Don't Feed the Trolls

by Jacob Peppers

  Dannen cleared his throat, eyeing the troops behind the man. “No?”

  “You can’t leave,” the man said, and Dannen felt the last bit of hope he’d been entertaining flicker like the dying embers of a flame. “At least…not in this direction.”

  Dannen frowned. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Well,” the guard captain offered, “the thing is, the duke, he’ll expect you to travel east. After all, the flat ground east of Palden would be much kinder than the mountains to the north or the forests to the south. The problem, though, is that it will make it easier for the duke and the horsemen he sends to catch you.”

  Dannen rubbed his temple with a weary hand. After days spent traipsing through the forest with the welves, being pricked by so many thorns and thistles that he had come to think he’d done something to piss them off, he had been looking forward to the relative easy travel the flat plains would provide. He should have known better, of course, for he had been on other “quests” before, and “ease” was not a word he would have used to describe any of them. He sighed. “So…what would you suggest?”

  “Well,” the guard captain said, thinking. “This close to winter, I doubt the duke would ever expect you to travel north, into the mountains.”

  “And would that doubt,” Mariana said, “have anything to do with the fact that no one would be so foolish to do it as they’d likely freeze to death?”

  The guard captain smiled, nodding in appreciation as if she’d just solved a particularly difficult puzzle. “Exactly!”

  Dannen shared a glance with the others. Either freeze to death in the mountains or be hunted down by a pissed-off duke eager to save face. He wondered briefly what he had done in his life, what terrible crime he had committed, that he found himself forced to make such choices depressingly often—then thought perhaps it was better not to spend too much time thinking on it.

  The others only watched him, waiting for what he would decide. At least, Mariana and Fedder did. Tesler, on the other hand, remained blissfully unconscious and therefore not forced to contemplate the choice set before them. The lucky bastard. Dannen would have liked to think that, in the end, he made his decision based on rational thought and logic. In truth, however, it mostly came down to the fact that he didn’t want to give the bastard of the duke the satisfaction, so he grunted. “Very well. The mountains it is.”

  The captain nodded, smiling, as if pleased that they would accept his suggestion. And why not? After all, he wasn’t going to be the one who froze to death. “A good choice,” the captain said, then he turned and said a quiet word to one of his soldiers and, a moment later, they began to disperse. In less than a minute, the man was standing alone with Dannen and the others. “I thought it best to send them away,” he explained. “After all, the villagers are a bit distracted right now, what with all that’s happened, but I doubt even they would fail to notice if you were escorted to the northern gate by so many soldiers, and we wouldn’t want the duke to be made aware of where you actually went.”

  Of course not, Dannen thought. The last thing we want is for the duke to find us and kill us before we get a chance to freeze to death. But then the guard captain was moving, and he looked at the others, giving a fatalistic shrug, before following.

  They reached the northern gate in short order considering the fact that no one else seemed quite so foolish as to plan to leave the city from that way. “Here we are,” the guard captain said, “the northern gate.”

  “Well,” Dannen said. “Thanks. For showing us here, I mean.”

  “Of course,” the captain said.

  Dannen hesitated for a moment, thinking. “So…any suggestions? For traveling in the mountains, I mean?”

  “Sure,” the man replied. “If I were you, I’d do my best to stay warm. It gets very cold in the mountains, this time of year.”

  To Dannen, that advice seemed about as useful as telling a drowning man to try to stay dry, but he grunted. “Thanks.”

  “No problem at all,” the man said, “it’s the least I can do.” Which, Dannen had to admit, was nothing less than the truth. “Oh, I just had a thought. What direction are you trying to head?”

  Dannen considered that, glancing at Fedder and the others. He didn’t love the idea of giving the guard captain their path in case the man decided later that they’d all be better off hanged. Then again, he didn’t love the idea of the man calling back his army of guards either, if he decided to take offense, so Dannen shrugged as if unsure of where they meant to go. As if the gods themselves hadn’t told him. “We were considering going north. To help King Ufrith.”

