The Prodigal Troll

by Charles Coleman Finlay

  "Boy," Xaragitte replied.

  The woman made the kind of murmur that hinted condolences at this misfortune. "What's his name?"

  It was a gesture of politeness, acting as though they were two women in one of their homes, already introduced. Xaragitte lifted her chin a little. "Cl-Kady."

  Yvon's throat dried and knotted. More than ever, he wanted to be on the move away from the camp and the dead soldier.

  "Klady?" the woman asked.

  "Kady," Xaragitte corrected.

  "You're from this valley?"

  Xaragitte hesitated a second. "Yes."

  "We're going to reach the castle tonight. Will we be better off claiming land on this side or the far side of the river?"

  Yvon understood now. Baron Culufre was bringing the stragglers to be settlers so he could set up a second village of people loyal to himself. This group meant to get a jump on the others and claim the best land for themselves. It meant that Culufre intended to stay in the valley a long time, then. Lord Gruethrist would need to know.

  Xaragitte seemed unsure how to answer the question. Yvon couldn't see her features, but her voice came haltingly. "There are lions-"

  "Most of the good farming land on this side of the river is claimed already," Yvon said. "There are hills just across the bridge where one may do well enough."

  The woman stepped back, her eyes glinting as she looked at Yvon. "That is what we'd already heard. Do you wish to travel with us? You could claim land also, in Sebius's name."

  That damned eunuch! Gruethrist would have to deal with Sebius eventually.

  Claye stirred uneasily in Xaragitte's arms.

  Yvon took a step forward. If he could get them to the bridge before dawn, he and Xaragitte could cross the bridge mixed in with the others. "I know the way here well."

  The woman nodded, and Yvon passed through the circle of men.

  A bald, old man with stooped shoulders came up and kept pace beside Yvon. "The hills are better for orchards," he said, patting the seed bags slung over his shoulder. "Old fellows like you and I may not live to see them, but our daughters and their children will."

  "She's not my daughter," Yvon said.

  "They'll still outlive us," the old man replied.

  Yvon pushed on as fast as he could go, over trails he had helped to blaze, expecting the families to falter at some point. But the darkhaired woman kept all her people together, badgering the older boys and girls into carrying their younger siblings when they faltered. Still, the stars wheeled in the sky past midnight, edging toward dawn before they neared the castle.

  The ruined beams of the castle hall jabbed against the lightening sky like a tree washed up in a flood, with the rooftops of the little town poking up like stepping stones across a dark river. The Baron's soldiers seemed to have word of their coming. A grumpy pair met them and escorted them to the bridge, where they crossed without question. The oak bridge creaked and sagged beneath their combined weight, and then they were across, and Yvon was standing next to Xaragitte and Claye.

  "You're welcome to join us," the dark-haired woman said.

  "My-my relatives await us in the mountains near Lady Eleuate's keep," Xaragitte said.

  The old man stood beside her, running his hand over his bald head. "Orchards," he told Yvon. "I've plenty of seeds."

  "May they prosper in the harvest, safe from war," Yvon replied, invoking two gods. He would have to come back with Gruethrist to dislodge these people later, but he didn't wish them any personal harm. "May you prosper."

  Already the younger children were spreading on the hillside grass to rest, lying down and falling asleep. Xaragitte looked at Yvon, rocking Claye in her arms trying to keep him asleep.

  "Will you give me one of the blankets to sop up the dew and keep us warm?" she asked, with a nod at the bag.

  "No," Yvon answered quietly. "We can't sleep. We have to keep going. The soldiers will be along with their mammuts before the morning is gone."

  He took a few steps along the shepherd's trail into the hills, but she didn't follow him. Her head was turned toward the other families.

  Quietly, he said, "If they pass by us and reach Lady Eleuate first, we'll never deliver Cla-the child to safety. His father will never see him again."

  With her head sagging toward her chest, she slouched up the trail toward him.

  As she came beside him, he whispered to her. "I'm sorry, m'lady Xaragitte." They trudged in silence up the shepherd's trail, rising into the steep hills above the river.

