Troll Mountain: The Complete Novel (6 page)

Carefully and silently, Raf scaled Troll Mountain.

He moved with tremendous caution, making sure not to dislodge any loose stones or rocks—in the eerie silence of the night, a bouncing stone would ring out like a bell.

He scaled the mountain in a zigzagging fashion. At first, this motion took him westward, but for some unknown reason, the western flank of the mountain became sheer and vertical very quickly, so he traversed to the eastern side. It turned out to be far more climbable and had the added bonus of offering more concealment within its crags.

A short way up the eastern flank, Raf came to a paved stone path, worn smooth from constant use. It stretched from the Main Gate up to a side doorway halfway up the mountain.

According to Düm, this path (and another that led from the Main Gate down to the trolls’ dam) was used for dragging stone sleds filled with food from the lowlands and water from the dam to the Mountain King’s halls.

This was Düm’s job as a dragger—the lowest of the low in troll society. All day, every day, he and the other draggers pulled the heavy sleds up the paved path to a kitchen area adjoining the Great Hall.

Düm had also said that low-born trolls, when returning to the mountain, were only allowed to walk up these paths. High-born trolls—the king’s family and the families he favored—could use the more direct route to the Great Hall: the magnificent staircase that rose in a dead-straight line from the Main Gate to the hall’s arched doorway on the front face of the mountain.

Raf didn’t dare step out onto the path. Rather, he kept within the crags on its upper side and ascended the mountain parallel to it. 

*

Further up the dragging path, Raf beheld one last watchtower, this one perched two-thirds of the way up the mountain, on its rear corner, facing north-east.

To avoid being spotted by its guards, he bent back around toward the front face of the mountain, climbing close to the corner spine of the great peak, roughly equidistant from the Main Gate and this watchtower, moving carefully, using the folds of the rocky slope to conceal his progress.

At one point in his journey up the front face, he came within twenty yards of one of the high stone windows that opened out from the Great Hall.

Raf wanted to peek inside it, but he didn’t dare. He could hear deep snoring sounds within, even from this distance. It was the sound of many trolls sleeping. With their great noses, it seemed trolls were loud snorers.

He climbed ever higher.

A short way up from the window, he came across a small shelf cut into the mountainside, within which was a curious object.

It was a pedestal of some kind.

A monument.

It was cut from beautiful black stone and inscribed on it were words in an ancient language that Raf did not know. Had he been able to comprehend them, he would have read:

THIS STONE COMMEMORATES THE COMPLETION OF THE GREAT WATCHTOWER OF THE NORTH, SEAT OF POWER FOR THE GOVERNOR OF THESE LANDS.

LOOK UPON IT, ENEMIES OF OUR GLORIOUS EMPIRE, AND TREMBLE.

WE SHALL RULE THESE LANDS AND THE PEOPLE IN THEM FOR A THOUSAND YEARS.

The pedestal had the same look to it as the rock-cut doorways in the hobgoblin kingdom—it had been made by that same civilization of clever men.

A deep crack, however, presumably the result of a blow from a troll hammer, split the monument down the middle. Troll graffiti covered it.

Raf moved on.

Further up, about a hundred feet below the flat floor of the king’s open-air Winter Throne Hall, Raf peeped over a rocky crag to discover a most sickening sight.

He saw a set of sharp wooden stakes, a forest of the things, on which were impaled the bloody corpses of trolls and people. All of the dead bodies were in advanced states of decay—the vultures of the mountains had fed on them.

Raf looked upward and saw, directly above the grisly collection of stakes, the southern edge of the Winter Throne Hall.

These poor souls—humans and trolls alike—had been
thrown
down here …

Raf looked at one of the fresher corpses more closely and recognized something about it.

This corpse wore the distinctive wooden necklace of an elder of his tribe. He had been a Northman!

Then, to his horror, Raf realized that this man had been one of the two elders who had originally been sent to parley with the trolls when they had cut off the river flow—the two elders who had never returned.

Raf stared at the corpses for a long time before he continued on up the slope.

*

As Raf scaled the mountain, Ko and Düm continued to watch his progress from their ledge.

It was hard to follow him in the gloom, especially when he disappeared behind a crag, but since they knew his objective—the summit—they were able to keep track of him.

“Are there any
other
troll tribes that you know of?” Ko asked Düm as they watched Raf step around the stakes beneath the Winter Throne Hall.

“No,” Düm said sadly. “We last troll tribe.”

“Really? The last one?”

“Yes. We mainly mountain trolls with a few field trolls and cave trolls. They joined our tribe when their tribes failed. Every year our tribe get smaller.”

“Why is that, do you think?” Ko was genuinely curious.

Düm shrugged. “Trolls very simple. Enjoy fighting and sporting and not doing much work. Toughest trolls rule and take wives and eat most food. Strongest troll is king.

“So lowly troll happy when wife give birth to big strong boy. Troll sad when wife give birth to she-troll or runt. Often baby she-trolls and runts killed by parents, because they no use in troll tribe. Only boys useful.”

Ko frowned. “Does that mean you have few females and many males?”

“Yes. That right.”

“Do the males compete for the females?”

“As Düm already say, trolls enjoy fighting. Dispute over she-troll just another reason to have fight. Yes, many fights over that.”

“I see,” Ko said darkly. “What about the smart trolls? I was under the impression that smaller trolls were quite clever and inventive.”

“This true. Wise trolls often smaller trolls, runt trolls. But now few of them. Some time ago troll kings begin to dislike wise trolls, because they often disagree with king, say king doing wrong thing. But king no want to look like fool so he sometimes throw troublesome wise troll off top of mountain. Many recent kings do this. Now king no longer disagreed with.”

