by E. D. Baker
"Then it wasn't a trick?" I asked.
"Emma, how could you?" cried Li'l. "Garrid would never do such a thing. He came looking for me."
"Uh, Li'l," Garrid said, scratching his head and looking sheepish. "I didn't know you were here. It wasn't until I heard your voice that I knew it was you."
"Then why are you here?" she asked, fluttering to the bed. "I bet I know! You were visiting friends and heard my voice and came to protect me. That was it, wasn't it?"
"Actually, I arrived only a few minutes ago. I was delayed at my last stop. That was family business, too, just like this. As the oldest member of the family, I have to give my permission before anyone can marry, so I stop by every few months to see if anyone is engaged. It's a tradition, you understand, but tradition is very important when you live as long as we do."
"You mean these people are your relatives?" I asked.
Garrid nodded. "On my mother's side. Second cousins six times removed, that kind of thing."
"Why didn't you tell me?" Li'l asked. "I would have loved to have come with you."
Garrid looked even more sheepish than before. "It didn't occur to me. I've been making the rounds for hundreds of years and I've never had a wife to bring before."
"A wife!" shouted one of the bats. There was another puff of dank air and the bat turned into the grizzled old man who had sat beside us at supper. "Why didn't you send word that you had married! We'd about given up hope that you ever would! And what is your name, young lady?" he asked, extending his hand to Li'l.
Li'l looked flustered at first, then pulled her wings close to her body. I could tell she was upset. "I'm not a young lady. I'm a bat," she said in a tiny voice.
The old man looked surprised at first, but he quickly recovered himself and smiled down at where she sat on the bed. "And a beautiful bat, too," he told Li'l. "I must say, Garrid, you've found yourself a lovely wife."
"I know I have," said Garrid. "But thank you for saying so. And now I'd like to invite you all to an unexpectedly joyous celebration. I want you to have the chance to meet my wife and our dear friends Prince Eadric and Princess Emeralda." All the vampires in the room began to talk at once, excited at the prospect of a party even if it didn't involve drinking our blood. "You'll have to tell me later why you're here," he told me. "I know it wasn't because you were looking for me."
"I will," I said, "although you'll have to excuse us from your celebration. You're used to staying up, but we have to leave in the morning. All I want to do now is sleep for the rest of the night, undisturbed."
"We'll see what we can arrange," he said, smiling down at me.
A short time later, Eadric and I were in the room that was supposed to have been mine. While he slept on the floor with Ferdy by his side, I lay curled up in the bed sleeping peacefully with Shelton keeping watch from my pillow. Boards had been nailed over the window and on the door hung a sign that read,
NO ONE IS WELCOME,
SO DO NOT DISTURB!
Eleven
Li'l was unusually quiet when we started out the next morning. She had celebrated with Garrid and his relatives all night, but she usually stayed up until dawn, so I knew she wasn't acting that way because she was extra tired. When Garrid offered to accompany us after hearing about our mission, she looked more upset than pleased.
The two of them took turns flying above the trees to make sure we were headed in the right direction and to tell us how to get around obstacles such as bottomless pits and werewolf dens. The first time Li'l left and came back, she landed on my shoulder and stayed there until it was her turn again. She sat with her wings covering her head, another sign that she wasn't happy. Garrid, on the other hand, laughed and joked when he wasn't flying, alternating between riding on Eadric's shoulder and mine. I knew that he was aware of Li'l's bad mood, however, because he kept trying to get her to talk to him and told funny stories to try to make her laugh. After a while he gave up and sat in puzzled silence, glancing at her now and then.
Garrid wasn't the only one who was worried. We'd been walking for a few hours when something occurred to me. "Eadric," I said. "What if the troll queen guessed that we're in the forest? She could be surrounding it right now, waiting for us to come out."
Eadric snorted. "I doubt it. Haven't you seen how big this forest is? More likely they'd figure out where we were going and wait by the entrance."
"Is that supposed to make me feel better? Because it doesn't."
