The Elven

by Bernhard Hennen

  The jarl had instinctively dropped one hand to the axe in his belt. He thought of Farodin’s advice for fighting trolls and of the stories he had heard in his childhood. Trolls had to be hunted in packs, like hunting cave bears. One man alone could not defeat a troll. Mandred’s mind then turned to his son. Alfadas had been quick to support the elves in the third troll war. He had been the victor of many bloody battles with these monsters. But in the end, he was killed by them, too, Mandred reminded himself. He stroked the blade of his axe. One more reason to come here.

  The fog dissipated. In front of them rose jagged cliffs. Farodin pointed to a rocky outcrop that looked vaguely like the head of a wolf. “There’s a cave there that can’t be seen from the fjord. I hid my boat there last time.”

  “So you’ve been to the Nightcrags before.”

  The elf nodded. “Once, more than four hundred years ago. Back then, I killed the prince of the trolls, the head of their army, who led the trolls during their campaigns in Albenmark.”

  Typical Farodin, revealing what he knew at the eleventh hour. “You really could have told me that earlier,” Mandred grumbled.

  “Why? Would it have changed your decision?”

  “No, but I—”

  “Then it was not necessary for you to know it. By the way, there’s been one change to our plan. You will go to the Nightcrags alone.”

  Mandred’s jaw dropped. “What?”

  “They will never let me into their fortress. Do you know what they call me? Death in the night. They’ll kill me the moment they see me. So you must see that there is no other way. You have to go in alone. I’ll find another way in. Unlike me, as a supposed ambassador, you are protected by the rights of hospitality. They can’t do anything to you as long as you don’t violate that right . . . which they will try to trick you into doing. You have to stand firm, whatever they do.”

  “And why should they accept me as an ambassador? A human? They eat my kind.”

  Farodin kneeled and unwrapped the bundle he had been keeping in the stern. He showed Mandred an oak branch wrapped in fine linen. “This is why they will accept you. This is a branch from a souled tree. Only emissaries of the queen carry this sign, and whomever the queen sends is untouchable.”

  Surprised, Mandred took the branch and wrapped the linen around it again. “It’s real, isn’t it? Where did you get it?”

  The question clearly made Farodin uncomfortable. “It grew from one of Atta Aikhjarto’s acorns. I hope you can forgive me. We needed it.”

  “You cut it from the oak tree over Freya’s grave?”

  “She let me take it. She knows what we need the branch for.”

  Mandred was not sure whether Farodin meant the oak tree or Freya’s ghost. His hands began to shake. He jammed them under his armpits. Farodin must have noticed his trembling. “Damn cold,” the jarl muttered. He did not want to look like a coward.

  “Yes.” Farodin nodded. “Even I feel it. Think of Yilvina. She and the others are worth the risk.”

  The boat rounded a rocky headland that loomed above the fjord like a tower. They were sailing directly toward the cliffs. The elf maneuvered skillfully between the walls of rock. Then he dropped the mast. Mandred reached for the oars and pulled against the tide. Just ahead, concealed among the cliffs, was the low mouth of a cave.

  “The cave can only be reached at low tide,” Farodin shouted over the hiss of the surf. “Even at mid-tide, the entrance is underwater.”

  The thought of entering a cave that was flooded at high tide gave Mandred a queasy knot in his stomach. Farodin knows what he’s doing, he reminded himself again. But this time, it did not help him overcome his disquiet.

  The cave mouth was so low that they had to duck their heads. A swirling current took hold of the boat and wrenched it forward, and in a moment, they found themselves in total darkness. The gunwales scraped past invisible rocks. Mandred cried out.

  Finally, they came into calmer water. Farodin lit a lantern and held it high overhead. Surrounded by a small island of light, they glided on. Mandred strained at the oars, now and then looking over his shoulder. A little way ahead, a broad band of gravel appeared. The boat slid up onto it with a crunch.

  They jumped ashore and hauled their fragile craft well above the high-tide mark. Mandred looked around in astonishment. The cave was far bigger than he had thought.