  The man grinned from ear to ear. “That right? Brave of you. But, like I said, I imagine the king has dealt with the undead scourge definitively by now. Still, it’s a good thing, you all meanin’ to volunteer.”

  “Um…no,” Mariana said as if the man were a fool. “We’ll be getting paid for our labors.”

  The guard captain recoiled at the anger in her voice. “Right. Sorry. I only meant…it’s nice, you all offering your help. Though…” He paused, giving an embarrassed laugh. “If anyone has enough swords already, I imagine it’s our king. Why, he’s summoned the banners and has the greatest warriors of the north at his disposal. With their swords and his wise leadership, the undead scourge will be wiped off the face of our world any day now.”

  “Uh-huh,” Mariana said. “And just how long have you been telling yourself that?”

  Dannen shot her an angry look then turned back to the guard captain. “You’ll have to excuse my companion. Being thrown into a dungeon without cause tends to put her in a bad mood. Also”—he leaned in, whispering but ensuring he spoke loud enough for her to hear—“she’s a bit of a fool.”

  The guard captain winced. “Anyway,” he said, “I imagine you may have difficulty finding the king, what with him being out on the field of battle, routing the undead monstrosities.”

  “Maybe,” Dannen said, “How about you just give us directions to the capital?”

  “Urkenvald?” the man asked, surprised. “Last report I had placed the king and his forces nearly two days’ ride from the capital.”

  Dannen cleared his throat. “Right, of course. Only, I have some business there too, business I’d like to take care of before we see the king.”

  “Ah, I see. Urkenvald lies to the north. Still, if …” He paused, clearing his throat. “I mean when you make it through the mountain passes, there is a village on the other side, one by the name of Alberdine. Likely, you will be able to secure mounts or passage there which should speed your journey. Perhaps even a guide.”

  Dannen couldn’t help but take note of the “if” regarding their passage through the mountains, not exactly a word to build their confidence. Still, he supposed there was no use worrying about it. Imminent death at the hands of an angry duke had a way of simplifying a man’s choices considerably. “Well. Anything else?”

  The man nodded. “Yes, yes, of course. Well, for one, I will warn you that the mountain passes can be quite treacherous in winter, with poor footing.”

  Dannen blinked. “Don’t fall off. Check. Anything else? Directions or…?”

  “Oh,” the man said, shifting embarrassedly, “right. Well, for the most part the path will only go one way—up the mountain. Eventually, though, it will bring you to a split in the path. One will continue on up the mountain, the other will turn to your right. You must take the right path, for it will lead to the new Bridge of Blevinston. A true marvel, named after its creator himself, a bridge which connects this mountain to the next village. Truly a marvel. Built by my cousin, if you can believe it.”

  Dannen didn’t, in the general course of things, give a shit about bridges, but the man clearly did, so in the interest of keeping everyone happy and everyone’s heads where they belonged, he feigned surprise. “Is that so?” he asked in his best astonished voice. “My, well that is something. Perhaps, once we’re finished with our business, we might seek out
this cousin of yours—I would love to know more about how he—”

  “I’m afraid that would be difficult.”

  “Oh?”

  The guard captain shifted, clearly uncomfortable. “Yes, well, my cousin truly was a clever man, but I’m afraid he fell victim to an avalanche.”

  Dannen blinked. “An avalanche.”

  The guard captain nodded his head. “Yes. They happen from time to time, in the mountains and our mountain is notorious for them.”

  Notorious. Dannen didn’t much care for the sound of that, not at all. “Well that…that is too bad.”

  “Yes,” the man said, running a hand across his eyes which, if Dannen didn’t know any better, he would have thought had begun to gather tears. “A great loss, for my cousin was a very clever man, a very clever engineer.”

  Dannen gave even less of a shit about the guard captain’s cousin than he did about bridges, but he nodded. “I am…sorry for your loss. Anyway, you say the right branch leads to the bridge.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And the other?”

