The Sword & Sorcery Anthology (61 page)

“Well, it
might
conceivably have died some other way,” a peat-
cutter said without looking at the stranger.

“Perhaps,” suggested a cooper, “it swam too near the glacier, and
was struck by a chunk of calving ice.”

The stranger glared furiously and whirled about to face the elders,
who were gathered together near the troll’s webbed feet. “Do you
truly mean to
cheat
me of the bounty?” she demanded. “Why, you
ungrateful, two-faced gaggle of sheep-fuckers,” she began, then
almost slipped off the cadaver again.

“Now, now,” one of the elders said, holding up a hand in a gesture
meant to calm the stranger. “There will, of course, be an inquest.
Certainly. But, be assured, my fine woman, it is only a matter of
formality, you understand. I’m sure not one here among us doubts,
even for a moment, it was
your
blade returned this vile, contemptible
spirit to the nether pits that spawned it.”

For a few tense seconds, the stranger stared warily back at the
elder, for she’d never liked men, and especially not men who used
many words when only a few would suffice. She then looked out over
the restless crowd, silently daring anyone present to contradict him.
And, when no one did, she once again turned her gaze down to the
corpse, laid out below her feet.

“I cut its throat, from ear to ear,” the stranger said, though she was
not entirely sure the troll
had
ears. “I gouged out the left eye, and I
expect you’ll come across the tip end of my blade lodged somewhere
in the gore. I am Malmury, daughter of My Lord Gwrtheyrn the
Undefeated, and before the eyes of the gods do I so claim this as
my
kill, and I know that even
they
would not gainsay this rightful
averment.”

And with that, the stranger, who they at last knew was named
Malmury, slid clumsily off the monster’s back, her boots and breeches
now stained with blood and the various excrescences leaking from
the troll. She returned immediately to the tavern, as the salty evening
air had made her quite thirsty. When she’d gone, the men and women
and children of Invergó went back to examining the corpse, though
a disquiet and guilty sort of solemnity had settled over them, and
what was said was generally spoken in whispers. Overhead, a chorus
of hungry gulls and ravens cawed and greedily surveyed the troll’s
shattered body.

“Malmury,” the cooper murmured to the clam-digger who’d
found the corpse (and so was, himself, enjoying some small degree
of celebrity). “A
fine
name, that. And the daughter of a lord, even.
Never questioned her story in the least. No, not me.”

“Nor I,” whispered the peat-cutter, leaning in a little closer for a
better look at the creature’s warty hide. “Can’t imagine where she’d
have gotten the notion any of us distrusted her.”

Torches were lit and set up round about the troll, and much of
the crowd lingered far into the night, though a few found their way
back to the tavern to listen to Malmury’s tale a third or fourth time,
for it had grown considerably more interesting, now that it seemed
to be true. A local alchemist and astrologer, rarely seen by the other
inhabitants of Invergó, arrived and was permitted to take samples of
the monster’s flesh and saliva. It was he who located the point of the
stranger’s broken dagger, embedded firmly in the troll’s sternum, and
the artifact was duly handed over to the constabulary. A young boy in
the alchemist’s service made highly detailed sketches from numerous
angles, and labeled anatomical features as the old man had taught
him. By midnight, it became necessary to post a sentry to prevent
fishermen and urchins slicing off souvenirs. Only half an hour later, a
fishwife was found with a horn cut from the sea troll’s cheek hidden
in her bustle, and a second sentry was posted.

In the tavern, Malmury, daughter of Lord Gwrtheyrn, managed
to regale her audience with increasingly fabulous variations of
her battle with the demon. But no one much seemed to mind the
embellishments, or that, partway through the tenth retelling of the
night, it was revealed that the troll had summoned a gigantic, fire-
breathing worm from the ooze that carpeted the floor of the bay, and
which Malmury also claimed to have dispatched in short order.

“Sure,” she said, wiping at her lips with the hem of the barmaid’s
skirt. “And now, there’s something
else
for your clam-diggers to turn
up, sooner or later.”

By dawn, the stench wafting from the common was becoming
unbearable, and a daunting array of dogs and cats had begun to gather
round about the edges of the square, attracted by the odor, which
promised a fine carrion feast. The cries of the gulls and the ravens had
become a cacophony, as though all the heavens had sprouted feathers
and sharp, pecking beaks and were descending upon the village. The
harbormaster, two physicians, and a cadre of minor civil servants were
becoming concerned about the assorted noxious fluids seeping from
the rapidly decomposing carcass. This poisonous concoction oozed
between the cobbles and had begun to fill gutters and strangle drains
as it flowed downhill, towards both the waterfront and the village
well. Though there was some talk of removing the source of the taint
from the village, it was decided, rather, that a low bulwark or levee of
dried peat would be stacked around the corpse.

And, true, this appeared to solve the problem of seepage, for
the time being, the peat acting both as a dam and serving to absorb
much of the rot. But it did nothing whatsoever to deter the cats and
dogs milling about the square, or the raucous cloud of birds that had
begun to swoop in, snatching mouthfuls of flesh, before they could be
chased away by the two sentries, who shouted at them and brandished
brooms and long wooden poles.

