Troll Bridge (10 page)

Very.
Though she wasn't sure if any of her limbs would actually work.

“Good. I will…”

But before she discovered what the fox was going to do, a sharp
yip
sounded from outside the cottage, like a dog—or a fox—in great pain.

Foss?
She sat up.

There was no reply.

Foss? Foss!

Then, she heard—like an unholy combination of a speeding locomotive and summer thunder—a peal of roaring laughter.

Aenmarr,
she thought, lying back down in the box.
Why is he so happy?

A door boomed open and Moira heard Aenmarr speak for the first time.
Basso profundo.
“Trigvi! Second wife! It is time for my second supper.”

Foss? Answer me!
But he was silent.

He said he'd recruited help.
But he also said the help didn't know they'd been recruited.

Doomed,
she thought.
Doomed to become a troll bride.

*   *   *

LIKE MANY A PRISONER, MOIRA
discovered that it's hard to maintain a state of constant terror. Eventually captivity is boring. Moira's ears became her eyes, and as she lay in the box, she listened carefully to the trolls.

She could hear them getting ready for their meal. And as long as she didn't think about what they were making for dinner, it was astonishing how normal it all began to sound.

Trigvi popped out to the garden. The door slammed after her.

Buri banged a bowl with a stick in no discernible meter, while asking his father a never-ending stream of questions. “Papa, why be the sun turning us to stone? Papa, who be the princesses? Papa, what be Buri eating? Papa, where be Mama Trigvi going?”

Aenmarr sighed and burped and—from the sound of it—scratched portions of his anatomy that Moira didn't dare guess at.

Oddly, it made her miss her own home.

Trigvi returned with vegetables, calling out “Tatoes and carrows! Soooo good, my lovelies.”

Buri was set the task of chopping them. “Choppy-whoppies, my good boy,” Trigvi told him in her deep voice. He started his chopping task with great glee, which thankfully took all his concentration, forcing him to stop his incessant question-asking. Moira heard a
whoosh
as a fire was lit, then the steady crackling of flames.

With a great wheezing sigh, Aenmarr said, “I be getting ups and going to the larder to sharpen my knives. Tell me when the pot be boiling in the fireplace, wife.”

Moira heard him stomp off into the larder, and soon the telltale
swish-swash
of a knife being run across a whetstone came to her. She remembered the huge knives that hung on the larder wall in his first wife's house, on their ironwork lattice, and the ax on the table, atop a suspicious dark stain. She thought about the boy who'd cried out and had been swatted into silence.

Too frightened now even to tremble, she lay still, a single tear squeezing past her closed eyelids. She couldn't think of anything else to do.

12

Jakob

Running flat out in the darkness toward the sound of a blade being honed, knowing he had only seconds until one of his brothers was murdered, Jakob nearly knocked himself silly against the stone of a cottage wall.

“Oof.” The breath went out of him as he fell to the ground.
Too late, too late,
he wailed in his head.

Swish-swash,
the knife-sharpening went on.

Maybe not too late.
He gulped, stood.
I hope.

Suddenly, he heard a new sound behind him, like the high-pitched whine of an injured animal. Peering into the darkness, he made out a shape moving in his direction. He tried to give no hint that he was there. Closer, closer it came, until he could see that it was the fox, crawling painfully toward him, its two hind legs dragging.

Can't get distracted by that fox,
Jacob thought.
Have to get in and rescue my brother.

Pushing himself to his feet, Jakob eyed the wall that had knocked him down. It was huge. Then he turned to the fox and whispered, “Sorry, fella. Don't have time to help.”

The fox growled.

“Draw Aenmarr away.” The words popped into Jakob's head unbidden.

Jakob blinked. “I…”

“Draw Aenmarr away.”

Jakob shook his head—hard this time—and moved back from the wall, giving the fox a wide berth.

Despite its injured legs, the fox leapt up and bit him on the ankle, hard enough to break the skin.

“Ow!” Jakob yipped and tried to jump away, but the fox kept hold of his pants leg, tumbling him to the ground.

