01 - The Sea of Trolls

by Nancy Farmer - (ebook by Undead)

  A crow? What was a land bird doing so far from shore? As far as he knew, crows couldn’t swim. They weren’t like seagulls. He remembered finding one drowned in a farm dam. Its fellows filled the trees, cawing and clacking their beaks as though they were at a funeral. Their behavior had impressed him so much, Jack had waded into the water and taken the poor creature out. He laid it on a rock for the sun to dry—it seemed somehow better for it to rest under the sky. And all the while the other crows sat in the trees, cawing and bowing as they shifted their feet on the branches.

  This bird, the one above the fog, must have been blown away by the storm. Jack felt its extreme tiredness. Its wings ached. Its chest labored to breathe. It wouldn’t be able to go much farther. Come down, Jack thought. Come to me. He didn’t know why he was doing this or whether the bird could even hear him. He couldn’t protect himself or Lucy, let alone an exhausted crow. But it seemed terrible to let the creature fall into the sea.

  Come to me, come to me, thought Jack. He felt the crow falter, and then it lost its place in the sky and tumbled into the fog. Jack felt its panic. It’s all right. I’ll save you. Come to me. The crow circled, coming ever lower. It was moving blindly. It opened its beak to caw—

  —and blundered into the sail. It slid down the wet sheet and landed on the deck. The warriors closest to it jumped up as though they’d been stung. “Don’t hurt it!” Jack cried. He staggered across the swaying boat until he had the crow in his arms. It shuddered violently, but it didn’t try to get away.

  Jack became aware that Olaf’s eyes were almost popping out of his head. “That’s Odin’s bird,” he said in a voice shrill with alarm. If the warrior hadn’t been so huge and menacing, Jack would have laughed out loud. “It came to you. Out here. Where no crows fly.”

  “I called it,” Jack said. He understood at once that this had raised his status in the Northman’s eyes.

  “Where did you learn this art?” said Olaf. The bird clacked its beak, and he flinched.

  “From my master,” Jack said grandly. “He taught me many things—the speech of animals, the calling of winds. Also how to drive men mad by blowing on a wisp of straw—ow!” The crow had dug his beak into Jack’s hand. “This bird is hungry, and for that matter, so am I. We would like dried fish and bread.”

  If he was going to tell a lie, it might as well be a big one, Jack figured. He was gratified to see Olaf hurry to obey. Soon Jack was shredding bits of fish for the crow to devour. When it was satisfied and had finished with a draught of water, the creature crept into a hollow between sacks of grain and fell asleep.

  Jack went back to check up on Lucy. “You think you’re so clever,” said Thorgil in Saxon. Jack had noticed she used Saxon when she wished to be particularly aggressive. She knew Olaf did not like threats to his bard.

  “I am clever,” Jack said with a cheerful smile. He was rewarded with a tightening of Thorgil’s lips.

  She leaned against the rudder, her skills unneeded at the moment. The Northmen had unshipped the oars and were stretching their arms and legs. The air was so still now, it barely ruffled the water. “You notice they haven’t lengthened the sail,” she said.

  “Why would they?” said Jack. “There’s no wind.” Lucy climbed onto his lap and stared vacantly at the gray gloom surrounding the ship. She sucked her thumb.

  “They aren’t rowing, either.”

  Something uncurled at the back of Jack’s mind, some menace he couldn’t quite see yet. “So what? Even brainless berserkers get tired.”

  Thorgil’s face turned even more sour than usual. Jack knew he was baiting her, and he didn’t care. Just let her try to hurt him!

  “You think you’re safe. How long do you think Olaf’s good humor will last if the fog doesn’t lift?”

  “It’ll lift when I tell it to,” Jack said.

  “I wonder. I wonder how many tricks a real bard would teach a servant. Or did you merely steal one or two of the simpler ones?”

  “I’m not a thief!” said Jack, stung.

  “You say you can talk to animals and drive men mad by blowing on a wisp of straw. You’re awfully young for a bard, if you ask me. The only one I ever saw had a long, white beard. Even he was no match for us. Our king set him adrift in the middle of the sea.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Jack as a horrible thought occurred to him. “How long ago was that?”

