“I wouldn’t think anything,” Troll grumbled. “I’d be grateful I was being fed.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, you don’t trust me.”
“No, it’s not that I don’t trust you—”
“Then why are you asking all these questions?”
“It’s just… we’re here because we have to be. Until the season changes. I want to make sure that we’re not doing anything that’s going to keep us here. Do you understand?”
Troll might have nodded, but his head was turned away again.
Iliff’s face became hot. “This easing of the hunting and wandering rules is only temporary. Remember that.” He tried to project his voice but it came out sounding thin and strained. “And there’s still the restriction on large animals.”
Troll took a few items from the shelves and put them into the bag that he went out with each night.
“Do you hear me?”
Troll shouldered the bag and moved past him. “I’ll be back by morning.”
There was a sudden inrush of cold air as Troll went through the door. Iliff could hear his ponderous footfalls and then only the wind against the shelter. After listening for a moment longer, Iliff left his bedding and stole to Troll’s side of the shelter.
He had never really looked at the items on the shelves, not closely anyway. He picked up a knife and examined its stone blade. It appeared to have been crudely chipped to an edge then sharpened against another stone. He set it down and picked up a piece of cordage and ran it through his hand. Now this would have required more dexterity to make, he thought. It consisted of strips of dried animal skin, braided just as he had braided the plant fibers to make lashing for their shelter. It was possible that Troll had learned the skill by watching him, but his fingers were too broad and blunt. The same questions arose when Iliff considered the stitching that fashioned their bedding. He examined the other tools and containers. One of the containers held small animal bones. Iliff became apprehensive as he looked through them. There was so little he understood of his companion anymore. He put everything back as it had been and withdrew to his side of the shelter. He stoked the fire, then crawled into his bedding and tried to rest.
But he could not stop wondering about the items on the shelves.
* * *
In the days that followed, an uncomfortable tension settled inside the shelter, as if a line of brambles had grown between the two sides. Iliff noticed that Troll left the shelter earlier and stayed away longer, often until after first light. When Troll returned, he prepared their breakfast with hardly a word and then drew in his towering knees, as though to barricade himself from anything Iliff might have to say. In the late afternoon, he awakened edgy and restless. He was rough with the fire and just as rough with their food. Iliff learned not to inquire into his doings or to say anything more about the rules. But still he watched his companion.
* * *
One evening Iliff emerged from the shelter with several lengths of lashing in hand. Icy rain had fallen most of the day, and he feared it had damaged the thatching. He looked toward the river, but Troll, who had left the shelter shortly before him, was already gone from sight. Iliff turned back and walked a slow circle around the shelter. Some outer thatching had indeed fallen away, and he stopped at intervals to tie it back.
On the far side of the shelter, he noticed something peeking out where the thick sweep of thatching met the ground. He knelt and pulled forth a long carved stick with a stone blade bound to one end.
Iliff brought it closer. The blade was like the stone blade of the knife, except this one had twin notches at the base. The notches were cleanly chiseled, and beneath them the stone fluted out in near-perfect symmetry. Iliff was just beginning to stand when he heard footfalls behind him.
Iliff turned and beheld Troll’s hulking figure. He backed up a step.
“What are you doing?” Troll said.
Iliff stood in silence, the heavy weapon in his upturned hands as though in offering. Troll took it from him.
“What is it?” Iliff said.
“A spear. I forgot it.” Troll turned to leave.
“But you didn’t make it, did you.”
Troll stopped.
“I know you didn’t make it.”
His own words sounded far away to him. He could hardly believe the challenge in them, and as he watched Troll’s massive, swelling back, he feared the consequences of them. His heart thumped against his chest wall. But when Troll turned, Iliff saw he was stooped forward a bit, his brow downcast.
“I found it at an old camp across the river,” he muttered. “No one there now.”
“All right,” Iliff said. He exhaled slowly through his nostrils. “Yes, all right.”
* * *
Iliff opened his eyes in the night, not sure that he was awake. Sodden sleep clung to his thoughts and clouded the space around him. He looked to the pit where embers sighed and smoldered. Troll was still away. Iliff rolled over in his bedding and was preparing to let his eyes fall closed when he heard a voice beneath the moaning winds.
“Your companion keeps dangerous company. Move from here, Seeker of the Sun. Before it is too late.”
Iliff sat up and strained to listen. The voice said nothing more, but he thought he heard the retreat of a sharp tread. He dressed and pushed a torch into the coals until it flared. The wind outside the shelter ripped at the flame. He held his cloak to his throat and peered into the night. At the edge of the trees, he saw the briefest eye shine, as if something had glanced back before turning and striding off.
Cold, and unsure of what he had heard, Iliff stooped to go back inside.
But then he considered the message. What company could Troll possibly be keeping? The heartsick woman was far behind them. They had not encountered anyone since. Troll had not said anything of people out here. But there was his sudden adeptness at hunting, at building weapons and tools, at constructing the shelter and making fire. And what of Troll’s’ eagerness to leave each night? What of his exhaustion upon returning each morning?