  Xaragitte and Claye napped briefly around midmorning, the nursemaid falling asleep as soon as she stretched upon the grass on a hilltop beneath some trees. Yvon squatted guard nearby, watching the trail behind them. He knew that fresh scouts could be sent out in pursuit from the castle as soon as Sebius or Baron Culufre had reason to suspect them of murdering the soldier or carrying Gruethrist's child.

  When Claye's stirring woke Xaragitte, Yvon fed her a portion of the cold porridge he had saved the night before. His mouth watered and his stomach rumbled, but he suspected she'd need the rest of it before they reached Lady Eleuate's castle.

  "How much farther do we have to go?" she asked.

  "Wah!" Claye said, slapping at the food cupped in Xaragitte's hand. She pulled it away from him.

  "It's a two-day journey," Yvon said. Although a determined force of soldiers could make it in one by marching day and night. "We'll stop tonight and sleep well, then make the ford tomorrow morning and dine well tomorrow night."

  She licked her palm when she was done eating. Claye shoved his fingers in his mouth and sucked on them.

  Spring had not yet crept this high into the foothills, and the land was bare and still brown. The trail wound through steeper, rocky slopes as it rose toward the high meadows. The mountains surrounding them were not as distant now, and all the peaks had sharper edges.

  This was the country of the peasants, the people who had been here before Gruethrist came. Many still lived in their villages farther back in the mountains, pushed there after their revolt. A decade ago, Gruethrist had tried to force the peasants to give up their traditional fields and switch to plows, so they would have more grains to pay in taxes. One of their wizard-priests had proclaimed the sanctity of the old ways and led them in rebellion. There'd been hard fighting, a lot of murders done in darkness against the settlers, before the priest and his followers were slaughtered. But in the end, Gruethrist left the peasants' farming as it was, and collected his extra due in game.

  With inferior forces and fewer men, Gruethrist would have to adopt some of their tactics to dislodge the Baron and protect the land he meant his lady's heir to have. Yvon would point that out to him when they met again.

  Xaragitte struggled to keep up, using singsongs to the child to measure her pace. When she fell quiet, Yvon looked over and saw her eyes lose focus. Absentmindedly, she almost leaned on him for extra strength. He reached out to brace her, but she caught herself at the last moment.

  "It's all right for you to lean on me," he said.

  She shook her head dully and staggered on. But her flow of rhymes withered like flowers nipped by frost.

  Near dark, they lay down beside the trail, Xaragitte falling asleep with Claye as soon as she had eaten half of the remaining porridge. Yvon made a small ball from the rest of it, rolling it around in his hand, then letting it sit for a long time in his mouth before chewing and swallowing.

  He wrapped both their blankets around her and the child, then pulled his cloak tight and leaned against a tree, shivering in the colder mountain air before he dozed off.

  He jerked awake before he knew what had startled him. Then he heard a mammut again, from the direction of the trail behind them. Baron Culufre's men meant to make the march in one day and night.

  Shaking Xaragitte gently, he said, "They're coming. We must go now."

  She nodded grimly and rose. Yvon lifted Claye's limp form and helped slide him into her nursing sling. No sound broke the cool ni
ght air again except for their breathing and the soft crunching of their feet over the trail. Xaragitte's head drooped toward her chest and jerked up several times. Before long, she was nearly sleepwalking, eyes all but closed. When Claye woke and wanted to be fed, she became more alert. They stopped a short time later so she could clean the boy's bottom.

  "How much farther tonight?" she asked.

  "Not much," he replied, but he must have been sleepwalking too. They were on the trail beside the mountain river. A few birds were singing the first notes of morning. Without the faint light in the east Yvon wouldn't have noticed the three tall pines and would have missed the turnoff he meant to take.

  He turned. A squat building-the ford wizard's house-sat below the pines, down near the rocky river bank.

  Yvon went straight down to it and pounded on the wooden door. "Hey, Banya, wake up!"

  Several moments later, the door cracked open. A wrinkled face peered at Yvon through the gap. Finally, the man said, "Are you a ghost? Tell me three times, tell me true."

  Yvon wondered what Banya had heard. "Under the sky, I live. Above the ground, I live."

