Troll Bridge (11 page)

“Stop moaning. The trolls will hear you,” she warned.

He stopped moaning and turned his head toward the sound of her voice. The left side of his face was already purpling where the troll must have hit him earlier to shut him up. The right eye was a startling blue. Even in the dim candlelight of the larder she could see that.

“Trolls?” he whispered. “They were
trolls
? Like in fairy tales—trolls?”

“What did you think they were?”

“Huge. But then lots of folk in Minnesota are huge. Viking stock. I thought they were … kidnappers. Wanting ransom.”

“Ransom?”

He sighed. “You know. For giving me back.”

“They don't give back people. They eat people.” She said it matter-of-factly.

“Cannibals?” He moaned again. “I thought you said they were trolls. Can you get me out of here?” His voice rose. “Now?”

“Shhh.” She came closer, stared up at him. He was hanging about a foot and a half above her.

He stared back. “Are you a troll, too?”

She laughed, a short sharp bark, like the fox. “Do I
look
like a troll?”

He gulped. “You look like a…”

“I'm a musician. And…”

“Let me guess,” he said. “A Dairy Princess.”

She gawked at him as, all unaccountably, he broke into song. His voice was a pleasant tenor, and he was on key, the more surprising since he was upside down.

And he was singing:

What's better than a butter girl?

Badder than my better girl.

Best when I'm not buttered up as well …

He began coughing so strongly, he bounced up and down on the rope.

“I'm going to try to get you down,” she told him, keeping her voice low and sensible.

He stopped coughing. Closed his good eye and opened it again. “Ready when you are. Just do it.”

She spotted six wooden-handled knives hanging from pegs on the whitewashed wall. Each knife looked as large as a sword. Two had serrated edges and one had a hammer-like thing on the bottom of the handle. But they were far too high up for her to reach.

Then she noticed a honing strap and a seventh knife on a three-legged chopping block by the side of the dining table. The chopping block was also above her head, but she thought she might be able to push it over if she could get a good run at it. Three legs were not as steady as four.

“Hold on,” she told the boy.

“Is that a joke?”

She ignored him and, backing up till she felt the far wall behind her, she pushed off. Hands straight ahead of her, she ran full tilt at the nearest leg of the chopping block. Striking it hard, she got it teetering. Quickly, she gave a half turn and shoved her shoulder into the front legs and the stocky chopping block fell over, clattering onto the floor.

“So much for being quiet,” he called down to her.

Her shoulder hurt. “Best I could do,” she muttered, and picked up the knife that was as big as a broadsword. All the while she was thinking,
Stupid, ungrateful boy,
quickly followed by,
Shut up, Moira.
Because of course he was scared and saying the first thing that came to mind. At least he'd stopped moaning.

Foss' voice came sharply into her head. “What was that unholy racket?”

“Hero at work,” she shot back at him. “Why aren't you in here helping?”

“Who are you talking to?” the boy asked.

“Foss.” As if that told him anything.

“Who is he? Another troll?”

“He's … he's another musician,” she said.

“That makes three of us,” the boy said.

But if he's a musician, too,
Moira wondered,
why doesn't he hear Foss?

The fox didn't answer, nor did she expect him to. He was very good at giving orders and being tricky. But when it came to the actual hard work, he was never around.

Lugging the heavy knife back to the hanging boy, Moira swung it with all her might at the rope attached to the iron hook.

The knife bounced off, making no impression on the rope. None at all.

“Well,” Moira said, huffing with effort, “that was fun.” Her arms ached from the blow.

“Saw…” the boy said to her, his voice a raspy whisper. “Use it like a saw.”

He was right, and she immediately began sawing at the rope, the heavy knife held high over her head. It was a very uncomfortable position but, she supposed, comfort was hardly something heroes ever worried about. “This is a very tough rope,” she told him, “so I'll have to do it strand by strand.”

She sawed until she thought her arms would fall off her shoulder. Back and forth, back and forth. Suddenly the strand parted with a loud
pop
!