“But without clever tribe members,” Ko said, “how does your society develop new ways of doing things?”

Düm shrugged again. “Trolls just keep doing things the way they always been done. Fight as have always fought. No need to farm, since trolls take tribute from humans. Düm not even know how to farm. Düm just know how to drag, drag food and water up dragging path. Senior trolls spend most days lazing and drinking and having death fights for sport.”

Ko didn’t speak for a long time.

Then he turned to face Düm.

“Is this what happened to the other troll tribes?” he asked.

“Düm not know. Düm just humble worker troll. But some draggers come to Troll Mountain from other failed tribes and, yes, them say same things happen in their tribes.”

Ko gazed out at Troll Mountain.

“Your race is dying and it doesn’t even know it,” he said softly. “Your very culture is killing you off. Within a generation or two, there will be no more trolls walking the earth.”

There was a short silence.

Then Düm nodded at Raf on the mountain.

“What about Master Raf? If trolls catch him, they be very angry.
Very
angry.”

Ko nodded. “All we can do now is keep an eye on him. But if our young friend is not back by morning, we must assume he has been captured.”

“And if he captured? Then what? Master Raf nice human. Save Düm’s life when no have to. Seem bad if he be left to die among trolls.”

“I’m inclined to agree with you,” Ko said. “There is something about that boy that I like a lot. He’s different from the other members of his tribe. He has a future while they do not. I would not like to see him meet a gruesome end.”

After three hours of strenuous climbing, Raf arrived at the upper reaches of Troll Mountain.

Crawling over the lip, he slid up onto the flat stone floor of the open-air Winter Throne Hall and stood.

Raf’s jaw dropped.

It was an incredible space: wide and magnificent, even in the eerie darkness of the night. The smooth stone floor, polished to a dazzling sheen, reflected the silver glow of the moon. Four thick, colossal pillars held up the hall’s ceiling and, above that, the summit of the mountain.

In the middle of the space, rising on a many-stepped podium, was the king’s winter throne. Two long banners made of thick cloth hung from the roof behind the throne, framing it.

Raf noticed a single stairway that burrowed into the polished floor, leading down into the mountain. But there was no obvious staircase going
up
, giving access to the mountain’s summit. Perhaps there was a hidden stairway somewhere.

It didn’t matter. He wasn’t planning to use it anyway.

Raf dashed across the wide polished floor and quickly ascended the massive podium until he stood before the king’s winter throne.

(An inscription on it read, in the same ancient language Raf had seen on the monument:
THE SEAT OF POWER OF THE NORTHERN GOVERNOR: ALL THAT CAN BE SEEN FROM HERE, HE GOVERNS IN THE NAME OF THE GLORIOUS EMPEROR [UNREADABLE], ALL HAIL HIM, RULER OF THE WORLD.
)

Raf was about to grab hold of one of the banners that hung behind the throne and climb up it, when he saw the view from the throne.

It took his breath away.

Beyond the jagged peaks of the nearby lesser mountains, he saw the landscape to the south: the Badlands, his own river valley, and beyond that, the vast southern sea, glimmering in the blue moonlight.

As he gazed out at the magnificent vista, he cursed the cruel trick of geography that allowed the trolls to keep a stranglehold over the valley tribes.

Raf had once asked one of the elders why the Northmen didn’t flee to the north of the mountains and escape the tyranny of the trolls.

The elder had smacked him over the head, hard. “Silly boy! Do you not pay attention when the traditional stories are told? As everyone knows, there are no habitable lands beyond the mountains. There are just more mountains, stretching away to the earth’s end.”

Recalling those words, Raf turned around and faced north, expecting to see an endless range of mount—

Wait a moment.

Raf frowned as he gazed northward.

From this vantage point, he could see
beyond
the jagged peaks of the mountain range, and what he saw shocked him.

The Black Mountains did not go on forever.

In fact, they ended quite abruptly only a short distance from Troll Mountain. And beyond the mountain peaks, Raf saw broad sweeping plains, rolling hills and grassy vales, stretching away to the north as far as the eye could see.

“There
is
more land out there …” Raf gasped. “The traditional stories were wrong …”

He wondered how the stories could have gotten it so wrong. Who had created them? And had anyone ever actually checked their accuracy? Or were they accepted simply because they were old and passed on by generations of elders?

Raf shook away these thoughts and returned to the mission at hand—he had to be off the mountain by dawn, before the sun removed the cover of darkness.

He grabbed one of the long banners hanging from the ceiling behind the throne and, moving nimbly hand over hand, scaled the banner and arrived at the rocky uppermost section of the mountain.

Peering upward, Raf spied the thick battlement ringing the summit.

Two guards patrolled it.

He could tell from their postures that they were idle, bored: they clearly didn’t believe any intruder could—or would even dare—get this high up the mountain.

Raf saw them stroll away, chatting, with their backs to him—and so he seized the opportunity and darted from cover, scampering up and over the battlement before quickly scaling the last twenty yards of rocky ground that led to the tower at the absolute summit of Troll Mountain: the Supreme Watchtower.

*

Of course, the Supreme Watchtower had no external doors on its brick-walled flanks. Access to it was only available from within.

But given it had once been a working watchtower, Raf guessed correctly that it would have a door up on the lookout platform at its peak.

No sentries patrolled that platform, since the watchtower was now only used to keep the wise old troll Vilnar imprisoned.

Raf flung his trusty rope up over the crenellations of the Supreme Watchtower’s parapet and, hanging from it, scaled the lofty tower with the peaks of all the neighboring mountains far below him.

At length, Raf slid over the crenellated platform and beheld a thick wooden door leading into the Supreme Watchtower.

With a final deep breath, Raf opened the door and stepped inside.