The troll’s ironclad hand closed on the poleaxe shaft and jerked the weapon away with such sudden force that Ulf was thrown across the chamber, the first ten feet without touching the ground.
Snorri’s paralysis left him and he leapt to the attack, swinging his axe into the creature’s side. Audun followed, bellowing, sword raised high. Another of Erik’s arrows caromed from the creature’s armour.
Snorri struck again, a solid blow. It was as if he’d hit a boulder. Audun landed a swing with every ounce of the strength in his thick-muscled arm, and the transmitted shock of the impact shook his sword from numbed fingers. A moment later the troll knocked him aside with a backhanded slap that shared much in common with a sledgehammer blow to the face.
“mmmmMMMRRRYYYY!” The deafening howl echoed through the chamber.
Snorri replied with his own roar and swung at the monster’s face, but somehow found himself on his back, his vision swimming, though still good enough for him to see the great metal foot descending toward him.
“Undoreth!” A figure that had to be Ulf returning to the fray hurled itself at the troll.
The iron foot pinned Snorri to the ground despite his best effort to roll clear. As the weight mounted on his chest, causing his ribs to creak and driving the air from his lungs, Snorri saw Ulf swing toward the troll’s face with his hatchet.
Only it couldn’t be Ulf. Too wide for one thing. And Ulf would never get that close to a troll. It was his rule number one. Snorri blinked away tears, or blood, and saw Olaf, arm extended high above his head, strike the shard of metal that was trapped in the troll’s mouthguard. Snorri groaned, and not just from the pain of the rapidly growing pressure that would very soon crush his chest. Olaf had had a good plan. If he could hammer that shard deeper through the hole it had already made in the troll’s armour, it would skewer the monster’s head. But instead his swing struck the side of the metal fragment and knocked it out, sending it flying into the dark.
“Maylee!” the troll screamed, its voice almost human now.
One of Erik’s arrows struck the black globe of its right eye and ricocheted away. Snorri rolled his head back, dying, unable to breathe, his vison going dark. As soon as the troll shifted its weight from its other leg, he would be a red mess of broken bones and pulped organs. The troll glanced down at him and moved to do just that.
“Maylee!” came Olaf’s shout.
In that moment the troll froze, its vast body seizing up mid-action to become as still as any statue ever carved in Odin’s name.
For several heartbeats none of them moved. Snorri’s pulse pounded in his ears. His flattened lungs laboured in vain to draw breath.
“Maylee? Chitholg lagga namastay?” The voice that came from the troll still buzzed and broke and wavered in loudness, but now it sounded almost like a woman’s voice, a woman’s voice mixed with fear and hope.
“I don’t understand you.” Olaf ran to Snorri’s side and tried without success to lift the iron foot from his chest. “You’re killing my friend.”
“Icanthen, Maylee? Dottirsname gefahren?” The pressure eased, then lifted entirely. It seemed to Snorri, as he drew his first breath in far too long, that the troll had changed its way of speaking and was using a language he almost recognized.
“I don’t speak the empire tongue,” Olaf called as he tried to drag Snorri clear.
The troll said nothing for a moment, though it did lower its foot as Snorri finally managed to roll out from under it.
“Norsenmen, is it that youarre?” the troll asked.
“Yes! Norsemen,” Olaf called.
Snorri tried to sit. His breath wheezed in and hissed out, as delicious as life and agonizing at the same time.
“Why did you say my daughter’s name?” the troll asked, the woman’s voice growing clearer with each new thing she said. “And why”—a light began to flow from the troll’s huge iron hands—“am I within a mechanical?”
And there before them, as if she had spilled from the troll’s grasp, stood a woman made of white light, as if her image were somehow seen among the shifting of a hundred hanging cloths, each disturbed by a sea breeze. She stood as tall as Olaf, statuesque, long haired, clad in strange garments not meant for the chill of a northern spring. She turned dark eyes on Snorri as he struggled to his feet.
“Your daughter is Maylee?” Olaf asked, peering at her with his head bowed, for surely she was from Asgard.
