Sword of Doom (19 page)

Two axes were thrown at their feet. “Be gone before I change my mind!” roared Greb. After saying farewell to their friends in the pit, Astrid and Kára rode off into the moonlit woods in the direction they had come from.

“How do you fake tears like that?” Astrid asked when they were out of view of the village.

“Oh, easy. I just think of something worth crying about.”

“What were you thinking to cry like
that
?”

“I pictured myself less beautiful than I am.”

They rode for a time to make sure no one had been sent to follow them. Astrid halted them when she saw a fallen tree. She dismounted and saw that the log was weathered and looked to have died years ago. “This one will do,” she said. Astrid set to work on the log, and Kára began chopping low-lying branches from trees and gathering them to make a sledge. Then amid her work Astrid thought she heard a sound in the brush. She signaled Kára to stop, and they listened. Nothing. Had the trolls decided to kill them anyway and sent soldiers to finish them off? Astrid waited, eyeing the thicket where the sound had come from, gripping her axe tighter, ready to kill if she had to. Nothing
happened, yet still she sensed a presence. A bear? A wild boar? Or perhaps it was Mist the Valkyrie? For a moment the silence of the troll forest seemed to surround her and tighten round her throat. But she soon shook off this feeling and continued with her axe work, signaling Kára to do the same. Her friends were in trouble, and there was work to be done.

 

Fulnir still lay tied to the log, wide-awake and chatting away just like his old self. He hadn't had another snarling fit for a while, and his wolfen hair did not seem to have grown any thicker. It seemed strange to Dane to be sitting and having a conversation with his best friend while his friend was tied to a tree trunk, and even stranger to be thinking that he might have to kill him. But such was the nature of their situation.

“I can hear Klint,” said Fulnir, cocking his ear and narrowing his eyes in discernment. “He's squawking somewhere in the village, probably eyeing their feasting pots.” He caught another scent, sniffing the air. “Oh, oh, I know
that
smell. It's a musk ox, a good league away at least. No! A whole herd of them! This is amazing.” And then he caught another smell, this one crinkling his nose something fierce. “Oh, what is
that
? It's awful. Part rotting corpse, part week-old rat droppings, and—
sniff, sniff
—part unwashed butt-crack. Oh, that is seriously wicked!”

Dane and Drott erupted into gleeful cackles of laughter.

“What?” said Fulnir. “What's so funny?”

“That's
you
, Fulny,” said Dane. “That smell you smell is you. The ‘stinking' part of Fulnir the Stinking.”

Fulnir just stared back in disbelief. “No, it can't be,” he said. “That's…
me
?” Dane and Drott broke into more laughter. “It's really that bad?”

“'Fraid so,” said Dane. “But don't worry. We still love you.”

The beating drums from above abruptly stopped. In the ominous silence, Dane traded looks with Jarl, Drott, and the others, wondering what was going on. Five royal troll guardsmen appeared at the pit's rim. “Runemaster!” a guard yelled down. “Lord Dvalin bids you come!” A rope ladder was unfurled into the pit from above.

Fearing for Lut's safety, Dane shouted back, “Our seer stays!”

“Our orders are to fetch him! If you resist, we will take him by force!”

Jarl waved his fist at them. “Bring it, you stinking motherless sons of—”

An arrow whistled past Jarl's ear, embedding in the pit floor.

“Hold your fire!” Lut shouted. “I will come!”

Lut picked up his leather runebag and started for the ladder, but Dane stopped him. The thought that this could be the last time he looked into his old friend's eyes was awful. Lut patted him reassuringly on the shoulder. “If the trolls
wanted to eat one of us, they'd take someone plump and juicy like Ulf, not a stringy old bag of bones like me. I'll be fine, boy.”

Dane prayed it was true. As the old man clung to the rope ladder, Dane watched him raised up to the rim of the pit and then, grabbed by the guards, disappear from sight.

With Lut gone, for the longest time no one spoke. Dane looked over at the dim outline of the frost giant lying still nearby. His breathing was shallow, and his great frosted exhalations had dwindled to mere puffs of mist that dissipated almost as soon as they appeared.

