Trolls

Chapter 1

 

The trolls sat in a loose circle beneath the ancient bridge. When they were still each creature could’ve been mistaken for nothing more than a mossy rock or chunk of masonry freshly fallen from the structure above, but when they moved Jeremiah was put in mind of an erupting volcano, every motion deceptively fast and worryingly agile on such massive frames. He understood nothing of what they said but he listened anyway to each deep-throated rumble and angered growl, desperately trying to a discern meaning that could hint to his immanent execution.

As he watched a young bull rose to his feet and lunged at the much older troll that had just finished speaking. The older troll rose like a landslide in reverse and delivered an earth shattering blow to side of the first troll’s head. Unperturbed the attacker delivered a boulder sized fist to the troll’s stomach and then both went down with such force that Jeremiah felt the earth shake beneath his feet.

While the other trolls were distracted Jeremiah tested his bonds to the sound of blows like thunderclaps. They yielded to neither magic nor muscle, staying as resolutely firm as when they had been clamped to his wrists a week ago. Despite the fight the movements drew the attention of his jailer, a greyish brown Silt with a deep and un-healing wound in her forehead that dripped brownish magma over one, now useless, eye every time she moved, who pushed him to the floor with one hand while making a curt gesture near her throat with the other in order to indicate the result of any more movement on his part.

Jeremiah didn’t get up. With one half of his face pressed into the cold mud he watched the older troll lift up the younger one with both hands and slam him head first into the dirt. The troll’s head split neatly down the middle and fell open on the earth. The victor stood over his opponent for a second to make sure there were no more risks of attack and then he returned to his place like nothing had happened. No one got up to help the loser, Jeremiah heard the sharp hissing underneath the continued conversation as the troll’s superheated blood met with the damp earth and cooled to stone in a cloud of angry steam.

Suddenly a large troll hand grabbed him by the back of his shirt and lifted him bodily from the ground. Whatever the fight had been about it had obviously brought a violent end to the Concludium, his time had come. Jeremiah was carried into the centre of the circle and dumped on the earth next to the dead troll’s oozing remains. His shackles were removed by a troll he had never seen before and who didn’t say a word to him even as he pushed the ceremonial knife into Jeremaih’s hand and walked away, vanishing into the crowd of trolls around him.  

Jeremiah, keen for anything that didn’t involve looking at that ring of angry red eyes, tested the knife in his hand for weight and then carefully ran his left index finger along the blade. Ceremonial it might be, but that edge would have no problem gutting any creature made of flesh that came its way. Which was the point really, he thought, he wasn’t fighting a creature made of flesh. A dagger is all well and good but to deal with a troll you need a lot of time and a sledge hammer. He looked up at the sound of movement. In front of him trolls shuffled apart to make a break in the circle and the oldest troll Jeremiah had ever seen stepped forwards. Blood oozed from every joint as he moved, the magma cooling over the cracks only for them to split again. The fireweed on his head had at one point been long enough to reach his waist but now it was a dead mess of shrivelled vines, its more usual crimson tainted a dull maroon by time. He stopped in front of Jeremiah and pulled a piece of rough parchment from the leather pouch slung over one disfigured shoulder.

“You have been charged with breaking into the sacred mountain and attempting to steal Argog’s Heart” he said in passable dwarfish, the only other language a troll throat can even try to pronounce.

“Yeah, I don’t suppose we could talk about that could we?” said Jeremiah, trying to watch every troll at once while turning in small quick circles and brandishing the knife like it could do the slightest bit of damage. They were getting closer he was sure of it. Moving as slowly and as inevitably as a glacier they were moving in.

“You have been sentenced to death by mortal combat with a fledgeling”

“You know, we have community service in Capital,” he said hopefully, but it was no use. He hadn’t really expected it to be. His mouth was simply running on automatic while the brain was having a small cry else where. The speaker had already turned to the circle and said something loud and obviously rehearsed to the trolls. As one they rose, raised a single fist in the air and screamed out an incomprehensible reply. The noise was so great Jeremiah winced in pain at the bombardment of sound and small chunks of rubble fell from the bridge above. Even the Silts who stood in the darkness around the circle joined in. The single roar of a note went on and on and on. Jeremiah fell to one knee and clamped his hands over his ears in an attempt to alleviate the punishment to his eardrums. It did nothing. I was like having the epicentre of an earthquake right in the centre of his skull. If only he had been captured by a race with a slightly quieter war cry.

And then, with no warning, it stopped. There were no echoes to follow it out and no sign of it lingered in the air around them. It was as if the forest and swallowed the noise hole and it was, for Jeremiah, slightly unnerving. Fists were lowered and one by one the trolls sat back down and stared expectantly at Jeremiah. He stared back. Then, tentatively, not even sure what he was doing, he raised one arm into the air and said “Rawr?” without much conviction. It was as one of the trolls moved his head slightly, like he was following something Jeremiah couldn’t see, that he realised they weren’t actually looking at him.

Instinct made him duck before the conscious part of his mind was even up to speed. He felt the passage of the troll’s fist as a light breeze against the back of his neck as he fell. Then he was on the ground face first and rolled onto his back just in time to see the underside of a troll foot hovering above his head, the last sight of many an insect or slow moving rodent.. He rolled again and the foot landed inches from his face with a heavy thump that he heard more in his stomach than his ears. Get up, you need to get up he thought desperately. Trolls are as fast as elves, despite their size, but they cornered like mountains and couldn’t be persuaded to grasp a new idea if you levered it into their brains with a crowbar. There must be a way he could use that, if he could get behind it maybe he could survive, make a break for it through the circle and escape. Whatever he was going to do that definitely wasn’t going to happen on the ground

Jeremiah forced himself onto all fours but before he could get any further a troll foot swung around and caught him in the ribs like the judgement of the gods. He felt the bones break and the pain was a searing fire in his chest. He spun three times before he landed on the opposite side of the circle like a rag doll and he heard troll laughter from the circle’s edge as they praised their young warrior with loud, crashing applause.

He lay there for a moment, listening to the banging of hand on hand, and he felt the wolf inside revolt. It had been chained for so long but with his thoughts scattered and his chest a battlefield Jeremiah could do nothing to hold back its rage. He had been locked up, beaten and starved for the last week in a cage that would give even a dwarf a crick in the neck and now they’d thrown him into this stupid circle to fight a troll with just this stupid knife. They thought they had him beat, they knew they had him beat. No uppity outsider had ever survived one of their stupid games before. The troll was advancing on him now, slowly, mockingly, like he was a toy to be played. The wolf roared and as it did so Jeremiah let the icy rage slip over his skin and soothe his aching bones.

Jeremiah took the growl and nurtured it in his throat, as deep a rumbling as the troll’s own speech. Those parts of his brain that had decided to completely detach themselves from his surroundings wondered what he was saying in troll, and hoped it was a curse. Clutching the knife so hard his knuckles were white, and feeling every breath like a sword in the chest, Jeremiah got to his feet. The dead troll was still in the centre of the circle, still bleeding into the earth like a cow ignored in the slaughterhouse. Jeremiah spat on the ground between his feet, studiously ignoring the swirls of red in the pool, and grinned at the troll with teeth stained red by blood.

“You’re mine,” he said. The troll looked at him bemusedly, and then began to lumber forwards, raising its fist for what it thought would be the killer blow.

Jeremiah began to run. The troll took a while to process this, unused to the idea that things would charge him, and then swung a ponderous fist in Jeremiah’s direction. Jeremiah leaped over it and, using its own arm as a stepping stone, vaulted the entire troll and landed in a roll on the other side. Now there was nothing between him and the corpse and he continued to run, the growl in his throat now as much a part of him as the heart beating erratically in his chest.

The clapping had stopped now; the trolls were watching the fight with the same analytical appreciation as a critic would watch an actor. I hope you enjoy the show b******s. He reached the corpse and moved around it until it was between him and the troll. The creature finally turned around and looked at Jeremiah quizzically. It couldn’t have been older than a century, its joints still not hardened to the stony armour of a full-grown bull, and this was probably the first time it had ever fought a non-troll before. He had it confused as it struggled with the idea that it would have to chase him.

It began to move forwards again, its heavy arms positioned low but wide of the body so as to allow maximum movement for the smallest amount of effort. Jeremiah waited, ready, until it was barely a foot away before he struck. He ducked its first punch and plunged the knife as deep as he dared into the gash in the dead troll’s skull. When he pulled away the blade was white hot and spitting sparks like angry fireflies that either died on the earth or burned tiny blisters in his skin.

The troll reached out and grabbed Jeremiah by his shirt, lifting him up with the obvious intent of brining him back down with enough force to break continents, let alone legs. Screaming at the pain in his ribs and blind with rage Jeremiah lashed out with all his strength and power.

He was far too tired to give the magic he had been storing any form and so it came out in a single wild burst. The grass around their feet died instantly and shrivelled to brittle, black claws. The bridge shook so violently an entire chunk detached and slammed into the head of one of the watching trolls. The old troll’s parchment caught fire in his hand and burned blue and green until it was dropped to the floor and stamped out indignantly.

The knife, no longer just a thin band of heated metal but a sharp edged inferno so hot it tore the air around it into a blur of ragged heat haze, continued to plunge downwards. Jeremiah tasted iron as the magical blowback seared his throat and coated his tongue in razors but his scream went on as the knife drove into the troll’s face and continued onwards, carving at the troll like a wild thing.

Then a wave of magic grabbed him and spun him away and down to the ground, helpless as a fly caught in a hurricane. For a moment the air was chaos as the magical front flew and spasmed around the circle before it finally dissipated, leaving only silence and glowing embers. Jeremiah sat up slowly, wincing, and looked at the troll. Its head was a spider’s web of glowing lines that cooled as he watched until the troll was just a motionless statue. The glow of its eyes flickered like a human blinking to clear its thoughts, then the troll took a step forwards. It hadn’t worked. Jeremiah tried to get up, tried to back away but the wolf inside was gone and pain had taken its place. He was alone.

It took another step and began to reach towards Jeremiah with one huge hand. Something was wrong. Every movement looked too forced and unnatural, jerking from stillness to movement and back again like he was forcing himself through something. Then Jeremiah realised, it looked exactly like a being made of stone trying to move as its skin hardens around it into a shell. The troll stopped. The light in its eyes dimmed to barely a glow, and then winked out. The creature swayed slightly and then with a soft cracking noise the trolls head split open like a flower and it fell backwards like the statue of an overthrown leader to crash terminally to the ground.

No troll moved, they just looked at their fallen brother with expressions as passionless as a cliff face. Jeremiah had no idea what they were thinking. Their laws said that the victor of any fight went free, that the gods had chosen them for another purpose, but that was grinding against a troll’s much more basic instinct to tear every non-troll into tiny pieces. Then there was the fact that he had used magic and desecrated the corpse of a fallen warrior that he had not himself beaten. All in all they had a difficult decision to make, one Jeremiah wished they weren’t making while being overwhelmed with rage. A troll fight didn’t really have rules as such, just expectations of how each fighter should behave and even those were intentionally vague, but this? If one thought too many had been broken he could challenge the victor to a fight himself and bring a balance to the clan.

Jeremiah, no longer strong enough to even care, slumped back onto the ground and stared upwards at the bridge’s rough and moss coated underside. If he ever did get back this would be a story to tell for sure. He had beaten a troll with nothing more than a knife and his magic. And the wolf, said the voice that, if he had been the kind of person to have one, he would call his conscience, the wolf helped too didn’t it? That was true, and it was a problem he would have to deal with soon. Anyway, all that would come to nothing if a troll just got up and crushed his skull beneath its foot.

A rumbling of hurried trollish made him sit up again. The old troll was back, standing over the fresh corpse of Jeremiah’s opponent and glaring at Jeremiah with all the malevolence he could summon. Slowly, shaking as he struggled to support his own body, he raised his left arm, stood there for a second as he balanced the weight with his legs, and then fell to one knee while bringing his fist down hard on the ground. One by one, hesitantly and grudgingly at first but with growing enthusiasm the other trolls followed suit. It was like a drumbeat, no other sound could survive amidst the constant steady thudding. It sounded like the heartbeat of the world. Jeremiah soon found himself surrounded by trolls kneeling at his feet, heads bowed and the earth still shaking beneath their mighty fists. For a while the echoes continued, refusing to die, and when silence finally fell the old troll said

“The gods pardon you to your destiny,” after a suitable pause in which the rest of the Concludium mumbled some kind of agreement he raised his head and growled “now leave us, theiver, and never return or face our greatest warriors as punishment for your insolence.”

“I promise not to hurt them too much,” said Jeremiah, his light headed joy making him cocky.

“Leave,” screamed the troll and stepped forwards with one fist raised to swing and his eyes glowing like a twin suns. Jeremiah left. He pulled himself to his feet, waited for his feet to agree to hold him, and began to limp away from the Concludium holding his chest with one arm and praying that he hadn’t survived all this only to die in the woods from a punctured lung.

It didn’t take long to reach the tree line where he stopped to catch his breath and check no one was following him. He had done it! He had survived a troll execution and he had killed a troll to boot. Sure the diamond was still safely locked away in the sacred mountain and Ok his ribs felt like they had been turned to gravel but it was still, all in all, a pretty good result.

Strengthened he waved his free hand in the air in front of him and whispered

“Home,” it took the last of his magic to do it, and the will-o’-the-wisp he summoned was a minute green ball with a light that barely penetrated a foot into the darkness but it was enough. Stumbling and cursing he followed it into the forest.

The journey home was at best uneventful. Capital was a good two days walk from the Concludium bridge but Jeremiah had no intention of walking the entire way. The horse he had hired for the trip had of course been eaten when the trolls caught him but there were other ways to travel.

The will-o’-the-wisp fortunately did not live up to its own legend, something they had acquired through their unhelpful tendency of taking the most direct route possible. If that direct way was over a cliff then over a cliff they went, and so did you if you were stupid enough not to look where you were going.

Jeremiah halted his once he reached the main coach road that cut the country in two from Capital to Barcorn on the elfish coast to give a little light to see by. The road itself was barely wide enough for a single coach to pass at any great speed and even then the paint would be scratched from the wood by numerous grasping branches that over hung the way like the hands of the dead. Up near the main towns it was cobbled and wide enough for four laden carts to ride abreast but here the “great road” wasn’t much more than a dirt track with pedigree. Obviously the road builders hadn’t wanted to linger long in troll country, Jeremiah felt the same.

He set up a rudimentary camp on the side of the road. A tree had been felled to allow passage and the stump left behind made a rudimentary but acceptable seat. He kicked the dead branches on the ground into a pile by his feet and reached out to the will-o’-the-wisp hovering obediently in front of him. It felt strange in his hand, like trying to hold a memory, solid and real yet at the same time as insubstantial as  cloud.

Having no magic left inside and with all his carefully charged amulets adorning some troll cave in the mountains Jeremiah strained for a second and then pulled the wisp in two with a sound like tearing wet paper. The magic that had been sustaining it burst forth in a torrent and almost immediately hit the mental barrier around Jeremiah’s hands. A bead of sweat slipped down his face and he began to close his hands in a slow motion clap, arms shaking at the strain of containing the raw power. As he did so he fed his thoughts and feelings into the shrinking ball, taming it on every plane until it was just a calmly swirling puddle between his palms and under his complete control.

Satisfied he released the barriers and with one tired breath said

“Fire,”

A thin stream of flames looped out of his hands, hovered above him at the top of its arc, and then plunged deep into the pile of dead twigs where it became a warming orange glow and a slowly growing column of smoke. Jeremiah sat back and stared up at the stars. He wished he had his pistol so he had something to cook on it. He remembered how the troll guard had plucked it from his hand, looked down at the two smoking craters in its chest, looked back at Jeremiah, and then crushed it to powder with one hand. Jeremiah sighed and closed his eyes. He would have to get a new one when he got home, something he would definitely do in the morning. Jeremiah fell asleep.

When he awoke with a crick in his back and with every twinge and ache refreshed and ready to deliver pain, hunger was much more of a problem than the absence of his old gun. As he poked forlornly at the remains of his fire Jeremiah wondered if this was far enough from the Concludium to avoid further punishment from the trolls. It would be just his luck if they dragged him back to that bridge to teach him a real lesson.

It was approaching midday when he finally got the motivation to move. Jeremiah knew in his heart that he was a city boy and the forest was a different world. He could tell the dangers in a street just by looking at it, know which houses to go for and which to leave well alone. He could use the roof roads as good as any post-boy and he could vanish faster than a Grim, but he couldn’t for the life of him tell whether that mushroom was edible. He left it, forcing logic and self-preservation on top of his rumbling stomach and returned to the road empty handed.

It was then that he heard the coach. It was approaching fast, too fast for the quality of the road, and Jeremiah could hear the crunch and splinter of branches before it rounded the corner and appeared. There were no horses to be seen, the huge metal contraption seemed to be moving completely of its own accord. Every now and then steam would jet out of a hole its side with a high-pitched whistling noise.

Jeremiah hesitated, but he was too hungry and tired to be picky and he waved desperately despite the fact that it seemed completely driverless. For a second it looked like the coach would just continue on without stopping and Jeremiah jumped off the road to avoid the huge black wheels, then something thunked loudly inside the main body and sparks fountained from each wheel like a million tiny fairies escaping from a jar. The coach stopped, there was silence. Jeremiah climbed unsteadily to his feet and approached the side. There was no door, just blank sheet metal covered in dirty black streaks and dents.

“Hello?” he said. A ladder appeared from the roof of the coach and fell at his feet. A dirty face appeared at the top of it wearing two huge goggles and an even bigger grin.

“I haven’t tested those before, wonderful aren’t they?” said the face

“What are?”

“The brakes, I was all ready to just jump out when I reached Capital, do you want a ride?” the man seemed to shout every word and when not in use his mouth just defaulted back to that massive grin.

“Is it safe?”

The face paused and screwed up in calculation, “When compared to what?” it asked

“Waiting for a horse,” suggested Jeremiah

Another pause, “How about tigers,” he said, “Its very safe compared to tigers, although I must admit tigers do not often explode.” Against all logic the grin got bigger “It’s certainly a lot safer than waiting around in troll country,” the voice took on a wheedling tone and lowered a few decibels, “Oh come on get in, I want someone else’s opinion on my handiwork, the gear box barely breaks at all now and I’m almost certain the fumes are no longer poisonous.” The face vanished.

Jeremiah looked hopefully up and down the road but it was devoid of the reassuring sound of hooves. Groaning and swearing Jeremiah bent down for the troll knife, slipped it into his sheath and started to climb the ladder. At the top there was no sign of the man but there was a large circular hole in the roof with another stepladder.

“Lower the ladder down first and don’t forget to close the trapdoor after you,” said a slightly tinny voice from through the hole. Jeremiah unclipped the ladder from the roof and pushed it down the hole where thin hands coated in oil and soot appeared and pulled it into the darkness. One last look along the road, one last breath of fresh air and started to climb into the strange coach.

In the darkness of the interior it was the smell that hit Jeremiah first. It was the smell of dirty heat and old sweat and it drove into his nostrils with merciless enthusiasm and began to torture his sinuses. Jeremiah gagged and coughed as an attempted breath brought in more soot than air. A  piece of wet cloth was thrust into his face and a voice said from the darkness.

“Tie this round your nose and mouth, and don’t take it off until we get out,”

“I thought you said the air was poisonous” said Jeremiah as he fumbled with the string around the back of his head and tried to distinguish shapes in the darkness. He could make out the shape of the man moving away from him and saw him sit before a panel of levers and buttons that baffled Jeremiah.

“Oh it isn’t, soot is not in fact a gas and if it weren’t for that the air would be perfectly breathable,”

“What’s your name?” asked Jeremiah. The man leaned forwards and pulled a lever. The entire coach shook and something outside clanged ominously, drowning out the reply.

“Pardon,” he shouted over a growing din coming from beneath his feet. The coach began to vibrate slightly.

“Adrian, yours?”

“Jeremiah,”

“Nice to meet you,” he pushed a button, turned a knob and then turned to Jeremiah, “There really isn’t enough space in here is there, just pull that lever there could you, behind you my dear man. No, not that one, closer, closer, up a bit then to the left,”

“There’s nothing there,” said Jeremiah, groping around on the vibrating wall.

“Really? Wait a second,” Adrian rose and then started crawling around on the floor. A second later he triumphantly held up a lever. It had been bent into a near circle. “Oh well, we can do without that. Hold onto something Jerry.”

“Jeremiah please, and what do you mean we can do without it.” Adrian turned away, ignoring Jeremiah’s rising panic, “What was it? Adrian? What did that do?” but the man was already back in his seat. He knitted his fingers together and pushed them forwards with a series of cracking noises that could even be heard over the rumbling carriage and shot another huge grin at Jeremiah.

“Holding on? Excellent, this is going to be bumpy,”

The roar of the contraption easily silenced Jeremiah’s screamed “No,” and the force of acceleration slammed him against the ladder. He tried to get up but it was as though every limb had become bars of lead. He managed to get into a sitting position just before the carriage hit something in the road and lurched left and then right and was bashed against both walls with uncaring brutality. His ribs screamed in agony as every knock and bump came too fast for Jeremiah to deflect and he had to resort to curling into a ball and throwing up a pathetic shield in order to stop him becoming a dirty pile of blood and human puree.

And then the shaking stopped. Jeremiah uncurled slowly and looked around. The floor still vibrated slightly and the constant whirring still existed somewhere deep in the machinery but it no longer felt like a gang of trolls had picked the carriage up and attempted to shake it apart.

Jeremiah stood, holding his arms out like a tight ropewalker and walked towards the front carriage. He grabbed the back of Adrian’s seat and said

“What happened?”

Adrian ignored him. His hands were moving across the panel in a blur and his head flicked from side to side as he moved. As Jeremiah leaned forwards he saw how the man had any chance of steering. At the eyelevel of the driver was a thin slit paned in glass that showed the road ahead moving at a speed that made Jeremiah flinch and grip the chair back even harder. Then he saw why the rattling had stopped. They had reached the Lord’s Pass.

The area was a mess of mansions and estates that stretched for miles with the coach road at its centre. Here the road was at its absolute best, paving stones lade out for perfect smoothness and then melted flat by sorcerers. The other cart users on the road were swerving to avoid the oncoming carriage as their horses bucked and whinnied in abject terror. Jeremiah’s jaw went slack beneath his breathing cloth.

“But… but… that was ten miles away when we started,” he stuttered “we’ve been driving for barely ten minutes, how fast is this thing?”

Adrian pulled a final lever with a little bit too much ceremony and finally turned to Jeremiah.

“It could probably reach on hundred miles and hour or more,”

“We are not going to…” began Jeremiah, his eyes widening and voice rising in fear.

“Dear lord no my boy, at that speed any attempt to brake would tear the wheels from the frame. Then sparks from the collision would get into the fuel pistons and we’d be a spinning high speed fire ball until we hit something,”

“Oh, well, good,” Jeremiah thought for a moment, “How do you know that?”

“This is the Car mark seven you know,” ahead of them the road was now completely clear, news of the smoke belching monstrosity must have travelled because Jeremiah could see other road users cowering on the banked grassy side and holding onto their horses for dear life.

“Adrian?” he said slowly

“Yes Jeremiah,”

“Could we slow down now please,” he said

“What now, but we can’t even see the Post tower yet. Capital must be another four miles…”

“Adrian slow down before we kill someone,” shouted Jeremiah, finally losing it. He hated this machine. At least with the trolls he could make a plan and there was something he could do but here there was nothing. It could kill him in a hundred different ways without even trying.

“Alright alright, but hold onto something,”

Jeremiah grabbed the ladder at a speed that surprised even himself. Adrian pressed a button. For a moment nothing happened, then the rumbling deep with the Car cut out.

“Hmmm, that wasn’t supposed to happen,”

“Really? That was the only bit of this journey that hasn’t hurt yet” said Jeremiah, loosening his grip.

“Oh I see, wrong button,” Adrian pressed it. The world lurched in two different directions at once and tried to pull Jeremiah with it. His body flew one way as he desperately tried to keep purchase on the ladder while his stomach went the other. Outside the soft humming of the wheels had become a high pitched screech for tortured metal at braking point.

Adrian got out of his chair, stretched, and walked over to the ladder.

“Jeremiah?” he said, prodding the shape wrapped around the bottom rungs.

“Just give me a second,” he replied

Adrian helped him up and together they climbed up the ladder and into the fresh air. Jeremiah carefully swung himself down from the roof walked a few steps, lay down on the floor face first and stayed there until he felt better.

Author's Note

This the first chapter, I've done my best to proof read but I'm still working on it. Feel free to pick at anything, no matter how trivial, I will welcome it. I'm trying to improve my writing not my ego.