The troll ran from the mayhem on the plain behind him as fast as his
legs would bear him. His heavy limbs covered the ground
surprisingly quickly for one so ungainly—ground that shivered and
crumbled under his feet. He had almost reached the first hills and
as he gasped in air he could smell the clean heights of the mountains.
The sounds of metal biting into flesh, the screams of the dying and
groans of crippled battle-engines chased after him.
He pounded on, flattening the grass, at the center of his own personal
dust storm. The ground began to rise, but still he ran. All
was lost. The shining warrior knights had slashed and hacked their
way through the bossman Lugerl’s hordes as if they knew no fear,
only hatred of those beings less dazzling than themselves. Death
was all they desired: their
enemies’ or their own. The troll would not stop running until he
felt good stone under his feet.
“’Ere, watch
it!” The nasal voice startled the troll to a halt. He should
have smelled it earlier: goblin! He swung round in time to see the
owner of the voice get up from where he had flung himself to avoid being
trampled. The bush he had been hiding behind was
little more than twigs.
“Battle’s
going that badly, eh?” The goblin smiled showing uneven
green-tinged fangs.
“How you
know?”
“Well, I
didn’t think you is trying to outrun the sunset.”
The troll
automatically cast a look at the sky. No, there was no danger of
that yet.
“Big
bossman’s dead. Everybody running.”
The goblin
spat. “Good riddance to ’im, I say. It’s always madness
taking on them warriors in open war. Hit and run, I says, and mostly
run. Old Lugerl’s the sort that gives we self-respecting monsters
a bad name.” The goblin squatted on his haunches and began
rummaging through hidden pockets and pouches in his uniform. It
was so hung about with iron rings and bits of scuffed leather, that the
troll could not decide which were for protection and which were purely ornamental. The goblin pulled out a piece of badly
preserved meat that still had hairy skin attached and began gnawing.
“I’d offer,
but I’s only got enough for me, see?” The goblin eyed the troll warily.
If he had made a move towards him, the troll had no doubt a knife would
instantly flash into the goblin’s hand.
“Don’t worry,
I not hungry.” The troll’s flat nose wrinkled.
“Where’s you
heading, then?”
“Home.”
The troll’s voice became cavernous and deep, resonating on the word.
“Might as
well tag along, then, before those mad-eyes on the battlefield decide
we’s not vanquished enough and come looking for more slaughter.”
He held out his hand. “Smarag.”
The troll
took it, careful not to crush the fingers. “Hagel.”
“You lead the
way.”
Hagel would
have preferred the goblin to go in front where he could watch that he
did not get up to any tricks, but there was nothing for it. At
least this way, the wind blew the goblin’s stink away from him.
They carried on toward the mountain range, Smarag trotting to keep up
with Hagel’s heavy gait, until the light warned the troll it was time to
look for cover.
“Bit of a
drawback using you trolls in battle. All the shining ones has to
do is wait for dawn or dusk and attack while you’s all hiding from the
red sky.”
The goblin’s voice was so nasal it was hard to tell whether he was
sneering or not. Hagel flexed his fist. One blow would turn
his traveling companion’s head to jelly. He sat heavily on the
floor of the cave they were sheltering in. Five years of serving
in Lugerl’s army had almost turned him into the brute the shining ones
thought them.
“There enough
who didn’t.” Hagel stared out at the sky that was losing its
streaks of crimson and gradually turning black. Many of his fellow
trolls had been picked for Lugerl’s special troop: those that had
suffered injuries and were too slow either in mind or body—and the
fanatics! At sunrise and sunset they would be sent to block
breeches in Lugerl’s walls, form flameproof ladders for Lugerl’s goblins
to clamber over and assault the enemy’s defenses and, if no other use
presented itself, be smashed into blocks to feed the catapults.
Lugerl’s cry of ‘No mercy!’ applied first to his own troops.
“’Ow’s you
getting into this?” The goblin spoke in a less taunting tone.
“Same way
most did. Not many ways for troll to make living, thanks to
shining ones. My people stoneworkers—many generations—lay roads,
build castles. But since pretty people decide blame us for their
trouble that change. Now, we scratch living hunting, or steal to
fill bellies, or join army.”
“You got to
admit, you trolls is clumsy. I see one of your bunch once, trips
over his own feet and flattens half a platoon.”
Hagel drew
himself up. “Since when is that crime? It not as if we intend any
harm. People got no right to call trolls bad.”
“Humans!”
The goblin spat. “Is the same with us goblins. You know we’s
practical jokers, but we never does no real harm. Only leaves
gates open so the chickens get out or tickles the cows so they knocks
over the milk pails. But people say we’s wicked.”
Hagel nodded.
They stared out at the darkness.
“We better
go. Don’t want get caught.”
“Not by
neither side.”
The troll
ducked out into the fresh night.
“Where is we
heading, then?” Smarag scrambled after him.
Hagel
hesitated. “We?”
