“Great!” the troll exclaimed, and thankfully it was too caught up in its excitement to notice the wince Dannen hadn’t been able to hide at its breath. “Bumblebelly go get game pieces, be right back.”
The troll rose, walking toward the back of the cave and giving its behind a good scratch as it did. For a moment, Dannen had a terrified thought that it seemed to be walking directly toward the corner it had appropriated for its defecating, was even more terrified by what the “game pieces” might be, and he breathed a heavy sigh of relief when the creature turned and went into a tunnel at the back of the cave instead.
“A game?” Mariana demanded in a whisper once the creature was out of sight. “Are you kidding me?”
“Well, sure,” Dannen said wearily. “Trolls love their games.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Mariana said, “but don’t we have more important things to be about?”
“Of course we do,” Dannen snapped, “but our troll friend didn’t seem ready to take ‘no’ for an answer, did he?”
“I hope it’s not cards,” Fedder muttered. “Never have any luck at them.”
“That’s your biggest concern?” Mariana demanded. “Losing at cards?’
The mage frowned. “You lost as much money as I have on ‘em, lass, they might be a big concern for you too.”
“I think she was referring, Fedder,” Dannen said, “to the fact that we’re in a troll’s den on the side of a freezing mountain.”
“Don’t forget the undead,” Tesler offered.
Dannen scowled. “Thank you. Yes, and there’s the undead too.”
The mage opened his mouth to say something but just then, Bumblebelly returned, carrying a thin, threadbare linen bag slung over one shoulder. So thin and so threadbare, in fact, that Dannen could see the outline of whatever was carried inside pressing against it. Perhaps it was because of his macabre mood—finding oneself inside of a troll’s den after having narrowly escaped death by undead, avalanche, and cold had a tendency to put one in a bad mood—but he couldn’t help feeling that whatever was inside looked suspiciously like human bones.
But another thing his life had taught him was that when a man went around expecting the worst, the world rarely failed to disappoint, and so he was only partially surprised when the grinning troll upended the sack’s contents on the floor, to find that they were, in fact, human bones.
There were several skulls among what he took to be the arm and leg bones of several bastards who were apparently even less lucky than he was, though it was likely too early to tell. After all, it was a big sack, and there was still some room left. The troll tossed the sack to the side where it landed perilously close to the piles of its own feces then held its hands out like a magician who has just performed some amazing trick and is waiting expectantly for the applause that must certainly follow.
Something was obviously expected of them, so Dannen cleared his throat. “They’re um…they’re bones.”
“Well, sure!” the troll said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “What you expect? Dice? Cards?” It snorted and gave its head a good shake as if to show what it thought of that then paused, frowning in thought. “Bumblebelly did play dice once. With friends. Use knucklebones. They’re good for it.”
“Yeah,” Dannen said, nodding slowly, “maybe I’ve heard that somewhere.”
“And these bones,” Fedder said. “They aren’t, by chance, from one of your other visitors are they?”
The troll shifted like a child caught at mischief, refusing to meet any of their eyes. “It been so long…who can say?” it asked.
“Doesn’t it seem a bit…I don’t know,” Tesler ventured, “disrespectful?” They all turned to look at him, and he blanched at the attention. “What I mean…to use someone else’s remains to play a game it seems…wrong.”
“Why?” the troll asked in a genuinely curious voice. “He not using them anymore.”
“What I think he’s trying to say, Bumblebelly,” Dannen offered, “is that we mortals usually bury our dead.”
The troll snorted. “Yes, Bumblebelly heard this before. At first could not believe it. Mortals very wasteful.”
Dannen wasn’t about to get in an argument with a troll who had just dumped a bag of human bones—the skulls of which, Dannen noted, had undeniable dents in them—in front of him, so he nodded. “Yes. Yes, probably we can be.”
“Should be more like trolls,” Bumblebelly said.
Dannen cleared his throat. “Right. Well, that’s on everybody’s list, sure.”
“Yeah,” Fedder growled, “and maybe we can start by not bathing…you know…like ever.”
