The Prodigal Troll

by Charles Coleman Finlay

The goat. He'd left the goat outside. He listened for it again, but heard nothing for a while. He hadn't believed Banya when the wizard said the creature kept him awake all night, thought that was only an excuse to make them take it. Maybe it'd be fine until morning. He was nearly asleep-

  "Maaa! "

  He couldn't even open his eyes. The leagues he had walked the past two days chased after him like a pack of wolves. Exhaustion was a predator-he'd seen it kill men before. The only weapon to fight it with was rest, and he needed rest. The goat fell silent. Yvon'd just rest a few more minutes, then-

  "Maaa "

  He rolled over, his chin slick with drool.

  "Maaa! Maaa!"

  "Yvon?"

  "Yes," he mumbled.

  "Yvon, is everything aright?" He heard concern in Xaragitte's voice. "I've been talking to you, but you won't answer."

  "Too tired." His head felt like a boulder his shoulders were incapable of stirring.

  "The goat," she whispered. "Do you think it'll quiet down if I bring it in here with us? It's keeping me awake."

  He pushed up on his elbows. "I'll fetch it."

  "No, you stay right there," she said, standing up. "You've done enough the past two days."

  "Are you sure?"

  The goat bleated continuously now. Probably frightened by the storm that was blowing up.

  "It will only take a moment," she said.

  He flipped over on his side. He heard, as if far away, the branch scrape free of the door, and air stir as the wind blew through the open doorway.

  "Maa-!" The goat stopped its noise.

  Good. She'd gotten it, then. Yvon let go and sank back into sleep's deeper current.

  Xaragitte screamed.

  Heart kicking like a rabbit caught in a snare, he rolled over too fast and banged his head into the wall. He twisted the other direction, got on his feet, and staggered to the door before he realized he'd forgotten to grab his sword.

  The blood in his veins turned to ice. His hands braced the door frame.

  Crouching over the dead goat was a dagger-toothed lion.

  He'd forgotten the vultures.

  Xaragitte stood halfway between the house and the dead nanny. She took one trembling step backward, and the lion lifted its head to growl. Raw flesh plopped out of its mouth, fell slap on the ground.

  Yvon tried to yell out to her not to turn her back on it, but his tongue cleaved to his mouth, and she spun around.

  The lion leaned back on its squat legs-

  Xaragitte took a step and a half toward him, and Yvon's whole world shrunk to the terror compassed by the pale moon of her face.

  -and pounced.

  Yvon's hand fastened on a chunk of wood from the stack beside the door, and with a roar of his own, he hurled himself at the lion, landing one blow square across its flat snout as it hit Xaragitte between the shoulders, knocking her to the ground.

  The lion crouched on Xaragitte's back-she was screaming-and barked at Yvon in surprise. He swung again, another blow on the bridge of the lion's nose. The dry wood cracked and fell to pieces. He reached down to pull Xaragitte to her feet, back to the safety of the house, when the lion swiped him with a paw.

  Agony knifed through his arm and chest as he smashed into the ground. The lion leaned over Xaragitte, the twin daggers of its teeth angled to rip open her back.

  Yvon surged to his feet, the shattered club still clutched in his fist, and charged the lion with a yell.

  The lion sat back on its haunches and roared.

  Yvon's yell shriveled in his throat, and his charge stumbled to a dead stop. The roar shivered through him just like the bell ward on the night they'd escaped the castle, turning his joints to jelly and his will to dust.

  For a brief second, absolute silence.

  Then the baby cried inside the cabin, Xaragitte sobbed, and Yvon gulped, staring down the cavernous jaws of the beast as its nauseating hot breath washed over his face. Yvon raised the stub of his club and started forward.

  The lion turned, snatched the goat with its powerful jaws, and shook it once, snapping the rope that held it to the tree. Then it vaulted away into the shadows.

  Rain teardropped out of the clouded sky for a few seconds and then started to fall in earnest.

  Yvon sagged, sat down hard. Blood spilled from the slashes in his forearm and side. The pain flashed far away, like lightning from a distant storm, then hit him like a roll of thunder so his whole body trembled.

  He groaned and wobbled to his feet.