  Farodin came to him and laid one hand on his shoulder. A comfortable warmth spread through Mandred’s body. “I am grateful that you came with me, mortal. I would not make it through this alone, not this time.”

  Mandred doubted that he would really be of much help. It took all he had just to keep the fear inside him under control, a struggle that had certainly not escaped Farodin’s notice.

  The elf led him across a rocky ledge at the edge of the water to a hidden exit. Then they picked their way across smooth, ice-encrusted rocks until they finally reached a beach. Time to part. For a moment, they stood facing each other in silence. Then Farodin grasped Mandred’s wrist in a warrior’s grip. It was the first time his companion had said good-bye to him in this fashion. The gesture said more than any words could.

  With light steps, Farodin moved quickly away down the beach and disappeared in the fog. He left no more than the slightest of traces in the snow, and the wind soon erased them. Mandred turned away and kept close to the water. The icy stones crackled beneath his feet. Where the waves broke over the gray gravel, there was no snow. He would leave no telltale traces there either.

  He walked along the beach for an hour, until the fog vanished from one moment to the next. Without cover, no sentry could fail to see him. He had the feeling he was being watched, but no one showed himself. Mandred took a step back and turned around. It was as if he had crossed an invisible borderline. Behind him, long fingers of fog clawed in from the sea across the gravel beach. But in front, the night was clear.

  The faerylight billowed uncommonly low across the sky. Ahead of Mandred rose a craggy tooth of rock on top of which perched a colossal tower. Yellow light shimmered dully behind clouded windows. The Nightcrags looked very different from how he imagined something built by the trolls would look. This was a darker, rough-hewn version of Emerelle’s palace. Flanked by columns and buttresses, the tower loomed high in the sky, reaching even the faerylight. Its windows must have numbered in the hundreds. In places, posts protruded from the walls like massive thorns. Without doubt, the Nightcrags was a masterful construction, but the builder had put all of his skill into making it look gloomy and threatening.

  Mandred unwrapped the oak branch from the linen cloth and held it in front of his chest like a shield. He thought of Luth, the god of fate, and that there would be no one to sing his hero’s song if he died that night. Should he have listened to Ragna? The night spent with her had been completely different from his adventures in the brothels. She loved him honestly . . . him, her own ancestor. Nothing could ever come of that love, he knew. Despite so many generations separating them, his memories of that night did not sit well. It was good that he had sailed with Farodin.

  “What brings a mortal to the shadow of the Nightcrags?” a deep voice suddenly spoke. A gigantic figure emerged from beneath a rocky overhang perhaps twenty paces from Mandred. It was half again as tall as a man, with a terrifyingly broad back. Its forearms alone were heavier than Mandred’s thighs. Yet despite the cold, it wore no more than a hide wrap around its loins. In the cold faerylight, Mandred could not clearly make out the face of the troll. Indeed, there was something fundamentally shadowy and unstable about its entire form. “What are you doing here?” the sentry asked, speaking the language of the Fjordlands with a heavy accent.

  “I am an emissary of Emerelle, queen of the elves.” The jarl held the oak branch high. “And I demand the hospitality of Orgrim, prince of the Nightcrags.”

  There came a kind of gurgling sound. “You demand?”
The troll leaned forward and took the branch. He sniffed at it for a moment. “You smell truly of elf, little man.” His knotty hands stroked the branch carefully, and he looked out over the dark waters. “How did you get here?”

  Mandred looked up. He still could not see the troll’s face clearly. The jarl wished he knew more about trolls. In the stories he’d heard as a child, they were never particularly clever. Would this one see through a lie? “Do you know what the Albenpaths are?”

  The troll nodded.

  “I traveled the Albenpaths. An elf opened a minor gate for me, on the beach not far from here. And I came out in the heart of the troll kingdom.” Mandred thought it was a good lie. It explained why no scouts had discovered him earlier.

  “Ah” was all the troll said. Then without warning, he turned. “Follow me.”

  The troll led Mandred to a harbor that lay at the foot of the Nightcrags, with rock walls on all sides. Huge, dark ships were tied up there. They looked like fortresses that had been shown how to swim. From the pier, a path led up into the cliffs. It disappeared into the mouth of a tunnel, sparsely lit with barinstones.

