Thornghost (9 page)

N
iklas wanted to run, but the troll scooped him off the floor before he could even get to his feet. He wedged Niklas's head under his arm and dragged him through the doorway and deeper into the mountain. Niklas kicked and clawed and yelled for help, but the troll arm around his neck might as well be a metal collar.

“Rafsa will be pleased now.” The troll's voice sounded garbled, as if his tongue took up too much space in his mouth. “Big night just got bigger!”

As they turned a sharp bend, Niklas managed to cast a glance behind him, to see if Secret had returned. But there was only his satchel lying deserted on the floor, in the dying beam of his flashlight. His heart and thoughts raced, too fast and painful. Maybe Secret couldn't hear his screams. Maybe the rune still worked for anyone who hadn't touched it, and she would return to an empty
tunnel with his abandoned things. He was in deep muck now. The floor changed. The spongy remains of the old avalanche gave way to unyielding rock. Piles of naked sticks rolled under Niklas's feet, more and more, until they emerged into a large, smoky cave, lit by a fire pit in the middle.

Oh, the muck just got deeper.

Secret had been off with her number. There were more than two trolls. Five of them sat gathered around the pit, sliding their claws in and out.

But that wasn't the worst of it.

All along the cave wall, stalactites hung from the ceiling, like icicles made of rock. Except for six that had cracked open, they were wrapped with rune-marked leather.

Niklas remembered this rune. A square with an eye inside meant
awake
.

There were faces trapped inside the stalactites. Big ears and bared teeth and blind eyes, and many, many claws. A hundred more trolls waiting to be released from the stone.

A troll walked among the hanging pillars, fastening a hide here, tracing the line of a nose there. She didn't look like the others. She wore a mail of bones strung together, but the rest of her was ruined skin. Burn marks and tattooed troll runes, covered in more scars and more runes. Her hairless skull had fresh burns and blisters.

“Rafsa!” The three-eared troll roared above the din of the cave. “Look what I found in the tunnel!”

All heads whipped around, and after a moment of slack-jawed staring, a raucous cheer broke out. Rafsa took her time crossing the floor, while her grin grew wider and wider and the fire-pit trolls grew louder and louder. When she stopped in front of him, Niklas could hardly hear her cry, “The boy-enemy!”

She held up her hand and waited for the noise to die down. It had a tattoo of a four-pointed star, like the troll from Erika's casket.

“How good of you to show up,” Rafsa said. “I thought we would have to tear this forest apart to get our hands on you. But here you are, just in time for the awakening.”

Rafsa bent down to speak into Niklas's face. The stench was like a clammy towel over his mouth and nose. “We have waited long for this moment, for the magic to grow strong enough to bring our brood out of the rock. Third-Ear came first, weeks ago. The magic was still thin then, but he wanted so badly to come and hunt you in the woods, he broke free on his own. That's how much he hates you.”

Third-Ear tightened his grip around Niklas's neck.

Rafsa pointed at the stalactites. “Five more of us awakened last night, and no trouble at all. The magic runs thick and true. So tonight we'll bring them all out. An army to run through the valley and take back what's ours.” Her finger came around, scratching at Niklas's cheek. “More hunters will come to the woods to look for you, I wager,
but they don't know the first thing about bane. We'll hack them to pieces while they fumble with their guns!”

“They'll figure out how to stop you,” Niklas blurted out. “I'm not the only one who knows about . . . Knows how to . . .” He shut his mouth.

“He means the girl-enemy,” Third-Ear said.

The brood erupted in screams. “The girl-enemy! Where is the girl-enemy? We want to cut her heart out!”

A small, cold seed stirred in Niklas's gut. He was grateful for every mile between Willodale and the city. Then Rafsa said something that made the cold burst into freezing vines inside him. “Don't you worry about the girl-enemy. She loves this little brat. When we kill him, she'll come home.”

She would. Especially after the message he had left her.

Third-Ear dragged Niklas to the fire pit and dropped him. His belly didn't exactly calm down when he discovered that the pile of sticks and stones next to it wasn't sticks and stones at all, but bones and skulls. Sheep skulls, deer skulls, smaller ones that might belong to birds.

Rafsa grinned. “They were all trapped here when the mountain fell. Died painful deaths, which is why they work for my magic.” She plucked a bone from the pile and let it rest in her hand, picking at a fracture. “This one I think is human. One of your ancestors, maybe? Do you want him back?”

She tossed the bone at Niklas. He flinched when it clattered to the floor.

“Oh, a scared little boy! Fancies himself the prince, but look at him now!” Rafsa leaned close again. Niklas bit his lip to keep the nausea under control. “The last time I walked these woods, I was alone. All I got for my hunting was two measly horses.”

“You're the one who killed the horses at Sorrowdeep!”

“It was as far as I got before I had to leave. This time I've come for good. This time I know how to make myself an army.” Her leer dropped quickly off her face, replaced by a scowl that pulled her burn scars tight. “But after twenty-five years of waiting, what do I find? A stone that stands between us troll-kin and what is rightfully ours. If we're to take the valley, we need to bring down the border magic. But old bones and teeth won't do it, and neither will a fresh kill. I've tried.”

She meant Rag, innocent little Rag in the hands of these murderers. Niklas looked away. He didn't want her to see how much it bothered him.

“But you—our boy-enemy—you made up the border. So I think your skin will work better!” Rafsa slid her claw out and held it up. “Bring the ink!”

