With the lights of the wild troll enclave now shining before him, he stuffed his own crystal in his belt pouch and, heart beating faster, crept forward for a better look. As he neared the closest of the chambers, he could make out the chasm on the far side of the settlement, the natural bridge that spanned it, and the high spot from which the tunnel he and Sif had traversed before ascended to the guard post and then to the surface.
That path was still the most direct route to the world above, but he was leery of taking it a second time when the trolls knew he and his sister had gone that way before. Fortunately, now that he knew where he was, he could finally make use of his memory of the map the captive troll had drawn. He could ascend via secondary tunnels coiling around the primary one for most of the way. Ultimately, he’d have to reenter the main tunnel and pass the sentry post, but he’d deal with it when the time came.
He skulked back part of the way he’d come, took his crystal back out of the pouch, and found the branching passageway he wanted. He hurried around the turn and onward.
One final trek and he’d be… somewhere aboveground. As long as he was under the open sky, he’d be happy. Tired and sore though he was, anticipation made him quicken his pace once more.
A cry echoed from up ahead: “There!”
Startled, Heimdall stopped, peered, and saw nothing. The feeble glow of the crystal didn’t reach far enough. But he heard the trolls who’d evidently spotted him or the glowing stone he carried. They’d started running, and by the sound of it there were quite a few of them.
Heimdall turned and fled, his boots pounding on the tunnel floor. Desperate, he told himself that if he could maintain his lead, he should be able to detour to a different passage, circle around behind his pursuers, and reach the sentry post ahead of them. Concealed by the ambient gloom, bumps and low spots in the stone tripped him repeatedly, but he managed to stay on his feet.
For a time, he imagined his plan might work. Then a different band of trolls, this one for some reason bearing a red crystal light of its own, appeared in front of him, and all he could do was turn, run back the way he’d come, and hope to encounter yet another branching tunnel before the first group of warriors caught up to him.
He found one, dashed into it, and raced into a space where the passage broadened out into a chamber. He cast about, found the opening in the far wall, and started toward it. When he was halfway there, voices growled and clamored, and an instant later, troll warriors rushed through. With a pang of dread, he realized he was trapped.
Twelve
After a moment, though, fear, if not retreating utterly, yielded its place to another emotion. It was infuriating to have come so close to escaping only to fail at the end. Heimdall dropped his chunk of crystal and drew his great sword to go down fighting as, he thought grimly, an Asgardian warrior should.
Yet something inside him balked at throwing himself at his foes like some mad berserker because that would in a way be accepting defeat, and even now, if he exercised his wits, there might be some way to survive. He tried to think of one in the moment he had left and registered that his wasn’t the only glowing crystal in the cave. That one band of trolls had carried theirs in as well.
When he took a closer look at them, he knew why. The frost giant emissary had accompanied the wild troll warriors, and he, like Heimdall, needed light to see.
The Asgardian had previously noticed the blue skin, hairless except for a long beard, hair, and eyebrows the color of turquoise. The burly Jotun still wasn’t wearing a shirt, tunic, or similar garment above the waist, but he had donned a helm for the hunt. The helm had a pair of golden or gilded tusks mounted on it in such a way that they curved out in front of his head like the tusks of a wild boar. For a weapon, the frost giant carried the same two-handed axe he’d waved around when addressing the assembly of trolls. The iron head and better workmanship distinguished it from the stone-and-bone weapons borne by the other hunters.
Among his other ornaments, he had several baubles hanging around his neck that looked remarkably like tiny human skulls. Their daintiness was surprising, and so, Heimdall thought, was the attention to realistic detail. A Jotun’s adornments were generally both bigger and more stylized. The realization sparked the beginning of a notion in the Asgardian’s mind, but with the immediate danger of the frost giant and the trolls to concern him, the thought wouldn’t come clear.
The emissary leered at him. “Try to take the Asgardian alive. We want to find out what he knows and who else knows it.”
The trolls snarled and edged forward. Trying the one desperate ploy that came to mind, Heimdall forced a laugh, and, surprised, the orange-skinned creatures hesitated.
“Even now!” Heimdall said. “Even now! It’s so funny everyone should be laughing.”
The trolls stood silent for a heartbeat. Then one of the biggest, possibly a chieftain to judge from the numerous carved rings of bone and polished gemstone knotted in his beard and dangling mustache, asked, “What’s funny?”
“Him!” Heimdall said, waving his hand at the Jotun envoy. “The mighty frost giant! He wants you to believe he and his people are fitting allies, but even when the odds are dozens to one, he hangs back and looks to you to do the fighting.”
The Jotun opened his mouth to retort.
Heimdall raised his voice and talked over him. “Did he try to tell you frost giants are as strong as, no, I’ll wager, stronger than trolls, and fearless and skilled at arms to boot? I trust you see the truth is otherwise.”
The envoy finally managed to make himself heard. “There’s nothing wrong with a war leader ordering his warriors to deal with one lone foe!”
