Troll Fell (12 page)

There was another distant bark from Alf. Hilde
whistled again. Soon Alf arrived, head low, weaving along
behind another little group of startled, huffy-looking
sheep. A bell clonked dismally – he had found the old
ewe. Alf looked extremely pleased with himself and
grinned at her, panting, tongue hanging out.

“Good lad! Good boy,” Hilde praised him. She did a
quick head-count and decided that there should be
some more. “Go on, Alf! Seek 'em out!” Alf whisked
once around the sheep he had found, nudging them into
a compact group, and dashed off again into the gloom.

Hilde waited, rubbing her hands together and
blowing on them. She was smiling to herself, thinking
how nice it was to see the old dog so proud of his work,
when something small and solid hurled itself into her
back and knocked her down. Her stick flew from her
hands. She grovelled on the wet ground, twisting and
grappling. The unseen attacker let go and backed off. She
scrambled up dizzily, looking for her stick. It had spun
off into the soft snow. Before she could find it, the
creature scuttled back in and gripped her round the
thighs. She looked down into the enigmatic yellow eyes
of a small troll, doing its best to heave her off her feet.
Hilde yelled and kicked. The frightened sheep scattered
in all directions, but the troll clung with clammy
strength, arms wrapped tightly around Hilde's legs, eyes
unblinking. Frantic, she hammered its head and yelled
again, then stuck two fingers in her mouth and blew a
piercing whistle.

Alf came streaking downhill in answer, snarling
ferociously. He was going so fast that he overshot and his
back legs slid from under him as he turned in a flurry of
wet snow to attack. The troll let go abruptly and melted
into the darkness. Alf pursued it for a few yards, hackles
up, barking furiously, before returning to Hilde to check
that all was well. He was panting hard and his sides were
heaving.

“Hey,” said Hilde gently. “You brave old boy, what a
good dog! Take it easy now!” She pulled him against her
legs and patted him and rubbed his chest and neck. His
heart was thudding hard against his ribs, but his eyes
were bright. It was Alf's glory to be useful, and this was
his great day.

“I think we'd better go,” said Hilde. “Let's just round
up the ones we've got, eh? They can't have gone far.
Bring them in!” Alf soon collected the sheep again and
he and Hilde began to herd them along, Hilde keeping
a sharp lookout. She was not quite sure of the way.
They were probably near the top of the Stonemeadow,
somewhere near the western edge, where the ground
broke up into dangerous clefts, rocks and cliffs. In the
darkness and snow, it would be easy to fall over the
edge of one, or simply get lost. The best thing was to
go slowly and let Alf and the sheep pick their own path.

But following the animals was not easy. Alf seemed to
know where he was going, but the sheep wandered. Alf
kept busy trotting to and fro behind them to keep them
moving, nipping this way and that to round up
stragglers. Sometimes the sheep put on a burst of speed,
their woolly backs jostling and bobbing ahead, and Hilde
had to jog to keep up. It was now too dark to see where
she put her feet and she was afraid of twisting her ankle.

Suddenly an extra strong gust of wind parted the
whirling snow ahead of her and she saw, not too far
ahead, a light, dim and smeary, such as might come from
a traveller's lantern. Hilde's heart lifted. She was nearer
the road than she had thought! She shouted, and heard
an answering shout, blurred by the wind. Maybe Arnë or
Bjørn had come looking for her. “Over here!” came the
shout. “Over here!”

“Coming!” bellowed Hilde through cupped hands,
wishing she had a lantern to signal back. The wind flung
snow in her face like handfuls of grey soot. Alf barked
anxiously and the sound was whipped away.

“Come on!” Hilde told him. “This way!” She ran
forwards. Again the light gleamed through the snow,
further away than she had expected. Her feet stumbled
on rising ground. “Where are you?”