"Don't worry," he said, patting Ferdy. "Between the two of us, we can take care of anything. I wish you'd have a littie faith."
"I would," I muttered under my breath, "if we weren't talking about trolls. I've seen what they can do."
"Bradston looked good when we saw the truth in the mirror, didn't he? That boy can even give trolls a hard time," Eadric said with a hint of pride in his voice.
"He looked fine, although his skin seemed a little odd. Your mother said that he was sick. Did she ever tell you what was wrong with him?" I asked.
Eadric shrugged. "I assumed she meant that he had a cold. My mother makes a fuss over the smallest sniffle."
"He didn't look like they hurt him or anything," I said.
"They'd better not," growled Eadric. "He's my little brother, and if anyone is going to hurt him because he was stupid enough to fall into the hands of trolls, it's going to be me."
It hadn't taken long for Li'l and Garrid to find the entrance to the trolls' caves, but then, they were bats, after all. As we neared the edge of the woods, it was Li'l's turn to check our position, and she came back only a few minutes after leaving. "There are trolls up ahead, lurking in the underbrush. Wait here. I'll tell you when it's safe to go on."
Garrid waved his wings to stretch them. "I'll do that, Li'l."
"Don't bother," said Li'l. "Even a bat like me can handle this."
"What was that supposed to mean?" he said, settling back on my shoulder as Li'l flew away. "She's not acting like herself at all. I wish I knew what was bothering her."
"That's a woman for you," said Eadric. "One little mistake and they're mad at you for days."
"What mistake? I don't even know what I did wrong!" wailed Garrid. "She was fine at the party last night. My relatives are all crazy about her."
When Li'l finally returned, we followed her through the trees to a patch of underbrush that had been trampled flat. The rotten-egg smell of troll was so strong that we had to hold our noses before we reached it and long after we'd passed by.
"I think we would have known they were here," I said.
"Anything with a nose would know they were here," said Eadric. "There's nothing subtle about trolls."
"The entrance is up ahead," said Li'l. "There are two trolls playing a game with bones just inside. You can't see them until you go in.'
"Sentries," said Eadric. "Ferdy and I'll take care of them."
"Save your blade," said Garrid. "There's no need to let the trolls know you're here if they don't already. I'll distract them and . . ."
"We'll distract them, you mean," Li'l said with a bite to her voice.
Garrid glanced at her, then nodded. "Li'l and I will distract them and let you know when you can come in. Be ready. This won't take long."
While Eadric and I hid among the boulders and loose rocks edging the entrance to the caves, Li'l and Garrid flew toward the opening, flitting around each other in what I would have thought was a friendly way if I hadn't been able to hear them.
"What other relatives haven't you told me about, Garrid?" asked Li'l. "Are your parents still alive, or any brothers or sisters?"
"I was an only child, Li'l. I told you that. And both of my parents were killed in the vampire-werewolf wars. Why do you ask? Look, the trolls are behind that rock. The big hairy one has a club."
"I'm not stupid or blind. I can see them and they both have clubs," said Li'l. "I just wondered who else you hadn't told about me because you were too embarrassed. Ooh! Watch out! The hairy one almost got you!"
"Garrid, watch out! Garrid? Don't worry! I'm coming! Squeeze my mate, will you, you rotten, scum-sucking, dirt-licking. . . Ha! How'd you like that! Want another one? One good bite deserves another and . . . there! Good! Garrid, are you all right?"
"I'm fine! It takes more than a clout on the head and a ham-fisted squeeze to hurt me. Uh-oh. They're not giving up, Li'l. It looks as if a bat attack isn't enough to get rid of these dimwits. Watch out. I'm going to . . ."
"Garrid! Why'd you do that?" shrieked Li'l.
"Good day, gentlemen," Garrid said in his man voice. Although I couldn't see him, I knew he'd changed from a bat into his human-looking self. "I've never tasted troll blood before, but I like it now that I have. I'll give you a choice: which one of you wants to join us for all eternity and which one wants to die this very minute?"
