Iron Axe

by Steven Harper

  “Hmf,” snorted the troll again, and Danr couldn’t tell if he believed her or not. However, he offered a hand and hauled Danr dripping from the creek with easy strength. Danr swallowed. The troll had given in fairly easily, considering that he was winning and that Aisa had offered no proof she was a witch of any stripe. Was there more going on here than he knew?

  Danr shook himself out over the fire. Aisa stared defiantly up at the troll, who was nearly twice as tall as she was. Danr admired her courage. His own heart pounded fair to break his ribs, and his knees were weak as bread dough. Still, he forced himself to stand straight.

  “My name is Kech,” the troll said, pronouncing the name with a guttural ch at the end. “Yours?”

  “I’m …” Danr glanced at Aisa. “I’m called Trollboy. Can you take me under the mountain?” He hurried to add before Kech could comment, “I want to meet my people.”

  “Your people?” Kech leaned on his club, looking incredulous. “What right have you to call us your people, little one?”

  Now Danr felt a spark of anger. He blew on it and made it bigger. Anger was better than fear, yes, it was. “My father was a troll. The Nine have declared I have family right. Or are the Stane as godless as the Kin claim they are?”

  Kech met Danr’s eyes for a long moment. They were large and brown, like Danr’s. Danr made himself stand straight and let his anger show, even if he had to look up to do it. And then, to Danr’s surprise, Kech looked away. What was going on?

  “Very well,” he said with a resigned air. “But if you are not troll, little one, you will die.”

  Without another word, he turned and stomped away. It took Danr a moment to understand he was meant to follow. He caught up Aisa’s hand and ran after Kech, leaving the fire behind. Only at the last second did Aisa snatch up her pack and Danr’s sack.

  “Don’t lose me,” Aisa said. “In the dark, I would vanish forever.”

  Her wrapped hand was small and cold in his damp one. Under other circumstances, Danr would have marveled at the fact that he was holding her this way, but his mind was more fully occupied. Kech set a fast pace in the dark on the rocky, tilted hillside, and Danr had to thread his way around a number of obstacles in the dark while ensuring that he didn’t lose Aisa. Bushes and low branches slapped his face and scored his arms. Kech crunched his way through the forest, not seeming to notice or care whether Danr was keeping up or not, and Danr refused to make himself look weak by calling out for him to check his pace. Twice, however, Aisa stumbled and fell, and Danr finally picked her up, packs and all, and hurried forward. She didn’t protest, but put her arms around his neck. She smelled of dried herbs and wood smoke, and for a moment Danr wanted more than anything to run with her, keep his arms around her, until the sun came up and he dropped in his tracks.

  At last they arrived at a place where no trees grew. The hill became the mountain now, and slabs of stone rose to the starry sky. The two stars that made up Urko were still far apart, but moving steadily toward each other. An outcrop of rock jutted out like a great fist punching its way out of the mountainside. Kech leaned on his club next to the outcrop. Danr set Aisa down.

  “Only a troll can open this door, little one,” Kech grunted. “It is heavy, but a full-grown troll like me opens it on the first try. So try. And if you fail, I will roast both you and your spae-wife.”

  Uncertainly Danr checked the outcropping in the chilly starlight. His troll’s eyes picked out a door carved into the stone, done so cleverly that its outline appeared as nothing more than ordinary cracks and crevices. When he looked closer, he saw more cracks that ran together to form an abstract Great Tree. The workmanship was nothing like anything back at the village or even Skyford. Danr touched the tree, then felt around and found rough places, hidden handles where he could insert his hands.

  Everyone always said that you’re a troll, he thought. Time to prove it.

  He heaved. The muscles on his back bunched. His arms stretched. The seams on his tunic popped. His breath burned in his lungs. But the door didn’t move. Danr was finally forced to step back, panting.

  Kech shook his head with a snort like a bull’s. “Try again, little one. My oldest son opens the door on his second try.”

  You can do this, he told himself. You have to do this.

  Danr braced himself and heaved. He felt pain as bones bent and joints cracked. Sweat ran hot down his face. His hands and fingers screamed outrage at him. The door shifted.

  Come on, he thought. Come on!