Much of Thrym's icy body had been hacked away and carted off by the trolls. Lut had explained that the melted ice from a frost giant was a prized drink in trolldom, for it was akin to drinking the blood of their hated enemy. The more ice they hacked and carted off, the more the frost giant's life force drained away. They would save the head for last, Lut had said, melting it slowly in a huge caldron, delighting in the giant's final wheezing gasps.

 

They told Lut nothing. A score of troll guardsmen, each in dyed reindeer skins and hard-leather helmets, carrying spears, clubs, and torches, escorted Lut past the village and far into the forest, at last coming upon Lord Dvalin's private lodge hall, located so deep in the forest, even the frost giants had never found it.

Lut had to duck his head crossing the threshold, but
once inside, he found himself in a surprisingly roomy main chamber, the walls lined with crude portraits of the tribal leader and his family carved into flat discs of wood, dozens of tallow candles and torches lending a cozy warmth to the place. He could hear screams coming from a nearby room. Was someone being tortured? His guards barked in guttural troll to the two trolls standing guard before a closed doorway, and moments later Lord Dvalin himself appeared. Lut was struck by the distraught look on the ruler's face and wondered what it was he wanted.

“I need a seer,” said the Lord of the Trolls, “to perform a service.”

“What is it Lord Dvalin would have me do?”

In a voice charged with emotion Dvalin told him that Queen Veshlah, his wife, was “with troll.” She had been in painful labor for hours, he said, but the baby was refusing to be born. Now both mother and baby were in grave danger of dying. “I need a reading of the runes, seer, to learn whether the baby be male or female.”

When Lut asked him why, the ruler said that if it was shown that the baby was a male, it would be cut from the mother's womb to be saved. With great delicacy Lut explained that if this were done, the mother would surely die.

“Don't you think I
know
that?” Lord Dvalin exploded, his three nostrils flaring and eyes hot with rage. The guards too reacted, and Lut suddenly found himself at spearpoint.
Regaining control of himself, the troll lord gave a nod to his men. They withdrew their spears, and Dvalin continued in a voice choked with emotion. “I am filled with unspeakable grief at the thought of losing my beloved. But I need an heir. A male heir. And if I have to choose between my wife and a male child…I would have to choose the child.”

Well, isn't this a fine fix,
thought Lut. His mouth went dry; he felt a sudden tightness in his chest. If the runes told him the baby was male, the mother would die. And if the runes told him the baby was female, the birth would be allowed to take its course and both mother
and
baby might die. And in his hunger-weakened state, what if he misread the runes? What then? No doubt he too would die. Lut cursed himself for having been so bold that morning, thundering that hog-wash about boils and exploding eyeballs. As if he actually had the power to render such punishments.

“But have you no seer of your own?” Lut asked Dvalin.

“I'm reluctant to put the lives of my wife and baby in the hands of a stranger—a human no less—but fate has forced my hand. My royal sorceress was taken captive by the frost giants, and hence we've lost our seer.” This, Lut realized, was what he had meant by his earlier lament of the trolls having lost their magic.

So the king had nowhere else to turn, and Lut knew if he refused the rune reading—or worse, if he misread the runes—whatever chance he and the others had of being spared would be dashed. Though Lut had lived a long life
and did not fear death, he preferred to keep his head affixed to his neck for now. He had to find a way to improve his chances. But how?

“Well, seer?” Dvalin said with urgency. “Get on with it.” Spears were again brandished, and the uncomfortable sight of them so close and so sharp helped Lut bring forth a sharp idea of his own.

“I must be in the queen's presence,” Lut said, “when I throw the runes. The closer I am, the more accurate the reading will be.” Lord Dvalin blinked. Lut waited. The king barked something in troll to his guards, and the spears were withdrawn. Lord Dvalin turned and opened the door, ushering Lut into his inner sanctum.

D
ane was in a full-blown panic. Fulnir was now worse than ever, and Dane was worried that he might actually have to do what Lut had said: put Fulnir out of his misery. Fulnir seemed now to be in a constant state of derangement, snorting and growling, his lips drawn back in a bestial snarl. And because of Dane's own lack of diligence, William had nearly been bitten.