“Where are you?” the voice blew back to her. Who
was that? Bjørn or Arnë? Or maybe neither of them…

“I can't see you,” Hilde called. She struggled on, her
legs tiring. Each gasp filled her mouth with snowflakes.
She coughed and panted on.

Another glimmer of light, further away and weaker.
Hilde panicked. They were leaving her. She would be
lost. She ran forwards with Alf bounding at her heels,
leaving the sheep behind. The ground sloped away, quite
steeply. She slowed, afraid to go too fast. “Where are
you?” she shouted again.

“Over here! Over here!” came the answering shout,
nearer now.
The snow is confusing me
, thought Hilde, and
reassured she stepped out. But Alf sprang up and grabbed
her sleeve with his teeth. Hilde slipped and sat down hard.

“What on earth—!” she began, rubbing her bruised
bottom. “Alf, give over – let go!” Alf was tugging at her
sheepskin cloak, growling. “What's wrong?”

An awful uneasiness overcame her; her skin crawled.
The far-away light was returning, impossibly fast. No
human being could run so smoothly over such rough
ground. The light hurtled towards her, growing brighter
and brighter, and halted suddenly in the air overhead.
Hilde threw herself flat. With a soft puff! the light went
out. There was a wild laugh. Something rushed past
them in the darkness and Hilde heard the loud laughter
– Ho! ho! ho! – receding up the slope behind her.

Hilde sat shivering, afraid to move. She had nearly
pitched over a cliff. She had just glimpsed the edge a few
feet in front of her, and didn't know how far it extended
on either side. To go back would only lead her further
up to the top of Troll Fell. The creature, whatever it
was – some kind of troll or mountain spirit – had led her
completely astray. She sat tight, wondering what to do.
But then Alf stood up beside her and shook himself, as if
he was telling her the danger was over and he was ready
to go on. Hilde got up too. Her knees wobbled with
cold and shock, but she patted Alf's rough side with
numb fingers and laughed.

“Good old Alf! They haven't done for us yet,” she said
loudly into the wind. “They don't know you! You can
find the way back. Let's find those sheep!”

As she turned to follow the old dog, something odd
happened. The dark night and the racing snow lit up as
if a door had opened. And indeed it had. A few hundred
yards up the slope, yellow light poured from a rift in the
crag. As she watched in amazement, she saw a dark
silhouette approach the lighted gap and disappear inside.
Spindly limbs and large head – was that the troll-thing
which had misled her?

And was it going home?

The wind whipped wet hair across her eyes and icy
bullets of hail flew into her face. Hilde sheltered her eyes
with her hands and looked again. The light was failing. A
huge stone slab swung ponderously into place. The
hillside rumbled at the shock, and all was dark. The troll
door had closed.

Hilde touched Alf's neck. “Come!” she murmured
and they hurried down the hill, Alf leading her well
away from the cliffs before finding the spot where they
had left the sheep. After that it was a straightforward
plod downhill. Hilde let Alf have his own way entirely.
They reached the bottom of the Stonemeadow with no
further adventures and found the road. Here the snow
lay only a few inches deep, and Alf drove the little flock
briskly along till they reached the track up to the farm.
Then the sheep seemed to remember sheepfolds,
shelter and hay, and trotted willingly uphill again,
bleating.

Gudrun had the door of the farmhouse open in a
flash.

“Get in here this minute!” she ordered. Her face was
white, and she began to hug Hilde but then held her off.
“Get these wet things off straight away – you're frozen!”

“The sheep!” Hilde protested.

“Oh, you clever girl, you found them! I'll put the
sheep away. There's hot soup in the pot.”

“Alf shall have some,” declared Hilde. The old dog
walked wearily into the house and collapsed by the
fireside. He gave a perfunctory lick or two to his
bedraggled fur and laid his head down.

“Dry him and give him some soup,” Hilde called to
Sigurd and Sigrid, rubbing her hair vigorously. “He was
marvellous. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him. Ma,
just wait till you hear our adventures! We found the door
into Troll Fell!”