"Aagh!" bellowed the two trolls, kicking up gravel as they ran past Eadric and me. I giggled when I saw that they kept their hands covering their beefy necks as they ran into the forest, because I could hear Garrid saying, "I knew they couldn't tell one of us from the other. Thank you for biting that one, Li'l. I couldn't bring myself to do it. Blood that foul would have curdled in my stomach and made me ill for days."
"The funny thing is that I couldn't actually bite him. His skin was too thick," said Li'l.
"Then his head must be thick, too," said Garrid. "Because he thought you had!"
"What happened to the trolls?" Eadric asked when I nudged him. "I couldn't hear a thing."
"They thought that Li'l and Garrid were vampires out for their blood," I said. "Let's go before the trolls stop running and decide to come back."
A bat once again, Garrid was waiting for us at the tunnel entrance. He must have heard what I'd told Eadric because he said, "They won't be back here any time soon. Li'l and I made a big impression."
"I wish I'd seen it," said Eadric.
"Maybe next time," said Garrid. "But only if Li'l. . .Where did she go? She can't be mad at me againl" Turning on a wing tip, he flew into the cave after his wife.
"He means she can't still be mad, doesn't he?" said Eadric.
"Now what did you mean when you accused me of being embarrassed?" I heard Garrid say to Li'l.
"What am I supposed to think when you don't introduce me to anyone? I didn't even know you had any living relatives until last night. It must be hard to say, 'I'd like you to meet my wife. She's a real bat.'"
"Don't be ridiculous!" said Garrid. "I love you. I'll announce it to the whole world if you want me to. World, this is my wife, Li'l. She's a real bat! See—I wasn't embarrassed at all."
"You wouldn't be—here inside a mountain where no one can hear you except me. And don't you dare tell me that my feelings are ridiculous. You have no right to . . ."
"Is everything all right?" Eadric asked, taking my hand in his. "You look worried."
"Everything is fine," I said, giving his hand a squeeze, but I was wondering if Eadric and I were going to argue like Li'l and Garrid once we were married.
Although we'd packed special torches to take into the caverns, we'd lost them along with everything else when we'd escaped the trolls at the river. Learning of this, Garrid had asked his relatives to make torches for us, something vampires rarely needed. We were happy enough to have them when we started out, but they soon became a nuisance, because they bled dark smoke that stank even more than the ever-present rotten-egg smell of the caves and were sure to give us away. When we came to a deserted sentry post in the tunnel and found some of the trolls' torches, we were delighted to exchange them for ours.
"At least these smell like the rest of the torches around here," Eadric said as he lit them.
"That's true," I said. "But don't you think it's odd that no one is here? Two tunnels merge at this very spot. It seems like an important place for a sentry."
"Maybe they're taking a dinner break," said Shelton, who was riding on my shoulder again. "I know I would if I could."
"And abandon their posts? A real soldier wouldn't do that," scoffed Eadric.
"These are trolls," I said. "Who knows what they do. Still, I think it's odd."
"Hmm," said Eadric, kneeling down to study the other objects the trolls had abandoned.
"There you are," sang out Li'l as she and Garrid flew into sight.
"There's another abandoned sentry post up ahead," said Garrid.
Lil flew closer, making her shadow loom large on the passage wall behind her. "What do you think it means?"
"I'm not sure," said Eadric. "It looks as if the trolls took off in a hurry, leaving nearly everything behind." He poked something with the toe of his boot, turning it over. "See, here's a club, and this was probably someone's meal." A bloody haunch of some kind of animal lay in the dust, covered with soft, wormlike insects.
"Keep your eyes open," said Garrid. "There's something strange about this. It isn't normal for trolls to abandon food."
"Maybe it's a trap," said Shelton. "Crabs know all about traps."
"Then why do so many get caught in them?" asked Eadric.
Shelton waved his eyestalks in irritation. "I said we know about them. That doesn't mean we understand them."