Inside the smoky warmth of the tavern—which, by the way, was
known as the Cod’s Demise, though no sign had ever born that
title—Malmury knew nothing of the trouble and worry her trophy
was causing in the square, or the talk of having the troll hauled back
into the marshes. But neither was she any longer precisely carefree,
despite her drunkenness. Even as the sun was rising over the village
and peat was being stacked about the corpse, a stooped and toothless
old crone of a woman had entered the Cod’s Demise. All those who’d
been enjoying the tale’s new wrinkle of a fire-breathing worm, turned
towards her. Not a few of them uttered prayers and clutched tightly to
the fetishes they carried against the evil eye and all manner of sorcery
and malevolent spirits. The crone stood near the doorway, and she
leveled a long, crooked finger at Malmury.

“Her,”
she said ominously, in a voice that was not unlike low tide
swishing about rocks and rubbery heaps of bladder rack. “She is the
stranger? The one who has murdered the troll who for so long called
the bay his home?”

There was a brief silence, as eyes drifted from the crone to Malmury,
who was blinking and peering through a haze of alcohol and smoke,
trying to get a better view of the frail, hunched woman.

“That I am,” Malmury said at last, confused by this latest arrival
and the way the people of Invergó appeared to fear her. Malmury
tried to stand, then thought better of it and stayed in her seat by the
hearth, where there was less chance of tipping over.

“Then she’s the one I’ve come to see,” said the crone, who seemed
less like a living, breathing woman and more like something assembled
from bundles of twigs and scraps of leather, sloppily held together
with twine, rope, and sinew. She leaned on a gnarled cane, though it
was difficult to be sure if the cane was wood or bone, or some skillful
amalgam of the two. “She’s the interloper who has doomed this
village and all those who dwell here.”

Malmury, confused and growing angry, rubbed at her eyes, starting
to think this was surely nothing more than an unpleasant dream,
born of too much drink and the boiled mutton and cabbage she’d
eaten for dinner.

“How
dare
you stand there and speak to me this way?” she barked
back at the crone, trying hard not to slur as she spoke. “Aren’t I the
one who, only five days ago,
delivered
this place from the depredations
of that demon? Am I not the one who risked her
life
in the icy brine
of the bay to keep these people safe?”

"Oh,
she thinks much of herself,” the crone cackled, slowly bobbing
her head, as though in time to some music nobody else could hear.
“Yes, she thinks herself gallant and brave and favored by the gods of
her
land. And who can say? Maybe she is. But she should know, this is
not
her land, and we have our
own
gods. And it is one of
their
children
she has slain.”

Malmury sat up as straight as she could manage, which wasn’t
very straight at all, and, with her sloshing cup, jabbed fiercely at the
old woman. Barley wine spilled out and spattered across the toes of
Malmury’s boots and the hard-packed dirt floor.

“Hag,” she snarled, “how dare you address me as though I’m not
even present. If you have some quarrel with me, then let’s hear it
spoken. Else, scuttle away and bother this good house no more.”

“This good
house?"
the crone asked, feigning dismay as she peered
into the gloom, her stooped countenance framed by the morning
light coming in through the opened door. “Beg your pardon. I thought
possibly I’d wandered into a rather ambitious privy hole, but that the
swine had found it first.”

Malmury dropped her cup and drew her chipped dagger, which
she brandished menacingly at the crone. “You
will
leave now, and
without another insult passing across those withered lips, or we shall
be presenting
you
to the swine for their breakfast.”

At this, the barmaid, a fair woman with blondish hair, bent close
to Malmury and whispered in her ear, “Worse yet than the blasted
troll, this one. Be cautious, my lady.”

Malmury looked away from the crone, and, for a long moment,
stared, instead, at the barmaid. Malmury had the distinct sensation
that she was missing some crucial bit of wisdom or history that
would serve to make sense of the foul old woman’s intrusion and
the villagers’ reactions to her. Without turning from the barmaid,
Malmury furrowed her brow and again pointed at the crone with her
dagger.

“This slattern?” she asked, almost laughing. “This shriveled
harridan not even the most miserable of harpies would claim? I’m to
fear
her?”

“No,” the crone said, coming nearer now. The crowd parted to
grant her passage, one or two among them stumbling in their haste to
avoid the witch.
"You
need not fear
me,
Malmury Trollbane. Not this
day. But you
would
do well to find some ounce of sobriety and fear the
consequences of your actions.”

“She’s insane,” Malmury sneered, than spat at the space of damp
floor between herself and the crone. “Someone show her a mercy, and
find the hag a root cellar to haunt.”

The old woman stopped and stared down at the glob of spittle,
then raised her head, flared her nostrils, and fixed Malmury in her
gaze.

“There was a balance here, Trollbane, an equity, decreed when
my great-grandmothers were still infants swaddled in their cribs. The
debt paid for a grave injustice born of the arrogance of men. A tithe,
if you will, and if it cost these people a few souls now and again, or
thinned their bleating flocks, it also kept them safe from that greater
wrath that watches us always from the Sea at the Top of the World.
But this selfsame balance have
you
undone, and, foolishly, they name
you a hero for that deed. For their damnation and their doom.”