Troll Blood (28 page)

Peer gurgles and retches. Blood trickles down his throat. He prods his tongue at the wooden gag, but it’s too tightly jammed to shift. His jaw aches already.

He waits in flinching horror. What will happen now? But the things, whatever they were, seem to have finished. One moment they’re swarming over him, the next, they scuffle to get in through the entrance to the nearest hole. A sprinkle of earth is kicked out over him. And they’ve gone.

That’s it? But they can’t leave me like this
!

Peer jerks and twitches at his bonds, but nothing gives. He tries to cry out, but can only manage a muffled “Angh—ah!”

And who’s going to hear
?

He struggles again, then lies limp. Threads of saliva trickle from the corners of his mouth. Tears fill his eyes.

I don’t want to die this way. Not like this. I should have let Harald kill me. Died fighting. I bet Thorolf didn’t run
.

His hurt arm throbs. Chilled, exhausted, he slides away into a world of dreams. He’s with Hilde on the beach, and she says, “I love you, too,” her eyes shining in the starlight. He’s back in the house, and he’s just run Harald through with Gunnar’s sword. Everyone cheers, everyone thinks he’s a hero. He’s sailing
Water Snake
into Trollsvik. Bjorn’s there on the jetty, smiling his old smile. “Well done, Peer. I knew you could do it.”

Lies
.

Day comes. He wakes slowly, staring up at a brown tangle of interlaced branches tipped with fringes of dark green. The sun shines through it in white blinks. The holes in the bank are just holes, crumbling at the edges. Surely it was all a bad dream?

But his mouth gapes open, wide, dry. Even his throat is dry. He lies on the cold bank, pegged down, unable to move. The water bounds past, chuckling and burbling, but he can’t reach it or see it. The forest is peaceful. From time to time a striped squirrel scampers down a tree, or a dove coos, or a crow calls harshly. Somewhere close a lot of flies whirl and hum over the source of the bad smell. Peer doesn’t want to think what it is.
Sometimes, disturbed, they rise in a buzzing cloud. One big one finds Peer and explores his face curiously, walking with tickling feet over his eyes, nose, and mouth. Its body glints like green armor. He squints at it, helpless, unable even to puff it away.

Paws pad around his fallen body; a nose pushes into his face with a worried sigh that scares the fly off. Loki.
Poor Loki, that’s all you can do. If only the Nis could come and set me free
.

It’s cold in the gully. But Loki settles against Peer’s side, and a little warmth creeps through. Slow sunspots trace their way over Peer. He drifts in and out of consciousness, woken sometimes by gripping cramps. Once he hears an ax chopping, or perhaps it’s only a woodpecker. Once when he wakes, Loki is not there, and he hears him drinking. And the long, slow, agonizing day passes, and the pine trees huddle together overhead, and darkness returns.

Peer falls into a dream deeper than any he’s had yet. He seems to be awake, sitting up, free of his bonds. The pain is gone. He hears a splashing from the creek, looks around, and sees without surprise the tall black dragonhead from the
Long Serpent
—alive, long bodied, writhing its way upstream with head raised, horns twitching, fiery eyes turned on him.

You’re alive!
Peer cries.
They didn’t kill you after all
.

The dragon’s jaws open in a long hiss. Then it speaks, using his father’s voice:
Alive for you. Alive whenever you think of me
.

Peer is filled with joy.
Father! Where have you been all this time
?

In the land of the remembered dead
, says the dragon gently.

It’s wonderful not to be alone anymore. There’s so much to say, so much to tell, Peer doesn’t know where to start.
Have you been watching me? If only I’d known. I’ve kept trying, Father, really I have. But it’s been so hard
.

I know only what you tell me
, says the dragon, but Peer isn’t listening.

He pours it all out:
I came to find Thorolf, but Thorolf’s dead. I fought Harald, but I ran away. I wasn’t brave enough—I can’t use a sword. And I’ve left Hilde behind, though I promised Ralf to look after her. And
…

Hush!
The dragon shoots its long neck forward and twines around him. Its wet, rough skin sizzles with life. Wherever it brushes against him, he feels a tingling shock.
What more could you do
? it demands.

I don’t know
.