This time when Li'l and Garrid flew ahead, they waited for us at the next abandoned sentry post. Eadric found bone fragments like the ones the first trolls had been using to play a game as well as a note written in some strange lettering. "I might be able to read that," said Garrid. "You pick up all sorts of things when you live as long as I have. Let me see . . . Ah, yes. It says, 'Take two blister beetles and call me in the morning.'"
"It sounds like someone wasn't feeling well," I said.
"Maybe," said Eadric. "I just wish I knew what was going on."
Li'l and Garrid took off again, but were back a few minutes later with news to share. "There's a troll up ahead," said Li'l. "He's lying on the ground moaning."
We started to hurry. "Ferdy and I can get him to tell us what's going on," Eadric said, tapping his sword's hilt for emphasis.
"Don't take Ferdy out unless it's absolutely necessary," I told Eadric. "You know how loud he is."
Eadric looked annoyed. "He can be quiet when he has to be."
"Uh-huh," I said. "I've heard him hum. Just keep him in his scabbard if you can."
"Say," said Shelton. "You do know where you're going, don't you? There could be miles of passages in here. Do you know which one we want?"
"Of course we do," Eadric said, turning to me. "We do, don't we?"
I shook my head. "Not exactly. All I know is that he's being held in a room near the troll queen's treasure chamber."
"You mean we have to search this entire mountain?" asked Li'l.
I felt defensive when I said, "At least I picked the right mountain. This is where the trolls live, so he has to be around here somewhere."
"We'll find him," said Eadric. "We just have to start thinking like trolls."
"As long as you don't start acting like one," muttered Shelton.
"If anyone asked me," said Garrid, "I'd say that we're heading in the right direction. Li'l and I explored some of the side passages. Most of them looked like no one has set foot in there for years. The passage we're in is the most traveled. I think that if we look for the more heavily guarded passageways, we're bound to find him."
'You're so smart," Li'l told Garrid, gazing at him with love in her eyes. Apparently their conversation had taken a different turn when we could no longer hear them.
"Gick! Not you, too! It's bad enough when they're all mushy," Shelton said, pointing at Eadric and me. "I thought bats were smarter than that." Eadric grinned. "I guess not."
Shelton almost fell off my shoulder when I jabbed Eadric in the side with my elbow.
We found the sick troll lying in the entrance to a large cavern. He was
alone, although there were enough weapons and food scattered around him for two or three trolls. He moaned when he saw us, then fell back and closed his eyes. After glancing at me, Eadric approached the troll with his hand on Ferdy's hilt, but without pulling the sword from its scabbard. Keeping a cautious distance, he poked the troll with his foot, saying, "Sit up and answer some questions."
The troll rolled his head from side to side and moaned. "Go 'way," he mumbled. "Not want now. Eat later when feel better."
"I think he's sick," I said, going to stand beside Eadric. "Look at his face."
Blotchy and covered with deep purple spots, the troll did look terrible. He was sweating profusely, and his long dark hair was plastered to his head. Looking down from his perch on my shoulder, Shelton said, "That's a troll? They looked scarier at night."
The troll opened his eyes again, only this time his gaze fell on Shelton. "Ohhh, I seeing things," he moaned, and he covered his eyes with his hand. I'd never really noticed a troll's hands before. They were big and meaty with thick nails at least four inches long that looked like formidable weapons.
"Let's go," said Eadric. "We're not going to get anything out of him."
Although we kept to the most traveled passages, it was a while before we encountered any more trolls. We had passed through one cavern after another, all of them without sentries, when we came to an exceptionally large space where water covered most of the floor. Standing at its edge, it was impossible to tell how deep it was, but when we held up our torches, we could see sinuous shapes gliding along the bottom.
Eadric had warned everyone to be careful to avoid making noise that might echo, but Shelton was too excited at seeing so much water to keep quiet any longer. "Would you look at that!" he said, scrambling down from my shoulder to the ground. "A crab could enjoy a place like this!"
"Stay with us, Shelton!" I said.