The Buttersmiths' Gold by Adam Glendon Sidwell

Author:Adam Glendon Sidwell [Sidwell, Adam Glendon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Future House Publishing
Published: 2013-07-09T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12 — The Trolls

Torbjorn flattened himself up against the tree so hard, he nearly pressed himself into the bark. All hope he’d had that they’d outrun the danger snapped and shattered into fear. Warriors were one thing. He and Storfjell maybe could even fight half a dozen of them at a time. But these were trolls, and to face a troll was death.

“They must’ve climbed up the cliffs,” whispered Storfjell. “The men could not, but these creatures are born of rock and earth. Such is their kinship with it, that they have no fear of the precipice.”

“What will we do?” asked Torbjorn. It was a moment when he realized that he needed his brother, and for once, he was glad that he was not the oldest.

Storfjell held up his hand for silence. The two trolls scraped across the rocks like boulders tumbling slowly up the hill; in the waning light, it seemed that the granite itself was moving. Torbjorn might have believed his eyes were fooling him, had not the trolls opened their own burning eyes, which glowed in the twilight and spoke of red-hot Muspelheim, the Fire Realm itself.

The rocks led to the wide cliff, a direct and clear path to the camp above their heads.

“Our clan. Do the trolls know they are there?” whispered Torbjorn.

“I think not yet,” said Storfjell. “They wander, tasting the rock for signs, but they do not know how close they have come.”

Torbjorn thought of Father, Mother, and his sisters above. They would be caught by surprise. Mannkraft would surely fight the troll and be slain. “We cannot let them get to the camp, Brother,” said Torbjorn. “We must fight them first.”

“Torbjorn, you and I, great men of Smordal could not defeat even one troll. To battle a pair of them is folly,” said Storfjell.

Torbjorn felt fear grow up his back and choke his neck. Courage, like your fathers have, he thought. “Then we will lead them away. If they taste rock and stone, then we will give them our scent to follow through the forests, and we will lead them to forgotten paths.”

Storfjell looked Torbjorn in the eyes with his silvery bushy eyebrows furrowed and clenched. “Should we go down that path, we may not return,” Storfjell said.

If we do not, thought Torbjorn, they will sing songs of our deed. But they would return. They had to.

Storfjell’s face went soft. He hooked his axe on his belt, and threw down his spear. He tightened his cloak, bent low, and with a huff heaved Smakkerdette over his shoulders like a sack of grain, her front legs dangling over his right shoulder and her hind legs over his left. He held tightly to her ankles.

It looked almost comical to Torbjorn, to see a bovine on his brother like that, with her udder dangling on his chest like a bouncy sack.

“We cannot leave these behind, or the trolls will slay them,” said Storfjell.

Torbjorn nodded. He too crouched down and heaved Melkhjert over his shoulders the same way.

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