Grump & Rose

by Aaron Burdett

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Chapter One - The Secondborn Son

  Chapter Two - Dig a Little Deeper

  Chapter Three - Thunder and Lightning

  Chapter Four - Grubs for Greenskins

  Chapter Five - Farlain Forest

  Chapter Six - A Different Kind of Clan

  Chapter Seven - Teacher

  Chapter Eight - Boil's Bargain

  Chapter Nine - Cradles of Earth

  Chapter Ten - Boil the Digger

  Chapter Eleven - A Puff or Two

  Chapter Twelve - The Mojo Lesson

  Chapter Thirteen - Gifts for Grump

  Chapter Fourteen - Ash and Ember

  Chapter Fifteen - A Trollish Tantrum

  Chapter Sixteen - The Mine Master's Pet

  Chapter Seventeen - Reunion

  Chapter Eighteen - Beyond the Stone

  Chapter Nineteen - Hunger Rising

  Chapter Twenty - The Bargain

  Chapter Twenty-One - Scarlet Swamp

  Chapter Twenty-Two - Boil's Mission

  Chapter Twenty-Three - Goats and Gardens

  Chapter Twenty-Four - Sunrise

  Chapter Twenty-Five - The Visitor

  Chapter Twenty-Six - Strike a Deal

  Chapter Twenty-Seven - Rose

  Chapter Twenty-Eight - World Alight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine - Whistle and the Wind

  Chapter Thirty - The Haunt

  Chapter Thirty-One - Caged

  Chapter Thirty-Two - Haunted of the Haunts

  Chapter Thirty-Three - Plans and Such

  Chapter Thirty-Four - A Toast to Grump

  Chapter Thirty-Five - Before the Doors

  Chapter Thirty-Six - Poxes

  Chapter Thirty-Seven - The Sighing Marshes

  Chapter Thirty-Eight - Alberlilly

  Chapter Thirty-Nine - Ruins of a Lost Age

  Chapter Forty - A Man of Order

  Chapter Forty-One - Into the Woods

  Chapter Forty-Two - Thimbleweed Among Friends

  Chapter Forty-Three - Frayed Edges

  Chapter Forty-Four - Drizzle

  Chapter Forty-Five - The Bridge

  Chapter Forty-Six - The Wizard of Grand Mountain

  Chapter Forty-Seven - To the West

  To all the little trolls out there who just had to be different.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  The Secondborn Son

  On the far side of the Grey Plains, beyond the shadow of Farlain Forest, deep in the soggy maze of the Blackwood Swamp where no sane fair folk traveled, Grump Bulderbag tended his goat. He loved his goat, and the other trolls loathed him for it.

  In his murky hamlet, Grump's obsession arched many a brow and sparked many a whisper when darkness was thickest and crickets chirped their midnight song. Most trolls preferred a goat's meat to its milk, the firstborn would tell Grump. Thorn always had a wise word or two to toss his younger brother's way. It was the least his older brother could do now that Grump had no doubt his younger siblings wanted him dead.

  Grump patted his goat with a sigh. He called her Bah, because that was all she ever did. She smacked on a tuft of stinkweed, lifting her jaw in a slobbery smile as she swallowed the mouthful. He reflected her grin, passing his hand over her mottled brown and white coat while he leaned against a blackwood cypress towering so high its branches faded somewhere in the gloomy grey swirling above.

  He plucked a reed from the slimy shallows bubbling at the tree's enormous, tangled tentacle roots and chewed on the stalk's tip, staring blankly into the canopy. Thin vines ran in sagging lines from one trunk to the next, a crisscross labyrinth of tired snakes fattened on the swamp's sopping fog. The very air clouded with the stench of mud and moss and stagnant water. Even on the clearest days, sunlight in the swamp was little more than a muted grey tinged with sickly blue, the lethal rays choked to death before they ever reached the trolls that made the Blackwood Swamp their home.

  Good thing too. A world without sunlight was paradise for a troll. “Let the fair folk have their sun,” Grump's father would tell his children, “and when the night comes, the trolls will have the fair folk.”