  Xaragitte was flat on her stomach, arms covering her head, sobbing and gasping. Her dress was shredded across the middle of her back, the white cloth cut in strips, tatters so mixed with blood and skin that Yvon could not tell which was which.

  "Hold on," he said. "I'll be right back-you hold on!"

  Her body convulsed with each panting sob; her legs twitched. It was bad.

  He looked at himself. His skin was torn to the rib. If nothing was broken he was lucky. A deep cut on his arm went down through the big muscle, but it was his left arm, luckily, and the blood came out steady, not in little pulsing spurts.

  He rushed into the house. Claye wailed, dismayed, alone, afraid. Yvon ignored him, found his knife, and cut off one sleeve, tying it as tight as he could around his arm to stop the bleeding. Claye crawled over and clung to his leg. Yvon shoved him away and grabbed the blanket.

  He ran back outside and knelt by Xaragitte in the pelting rain. "I need to sew up those wounds," he whispered. "But I don't have needles or thread."

  "I'm thirsty," she said, her voice quivering.

  He cupped his hands, trying to catch water from the sky, but it ran through his fingers before he could bring it to her lips. The ground beneath her was quickly turning to mud. "I have to get you inside," he said, pressing the blanket against her back, trying to stanch the flow of blood.

  Claye's crying jumped up a pitch, slicing through the rain.

  "I need to go calm Claye," she said, the words coming out of her mouth as the barest whisper. "Can't you hear him crying?"

  "Easy, easy, now," he said, all his attention focused on taking care of her. "Let me help you."

  He raised her gently to her feet, and caught her when her knees buckled. He propped her up and they limped side by side into the house, her feet slipping in the mud.

  The rain abated for a moment, and an odd kind of thunder rolled down from the hillside. A humanoid shape stood there, dimly outlined between the trees against the blue-black sky. Yvon's feet stopped moving, and he nearly let go of Xaragitte.

  She sagged in his arms, gasping as he caught her. "What?" Her voice was shrill, panicked. "What is it?"

  The silhouette reared up, extended its long arms like some grotesque mockery of a man, and then slammed them on the ground. It stood as though listening, then turned, and disappeared over the ridge into the forest beyond.

  "Nothing, nothing to worry about," Yvon said, helping her into the house.

  But the source of the smell in the house became clear. The creature he had just seen was a troll, and it probably used this space as a den sometimes. Of the three things Yvon feared and hated, he'd rather face a mammut or a demon.

  Xaragitte was weeping uncontrollably as they stumbled through the door. Claye lay on the ground, his body arched and rigid, eyes squeezed shut, torrenting a scream.

  Yvon restrained Xaragitte as she lurched toward the child, pain knifing through his arm and ribs. "You can't pick him up!"

  "Just"-she gasped-"help me sit beside him."

  Yvon eased her down beside the wall, kneeling beside her to prop her up. She murmured mollifying words as Claye rolled over, trying at once to climb into her arms. She groaned in agony, flinching, almost blacking out as she fell backward.

  "Get away!" Yvon reached around her to push Claye down. His hand formed a half-fist, clenched in pain. He wouldn't let anyone or anything hurt her again, not even the baby.

  She inhaled sharply, pulling herself upright. "Do
n't-hurt-him!"

  Her words emerged so quietly they all but disappeared as Claye's cry rose in pitch and volume until it sounded like a river in flood. He scrambled for her arms again. Yvon stretched out his hand, to hold the baby off more gently. But Claye grabbed a fistful of skin and hair, and pulled himself hand over hand up Yvon's arm, like a man scaling a rope, until he grasped Xaragitte by the neck and clung there.

  Nothing Xaragitte did comforted Claye. Her singing and her soothing strokes were to no effect, nor would the boy take her breast. He cried like a lost child, forlorn.

  The rain poured through the roof, soaking everything. Yvon couldn't tell what was wet with rain and what with blood. He leaned against the wall and Xaragitte, like a buttress holding both of them up. The pain stabbed at him. He wanted to move.

  Outside, he heard the troll drum its chest again. It sounded nearer. He looked at the wide-open door, and then over at his sword lying half-sunk in a muddy puddle. His hand jumped to his throat. He still had two charms as well.