The dragon snorts.
What did you leave undone
?

Nothing
, says Peer slowly.

It touches him with a serpent’s tongue, cold vivid kisses.
Then you did well
. It rears over him, fierce and glad, as it did on the prow of the longship.
You did all you could, Peer, Ulf’s son. You faced your fear and kept faith with your friends
.

Peer is silent. At last he asks,
What happens now
?

Come with me
.

The dragon loops, gliding down the bank and into the water.
Come!

Peer rises. Loki is nowhere to be seen, and for a moment that worries him, and reality, if this is reality, quivers like hot
air over a fire. Impatiently the dragon shakes its fringed mane, and Peer hurries, wading into the creek. He puts his arm over the dragon’s strong sinuous neck, and a moment later they are streaking downstream together. The banks whirl past. Peer has never known anything so powerful. The dragon’s body lashes against him like a snake’s, tugging him through the water, whipping around rocks, surging over little cascades where the spray flashes like ice. Enormous trees tower overhead. Their black branches reach into the sky like arms trying to tear down the stars. Their thick roots plunge deep into the river as if exploring to the bottom of the world.

And now the banks are becoming cliffs that lean over the water, reaching toward each other till they touch overhead, and all light vanishes. The noise of the river grows louder and louder, growling and rumbling. Fear touches Peer like a drift of spray, like a cold caress.
Where are we going
?

Away
, says the dragon dreamily.
Away together, far from pain. Down the dark river
.

No!
Peer frees his arm from the serpent’s neck. Instantly the black water plucks him away. He fights the pull of the current, kicking fiercely.
I can’t follow you, Father. Not yet. You’re dead. I want to live. I want to live
. …

And the tilt of the river steepens, and he’s falling, falling over the waterfall, a long, slow tumble forever and ever.

He wakes with a jolt, spread-eagled on his back.
Still here
. Every muscle in his body seems to be tearing itself away from
the others. Each breath is shallow torture. He can’t even groan. How long can this go on?

Help me. Father. Somebody. Anybody, please, help me
.

Loki growls low, vibrating against him. Panic flares through Peer’s veins.
Are those creatures coming back
?

But something splashes, disturbing the rhythm of the creek. He turns his eyes painfully toward the sound.

Movement. A stone plops. Black against the faint sheen of the water, shadows stoop and straighten, flitting toward him. A voice calls, cool and curious as a bird. Loki growls again, then whines and trembles.

An extraordinary face appears hanging over him, as thin as the blade of an ax. The eyes gleam, so closely set they look like a single green stone sticking through the narrow forehead. The face is almost all nose, bulbous and huge. A sharp, down-turned mouth looks comically disapproving. It warbles a rapid string of sounds that may be a question.

Peer tries to speak. Croaks. Hot and cold waves are washing up and down his body, and he seems to be shrinking, but at different rates. He feels at once very heavy, and very small. Yet his feet are miles away. His hands are useless cramped claws far off at the ends of his arms.

More of the thin faces peer down at him. Cold, gentle fingers prod and probe into his sore, cracked mouth. With an agonizing twitch the wooden gag is pulled out, and tears of relief spring to his eyes as he tries to close his jaws over his swollen tongue. The Thin Faces uproot the forked sticks and
stakes pinning him down, and toss them away.

An angry chittering comes from the holes in the side of the gully, and sticks and stones fly, but nothing else emerges. Peer struggles to move. His rescuers drag him up, but he falls over. Loki circles anxiously.

The Thin Faces whistle quietly together. They arrange themselves on each side of him and pick him up. Their hands are cold and damp, but strong. They’re not tall—only child-sized—and he finds himself bumping along close to the ground. A low singing starts up, “Hoi … hoi … hoi …” They stamp their feet in time, dancing down to the creek, where they lower him into the water. The shock is delicious. He rolls over and buries his sore face in the swift coldness, sucking and lapping and gasping.

“Hoi … hoi … hoi …” Before he’s had half enough, the Thin Faces catch his arms and pull him up the opposite bank. Low fir branches shower needles into his hair, and his heels drag on the soft loose surface. They swing him up, running at a steady jog-trot. Peer hangs jolting between them, upside down, staring into the crooked sky above the trail. It streams past, pale with predawn light, brushed with branches of black yew, spruce, and pine. Loki bounds along, keeping up with him, sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other.

