Troll Hunters

by Michael Dahl

  “He’s not here,” whispered Mara. “Why isn’t he here?”

  Just then, Thora spotted a long, dark cloak laying on the floor. She picked it up. “It’s Dr. Hoo’s cape,” she said quietly.

  As she lifted the cloak, Thora saw there was an object underneath. “That’s Bryce’s pocket knife,” she said. “What is this doing here?”

  Pablo knelt down next to Thora. He pressed his fingers into a dark splotch upon the floor a short distance from where the cape lay.

  “Is this … blood?” Pablo asked quietly.

  Mara looked down at Pablo’s fingers. “Yes,” she said somberly.

  Louise pointed at the wall above the pool of blood. “What does that word mean?” she asked.

  Thora followed her finger. A word had been crudely carved into the wooden wall a few feet above the floor.

  It read: CROATOAN.

  Thora’s heart sank. The word had been carved with a pocket knife. Bryce’s knife. “What does ‘croatoan’ mean?” Thora asked.

  Tears began to well in Mara’s eyes. She turned to face the window. “It means,” she said, her voice quavering, “that Dr. Hoo has been kidnapped.”

  THE THIRD NIGHT

  Fiercer than lava,

  Stronger than stone,

  Harder than iron,

  Brighter than bone,

  Sharper than teeth,

  Deeper than fear —

  Answer this, friend,

  And see it appear.

  — an ancient gathool riddle

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Zak said. “Who could’ve kidnapped Dr. Hoo?”

  Mara hesitated. She glanced nervously at Thora. “The gathool took him,” she said. “I’m afraid he’s being held by the trolls now.”

  The room was silent for a moment. Then Thora leaped to her feet. Her face was red and her fists were clenched. “Say it,” she said. “Go ahead, say it! We’re all thinking it. The doctor disappeared because my brother took him. That’s why his pocket knife is here. Bryce carved ‘croatoan’ into the wall with his knife, then left it here!”

  Mara unfolded her arms and stuck her hands in the pockets of her long coat. “I don’t know for sure,” she said. “But, yes, it looks that way.”

  Thora covered her face with her hands and stood weeping in the middle of the room. Louise ran over to her and wrapped her arms around Thora’s waist.

  Zak’s heart sank as he stared at Thora. She had been so brave. Just two nights ago, she had helped save them all from two giant trolls. But now, Thora looked weak and small. I guess that’s normal, Zak thought. After all, the world is basically coming to an end.

  “Maybe Bryce was taken too,” Pablo said quietly. “Maybe he tried to help Dr. Hoo, but couldn’t. Maybe he left his pocket knife here as a sign.” Pablo looked back at Thora, who peered at him through the damp strands of her hair. “To let you know where they took him,” he added.

  Thora sniffed. She wiped the tears from her cheeks. “You think so?” she said.

  “Sure,” said Pablo. “But I still don’t get what that word means.” He pointed at the word croatoan, carved deeply into the wood.

  Zak crossed his arms. “It doesn’t matter what the word means,” he said. “What matters is they’re both gone, just like my parents. And we have to go find them.”

  Mara shook her head. “It’s too dangerous,” she said.

  “What do you mean?” Zak asked.

  “It’s likely that the trolls are trying to lure you underground to their realm,” Mara said. “It’s almost certainly a trap.”

  “We’ve defeated the trolls before,” argued Zak. “Twice, in fact. The doctor showed us how.”

  Thora tucked her hair behind her ears. “I agree with Zak,” she said. “The doctor saved us. Now we have to save him.”

  Mara sighed. She looked over at the wooden table near the center of the room. Dr. Hoo’s library was crammed with hundreds of books. “I gave those books on the top of the table to Dr. Hoo,” she said.

  Mara walked over, selected one book, and flipped through its pages. She stopped at a particular page and opened the book toward the others. “Listen to this,” she said, reading aloud: “An ancient prophecy among the gathool has warned them for centuries of a deadly ‘band of light’ that could destroy their species. But the gathool vocabulary is small; their mouths are limited in the sounds they can make. So few words must stand for many things. ‘Band’ can also mean ‘ring’ or ‘circle.’ ‘Light’ can also stand for ‘gold,’ ‘shining,’ or ‘pain.’”