“Child of man,” came the voice in Jakob's head again. “Your brother has little time. You must draw Aenmarr away.” Then the fox let go of his pants. Staring eye to eye with Jakob, the fox nodded.

This is getting crazier and crazier,
Jakob thought. “Ummm … why?” he asked, not really expecting an answer.

“Because, human child, other help is at hand.”

A small sliver of hope piercing his heart, Jakob asked: “What help?”

“Draw Aenmarr away.”

“Okay. Okay,” Jakob said, letting out a long breath.

“Go.”

Jakob stood, stared for a second at the wall. Then he took a few quiet steps to his left, found a corner, and peeked around what seemed to be the front of the cottage. A bit of light leaked around the edges of a door, illuminating its size. The door went up and up and up, too big for him to open.

And what do I do once I get it open anyway?
he thought.
Say, “Hi, trolls, dinner is here”?

“Go!” the fox commanded again. “Your brother needs a hero.”

I'm no hero.
Trailing his hand against the rough stone of the cottage wall, he marched toward the front door.

The oak door towered above him and Jakob noted an angular-looking P carved into the middle. P
for petrifying,
he thought. P
for powerful.
“Here goes.” Reaching up, he made a fist and knocked on the door as hard as he could. P
for pounding.

Swish …
The sound of blade-sharpening suddenly stopped.

A young troll voice inside called out, “Papa, who be pounding on the door so early?”

Aenmarr's dreadful voice answered, “Perhaps your younger brother, Oddi. He be missing his meal, so busy playing silly buggers.”

“Should I be letting him in, Papa?”

“Let him stew, Buri.”

Unfortunate choice of words,
Jakob thought, remembering what had happened to poor Oddi. He pounded on the door again.

“Aenmarr!” he called out huskily. It came out a lot squeakier than he'd hoped. “Come out and meet your … er … doom!”

From inside came thunderous grumbling, then earth-shaking footsteps as Aenmarr bellowed: “Fools! And damned fools besides. I be thinking I be done with fighting knights and heroes. Besides, swords be giving me indigestion. It be why I agreed to the Compact.”

The door was flung open and Aenmarr's grotesque head glared out. He belched and said, “Who be daring to disturb my dinner?”

Jakob froze like a prairie dog beneath a circling hawk. But Aenmarr gazed right over him squinting into the darkness. “Fiddle-foddle,” he roared. “More silly buggers.” Then he slammed the door shut in Jakob's face.

Jakob stood open-mouthed before the enormous door, unable to believe his luck. After a long moment, he turned and said to the darkness, “What now?”

“Draw Aenmarr away.”

Jakob sighed, turned back, and hammered on the door once more. “Aenmarr! Your … um … doom still awaits you.” He took a deep breath and added, “Show yourself, you big hairy ape.”

“Hairy ape?” the fox's voice in his head asked. “Aenmarr will not know what a hairy ape is.”

Jakob shrugged and ran back to the middle of the clearing.

When Aenmarr didn't come out immediately, the fox said, “Try again.”

Jakob started toward the house when the door swung open and Aenmarr stood there, filling the doorway. This time he looked straight at Jakob.

“You be a small one,” Aenmarr said. “For a prince.” He smiled. It was not a reassuring smile. He turned his head to hiss something over his shoulder. Jakob couldn't make out what he said.

I have to get him out of the house somehow.
“Come, Aenmarr!” Jakob yelled. “Your…”

“Yes, yes, my doom be awaiting me and all that fol-de-rol.” Aenmarr waved his massive hand dismissively. “Let us be talking a bit first, young prince.”

Jakob couldn't believe what he was hearing. The troll wanted to discuss things? With his dinner? He wondered if Aenmarr recognized him. Or did all dinners look alike?

“Okay. Why…” Jakob gulped, then remembered how easy it had been to fool Oddi. He knew what to say. “Why don't you come a little closer. I can't really see you from here.”