  The guard captain waved a hand dismissively. “I would not trouble yourself with that. The path up the mountain leads, eventually, to a second bridge, one which was in use before my cousin crafted his marvel. An old rope bridge, one which sees no travel now, at least as far as I am aware. To be honest, I could not say whether or not it still stands and, even if it does, I would not dare cross it.”

  “I see,” Dannen said. “Well, thank you for all of your help. We’d best be going now.”

  “Of course,” the man said, bowing his head. “Good luck.” And with a smile, he turned and left them with what, to Dannen’s mind, amounted to little more than a death sentence.

  Dannen watched him go, wondering if the cold chill that passed through him was only his imagination or a brief taste of things to come. He turned back to the others. “Ready?”

  “It’s going to be cold up there, Butcher,” Fedder offered.

  Dannen frowned. “Think warm thoughts.”

  And then they were walking through the gate. The guards stationed there made no move to stop them, yet Dannen thought he saw disbelief in their gazes, them no doubt wondering what he and the others were doing.

  A thought that he himself shared.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  After they’d been traveling for several hours and the sun was sinking low on the horizon, Dannen decided that cold was a funny thing. It could kill a man, sure, but it didn’t do so with the abrupt finality of a headsman’s axe or a noose. No, the cold was subtler than that. It was like poison, in many ways, seeping into a man bit by bit, making his limbs numb, so that he couldn’t feel it as more and more came into him, eventually killing him. Come to think of it, he decided it wasn’t funny at all, and if it were a joke, it was one that might only be enjoyed wrapped in furs and sitting in front of a roaring fire.

  His companions looked as miserable as he felt, their shoulders hunched forward against a wind that seemed to slice through their clothes, piercing them with daggers of frost with each step they took. Even the madman’s squirrel looked in poor spirits, perched on its unconscious master and squeezed into a tight ball of fur. The only one unaffected by the freezing temperature—which seemed to drop a degree with each moment that passed—was Tesler himself, still blissfully unconscious.

  Dannen thought it said a lot about their situation—about life in general, maybe—that as his ears burned from the cold, and his feet went numb, he found himself growing jealous of the unconscious man and wondered, with more than a little envy, if Tesler would remain unconscious even as he froze to death. He wondered, too, if he might contrive to “trip” and bang his own head on one of the large stones dotting the area around the path and slip into a blessed unconsciousness to match the man’s, one where he might dream of being warm. He wouldn’t, of course. For one, there was never knowing what might happen when a man took a blow to the head—he’d seen more than a few with their wits permanently addled from such a predicament, so badly sometimes that they could not even control their bowels, and the last thing he needed was to shit himself before he froze to death.

  Still, a man could hope.

  They had spoken little since leaving Palden, partly because their course was now set and there was nothing they could do to change it. But mostly, Dannen suspected, because the cold was such that it seemed to lodge in the back of your throat like a chunk of ice and made anything you might say not seem worth it.

  Yet for all the direness of their situation, he could not help but notice the woman, Mariana, glancing regularly at Tesler’s unconscious form, a worried expression on her face. Not that the girl shouldn’t be worried, of course—after all, if marching up a mountain in the middle of winter with hardly any food or supplies to speak of wasn’t enough to make a person worry, then that person had given up on life a long time ago. The problem was that, as far as he was concerned, she was worried about all the wrong things.

  As the trail on which they walked continued to wind its way slowly up the mountain, Dannen rubbed his hands together. Not so much in an attempt to get warm—he’d long since given up on any hope of that, wasn’t sure he’d remember what it felt like to be warm in any case—but instead simply to distract himself from the biting cold that grew worse and worse as the sun sank lower in the sky.

  Finally, he came to a stop, not aware he was going to do it until he did. “Best we…make camp,” he said, breathless from the cold.