  Thora nodded. “That’s what the doctor read to us the other night,” she said. “He said it meant that sunlight could defeat the trolls.”

  “It turns them to stone,” added Pablo.

  “It means something else, too,” said Mara. “The gathool can only be defeated by a ‘band of light.’ That does refer to the sun, but also means a band of companions.”

  “Like … a rock band?” asked Zak.

  Mara shot Zak a confused look. “What? No, of course not,” she said.

  Zak’s face turned red. “Then what do you mean?” he asked defensively.

  “A band of companions, or friends,” Mara said. “A band of warriors. Warriors whose brilliant light can defeat the trolls, just like sunlight.

  Just like when Pablo, Louise, Thora, and I had radiated light as we battled, Zak thought.

  “Dr. Hoo told me that you were chosen for this fight,” said Mara. “He’s spoken of you all for many years.”

  “But how?” asked Pablo. “He never met us before last night.”

  “I’m not sure,” Mara said. “But Dr. Hoo was convinced that Zion Falls was going to be the next battleground between the forces of darkness and the forces of light. He knew that the gathool would use places in this town as their entry points to the surface.”

  “Like the old well on the Nye farm,” said Pablo.

  “And the pit under the silo,” said Thora.

  Pablo stood. “We have to get to that old well,” he said. “If the trolls have taken Bryce and the doctor underground, then that’s how they’d get back to their world.”

  “What makes you so sure?” asked Zak.

  Pablo shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “It just … feels right.”

  Zak stared at Pablo. He glimpsed a weird light in Pablo’s eyes. Starlight. He had seen it before — and each time, it felt like the two of them were connected.

  Zak nodded confidently. “Yeah,” he said. “I think you’re right.”

  “Then it’s settled,” said Thora. “How far is the well from here?”

  Mara stepped forward. “No,” she said firmly. Everyone turned to look at her. “You aren’t going to the well.”

  “What are you talking about?” Zak snapped. “That’s the only way underground.”

  “No,” repeated Mara. “It’s not. There is a way to the troll kingdom that is much closer.”

  Mara took a step toward the wall. She raised her finger, pointing at the word etched into its surface. “Croatoan,” she said, “is a gathool word that means ‘bridge to the underworld’.”

  Puzzled faces stared back at Mara. She opened her hands to take in all of the tower. “The gathool have marked this tower as a gateway to the their kingdom,” she explained. “And we’re going to use it to enter their world.”

  With each step downward, Bryce Gamble found it harder to breathe. He and the doctor were marching deeper and deeper into the endless tunnels below the earth. The air was thick and hot, and felt heavy like it did before a summer storm in Zion Falls.

  Bryce wasn’t sure how he had gotten here. Only darkness surrounded him. Darkness and smoke.

  Hroooooom … hroom …

  A drum-like beat sounded from below. Bryce’s shuffling feet marched along to the rhythm of the sound as he walked through the rocky tunnel. He and the doctor were being pulled farther below the surface by some powerful unseen force.

  Bryce could see the shadowy outlines of others
marching with them. Seven or eight others, all moving forward in complete silence. Some of the figures looked familiar to Bryce, but he couldn’t remember their faces or their names.

  Bryce only remembered the doctor. He could see him clearly now, despite the darkness. And he could see the golden chains around all of their wrists. Bryce was a prisoner. So was the doctor. But why?

  Bryce felt like he was no longer in control of his actions. Some power had moved him like a puppet without strings. The power had forced him to enter the doctor’s house and confront the doctor. To kidnap him.

  But did I actually kidnap him? Bryce thought. After all, my hands are chained, too. What’s going on?

  The drum pounded, and his feet obeyed. They all marched mindlessly along their hot, horrible journey. But who — or what — was beating that drum?

  And where was Thora?

  In Dr. Hoo’s library, something strange was happening. The entire library shook. The four large windows of the octagonal room went black. A low hum vibrated through the air.

  Thora fell to the floor. She sat down hard in the middle of the doctor’s library, the room shaking around her. Why do I feel so dizzy? she thought. Is this some evil trick of the gathool?