Dannen hissed, scowling at the man, but when he turned back to the troll, Bumblebelly was only nodding as if he agreed and didn’t appear to be offended in the least. Dannen supposed he should have known that anyone who was willing to live, sleep—and presumably eat, though hopefully not anytime soon—only feet away from piles of their own feces wasn’t particularly concerned about cleanliness.
“So…” Tesler said, eyeing the bones doubtfully, “what’s the game?”
Bumblebelly let out another roaring laugh, and Dannen winced at the guttural, somehow sickening sound. “You mortals know nothing,” the troll said. “You can play many game with bones. Many. And the more bone you have the better.”
Dannen couldn’t speak on that, but he certainly thought that the less bones a man had the worse off he was, so he supposed it stood to reason that the reverse was true. “And what game, Bumblebelly, do you want to play? It will have to be quick, if at all possible. As I mentioned, we really are in a bit of a hurry.”
The troll waved a massive hand dismissively and turned back to the bones. “How about we play Guess That Bone?”
“Hmm,” Mariana said dryly, “I don’t know. Sounds complicated.”
“No,” the troll said, “not so complicated. Simple, really. See, what you do, I grab that bone, I show you that bone and then—”
“—and then I guess that bone?” Mariana finished in an awed tone, her eyes wide with feigned excitement.
Dannen gritted his teeth, looking toward the troll, thinking surely that the creature couldn’t have missed the obvious mockery in the girl’s words. Apparently, though, it did, for Bumblebelly grinned wide, nodding. “You play before,” he said.
“Yeah,” Mariana sighed, “something like that.”
The troll grinned. “Good, good. Now, you,” he turned to Dannen, “you go first.”
“Oh, thanks, Bumblebelly, but—”
The troll ignored him though, lifting a long bone out of the pile and brandishing it in front of Dannen’s face. “Guess, bridge killer.”
Dannen didn’t know all that much about bones. He’d broken a few, of course, so he had some idea of just how much that could hurt. And while he’d spent his fair time making corpses and trying his best not to be made into one himself, he never hung around long enough for the worms to finish so he could get a good look. He shrugged. “Looks like the bone to someone’s upper arm.”
The troll snorted. “Wrong!” it bellowed in obvious pleasure. “No, that is bone to a mortal man’s forearm.” The creature paused, giving the bone a good long lick and nodded. “You can tell by taste. Here try.”
He offered the bone to Dannen who held up his hands. “That uh…that won’t be necessary, Bumblebelly,” he said. “I’ll just take your word for it.”
The creature shrugged its shoulders. “Suit yourself. Also bone look completely different.”
“Right,” Dannen said. “Well, damn. I guess I’m out.”
“It okay,” the troll said, “we start new game soon.”
Then the troll was reaching back down in the pile, handing what looked suspiciously like someone’s spine to the wide-eyed Tesler. Dannen took the opportunity to turn to Fedder. “We need to talk. Come with me.”
Fedder frowned. “Sure, Butcher, sure, but can it wait a minute? My turn’s comin’ up soon and—�
�
“No, it can’t wait,” Dannen snapped. “Now come on, damn you.” He rose and with a sigh Fedder followed him as they started toward the cave entrance.
“Hey!”
They turned to see Bumblebelly frowning. “Where you go?”
Dannen’s first instinct was to tell the troll that he was going to take a piss, but he dismissed that immediately as no doubt even the creature might wonder at why such a task would take two of them. “It…well…” he started, his mind racing for some excuse.
“The undead,” Fedder said. “Thought we’d, you know, go check on ‘em, make sure none of ‘em have worked their way up the mountain yet.”
“These undead,” the troll said, “they have any meat on their bones?”
Dannen blinked. “Not as such, no, but if we see any that do while we’re outside, we’ll be sure to tell you.”
Bumblebelly smiled. “Thanks.”
“Anyway,” Dannen went on, “we’ll be right back.”
“Hurry,” the troll said, “or you miss Throw that Bone.”
“Gods forbid,” Dannen said, straight-faced, then he turned and led Fedder toward the cave entrance.