“There … that's the first one. Now for the second.” The rope was braided, which made it extra strong. Good for hanging up dinner. Bad for cutting through. It took some time.

“A third…”

“Just let me know when it's all gone through,” he interrupted, “so I'll be expecting the fall.”

“Okay.”

“I need to be prepared. I was a Boy Scout, you know. Not for very long. Hated the uniform.”

He was babbling now.
Just as well,
Moira thought.
It will keep his mind off the trolls.
She sawed through a fourth strand, without answering him back. Then a fifth.

“Child of man, the trolls…” came Foss's voice.

“And woman,” Moira whispered, as the last strand began to part.

“Last one,” she said, to alert the boy, before placing the knife on the floor so as to be ready to help him.

But this strand didn't burst apart as the others had. Rather it unraveled, slow enough that she had time to catch him as he fell. They both went over backward, though she managed to cradle him against her body. It turned out he couldn't stand up on his own.

She scrambled out from under him and pulled him to his feet.

“Cut them. Cut the ropes.…”

“How about saying thanks?” she asked huffily.

“Hurry, child of…” Foss began.

“Oh shut up,” Moira cut him off. “We're almost out of here!”

“I don't want to shut up,” the boy said.

“Not you—Foss.” But explaining would take too much time. “Trolls coming,” she said. “Not going to cut the rest of the ropes here.” She grabbed up the heavy knife and pushed the boy out the back door ahead of her.

He didn't argue, just stumbled out soundlessly.

14

Jakob

Jakob raced headlong into the gloom, the thunderous footsteps of the pursuing trolls spurring him on.

“Doom!” Aenmarr laughed as if it were all just a game. “Why be you running? It only toughens the meat.”

Desperately, Jakob ran on.

There was no moon in Trollholm, but Jakob's eyes were now fully adjusted to the dark. To his left, patches of luminescent moss clung to pale, sketchy birches. On his right, an odiferous fog rose, green and glowing from a nearby swamp. Will-o'-the-wisps, like demented, oversized fireflies, darted all around.

Jakob kept sprinting over the uneven ground.

“Doom, Doom, Doom,” Aenmarr chanted in time with his footsteps. A big bass drum of a voice.

He sounds closer,
Jakob thought, pushing himself to go faster. His breath came out in rasping, wheezing gasps. But he was already running as fast as he could. The trolls' huge legs carried them along with much greater speed. He thought:
What can I do? Put on a sudden growth spurt?

“Doom, Doom, Doom, you be making a lovely dinner,” called Aenmarr's wife.

“Doom, Doom, Doom,” added Aenmarr's son. “I be glad you are not thinner.”

Aenmarr roared with laughter. “That be it my lovelies! What else?”

“Doom, Doom, Doom, do not run away in fright!”

“Doom, Doom, Doom, come dine with us tonight!”

The three trolls hooted and howled, but Jakob's stomach flipped over. He couldn't outrun them; he'd have to find somewhere to hide. There was that swamp, but he didn't want to escape the trolls just to drown in some sinkhole.

Has to be the forest,
he thought, angling left toward a strange awkward stand of trees.
Maybe I can find a stick to fight them off with.
This thought did little to cheer him. It would have to be a very big stick. Tree-sized.

He imagined he could feel the trolls' hot breath on his back as they continued to chant behind him.

“Doom! Doom! Doom!”

Brambly branches slapped him in the face. Tree roots seemed to reach up and coil around his ankles.
Seem to?
he thought, now in full panic.
In this forest, maybe they actually can!

Pressing deeper into the woods, he dodged bushes and trees, sidestepped rocks and fallen limbs, leapt over a narrow stream, twisted his ankle, stumbled, recovered … and ran smack into the thick trunk of an old oak. His vision went white, and the breath flew out of him in a painful rush.

I'm dead,
he thought as he fell back onto the mossy ground, lying there trying to get his breath back.
The trolls will come crashing in here any second.