“Yes—safety
in numbers. You trolls is big, but you’s a bit short up ’ere.”
Smarag tapped his forehead “Goblins is sneaky. You needs a
goblin along to keep you out of trouble, otherwise you’s lumbering
straight into it.”
Hagel bunched
his fists. “I smart enough know if I keep still I blend into rock,
but people smell goblin miles off.”
“’Ere, that’s
not fair!”
“True
though.” Hagel turned his face to where distant peaks blotted out
the stars, and set a pace that had the goblin panting. The moon
was an arc of silver as if a window had been left open a crack in the
night sky.
“You have to
let me along, we monsters have to stick together.”
“On one
condition: you have bath!” Hagel grinned at the goblin’s outrage.
Nevertheless, they paused at the first stream they came to and Smarag
was soon spluttering in the water. Hagel sat on a rock watching.
Smarag dipped his head under the water to wash the tangled string that
was his hair, but his long fingernails caught in the knots.
“I’s stuck!”
He floundered towards Hagel, slipped and fell backward in an eruption of
spray. The troll’s laughter boomed off the surrounding hillsides.
He grabbed the goblin by the front of his tunic and hauled him out as
if he was no more than a handful of
pond weed.
“That’s a big
voice.” Smarag began wringing himself out, casting sulky looks at
the troll from under his brows.
“When I
child, my people sing messages against stone—talk across mountain.”
“Isn’t that
shaking the rocks down?”
“If you not
get it right.”
“No wonder
people loves you trolls. Making avalanches and wrecking houses.”
Smarag hugged his arms about himself. “I’s cold.”
“Walk will
warm you.”
Smarag
muttered but trotted along beside Hagel. When the sky showed the
first hints of changing from icy black to indigo, they found shelter
once more. Hagel leaned back where he could watch the sunrise
without it touching him. He felt Smarag watching him.
“Yes?”
“You’s not
saying where your home is.”
Hagel
pictured it, his memory full of clear streams, scrubby bushes clinging
to the steep rocks and the noise of the wind playing tag around the
peaks and ravines. No doubt it would have changed now. The
people in the valleys would have made sure of that.
“Up, up, high
in mountains,” he said with longing enough to make the cave walls murmur
in sympathy.
“Long ways?”
Hagel nodded.
Smarag grunted, pulled the belt on his steaming uniform tighter and
scrambled to the mouth of the cave. Hagel’s fingers tingled as
relief flowed into them.
“You going?”
Smarag glance
over his shoulder and spat. “Troll, you is stupid!” Then he
slipped through the cave entrance.
Hagel sighed.
He would wait until the sun was fully up and then he would move on
again. Keep traveling: that was the best way to avoid pursuit.
Without goblin mischief to draw attention to him it should be much
easier, and this way he would not have to explain
Smarag to any of his family who might be left.
“Hagel,” his
mother had once said after a vagrant goblin had been pelted with rocks
back into the valley. “We not have half so much trouble with
people if not for goblin vermin and their tricks, and I not care if they
live underground, they not need to smell
like bad meat.”
“Mother.”
Hagel shook his head at the memory of her standing wagging her finger at
him with her brow wrinkled into fissures and strata. If she had
seen what he had, smelled the stink of death and fear and pain on the
battlefield, she would not have been so stern. In the middle of
the fight there was not so much difference between goblin and troll and
shining warrior knight. Trolls did not feel the cold, but Hagel
shivered and glanced towards the place where Smarag had sat. This
was the first time he had been alone since joining Lugerl’s army.
A childhood song trickled through his memory. He sang a few words
and
the cave walls whispered a response. Then he closed his eyes and
allowed his throat and chest to open, so that the full rumbling
resonance of his voice came out in the melody. It felt free.
How long had it been since he had sung?
In the pause
while the last vibrations in the cave died away there was the dull clang
of a bell. Goats. And where there were goats—people! Hagel
scrambled to the entrance. There! A movement by a rock.
He reached out but grabbed only air. A gangly boy with
dark eyes and hair as shaggy as his goatskin tunic tried to wriggle away
from where he had fallen evading Hagel’s fingers.
“Tha... that
was a nice song, sir.”
Hagel made a
sound like a thunder roll in his throat. “What you doing here? You
spy?”
“M...my
goats. I bring them here every day, but one’s wandered off.
I’m not a spy.” The boy pushed himself into a sitting position.
Hagel squatted to get a better look at him. Now that the initial
shock of being caught was over, the boy looked more curious than afraid.
“Are you a
troll?”
Hagel nodded.
“My Mum’s
told me about trolls. I didn’t know they could sing.”
Hagel brought
his face closer to the boy’s. “What she tell you? Trolls
crush little boys and cook them on spit for breakfast?”
The boy
nodded. His face flushed. “I didn’t believe her. She
said you were ugly too. You look funny, but your song was
beautiful.”
Hagel sat
back and let out a thunderclap of laughter. The boy’s mouth tilted up
into a grin. He stood up, brushing dirt off the seat of his pants.
