To do nothing.
Panic pounded through him, and he stepped back. Then he stopped himself.
Don’t give in to the fear. Use it. This troll wants your Hammer. It’ll take your amulet, and then what? You’ll lose your only power in your first giant-fight? Against one troll? Oh, yeah, you were tested, Matty. And you failed on the first question.
The energy shot out and hit the troll. This time the thing did sail off its feet, hitting the ground so hard the earth shook.
Laurie stumbled as if her knees had almost given way.
Matt advanced on the fallen troll. “You want the Hammer? That’s the Hammer. You go after any of us again, and I’ll give you a bigger taste of it. Now, I have questions, and you’re going to answer, or you’ll get the Hammer.”
The troll said nothing, just stared at the amulet as if transfixed.
“We are looking for…” He remembered the term Hildar used. “The descendants of the North. Specifically, a pair of twins. From the gods Frey and Freya. They’re about our age. Do you know where they are?”
Even before the troll answered, Matt could tell by its reaction that it did.
Finally the troll said, “Leaf knows.” Then it narrowed its eyes. “Leaf could tell son of Thor. Will tell son of Thor. For Hammer.” It pointed at the still-glowing amulet. “Give to Leaf, and Leaf will tell.”
Matt tucked the amulet under his shirt again. “The only Hammer you’re getting is the one I just gave you. Now answer the question.”
“No.”
Matt launched the Hammer again. It was easier now—he was honestly getting angry—and when the troll refused, he got madder, which made him launch it a second time, almost without meaning to. But the troll just sat there, absorbing the blows and refusing to talk.
Before he could try again, Laurie came up behind him and whispered, “I have an idea.”
He was about to say no, he could handle it, but she stepped forward and announced, “There is a way you can have Thor’s Hammer, Leaf.”
THIRTEEN
LAURIE
“SLEIGHT OF HAND”
Laurie was unexpectedly calm as she smiled up at the troll. She took three steps toward him. “You’re right: we can make a deal. We can trade with you.”
Matt started to object, but she shot him a look over her shoulder, and he quelled. Fen was back in wolf shape, but the gaze he leveled on her made it pretty clear that he wasn’t particularly in favor of her approaching the troll, either.
“You give god Hammer,” Leaf demanded.
“Maybe,” she said.
Both Matt and Fen had followed her. From the corner of her eye, she could see them standing on either side, but slightly behind her. She glanced quickly at them, hoping they wouldn’t mess this up. Fen’s expression was impossible to read, since he was a wolf, and Matt was definitely tense. “We need to find the two descendants of the North. The Valkyrie Hildar sent us to you. Do you know where they are?”
The troll glared down at her from its unsettling rocklike face. “Yes.”
“And you will tell us where they are if we give you the god Hammer?”
The deep gravel voice said, “Yes! Want it.”
Laurie nodded. A small flash of guilt filled her. She’d promised her mother that she wouldn’t trick people like her dad’s family did—like the descendants of Loki did—but this was a pretty extreme set of circumstances. Ragnarök was coming. That had to change the rules.
She turned to face Matt, who reached up to cover the Hammer with one hand.
“Trust me,” she said.
Warily, he removed his hand.
Laurie stepped behind Matt and undid the knot of the cord. “Stay still,” she said loudly. She moved closer to Matt, angling her body so the troll couldn’t see her lips, and whispered, “It’s just the Hammer, right? The cord doesn’t matter?”
“Right,” Matt said.
“What?” the troll grumbled at them.
“I was saying she’s right. I need to stay still.” Matt managed a smile. “See? I’m staying still now.”
The mammoth creature frowned. It might not know what it had missed, but it was obviously not sure about trusting them, either.
Excitedly, Laurie removed the necklace from around Matt’s neck and held it up so the troll could see the Hammer dangling from the black cord. The troll’s attention left Matt and zeroed in on the Hammer.
“So, if I give you this, you’ll tell us?”
“Leaf wants,” the troll rumbled.