  “Three years,” Thorgil said. “The queen wanted him burned alive, but the king showed him mercy. I wouldn’t have! King Ivar’s gone soft in his old age.”

  Jack’s spine turned to ice. “King Ivar… the Boneless?”

  “Don’t call him that to his face.” Thorgil laughed, a grating sound like a nail being wrenched out of a board. “He was Ivar the Intrepid before he met the queen. She’s the real warrior. When I grow up, I’m going to be one of the Queen’s Berserkers and kill hundreds of enemies.” For the first time Thorgil’s face glowed with something approaching happiness. It made her almost pretty.

  “Ivar the Boneless,” murmured Jack, stroking Lucy’s hair.

  “He sounds awful,” said the little girl, snuggling against his chest. How thin her arms were! How stretched was the skin over her cheekbones! He realized she had eaten almost nothing since they lost sight of land.

  “He is awful,” Thorgil said, leaning forward to savor Lucy’s terror. “His eyes are like peeled eggs with pale blue dots in the middle. When he gets mad—which is all the time—you can hear his teeth grind at the other end of the hall.”

  “I won’t let him hurt you, Lucy,” said Jack, trying to keep the fear out of his voice. “I was trained by the Bard. Ivar may have thrown him into the sea, but he bobbed up like a cork and came to us.”

  “You?” cried Thorgil. “You were trained by—Olaf! Olaf!” She sprang to her feet and shouted in Northman, “This thrall says he was trained by Dragon Tongue!”

  Olaf galumphed to the rear of the ship. He pushed Lucy to one side and yanked Jack up by his tunic. Olaf’s face was so close, his eyebrow was blurred and his fishy breath made Jack’s eyes smart. After a moment the giant dropped him into the bilge. “That explains a lot of things,” he growled.

  Sven the Vengeful let go his oar and also made his way to the stern. “The queen swore the old troublemaker had cheated the fishes.”

  “That’s why she sent the Nightmare to destroy him. When I saw it, I assumed—” Olaf shook his head.

  “We all assumed,” said Sven.

  “We were sent to terrorize the natives. Let them know it wasn’t smart to harbor enemies of the queen. I was supposed to confirm the death of Dragon Tongue. But I got lazy and didn’t finish the job.”

  “Don’t blame yourself, Olaf,” Sven said. “Who could turn his back on such fine plunder? By Odin’s eyebrows, we had fun!”

  “Yes, but I should have searched for the body,” mourned the giant.

  “I saw the Nightmare,” Lucy said suddenly. Jack put his hand over her mouth. He didn’t want her to reveal that the Bard was still alive. “Don’t shush me!” she cried, clawing at his hand. “It was screaming in the sky. Ice fell all around. I wanted to go home, but Father said no. I cried and cried!” Lucy was sobbing now, beyond speech.

  “A Nightmare is no joke,” said Olaf with far more gentleness than Jack thought he possessed. “Its weapon is the mind-fetter that causes the sword to fall from the strongest warrior’s hand. If it—she—found out Dragon Tongue, his chances of survival were small indeed.”

  “She did find him,” said Jack. Please keep Lucy crying, he prayed. Please don’t let her spoil my story. “I was there. I saw him fall.” Jack bowed his head, hoping to give the impression that the attack had been fatal. In a way, the Bard was dead. Without his brain, he was nothing.

  “Well. That’s all right, then,” said Olaf, cheering up.

  “But this thrall is his apprentice. What do we tell the queen about him?” said Sven.

  “Nothing,” replied Olaf. “We’ve done our job. We’ve got
a shipload of booty. Why upset the applecart?”

  “I think it’s cowardly to hide the truth,” said Thorgil.

  “It would not be wise,” Olaf said carefully, “to put the queen into a snit. This young skald could be useful to us, and by the way, little brjóstabarn, it is also not wise to suggest I might be a coward.” There was no mistaking the menace in the giant’s voice.

  Thorgil turned red, but she held her tongue. She gazed long and hard at Jack, looking, he thought, as though she wouldn’t mind putting the queen into a snit if it would make him suffer.

  “Believe me, angering the queen would spoil your chances of joining her court,” Olaf said.

  Thorgil frowned. “You always get the better of me,” she said.