“This is the Drevja base in northern Norway.” The woman looked around. Where her gaze fell, lights flickered in the walls. Some stuttered into life, others failed and died away, but within moments the place was better illuminated than any jarl’s hall. Ulf and Audun lay motionless where they had landed. Erik had backed to the far wall, but his bow hung forgotten from limp fingers. “A maintenance hub for hydroelectric stations.”
Snorri had been impressed by the goddess’s swift mastery of their language, but now she seemed to be relapsing into a foreign tongue.
The woman waved a hand at the giant they had backed away from earlier. The glow behind its visor intensified, and with a loud grinding noise, it took one step forward to stand at the entrance to its alcove.
“Why did you say Maylee’s name?” She looked grave, sorrowful.
“You were shouting it.” Snorri snarled the words past his pain. “That, was roaring it.” He gestured past her toward the motionless troll with his axe.
The woman’s eyes widened and she turned toward the troll. “How strange. I haven’t been out of the deep nets for . . .” She frowned. “Well . . . a thousand years. There are so many other worlds, it’s easy to forget that this one even exists. But a thousand years! I hadn’t thought it anything like so long.” She looked back to Olaf and Snorri. “Well, it explains your appearance at least. But not here . . . why are you here?” She narrowed her eyes, seeming suddenly alarmed. “Your kind should not be here. There is infrastructure that needs protecting. We can’t have you burrowing, damaging the network, breaking memory banks.” Behind her both the troll and the giant flexed and began to lift their great hands.
“We tracked that!” Snorri indicated the looming troll. “It was raiding our villages. Killing and looting—”
“Not looting,” Olaf interrupted. “And did it kill any who didn’t first attack it?”
“We saw the dead, and Myrgiol—”
“We saw people crushed in the ruins of their homes,” Olaf said. “But were they dead because the troll attacked them or . . .”
Snorri considered what the troll could do if it wanted to kill someone. Their body would be scattered in small pieces or little more than a wide red stain. “Or it was searching for something!”
“Or someone,” said Olaf.
“The troll . . .” Snorri frowned, trying to think past his pain. “It was looking for Maylee. Calling for her, but its voice was broken.”
“Where is your daughter?” Olaf asked softly.
“Dead.” A shudder ran through the light that made the woman. A ripple of darkness. “She died a child, back on the first and last day of our war. Too young to be rendered in the system.” She looked down at herself. “Like this.” And then, as if she had been studying something behind her eyes and had only now seen the truth, her face changed, her mouth losing its hard lines and going slack. “Oh.” The word fell from her lips. She took a moment to gather herself. “It seems this unit and others have been acting on undirected overspill commands.” She noticed their confusion. “My dreams,” she explained. “These machines have been acting on my dreaming, if you like. I have . . . strong . . . dreams.”
“This . . . troll,” Olaf said, “has been searching for your daughter because you still dream of her?”
The woman looked away as if seeing something else. “This unit and eleven others scattered across the world. Most are too broken to comply, but twelve were able.” A sadness took possession of her face. “I will seal the data leak. There will be no more searches.” She looked to where Ulf and Au
dun lay. “I am sorry for your friends. Did they have children?”
Snorri shook his head. “Not Audun. Ulf has two grown daughters living in Einhaur.” He had thought himself finished, but his tongue had more to add. “I have a son, two years old.”
The woman’s face flickered between the sadness that held her and a second face, alarmed, eyes held by some distant scene. “I must go. Other matters demand my attention. And you must leave. It would be unwise to linger here.” She paused and focused on Snorri. “Watch over your son. Keep him safe. No parent should outlive their child—it is a hurt that endures. And if that hell should ever fall upon you, then pray with all your heart that you are not given a thousand years to suffer the memory of that loss.”
And with that she was gone.
In five loud strides the Iron Troll retreated to an empty alcove, and as it pressed its back to the wall, all the lights went out. Only the flickers of flame still lapping the stone where Ulf’s lantern had been smashed, and the fire from Audun’s fallen torch, remained to illuminate the chamber.
Ulf gave a groan and rolled over. A glance told Snorri that Audun would never rise again.
“Quick.” Olaf hurried to Ulf’s side. “Let’s get out of here.”
