only way I could escape from the great house without being seen was through the cellars which ran to several outward passages further down the hill. I had a matter of minutes before the warlord's guards would discover his mutilated body in his private rooms, but I should be well into the forest by the time they had mounted a hunt for me.

However it had been a long time since I had mastered the routes through these underground corridors and I was losing my bearings. The corridors ran into vast empty rooms, each of which had several doors leading into further corridors. In the dim lighting I could only guess which was the correct door to take. I felt I was making progress but the exit I would find would be by chance, not by good judgment or memory.

After travelling underground for several hundred yards I came to a pair of large, arched oak doors with wrought-iron embellishments. There were ventilation holes in the doors through which came a strong, damp, earthy smell, and the room beyond seemed to be the source of this smell which filled the corridors some way back from this point. The house was built on the side of a hill which ran wet with springs of warm water originating from the volcanic mountains about 10 leagues west, and the heat percolated through the lower levels of the house.

I pressed the heavy door-handle down, and it took some effort to make it move enough for me to open the door, which itself seemed hung on hinges which had long since lost their lubricating grease. I pushed the door open as quickly as I could to minimize the grinding screech that echoed back along the corridors. The room inside was dark and I could barely see the furthest reaches of it through the murky dankness. A thick mist filled the air and water lay in pools across the floor.

As my eyes became accustomed to the gloom I saw another large door on the opposite wall, evident only because of thin streams of light which filtered through narrow slats on the door. This was my route out of the house - I would soon be hidden by the forest and on my way back to our fort.

Suddenly I became aware of a movement in the misty darkness. Something was emerging from what I assumed to be the floor. Peering through the haze I realized that this was the figure of a man, an increasingly large man as he raised himself to his full height. I realized that this man was in fact bathing in a pool of mud which lay across most of the width of this room, evidently warmed by a hot spring and used as a place for relaxation. I gasped as the man's form became clearer to my eyes which were rapidly adjusting to the light. He was enormous, a full foot or so taller than myself and of impressive width. He was dwarfing even myself who owed my position as leader of the most feared mercenaries in the land to my physical stature and strength. His outline was given the illusion of appearing even more impressive by the layers of mud which were dripping from his huge limbs. Like a gigantic troll he took on a most threatening stance. I raised my sword to meet the challenge. I had to make my escape, and the route to my escape required me to deal with this threat.

With surprising agility the giant figure ran the few steps to where his own sword was lying beside his garments. Returning to block my passage he raised his sword high over his shoulders and readied himself to strike down hard with it. He was an awesome sight, even in his nakedness. The dark mud added to his threatening appearance. The whites of his eyes contrasted starkly with the darkness of him, and I could see that his eyes were wide with aggression.

I had, however, faced such challenges before. I knew from long experience that a man's sheer size were not always a match for my skill, and I was strong enough to defeat almost all of my challengers. The situation I was now in made it all the more important for me to draw on all my resources, and I was certainly not going to let this man prevent me from escaping.

The first opportunity that I was going to make the most of, was offered by the slipperiness of the rock floor which was wet and, in some places, muddy. The huge man was barefoot and I had already seen him sliding as he positioned himself in front of me. Before he could get his feet dry I was going to take him off-balance, although my own feet were bare too, but gritty from the dry cellar floors and I had to keep my more sure-footed advantage for as long as possible. I moved swiftly towards and to the right of him, and raised my sword to take a good swing at him as he came for me. Clearly he was having difficulty
keeping his balance, but still he moved surprisingly fluidly. As we came close to one another, he swung his sword at me, and as I evaded the sword's downward arc I spun around and took aim at his shoulder. Unfortunately the momentum of his own swing combining with the slipperiness of the floor threw him off-balance and he fell at the very moment my sword should have connected with his shoulder. Amazingly, he regained his balance and withdrew before I was able to make a thrust at him. Then he came for me again.

This time our swords clashed together and it became apparent to me that this man was stronger than I. The force with which his sword met mine was as great as any I had felt before. Nevertheless I could surely match his strength with my skill. It was becoming apparent, however, that he was skillful too. The thought crossed my mind that he was probably one of the warlord's special guards who committed their very lives to his safety. I resolved not to underestimate this man, though his bulk gave me the distinct impression of brutishness. I would not be taken in by this.