Outside of the cave, the wind was still piercing, so strong that it threatened to steal Dannen’s breath. The snow, at least, had stopped, but the temperature was incredibly cold, a cold that seemed to seep into his body, one that promised frostbite and hypothermia should any poor soul remain in it too long, conditions which he’d heard were both incredibly painful.
Which all meant, of course, that it was a toss-up between which was worse, the weather conditions or, alternatively, the troll’s odorous cave with its feces and dead men’s bones. And its troll, of course. It wouldn’t do to forget about that.
“Don’t know, Butcher,” Fedder said, walking up to the edge of the mountainside and staring down with a doubtful expression on his face. “The undead are hearty, sure, but I doubt they would have found their way back up the mountain so quickly.”
“What?” Dannen asked. “Damnit, I didn’t come out here to look for undead, Fedder.”
The mage frowned. “Then why did you say—”
“I was just looking for an excuse to get away, damnit, one that didn’t make that ugly bastard reach for that club of his.”
Fedder’s frown deepened. “Seems rude, Butcher, calling him a bastard after him going out of the way to invite us to his home and all.”
“To eat us.”
Fedder nodded slowly. “Yeah, there was that. Still, he didn’t, so there’s that.”
Dannen sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Fine, whatever. I didn’t want that kind troll to reach for that club of his.”
Fedder shook his head sadly. “Knew someone, once, who used to say that sarcasm was a sign of a weak mind.”
“That so?” Dannen challenged. “Well. Sounds like a real pompous asshole, if you ask me.”
Fedder turned from where he’d been looking off the mountainside, blinking. “It was my ma.”
Dannen swallowed. Maybe getting beaten to death by a pissed-off mage wouldn’t be quite as bad as getting beaten to death by a pissed-off troll, but he doubted very seriously if he would notice any shortcomings while the beating was taking place. “Sorry, Fedder,” he said, “I didn’t—”
The mage burst into laughter. “Oh, I’m just dickin’ with you, Butcher.”
“Oh,” Dannen said, giving a laugh of relief, “of course, I should have kno—”
“Though,” Fedder went on, “seeing as how I never met my mother, she might well be a pompous asshole.”
Dannen stared at the man, but if he was still joking, he did a damn fine job of hiding it as he grunted and stared out over the cliff once more. “Anyway,” Dannen offered after an awkward moment, “I called you out here so that we could devise some plan for escape.”
“Escape?” Fedder asked.
“Yes escape,” Dannen snapped, the fraying chord that was his patience snapping, “in case you haven’t noticed, Fedder, we’re in the den of troll, one whose idea of fun is to play with the remains of his victims.”
Fedder grunted. “We don’t know that he killed the folks as once owned those bones.”
“You’re right,” Dannen said. “More likely, he was just walking around one day and found a sack full of bones lying on the side of the mountain, thought, hey, you know what would be fun? To bring these home and see if I can tell them apart by the taste.”
Fedder nodded slowly. “You say it like that, it does sound a bit unlikely, them bein’ in the sack already and all. Still, he might have bought ‘em or—”
“From who?” Dannen shouted. “A bone merchant?”
“All I’m sayin’, Butcher, is it don’t seem right to condemn a man when he ain’t done nothing wrong.”
“He’s not a man, damn you!” Dannen yelled. “He’s a troll, for the gods’ sakes. And you and I both know that trolls only care about two things, Fedder. Playing games and eating. And when he tires of his games, what do you think he’ll be wanting to do then?”
The mage rubbed thoughtfully at his chin. “Eat?”
“Yes,” Dannen said slowly, “and what, do you think, he’ll eat, when the mood takes him?”
Fedder frowned. “Might be you’re right, Butcher. Might be best we take our leave of Bumblebelly, you know, just in case. Not that you’d have anything to worry about—troll or not, I’m sure even he doesn’t have such bad taste as to give you a nibble.”
