At náttmál he brought her food and untied her hands so she could eat. He spoke in whispers and turned his head so the others, eating round the campfire, could not see he was talking with her. “Why have you not told Godrek?”
“Because you will help me escape,” she whispered back.
“Again? Have you not noticed there are only eleven liegemen? Godrek executed the sentry who was supposed to be watching you last night.”
Her eyes flashed concern. “But I drugged him. It wasn’t his fault—”
“Matters not to Godrek. I’ll be dead, too, if I help you again. Or if you tell him what I did the first time.”
As Ragnar turned to leave, she whispered, “The rune sword—why does he need it?”
“It leads to great treasure. Enough to make him invincible.”
“But why does he need me? Why can’t he let me go?”
Ragnar shook his head and started away.
“Tell me!” she whispered loudly. “Or shall I call Godrek?”
Ragnar glanced at the men at the campfire, hoping she hadn’t drawn their attention. “This is what I get for aiding you? What—I’m just an ugly brute that you threaten?”
She looked away for a moment; then her eyes returned to him. “Forgive me. I’ll not do it again.” Was she sorry, or merely playing him? Realizing that if he were in her place, he’d say or do anything to gain his freedom, he decided to tell what he knew. “To unlock the treasure, Godrek needs a woman’s blood.”
He read the shock on her face. “My blood?”
“It has something to do with the rune sword. That’s all I know,” he said, and hurried away.
Later, Thorfinn took sentry duty and the others bedded down to sleep. Since it was Ragnar’s duty to guard Geldrun, he made a place near her. She was shivering, so he took one of his blankets and wrapped it round her and made her as comfortable as possible, even though she remained tied up.
“You’re not like the others,” she whispered.
“What, they’re easier to look at?”
“Very touchy about that scar.”
“It’s what people see.”
“Some people. I see other things. Like you, off by yourself, writing in your book.”
“You’re mistaken,” he whispered brusquely. “I cannot write or read.”
“Why do you keep it a secret?”
“Do you want me to gag you? I’d like to get some sleep.” Ragnar settled into his blankets. It was cold, and he wished he hadn’t given her his heaviest one. This mercy business was getting out of hand. It was vexing him plenty, and more so now that she had another arrow aimed at his head. She knew his secret.
It had begun two seasons ago, when he and the rest of Godrek’s troop were raiding and burning a Saxon town. Mid plunder, he happened to look down and see a leather-covered rectangular item lying there. He knew the name of this thing—men called it a “book.” He opened its pages and was stunned by the lifelike drawings, beside which were figures he knew to be “writing.” He wanted to know the meaning of these figures, so over the following winter he asked a Saxon thrall to teach him how to read and write.
For his entire adult life he had been an illiterate warrior, but now a more exciting and fascinating world stretched before him. This was not the world of a mindless, duty-bound warrior, of course. Reading made a person think, and thinking led one to ask questions. And a liegeman who questioned his lord’s orders was dangerous and subversive. For his own safety, he kept silent about his newfound abilities.
“Do you pen poetry, Ragnar?” she whispered.
“I will gag you if you continue to speak,” he hissed. From then on she lay still. His mind then wandered to his death poem, and he started his revisions.
Dane felt his stomach lurch as he looked down the sheer rock face of the mountain. He and Jarl were suspended on ropes slung like a necklace round Thrym’s neck as the giant climbed upward, using his massive hands to grab purchase on the mountain’s rocky crags. Dane looked over at the grinning Jarl, who seemed to be enjoying the experience.
“I bet no one’s ever been this high!” Jarl marveled. “They look like ants down there!”
Dane fought the urge to spew. The rest of their party was waiting below, and he was quite sure they wouldn’t want bits of vomit raining down upon them. That kind of thing could ruin someone’s day and even break up friendships.
They had been journeying two days since Dane had thought he heard his mother call his name. The trek had carried them deeper into the frigid abyss of Jotunheim, with no sign of Godrek’s party. Without even a horse’s hoofprint seen on the frozen ground, Dane began to doubt they were on Godrek’s trail.