Staggering to his feet, Jakob began running again. His head swam and he collapsed once more. Crawling to a tree, hoping to hide, he was suddenly struck with the silence around him. The drum of footsteps behind him had stopped. So had the chanting. Jakob lay still, listening, trying to figure out what was going on. Or not going on.

Just then he heard a strange
whoosh
ing accompanied by a crackle of branches. He threw himself sideways and it was lucky he did, because at that very moment an uprooted tree came crashing through the canopy of the forest, landing where he'd been lying just seconds before. A gout of dirt and dead leaves sprayed over him.

“Did you hit him, Papa?”

“No.” Jakob heard Aenmarr sigh. “Luck of the very Devil our Little Doom has.”

Desperately, Jakob started crawling again, listening intently for another flying tree, or for the booming footsteps to start up again.

There was nothing.

Why aren't they chasing me?

Slowly it came to him: Moving through the forest was easier for him than for the trolls. He could squeeze between the trees; the bigger trolls had to go around, or stomp through, or simply—as Aenmarr had—pull the trees from the ground and toss them.

This realization gave Jakob strength and he pushed himself to his feet. He'd found his way into the trees by accident—but it might be the one bit of terrain in this awful place where he could outpace the trolls.

“Come, my lovelies,” Aenmarr said. “This chase be boring me. I be too hungry to continue. After dinner, I be sniffing Doom out. He not be getting far. He bleeds.”

I do?
Jakob put his hand to his face where he could still feel the sting from the branches. It came away wet.
I guess I do.

“There be no place in Trollholm he can hide from Aenmarr for long.” The trolls' footsteps started up again, but receding this time.

Jakob sighed gratefully and staggered in the opposite direction, wondering if he had done anything more than buy himself a few hours. And wondering as well if any of his running and bleeding and terror had helped save either of his brothers.

*   *   *

JAKOB WALKED FOR WHAT FELT
like hours, through what seemed to be the same thick dark. Suddenly, he stumbled upon a stream at the far edge of the woods. Barely a trickle really. He followed it, thinking it should bring him eventually to the river, and from there—maybe—home. He no longer believed he could help his brothers by fighting the trolls, or by leading the trolls away. He doubted he could help the fox, for that matter. All he could think of was to get as far from the trolls as possible.

He walked beside the stream and, every few steps, bent down to splash cold water onto his face to stop the small cuts from bleeding. When the brush got too thick for him to keep the stream in sight, he followed it by the sound of its burbling.

A little farther on, the dark now more of a deep gray, he found a muddy game trail—
Hopefully a herbivore,
he thought. He recognized the trail from the once-a-year hunting trips his father and uncles took them on. Griffson Greenhorns they called themselves. Galen was especially good at it. Jakob had never been keen on hunting. Who would have thought those three-day adventures might one day come in handy for escaping a pack of murderous trolls.

For that matter, who would ever have thought of murderous trolls?

But thinking back on those hunting trips brought tears to Jakob's eyes. The Griffsons would never again be able to …

He gave a quick swipe to his eyes with his sleeve. No time to get misty. He had to be strong. Someone needed to alert the police to what was going on here.

Trotting down the game trail, he found the stream again. Here it widened, now five feet across, with smooth rocks jutting out of the flowing water like stepping stones. Jakob didn't think the water was deep, but just in case, he hopped from rock to rock instead of wading. It was certainly easier going that way than pushing through the thick undergrowth.

*   *   *

AFTER LONG MINUTES OF TRAVELING
over the stepping stones—it was light enough now to see that much—Jakob decided he could no longer call the flowing water a stream. It was now a full river, wide and swift, the stones too far apart for safe jumping. He made his way to a rocky shingle that jutted out from the right hand bank and continued on.

The sound of the water put him in mind of a new song. He began humming it to himself, his fingers idly forming the chords to back the melody.

I wish I had my guitar,
he thought.
This is a real good one. Could call it “Walking River” or something.
An opening line sprang into his head.
“I'm not gonna die on the river…”