Down at the mill, Peer knew nothing about Hilde's
adventures. But he soon heard the bad news that Ralf
was missing. He heard it from Uncle Baldur's own lips.

He was sitting by the hearth one dark afternoon,
cleaning his uncles' boots. Several pairs lay scattered
around him and he was painstakingly scraping them
clean and greasing them to keep them supple and
waterproof. The best pairs were thick double-stitched
deerskin lined with fur. Peer handled them enviously. His
own shoes were so worn and split that he had wrapped
string round them to stop them falling apart, and stuffed
hay inside to try and keep his feet warm. They were
always wet. His toes were red with painful chilblains.

He sat on a stool, as close to the fire as he could. He'd
been out for hours, shovelling snow and carrying feed to
the animals. There were a lot of them now. Uncle Grim
had taken Grendel one morning and brought down
some sheep that he claimed were all his, though Peer,
looking suspiciously, spotted a variety of different marks.
The sheep were penned behind a wattle fence in a
corner of the yard, where their breath hung above their
draggled woolly backs as they coughed. The cows and
oxen spent each day munching quietly in their dark
stalls. The hens never set foot beyond the barn door, now
that the snow had arrived. They spent their days cackling
and picking about in the warm straw where Loki lay
curled up with his nose buried in his tail, giving them
scornful glances from under his eyebrows.

As for the pigs, Uncle Grim's pride and joy – Peer
hated his daily visits to pour a steaming slurry of warm
mash into their trough. No matter how crisp and cold
the day, how white the new fallen snow, the pigpen was
always a trampled mess of slimy black mud and rotten
straw. Bristles and his sow would come screaming out of
their hut, shoving to be first at the trough. Peer had to
leap out of the way so as not to be trodden on or
knocked over, or worse, sliced with Bristles' sharp little
stained white tusks. And he hated the way they gobbled
and grunted. There really was something about them
that reminded him of both his uncles.

The mill had stood silent for a week. The millpond
was freezing. When the brook froze too, and it soon
would, the mill would lose its power. Already the weir
was fringed with icicles and the water wheel glazed
with dark ice. No power. There was nothing that
Uncle Baldur could do about it. While the ice lasted
he was no longer a miller. Just a farmer.

Peer glanced over his shoulder. Uncle Grim was
asleep, rolled up in a rug on his bunk. He snored loudly
and his little red mouth hung open in its vast tangle of
black beard. Uncle Baldur was out. After ordering Peer
to clean all the boots, he had left, telling Grim that he
would stroll into the village to stretch his legs. Peer
guessed his real intention was to share some ale with one
of his few cronies.

Bored and lonely, Peer yawned, and smeared more
grease on to the toe of the fifth boot. He hadn't seen Hilde
for weeks. He supposed she was deliberately avoiding the
mill; a good thing, for Uncle Baldur kept asking about her:
“Where's your girlfriend?” and, “When will you see her
again?” Peer smiled scornfully. His uncle had even gone so
far as to say, with a sentimental smirk, “Tell her to bring the
little ones and brighten up the lives of two old bachelors.”
Yercchh! Peer rubbed the boot furiously.

Even so, he rather wished that Hilde would pass by.
He missed her. Since the spider episode, the Nis was
completely ignoring him, although he often heard it
skipping about at night. There was no one to talk to.
When he remembered last winter's fun, snowball fights
and skating with the other boys in Hammerhaven, it
seemed like another life. He tried not to think about it.

The door crashed open and Uncle Baldur stamped in,
beating the snow from his mittens.

“He's dead!” he cried.

Uncle Grim jerked in mid-snore, and opened his
eyes. He struggled to sit up.

“Who's dead?” he snorted.

“Ralf Eiriksson's dead, it's all round the village!”
shrilled Uncle Baldur. “The ship's missing and they've all
been drowned! Just what I said would happen, eh?”