“I know.” Laurie switched the necklace to her right hand and slid the cord free of the pendant itself. As she stepped from behind Matt, she slipped the Hammer into his hand; at the same time, she held up her left hand. The black cord dangled from her closed fist.
She stepped in front of Matt.
“I’ll give you this. You have to bend down, and I can tie it on you.” Laurie shook the hand holding the cord, making Leaf look at her hand again. With her right hand she reached into her pocket, where she had the necklaces she’d brought to sell. She nimbly slipped a pendant off one.
“Now,” Leaf demanded. He bent forward.
“Just hold still, and I’ll tie it on you.” She slid the pendant, a tiny silver unicorn, onto the cord while Leaf’s gaze was on the ground. As she approached him, she let the metal of the pendant flash briefly into his line of sight and then quickly palmed it again.
She peered at his neck, all the while trying not to inhale through her nose. Trolls, or at least this troll, did not smell good at all. She smothered a gag. “I don’t think it will fit around your neck.”
“Twins near,” the troll cajoled. “Leaf made deal!”
Laurie tilted her head and stared at Leaf. “I suppose I could put it on your ear.” She brushed her own hair back. “I wear things there.”
The troll nodded and bent down again. Thankfully, this meant his fetid breath was no longer blowing at her.
She put one hand on his large, slick ear and then paused. “Where are the twins, Leaf?”
“Dead Tree,” Leaf said.
“They’re in a dead tree?” she repeated skeptically. “People don’t usually live in trees.”
Leaf made a loud, grating noise. He slapped the ground with one massive hand, and spit flew from his mouth.
Matt and Fen both surged toward her, and she backed away from the troll in fear. “I wasn’t trying to insult—”
“God girl funny. Place called Dead Tree,” Leaf rumbled.
That horrible noise had been laughter. She shook her head. A troll laughing was not funny. She slowly walked back toward him. As she did so, she saw that Fen stayed right beside her.
“Deadwood,” Matt said. “They’re in Deadwood.”
“Leaf say that.” The troll turned his gaze on Laurie. “Give Hammer now.”
“Right.” She looped the cord around a big wart on the troll’s ear and tied it into a knot. The tiny silver unicorn looked funny on the creature, but it was hanging where the troll couldn’t see that it wasn’t really the Hammer, and that was the goal. They had their information, Matt had his Hammer, and the troll had an earring.
The troll straightened. It smiled, exposing teeth in serious need of scrubbing and flossing, possibly even sandblasting. Oral hygiene clearly wasn’t a priority with trolls. After seeing that, she made a mental note to buy a toothbrush for her cousin, who undoubtedly had not packed one.
Cautiously, she walked over to Matt. Fen was tight to her side. Her wolfy cousin kept looking back at the troll, who was staring at them, but not saying anything.
“Laurie,” Matt said quietly. He was looking past her, and she looked over her shoulder at the almost-lightening woods. Morning was coming, thankfully, and they had what they needed. She didn’t see anything but trees, and all that was left was to walk away.
“What?”
Fen growled. His fur stood up.
“Family come.” The troll grinned. “Show family god Hammer.”
“Crud,�
�� Laurie muttered. Four more trolls were coming toward them. Two of the trolls were even bigger than Leaf.
“Run,” Matt urged as soon as Leaf turned to see his family.
She heard Leaf grumble, “God Hammer on ear.”
And she tried to run faster. Matt was in front of her, and Fen was behind her. They were running as fast as they could, but the trolls would still be able to catch them in minutes. Trolls weren’t fast thinkers, but they certainly could move quickly.
She heard the weird sound of trolls laughing, and then the ground shook as the trolls came toward them.
They were almost at the edge of the woods. Maybe they can’t leave the woods. She hoped that was the case. Please let them be unable to follow us.
Frantically, she looked for a place to hide, as if there were a place secure enough to be trollproof. She didn’t see anything. Matt suddenly grabbed her arm and half pulled her forward.
Before she could ask him why, she heard a deep growl. Fen. She turned to look back just as she saw her fool cousin standing with his paws firmly planted, growling at the five trolls.