  He hauled again but couldn’t get full purchase. Danr lost his grip and staggered backward, chest heaving. Dreadful pain pulled at his muscles.

  Kech laughed. “Once more. I am sure even my younger son could open the door on his third try. And if you fail this time”—he casually smashed a large rock with his club. It cracked into rubble—“your fat will sizzle on my spit and your witch’s skull will hold my ale.”

  Aisa made no reaction to this. She stood still as a ragged statue, her wrapped hands clasped before her. Watching him. Counting on him. Danr gritted his teeth, grabbed the hidden handles, and pulled. The door didn’t budge. Danr set his feet and continued to haul on the door. His back and arms burned like lava, and he felt his strength giving way. The door stubbornly refused to move. Kech leaned on his club and shot a glance at Aisa. Aisa remained stock-still. A small breeze fluttered the end of her scarf, a scarf that Kech had originally intended to soak in her blood. Her eyes met Danr’s, and she nodded. She wasn’t afraid because she was certain he could do it. Her confidence in him lent him new strength. The monster in him bellowed to the sky and heaved.

  The door shifted again. Danr ignored his screaming body and continued to pull. The door ground open one inch, then another, and another. At last it came free of the hidden doorsill and Danr flipped it aside. It crashed against the side of the mountain. Danr collapsed on hands and knees to the stones, laboring for every breath. He had done it!

  There, Mother! he thought. A use for the monster.

  After a long moment, Kech hauled him upright. “You are at least part troll,” he said grudgingly. “Stay close behind me, then.”

  “What … about … Aisa?” Danr panted. “We can’t … leave her … here.”

  “I do not mind waiting,” Aisa said. “Even for several days. But what if another troll comes? It might try to devour me.”

  “It?” Kech echoed. “Do you think we are things, girl? Monsters?”

  Aisa said, “You murder human victims. That certainly makes you monstrous, if not monsters.”

  “What are you talking about, girl?”

  “You—or one of your kind—killed two men from our village. That started everything.”

  “Ah. Them.” Kech twirled his club. “Yes. I killed them. But only because they attacked me first. I came down out of the mountain for the first time in years and found them on Stane land. They attacked me with pitchforks, then ran back to their house to loose arrows at me. Look here.” He held out an arm that showed two healing puncture marks. “They tried to kill me, so I broke their house and killed them.”

  “That is horrifying,” Aisa replied. “You are strong and powerful. You did not need to—”

  Danr forced himself to his feet and stood between them, his aching arms outstretched. “We don’t need to fight. Again. But we do need to protect Aisa from other trolls. She’s my friend.”

  “Hmm. Since she is your friend.” Kech drew his stone knife. “But a friend should keep a civil tongue.” He pierced his thumb, drawing a dark bead of blood. Before Aisa could react, he smeared it across her forehead. Aisa gasped and put up a hand.

  “Leave it,” Kech ordered. “Other Stane will smell it and know not to harm you. Come.”

  A long, tall tunnel gaped behind the open door. Kech strode down it without looking back. Aisa came up beside Danr and put a small hand on his shoulder.

  “Thanks be to Rolk,” she murmured. “You should be proud of yourself.”

  Inwardly,
Danr glowed at her praise. Outwardly, he glanced at the watery half-moon. “The trolls favor Kalina. Perhaps we should thank her instead.”

  Together, they headed down the dark tunnel behind Kech. Some kind of fungus glowed green on the walls, providing enough faint light for Danr to find his way, though Aisa had to stay close beside him. Danr’s arms and shoulders still burned from opening the door, and he wondered how much he would hurt after he slept.

  A boom made them both jump. The door had shut itself behind them.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Danr followed Kech down the wide, echoing tunnel. Water dripped, and it smelled of ancient stone and growing mold and chilly air. Aisa’s breath came harsh beside him. He knew she was frightened, and he wanted to reassure her, but he didn’t know how, or if it was even possible. Best to keep moving forward.