  She went back to watching the rudder, and Olaf and Sven returned to their posts toward the bow of the ship. Jack ferried Lucy between the baskets and bags to his former perch.

  The fog clung to the sea. It was impossible to see in any direction. They were swallowed up by the gray wetness as thoroughly as if they had been sealed in a cave. The air grew darker—sunset was coming on, though it was impossible to tell east from west. The warriors sat idle at their oars. They spoke little, as though something was troubling them.

  “Who’s Dragon Tongue?” said Lucy.

  “Someone you don’t know,” Jack said. He showed the little girl the crow huddled between the grain bags. Lucy wanted to play with it, but Jack distracted her with a shred of dried fish. She obediently sucked on it, but then she spat it onto the deck by the sleeping bird.

  “I want Mother’s food,” she said.

  “You must try to eat, dearest. It’s only for a little while, until we get to land again.”

  “We’ll never get to land,” moaned Lucy. “We’ll always be here in the fog with these stinky monsters. For ever and ever and ever.” She pressed her thin face against Jack’s chest.

  “That’s not the way a real princess talks,” said Jack. “She’d know this was only an adventure and that magic would come to her when she needed it.” Good heavens. I sound like Father, thought Jack.

  “It had better come soon,” said Lucy.

  “It already has. This crow flew to us from the Islands of the Blessed. He’s been sent to watch over you.”

  “Will he grant me three wishes?” said Lucy, pulling a cloak from a bundle of clothes the Northmen had looted from a village. Jack helped settle it around her shoulders.

  “When it’s the right time,” Jack said. “He’s very tired now. He’s flown a long way.”

  “I’d like a warm room with a fire and a soft bed. I’d like Mother and—and—F-Father.” She began to cry again.

  “Remember, wishes don’t always get granted right away.”

  The smell of fish must have penetrated the crow’s dreams, for he snapped his beak and flexed his claws with his eyes tightly shut.

  “Look at his foot,” whispered Lucy.

  Jack felt the hair stir on the back of his neck. The light was going, but he distinctly saw that the bird was missing a claw on his left foot. As though a fox had nipped it off. He knew this creature. It was the crow who had stayed behind when the Bard lost his wits. It was the one who had tricked him out of food and listened intently to Jack’s worries.

  People said the Bard got his messages from birds, though he’d never shown Jack how. “I wish I could understand you,” said Jack, reaching out to smooth the creature’s bedraggled feathers. “I wish I knew why you followed me to the middle of the sea. But I’m glad you did.” And the crow, as though he could hear in his sleep, fluffed his feathers and settled down more snugly between the grain bags.

  Chapter Fifteen

  BOLD HEART

  Jack slept soundly. By now he was used to curling up in whatever corner he could find, and the movement of the sea was so gentle, he barely noticed it at all. He woke up when the first light crept over the ship.

  But it was not a clear light. Fog pressed in all around, coating everything with its dank presence. Water dripped off the ropes. It sank into Jack’s clothes and glued down his hair. When he looked over the side, sea and sky melted together into a blue-gray mass so thick, he could see only a few feet in any direction. The ship might have been floating in the middle of a cloud for all he could tell.

  He could hear the warriors come awake—stretching, groaning, belching, and (the air was very still) pissing over the side. They didn’t talk, which was unusual. On other days they woke with casual insults and rough jokes.

  Lucy stirred under her cloak. Jack didn’t disturb her. The longer she was asleep, the longer she could escape into dreams. The crow hopped onto the railing. He crouched there, clacking his beak irritably. Jack was certain it was a “he”, though he couldn’t say why.

  “You don’t want to fly out there,” Jack said. The bird gave a low grumble so like human speech that the boy laughed. The months of watching wild creatures for the Bard gave him a fair sense of the crow’s mood. “It does look as nasty as troll spit. Yesterday I couldn’t wait for the wind to die down. Now I can’t wait for it to start up again.”

  “Calling the wind is your job,” rumbled Olaf’s voice from behind him. Jack gripped the railing to keep from cowering. For such a large man, the warrior was amazingly soft-footed.

  “I thought you wanted calm.” Jack braced for a blow. Olaf did not like arguments.