And so it was that Erik and Snorri followed Olaf back out into the brightness of the day, helping Ulf Greyheart between them.
They sat on the lower slopes, taking bread and water, glad to be alive, speaking of what they had seen and of Audun’s fall. It was, they decided, a warrior’s death, and he would be welcomed into Valhalla as a man who had faced both giants and trolls.
Ulf sat with his head bandaged and counted through the silver they had taken from Magyar’s workshop. A bar for each man.
“You earned this, Olaf Arnsson.” Ulf handed the largest bar to the boy. “My apologies for doubting you. Forgive the foolishness of an old man. Any who are raised on the cold shores of the Uulisk are worthy of respect.”
Olaf stowed away his silver and lay back next to Snorri. “Will you take the ship with the jarl then? When his sails come east for men?”
Snorri shook his head. “A man shouldn’t run from what he fears. Even if it’s into battle. You know what scares me, Olaf. You always did. But you waited and let me understand it for myself.” He would have said more but his mouth wouldn’t shape the words, not without quavering. Pride is a strange thing, and Snorri had fought enough battles that day, and so he kept the words inside. He would let pride command his tongue, but not his actions.
He would return to Eight Quays and lift up that little child he had made with Mhaeri, and he would give the boy his heart just as he had given it to Mhaeri, and he would defend that boy with arm and axe from all that he could. But if a foe came that he could not defeat. A fever in the night. The grey wasting. A cruel trick of Loki’s choosing. Then yes, his heart would break again, and yes, he feared that more than the claws of any troll. But he would face it, and if he lived a thousand years, he would live them with that pain. Because his friend had shown him that the true challenge that stands before a man is often right before his eyes, and runs deeper than any axe can cut.
DELILAH S. DAWSON
THE TALES OF PELL WAS BORN IN A BARBECUE RESTAURANT IN THE Dallas airport when my dear friend Kevin Hearne pitched me a series of stories based on lovingly flipping fantasy tropes. Despite the fact that its existence is completely ridiculous and highly improbable, Kill the Farm Boy is now out from Del Rey Books, with No Country for Old Gnomes and The Princess Beard to follow. This is our first short story in that realm—my attempt to question why quests must always be blessed by the Elders, and why “Elders” needs to be capitalized, and why very old people offer children very old candy that is covered in very old cat hair when obviously nobody wants to eat that. Maybe those questions don’t have answers, but I’ve tried, by dinkum. For more Pell fun, including finding out who you would be in that mystical land, visit TalesofPell.com.
Delilah S. Dawson
Among a Throng of Bilious Octogenarians
A Story from the Tales of Pell
Delilah S. Dawson (with Kevin Hearne’s blessing)
“Young folks never appreciate the utility of a healthy, functioning sphincter until it fails them. Go on, caper and cavort, eat that spicy food while you can! Just know that from diapers you emerged, and to diapers you will return.”
—Jussi Rompers, in Gastroenterological Daredevils I Have Kilt
It befell in the days before people kept track of such things that a foine young lad met a pixie, and the pixie did anoint him, and the young lad said, “Oh, gross! Is that mucus?”
“It’s magic, you ungrateful snoot,” the pixie said, discreetly wiping her wand on her sock. “In case you hadn’t noticed, you’ve been anointed. You’re going to be a great king one day. Or possibly just a passable king, or maybe even a terrible one. The greatness bit is up to you, but I’d suggest aiming for passable or better, as beheading is messy and, frankly, a lot more fun for the crowd. But I’ve done my bit, so now get on with it.”
“Get on with what?” asked the foine young lad, whose name was Barthur. He was a smallish and gangly and pasty human with the sort of hands and feet everyone assured him he would probably grow into.
The pixie shrugged and rubbed her nose. “Get on with your destiny.”
“But I’m to be a squire!”
“A squirrel?”
“A squire!”
“So aim higher. Be a king. Find yourself a quest.”
“A quest?”
