Just sitting hunched over in the upside-down triangular hole was uncomfortable enough, but the combination of the spear-tips and the deadly drop meant that Raf had to sit essentially motionless.
He looked up, whispering in the darkness. “Bader! Bader! Can you hear me?”
A moment of silence. Then:
“I hear you.” The voice, once haughty and proud, was listless and flat.
“What happened to you and your party?”
“We made our case to the Troll King and the dirty beast imprisoned us for our trouble.”
“What of the other members of your party?”
A pause. The mountain wind whistled.
Bader said, “So far as I can tell, only I remain. Every now and then, the trolls take a prisoner away for eating or sport. We can hear their gleeful shouts when they gather on the Winter Throne Hall. They leave us here to wither and lose all energy. Then, when we are weary from hunger and thirst, they take us. Once taken away, no prisoner ever returns.”
Raf swallowed.
He spent what remained of that night curled up in his uncomfortable stone hole, staring out at the westward view: beyond the snow-capped peaks of the Black Mountains, he saw the vast northern plains. In other circumstances it would have been beautiful.
At length, dawn broke.
Around mid-morning, they came for him.
THE GREAT HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING
OVERHEAD VIEW
Chapter 18
After he stepped off the elevator, Raf was pushed by a pair of guards through a dark horizontal tunnel that delved into Troll Mountain.
He heard shouts and cheers from somewhere.
At the end of the tunnel he came to a fork—he could go up, presumably to the Winter Throne Hall, or down.
He was shoved downward.
The cheering became louder. As he proceeded down a steep passageway, Raf heard a series of dull thunks followed by a chanting of “Grondo! Grondo!”
A rush of fear shot through Raf’s body. Where were they taking him? What had he got himself into?
Then Raf turned a corner and suddenly he found himself standing inside the upper reaches of the vast space that was the Great Hall of the Mountain King.
His breath caught in his throat.
Raf stood at the top of a staircase that wound in an elegant spiral down the outside of a gargantuan stone column. (While the immense column appeared to be an addition to the hall, it—and the three other mighty columns holding up the ceiling—had actually been cut from the mountain itself. Similar spiral staircases wound around the flanks of the other columns.)
In the center of the immense space was a high pyramidal podium on which stood the Troll King’s throne, far larger than the one up on the Winter Throne Hall. A horde of perhaps two hundred trolls was gathered at the foot of the throne, thronging around a pair of trolls who were engaged in combat, cheering and shouting at every blow.
And sitting on the throne, flanked by what appeared to be his sons, his cronies, and a pair of hobgoblin jesters, biting down on a meat-covered bone, contentedly lording over the scene, was the Troll King himself.
*
As Raf was led down the spiral staircase, the two fighting trolls continued their battle, hitting each other’s shields with their hammers. Then the bigger troll disarmed the smaller one and broke his wooden shield with a lusty blow and the crowd chanted ever louder, “Grondo! Grondo!” The big troll started unleashing more blows on the now-defenseless smaller one, knocking him to the ground and pinning him, before turning to the king.
A hush fell over the hall.
All eyes turned to the Troll King.
One of the hobgoblin jesters made a throat-slitting gesture.
The king said simply, “Kill him, Grondo.”
Grondo’s hammer came down on the head of the fallen troll and made a sickening noise.
The crowd roared, the jesters danced, the king smiled, and as the trolls gathered around the victor, Grondo, a pair of worker-trolls dragged the dead body of the vanquished one away.
Grondo was escorted up to the king’s throne. He dropped to one knee before the king and bowed his head.
The king stood. “You are a worthy champion, Grondo. I thank you for this fine gift of death you have given me on my son’s wedding day.”
“It is my honor and privilege, lord,” the champion said.
“Please stay here by my throne today,” the king said, and the crowd gasped for this was clearly an honor. Grondo took his place among the row of courtiers and troll princes standing behind the king, his head held high.
Gripped by his guards, Raf was brought across the floor of the chamber and made to stand directly in front of the king’s mighty throne. The huge crowd of trolls stood closely around him, grunting, whispering, and glaring.
Standing in their midst, Raf looked small, frail, and alone and he felt like that, too. He barely reached their shoulders.
“My lord!” called the senior guard. “I bring you the thief caught on the mountain during the night!”
The king leaned forward, eyeing Raf closely. The crowd of trolls encircling Raf fell silent.
Raf was assessing the Troll King, too. Like all the bigger trolls, the king had a long snout and a pair of tusks jutting up from his protruding lower jaw. Draggers like Düm had flatter faces and no tusks, while field trolls were just small.
As he looked at the king more closely, Raf noticed that he further distinguished himself from the other trolls by wearing foul decorations on his body: a necklace made of human fingerbones, a cloak made of a mountain-wolf pelt, and worst of all, a weapons belt featuring two daggers and a longer blade made of a sharpened human leg bone.
The Troll King spoke.
“I was told about this thief. He was discovered in the Supreme Watchtower, trying to steal the Elixir. No thief has ever made it so far. He must be … slippery.”
No one spoke.
The king grinned meanly. “But not slippery enough.”
The assembled trolls sniggered.