The troll chuckled. It sounded like the throttling rumble of a big motorcycle. “I be quite fine here. Now tell me,” the troll said, scratching his belly and then his behind, “in what way be you my doom?”

Something's very wrong here,
Jakob thought.
Trolls were supposed to be dumb
.
But this one just sounded … well … crafty.
He bit his lip, and wondered how he might be crafty back. Then he had it. “You'll just have to catch me to find out!” he called.

“I be too old and too tired to be running after you, Little Doom,” Aenmarr sighed. “You must be coming here to kill me.”

What a predicament. Jakob had been running away from trolls all night. And now, when he actually
wanted
one to chase him, the stubborn creature refused. It just didn't make any sense.

“Well?” Aenmarr asked. “Be you coming to me, my Little Doom?”

Any suggestions?
Jakob hoped the fox could hear his thoughts.

The reply was immediate. “Yes, human child. Hurry. Aenmarr is the only troll left in the house. I do not know when the others will return.”

The only one left?
Jakob thought.
I wonder where the …

Just then, he heard something behind him and spun to face whatever it was. A huge shape reared up from the darkness, a long blade clutched in its hand. Jakob leaped backward, almost tripping over his own feet in his hurry to escape. And almost ran right into another, slightly less huge shape coming at him from the other side.

Suddenly, Jakob came to a terrible realization: Trolls weren't entirely stupid. While Aenmarr had been keeping him busy, the troll's wife and child had sneaked out the back door, skinning knives in their hands, to circle around behind Jakob.

“Away, human child!” cried the fox urgently.

But Jakob didn't need any urging. He did a forward roll between the smaller troll's legs.

Wheeesst!
came the sound of a knife blade slicing through the air far too close to his back. Then he was up and running, sparing only a single glance over his shoulder.

Aenmarr was already out of the doorway and loping after him, tree trunk legs eating up the ground between them at a horrifying rate, and yelling “Doom! Come back, Doom!”

Jakob paid no attention to the troll, and just kept on running.

13

Moira

Foss … Foss,
Moira called silently.
What's happening?
The house had suddenly become quiet.
Too quiet.
She tried to sit up, to peek over the side of the box, but fear, like an old habit, clamped her limbs and she couldn't move.

“Get up, child of man.”

Child of man and woman,
Moira answered automatically, wondering if she could sit up now.

“Get up, child of man and woman.” The fox's voice had the same tone as her harp teacher when Moira had made the same mistake three times in a row: slightly sharp and slightly tired.

Get up and go where?

“To the larder.”

The larder was the last place she wanted to go. She'd never actually seen a dead body. A dead, chopped-up body. She and her parents were vegetarians, for gosh sakes.

“He is not dead, human child. Listen.”

Listening was something she was good at. So she lay in the box and listened to the soft, almost imperceptible breaths of the girls in the box with her. To the snap of the fire in the hearth. To a soft pain-filled groan coming from … the larder.

“The larder!” Sitting up, Moira whispered, “Foss, he's
not
dead.”

“I told you, human child. You must get up quickly and go into the larder and save him.”

She got up, stepping over the four girls, who didn't even flutter a lash at her.

“My limbs still work!” She felt as if she hadn't moved in a week. “But…” She hesitated. “What about them?” She pointed to the girls who lay as still as dolls. Four here, seven more elsewhere.

“Leave them. I told you, this is only Thor's Day. We have till tomorrow.”

“Today would be better than tomorrow.” She stretched out her arms, worked her stiff fingers, wondered if she'd ever be able to play the harp again.

“The princesses are under an enchantment. You could not move them by yourself. Help is here.”

She gazed speculatively around the room. “Help is where?”

“In the larder.”

Oh!

She ran into the larder. In it stood a troll-sized oak table and three troll chairs, two at the ends and a smaller one snugged in on the side closest to the larder door.

A boy about her age with sandy-colored hair hung upside down from the ceiling, a heavy beige rope knotted around his ankles. The far end was tied to an iron hook on the wall. Another rope was wrapped tightly around the boy's body, keeping his arms against his side. He was moaning.