  “I did. Now I want sunlight.”

  “Fog never sticks around long,” Jack said cautiously. He didn’t know how to call the wind, and he wanted to buy time. “I’m sure it’ll go away by afternoon.”

  The blow didn’t fall, but Olaf’s giant hand gripping his shoulder was almost as bad. “Listen well, little skald. We’re stuck out here not knowing north from south. If we row in the wrong direction, we’ll find ourselves on an endless sea. After a while the freshwater will run out, and the only liquid we will have to drink is your blood.” Olaf spoke in a low, calm voice that was more terrifying than a shout.

  “Oh. Since you put it that way,” said Jack. The heavy hand went away, jack sat down on a grain bag, his heart pounding. The crow threw back his head and made a gargling sound.

  “If you think you can do things better, you have my permission to try,” Jack said.

  The crow bobbed his body up and down as if to say, Not me, sonny. It’s your job.

  “That’s right. It’s my job. I’m the bard around here.” Jack was talking to calm his growing sense of panic. He hadn’t the slightest idea what to do. “As long as you’re going to stay, I might as well give you a name. How about… Lopsided.”

  The bird delivered a series of loud croaks that made the Northmen clutch the amulets they wore around their necks. They could joke about getting chewed on by trolls, but a simple crow filled them with dismay. “You are lopsided. A fox bit off your toe, and you can’t walk straight.”

  The crow snapped at Jack’s face.

  “Oh, very well. I suppose you were courageous and fought back. I’ll call you Bold Heart.”

  At this the crow did a flip-flop and landed on the railing with his feathers puffed out. He looked exceedingly pleased with his new name.

  “Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got work to do,” said Jack.

  He composed himself on the grain bag. What to do, what to do? he thought. Bold Heart hopped along the railing until he was in Jack’s view again. The bird lifted his wings to the sky and keened as though he saw a hawk. It was extraordinary how many sounds the bird could make.

  “What does that mean?” Jack said. “I don’t have time to play. If you’re begging for food, you’ll have to wait until I’m finished.” Jack closed his eyes and prepared to cast his mind down to the life force. To his surprise, he found it easy. It was as though, once learned, the path became clearer.

  He felt the fire deep below, but not only there. The life force radiated all around, in the sea and in the air. It moved together like a kind of music. It filled all with its joyful presence. Jack found himself in a doz
en places at once, following a flock of geese forming a V in the upper sky, swimming with a school of herring that flowed in one direction until, startled, they all turned and flowed in another. It was wonderful! It was like being alive a hundred times over.

  Finally he remembered his mission. Jack cast his mind down to the deeps again. Return to me, Jack thought. Break apart sea and sky. Call down your clouds and mists. Jack didn’t know where the words came from, only that they seemed right. He felt a finger of warmth lift from the fire far below. He felt it rise through the chill dark. It pushed aside the cold currents of the ocean and rose toward him. The herring scattered as it passed. It spread out like a giant net—here, there, everywhere, catching the fog. The water dimpled in a thousand places. From far away he heard the shouts of men.

  “Jack! Jack!” cried Lucy, shaking him.

  He opened his eyes. Water was streaming down so hard, he could hardly see. The Northmen were cursing as they tried to protect the perishable goods. Rain roared like a waterfall. Olaf ordered everyone to start bailing.

  “Make it stop,” cried Lucy, her eyes wide with fright.

  Jack held her tight. His mind refused to function. He could only stare at the devastation around them. Bold Heart flopped onto his lap and pushed his beak under Lucy’s arm. “He likes me,” said the little girl, momentarily distracted.

  Jack thought it more likely that the crow was trying to stay dry, but he said, “Of course he does. He’s here to protect you.” Lucy gave Jack a wan smile. The water in the ship came almost to her knees. If it got much deeper, they’d sink.

  “You! Bard! Do something!” Olaf bellowed. Jack closed his eyes and desperately tried to reach the life force. But the powers that ran through the earth were not to be approached by force. Jack tried and tried, but all he could do was hear the pounding rain and feel the water creep slowly up his legs. No matter how fast the warriors bailed, the rain came down faster. The ship was now so full, it barely crested the sea. Each water droplet sent it closer to destruction.