With a sigh, the pixie put her hands on her hips and considered the boy. “Yes. That’s how you make things happen. You go do something important, and people say, My, that foine young ladde has a sort of god-like halo, or perhaps it’s just the sun, but we should most definitely give him a crown and start painting his face on pennants and things and make him king, and maybe he’ll make our hideous life in the sodden mire ever so slightly more tolerable. That’s simply how it’s done. Rescue a princess, slay a fire-breathing dragon, find a glowing thing. Heck, go after the Holy Quail; at least quails don’t breathe fire! All I can tell you is that nothing fateful ever happens to squirrels who sit around polishing other people’s lances all day.”
And with that, she flew off in a serpentine pattern that suggested she’d already hit the bottomless mimosa bar at the local halfling brunch spot.
Now if there was one thing Barthur knew, besides the fact that his tunic was indeed befouled by pixie mucus, it was that one simply did not set out on a quest without first gaining the permission and blessing of the Elders. These sage old souls were considered wise beyond belief, their joint knowledge encompassing all of history, geography, culture, art, magic, and a sort of general knowledge referred to as Potpourri. And so Barthur dabbed uselessly at his tunic and wiped the layers of stable grime off his face and went to knock on the grand oaken door of the St. Jocomo the Squat Elder Home and Hostel.
Knock, knock, knock, he knocked, and then once more, sharply, for emphasis, so they would know he was a Lad of Certainty.
Knock!
Barthur’s hands were shaking, and it seemed like all his blood had pooled in his feet, leaving his head more stupid than usual, and he couldn’t believe that a little pixie mucus had emboldened him so. To approach the Elders for a blessing—that was the stuff of heroes! And he was just a squirrel—er, squire! But he was here and committed to his path, and someone inside was shouting “Not it!” and footsteps were slowly pattering toward the door, and if he turned to run away and got caught, it would be very awkward indeed.
“Heh?” someone shouted through the thick, carved oak.
“I am Barthur, son of Buther, here to seek audience with the Elders,” Barthur said, pitching his voice low.
“Heh?”
A little louder and squeakier this time, he said, “I am Barthur, son of Buther, here to seek audience with the—”
“Heh?”
“I AM BARTHUR, SON OF—”
“Is some
one there?”
“CAN I COME IN, PLEASE?”
Seven locks slowly clicked on the other side of the door, accompanied by the sounds of grunting and the licking of dry lips. The door opened just wide enough to show a safety chain and a rheumy eye set in warm brown skin under an awning of quavering white eyebrow.
“You delivering food?” the man barked in a fug of chowder breath.
“No, sir, I—”
“Flowers, maybe? Candygram? Birthday card? Perhaps a fruit bouquet with the pineapple cut into little stars and dipped into not quite enough chocolate?”
“No, but—”
“Are you Ermenegilda’s granddaughter? Because if so, we need to talk about your dress.”
“My tunic?”
The old man cleared his throat and whispered, “It’s a bit mucusy, kid, and that’s coming from a blind guy. Unbecoming too. Kids these days. With their raised hems and whispering.”
Barthur firmed up his chin and forced his noodley spine straight. He spoke loud and sure, making an uncomfortable amount of eye contact. “Sir, I’m here to speak with the Elders. I am Barthur, son of Buther, and I have been anointed this day and sent on a holy quest—”
“Oh, is that it? Come on in.” The chain slid, the door opened, and a bright light blinded Barthur as the old man shouted, “Hey, listen up! This kid has a holey vest. Needs patching. Who’s got the sewing basket?”
Barthur found himself in a room simply dripping in candles and thick with the odor of mothballs and soup and portent. Five low, squashy chairs formed a semicircle facing the door, and on those cushy chairs he saw five donut-shaped cushions of fine gnomeric handiwork, and on each donut-shaped cushion sat an aged person with a long, fine beard of white or gray. These enigmatic folk were pruneish about the face, their eyes black buttons sunken amid taffy-like wrinkles. One dark-skinned old man had an ear horn, and an old woman with toast-brown skin and apple-red cheeks was knitting a solemn-looking sweater. The other two Elders, if Elders they were, looked vaguely like his Aunt Sandy and were staring off into space as they puffed on pipes. He couldn’t tell if they were male or female, much less if they were awake. The man who’d opened the door was rummaging in an old basket, muttering about mouse dookies.
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