“Is it possible,” Dane asked Thrym, “Godrek has taken a different route?”
Thrym gently shook his giant head and said, “No, if he’s going to Utgard, this is the only way there from the south.”
During the journey, as they drew closer to the frost giant fortress, Dane had detected a growing apprehension in Thrym. He knew about Thrym’s crime—that he had accidentally caused a female frost giant, his beloved, to go below the snow line. She had died, and he was convicted of involuntary death by melting. Since then the exiled giant had lived alone, far from his kind, doomed to forever be without love. Well, until Astrid had shown up, that is, but that hadn’t worked out too well either, for obvious reasons.
Thrym reached the crest of the cliff and pointed north. They gazed across a thickly wooded valley to see a sheer wall of white rock, gleaming in the sun, curved and rising up out of the trees, the sides of it so smooth and sheer, they seemed impossible to climb. And the top of it rose so high that the peaks disappeared into the very clouds themselves.
Dane and Jarl stared for a moment, too entranced to speak. Thrym explained that what they were seeing was but the outer wall of the frost giant realm, that Utgard, the fortress itself, lay inside this mountain crater.
For once Jarl was silenced, greatly humbled by the sight.
“It’s a fortress within a fortress,” Thrym said.
“So how do we get in?” Dane asked.
Thrym pointed to a spot at the base of the cliffs just above the far edge of the woods.
“Entrance is through a cleft in the wall. But it’s hard to reach, for first you must go through there.” Thrym gestured to the thickly wooded, snow-frosted valley below.
“Where? There?” said Jarl, believing a pine forest no barrier at all. “All I see are trees.”
“It’s what you don’t see,” Thrym said. “Trolls. Thousands of them.”
“Trolls?” Jarl exploded, nearly falling out of the rope harness. “You never said there’d be trolls! I hate trolls! Despise the very sight of them! They’re hairy and smelly and—and, well, they’re just plain disgusting!” Dane too grew sick at the thought. Months before, he and Jarl had had a very nasty encounter with one of the malicious little monsters down in the Well of Knowledge, and neither wanted to come face-to-face with another, much less a whole slew of them, ever again.
“There must be an alternate route,” Dane said.
“There isn’t,” Thrym replied. “You either go through the valley or go home.”
From Jarl’s anxious expression, it looked like he was leaning toward home. Usually he was not one to shy from danger or deadly beast, but ever since the Well of Knowledge incident the previous spring, he had developed a fear—or phobia, as Ulf had called it, using a Greek word he had gleaned from his readings—of the noisy, noxious beings.
“We go forward,” Dane said. “Jarl, if you want to stay back—”
“Stay back?” Jarl snapped. Dane knew the best way to get Jarl to do anything was to question his mettle. It worked every time. “No! I will lead us through the troll forest!” Jarl proclaimed, drawing his sword, holding it up to the heavens in a heroic pose. “My blade is Trollslayer! And scores of the vile vermin it shall smite! Mighty Trollslayer will bring death and destruction—”
“Jarl, we get it. You’re
on board.”
21
A GRUESOME WARNING
The forest was deathly quiet. Not a bird was heard chirping nor even a breeze stirring the ancient, towering firs. Dane and his friends crept on foot, leading their horses across a muffling layer of fresh snow, the eerie silence compounding their dread. To Dane it seemed their every step was being watched by unseen eyes. Even the skittish horses seemed to sense an evil presence waiting to strike.
“It’s quiet,” said Jarl ominously.
“Too quiet,” said Rik in answer.
“Be quiet,” shushed Dane.
They walked on, Dane noticing that the usually cool-headed Astrid seemed particularly on edge as she crept, axe at the ready. She caught his look and turned away, unable to meet his gaze. Why was she so agitated around him? He looked to Fulnir behind him, who gave a scowl in return. What was happening? Were they still upset over the boastful way he had acted in the king’s mead hall? If so, they weren’t very understanding. Had they no notion of the strain he was under? The burden of so many expectations! He wasn’t perfect! Didn’t they know that?