He charged forwards and pulled his brother to his
feet; they flung their arms round each other and began a
sort of stamping dance around the floor, thumping each
other on the back, while Peer dropped the boot and sat
in wide-eyed horror.

“Dead as a doornail,” chortled Uncle Baldur.
“Drowned!” He made horrible bubbling noises in his
throat and pretended to throw up his arms as if sinking.
Uncle Grim wheezed with laughter and Grendel leaped
around them shattering the air with his heavy barks.

“Is this sure?” asked Uncle Grim, sobering suddenly.

“Certain sure,” Baldur nodded. “Arnë Egilsson's been
saying so. I went specially to ask him as soon as I heard.
Seems the ship's been missing for weeks, and timbers
washed up further down the coast. She was due back
long ago. They've sunk, that's obvious.”

“Sunk, eh? And why?”

Uncle Baldur shrugged. “Who cares why? Shoddy
workmanship, probably.” He threw a spiteful glance at
Peer, who sat with burning face and ears. “We know
whose
father
helped to build it, don't we? It probably broke
up in the first gale.

“Arnë didn't like telling me, but he couldn't deny the
facts. And that brother of his, Bjørn, he married a seal
woman.
He
knows what goes on at sea, if anyone does,
and even he couldn't deny it. No, it's true all right.”

Grim smacked his brother on the shoulder. “Good
news, eh?” he grinned.

“The best!” Uncle Baldur agreed. “The land's ours
now. No one will argue about that if Ralf's dead.”

“What about the old man?” asked Grim.

“Old Eirik? That old dodderer?” Baldur laughed
sneeringly. “If he tries to make a fuss about it we'll just
say his memory's gone.”

He paced up and down in excitement, slapping his
great thighs. “We'll be rich, brother! We'll own the best
half of Troll Fell! And after midwinter we'll be richer
still. I'll put the new wheel in next spring. We can buy
up the village and live like kings!” He shook his fist in
the air triumphantly.

“
Then
they'll know who's the big man round here!
I'll
make
them bring their corn to me. We'll get the
goods for the Gaffer now, all right. With Ralf out of the
way, who's to stop us? We can do what we like!”

Uncle Grim nodded towards Peer. “The boy's
listening,” he growled.

“Who cares?” carolled Uncle Baldur merrily. “He
don't know what I'm talking about. Do you, boy?” He
grabbed Peer by the back of the neck and shook him.
“Do you?” he demanded.

“No,” Peer lied. He felt sick. His father's lovely ship!
Poor, poor, Hilde! Then with a stab of fear he realised
what this meant for himself. No safety up at the farm.
No shelter from Baldur and Grim.

Uncle Baldur whacked his ear and dropped him.

“This calls for a drop of ale,” he declared, rubbing his
hands together.

Uncle Grim shook his head. “Mead,” he suggested.

“You're right,” said Uncle Baldur, licking his lips.
“Something strong.”

He went rummaging in a dark corner and returned
with a stone bottle which he placed on the bench
between him and his brother. Pulling out the stopper, he
poured two generous measures into horn cups. He
picked one up.

“Health!” He broke into a fit of coughing.

“Wealth!” returned Uncle Grim. They tipped back
their heads and gulped it down. Uncle Baldur poured
some more. Soon the two brothers were leaning on
one another, giggling, choking, banging their cups
down and singing noisily, while Peer mechanically
finished cleaning the boots and lined them up by the
door.

Then he sank to the floor and rested his head on his
knees.
Midwinter
, he thought feverishly.
How can I escape
before midwinter?
Midwinter! He had been talking and
thinking and planning about it for months. Now he saw
with a sudden horrible shock that he had no idea when
midwinter would be!

He thought back, counting on his fingers. How long
since the first snow? Weeks? It seemed a long time. And
the days were so short now: it was dark outside already.
Midwinter must be close.

How stupid, how stupid of me
, he thought anxiously.
I
know, I'll ask the Nis. It's bound to know, it's so excited about
the troll wedding and all that food. But then what?