Matt shoved her behind him and yelled, “Run!”
The troll in the front had almost reached Fen when Matt used the Hammer and sent the troll sailing backward. He threw another and another thunder of energy at the trolls, and all the while Fen darted out of their reach, trying to keep them too distracted to chase Laurie.
“Run!” Matt yelled at her again.
She wanted to, but she couldn’t leave them. She looked around desperately for something to use as a weapon. The nearest things were a trash bin and some rocks. She ran toward the bin and tried to tug it free.
Then she heard a sharp yip.
“Fen!” She whirled to see Fen being lifted into the air. “No!” she screamed. “Matt! Help!”
A massive clawed troll hand was wrapped around Fen’s throat. He hung limp in the troll’s grip.
“Do something!” she yelled at Matt. Tears slipped out of her eyes, and she started to race toward the trolls.
“Wait.” Matt grabbed her arm as she ran past him. “Look.”
As the sun rose, the trolls all turned to stone. They looked like a cross between massive sculptures and rock piles. If she hadn’t seen them moving, she might’ve thought they were oddly shaped rocks—well, that and the fact that a wolf hung limply from what was basically a stone noose.
She ran over to Fen. He wasn’t moving, and his muzzle hung open like he was gasping for air. His eyes were closed, and she thought for a second that he was dead.
“He’s still breathing,” Matt said. He was right beside her now.
“Not for long. He’ll choke.” Then she spun to face Matt. “Blast it.”
“Blast it,” he repeated.
“Break the stone with your energy thing, or Fen’s going to die.” She hated the thought of breaking the troll’s hand, even though it had chased them and probably would’ve killed them, but she hated the thought of Fen dying even more.
Matt frowned, but he obviously couldn’t see any other solution, either. The circle of stone that was the troll’s hand had to be cracked to remove Fen. Their only other choice was to wait till nightfall, when it would wake back up—and then probably finish choking Fen anyhow.
The energy blast cracked the stone around Fen’s throat, and he dropped to the ground with an awful thump. He didn’t move.
Laurie pulled the motionless wolf into her lap. “Fen! Fen, wake up!”
As she did so, she petted his face. What do you do when your cousin who is a wolf gets choked by a troll who is part of a mountain? These weren’t the sorts of things ever covered in health class.
“I’ll carry him out of here and…” Matt’s words faded as Fen shifted from wolf to boy.
Blearily, Fen blinked up at Laurie. “Did we win or die?”
She patted the top of his head like he was still a wolf. “Won.”
“Oh, good,” Fen murmured. Then he rolled over and went to sleep.
After Matt carried Fen into the woods to sleep, Laurie and Matt took turns napping. They were pretty sure that Fen was okay. He’d woken up a few times, asked a question, and then gone back to sleep. She wished that they had their tent and sleeping bags with them, but they’d stowed them near the Mount Rushmore parking lot because they were pretty sure that walking into the monument area with camping equipment would attract attention they didn’t want. So now they had only the cold ground to sleep on, and their backpacks to use for any kind of pillows.
In one of his brief awake periods, Fen told her that going back and forth between wolf and human took a lot of food, and he was just exhausted—and also healing from injuries. She was leaning against a tree then, and Fen scooted over and laid his head in her lap. It was warmer with him cuddled against her, but it meant she couldn’t move.
When Matt woke, he offered her his sweatshirt, so she slipped it on and, with Matt’s help, moved so she wasn’t Fen’s pillow. Then she stretched out on the ground next to her cousin for a short nap.
By afternoon, during one of Matt’s shifts, Fen woke, and they’d woken her up, too. Her cousin seemed fine—tired, but okay.
They filled him in, and then they went to buy something to eat and figure out how to get to Deadwood. They were finishing their breakfast-lunch when Fen inclined his head toward a group of kids about their age, who were starting to board two buses with big DEADWOOD TOURS signs painted on the sides. A woman with a clipboard stood outside the bus, checking names off a list as kids boarded.