For a good hour or more Fulnir had seemed perfectly fine, and Dane had grown lax in his vigilance. He had even fallen asleep, and dreamed that he was a tiny child climbing and playing amid the glossy strands of his father's beard. He had heard screams and awakened to find William in Fulnir's clutches, screaming for help. Dane learned later that the boy had only been trying to help Fulnir by loosening his bonds a bit, but then Fulnir had reached out with his trussed hand
and grabbed William's belt. He had drawn the boy closer and tried to bite his face. William had kicked and fought Fulnir off, managing to keep himself from getting bitten, until Drott, Vik, and Dane ran to his rescue, trying to pull him free. But even with three of them prying and pulling, Fulnir's strength was too great and, ultimately, Dane had had to beat his own friend on the head with a troll club until he finally fell unconscious and let go.

Now everyone stood a safe distance away, watching Fulnir twitch and scratch and issue his animal growls. It seemed it wouldn't be long now before his friend would cease to be human, and it pained Dane to know that something would have to be done. There was talk about which one of them would be best suited to end Fulnir's life, Jarl insisting that he alone had the strength to do it, and Rik and Vik saying that they might be willing to finish Fulnir off, but only if no one else was looking.

That's when Drott grabbed a tiny troll club and dashed to Fulnir's side. For an instant Dane thought Drott was going to do the deed himself, but he whirled to face everyone else.

“You'll have to get past me first!” Drott cried, tears in his eyes.

“Put down the club, Drott,” Dane begged.

“No! Fulny's not done yet! He's got no tail and—and he still stinks like he always did! Proves he's still more human than
wulf
!”

Dane eyed Jarl, Vik, and Rik, who looked like they
might make a move on Drott. Drott saw it, too, and before they could rush him, he said, “I'll kill him myself if it comes to it, I promise. Please…give him more time.”

Drott let the club slip from his hand and turned to gaze at Fulnir lying there comatose. “Fulny…I promise to make it quick,” he choked out between his sobs. “You won't feel a thing…. It's me who'll be hurting.”

But Dane knew that he was the one who would have to do it. In fact, it was a promise he had made to Fulnir. The last thing Fulnir had said to Dane when still in his right mind was “I want you to do it.” Dane had dismissed it, saying that kind of talk was silly, forget about it. But Fulnir had made Dane look him in the eyes, and when he had, Fulnir said, “You know what is happening to me. If you're my friend—if you care at all—you'll do me this last favor. Kill me. Promise me you will.” It had brought tears to Dane's eyes to hear him say it, but he had promised he would do as asked. Fulnir had thanked him for being such a good friend, and said, “I'll tell your father you said hello.”

Now, as the night air grew colder still and he watched the figure of his friend in the gloom, Dane tried to decide. What weapon should he use? A club or a knife? It sickened him beyond words to be thinking such things, yet still the question had to be answered. Club or knife?

 

The queen of the trolls lay on her four-poster bed in deep distress, her face glazed in sweat. The lower half of her body
was covered in a tent of linens, her breathing came in short, rhythmic bursts, and she was wailing in pain. A white-robed she-troll whom Lut took to be the midwife stood by the bed, looking scared and barking orders to a bevy of female attendants. The attendants scurried about, sponging the queen's brow and patting her hands in comfort; others looked on helplessly, not knowing what to do. Lut was deeply moved by the queen's plight. Troll or no troll, no creature should be in that much pain, no matter what the Jarls of the world might say, and he only hoped he could somehow find a way to end it.

Catching an urgent look from Dvalin, Lut knelt on the floor and drew out his leather runebag. He opened it and let the rune pieces fall into his lap. Each piece was a small, flat tablet made of bone the size of a large coin, with a single runic letter inscribed on one side. Cupping the runebones in his hands, Lut closed his eyes, going to a place deep inside himself where the tortured cries of the queen could not be heard. He began to chant the names of his forefathers, beseeching the gods for guidance, and then he threw the runes in the air, and down they came, dropping
plink, plink, plink
to the stone floor.