  A firefly flashed before Grump and faded like a spark thrown into the wind. A few toads croaked nearby. The rhythm of life soothed nerves lately rattled and gave Grump a glimpse of peace. He licked his lips and scratched Bah's ear. She bleated and ripped another tuft of grass, working on her meal.

  Leaves rattled and droplets plopped into mud. A pang of anxiety slapped Grump's heart. A branch cracked close by, snapped by a heavy foot.

  Cold sweat congealed on Grump's palm, so he wiped it across his chest. Another branch cracked, closer now, cloaked in murk.

  "Who's there?" he asked. "I can hear you. I'm … I'm not afraid of you. I am the secondborn."

  Bah protested as he wrapped his arm beneath her soft belly and plucked her from the ground. He trudged through the marsh, its tall reeds tickling his shins, until he spotted her makeshift pen. He glanced behind him. A form disturbed the shadows. It trailed him, just out of sight.

  A deep giggle disturbed the quiet somewhere to his right. To the left, a low snort. A vine swung above him. A branch fell and splashed into the mud.

  Grump's heartbeat thundered in his ears. He clenched his teeth and stormed to the ring. His toe caught on a rock and he nearly tumbled over. Bah panicked, kicking him in the ribs. Under his breath, he cursed as he plopped her in the ring.

  "Don't worry, Bah, I'll keep them from you," he said, wincing at his tender side. She bleated a reply and went back to eating.

  Silence clapped shut over the swamp. Grump's gaze swept left and right and up into the canopy. Nothing moved. Nothing chirped or croaked. Not a single beetle beat its wings. But eyes, Grump felt eyes, hungry and violent.

  "Leave me alone," he snapped. "I'm not afraid. I'm not!"

  "We heard," a familiar voice growled from behind him.

  Grump spun back to Bah's pen. On the opposite side, Crush lorded above Grump's goat, rolling a knuckle between her ears as his long, pink tongue passed across his crooked teeth. Like Grump, Crush sported massive shoulders from which his bald head protruded like an angry wart. Two stubby, pointed ears jutted from the thirdborn's temples, and his lower lip hung loosely before the two tusks peeking from behind it. Long arms that could rip a man in two supported the troll's tree trunk of a torso while two stout, perpetually bent legs made him a fierce sprinter and climber.

  But unlike Grump, Crush stood two heads taller and already neared the firstborn’s weight despite being so much younger. Crush always smiled, too. That more than anything disgusted Grump about his younger brother. Other trolls said Crush would grow into a mighty warrior, maybe even the mightiest the swamp had ever known. Even Grump's father said so, that night before all other trolls in the hamlet when he proudly exclaimed his thirdborn should kill the shameful runt that was his secondborn.

  "Your pet's getting fat, little brother," Crush said with a smirk.

  Scarlet rimmed Grump's vision, and the Hunger within him rippled through his blood. The swamp closed around him, its air warming with his racing heart. "Don't touch my pet, thirdborn. She is mine. Mine!" His voice rumbled like thunder from his chest.

  "Do I hear Hunger in your voice, little brother?" Crush's eyes widened as his smile grew. He jabbed his knuckle hard at the base of her skull. Bah protested and danced away, but her pen was too small and Grump's brother much too large. One swipe and Crush would….

  Grump shook the thought from his head. No. Bah was his. No troll could take another's things and not pay a serious pr
ice.

  With a gentle swipe, Grump pulled Bah to his side of the pen. Already his Hunger abated. The pulsing red faded from his eyes, his heartbeat slowing as the rage ebbed. "Thirdborn, you are my little brother. I am secondborn. You are third. That's how counting works. Or did you forget?"

  Crush's smile faded into a frown, and his mottled amber eyes narrowed to glimmering slits. "Maybe. But we agree, you are my brother?"

  Grump snorted. "Yes...."

  "And you are littler than me. Right?"

  Grump's lips quivered in a snarl. "You are a fool."

  Crush arched a thick brow. "You are my brother and smaller than me, so I can call you little brother. This isn't a lie."

  "Then I guess we're both little in our own ways," Grump shot. "I may still grow, but you will always be thirdborn."

  Crush growled and slowly circled the pen, his eager gaze never straying from Grump. "There's time yet to take the secondborn title. You may dance like an elven princess around me, but there will come a night when I take my rightful place and burn you and your fat goat's bones in my hearth. Father will be pleased when he returns to know his disappointment can no longer soil the family name."