  The door swung wide. An older man stepped outside. He wore a woman's sleeveless dress, with big, graceless, copper bracelets on his wrists and an ill-fitting girdle about his waist. He had hard limbs, the same scoured-brown color as weathered trees high up in the mountains. Unkempt hair fell about his wrinkled face and spread across his broad shoulders. His face was stubbled where he'd scraped it clean a couple days before. He stared at Yvon. "You're a dead man."

  "You're the second one to call me that in as many days."

  "Who was the first?"

  "I didn't ask his name before I killed him. One of Culufre's men. Where'd you hear that I was dead?"

  "You're missing, that's why." Banya glanced at Xaragitte, and shielded his eyes as he stared at the baby. "They were still digging away at the castle ruins two days ago. It's presumed they'll find your body buried among the stones and ashes, with the nursemaid, the heir, and a few others."

  Yvon rubbed his fist inside his other palm. "Let them sift for a month, if it'll help us. We need to lay low until Gruethrist ransoms himself or escapes."

  Banya stared off at the morning star, refusing to meet Yvon's eyes. Finally, he said, "If you want to see Gruethrist again, you'll have to do what Sumukan did."

  "I'm too tired for riddles," Yvon said. The wild man Sumukan was the friend and companion of the ancient king, Ganmagos. "Do you mean that I must go and cut down the cedar of heaven or that I must slay the god's eight-legged bull?"

  "I mean that you must do as Sumukan did when Ganmagos died. You'll have to kill yourself and descend into the underworld to rescue him." Ganmagos returned to the living afterward, and became an immortal, but Sumukan was trapped forever in the land of death. The king wrote a famous lament before he climbed the high mountain and leaped into the heavens to become the wandering red star.

  "Speak plainly," Yvon said, still not understanding.

  "Gruethrist is dead."

  Yvon forced a laugh. "As dead as I am?"

  "More dead than you." Banya's expression never changed, but he glanced away again, a way he had when speaking bad news.

  Yvon's chest tightened. He'd served Lord Tubat as a common soldier, and stood beside him as a dam against the slaughter of the virgins during the Temple Rebellion of the last succession. When the Empress had offered Tubat his choice of rewards, all he'd asked was that his common soldiers-the handful that survived-be allowed to grow the braid of knights. The Empress granted his wish, and gave his hand to Lady Gruethrist in marriage. Without Lord Gruethrist, Yvon would only be another common soldier. "How did it happen?" he asked.

  "The story is that he rushed into the burning hall to succor some of his knights, including you. You rushed in to put out the flames, or maybe to rescue his heir-I've heard it both ways-and were trapped when the roof collapsed. The knights were burned beyond recognition, but they found Gruethrist's body under a partly collapsed wall. Crushed, but untouched by fire."

  Yvon would have discounted any story of Gruethrist's death but one such as this: he was crude enough to burn his lady's home, but he had always been loyal to his men and would risk his life for them.

  The wizard looked directly into Xaragitte's eyes. "After seeing his body, and thinking her child already dead, Lady Gruethrist tried to kill herself with poison. She still lived two days ago."

  "She died during the night," Xaragitte said softly. "No, the night before last. They blur so.... I felt it because my bond to her was severed."

  The wizard paused. "My regrets at her passing."

  "This is the babe's nursemaid," explained Yvon. His hands and feet felt numb, like he was outside in the snow. "She was bonded to Lady Gruethrist."

  Banya lifted his chin at the baby. "That'd be the heir?"

  "He was. Now he's not much more than any other poor orphaned boy. If he was a girl instead ..." Yvon reached for his missing braid. The enormity of the situation stunned him. The child's mother and father were dead, and Baron Culufre occupied both castle and valley. "Will Eleuate help us?"

  "With the lady of the valley dead, and her lord as well?" Banya asked, shaking his head. "No, Eleuate won't hold her daughter Portia to the betrothal. And her husband is the Baron's man now. I say that confidently, as one who served him as a knight once and knows his heart."

  Yvon made the warding sign, three fingers touching forehead, mouth, and heart. He hadn't done it in years. "Maybe we are cursed."

  "It's war," Banya said. "Hard things happen in war."