A bulge-eyed troll rushed over with a bowl of black, thick liquid. The three-eared troll pulled up the sleeve of Niklas's shirt and held him so he couldn't move. Rafsa
dipped the tip of her claw in the liquid and began to draw a rune on the inside of his arm. A rectangle with one black and one blank section, sliced in half by a slanted line.

Break.

Sweat slid down his neck. He looked around for an escape, but saw only greedy, hungry trolls. Secret made no sign of showing, but that was just as well. Even if she had figured out how to see past the
hide
rune, there was no way she could fight a whole pack of trolls. They would only kill her, too. He had to think of something fast, something other than acorns, something better than fighting. If Lin were here, she would tell him to use his best weapon: words.

“Stop!” he yelled, hoping an idea would drop into his head. “You can't kill me. You'd . . . disappear!”

The tip of Rafsa's claw hovered right above Niklas's arm. She didn't reply, but she peered at him through tight lids that couldn't hide the glint of uncertainty.

He pressed on. “Like you said, I made the border, and I made the troll hunt. You can't exist without me.” He suspected this was not even remotely close to the truth, especially since Rafsa was his mother's creation and not his. But he brought out what he hoped was his most superior smirk. “Sorry.”

“Not true, not true!” screeched the bulge-eyed one.

Rafsa licked her cracked lips. “Might be true. Might not. Can't risk it now.”

Boos and hisses filled the cave, but Rafsa roared until all the others went quiet.

“I said, can't risk it
now.
” She put her claw against Niklas's cheek, eyes glittering. “Don't worry, broodlings. I'll ask the king. He'll know, he has his books. He has his dark roses. And if the boy-enemy is lying . . .” She let her claw sink into Niklas's skin so a drop of blood trickled down. “You know I like my little games.”

She knocked him over the head.

W
hen he woke up, Niklas found himself stuffed in a cell: a shallow scoop in the mountain wall closed off with a net that gleamed in the darkness. He sat up, touching his forehead where a bump had risen. There were no trolls around, only a faint red glare that flickered down the worm of a tunnel. But he could hear the occasional whoop and howl. They must have started their celebration.

If only he hadn't taken off his satchel, he could have used his knife to cut through the net. Actually, if he hadn't taken off his satchel, that nasty Rafsa would probably have taken all his things. Hopefully they were too busy to bother looking for lost items—or lost lynxes. He wondered if Secret was searching for him, or if she was waiting by the concealed doorway. Or worse, if something had happened to her.

Somewhere in the distance, a wet gargle changed into
a scream. Niklas got to his feet. He had to bend his neck to stand up, but he still felt less vulnerable. The trolls screeched and yelled all the time, but there was a different quality to that scream. It sounded panicked. Then another howl went up, and another. What was happening in the troll cave?

Suddenly a smudge of darkness dropped past the net and landed on the floor with a thump. His satchel. “Quiet,” said a voice above him. “We have to be quick.”

Secret landed silently beside the satchel. She looked none the worse for wear.

“You found me! How did you . . . ?”

“I said, quiet. Don't touch the net.” She used her teeth to open the satchel and pick out the flask of troll's bane. Taking care to avoid the shiny rope, she pushed the flask into the cell. “Use this. Make a hole.”

Niklas pulled out the stopper and carefully poured powdered acorns over the knots. The rope hissed and stung his nose, as if the flask contained a strong acid.

“It's made with troll hemp,” Secret said. “I heard them gloat about it. It can't be cut by blade, and if you touch it, the binder will know.”

When the smoke cleared, the bane had burned a hole in the net, just big enough for Niklas to ease through. But the flask was empty. He shook it, dismayed. “But this is all the troll's bane we have! I thought I was careful!”

Secret's eyes showed purple in the dimness. “Hurry.”

The ruckus in the cave reached them in rising waves. “What's going on out there?” Niklas whispered. “Is it the awakening? Are the trolls coming out of their stalactites?”

Secret didn't look at him. “No.”

Holding his breath, Niklas slipped through the hole and slung on his satchel. Secret didn't waste another moment. “This way.”

She slunk down the corridor. Torch light showed through an opening on their right, but they continued straight ahead, until the tunnel ended in another cave with a fire pit in the middle, tens of carcasses strung up under the roof, and stacks of crude bowls. A big, half-empty cauldron of stew simmered over the fire. It smelled almost as disgusting as the trolls themselves.

“You found their kitchen,” Niklas said. “Did you know these tunnels already?”

“They weren't here before. The taint must have made them.” Secret pushed the bolt shut on the heavy door.

Niklas let out a sigh of relief. “Now will you tell me what's happening?”

“What's happening is that we're out of acorns,” Secret said, glancing at the cauldron.

Niklas faltered. He
had
been careful with the troll's bane. There just wasn't much left in the flask. “You put the bane in their stew?”

“There were guards and I needed to distract them.” Secret flattened her ears along her skull. “I've never tried
fighting with poison before. I didn't know it would work quite so well.”

He had no idea what would happen if a troll ate bane. Gruesome death, most likely. But Rafsa was clever. Maybe she would figure it out before it got them all. “How many ate it?”

Secret lashed her tail. “All of them.”

Maybe not.

Niklas stared at the bubbling stew. A fresh scream sounded from the big cave, muffled by the door, but still enough to make his hair stand on end.

Secret tilted her head. “You don't like the killing. But it had to be done.”

“I know that.” And he did. The trolls wanted to kill him and Lin and everyone in this valley. They didn't belong here. Still, this hero thing was messier than he had thought.

“Then not so slow,” said Secret. “We have a bigger problem than the trolls. It's this way.”