“We could go with them,” he suggested. Now that he’d had food, he was a lot more alert.
“They are headed to Deadwood,” Laurie mused.
Matt didn’t say anything for a moment. He looked at the crowd, and then he stood. “Better than walking or trying to hitch a ride.”
Fen grinned. “Excellent.”
All of her father’s side of the family had the uncanny ability to persuade people to do things. It made sense now that she knew that Loki was a relative, but it still made her uncomfortable, even though it was clear they’d have to use those skills to get on the bus without being noticed. Fen was obviously a lot like their ancestor, though: he had that trouble-ahead bounce to his step that always worried Laurie, but after seeing him almost killed by trolls, she didn’t have the heart to say anything. Maybe a little bit of Brekke skills were justified after cases of near-death by trolls.
Fen looked over at her and noticed her expression. Quietly, he said, “You can do this.” Then he glanced at Matt and said, “When we distract her, just get on the bus like you belong. Clear back. Head down.”
Matt nodded.
Then Fen said very softly to Laurie, “You’re a Brekke. It’s in our blood.”
“Right,” she breathed. “I can do this.”
As they approached the bus, Fen started poking at her and said loudly, “I get the window seat.”
“You had it earlier.” Laurie shoved him. “Jerk.”
“You know it.” Fen flashed his teeth at her, looking so wolfy that she wondered how she’d never noticed.
“Enough.” The woman with the clipboard scowled at them. “Where are your badges?”
“He lost them,” Laurie whined. “I told him, but—”
“You told me after I lost them. What kind of help is that?” Fen looked at the woman. “I don’t want to sit with her on the way back.”
Matt boarded the bus.
“Well, maybe I’ll sit on the other bus.” Laurie shoved his shoulder, and then she turned to walk away.
“Get on the bus.” The woman sighed wearily.
Fen folded his arms. “Fine. You get on this, and I’ll—”
“Both of you, on the bus.” The woman looked at the line of kids waiting. “Now.”
They went to the back, where Matt was seated. He nodded at them, but they said nothing else. Laurie might not be experienced at this like Fen was, but she was a Brekke. She knew instinctively that they’d used a distraction
to get on the bus, but now they needed to avoid attention to stay on the bus.
They took the seat directly in front of Matt’s.
A few kids looked at them, but this wasn’t a school group. Thankfully. Blending into a school group would be harder. There, the kids mostly all knew each other. This was a group, but probably for something like a community center or church or youth group.
A girl sat down beside Matt. “Who are you?”
“Matt,” he answered.
Beside Laurie, Fen smothered a sigh. They exchanged a worried look. Matt just wasn’t used to trickery. Even though she tried not to use it, she still knew Tricks 101: don’t use your real name. Laurie opened her mouth to intervene before he said something crazy like We’re runaways from Blackwell.
But before she could, she heard Matt say, “Didn’t we meet earlier?”
Fen looked at her and raised both eyebrows in surprise. Matt was taking the act-like-you-belong thing to a new level. In the seat behind them, they could hear Matt and the girl chattering away about the monument. It wasn’t a strategy she would’ve used, but it seemed to be working. The kids in the seat across from Matt were talking, too.
“Laurie might know,” Matt said, suddenly drawing her into the conversation.
“Know what?”
“How far to Deadwood?” the girl beside Matt said. She was smiling, but Laurie didn’t think it was particularly friendly.
“Ummm, I don’t know. Maybe an hour?” Laurie had a rough guess from trips she’d taken before, but that wasn’t the sort of thing she usually paid much attention to.
“Which school do you go to?” the girl asked. “I don’t think I’ve met any of you before.”
“We were on the other bus,” Fen said. He leaned his head back on the seat and closed his eyes before adding, “Do you mind not talking? I have a headache.”
“Sorry, I forgot.” Laurie was silently thankful for Fen’s surliness, but she looked at the girl and mouthed, “Sorry.”
The girl said, “Whatever.”
Matt nodded.
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