  Xaragitte kissed the baby's head, though he made a face and twisted his head away. "What path should we follow, wizard?"

  Banya glanced at Xaragitte, ducked into the small house, and returned with a small bag. He untied the drawstrings.

  Yvon said, "Don't-"

  "Please do," Xaragitte interrupted.

  Banya whispered into the open mouth of the bag, then shook it with his ear to the opening. The clicking sound made Yvon's skin crawl. Banya shook it again, and held the open mouth to Xaragitte. "Ask your question."

  She leaned forward and whispered something into the sack. Yvon strained to hear her but could only make out the sound of the baby's name. Something about Claye.

  Banya knelt, shaking the bag vigorously, then upending it and spilling the bones. Yvon stood back and stared. The divination sets he'd seen in the Imperial City were more elegant and complex. These were finger bones from a troll's hand, twice as large as a man's, with crude pictures scratched into their sides. Banya peered at them from different angles.

  "Mah!" shouted Claye.

  Banya frowned. "The voices of the spirits are in a tumult. It's hard for me to find guidance in their chatter. The war bone falls outside the circle when I expected it in the middle. The lesser journey bone obscures the greater journey, here at the top. Both are crossed by the unmarked bone." He poked at the mound of bones. "What did you ask them, ma'am?"

  She kissed the baby's head. "What path should we follow."

  "Whatever path you choose, it leads away from war and into darkness. This I see for all three of you, though you may not travel there together. Darkness can mean death, but it can also mean sleeping and waking, or change. Those who pass through darkness rather than into it emerge again into the light."

  Claye leaned in Xaragitte's arms, trying to grab the bones. "But which path, for his safety?" Xaragitte whispered.

  Banya shrugged. Then he pointed toward the mountain range across the river. "If you head into the mountains, you might find a place to hide. It's not good land, but you won't want for shelter-there are abandoned farms up there, left behind by our women when they fled the peasant rebellion."

  "Is it safe?" Xaragitte asked.

  "Are you safe now?" the wizard snapped back. "Does any creature with two legs or four roam safe upon the earth?"

  From down the valley echoed a faint sound, as of mammuts or horns. Claye twisted around in
Xaragitte's arm to peer at the noise. "Mahmah," he said. "Mahmah!"

  "Will you take us across the river?" Yvon asked Banya. He couldn't think of any other choices.

  "Yes. Best do it now, before the daylight comes full. I like it better when I see the demons that I sing to."

  Yvon shuddered and touched his sword. There were three things he hated and feared. Mammuts were one and the river demons were another. "Can I lend a hand?"

  "Over here," he said. A small flat-bottomed boat leaned against the back wall of the cottage. He gestured to Yvon. "You take that end and we'll carry it down to the river."

  It was more awkward than heavy. Yvon's feet slid on the muddy bank, but he stayed upright until they set the boat down. The river flowed out of the mountains, swollen with meltwater, though in the summer it might be only waist-deep.

  "I don't see any demons," he said hopefully.

  "They sleep along the bottom," explained Banya. "This ford is as high as they swim on the river. You'll see them rise suddenly sometimes, in places where you swear there were none, to snap at the birds. Wait here, while I go fetch my pole."

  Xaragitte stood high up on the bank, away from the water's edge. She was no more eager than Yvon to face any demon.

  Banya returned, carrying a pole as tall as Baron Culufre's armored mammut and leading a goat by a leash. "What's that for?" Yvon asked him. "Will you feed it to the demon?"

  "No, it's for you," he said. "Someone gave it to me as payment for helping with her daughter's wedding. But the damn thing keeps me awake all night. You might use the meat, once you find a spot to stay in for a while."

  Yvon's mouth watered at the thought; Xaragitte said, "Oh, thank you!"

  Banya hummed his song as they positioned the craft on the river's edge and loaded the goat aboard. It bleated and kicked the side of the craft, rocking it. They coaxed Xaragitte to come down and sit in the middle.

  "Have you ever been in a boat before?" Yvon asked her quietly, not daring to interrupt the wizard's song.

  She shook her head. Her face had blanched white, pale as the moon; her hair framed it, the color of dawn on the clouds.