“But they’re not your warriors,” Heimdall said. “You’re an outsider here the same as I am.” He returned his gaze to the circle of watching trolls. “The Jotun hasn’t acted like it, though, has he? From the start, he’s talked down to you and treated you like inferiors. He’s acted as if he were doing you a favor by proposing an alliance.”
Heimdall didn’t know the emissary had behaved that way, but, given the overweening pride of the frost giants, it seemed likely. Even if the Jotun hadn’t, the xenophobia of the trolls and their resentment of the scorn with which other races sometimes regarded them might make it seem as if he had.
The frost giant emissary regarded the circle of trolls. “None of that is true!” But his tone was haughty, not friendly or apologetic, and the underground dwellers simply glowered back without offering any reassurance that they thought Heimdall was talking nonsense. Some of them muttered to one another.
“The truth,” the Asgardian said, “is that frost giants are clumsy, helpless oafs. Without that red crystal, he couldn’t even find his way around.”
“You need one too!” the envoy snarled.
“But at least I’m not some coward down here desperate to gain the help of the trolls yet sneering at them to their faces.”
The emissary turned to the big troll with the rings knotted into his whiskers. “This is ridiculous! The Asgardian would say anything to put off the moment when we lay hands on him.”
The troll chieftain grunted. “I know. Still, he called you a coward. A warrior has only one way to answer that, especially if he wants others to join his war band.”
“Fine,” the frost giant said. “If you need me to put on a show, so be it.” He hefted his great axe and advanced on Heimdall. The trolls pressed back against the walls of the little cave to give the single combat the maximum amount of room.
It was a single combat that, however it turned out, seemed unlikely to alter Heimdall’s ultimate fate. But he was grimly determined to win it anyway, if only to vent his anger and gain himself a few more moments of life.
He studied his opponent as the two of them began to circle. He’d suggested the envoy wasn’t a particularly skilled fighter, and in fact that was true of many a frost giant. The average Jotun relie
d on the advantages afforded by his race’s enormous size to win battles.
To his disappointment, though, the emissary appeared to be an exception to the rule. His stance, guard, and the smooth, gliding way he moved, all indicated he was a competent warrior and perhaps a superior one.
“You must know,” the envoy said, “that even if you could win, you’d gain nothing. The trolls would swarm you and take you down an instant later.”
“So it seems,” Heimdall replied. “But if I kill you, I kill the hope of an alliance between Jotunheim and the tribe.” He sidestepped, and the frost giant shifted to maintain their relative positions.
“You can’t kill me,” the frost giant said, and followed that with a shout and a swing of the axe.
Reacting instantly, as his trainers had taught him, Heimdall dodged the chop and cut at the Jotun’s outstretched arms. The envoy shifted the heavy two-handed axe as though it were light as a feather and parried the sword stroke. Heimdall’s blade clanked against the axe head and struck a shower of sparks.
As the duel continued, he looked for weaknesses he could exploit and found nothing. The axe was heavier than his two-handed sword, but the frost giant swung and shifted it just as quickly. Moreover, the envoy was confident and aggressive, but thus far not reckless or undiscerning enough to fall victim to his adversary’s feints and traps.
Hoping to find an attack that would score nonetheless, Heimdall cut at the frost giant’s head. The Jotun envoy blocked, and once again metal rang on metal. At once, the emissary swept the great axe down and used the head to hook the Asgardian’s front leg between knee and ankle. He yanked the limb out from under Heimdall, who slammed down hard on his back. The watching trolls shouted and hooted in anticipation of the deathblow.
Their excitement, however, was at least premature. Heimdall frantically rolled aside, and the axe crashed down in the spot he’d occupied an instant before, the blow echoing off the walls and tossing up chips of stone. He scrambled to his feet and slashed madly. The cuts didn’t land but kept the frost giant from pressing him until he recovered his balance and reestablished his guard.
Breathing hard and striving to control it, Heimdall likewise strained to push down the fear that produced a kind of tunnel vision that in turn made for flailing, heedless, losing swordplay. He sought again for some weakness in the Jotun’s guard or stance. He didn’t find one, but he once again noticed the dangling skulls, and the vague suspicion he’d had before abruptly became clear and sharp in his mind.
The frost giant was also wearing an octagonal golden medallion with a white phenakite gemstone around his neck. It too seemed, if not dainty, at least to reflect a subtler sensibility than a Jotun’s ornaments generally did. Perhaps it even glimmered ever so slightly with its own inner light.
Heimdall cut repeatedly at the gold medallion in an effort to break it or the chain it dangled from. Unfortunately, his focus on his opponent’s chest and neck only made him more predictable, and the envoy turned that to his advantage. As one axe chop after another nearly found its mark, the trolls roared encouragement to the guest who, by demonstrating his bravery and prowess, had evidently regained their favor.
The great axe whirled at Heimdall. He sought to parry, and the attack looped into a bind. It captured the blade of the two-handed sword and wrenched it from Heimdall’s grasp. The axe came up for a follow-up attack.
Heimdall frantically grabbed the haft of the axe to hold it back, and he and the frost giant struggled for control. He could feel that his foe was stronger.