The forest became so dense, the sled and its contents had to be abandoned. The towering spruces and pines grew so close together in spots, Thrym had to turn sideways at times to squeeze between them. Everyone held weapons, including Kára, who carried the throwing axe Astrid had given her. She’d been practicing diligently, and her aim was deadly—especially to those who drew too close; she’d nearly killed Drott and Fulnir in throwing accidents. The sight of the weapon in Kára’s hand only raised the group’s anxiety, and Dane didn’t know what was worse, fear of attack by trolls, or fear of dismemberment by Kára.
“Did you hear that?” whispered Fulnir.
“Hear what?”
“That!” Fulnir snapped. They listened but heard nothing. Fulnir grew more irritated. “What’s wrong with you people? Have you gone deaf or something? Get the wax from your ears and listen!”
Dane watched with interest as Fulnir raised up his nose and sniffed at the air, at the same time vigorously scratching at his privates. Ever since they had escaped the ghostwolves, Dane had noticed a change in Fulnir. First there had been the itching and scratching, as if he had contracted an invisible rash. And then Fulnir had grown unexplainably irritable, fighting with others for food and blankets, being not at all his usual self. At first Dane had thought his friend just out of sorts, his strength sapped by the strains of the journey. But Fulnir had begun hearing sounds that weren’t there and sniffing the air and reacting to scents no one else could smell, and Dane had begun to wonder what was going on.
And then they came upon a most gruesome scene. A row of spears sunk into the ground, and atop each, a human skull, the eye sockets dark and empty, the jaws hanging open in silent screams. He could see the skulls were weathered and flensed of flesh, so Dane knew these unfortunates were not from Godrek’s party.
“Well, look at that,” said Ulf. “A welcoming committee.”
“Welcome?” Drott said. “I think it’s a warning to trespassers that doom awaits.” Drott caught a wry look from Ulf. “Oh, you were joking. So it is a warning that doom awaits. Everyone agree?” Drott raised his hand to solicit a vote. “Hands?”
Rik and Vik raised their hands in agreement, both saying, “Warning—doom awaits.”
“We don’t have to vote!” Jarl said. “It’s clear it’s a warning.”
“I just wanted to feel some unity,” Drott said, hurt.
Dane told them all to be quiet, and they moved on deeper into the troll forest, everyone on edge. They walked for a long time, and Ulf started to get hungry, asking if they could stop and have a snack. Jarl rounded on him.
“Snack? You want to snack in the troll forest?” he asked, getting in Ulf’s face. “Hundreds of those hairy, repulsive things lurking about, eager to rip our guts out, and you want to…SNACK?”
Ulf shrugged. “Maybe it can wait.”
They walked for a while longer. Then, as if a curtain had lifted, the trees abruptly ended and everyone stopped and stared in shock.
Before them stood the troll village, or what was left of it.
The crude little huts were smashed, some crushed flat, as if an overwhelming force had recently swept in and destroyed the entire village without mercy.
“Seems the trolls and frost giants are at war again,” Thrym said grimly, pointing to the trees on the north side of the clearing. A large path had been torn through the forest where apparently the frost giants had bulled through to wreak their destruction. Uprooted trees used to flatten the village lay among the destroyed huts.
The scene of gloomy devastation lifted Jarl’s spirits. “Maybe I won’t need Trollslayer after all. Little buggers have all cleared out.”
And as soon as the words had left his lips, a dozen flaming arrows flew out of the woods behind them, striking Thrym up and down his back. The arrow tips, Dane saw, were coated in fiery pitch that splashed across his ice-clad body, melting holes in him. Shrill ear-piercing screeches filled the air. Dane turned to see a horde of troll warriors rushing toward them, faces smeared in war paint, carrying clubs, axes, and scythes, and no troll more than half Dane’s height.
Dane, Thrym, and the others fled in panic, their horses scattering.