  Grump winced like Crush had thrown boiling water in his face. A laugh bubbled from Crush's lips, and he slapped the muddy water pooling at his feet.

  They faced one another, fists planted in the bog and bent forward—the way most trolls stood, for their upper bodies vastly outweighed their lower bodies. Another scent wafted through the air, the exhilarating anticipation of violence percolating through the tension. Crush's Hunger was palpable as it leaked from every pore and boiled in his eyes.

  "Why do you care for this stupid goat?" Crush asked. "Let your brothers and sisters eat it. It has good meat."

  "There are other goats outside the blackwoods. You go find those goats and eat them. Bah is mine."

  "Bah?" Crush's lips curled in a filthy smile. "You cared enough to name it?"

  Other trolls emerged from the shadows. They looked down on him, all of them, even his much younger brothers and sisters. He saw the hate in their eyes, and it took all his strength not to wilt under their scowls.

  Grump's hand instinctively went to the knife tucked into his loincloth. "Go away. I don't want to fight you today."

  "You speak more like a man than a troll, you pathetic swamp slug." Crush hawked spit on Grump's shoulder, and it rolled in a snotty ball down his arm.

  The Hunger hit Grump, as it hits all trolls slighted. His veins bulged as blood powered through them. His fingers dug into the soggy swamp.

  But unlike most trolls slighted, Grump swallowed the Hunger, and his veins shrank. "You can't force me to do this, Crush. You can try, but you'll fail. You always do. Maybe Father can't see it, but I can, and one day, I'll show you and him just who the shameful one is."

  Crush laughed again, and this time the others joined him. The air reverberated with deep, rolling guffaws and whiny cackles.

  Thirdborn cut his hand through the air, and the laughter died. "You'll give in to your Hunger, little brother, and when you do, I'll be there to crack your ribs. I'll wrap my arm around you. I'll break your jaw and make you drink your blood. I'll snap your neck then, and when you die, I will be the secondborn. It is as Father wishes. He sees better than you. He knows his son is little more than an elf in troll's skin."

  "Father may be chief, but he does not make the rules. You cannot kill me in the night like a coward, and you cannot fight me unless I fight you first. Go away."

  "I know the rules!" Crush slammed his fists into the swamp. Mud slapped Grump's face and chest. Still, Grump’s Hunger did not gain control. It never did.

  Grump waved dismissively. "Then live by the rules or find a new swamp. Maybe one of the other tribes can take you, a troll without a family or a home? I can ignore you all day, and you will stomp and growl and howl like a fool until your voice fails. I tell you to go for your own good. I'll not let you win. Not now. Not ever."

  Crush's knuckles cracked as he made a shaking fist and reared back. Grump lifted his chin. Thirdborn snarled and bared his teeth.

  Then, he smiled and relaxed, patting Grump's shoulder instead of punching his jaw. "You'll give in to the Hunger one day. Tend to your goat today, but know that you can never be more than what you are."

  "A troll?"

  "A freak."

  "Thank you for your wisdom, thirdborn."

  His brother spat in Bah's pen and pounded off, shaking the ground with each slamming of his knuckles into the mud. The other trolls faded, all save for one.

  "He is a stupid troll," Thorn said.

  Grump snorted at the firstborn's words. His brother reclined against a trunk, dragging his finger over the lichen clinging to the bark and flicking it into the swamp. If Crush was a boulder, Thorn was a cypress. Tall and quick and smarter than trolls had any business being, the firstborn of the Bulderbags didn't just lead their family while their father raided the fair folk lands, he towered above it.

  "You were watching the entire time then," Grump said, more as a statement than a question.

  When the firstborn came of age, their father took him on a raid to Farlain where they plundered an elven outpost. Thorn wore an elf maiden's gold collar on his tusk as a prize. He loved that glittering gold almost as much as a goblin or a dwarf, though if someone told him as much it would be an insult to his honor. Aside from that, his skin was the dark green of an evergreen's leaves, his sinewy muscles the taut kind that showed the barest twist and flex. His eyes were ever-narrow and always watching, always thinking.