  They passed sentries several times—dark figures leaning on heavy clubs and stone axes as big as a man. Mandred’s guide seemed to soak up their respect as they passed. In the light of the barinstones, he could see the troll better. His skin was a dark gray sprinkled with lighter spots, making it look not unlike granite. The troll had a receding forehead, and his lower jaw jutted forward. His eyes were strange. They glowed amber, like the eyes of Xern, the first of the Albenkin Mandred had met. The troll’s arms were not in proportion with the mass of its body. To Mandred, they looked too long. Knotted strands of muscle testified to their strength. In battle, a troll must be a terrifying adversary.

  Finally, they came to a large, open hall. Perhaps a hundred trolls were gathered inside. Some were drinking or rolling bone dice. Others had stretched out beside fireplaces and were asleep. The place stank horribly of old oil, sour vomit, and spilled beer. It was more a cave than a banquet hall, Mandred thought. Along the walls stood rough wooden tables and benches, but most of the trolls seemed to prefer squatting on the floor. They were all frighteningly huge. His guide from the beach was far from being a giant among his peers. Mandred estimated that the largest of those there in the hall measured nearly four paces from head to foot. Only on second glance did he realize that not one of them had any hair. Many had decorated their coarse faces and hairless scalps with interwoven patterns of scarifications.

  A rumble arose as the trolls became aware of Mandred. Shouts rang out, like the barking of dogs. The sentry who had led him this far held the branch high and bellowed louder than all the rest, and the hall grew a little quieter. But in the trolls’ amber eyes, Mandred read undisguised hatred.

  In the distance came the sound of a horn. The jarl thought of Farodin. Had the trolls discovered him after all?

  Mandred’s guide slumped onto a bench and grinned insolently at him. “Tell us what you came to say, little man.”

  “Forgive me, but I will speak only with Prince Orgrim,” said the jarl firmly. He looked around in the hope of seeing a troll somewhere who was wearing golden armbands or heavy silver chains. That was how the heroes in the sagas always recognized the princes of great nations. But none here wore such things.

  His guide bawled something across the hall, and loud grunting came from all sides. It took Mandred some moments to realize that they were laughing.

  “What is so funny?” he asked coolly.

  His guide tugged at his bottom lip and looked at him intensely. “You really don’t know, do you?” he asked in his heavy accent.

  “What?”

  “I am Orgrim, prince of the Nightcrags.”

  Mandred looked at the troll. He was skeptical. Was this some kind of ruse? There was nothing about him to differentiate him from the other trolls surrounding them. But if, in fact, he was the prince and Mandred didn’t answer him now, then that would count as an insult. And if he was only pretending to be the leader of the trolls and Mandred revealed to him his fake message, then—at least by human standards—he could not be accused of behaving impolitely before his host.

  “Queen Emerelle wishes to be informed as to whether any elves are still in captivity.”

  Orgrim shouted something to the other trolls. It seemed to Mandred that some of them grinned hatefully. Then the prince clapped his hands and gave an order.

  “Food and drink will be brought to us,” said Orgrim formally. “Let it not be said that I did not set before a guest the best that the larders of the Nightcrags have to offer.”

  Two arm-length drinking horns were carried in. Orgrim set one to his lips and emptied it in a single draft. Then he looked expectantly at Mandred.

  The jarl was having difficulty even lifting his horn. He could not allow himself to get drunk. Not tonight. But if he drank nothing, he would insult his host. So he swallowed a mouthful and let a good portion of the sticky mead run down his beard.

  Orgrim laughed loudly. “The children here drink more than you, little man.”

  Mandred set his horn down. “If I look around, I can imagine that the children here are born as big as me.”

  The prince clapped him on the shoulder, nearly knocking Mandred off the bench. “Well spoken, little man. Our newborns are far from being soft little grubs like your children.”

  “To return to the elf queen’s question . . .”

  “We hold no elves in captivity.” Again, the prince pulled at his bottom lip. “Who said we did?”