Still, the Asgardian was strong or maybe desperate enough that the envoy lost his patience with the process. He let go of the weapon, freeing up his hands, seized hold of Heimdall himself, and yanked him into a bear hug.
With the long-handled axe pinned between their bodies, the haft digging into his chest, Heimdall had no hope of wielding it even though the frost giant had more or less relinquished possession. The Jotun’s arms crushed the air from his lungs and brought blackness swimming around the periphery of his vision. His ribs ached and were perhaps on the verge of giving way.
Heimdall let go of the axe. Afterward, his arms were still caught between his body and the envoy, but maybe, he thought, he could work his hands upward. It was the only thing left to try.
As he struggled doggedly to do so, the frost giant raked at him with the tusks projecting from his helm, and the Asgardian shifted his head from side to side to avoid the points. One attack gashed his cheek, but, full of desperation and battle fury, he felt the strike as pressure but not as pain.
The fingertips of his right hand brushed the bottom of the medallion, and with a flare of hope he realized he only needed to reach a little farther. He jammed his arm higher and hooked his fingertips around the chain.
Discerning his intent, the frost giant shouted and let go of him, likely to push him away. But the envoy was too slow. Heimdall jerked, the chain broke, and, separated from the medallion, the Jotun started growing.
With the axe clanging to the floor between him and his foe, Heimdall stumbled backward. The frost giant lunged after him with his blue hands outstretched. Heimdall dodged, sucked in a breath to fill his air-starved lungs, and threw the medallion. It flew far enough that it was lost to sight in the dim red light and amid the feet of the milling trolls.
Bellowing, the frost giant grabbed for the great axe.
Fortunately, dodging the furious chops became steadily easier as the envoy regained his natural stature. His growth ground him against the ceiling of the cave and then forced him to his knees, and his efforts to keep Heimdall in front of him and to swing his weapon became increasingly awkward.
When Heimdall was sure the frost giant was effectively immobilized, he turned to consider the trolls. The envoy had assured him that even if he won their duel, the creatures would rush in and overwhelm him, but he dared to hope that was no longer the case.
It wasn’t. For all the wild trolls knew, the frost giant would grow until he filled the whole chamber, and their concern now was escaping. They were rushing for one or another of the exits.
The Asgardian snatched up his sword, retrieved his piece of luminous crystal, and hurried after the group trying to escape through the nearer opening. With a fresh jolt of fear, he saw they were they clogging the exit and striking and shoving at one another as they struggled to squeeze through.
Meanwhile, growth in a space too cramped to accommodate it had crushed the frost giant into near shapelessness, but as his screams attested he still clung to life. His cries mingled with those of the trolls squashed between his bulk and the cavern walls. An enormous foot at the end of a broken leg slid across the floor toward Heimdall, swelling ever larger as it came.
Then, in a sudden surge of motion, the jam in the opening gave way. Some trolls plunged through, leaving their stunned and trampled fellows on the floor. Heimdall rushed after them only to find that several hadn’t gone very far. Spying him, they growled and hefted their spears, war hammers, and axes.
All right, Heimdall thought. If he had to fight again, so be it. He dropped the crystal to grip his sword with both hands, took a deep breath, and started forward.
Then new light, white light, splashed into the tunnel behind the creatures. Sif rushed out of a branching passageway with her amulet shining and her broadsword in hand. She attacked the remaining trolls from her side, Heimdall from his, and together they made short work of them.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“Yes,” he panted.
“Good,” she said. “This time, keep up. I don’t want you getting lost again.”
They fled back up the tunnel from which she’d emerged, and in due course the way connected to the final ascent to the surface. There were new sentries hiding behind the blinds, but not so many this time, and brother and sister fought their way through without either falling down a hole.
After H
eimdall’s sojourn in darkness, the light streaming in the cave mouth dazzled him, and he squinted and shielded his eyes. It was only after he’d passed through and his vision adjusted, that he realized the sky was overcast and the branches of the trees before him were blocking a fair amount of light from reaching the ground.
Thirteen
Heimdall and Sif hurried onward for a time, and tiny snowflakes began to fall. Finally, when they were some distance from the cave mouth and were reasonably sure no trolls had pursued them aboveground, they slumped down, sweaty, grimy, and exhausted, he with his back against the trunk of a rowan, she sitting against a birch.
After a while Sif stretched, took a long drink from her leather canteen, and offered it to Heimdall.
“Thanks.” He’d lost his own water bottle with the gear on the gray stallion, and the lukewarm iron water eased the raw feeling in his throat.
“Better let me see to that cut.” Sif poured water to soak a kerchief and used it to clean the gash on his cheek. Her fingers were calloused from years of swordplay and other martial training, but her touch was careful, and as she tended him it came home to Heimdall just how relieved he was to see her alive and well.
When finished, Sif regarded her handiwork. “It’s not bad,” she said. “It should heal up fine. What in Ymir’s name happened to you? I turned around and you were gone.”
He told her the story.
When he was done, she said, “You told me a young frost giant might be no bigger than a man.”
The Head of Mimir Page 9