The Sword & Sorcery Anthology (63 page)

“Then let her come to me, Old Mother,” the sea troll’s daughter
said. “There is little enough sport to be had in these hills. Let her
come into the mountains and face me.”

The old woman sighed and began to break apart on the wind,
like sea foam before a wave. “She’s not a fool,” the crone said. “A
braggart, yes, and a liar, but by her own strength and wits did she
undo your father. I’d not see the same fate befall you, Sæhildr. She
will lay a trap...”

“Oh, I know something of traps,” the troll’s daughter replied, and
then the dream ended. She opened her black eyes and lay awake in
her freezing den, deep within the mountains. Not far from the nest
of pelts that was her bed, a lantern she’d fashioned from walrus bone
and blubber burned unsteadily, casting tall, writhing shadows across
the basalt walls. The sea troll’s daughter lay very still, watching the
flame, and praying to all the beings who’d come before the gods of
men that the battle with her father’s killer would not be over too
quickly.

As it happened, however, the elders of Invergó were far too preoccupied
with other matters to busy themselves trying to conceive of schemes
by which they might cheat Malmury of her bounty. With each passing
hour, the clam-digger’s grisly trophy became increasingly putrid, and
the decision not to remove it from the village’s common square had
set in motion a chain of events that would prove far more disastrous
to the village than the
living
troll ever could have been. Moreover,
Malmury was entirely too distracted by her own intoxication and
with the pleasures visited upon her by the barmaid, Dóta, to even
recollect she had the reward coming. So, while there can be hardly
any doubt that the old crone who lived at the edge of the mudflats
was, in fact, both wise and clever, she had little cause to fear for
Sæhildr’s immediate well-being.

The troll’s corpse, hauled so triumphantly from the marsh, had
begun to swell in the midday sun, distending magnificently as the
gases of decomposition built up inside its innards. Meanwhile, the
flock of gulls and ravens had been joined by countless numbers of fish
crows and kittiwakes, a constantly shifting, swooping, shrieking cloud
that, at last, succeeded in chasing off the two sentries who’d been
charged with the task of protecting the carcass from scavengers. And,
no longer dissuaded by the men and their jabbing sticks, the cats
and dogs that had skulked all night about the edges of the common
grew bold and joined in the banquet (though the cats proved more
interested in seizing unwary birds than in the sour flesh of the troll).
A terrific swarm of biting flies arrived only a short time later, and
there were ants, as well, and voracious beetles the size of a grown
man’s thumb. Crabs and less savory things made their way up from
the beach. An order was posted that the citizens of Invergó should
retreat to their homes and bolt all doors and windows until such time
as the pandemonium could be dealt with.

There was, briefly, talk of towing the body back to the salt marshes
from whence it had come. But this proposal was soon dismissed as
impractical and hazardous. Even if a determined crew of men dragging
a litter or wagon, and armed with the requisite hooks and cables, the
block and tackle, could fight their way through the seething, foraging
mass of birds, cats, dogs, insects, and crustaceans, it seemed very
unlikely that the corpse retained enough integrity that it could now
be moved in a single piece. And just the thought of intentionally
breaking it apart, tearing it open and thereby releasing whatever
foul brew festered within, was enough to inspire the elders to seek
some alternate route of ridding the village of the corruption and
all its attendant chaos. To make matters worse, the peat levee that
had been hastily stacked around the carcass suddenly failed partway
through the day, disgorging all the oily fluid that had built up behind
it. There was now talk of pestilence, and a second order was posted,
advising the villagers that all water from the pumps was no longer
potable, and that the bay, too, appeared to have been contaminated.
The fish market was closed, and incoming ships forbidden to offload
any of the day’s catch.

And then, when the elders thought matters were surely at their
worst, the alchemist’s young apprentice arrived bearing a sheaf of
equations and ascertainments based upon the samples taken from
the carcass. In their chambers, the old men flipped through these
pages for some considerable time, no one wanting to be the first to
admit he didn’t actually understand what he was reading. Finally, the
apprentice cleared his throat, which caused them to look up at him.

“It’s simple, really,” the boy said. “You see, the various humors of
the troll’s peculiar composition have been demonstrated to undergo
a predictable variance during the process of putrefaction.”

The elders stared back at him, seeming no less confused by his
words than by the spidery handwriting on the pages spread out before
them.

“To put it more plainly,” the boy said, “the creature’s blood is be
coming volatile. Flammable. Given significant enough concentrations,
which must certainly exist by now, even explosive.”

Almost in unison, the faces of the elders of Invergó went pale. One
of them immediately stood and ordered the boy to fetch his master
forthwith, but was duly informed that the alchemist had already fled
the village. He’d packed a mule and left by the winding, narrow path
that led west through the marshes, into the wilderness. He hoped,
the apprentice told them, to observe for posterity the grandeur of the
inevitable conflagration, but from a safe distance.