  “An elf woman who had been held captive here,” replied Mandred curtly.

  The troll prince supported his chin on both hands and looked at Mandred thoughtfully. “What a confused creature that must have been. The war ended long ago. All of the prisoners have been exchanged.” If not for the powerful bottom jaw with its protruding tusks, Orgrim would probably have managed a winning smile. As things were, he produced a rather terrifying grimace instead. “I hope very much that Emerelle did not take such talk seriously.”

  Mandred was deeply unsettled. Had it been anyone else but Farodin who told him about Shalawyn being held prisoner here, he might well have believed Orgrim. The prince was completely different from how he imagined a troll to be. In the stories, they were stupid, coarse man-eaters that could be fooled easily. None of that applied to Orgrim. On the contrary, Mandred sensed that the prince was toying with him.

  An old troll woman came and sat at the other end of the table. She had brought a wooden bowl of soup with her and a large, crooked spoon. Her crude dress had been patched hundreds of times, never twice with the same cloth. A milky film covered her eyes. She squinted severely whenever she looked up from her bowl. Around her withered neck were many leather straps with charms: little figures carved from bone, stone rings, feathers, the dried head of a bird, and something that looked like half a raven’s wing.

  “Who is that?” Mandred asked in a whisper.

  “Her name is Skanga, and she’s as old as our race.” There was respect in Orgrim’s voice, perhaps even a trace of fear. He spoke very quietly. “She is a powerful shaman. She speaks with the spirits and can calm storms or call them up.”

  Mandred glanced covertly at the old woman. Could she read his thoughts? Then it was better to think of harmless things. “It was a long way through the wilderness, and I’m half starved,” he said. “I could steal the bowl from under the old woman’s nose.”

  The prince apologized profusely for the food taking so long. It had to be killed first to keep the meat fresh for the table. Orgrim declared that pork always tasted more tender if you softened the beasts up a bit before slaughtering them. Apparently, the secret was to clobber the animal before it suspected that it was to be killed. Orgrim asserted that fear drew out noxious juices that tainted the meat. Mandred had never heard of such things, but he thought the prince ma
de a good case.

  While they waited, Orgrim filled the time by telling the jarl about hunting sperm whales. He flattered Mandred, praising the daring of the humans who had fought at the side of the elves in the last war. And he spoke highly indeed of the hero king, Alfadas.

  Mandred smiled silently to himself. What would Orgrim say if he discovered he was sitting beside the father of Alfadas? Well, Mandred wouldn’t mention the fact. A melancholy pride overtook him as the prince told him of the battles his son had fought in.

  After a long time, a bloated, jowly troll served them. He brought two wooden plates laden with steaming roast joints smothered with gravy and gold-brown rings of onion. The larger of the two joints would easily have been enough to stuff the bellies of three starving men. The smaller weighed perhaps two pounds, Mandred guessed.

  “As my guest, the choice is yours.” Orgrim pointed to the plates. “Which would you prefer?”

  The jarl recalled Farodin’s words of warning. If he took the larger piece and ate only a small portion of it, the trolls could well take it as an insult. “Considering my size, it would be more than reckless of me to even think about the bigger one,” said Mandred, his voice rather stilted. The smell of the meat was making his mouth water. “So I choose the smaller.”

  “So be it.” The troll prince nodded to the fat cook, who set the heavy wooden plates before them on the table.

  Orgrim ate with his fingers. He shredded the meat effortlessly and stuffed it into his maw in large chunks. Freshly baked bread came next, and they dunked it in the juices of the meat.

  Mandred took the knife from his belt and divided his joint into six thick slices. As he sliced into the meat, dark blood oozed into the heavy onion gravy. The meat was delicious. It had a good, crisp crust and was still tender and bloody in the middle. Mandred ate hungrily. He’d had nothing warm to eat in the long days on the boat. Gravy dripped from the corners of his mouth as he chewed. He savored the pleasure of dipping the fresh bread into the gravy and onions and washed it all down with the heavy mead. Orgrim certainly knew how to treat a guest.