“What your
name?”
“Stamm, son
of Stiel.”
“Well, Stamm,
son of Stiel, maybe I help you look for goat. Where you see last?”
“That way.”
As Hagel
swung to see where Stamm pointed, the boy sprang back out of arm’s
reach, then pelted, leaping and jinking, back down the hillside.
Hagel shouted
after him. “Stamm! Come back, I not hurt you!”
The boy only
hesitated long enough to glance over his shoulder, but as he did so, a
rock flew out from the undergrowth. His temple flowered with blood
and he sank to his knees.
“No!”
Hagel began a lumbering mountain-eating charge towards him.
Smarag jumped
out from his hiding place. Hagel saw the flash of the blade as the
goblin clamped a hand over the boy’s mouth and slit his throat.
Stamm crumpled and fell forward as if to hide the deep red stain on the
ground. Smarag licked his knife.
“I’s come back just in time.” He grinned at Hagel.
The troll’s run bowled him into the goblin and it was only the fact that
he grabbed a handful of Smarag’s tunic and swung him up so that their
noses were almost touching that saved the goblin from being trampled.
“Why?
He only boy!” Hagel shook Smarag so that his head snapped back and
forth. The goblin made choking noises. Hagel set him on his
feet.
“I’s saved
us. ’E tells ’is parents ’e sees a troll and ’is parents sends
warrior knights to hunt us.”
“We hunted
anyway.” Hagel bunched his fists at his sides.
“You’s
stupid. Now we’s not eating smelly goat. Now we ’as juicy
boy to roast. Keeping an eye on Hagel and grinning reassurance
Smarag made to strip the body.
“No.”
“No?”
Smarag grinned, but the whites of his eyes showed.
“We bury
him.” Hagel’s expression was like a granite cliff. “Then you
and me go different ways.”
“You’s
serious?” Smarag waved his arms as if clearing the air would help
him to understand. “Why waste a fresh body?”
“Because we
not monsters.” Hagel’s fists began to shake.
Smarag came
closer and put a hand as close to the troll’s shoulder as he could
reach. “You’s right, I’s not monster, but I doesn’t like being
chased and I’s hungry.”
The knife
appeared in his hand and slashed towards Hagel’s chest. Hagel
grunted as the blade scored his tough skin. Blood filled Hagel’s
vision with red. His fist caught Smarag in the abdomen, flinging him
backwards. Too winded to dodge, the goblin could not stop Hagel’s
fingers grasping his throat. The troll’s growl came up out of the
bedrock. He squeezed and squeezed until his fingers met on
Smarag’s throat, ignoring the kicks and jerks of the goblin’s legs and
the raking of his nails. He squeezed until the goblin was little
more than a bunch of dirty rags in his hand. The roaring avalanche
in his head began to subside.
Hagel dropped the dead goblin and slumped to the ground with a thud that
sent stones skittering down the slope. Tears rolled down his
cheeks.
“I not
monster,” he repeated to himself over and over, but the bodies of the
boy and Smarag contradicted him. One thing Smarag had been right
about; Stamm’s parents would send warriors to hunt him down. It
would not matter that he was not their son’s killer, he was a troll.
He got up and
began straightening Stamm’s body. Soon he had built a substantial
cairn over it, but the corpse of Smarag still accused him. He had
no idea what kind of rites goblins had for their dead, perhaps there
were none. Hagel could hear Smarag’s sneering
voice in his head.
“Waste not,
want not.”
By the time
Hagel had built a second cairn the shadows were lengthening. He
should go back to the cave and shelter until he was safe from the
transforming twilight that made bushes look like goblins and rocks like
bears, that made lifeless objects waver and dance like flames or the
flicker of moth wings, but his work did not feel finished.
What was it
Stamm had said? That he looked funny, but that his song was
beautiful. Hagel stared at his hands. With those fingers he
had crushed the life from Smarag, who, however mistakenly, had been
trying to help. If that was not the act of a monster, then
what was it? But the song had come from his heart, and Stamm had
said it was beautiful.
Hagel settled
himself in front of the cairns and lifted up his voice in a song for all
that was lost, for the sorrow of beauty that concealed ill-thoughts and
the ugliness that hid the good beneath it. It echoed around the
hillside while the light faded. As the sun shot a streak of gold
along the horizon and blinked out of sight, there was a long rumbling
note
of troubled stone.
When Stamm’s
parents arrived with the search party they found three cairns. Two
were carefully piled stones, but in the wavering light of the torches
the third could have been a clumsily carved statue with its face turned
to where the sun had set, its forehead scoured into wrinkles by the wind
and the mouth eroded into a wide, serene smile.
K.S. Dearsley
...has had more than fifty stories
published, including those appearing in Dark Horizons,
Peninsular, Time for Bedlam, From the Asylum and
AlienSkin. Among the competitions she has won are QWF, The Jo Cowell
Award, the Lymm Festival, and Dark Tales.
Her introduction to this story is this: