01 - The Sea of Trolls Read online

  “It’s like this at the border between worlds,” Rune said.

  “I don’t understand,” said Jack.

  “We’re leaving Middle Earth and entering Jotunheim. The life force is strongest here. Yggdrassil encircles the border with one of its branches.”

  “I don’t see anything.”

  “Try harder,” said Rune. So Jack went to the prow and cast his mind out. At first he saw nothing. The noise of the birds distracted him, and Eric Pretty-Face’s humming didn’t help. Jack was afraid he might call up fog by accident or, worse, a downpour. He didn’t really know what he was doing.

  Reveal yourselves, living presences of the earth and sky. Show me your pathways in the sea. Uncurl in the leaf, flash in the sun, fill the air with your music. Jack didn’t know where the words came from. They were simply there, shimmering all around. The air thickened like honey; the water began to stir.

  It was full of roots. They snaked everywhere, drawing the sun to their green depths. Fish glided in and out of their coils. The roots grew upward and became branches when they reached the air. They unfurled leaves such as were never seen in Middle Earth. Green and gold they shone, and the birds hid their nests among them.

  It was too much. The vision was too intense to bear. Jack felt his head swim and then he fell. He woke with Rune holding a skin of water to his lips. Olaf knelt at his side. “What did you just do?”

  “I—uh—” Jack choked on the water.

  “He called to Yggdrassil,” said Rune.

  Jack sat up to see Eric Pretty-Face, Sven the Vengeful, and the others clustered at the other end of the ship. They looked utterly spooked. Bold Heart perched on the mast and warbled joyfully. He, apparently, hadn’t found the presence of Yggdrassil upsetting at all.

  “Rune said the life force was strong here and that I should try to see it,” Jack said.

  “Don’t do that again,” said Olaf. “We heard you chanting a poem. The air filled with the sound of wings. I thought a dragon had discovered us. Then the sea churned, and Sven thought we were being attacked by a sea serpent. I know you’re used to such things, but the rest of us don’t like them.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jack said.

  “It’s my fault,” said Rune. “He’s untrained and likely to overdo things.”

  “Like turning the queen bald. That was a good trick, though.” Olaf smiled. “You’re a fine skald, and if we survive, I expect many poems out of you.”

  “I could write poetry too,” said Thorgil. “If I tried.”

  “You? Don’t make me laugh,” said Olaf. “Everyone knows women can’t write verses. It’s only for men.”

  “I can do anything a man can!” cried Thorgil. Her face turned red.

  “You’re a good shield maiden, and you’ll be a great berserker someday. Don’t ask for the moon.”

  “I can do it! Don’t laugh at me!”

  “Better I laugh than throw you overboard,” said Olaf. His voice had become quiet and dangerous. Thorgil stopped arguing, but she cast poisonous looks at Jack as she plied the rudder.

  As they went deeper into Jotun Fjord, the teeming bird- and fish-life disappeared. Jack saw only one salmon rising to snap at a fly. But that salmon was enormous. Jack’s skin tingled, and he heard something—wind in the trees, perhaps—that was too faint to identify. “It feels strange here,” he said.

  “That’s because we’re in Jotunheim.” Rune’s voice, always quiet, was even quieter now.

  “Already?”

  “We’ve crossed the border from our world into theirs. They”—the old warrior indicated the forest, the mountains, the fjord—“belong. We don’t. What you feel is the watching.”

  Jack wished Rune hadn’t said that. Now he could feel the attention directed toward the ship. The trees seemed more alert. The mountains loomed closer, and yet they couldn’t have moved—could they? Eyes watched from beneath the spruce and junipers. Jack couldn’t see them, but he knew they were there.

  “They don’t like us, do they?” he said.

  “We don’t like them either, when they invade our world,” said Rune. “Fortunately, a troll is far weaker in our world than in his. If it weren’t so, Eric Pretty-Face’s teeth would be decorating a Jotun’s chest instead of the other way around. We’d never have captured Golden Bristles on his home ground.”

  “Does that mean we’re weaker here?”

  “Yes,” said Rune.

  The ship glided deeper into the fjord. The snowy mountain Jack had noticed when they entered seemed higher now. The air over it shone with a kind of shimmering, shifting light.

  “That’s where the Mountain Queen lives,” said Olaf, who had joined them. “Frith’s mother.”

  “Who’s Frith’s father?”

  “Some poor wretch,” said Olaf. “He may have been a great hero. I don’t know. He died long ago.”

  “Jotuns are long-lived,” said Rune.

  “Why would any human marry a troll?” asked Jack.

  Olaf and Rune looked at each other. “It isn’t a matter of choice,” Olaf said. “Troll-maidens get their husbands by capture. They’re bigger, you see. They usually find themselves a nice lout.”

  “‘Lout’ is what they call a male troll,” explained Rune.

  “But now and then they’ll go for an ogre or even a largish human.”

  “Like… you?” Jack said, looking at Olaf.

  The giant winced. “I escaped that fate, though only by the greatest good fortune. Ivar wasn’t so lucky. We’d been poking around, trying to find a dwarf forge and perhaps some gold. The Jotuns ambushed us. I fell down a cliff trying to get away and landed in a lake. The trolls thought I’d drowned, but they got Ivar. The Mountain Queen shut him up in her cave.”

  “So Frith didn’t capture him. Her mother did,” said Jack.

  “The Mountain Queen was getting a little desperate. None of the louts would have Frith. None of the ogres or goblins, either. The Mountain Queen could have tortured them into agreeing, but it’s a poor way to start a marriage.”

  “Was… Ivar tortured?”

  “Oh, no! He was delighted. He couldn’t see Frith’s true nature, as the others did. He thought he was getting the most beautiful princess in the world.”

  “He was always somewhat shallow,” commented Rune. “I could have seen through her in a second.”

  “By the time I arrived, they were already married,” said Olaf. “I did knock a few Jotuns around to free Ivar, but they didn’t resist much. The Mountain Queen was anxious to move her daughter out of the house.”

  They had come now to the end of the fjord, where it widened out into a lake. On the far side Jack saw a meadow covered with swaths of blue, pink, yellow, purple, and white flowers. The perfume reached them from across the water. “That’s nice,” said Jack, wishing they could stay in the meadow and not get closer to the mountain.

  “Hellebore, wolfsbane, nightshade, and troll’s breath,” said Rune. “In our world they’re poisonous if you eat them. In this one the perfume alone knocks you out.”

  “You’re joking!”

  “This is Jotunheim. Everything’s nastier.”

  Jack eyed the approaching shore with dismay. The flowers were larger than the ones he was used to and swayed slightly in the breeze (was there a breeze?). The ground beneath them looked boggy. “Once you’re on the other side, there’s a reasonably safe stretch of forest. You can camp there,” said the old warrior.

  “I can camp there? What about you?”

  “Once I would have welcomed such a quest, but now…” Rune sighed. “Speed and concealment are important for your success. Thus, only two men will go with you. Olaf will, of course, be one of them. The rest of us will wait back in the fjord. This lake, peaceful as it seems, isn’t a good place to stay.”

  Jack was stunned. He hadn’t welcomed the trip to Jotunheim, but the presence of six Northmen plus Olaf, Rune, and Thorgil offered some safety. Now he was down to two! “How will we ever find you?”


  “We’ll return here every day,” said Rune. “I’d suggest waiting in the forest until you can see us.”

  They stopped some distance from shore, where the perfume wasn’t too intense. Still, when the breeze shifted, the Northmen moved more slowly and Bold Heart fell off his perch a couple of times.

  They packed food and some water, though water would be plentiful until they got to the ice. Rune gave Jack a small bottle of poppy juice to dull pain, “in case you need it.” That probably means I will need it, thought Jack. The bottle was of blown glass, not the dull flasks the Bard stored his best elixirs in, but clear as ice with a poppy molded on its side. “Sometimes pain can kill as surely as a knife blade,” said Rune.

  He gave Olaf a flask molded in the form of a wolf’s head. The odor sent a chill along Jack’s nerves. It was bog myrtle, already brewed and ready to go. Somewhere along the way Olaf intended to go berserk.

  “I’ve selected Thorgil to go with us,” the giant announced.

  “Thorgil!” cried Jack. “She’s impossible! We need a full-size warrior, not this—this—runt!” Thorgil threw herself at him, and Jack stepped aside and yanked her leg out from under her. He’d learned a thing or two about fighting in the past weeks. She twisted around and grabbed him. They both fell to the bottom of the ship. Olaf pulled them apart. He held one in each hand, shaking them the way a dog shakes a rat.

  “Save your anger for the trolls! I’m letting Thorgil come because I think she’s earned a quest. Besides, she wants to fall in battle, and this adventure is a perfect opportunity. By the way, you’re both runts.” Olaf dropped them to the deck. Jack and Thorgil glared at each other, breathing hard.

  Bold Heart fluttered over to land on Jack’s shoulder. “Not you,” he cried, trying to brush him off. “This trip isn’t for birds.”

  “And I don’t want a witch’s familiar along!” screamed Thorgil.

  Bold Heart dug his claws into Jack’s tunic and refused to leave. The boy stopped hitting at him and slumped dejectedly in the bilge. “I can’t take you along, so get used to it.”

  “I wonder,” Rune said, kneeling with some difficulty to look at the crow. “I wonder why this creature came to us in the middle of the sea. And why he stays with us.” He extended a gnarled finger, and Bold Heart gently nibbled at it. The old warrior smiled.

  “He stays because he’s a witch’s curse,” snarled Thorgil.

  Rune smoothed the feathers on Bold Heart’s head. The bird warbled and cooed. “I think… even if we keep him here, he’ll escape and follow you, Jack. He’s part of your fate.”

  “Are you telling us to take him?” Olaf said.

  “Oh, no!” cried Thorgil.

  “I don’t think we have a choice. He’ll go whether we like it or not. You’ll have to carry him through the meadow, Jack. Birds faint more easily than people in poisonous fumes.”

  “You got your way,” muttered Jack as Rune slung a bag, containing Bold Heart, around his neck. “But you’re not going to like it.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  THE DRAGON

  The last part of the trip was made at top speed. The warriors rowed for all they were worth and rammed the boat onto the shore. Eric Pretty-Face and Eric the Rash jumped out to steady it. Olaf, Thorgil, and Jack started running the second they hit the ground.

  Jack had been right. The ground was boggy. The mud sucked at his feet and made it difficult to move fast. Bees as large as walnuts drifted over the meadow, and Jack saw one struggling in the grip of a particularly large and sticky-looking leaf. The leaf appeared to be folding itself over the unlucky bee. Then Jack brushed against one of the leaves and found, to his horror, that it stuck to him. He tore himself loose and immediately blundered into more. They were everywhere!

  He was tiring rapidly, or perhaps it was the smell of the flowers. His foot came down on a slug as long as his arm. It reared up, pale yellow with liver-colored spots, and waved its eyestalks at him. Bold Heart poked his head out of the bag and cawed. “Get back inside,” panted Jack, shoving the bird down.

  The perfume was so strong, he wanted to throw up. His vision blurred and his senses swam. No! No! No! I won’t stop! He had the distinct impression the slug was no innocent visitor to the meadow. It was looking for food, and what better meal than a stunned human boy? Jack staggered and stumbled. He kept his eyes on the forest, but he knew he couldn’t reach it. He sank to his knees.

  “No time for a nap,” grunted Olaf, plucking him from the rustling leaves. The giant ran through the meadow and on through the trees until he reached a hill. He bounded up the side and deposited Jack on a sunny field. But it was normal grass, not the eerie leaves of the meadow. Thorgil lay not far away. Olaf removed Bold Heart from the bag and put him next to Jack.

  The boy stretched out in the sunlight, letting the fresh air clear his senses. He felt for Bold Heart and was encouraged when the bird flapped his wings. “Get up if you want to see the ship,” Olaf called.

  Jack, woozy and sick, got to his feet and dragged himself to the top of the hill. He saw the ship moving across the lake. Olaf waved, and someone—it was too far away to see who—waved back. The warriors were rowing vigorously. Jack saw—or thought he saw—the ripple of something long and dark following them.

  “Whew! I don’t want to do that again,” said Olaf, leaning back against a rock. “I didn’t know the poison would be that strong. I went another way last time.”

  “Why didn’t we go that way this time?” said Jack. He was still dizzy, and Thorgil was too weak to sit up. She kept trying to rise and failing. It made her furious to see that Jack had recovered faster than she. She’d do better, Jack thought, if she didn’t waste her breath on all those curses. Bold Heart had managed to get to his feet, but he kept tipping over. He grumbled to himself. It may have been crow curses, for all Jack knew. It certainly didn’t sound nice.

  “I ran across a nest of baby dragons on the other route. I figure they’ve grown up by now.” Olaf drank some water and handed the skin to Jack. “I had to carry Thorgil out of the meadow and then go back for you. It was almost too much for me. Whew! I’m not as young as I was.”

  Jack wanted to lie down, but it was much more rewarding to sit up and irritate Thorgil. He moved his head from side to side, to see if the dizziness was still there. It was. “What were those leaves in the meadow?”

  “Sundews. They trap and eat bugs,” said Olaf.

  “Plants eat things?”

  “Sundews do. Hey, that sounded like poetry. Maybe I’ll turn into a skald yet. In our world sundews are tiny, but in Jotunheim…”

  “I know. Everything’s nastier,” said Jack.

  “I think we should spend a day here. Give us time to recover. I saw a place in the rocks that should be easy to defend.” Olaf got up and began to gather firewood.

  “The thrall should do the menial chores,” Thorgil called. Olaf ignored her. Jack studied the trees surrounding the field. They were enormous firs towering up and up, with deep green needles and trunks so dark that they were almost black. It went without saying that the shade beneath them was equally gloomy. I wonder what lives in there, Jack thought. He heard the same odd murmuring—almost whispering—he’d noticed on the ship. He strained his ears to make out the sound. Or was it voices?

  Jack got up and moved closer to Olaf.

  “Don’t leave Thorgil alone,” said the giant. “She’s more helpless than you.”

  “I am not!” shouted Thorgil.

  After a while Olaf carried her to a campsite he’d selected in the rocks. It was a shallow cave the giant had explored carefully, and once inside you were hidden from the outside world. The entrance was concealed by a fallen tree. Olaf struck sparks with a piece of quartz and his knife and started a small fire. They ate dried fish and bread you had to gnaw at like a rat. Jack’s jaw ached by the time he was finished.

  Thorgil revived considerably with the food. She was back to her old habit of ordering Jack around until Olaf told her to stop. �
�We’re on a quest. All of us are equal.”

  “Including that witch’s familiar?” she sneered, pointing at Bold Heart.

  “I don’t know what role the crow is to play, but Rune thought he was important. That’s enough for me.” The giant stretched out his legs and tried to get comfortable. The roof of the cave was so low, he couldn’t stand up, though it was more than high enough for Jack and Thorgil. Because it was midsummer, darkness was late in coming and would not last long.

  Perhaps that’s good, thought Jack. Who knows what comes out in the middle of the night? He thought of wolves and bears, then of stranger creatures he’d heard about in Father’s tales: cockatrices, manticores, and dragons. How big was a baby dragon? How big was its mother? “We’ve started badly, haven’t we?” he said to Olaf.

  “Quests always have their ups and downs,” rumbled the giant. “The point is never to give up, even if you’re falling off a cliff. You never know what might happen on the way to the bottom.”

  “Or you could die heroically and go to Valhalla,” added Thorgil.

  “You’re always talking about dying,” said Jack. “What’s wrong with living? Anyhow, from what Rune says, shield maidens don’t have a great time in Valhalla. They just wait on tables for the men.”

  “You take that back!” shouted Thorgil. “That’s not true! Valkyries are beloved of Odin!”

  “Seems to me they’re just glorified servants.”

  Thorgil screamed and launched herself at him. She was weak and so was Jack. They ended up panting for breath and draped over each other on the ground. “That’s the most pathetic fight I’ve ever seen,” commented Olaf.

  They went to bed before sunset. All three of them had knives at the ready, and Olaf stretched a rope across the entrance to the cave, to trip unexpected visitors. Jack woke up once in the brief darkness. Whisper… whisper… whisper went the trees outside, though there was no wind.