Iliff recalled the spear with the perfect stone blade hidden beneath the shelter. I found it at an old camp across the river. He had been too shaken at the time, but now he heard the shame in Troll’s voice.
Iliff pulled up the hood of his cloak and headed to the river. He climbed down the boulders to the water’s edge. The river leapt and crashed, but he had to cross, had to learn where Troll went at night.
He stepped into the shallows and waded forth. The frigid water burned to his knees, his thighs, his waist. The current heaved him around and tried to suck his legs from under him. When Iliff shot his arms out for balance, the winds snatched away his flame. He fought his way through the water and dark. He emerged somehow and crawled up the far bank, dripping and shivering, and crouched behind a boulder.
His eyes were no longer so accustomed to night, and when he peered around the boulder, the trees appeared only as looming shadows. He got up and crept past them. Fearful of becoming lost, he moved in as straight a line from the river as he could. He stopped on occasion to listen, but the winds and thrashing litter obliterated all other sound.
Before long Iliff was shaking inside his wet garments, his thoughts becoming foggy. He peered back the way he had come. It was folly to continue, he knew. If he did not get back to the fire, he would become stricken, or worse. But as he stood there, the icy winds buffeting him, he heard a cluster of sounds. Iliff tried to still his chattering jaw long enough to make them out. There were muffled grunts, thuds, bursts of shouting—the sounds of struggle!
Adrenaline inflamed Iliff’s blood. He rushed toward the commotion.
Soon he could make out Troll’s exclamations and those of another, low and harsh. Iliff could not tell who might be prevailing. Branches were breaking now, the ground concussing. Iliff clenched the thick bough that had been his torch.
When a narrow sightline opened among the trees, he paused to take in the frag
mented motion of two giants. He watched them circle and grapple and fall hard to the earth. He listened to them struggle over the ground. He held up his bough and crept forward, hoping to catch Troll’s foe by surprise.
When the commotion stopped suddenly, a stand of trees blocked Iliff’s view. Was he too late?
He crawled to one side and looked again. They were still there, but who was victor and who conquered? The two stood facing each other now. Though Iliff could not make out their words, he did not have to. For in the next moment, the smaller one placed his hand on the shoulder of the larger, prompting deep, stone-filled laughter.
Chapter 23
Iliff was waiting when Troll pushed his way inside the shelter. Troll set the night’s catch beside the fire and prodded the coals. Iliff opened his mouth but there was nothing to carry forth his words. He had returned to the shelter in a cold fever and wrapped himself in his bedding. Wrathful thoughts turned despondent turned wrathful again. By morning his insides felt hollow, the rest of him weak.
“We saw you last night,” Troll said. “You’re angry, I know.”
“Who is he?” Iliff said at last. It hurt his throat to speak.
“He’s a hunter.”
“A hunter.”
He watched Troll sort through the implements for cleaning and cooking the fish. The indifference of his posture and movements recalled Iliff’s fury. He pushed off his bedding and sat up.
“I told you—look at me—I told you no contact with people. Ever have I reminded you. And what do you do? You go off and befriend one and then speak nothing of it?”
“He’s the reason we’re still alive.”
“There were rules.”
Troll dumped a handful of sticks into the fire pit.
“Did you hear me?” Iliff said. “There’s a right way and a wrong way to make this journey, to go where we’re going. Don’t you see that? Don’t you see how hard I’m trying to do this the right way? And you do whatever enters your head in the moment, with no consideration at all for what I’m trying to do. For what’s right.”
“What’s right? Letting us die out here?”
“No, but I…” He tensed his jaw. “I am grateful to you. Yes, you are the reason we’re still here. But that crisis is past. We have to look ahead. We cannot lose ourselves out here. I’ve told you that.”
Troll looked up at him. “But what if there is nowhere else?”
“Nowhere else?”
“We still haven’t seen any Sun.”
Iliff plunged his head into his hands. “Why can’t you understand?” he moaned. “I tell you and I tell you and still you cannot understand. What have I said about strength and… and steadfastness?”
“But what’s wrong about this place? What’s wrong about people?”
“The Sun can only be seen by those who seek it. Not by those who get muddled down in places such as this.” He curled over his bedding. “The Sun is not going to reveal itself to those.”
“How do you know?”
Iliff was too weary to answer. He shook his head.
“Look here,” Troll said. “We needed food and we got it. We needed meat and fire and we got that too.”
“Yes, but there’s a price.” His voice sounded as diminished as he felt. “Euclid helped me and I became lost in the mines. The heartsick woman helped us and I nearly lost you. The hunter helps you now and Stag tells me we’re in danger because of it.”
Troll jerked from his crouch, dropping the knife. Iliff pressed himself upright.
“Yes, he came last night, while you were away. He said we have to leave here. And that is exactly—”
But Troll was already pushing his way past Iliff, pushing his way out of the shelter. Iliff scrambled after him into the wind and cold. He leapt and grabbed one of Troll’s legs as he stooped for his spear.
“Don’t do it!” Iliff shouted. “Or you’re never to come back!”
Troll looked down.
“Do you hear me? This will be it! This will be the end of us!”