  "M'lady," he said very softly.

  "It's raining," she mumbled, trying to rock Claye. Then she started to sing, in a wheezing off-key voice.

  "M'lady, I have to look outside."

  "Kady was a soldier," she said softly, eyes unfocused.

  "I have to block the door again."

  "He would have been a knight. Lord Gruethrist was going to make him a knight." She glanced at Claye, who sucked on his thumb, eyes closed. "You're Lord Gruethrist now. Will you make him a knight? Sir Kady, the barrelwright's handsome boy."

  Her voice was weak. A shudder racked her body. Yvon put a hand on her shoulder to steady her, and she flinched away.

  "I'm going to stand up now, and step outside, and then I'll be back straight away," he said.

  "Death follows me, just like Bwnte," she said. "Bury me deep; let new life sprout up again like a seed."

  "No one needs to bury you yet," Yvon said, turning away. He gritted his teeth to bite back the pain when he picked up his sword, pulled it from its sheath, and shook the water off it.

  Xaragitte's head leaned sideways in his direction. "We all die. You too, even you." She sang it. "You too, even you. You too, even you."

  He shook his head, shivering at her voice, and went to the threshold. He stopped to kick aside the branch he had used to block the door. A stick that puny wouldn't last two seconds against a troll. He needed something larger.

  The stark shapes of the trees pricked the dark, clouded sky like a hedge of thorns. The rain had tapered off to a few scattered drops. Holding his sword before him, Yvon stepped outside. He didn't see any sign of the troll on the ridge. One cautious step was followed by another, and then he hurried away from the house, turning in case the troll came out behind the corner-nothing there.

  He stopped and tugged on the cords that held the last two magic ampules, letting them rest outside his shirt. He could use them on the troll if it came too close.

  With one eye to the ridge, he searched for a fallen branch big enough to block the door. When he found one as thick as a man's forearm and twice as long as a man was tall, he couldn't hold it with his left arm. He had to switch his sword to his left hand, where fingers gripped it numbly, and drag the branch in the crook of his right. Still it kept slipping away. It took a long time to get it all the way back to the cabin's door.

  Panting hard, he dropped it outside and stepped through to see that Xaragitte and Claye were safe. He saw Claye lying on the ground in the corner.

  "No no no."

  Xaragitte's voice made him jump. She stood just inside the door, leaning against the wall. He felt a sharp pain in his heart as he saw her.

  "M'lady, you shouldn't be on your feet." He lifted his hand to touch her.

  Her eyes narrowed. The pain twisted suddenly sideways.

  He teetered forward, sword dropping from his fingers, and looked down. The hilt of Xaragitte's knife protruded from the left side of his chest, between his ribs. He tried to grab it, but his fingers didn't work.

  "You're not my Kady," she said. "You tried to hurt my baby. You slapped my baby down."

  Her face turned to black dots as Yvon collapsed. Looking up from the floor he saw only her red hair, suddenly bright as flame, like a halo of fire, as if Bwnte herself, the goddess of fertility and death, were in the room.

  "No, you'll never hurt my baby again," she said. Her voice sounded far away, like it came from the bottom of a well. Then the walls of the well caved in and everything went black.

  Far away, muffled, as if it came through a mound of dirt, he heard Claye crying.

  "Mamamamama!"

  etgo of it."

  Windy tugged her shoulder free from Ragweed's grip, cradling the baby protectively between her milk-heavy breasts and the wall of the cave. "No."

  "We took a vote and voted you should put the baby down."

  "The vote was a tie, so I can do what I want."

  Ragweed ground his jaws together until they squeaked. "But the baby's dead-that's why you should let go of it."

  "Let's have another vote."

  Ragweed smiled broadly, showing off his gray, cracked teeth. "That's a good idea. All those in favor of you putting down the dead baby?" He raised his hand. "And those against?"

  Windy raised hers. "It's a tie. So I can do what I want."

  "Hey! Wait a moment-"

  Before he could protest, she stood up and leaned forward on one long-armed knuckled hand. The sun had finally sunk low enough to go outside again. She left the overhung ledge of the cave, pressing past the tree and through the overgrown shrubs. Leaves wet from a night and day of rain brushed against her, and water ran in little rivulets down her back, filling the cracks in her skin. She lifted her head into the branches to inhale the sharp clean scent of the pine needles. Droplets rolled down over the hard angles of her cheeks in place of the tears she refused to cry.