It was only partly surprising, then, when he hit my sword with such force that my wrist gave way and my sword spun out of my hand. Instantly the man had his sword at my throat. One quick thrust and I would be mortally cut. He held the sword there. I held my breath. I imagined him savoring that extended moment, bringing it into his full awareness so that he could hold on to the memory of it long afterwards. Or perhaps he was giving me the opportunity to feel my own defeat and everything it would mean to those who depended on me. With the sharp edge of his sword pressed against my jugular vein, he held me in that moment, as I waited for the sword to end my life. But it was not to end as quickly as that.

I saw his eyes narrow, and as he held the pressure of the sword against my neck, I saw his features spread into a leer, which was equally as threatening as his stance and postures had been before. Without, it seemed, in any way lessening his focus on holding me at the very point of death, he began to appraise me, in the way that one might appraise an animal that one was about to kill for sport. He studied my shoulders and chest and, giving an extra touch of pressure to my jugular by way of warning, he took his gaze downwards to my thighs. The leer on his face was growing, as it became clear to me that he was admiring my body, as many had done before, because I was amongst the very strongest of my peers, though like a lion, athletic, a coiled spring, not heavy and lumbering as this man was. He held the sword hard against my neck as he looked at me and I could see him calculating what to do with me.

Then I felt the pressure of his sword slacken, and he withdrew the sword altogether, and threw it across the muddy floor where it clattered to a rest. He was standing directly between me and the door I needed to reach, so my path was not yet clear. He took up a wrestler's stance, and beckoned me to him. So I was having another chance. I was skilled at wrestling, and had certainly defeated many a stronger man than this. And this was going to be no exception. This was a match I was going to win. However, it had to be a match to the death or, at the very least, to senselessness, because I could only escape by rendering this man incapable of holding me back. I matched his stance. I was ready for this, my senses heightened by the fear that the hard edge of the sword had aroused in me. This time, it was the big man who would find himself afraid.

We reached towards each other, fingers outstretched to grasp and interlock each other's fingers. My broad hands met his and immediately I felt the greater size of his hands and fingers. For a few moments we grappled, looking for a shift in the other's balance and an opportunity to gain advantage. I felt him begin a move to take control and in that moment I loosened my fingers and leapt up at him to lock my arm around his head. Though I had his head in a good grip, he caught me in a bear-hug, and pulled me off my feet. Though I was twisting his head as hard as I could, he had nevertheless managed to get his massive arms around my chest and was squeezing me with all his might. My feet were off the ground and I tried to get some purchase by climbing on his legs, but the wet mud prevented me from gaining a grip.

I loosened my hold around his head and placed both my hands on his face and forced his head backwards. Unable to take the pressure he loosened his bearhug and I fell to the ground. Straightaway he dropped onto me, straddling me with his enormous thighs. I punched him hard on his chest, but straightaway I could see that punching was not going to achieve much. Using the slipperiness of the mud that prevented him from immobilizing me, I turned within his thighs to gain some ability to push him off me. His thighs closed tighter around me, but I was able to turn sideways and raise myself onto my elbow. He wrapped his muscled forearm around my neck, though there was not much he could do with me in that position. Using my free arm I levered myself further off the ground. But I was vulnerable there and he used my vulnerability to turn me so that we both fell sideways and he had me in a face-to-face bodyscissors around my waist.

His thighs were unbelievably huge, seemingly way out of proportion even to his massive frame, and it was surely these that had brought the word 'troll' to my mind. I could feel both the weight and the force of huge muscle in those thighs as he held me engulfed. He lay and looked at me, as if challenging me to extricate myself from this overpowering position. It was fortunate that we were both wet and muddy by this time, so I had some freedom of movement, but nevertheless his legs were enveloping such a large part of my torso that such range of movement that I had was not enabling me to escape the scissor lock. I managed to turn sideways. He then took advantage of my exposed groin to wrench apart the leather thongs which held my metal groin-shield in place, and he tossed it dismissively aside. So we were both naked now. And he was still leering at me, though breathing heavily from the exertion of our wrestling.