  He lost track of time and distance, and his sack was growing heavy in his hand, though it didn’t weigh more than a few pounds. At last, the tunnel opened into … Danr blinked and drew in a breath. Aisa gasped and moved closer to him. The space before them was so huge that Danr couldn’t see it as a space. The ceiling was lost in murk and shadow so high a hawk could have flown it without realizing it was underground. Danr couldn’t tell if there was a far wall, it was so far away. The floor lay many, many stories below, and it glowed faintly. This great space swallowed up sound as if it had never existed.

  In the distance were cheerful yellow lights, some fixed in place, others moving about like fireflies. Some were up high, others down low. As if he were listening to a noise that abruptly became a symphony, Danr came to understand this was a great city, but unlike a human city built on the ground, this one was built on walls and floors and even hanging from gigantic stalactites that dripped from the ceiling or climbing up the stalagmites that rose from the floor.

  He inhaled, trying to get some sense of the place, a feeling of rightness or belonging. This was where his father had come from, half his heritage, his strong and powerful Stane side, and the very stones would welcome him for the lost son he was. Or maybe he should feel anger and pain and fear. These were the people—well, one of them, anyway—who had hurt his mother. Vik! Why did everything have to be so complicated?

  To his disappointment, he felt nothing except the vast, swallowing emptiness. Well, he didn’t really expect anything from stones. Once he arrived in the town proper and met some trolls, he would feel more at home. Or more anger. He hoped for the at-home feeling. It would be nice. After all, only one troll had hurt his mother. The others hadn’t done anything.

  But that was part of the problem, wasn’t it? The other trolls hadn’t done anything. Hadn’t they known he existed? Hadn’t they known he was a thrall, trapped among humans and forced to work for a thieving miser? Why hadn’t they come for him? Or at least asked after him? Now he was here, hoping for strength and a home from a people who hadn’t really done a thing for him except give him a father who had ignored him. He squared his shoulders. Well, maybe now it was time to find out. In any case, he had a heritage to reclaim, right?

  A rough staircase carved from the rock led downward, though the risers were made for people with much longer legs than Danr or Aisa. Kech strode easily down the steps, while Danr and Aisa struggled. The final stair didn’t quite reach the cavern floor, which was thick with a noisome mixture of bat droppings, water, and mud. The pungent smell made Danr’s eyes water. Long insects skittered through the mix. From all this sprang growths of mushrooms—gold and green and scarlet shot with purple veins. Some were as small as toads; others pushed toward the cavern ceiling like trees. Most of them glowed, sending up just enough soft, eerie light to see by.

  The staircase ended at a wide wooden walkway that hung ten or fifteen feet above the floor. Kech strode along the boards while Danr and Aisa cautiously followed. As they drew closer to the city, the walkway split in a dozen directions. Ladders ran up to balconies and platforms. Staircases appeared, zigzagging or twisting into the dim light. It all made a confusing, many-tiered maze. Houses of stone, clay, and brick clung to the walls or balanced on stilts and platforms. They varied in style and construction. Some were well built and tidy, others slapped together and falling apart. Many had no roofs. It took Danr a moment to realize that underground houses didn’t need to shelter the inhabitants from sun and rain. Each house, however, did have a door with a tree carved or painted on it, though these trees emphasized the roots more than the trunks or branches. Danr kept waiting for a feeling of familiarity, a sense that he knew this place in his blood, but everything felt strange and foreign.

  They encountered other trolls. Trolls tromped, hustled, or strolled about the walkways, staircases, and ladders on business of their own, troll men, troll women, and troll children. All of them were built like Kech—two heads taller than Danr, heavy shoulders, swarthy skin, large eyes, long arms, thick hair on head and body. The trolls wore dark clothing, much of it in poor shape, and they all went barefoot. None wore a hat, and Danr stuffed his own in his sack. It was nice not to need it. A crowd of voices echoed in a booming babble against the stones and mushrooms as the trolls talked, called, and shouted. A troll woman argued with a troll man over a basket of dried fish. A group of trolls laughed and drank from enormous clay mugs at a clump of tables while two other trolls refilled them from great brown pitchers. Two troll children chased each other down a ladder and up a staircase, ignoring the old trollwife who shouted something at them from a balcony above. It was so loud and raucous. This shouldn’t have surprised Danr—did he suppose trolls did nothing but crouch in dark caves all day and night?—but he had a hard time taking it all in and couldn’t help staring. He hadn’t realized how hungry he had been for trollish company, to look around and see people like himself. But these people didn’t much look like him. All of them were taller and stronger than Danr, and he felt small and naked, knowing they could break him in half with little effort. Was this how the people in the village felt around him?