One of the hobgoblin jesters was glaring right at Raf, cruel and hard.
“You are not the first human to attempt to penetrate our stronghold and steal our Elixir, young thief,” the king said. “Here is another.”
The king held up the meat-covered bone on which he had been gnawing. Raf’s blood froze.
“Nothing tastes sweeter than the marrow of an enemy,” the king said. “And since today is a special day, I think I shall—”
“My tribe is dying,” Raf blurted, and the entire crowd gasped at the sheer gall of someone interrupting the king.
The king looked as if he had been slapped in the face.
“You cut off our water,” Raf said, “so our crops grow poorly and we Northmen become weaker and more susceptible to the illness. I came here only to—”
“Silence!” the king boomed, his voice ringing through the enormous hall. The assembled trolls quailed. The jesters literally cowered.
But Raf stood his ground.
The king’s eyes bulged. “Impudent thief! How dare you address me so! I have a good mind to snap one of your arms off right now and eat your bones in front of you! Northmen! Northmen! I know this tribe. A dirty rabble. They sent elders to bargain with me months ago. I received those old men on my winter throne. They, er, fell before me.”
The trolls near Raf sniggered.
The king boomed, “Then these same Northmen sent a delegation of three young princes several weeks ago, princes who arrived with three porters. The lead prince, Bader was his name, offered me his porters in return for a small bottle of the Elixir.”
Raf’s eyes widened in surprise.
The king saw it.
“Yes. Your prince offered his own people as payment for a sample of the Elixir. He did not ask for water or food or even a barrel of the magic drink. Just a single small bottle.”
Raf saw the scene in his mind. Bader had come here not to save the tribe from the illness at all.
He had only come to save his own sister. And he had brought along the three porters not as assistants but as unsuspecting sacrificial offerings.
The king leered at Raf, his huge troll mouth salivating. “I saw little honor in this Northman prince named Bader so I ate his porters anyway and threw him and his fellow princes in my cells to contemplate their treachery.”
Raf said nothing.
The king’s eyes narrowed. “But you, thief, you are not like him. You came here alone, under the cover of night, and you scaled an entire mountain to steal my Elixir. Were it not for my own precautions, you might have succeeded. No, you are motivated by a far more dangerous emotion than your prince was: the desire to save others. You … are a hero.”
The king raised his chin. “Trolls! Today, as you know, is a special day, the day of my son’s wedding. And so, as a wedding gift, I will give this hero to my son, Turv”—the king nodded to the tall red-robed troll at his right hand, who, Raf noted, also wore a grim fingerbone necklace plus a bone-sword at his waist made from a human leg—“as his matrimonial meal. While not as succulent as the meat of a child or a woman, the tough sinew of a hero will bring Turv that hero’s strength.”
The crowd of trolls gasped and then applauded vigorously. This was an astonishing gift: captured enemy warriors were usually eaten only by the king himself.
“Tonight,” the king announced, “at the wedding banquet for Turv and his bride, Graia, this thief will be ritually killed and his bones served bloody and fresh to Turv! Until then, put him in the cage, so I may look upon him throughout the day!”
Raf was led to a small iron cage that hung from a great chain. He was locked inside it and hoisted aloft, high above the floor of the hall for all to see: the live prisoner who would become that evening’s celebratory meal.
Chapter 19
For the remainder of that day, Raf sat forlornly in his cage, watching the trolls prepare for the evening’s feast.
Draggers hauled great stone sleds into the hall from a side door on the eastern side. On those sleds were baskets of food, and jugs of water and mead.
While the draggers toiled, the king and his courtiers drank and laughed. By mid-afternoon, some had already passed out on the floor. At one point, the two little hobgoblin jesters drew laughs from the king’s cronies by throwing fruit at Raf.
Shortly after that, Raf saw the bride and her mother enter the hall. The bride’s mother was a big heavy-boned she-troll dressed in the kind of brown sack-cloth that seemed to be worn by most of the troll women. She walked with a purposeful stride and ignored the catcalls from the drunken males up near the throne.
The bride beside her could not have been more different from her mother. She was smaller and walked with a shy hunch, and she wore a sack-cloth that was far whiter than those worn by the other she-trolls. The unruly trolls nudged and elbowed Turv at the sight of her, behaving—it seemed to Raf—like immature boys.
And then it struck Raf: this she-troll was Graia, the she-troll Düm had beseeched the troll prince Turv not to marry.
Having witnessed the way troll society operated, Raf could see now what an outrageous thing Düm’s approach to Turv had been: a lowly dragger questioning a prince.
Outrageous, but also brave. Düm might have been slow-witted, but he must have known such an approach was loaded with peril.
*
Late in the afternoon a commotion arose at the side door to the hall.
A crowd of trolls gathered there started oohing and ahing.
Raf looked that way—
—to see a pair of figures emerge from the throng of trolls and approach the king’s throne.
Raf gripped the bars of his cage as his eyes went wide.
It was Düm and Ko.
And Düm was leading Ko by a rope, as his prisoner.
Chapter 20
Düm yanked Ko into the Great Hall like a stubborn dog on a leash. Ko’s beautiful gold rope was tied around the hermit’s throat and the old man’s hands were bound.