I struggled to extricate myself from the man's massive legs and it seemed that he was enjoying watching me struggle. He continued to appraise me, as if both admiring and dismissing me at the same time. It was as if he were working out what he could do with me. But I felt that he overestimated his advantage. I had learned many ways to overpower my opponents, and I would turn his seemingly aimless efforts against him to defeat him.

Still holding me between his legs he locked an arm around my throat and began to squeeze. His arm was so big it was more like being held between a pair of legs. My throat was in the crook of his elbow and it was just moments before my mind began to swim as the blood supply to my brain was constricted. He squeezed me harder and harder until I felt I was losing consciousness. I struggled to escape but he had such a grip around my throat that I was quickly weakening. I was fast becoming disorientated, and I knew that my plan to escape would have to wait because the immediate situation needed to be dealt with even more urgently. Summoning all my energy I elbowed him hard in the stomach and side, over and over, and struggled so hard to extricate myself that eventually he loosened the twin grips with which he held me, both around my neck and around my body. I pulled myself away from him and struggled to my feet, my head reeling from his choking hold to my
throat. What I had not realized was that he had maneuvered the two of us to the edge of the mud pool, and it was into this that I overbalanced.

At once he was on top of me again, his arms and legs searching for some sort of grip on me. The pool was shallow, but nevertheless deep enough to drown in unless I kept my head up. If I could gain advantage, this might be how I could finish this fight. To get some advantage, I wrapped my legs around the man's waist with a view to turning him under me. The weight of the man was threatening to hold me down and I was having to work hard to keep my head out of the mud. Though I had the man held surely between my thighs, and my ankles locked behind his broad back, the mud was slippery and it was not easy to turn him sideways. I grabbed his head between both my hands and pulled him down hard towards me, but this was making it even more difficult for me to avoid submerging in the mud. With a desperate effort, I managed to begin turning him sideways, and although I could feel him struggling to keep on top of me, slowly but surely I was turning him into the mud.
My thighs have often been the reason why I have won fights before, and this time I was using them in a contest between escape or death. I squeezed and levered the man as hard as I could. As he fell sideways, he turned within my slippery thighs so that he was now being held in a side scissors and he could keep his head above the thick mud's surface.

I held on tight with my legs and got a firm headlock on him in the hope that I might hold him down in the mud, but it was looking as if this wouldn't work. We wrestled together in this way, with him trying to loosen my grip around his neck and simultaneously struggling to extricate himself from between my thighs. At one point, when I dropped my guard for a moment, he elbowed me in the face and broke my grip. We both scrambled to our feet, but before either of us could get upright he had pushed me back into the mud. Somehow in the scrambling he managed to get his legs around my upper body and neck and gripped me in a figure-four. He turned his massive bulk into the mud and my head fell beneath the surface. He held me there for several moments before, for some reason, turning again so that I was out of the mud again. I gasped for breath and spat mud from my mouth. As I did so, he shifted his position into a full head scissors, and my face became submerged not in the mud but between his mud-thick thighs. Though I could surely slip my head from between his legs, I used the moment to get my breath and recover.

Encased in those walls of mud-covered muscle I took a few moments to consider how I was going to extricate myself from the grip of this huge man who seemed merely to be playing with me, whereas I, in my efforts to escape, was engaged in a life-or-death struggle. The man squeezed his thighs around my face. His legs were hugely powerful, and I was only feeling sorry that he was not one of my own men. But this was no time for idle thoughts. I turned so that my face was full in his groin and grabbed his legs in my arms to lift him clear out of the mud. As I did so he took my momentum and turned sideways so that we fell back into the mud. My head was still held fast between his thighs. But by using the slipperiness of the mud I wedged my hands between his thighs and pushed my arms through and with an effort borne of urgency pried his thighs apart with my elbows. He then shifted his grip to a body scissors. At least I was clear of the mud. He wrapped both his arms around my throat and head and squeezed me hard between his arms and his legs. It was as if he were tying to contain me, to pull me into him, to get as much of an overpowering grip on me as he could. I had to find a way to free myself of this man, or he would have me here long enough for other guards to find me here. But for the meantime, it was looking as if he was just too strong for me, and I was weakening from being overpowered so thoroughly. He, on the other hand, seemed to have
energy to spare. So I relaxed for a while, and let him hold me to him, his massive thighs engulfing my upper body, and his arms enveloping my head.....

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