The ridges of Troll’s face softened for a moment before turning to stone again. He shook himself from Iliff’s hold and ran toward the river. Iliff sprawled onto the litter and watched Troll power through the trees and descend from sight.
* * *
The hunter stood beside his shelter, brow furrowed. “If the stag knows I’m here, then my pursuer knows as well. I’ve heard movements these past nights, but I didn’t think…” He snorted and shook his head. “She didn’t count on seeing you with me. That’s why she’s yet to act. She’s waiting to catch me alone.”
“She?” Troll said.
“Probably hiding nearby. Until we learn where, she holds the advantage.”
“A female?
“Mm.”
“But we… I thought they were not to be hunted.”
The hunter looked at Troll in irritation. “What’s that? Another one of your companion’s rules?”
Troll began to speak but clamped his mouth shut and shook his head.
They began their search of the forest. The hunter carried his bow and Troll his spear. They started at the camp and moved out in larger circles, their progress slow and wary. Troll imagined a crouching creature behind every tree.
Late that day they built a second camp far from the first and spent the night there, keeping watch in shifts. They had left most of the hunter’s possession at the first camp so it would appear to be still in use, and set several traps there using sharp timbers and giant stones. “At the least they will cripple her,” the hunter said.
The night passed without incident, and the following days. Their searches turned up nothing. It was as if the creature were a phantom on the wind, circling, circling, but without substance. Troll sensed the hunter’s frustration in his lengthening silences. He wondered what kind of creature could make the hunter worry so. He imagined one with many arms and legs and many eyes and many sets of sharp teeth. The image frightened Troll and he kept his spear at hand at all times, even when he slept, for the creature appeared in his mind even then.
And then one day there was a sign, a faint set of tracks near the first camp. The distance between each one was tremendous. The tracks circled the camp before disappearing.
“She’s avoided all my traps,” the hunter said. “But look here! She stepped on one of the pins I’d cast off.”
Troll took the sharpened stick from the hunter. Thick hairs clung to a black clot of blood. The blunt end of the pin was crushed, as if a powerful jaw had pulled it out. Troll bent low. Inside each successive track he found a point of the same blood. He could smell its potency. The tracks disappeared beyond the encampment but the scent remained. It stained the earth.
They followed the blood scent with weapons at the ready. It led them around the camp and toward the river, then upstream along the riverbank to the pool where they caught their fish.
“The traps!” Troll whispered. “They’re gone.”
The hunter grunted and pointed to the shallows where clusters of plaited sticks eddied around the rocks.
The scent continued upstream before leaving the river and returning to the forest. It veered here and there to where they had left game traps, all of them ravaged now and in pieces. The scent skirted a meadow before plunging into the forest. The hunter and Troll had not searched this area. The trees before them stood tall and thick and the floor lay under a shadow of deepest gray. They followed the scent inside, their steps as quiet as their breaths.
The wind whined and the trees creaked and clattered. Troll jerked his nose from the ground to peer around. He had never felt so uneasy. They arrived at a clearing dominated by a deadfall, a mountain of toppled trees and branches and ragged gray leaves. Broken trunks leaned over one another to create a dark entrance. From deep inside emanated a low, wet odor.
The hunter signaled for Troll to stay hidden and crept a wide circle around the deadfall. He returned to Troll, and they backed away, step after cautious step, until they were outsid
e the deep forest.
“She’s there,” the hunter said as he exhaled. “I’m sure of it. Sleeping, most likely. Waiting for nightfall.”
* * *
Across the river, Iliff lay bundled inside his bedding, his space dimming and cold. He listened to the winds throw themselves against the shelter. He had lost the fire some nights before, had fallen into deep, troubled sleep and awoken to an even deeper dark. The fire pit was black, and the flint and metal gave him nothing.
Twelve days Troll had been gone. Twelve awful days. Early on he had expected his companion to return soundlessly, head hung and penitent. But that was the old Troll. Each day he stayed away shone harsher light on how much he had changed. On most of those days Iliff made his way to the river and wandered along the bank. He looked into the far trees and listened, but there was only the wind and rushing water. The few times he called out, his voice was consumed by their sounds.
Iliff sighed through his bedding. Troll was not coming back. Troll no longer needed him. Iliff wished the same sovereignty for himself, but lacking fire, the smoked rations dwindling—
He gripped his arm in chastisement. Just listen to yourself! Listen to what you’re saying. What about strength? What about steadfastness?
It was true. He had preached these virtues to Troll and now he had to exercise them himself. He was a Seeker, after all. However harsh the air, however strong a wind it wielded, he had to trust in the journey and that the Sun would provide for him. There was no other way forward.
He peered through the dark to the emptiness beyond the fire pit. He shook and buried himself deeper inside his bedding. He regretted his parting words more than ever. This will be it! This will be the end of us! Troll had not deserved them. From the moment Troll had snatched him up in the mines until he had shaken him off outside their shelter, the creature had done his best to look out for him. That he could not understand certain things was not his fault. Iliff recalled their camaraderie during those first days out in the world. He should have been more patient with him, should have taken more time to teach him. And now he would never see his friend again.
Escape (The Prisoner and the Sun #1) Page 14