At once, a proclamation went out that all flames were to be
extinguished, all hearths and forges and ovens, every candle and
lantern in Invergó. Not so much as a tinderbox or pipe must be left
smoldering anywhere, so dire was the threat to life and property.
However, most of the men dispatched to see that this proclamation
was enforced, instead fled into the marshes, or towards the hills, or
across the milky blue-green bay to the far shore, which was reckoned
to be sufficiently remote that sanctuary could be found there. The
calls that rang through the streets of the village were not so much
“Douse the fires,” or “Mind your stray embers,” as “Flee for your lives,
the troll’s going to explode.”

In their cot, in the small but cozy space above the Cod’s Demise,
Malmury and Dóta had been dozing. But the commotion from outside,
both the wild ruckus from the feeding scavengers and the panic that
was now sweeping through the village, woke them. Malmury cursed
and groped about for the jug of apple brandy on the floor, which Dóta
had pilfered from the larder. Dóta lay listening to the uproar, and,
being sober, began to sense that something, somewhere, somehow had
gone terribly wrong, and that they might now be in very grave danger.

Dóta handed the brandy to Malmury, who took a long pull from
the jug and squinted at the barmaid.

“They have no intention of paying you,” Dóta said flatly, buttoning
her blouse. “We’ve known it all along. All of us, everyone who lives
in Invergó.”

Malmury blinked and rubbed at her eyes, not quite able to make
sense of what she was hearing. She had another swallow from the jug,
hoping the strong liquor might clear her ears.

“It was a dreadful thing we did,” Dóta admitted. “I know that now.
You’re brave, and risked much, and—”

“I’ll beat it out of them,” Malmury muttered.

“That might work,” Dóta said softly, nodding her head. “Only
they don’t have it. The elders, I mean. In all Invergó’s coffers, there’s
not even a quarter what they offered.”

Beyond the walls of the tavern, there was a terrific crash, then,
and, soon thereafter, the sound of women screaming.

“Malmury, listen to me. You stay here, and have the last of the
brandy. I’ll be back very soon.”

“I’ll beat it out of them,” Malmury declared again, though this
time with slightly less conviction.

“Yes,” Dóta told her. “I’m sure you will do just that. Only now, wait
here. I’ll return as quickly as I can.”

“Bastards,” Malmury sneered. “Bastards and ingrates.”

“You finish the brandy,” Dóta said, pointing at the jug clutched
in Malmury’s hands. “It’s excellent brandy, and very expensive.
Maybe not the same as gold, but...” and then the barmaid trailed
off, seeing that Malmury had passed out again. Dóta dressed and
hurried downstairs, leaving the stranger, who no longer seemed quite
so strange, alone and naked, snoring loudly on the cot.

In the street outside the Cod’s Demise, the barmaid was greeted
by a scene of utter pandemonium. The reek from the rotting troll,
only palpable in the tavern, was now overwhelming, and she covered
her mouth and tried not to gag. Men, women, and children rushed
to and fro, many burdened with bundles of valuables or food, some
on horseback, others trying to drive herds of pigs or sheep through
the crowd. And, yet, rising above it all, was the deafening clamor
of that horde of sea birds and dogs and cats squabbling amongst
themselves for a share of the troll. Off towards the docks, someone
was clanging the huge bronze bell reserved for naught but the direst
of catastrophes. Dóta shrank back against the tavern wall, recalling
the crone’s warnings and admonitions, expecting to see, any moment
now, the titanic form of one of those beings who came before the
gods, towering over the rooftops, striding towards her through the
village.

Just then, a tinker, who frequently spent his evenings and his
earnings in the tavern, stopped and seized the barmaid by both
shoulders, gazing directly into her eyes.

“You must
run!”
he implored. “Now, this very minute, you must
get away from this place!”

“But why?” Dóta responded, trying to show as little of her terror
as possible, trying to behave the way she imagined a woman like
Malmury might behave. “What has happened?”

“It
burns,
” the tinker said, and before she could ask him
what
burned, he released her and vanished into the mob. But, as if in
answer to that unasked question, there came a muffled crack, and
then a boom that shook the very street beneath her boots. A roiling
mass of charcoal-colored smoke shot through with glowing red-
orange cinders billowed up from the direction of the livery, and Dóta
turned and dashed back into the Cod’s Demise.

Another explosion followed, and another, and by the time she
reached the cot upstairs, dust was sifting down from the rafters of
the tavern, and the roofing timbers had begun to creak alarmingly.
Malmury was still asleep, oblivious to whatever cataclysm was befalling
Invergó. The barmaid grabbed the bearskin blanket and wrapped it
about Malmury’s shoulders, then slapped her several times, hard,
until Malmury’s eyelids fluttered open partway.

“Stop that,” she glowered, seeming now more like an indignant
girl-child than the warrior who’d swum to the bottom of the bay and
slain their sea troll.

“We have to
go,
” Dóta said, almost shouting to be understood
above the racket. “It’s not
safe
here anymore, Malmury. We have to
get out of Invergó.”

“But I
killed
the poor, sorry wretch,” Malmury mumbled, shivering
and pulling the bearskin tighter about her. “Have you lot gone and
found another?”

“Truthfully,” Dóta replied, “I do not
know
what fresh devilry this
is, only that we can’t stay here. There is fire, and a roar like naval
cannonade.”