Tiny clouds appear overhead like pink feathers. Birds call. Sixty feet up, the tips of the pines are touched with gold. The Thin Faces glance uneasily at one another and warble. Their profiles are strong against the brightening sky. Their skin is
brown with a greenish bloom, like bronze, and their long lank hair is looped up in identical topknots.

They stop and lower Peer to the earth. Heads hanging, they melt shyly away into the forest almost before he can get a good look at them. The last one hesitates. It raises a slender arm and points up the trail. And then it’s gone.

Returning blood jabs a million needles into Peer’s hands and feet. His wounded arm throbs. He rolls over, pushes himself into a crawling position, sits up. Loki watches intently, wagging his tail.

“Loki,” Peer says with his sore tongue, and it feels like the first word he’s ever uttered. “Loki, boy.”

He can’t begin to cope with what’s happened. The dragon—the black river—he tucks it away inside himself to look at later.

He struggles to his feet, pulling himself up against a tree. “Well, they left us on a path,” he says painfully. “It must go somewhere. Let’s find out.”

The path slants along the side of a steep valley with a creek at the bottom. Peer can hear it below him, hidden by trees. He hobbles along, seized by unexpected crippling cramps. It may get warmer later, but it’s cold down here in the shadows.

After an hour or so the trail steepens, curving away from the creek. The noise of the water fades. Peer climbs doggedly on. The trees thin, and a breeze picks up. He comes out onto a ridge and the sun burns the back of his neck. There’s a view of more hills, covered with forest in which the endless green
is already interrupted by autumn reds and golds. His heart sinks at the sight. Where in all this wilderness can he go?

The path fades, threading downhill over dry ground to vanish under a litter of dead branches and undergrowth. Wherever he sets his foot, brown grasshoppers scramble and jump, and their
tick, tick, zizz
fills the air. He battles on, clambering over fallen trees, stumbling through ankle-deep moss. When he finds the trail again, he doesn’t know if it’s the same one. Or if it matters.

It dips into a small ravine with a trickle of water at the bottom. The trickle becomes a brook, swirling over a series of waterfalls like deep steps. Peer stumbles on, not sure why, except that to stop moving is to give up hope entirely. But he has to rest more and more often, and each time it’s harder to get up. Small goals become important.
I’ll get to that bend in the stream before I stop. As far as that tree with the silver bark. As far as that overhanging rock
. At last he’s not sure for how long he’s been wandering, or how many nights he’s spent in the forest.

Once he almost steps on a little snake, lying in a patch of sun like a finely braided green leather whip. It pokes out a scarlet tongue and shoots into the undergrowth. Once he finds a tangle of fruiting blackberries, and shoves the sweet berries into his bruised mouth till his fingers drip.

The path brings him to the top of a steep bank, thick with birches and aspens. The brook plunges over in a long horse tail, splashing off little ledges on the way down. At the bottom,
between layers of golden leaves, is the silver glare of water. Echoing up from the water is childish laughter and splashing.

Children
?

How? Whose
? But it doesn’t matter: There are people down there. He slithers downhill, Loki at his heels, skidding, sliding, catching hold of branches to check his descent. He tumbles out of the trees.

A stretch of open water spreads away, level and bright. Along the water’s edge, against the fringe of the forest, is a village of conical huts or tents, constructed of tall poles propped together and wrapped in sheets of white and golden birch-bark. There are fifteen, twenty of them. It’s a big place, bigger than Trollsvik. White smoke rises from cooking fires. Slender white boats lie drawn up on the shore, and a band of bare little black-haired children are chasing one another through the shallows.

Skraelings
?

The word doesn’t seem to fit the happy children and the white and golden village.

Then the children see him. Eyes and mouths widen. They take one look at this pale, shambling, bloody creature and scatter screaming, as though some kind of demon has dropped out of the forest. Peer doesn’t blame them. The village erupts. Dogs howl. Mothers run out to snatch up their babies. Fathers scramble from their doorways and run yelling at Peer, shaking light axes and brandishing spears.