He gnawed his fingers. Uncle Baldur and Uncle
Grim sounded so sure of themselves. What would they
do? “
We'll get the goods for the Gaffer
,” Uncle Baldur had
said. “
Who's to stop us with Ralf out of the way
?” Would
they raid Hilde's farm? Kidnap her?

What can I do?

Someone banged on the door. Peer looked at his
uncles. They were singing and shouting so loudly that
neither they nor Grendel had heard. Peer shrugged and
wearily went to open it.

With his hand on the latch he paused. What if Granny
Greenteeth had come visiting, before the ice locked her
in for the winter? Well, let her come! He jerked the door
open, but was relieved to see two ordinary men, muffled
up against the cold. A cutting wind whirled into the
house and snow powdered the floor as they stepped
quickly inside and shook their clothes.

Uncle Baldur noticed the draught before he noticed
the visitors.

“Shut that DOOR!” he yelled, breaking off his
song. Then he saw the two men and staggered to his
feet. “Hey,” he prodded Grim, “look who's here! It's
Arnë and Bjørn. The good news bringers!” He waved
his cup.

“Give 'em a drink,” Grim hiccuped.

But Bjørn's good-natured face was stern. “Hey, Peer,”
he said quietly, dropping a friendly hand on Peer's
shoulder. “Grim, Baldur,” he went on, “we've not come
to drink with you. We've come to say one thing. Leave
Ralf Eiriksson's family alone!”

Uncle Baldur sprawled back on the bench, sticking
his legs out. His red face gleamed greasily in the firelight,
and he laughed unpleasantly. He took another swig of
mead and smeared his hand across his mouth.

“I don't know what you mean,” he wheezed hoarsely,
winking at Grim.

“Yes, you do,” said Arnë angrily. “We're talking about
Ralf's land on Troll Fell. You're after it now he's dead.
Like a couple of crows!”

“But you won't get it,” said Bjørn. “Arnë and I'll
support Eirik and his grandchildren when it comes
before the Thing.”

Peer felt like cheering. He glowed with admiration
for the two young men. They looked like heroes as they
stood there together, their faces tight with anger. Baldur
and Grim exchanged dark glances.

“Why?” asked Baldur, with a suspicious scowl.
“What's in it for you?”

“
Why
?” exploded Bjørn. “Because Ralf was a friend
of mine. Because the land was his. Because you're a
couple of cheating pigs who'd rob a widow and her
family!”

“Don't bother trying to understand!” Arnë added.

Uncle Baldur went purple and surged to his feet.
Grendel rose too, and the hair on his spine stood up in a
bristling hedge as he lowered his head, growling.

“Out! Get out!” shouted Uncle Baldur. “Before I set
the dog on you!”

“Oh, we'll go,” said Bjørn coldly. “I wouldn't stay in
your stinking mill for all the gold under Troll Fell!” He
turned on his heel and strode for the door, but Uncle
Baldur grabbed his arm. His face was blotchy and his
breath whistled.

“Gold?” he croaked. “What do you mean? What do
you know?”

Bjørn stared at him in distaste. “Get off me,” he said,
jerking his arm free.

“Who told you about the troll gold?” Uncle Baldur
spat into his face.

“Oh,
that's
your game, is it?” said Bjørn. He whistled
and nodded. “Well don't you worry, Grimsson. The only
thing I know about troll gold is this: it's unlucky, and I
don't want anything to do with it. And if you'll take my
advice, neither will you. Goodnight!”

Peer scrambled hopefully to his feet and stepped
forwards. If he could only catch Bjørn's eye, if he could
only go with him! But this time, Bjørn did not notice
Peer. He and Arnë slipped through the door and
vanished into the night.

Uncle Baldur slammed the door and went back to the
fire.

“He knows nothing,” he said, sitting down heavily
beside his brother. He tried to pour himself another
drink, but the bottle was empty, and he swore fiercely.