  Windy walked to her favorite open spot on the slope, in the long shadow of the mountain's sheltering spur. From there, she peered over the pines into the meadow below, and, surrounded by shade, watched the last light flow out of the valley. Uncheered by the dying sun, she rocked the baby in the crook of her massive arm.

  She glanced up to the mouth of the cave. Ragweed dug in the dirt with his big knobby fingers, then shoved his hands into his mouth. The soil was rich in spots where leaves and needles piled deep enough to decay, and the rain sent worms swimming toward the surface. That had to be what Ragweed ate. Windy stirred the compost with fingerlike toes, and a fat red wriggly worm squirmed out. She left it alone. She had no appetite.

  Ragweed turned his head in her direction, wrinkled his nose, and snorted. "It's already starting to stink!"

  She smelled it too. Her nose was sensitive to the scent of dead things, a main part of her diet. She knew her baby was starting to rot, even though it had been dead less than a day. "I like the way she smells! And I'm not putting her down!"

  Ragweed shrugged, then resumed his digging.

  Windy stared at the little thing in her arms. She had been such a lively baby, so adventuresome, afraid of nothing. Hardly feared daylight at all. She used to crawl away at the first hint of darkness. So last night when the rain poured down and she'd crawled out of their crowded crack of rock, Windy had listened to her laugh and taken the chance to rub butt with Ragweed. She'd just been getting excited herself when she heard the bigtooth lion's roar and ran out to rescue her daughter.

  She'd chased the bigtooth off-it was a cowardly old thing with a limp. But by the time she'd reached her little girl it was too late. Her daughter's skull was crushed, all soft, pulpy, and misshapen. Like a rotten pumpkin. Windy had eaten pumpkins once, near one of the villages of the black-haired people. But now, thinking of her baby, she'd never eat pumpkins again, no matter how tasty they were.

  She felt like she'd never do anything again.

  The last finger of light lingered on the green face of the meadow. Ragweed strolled over and sat down beside her. He notic
ed the worm twisting in the leaves, picked it up, and offered it to her. She stuck out her tongue to show she wasn't hungry, to say no. He popped the worm in his mouth, chewed once, and swallowed.

  "It's almost dark," he said. "We should go down to that turtle shell again."

  The turtle shell is what he called the false cave built by people. "Why?" she asked.

  Ragweed shrugged. "Might be something to eat."

  "What if those people are still there? The man had a shining leaf." A sword. She had seen it last night when he came outside after the bigtooth ran that way.

  Ragweed scratched his head, then probed one of his nostrils with a carrot-sized forefinger. Stirring up his brains in search of an idea, she guessed.

  "We could try to scare them away," he offered.

  She had guessed right. "You tried to scare them two or three times last night," she reminded him.

  "Yeah," he said slowly. His face darkened cheerfully. "They're probably pretty scared by now!"

  He didn't seem to notice her answering silence. She sagged on her haunches and studied him thoughtfully. Ragweed was the handsomest troll she'd ever seen-he had a beautifully shaped head that sloped back to a nice point, a brow so thick you could hardly see his eyes beneath its shadow, no neck to speak of, arms like the trunks of trees, and a belly as round and dark as the new moon. Short, bristly hairs ran down between his shoulders and into the crack of his buttocks. Just looking at him used to send shivers up her spine and make her feel all juicy inside. She'd flirted with him, and he'd responded, and she was as happy as any troll could be until she became pregnant and realized that Ragweed was not the sharpest rock in the pile. Of course, she couldn't be that much smarter. When it was time for her baby to be born, she'd let him persuade her to come down out of the mountains to this stupid little valley.

  Ragweed grunted. "When I came down here a couple years back, the turtle shell didn't have people in it."

  "Well, this year it did!" She'd heard the same statement a thousand times before, and she was tired of it. But more than that, she wanted to blame Ragweed for her baby's death. She wanted to blame somebody, anybody, because if it was somebody else's fault, then it wasn't hers.