  Kech threaded through the enormous town with Danr and Aisa in his wake. The trolls stared at Danr and Aisa and muttered as they passed, but made no move to stop or molest them. A troll woman abruptly stormed up to Aisa with hands outstretched, as if to snatch her up. Danr tensed and Aisa looked ready to run. At the last moment, however, the troll woman sniffed the air near Aisa’s head so hard Aisa’s face scarf fluttered. Then she stomped away. Aisa touched the smear of dark blood on her forehead, and Danr let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. Kech only shrugged.

  A lumpy ball rolled up to Danr’s feet. Danr automatically picked it up, and a child who was more than half Danr’s height dashed up to him. The child saw Danr and stared at him.

  Danr held out the ball to her. “Hello.”

  “Monster!” The child backed away and fled. Danr set the ball down with a sigh. One thing remained perfectly familiar no matter where he went.

  Kech eventually brought them to a large, multistoried house that twisted around a mountainous stalactite at the edge of town. Beyond the house, an enormous lake spread across the cavern floor. Kech slammed the door open.

  “Pyk!” he boomed. “I’m home! And I’m hungry!” He stomped inside, dragging his club after him and leaving Danr and Aisa standing uncertainly on the threshold.

  From inside the house, a gruff female voice shouted, “You’re always hungry! It’ll be ready when it’s ready, and you can keep your mouth shut about it until then!”

  Kech poked his head outside. “I suppose I have no choice but to offer you a place to spend the day. Come inside.”

  The world had turned upside down, indeed it had. Only yesterday, Orvandel the fletcher had flummoxed Danr with an offer of hospitality in the world above, and now a troll was doing the same in the world below. Danr edged toward the house with Aisa clinging to his shadow. She had guts, he had to admit. He doubted he would have braved a troll’s house if he were fully human. The more he learned about her, the more incredible she became. Danr took a breath and crossed the thres
hold.

  His first impression was that Kech’s house wasn’t that much different from Orvandel’s. A table flanked by wide sleeping benches ran the length of the main room, and a blazing hearth sat at the back. A haze of meaty smoke stung Danr’s nose. The house had no roof, but the stone walls were so high it didn’t matter. Just as in Orvandel’s house, cloth screens stood about to direct the hearth’s heat or grant a little privacy. Hooked tools and clawed implements hung from the walls, along with mesh bags of mushrooms and other lumps Danr couldn’t identify. Kech was just hanging his great club on one wall.

  A spit with a haunch of … something on it straddled the fire. Turning the spit was a troll boy who looked to be maybe eighteen, though Danr supposed he could be eight hundred—what did Danr know of the age of trolls? Juice sizzled on the coals. A tall, tall trollwife with black braids piled on her head was lifting the lid of an iron pot as big as a tub, though in her clawed hands, the pot looked normal-sized, and the strangeness of it twisted Danr’s eyes. Her lower jaw jutted forward, and her ivory fangs gleamed in the firelight.

  “I brought company, Pyk,” said Kech, and his expression was uncertain. “They’ll be eating with us.”

  Pyk saw Danr and Aisa. The pot lid crashed onto the pot. The boy gaped.

  “Humans!” Pyk spat. “Get them out of my house, Kech!”

  “Manners,” Kech replied, though his face looked as if a ghost had reached inside his trousers. “Hospitality.”

  The boy stopped turning the spit. Danr swallowed, feeling the mouse caught between a hawk and a cat. Aisa touched the blood on her forehead. Pyk folded her arms across an enormous chest and deliberately turned her back. Danr became all too aware of the open door behind him and of other trolls passing by in the street. Many of them slowed when they caught sight of Danr and Aisa in Kech’s doorway, and they grumbled at each other behind their hands. An icy finger slid down Danr’s back. What would happen to him and Aisa if they were left alone in Kech’s stable or put out of the house entirely? A passing trollwife glared stones at Danr. He stepped away from the door, doubting the night would pass peacefully.