  Thorn shrugged and managed a half-hearted smile for his little brother. "Crush is about as quiet as an old cypress smashing into the swamp, isn't he? You did well to control your Hunger. You're smart, Grump, even though you're small. Smarter than maybe even me."

  "At least half as smart as you, I hope." Grump eyed Thorn. Unlike the others, he didn't let the honeyed words disarm him. Crush would never be firstborn while Grump lived. That made Grump more like Thorn's shield from Crush's ambitions than a friend to his older brother.

  "At least as smart." Thorn chuckled and stalked forward, his gaze drifting from Grump to Bah. "You should train for battling more than shepherding. You're smaller than the others, but you're smart and you're stronger than they know. Let Crush think he has you off balance. Let him think his teasing has made the Hunger ravenous. It will make him careless and easy to kill."

  "That's risky for you. If Crush kills me, you'll have his attention next, and we know I am the only Bulderbag who can drown the Hunger when it calls us."

  "Yes, but fourthborn Hiss is weak and she loves ale. It would be safer for both of us to have her as third instead of Crush until I take my place as chief and we can all sleep easy again."

  Grump frowned. His brother didn't often speak so frankly about his ideas. He tensed as he realized the web woven in the words, narrowing his eyes. "You're ashamed of me and Bah, aren't you? Better to pluck the thorn in your side before you face the hunter lurking in your shadow."

  Thorn recoiled like the words hurt, but Grump knew better, and his look let the firstborn know it. Thorn relaxed and chuckled. "It's hard to be your only ally in the hamlet. You tend goats, Grump. Trolls don't tend goats, we eat them. What you do, it just isn't natural. The other families talk. They think you're soft. If you could just pretend to be more like other trolls…."

  "Like Crush?" Grump snarled and turned his back to his brother. "I cannot be anything like that pile of rotted wood. I will not be anything like him."

  "That's not what I'm saying. You know this. You bring shame on the Bulderbag name with your oddities. Your firstborn brother is doing nothing but trying to make you see this."

  "No, my firstborn brother wants to take the crown of bones and become chief, and he wants a name that's not tarred by a weakling secondborn. Don't think I don't know your mind. If I'm not the kind of troll you want in your family when you take Father's place, you'll find a way to have Crush ki
ll me. I know exactly where we stand, Brother!"

  "You have no friends but me." Thorn splashed as he charged behind Grump, halting so close Grump smelled the firstborn's fishy breath. "I’ll be chief soon enough. If Father goes to his grave in Farlain, then I will lead this family and all others. Father cannot order his son's death, but I can order my brother's if he continues to act in shameful ways. Your life is safe enough with me for now, but if you want Crush to die when I become chief and you to live, you will listen to a firstborn's wisdom."

  Grump grunted and kept his eyes on Bah, even as his lip curled in a snarl.

  "No." Thorn grasped Grump's head in his calloused hands and twisted it toward him until their gazes locked. "Don't be a fool, Grump. Listen to me. Get rid of your stupid goat and start acting like a troll. Practice your fighting and study Crush's weaknesses. Watch your back. He becomes desperate the longer you control your Hunger and the longer Father is gone. He'll try to find a way to kill you, battle or no, and since you are so hells bent on making everyone in the swamp your enemy, no one will care if it goes against our laws."

  Thorn growled and spun around, slapping Grump's head forward when he turned. The firstborn mumbled to himself as he stalked to the nearest cypress and clamped his massive arms around the trunk. In a few quick bounds, the firstborn vanished into the dull canopy.

  Grump's nostrils swelled with his breaths. He tightened and relaxed his fists, but that didn't cool his boiling blood. He really couldn't deny the wisdom in Thorn's words.

  But Bah was his. Trolls never gave up what was rightfully theirs. Never.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Dig a Little Deeper

  Nobody gave a snot about the diggers and Boil didn't give a snot about them. Let the high clans drink their bile, smelt their gold, and hang their gems. Let them waste their days in the stony halls of the high mountain, fearing the surface men and their knights with sharp steel and mages with ice and flame. Boil didn't fear the surface. No, he'd walk straight up to those pesky bags of scarlet blood and bite their toes off if he got half the chance. If only he could ever get half the chance.