Dannen had a brief moment where he felt offended by this, was just about to say that he wouldn’t taste any worse than the mage who likely carried the flavor of something that had been liberally doused in alcohol for forty-some-odd years. He was just opening his mouth to do exactly that before he realized two things. One, just because a man noticed other fools about him didn’t mean he wasn’t one himself and, two, stupidity might well be catching.
He scowled at the mage who was grinning at him as if he knew clearly the direction of his thoughts. “Fine, whatever. Can we just agree that we need to get out of here?”
Fedder shrugged. “If you say so, Butcher, though I gotta say my ma taught me it was impolite to refuse a host’s hospitality.”
“You said you never met your mother.”
“Well, true. But I reckon it’s the type of thing she woulda said, had she been around to say it.”
Dannen only stared at the man, thinking that, sometimes, words just didn’t do justice to the way a man felt—just then, homicidal.
Fedder must have seen some of his thoughts on his face, for he nodded. “Right, okay. So how do we get out of here? I mean, without pissing off our host who, I point out, has been nothing but gracious up to this point.”
“Aside from the fact that he himself admitted that he was going to eat us.”
“But he didn’t, though, that’s all I’m saying.”
“Anyway,” Dannen growled, “here’s what I’m thinking…”
***
Tesler looked dubiously at the bone that the troll, Bumblebelly held. “Um…is it…a shin bone?”
The troll grinned wide. “Yes shin bone! Good eating, shin bones well done!” It bellowed.
Tesler found himself grinning in response, his face flushing with pleasure. He looked to Mariana to see if she noticed his success in the game, but the woman was too busy scowling off in the direction Fedder and Dannen had gone.
He turned back to the troll. “Thanks,” he said.
“Alright woman mortal,” Bumblebelly said, “it your turn.”
Mariana sighed. “I can’t wait.”
The troll, though, seemed distracted, staring at the bone it held. “Bumblebelly so hungry. Not ate in forever. If Bumblebelly don’t eat soon, other trolls call him no belly.”
Tesler blinked. “Bumblebelly, did you just make a joke?”
The troll grinned at him, and Tesler laughed. “Well done.”
“Well, aren’t you two just fast friends,” Mariana snapped, clearly annoye
d. Likely, it was something Tesler had done, though now, like always, he had no idea of what that might have been. It seemed that the more he tried to please her, the more he managed to upset her, one way or the other.
“Friends,” the troll said thoughtfully, its large-featured face screwing up in concentration. “Yes. Bumblebelly likes friends.”
Don’t we all, Tesler thought sadly. To his surprise, though, he was finding that he enjoyed the troll’s company. True, the creature’s appearance was…imposing, perhaps even off-putting, but the troll had been nothing but kind to them since they’d arrived, allowing them to share its fire and even amusing them with games. Though, if he was being honest, guessing at the identity of bones wasn’t high on his list of amusements.
Still, he found, as the creature reached into the bag, its inarguably ugly face clearly excited by the game and reminding him somehow of a child’s face, he found that he felt sorry for it. Likely, the erstwhile owners of the bones stuffed into the bag would have felt differently, but he couldn’t help it. Mostly, he thought it was because he understood some small bit of what the creature must have gone through, being an outcast, not just by the world at large for its ugliness and the fact that it was a troll, but even by its own kind.
After all, Tesler’s people had treated him much the same when it became known that he could speak with animals. Most had not believed his claim and those who did had thought him cursed, some sort of monster, even his own father. He knew, then, of that loneliness which the troll had spoken of, had felt it often in his life. It was unfair that the troll might be treated like a monster just because of its appearance the same way that Tesler’s own people had treated him when they had practically driven him from their village, forcing him to make his way through life on his own.
Many beasts of the world, Tesler knew, were treated similarly, hated and feared if for no other reason than that they had been born as they had, something they could not help anymore than he could help his own gift or curse—the way he looked at it often changed from day to day. He wished, as he watched Mariana reluctantly study the bone the troll held, watched, too, the troll eagerly waiting for her guess, for the game to continue, that there was something he could do to help the creature, to heal some of the wound that being lonely, that being an outcast, caused.
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