Saying a silent prayer of his own, Lut opened his eyes. Some of the pieces had landed rune side up, the rest blank side up. In the dim firelight Lut peered at the runes, quietly interpreting the message.

What he saw was baffling. He could not explain it. The
king demanded an answer.

“
So?
Which is it, seer? Male or female?”

Lut could only stare at the runebones in a growing panic. The gods had certainly picked a fine time to play games.
The truth lies in opposites.
What on Odin's green earth did
that
mean? All he had asked was a simple question: male or female? And the gods gave him this! He wracked his mind, desperate for a clue, some shred of illumination. But no, they had to confound him with puzzles about opposites. He suddenly wished he'd never become a seer at all. A shipbuilder. A cheese maker. Even a dung merchant. These were far more reliable trades. Why hadn't he listened to his mother and taken over his father's tannery? Sure, the odors were off-putting and the work laborious, but the hours were good and the pay reliable. No!
He
had to become a
soothsayer
. A wise man. The one everybody else looked to for answers to all their problems. What had
that
gotten him? Nothing but hassles and heartache—
and
women, he realized. Lots and lots of lonely women. So maybe it hadn't been so bad after all.

It suddenly came to him. He understood. Of course! The answer was so obvious. Why had he not seen it before? He jumped up and hurried to the queen, barking out orders to her attendants and the midwife, now knowing what he had to do. In his many years as village healer he had brought scores of babies into the world. He had even assisted birthing some of the very same kind he now faced.

“Seer!” said Lord Dvalin. “Your answer!”

Without looking up from what he was doing, Lut calmly told the troll ruler to be quiet and stay out of the way. The problem, he told him, wasn't the “baby” refusing to be born, but rather the “babies.” It was twins, and they were competing to be first to enter the world.

“But—but—” Dvalin sputtered. “My wife?”

“She'll be just fine if you get out of the way!”

Lord Dvalin blanched, not used to being spoken to so rudely. But his own wife, Queen Veshlah, lifted her head from her pillow and said, “Leave him alone—he knows what he's doing.” And Dvalin did as he was told.

With gentle sureness, Lut made a few adjustments in the birth canal, and sure enough, a short time later out came a squalling baby troll….

“A female,” said Lut, holding the bawling infant aloft and handing her to an attendant. And moments later, her equally loud and squirming baby brother appeared, wet, pink, and hairy. It was a boy
and
a girl. The
opposites
told of by the runes. The infants were wrapped in swaddling cloth and presented to the mother, and everyone oohed and aahed about how cute and adorable they were. Lut thought that the infants were about as cute and adorable as newborn mole rats, but he wisely kept this sentiment to himself.

But no one looked happier than Lord Dvalin himself. When his wife raised up her twins and laid them in
his arms, and the troll lord gazed down into their pink, wrinkled faces, Lut saw Dvalin light up with a look of such love, it filled Lut with a warmth he knew to be the love he felt for every living thing, whether it be the world's tiniest insect or the world's biggest troll.

Lord Dvalin came and started to hug him, but Lut being so tall and the troll lord being so short, the troll kept hugging Lut's leg, and Lut was made a bit uncomfortable by this and finally asked Dvalin to stop.

“Thank you, seer, thank you,” said the Lord of the Trolls. “How can I ever repay you?”

“Well,” said Lut, “just off the top of my head, a couple things
do
come to mind.”

 

When he put the torchlight to Fulnir's face, Dane flinched at the sight of him. Covered with dark bristles of hair, Fulnir had ceased to look like Fulnir. With his glazed-over eyes, his heavy, open-mouthed breathing, and his gray-mottled skin, Fulnir had begun to look positively feral. As Dane forced himself to look down at his friend—or the creature that
used
to be his friend—he still could not bring himself to act. He had brought out his knife but was unable to use it. All Dane could think of were the times Fulnir had saved his own life, and it felt terribly wrong to now be ending his.

It was then that he heard Drott say, “Stand aside.” Turning, he saw Drott beside him, tears streaming down his
face, now holding a heavy rock that had fallen into the pit, gathering the will to do the most awful thing he ever could imagine. Dane stepped aside. Drott crossed the pit floor to where their friend lay. Drott said something to Fulnir that Dane couldn't hear. Drott raised the rock to crush Fulnir's skull, Dane closed his eyes, unable to watch, and then a voice rang out. “Stop!”

