The Prodigal Troll (32 page)

"No, my friend," he said. "That is to sustain us on our journey. Save it for tomorrow. We must take the warclub to Custalo's village and dance there next."

Maggot closed the bag reluctantly. He was not used to the idea of saving food for tomorrow, but he could learn, just as he meant to learn what war was.

Outside in the central plaza, Sinnglas and Maggot joined the other dancers gathered around the post. They dressed plainly, carrying weapons and bearskin bags of food. A light wind rustled the dead snakeskins.

"We must strike quickly, take them by surprise," Sinnglas told them.

Maggot recalled Tanaghri speaking to him before the dance. He was supposed to remember something, but it was a stem lost in the swirling waters of the past day.

Perhaps he would remember later.

aggot stood in the central plaza of Custalo's village when the dancing was over. He stared at the stars, letting the sweat evaporate from his skin. A crowd of people stirred around him.

"War is good," he said, grinning.

Sinnglas grinned too. "This war is very good."

So far war involved only dancing. Menato had come ahead to prepare the way for them, so Sinnglas's men were welcomed enthusiastically in Custalo's village. It was two villages, actually, on a high plain that straddled the mountain ranges; one was a little smaller than Damaqua's village and the other a bit larger, situated within a morning's walk of one another. They had danced in both villages over the course of two nights. Maggot liked the dancing. It was exciting in a different way than wrestlingwhen it was over, no one was injured and all the dancers felt good.

"That is a very great honor, my friend," Sinnglas said, indicating three eagle feathers in Maggot's hand. Custalo, hearing the story of Squandral's gift of his turban to Maggot, had presented the feathers to Maggot during the dance.

"What do I do with them?" Maggot asked. The sweat ran down his hand, making the feathers damp.

"You wear them in your cap," Sinnglas said.

Maggot did not like having his head covered, but he was trying hard to be like people. "You to show me how. I am glad to war with you, my friend."

"Good," Sinnglas said, turning to talk to the men from Custalo's village. About four handfuls had already changed out of their dancing costumes and were prepared to go.

Maggot spun in a circle and regarded this village that was at once both familiar and strange. This was troll country. He looked over the palisade and wondered if his mother or any of the other trolls were out there watching him the way he had sat through the nights looking over the walls at people. With his eyes closed in a thick fog, he could find his way from here down to the hot stinking springs, and from there, even with his nose squeezed shut, he could trace the trails rock by rock down to the safety of the caves. Now he had crossed over the wall and was on the inside. He was closer to the woman he wanted.

Keekyu screamed and flung his arms about, laughing. Maggot watched him share a bottle with some of the other young men, who grew also increasingly boisterous. Noticing his attention, Keekyu walked over and thrust the bottle at Maggot.

"Go on, take a drink!"

The noise of conversation around Sinnglas fell suddenly hushed. Maggot saw his friend glaring, his face as angry as it grew during the dance.

Custalo stood beside Sinnglas. The old warrior had a gentle face like a baby's, until one read the harsh shape of his mouth or felt the cutting manner of his eyes or listened to the stories of his raids against their enemies across the mountains. People and their things could be so different on the inside than on the outside. Trolls were not like that. Custalo stared at the eagle feathers crushed in Maggot's fist.

Keekyu gave him a sloppy smile. "Go on!"

"No," Maggot said. He turned away. If he had to choose between Sinnglas and anyone else, he would choose his friend. He held the feathers more gently as he joined the others.

Sinnglas's followers and the men from Custalo's village walked north for several days. On the third night, they camped on a bluff overlooking a river much wider than any Maggot had ever seen in the high mountains.

Despite a slight breeze, pungent grease smeared over their bodies, and smudge bundles burning in the fires, the biting insects swarmed to devour them the way crawling bugs consumed the final shreds of meat off the bones of a corpse. A few men slept despite the insects. Sinnglas, Keekyu, Custalo, and the few other older men crowded around a fire, planning strategies. Maggot sat with Pisqueto on the edge of the bluff, trying to escape the stifling heat.

Below them, groups of deer rested in the river water among the long grasses. Nothing but their noses and antlers showed above the water's surface.

"Smart," Maggot said, slapping another insect as it landed on his neck. "Perhaps we go down to the water with them."

Pisqueto chuckled. "Heh."

"When will we come to Squandral's village?"

"Tomorrow. It sits between the hills, at the place where three rivers come together."

"Three rivers? Are they all as big as this?"

"The one that flows west is larger, but it leads down to the River Wyndas, and the sea." He lifted his chin. "Look."

A faint, phosphorescent light as long as a small tree drifted in a serpentine path downstream toward the deer. At first Maggot took it for the reflection of the moon, or perhaps the milky band of light that crossed the sky.

"Is it a snake?" he asked, thinking that now he understood the source of the snakeskins on the pole in Damaqua's village.

"No."

The light vanished below the surface of the water, reappearing in front of one deer slightly apart from the herd. Only the glowing head of the creature appeared, a beacon of light wavering in front of the transfixed deer while a few animals turned to climb out of the river. The head darted forward, the deer bleated, and all the herd splashed up the bank to scatter into the woods. The snake-or whatever it was-coiled around its victim, dragging it under. The river churned like water boiling in a pot, and then the splashing stopped.

Pisqueto slapped more bugs. "The Old Ones."

"Old Ones?"

"If you come near one, you mustn't speak to it or look into its eyesthe Old Ones will take you to the other side." Pisqueto tugged on the gorget at his throat. It was carved in the shape of a snake circled on itself. "Have you not seen the images of the Old Ones among us?"

"I see," Maggot said. He lifted the colored amulets around his own neck. "I thought they things like this. To say we are people."

"No." Pisqueto glared angrily. "The soulless made those."

Frowning, Maggot smacked his nose as an insect landed on it, and then he winced at the blow.

"The soulless, the invaders," Pisqueto explained. "In the wintertime, when the Old Ones grow sluggish, they seek them out on the riverbanks or dig their burrows in the mud and kill them. That is why our people grow few. The spirits of the Old Ones do not protect us anymore because we do not protect them. Now, Banya, their wizard, he shows respect but ..."

Pisqueto's voice trailed off. Maggot lifted his necklaces, the light filled stones clicking as they bounced against each other. "These not like yours?"

"No. Has Sinnglas not talked to you about them?"

"No."

"Heh. Why do you wear them?"

Maggot recalled the woman with the blue gem against the skin of her throat. "They remind me of one."

Pisqueto's grunt did not say anything that Maggot understood. They sat quietly, stirring only to slap at the bugs. Much later, the Old One, glowing faintly now, dragged its distorted and distended form upon a mud bank in the middle of the river. One by one the deer timidly returned to cool off in the water at another place farther upstream.

"Why do they go back, when they know it is dangerous for them?" Maggot asked.

Pisqueto crushed yet another fat mosquito on his arm, leaving a tiny streak of blood. "Because they must. Because where else can they go?"

After a while, Maggot said, "Tomorrow we will go to Squandral's village. Then we will make your war."

The post in Squandral's central plaza was covered with more skins than Damaqua's village and many more than Custalo's. But it sat at the junction of several rivers, all of them containing Old Ones. The dancing that night included men from all three villages and some outlying places. During one of the dances, Maggot became so wrought that he stabbed the air repeatedly and screamed. "Show me the lion," he shouted. "I to kill him!"