Bzing! More fire arrows fell, most of them raining down on Thrym, embedding in his legs and torso, the flaming pitch eating holes in his frost, the sudden gushes of melting water flowing like blood. His only hope was to find cover. He lumbered through the destroyed village, his footfalls shaking the ground, Dane and the others running behind him toward the trees on the far side of the clearing. The terrifying, discordant chorus of war cries swelled in volume as another wave of the screeching homunculi swarmed from the forest in front of them, cutting them off.
Hemmed in from front and back, Dane looked to his right and saw yet another tide of attackers flooding toward them from out of the woods. In moments they’d be completely surrounded. “This way!” Dane shouted, pointing left to the only possible direction of escape. They rushed across a meadow toward the trees, with Thrym backpedaling, protecting the rear. Weakened from water loss, the frost giant lifted one of the uprooted tree trunks, swinging it in a wide arc to keep the onrushing troll warriors from swamping them. Dozens more flaming arrows hit the tree. It burst into flames, forcing Thrym to drop it.
Looking over his shoulder as he ran, Dane saw the frost giant behind them, his body shielding them from most of the fire arrows. Then ka-BOOM! As Thrym stepped forward, Dane saw the ground give way beneath his feet, and with a thunderous crash the frost giant fell straight out of sight, his entire body disappearing down into what Dane now saw was a massive pit so deep it was twice Thrym’s height.
A cheer went up from the trollfolk. They turned away en masse from Dane and his human friends to surround the rim of the huge pit. They screamed and danced in glee, firing flaming arrows down at the trapped frost giant.
At this sickening sight, Dane and the others stopped. They were just a few paces from the safety of the trees and possible escape, but the trolls were attacking their friend.
Knowing they had to help, Dane thrust his sword skyward, crying, “Trollslayer!”
“Wait—my sword is named Trollslayer,” Jarl protested.
“Let’s see which blade earns the name, eh?” Dane said.
Everyone followed suit, raising their axes, knives, and swords skyward, all shouting “Trollslayer!” Rik, Vik, and Jarl leading, they made a mad dash back across the meadow toward the mass of troll warriors celebrating round the frost giant trap. Lut tried to keep up, but at a hundred and three years old he couldn’t really muster a mad dash—his looked more like a mild saunter.
The trolls turned and saw the humans bearing down on them. A command was shouted, and they quickly formed a defensive wall with their tiny shields, standing side by side, ten trolls wide and five lines deep, their backs to the rim of the pit. Rik, Vik, and Jarl never broke stride and mowed down the shi
eld wall like boars charging through a field of daisies. The furious little creatures were trampled under or sent flying in all directions. Many were knocked over the edge into the pit.
Now that the pursued were fighting back, many trolls turned and fled. Dane and the others waded in with slashing blades against those who remained, and understandably, the diminutive beasts would not stand their ground and fight one on one like men. They were brave only in groups and would not press an attack unless the odds were overwhelmingly in their favor.
Astrid, Kára, and William rushed to the edge of the pitfall and saw Thrym lying at the bottom, barely moving. He had many holes in his legs and torso, melted away by the fire arrows. What was left of him was now being attacked by a score of the trolls who had fallen into the pit. They furiously hacked at his body with their tiny axes and scythes, chipping away more ice. William shot an arrow, knocking a weapon from a troll’s hand. Astrid let fly two of her axes, causing the little beasts to scurry for cover. But in moments they were attacking the giant again.
“Thrym! It’s Astrid!” The giant managed to turn his head, and Astrid saw her silhouette reflected in his eye. The look on his face was pitiful, as if this great giant knew his end was near. “Thrym! Raise your hand to me!”
Stirred by her voice, with great effort he slowly lifted his arm toward the sky, his fingers reaching out to touch her. Two trolls leaped upon his chest, chopping at the raised arm. Astrid heard Kára suddenly give a war cry, and the princess, in the throes of bloodthirst, threw her axe. And although the blade did not find flesh, the wooden handle of the axe brained one of the chopping trolls.
“I hit one! I hit one!” Kára yelled, jumping up and down as if she’d won a prize at the Skrellborg town fair. But the other troll continued his vicious work, obscured by Thrym’s arm, so neither William’s arrows nor Astrid’s axes could find him.
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