With great relief Dane opened his eyes to see that it was Lut calling from the rim of the pit above, saying that he might have a cure. Moments later Lut was lowered into the pit, and from out of his cloak he produced a sheep's bladder filled with what he breathlessly explained was a
wulfdrekka,
a folk-remedy concoction of various herbs and spices used by the trollfolk to ward off the symptoms of the
wulf
-bite sickness. The troll lord, he said, had given Lut a batch of it as a thank-you for having birthed his wife's babies.

Lut came and looked at Fulnir, alarmed at how far the sickness had progressed.

“Will it work?” Dane asked.

“We have to try,” Drott said, still shaken.

Lut nodded. “Yes, we will try.”

Dane and the others helped hold Fulnir down while Lut forced the foul-smelling liquid down his throat. He growled and snapped, but they managed to get most of it down him, and in a matter of moments he fell into a deep, undisturbed sleep, and for the first time Dane actually began
to feel hopeful. And then he heard the voice of Dvalin calling down to them.

“I have decided to spare you!”

 

Fulnir, still fettered to the log, was lifted out of the pit by the troll lord's guards. With an enthusiasm bordering on giddiness, all the others climbed up a rope ladder the trolls lowered for them, Dane being the last out of the pit. And the first thing he asked Dvalin, after congratulating him on his new twin arrivals, was where they could find buckets and water.

The troll lord gave him a look and asked why. Dane said that, to try to save Thrym's life, they would need to pour large amounts of cold water on his body; the water would freeze and recrystallize his icy form.

“But there's no time for that, son,” said Dvalin, explaining that Greb and his soldiers were sleeping off their night of drinking. “Soon they'll be awake and be coming to kill you all, and there'll be nothing I can do.”

“But Thrym is my friend,” said Dane, and he said it with such a firmness of feeling, the troll lord realized that the humans could not be persuaded to leave their frost giant.

“You realize I'm committing treason by aiding a frost giant,” Dvalin complained.

“But as leader of the trolls,” said Drott, “couldn't you just pardon yourself?”

Dvalin mulled this over and clapped Drott on the
shoulder, proclaiming, “
This
is truly a wise man.” He then ordered his guards to show Dane and the others to the village well.

The guards and even their ruler pitched in, and a bucket brigade was formed from the well to the pit. Water was passed from troll to human and vice versa until at the pit edge, the buckets were upended and water rained down upon Thrym. The life-restoring liquid immediately froze to him, and astoundingly, his body began to gain back the ice that had been melted and hacked away.

While he worked, Dane saw Jarl in the water line, taking buckets from one troll guard and handing them to another. Jarl wore a grimace, Dane wondering if it was due to the hard work or the distasteful idea that he was touching something trolls touched. Regardless, Jarl labored without complaint, and Dane thought if ever there was a picture that proved enemies could put aside their hatreds and work together, this was it.

But it was not to last.

A loud war cry pierced the air, and everyone turned to see Commander Greb leading hundreds of troll soldiers across the meadow toward them. A squad of soldiers pushed a wagon full of flaming logs—and Dane realized they meant to dump the burning cart into the pit on top of Thrym.

Dane shouted, “Put out the fire!” and ran to intercept the cart, his only weapon the bucket of water in his hand. Drott and Ulf followed Dane's lead, and then everyone, the troll
lord and his guards included, dashed with water buckets toward the onrushing cart.

Commander Greb tried to cut Dane down with his sword, but Dane used the bucket as a shield, ramming into Greb's chain-mail-covered chest, knocking him into the path of the oncoming cart. The soldiers pushing from behind saw this and swerved the cart; it tipped over, accidentally spilling its contents onto their fallen commander, who was trapped under the burning logs. Greb screamed in panic. Dane did the only thing he could do. He threw his water onto the flames. Those behind Dane charged in, too, emptying the contents of their buckets, and in moments the flames were doused enough for the soldiers to pull their singed commander out from under the logs.