  Fedder glanced around them. They were on the side of the mountain now, and the path, which had started wide enough that two wagons could have rode abreast, had now turned into a thin trail scattered with loose stones. “Sure that’s a good idea, Butcher?” The mage asked. He paused, glancing over the edge of the path meaningfully. An edge which revealed what was at least a hundred-foot drop. “Might not be the best place to rest. If any of us is taken to rolling in our sleep, there’s a good chance we’ll be waking up dead.”

  “Impossible,” Mariana said.

  “Eh?” Fedder asked.

  “Waking up dead,” she said. “I mean, if you’re dead, how could you—”

  “Enough,” Dannen growled irritably—being in imminent danger of freezing to death, he found, worked a number on a man’s patience. “We all need rest, and we need to see to Tesler. Besides, if there was a sign for an inn somewhere along the trail, I must have missed it.”

  The mage frowned thoughtfully. “I doubt they’d have an inn out here, Butcher. What with, it being on a mountain and—”

  “I’ll lay out our bedrolls,” Dannen interrupted. Rude, maybe, but he thought it better than the alternative of pushing the big man over the edge. “Mariana, do you know anything of healing?”

  She considered that. “Well, I got a job to kill a healer once. Apparently, his patient wasn’t satisfied with his services.” She shook her head. “I don’t know much about sewin’, but it seems to me that some things, once they come off, aren’t really meant to be put back—”

  “Fine,” Dannen said. “You’ll see to Tesler then.” He turned to Firemaker. “Fedder, look around and see if you can find us something to burn and start a fire, will you?”

  “A fire?” the mage asked surprised. “You sure, Butcher? What with that bastard duke hunting us and all, a fire might not be such a good idea.”

  “Maybe not,” Dannen agreed, “but neither is freezing to death. So just do me a favor and start the damn fire, alright?”

  The man nodded, looking like a scolded child. “Of course, Butcher. I was only asking, is all.”

  Dannen stared at the man’s hurt expression, taking a moment to decide if he had it in him to apologize, to maybe offer some comfort. He didn’t though; all he had in him just then was a creeping, bitter cold, so instead he turned and began going through his pack as his companions shrugged off their own burdens—unconscious man included—and began removing his bedroll.

  It was a task that would have taken perhaps a minute a
t most, under normal circumstances, but with the way his hands were shaking, it became considerably more difficult. Eventually, though, he managed it and then set about removing the bedrolls of the others and lying them out against the mountain face as far away from the edge—and the plummeting drop—as he could. Which meant that, if they were careful about how they lay down, only their toes would hang over that life-threatening drop.

  That done, he tucked his hands under his arms and shuffled over to where Mariana had laid out the unconscious Tesler and was currently knelt over him. Dannen saw, as he drew closer, that she had wet a rag and wiped the worst of the blood off the man’s face, and he was surprised to find that Tesler was nowhere near as bad off as he had at first feared. True, the man’s face was bruised as if he’d taken it in mind to headbutt a brick wall a few times, but the blood had come from a finger-length cut across his forehead, one that didn’t appear to be particularly deep.

  Dannen knelt beside her, his knees cracking like limbs in the frost. “How is he?” he asked quietly, not out of respect so much as necessity since, with the wind whistling around them, stealing his breath, it was the best he could manage.

  “I don’t know,” she said softly, putting a hand on the man’s forehead and craning her neck to look at Dannen. “He’s cold…that’s not a good sign, is it?”

  Dannen blinked. “Cold? Huh. Think that might have anything to do with the fact that we’re on the side of a mountain in the middle of winter?”

  She frowned, nodding slowly. “Might be you’re right.”

  Dannen bit back a curse, looking back to the man. “He seems to be resting easy, at least.”

  She nodded, saying nothing else, and Dannen decided to leave her to it. After all, either the man would wake or he would not, and there was nothing Dannen could do either way to help. He rose, walking over to where Fedder was crouched before a pathetic pile of twigs and grass to see the man cursing as he struck two stones together over and over again, creating sparks and little else. Save, that was, for annoyance for Dannen who pinched his nose between his thumb and forefinger in a vain effort to rein in his patience. “Fedder?” he asked.