Ko tripped as Düm tugged on the rope, dragging him forward.
Düm called loudly: “Trolls! I Düm! Recently, I flee from Troll Mountain after refusing challenge from Prince Turv! Now I come back, humbly seeking audience with king to present this captive as payment for my return to tribe!”
Up on the throne, the king and his rogues all turned, smirking but curious.
The prince named Turv looked down upon Düm with particular disdain.
“Father,” Raf heard Turv whisper, “this is the dragger I told you about.”
The king turned. “The one who opposed your marriage to Graia?”
“The very same.”
Raf was confused. Had Düm turned on Ko? It seemed very unlikely. Or perhaps this was something else—
“Speak, dragger!” the king said imperiously.
Düm swallowed, clearly nervous to be addressing the king.
“Düm find this hermit in Badlands, sire.” Düm pulled up a stone sled behind him. On it were six small green barrels—the same barrels Raf had seen in Ko’s hovel in the swamp: with written on them and candlewicks sticking out of their lids.
“Düm also find these barrels in old man’s hut: barrels filled with dark salt.”
The crowd murmured. Salt was a greatly prized delicacy in these parts. To have salt on one’s food was a privilege reserved only for the elite and even then, only when it was available—and here was Düm offering the king six barrels of the stuff.
But as Raf knew, those barrels did not contain salt …
And for the briefest of moments, Raf felt a flutter of hope. Düm was carrying out a plan.
Düm said stiffly, “Düm bring barrels to king as extra payment for his crime, in hope that gift will absolve Düm of his insult to Prince Turv. But Düm know his fate rest in king’s hands.”
Düm bowed his head.
The king pondered him for a long moment, his mean eyes calculating.
He said, “To decline a challenge is the gravest crime in our society, dragger. It is not something I forgive lightly. However, I can see, with these gifts, you have gone to some trouble to make amends.” He looked at the crowd. “As it is my son’s wedding day and the insult was made against him, I shall let Prince Turv decide your fate. Turv? Do you seek to enforce your challenge against this dragger or do you accept his payment and release him from his obligation?”
Turv looked long and hard at Düm, then glanced at the watching crowd of trolls.
As the future king, Raf realized, the decision Turv made here was important. He could be seen as capricious and hard, or benevolent when the occasion called for it. That Düm had also brought the “salt” barrels as an extra gift was clever—it made it very hard for Turv to turn him down.
In fact, Raf thought, it was actually too clever for Düm, and it made Raf wonder if this had not been Düm’s plan at all …
“I accept both gifts and allow Düm back into the tribe,” Turv said in a loud voice.
The crowd of trolls nodded and clapped approvingly.
But then another voice cut the air.
Ko’s voice.
“Your most wise and excellent majesty. May I speak?” the old man said in his polite way.
The king leaned back on his throne. “Amuse me, human.”
“I have heard it said by trolls who wander in the Badlands that before you were king, you embraced the challenge of battles on the Fighting Platform.”
Raf frowned. Ko was putting unusual emphasis on certain words: king, challenge, Fighting Platform.
The king sat higher on his throne. “You hear correctly. I was the previous king’s champion, undefeated on the Fighting Platform.”
“Will there be any fights during this wedding feast?”
There it was again, Raf thought. The odd emphasis on certain words. The trolls didn’t seem to notice it, but he did.
The king said, “I imagine there will be, old man, especially if the mead is flowing. Why? Do you want to challenge som
ebody?”
The assembled trolls laughed loudly. The king enjoyed his own joke.
Ko smiled. “Oh, no, no, your majesty. I only ask that when you are done with your activities tonight, you release me.”
Ko never looked at Raf as he spoke—not even a glance—but Raf now knew that Ko was addressing him and not the king.
Raf furrowed his brow, trying to figure out the meaning behind Ko’s cryptic words: king, challenge, Fighting Platform, during the wedding feast, and when you are done with your activities tonight, you release me.
No … he thought.
It couldn’t be …
Was Ko suggesting …
But that was madness.
Ignorant of the secret messages being passed, the king just laughed at Ko’s words. “Ha! Release you! My generosity only goes so far, old man. When this night is over, I will be sucking the marrow from your bones!”
Ko’s eyes widened in surprise. “Oh, dear …”
Turv stepped in. “Guards. Take the old man to the cells on the western wall.” He turned to Düm: “And you, dragger, take those salt barrels and ready them, we shall make use of them tonight. The whole tribe shall enjoy your gift. Then return to your duties: after all, we have a feast to prepare!”
Ko was taken away to the cells. Düm dragged his stone sled toward the kitchen area on the eastern side of the hall.
Raf was watching them both—still thinking about Ko’s message—when, from his position in his suspended cage, he heard Turv say in a low voice to his lackeys: “Later tonight, after I am wed, bring Düm to the Fighting Platform, unarmed. There I shall take my hammer to his knees until he begs me to end his life.”
The prince’s cronies cackled.
Raf could only watch Düm dragging his sled toward the kitchen area, head bent, shoulders hunched, unaware that he had just been sentenced to die.
Chapter 21
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