  Louise collapsed into Thora’s lap. The little girl stared up at her with wide and fearful eyes. “What’s happening?” Louise pleaded, but Thora could barely hear her.

  Thora glanced around for Pablo. She saw him on the nearby couch. He was trying to stand up, but he kept falling back onto the cushions.

  Zak was still on his feet, but he jerked and wobbled like a puppet. He bent his knees and held his arms out for balance. Slowly, as if he were moving underwater, he trudged toward the library door.

  “No!” screamed Mara. “Don’t —”

  Zak opened the door. A burst of red light and sound threw him backward into the room. A grinding roar shuddered through the building. Wind rushed through the door, blowing books off shelves, and stirring up cyclones of dust.

  Thora shielded her face. She saw flashes of crimson light rushing past the library entrance as if they were on a merry-go-round.

  “We’re turning,” Thora cried. “The building is turning!”

  Mara staggered over to the door and slammed it shut. The wind stopped and the grinding sound quieted. She hurried over to Zak and kneeled, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “What’s going on?” Zak said. “What’s out there!?”

  “The word on the wall — croatoan,” Mara began. “The gathool warriors use the word whenever they need to leave a message behind for their comrades. It lets others know how to return home.”

  Pablo stood up from the couch. “Then we need to get there,” he said.

  Mara nodded. “But there is only one way to travel. By using ancient gathool technology. By using a croatoan.”

  Technology? Thora wondered. Then she remembered. In their most recent battle against the trolls, the creatures had been approaching the surface inside a weird tower-like vessel. It had risen through layers of rock and lava like a rocket made of stone.

  “The tower is descending!” Thora exclaimed.

  “Yes,” said Mara. “I don’t know how or why, but it must have something to do with the power inside each of you. The doctor always said you four are linked together.”

  “What do you mean?” Thora asked.

  “Dr. Hoo said that his tower would react to your desires when the time came,” Mara explained. “I didn’t realize before now that Dr. Hoo’s tower is a vessel that will take us into the heart of the gathool world.”

  Zak propped himself up on the floor. “So,” he said, “this house is taking us to the trolls’ realm?”

  Mara smiled at him. “Your unified desire to save the doctor, and your friends and family, must have activated the tower gateway, or croatoan,” she said. “Otherwise, it never would have moved.”

  Zak shook his head. “That’s crazy,” he said. “How can thoughts move an object? It’s just not realistic.”

  “But Zak,” said Thora, “think about what we’ve seen lately. The silo, the trolls, how we all … changed. Into warriors.”

  Zak hesitated. “I guess,” he said. “I just figured we’d climb down some well, scare a few of the trolls, and then drag the doctor’s butt back up here. Or … up there.” He glanced up at the library’s ceiling. “Uh, where exactly are we?”

  Mara walked to a book sitting on a wooden stand in the center of the room. “I’m not sure,” she replied. She flipped to the back of the book, reading the doctor’s notes aloud. “‘Reaching the entrance to the trolls’ realm likely involves traveling through solid rock, of course, but also some kind of barrier. Something like a different dimension.’”

  Zak rolled his eyes. “Every time you answer a question,” he said, “you make even less sense.”

  “Maybe it’s like a wormhole,” suggested Pablo.

  Everyone stared blankly at Pablo.

  “You know,” Pablo continued, “like, a single point that allows you to travel immediately across vast distances.”

  Thora arched an eyebrow and grinned. “Where did you hear about that?” she asked.

  Pablo smirked. “My dad and I used to watch a lot of Star Trek reruns,” he said. “In one episode, Captain Picard said that wormholes were like secret passages between different parts of the universe.” He trailed off, suddenly embarrassed.

  Thora smiled at Pablo. “I used to watch Star Trek too,” she said warmly. Pablo smiled.

  “Actually,” Mara said, “that’s not very different from how the doctor explained it to me.”

  Louise was still lying next to Thora with her head in Thora’s lap. “So … are we flying up?” Louise asked. “Or going down?”

  Thora could tell Louise was scared and trying to hide it. “I don’t know, Louise,” Thora said. “But at least we’re all together. Remember how you helped me back at the silo?”

  “Sort of,” said Louise. “I helped you lift that jar.”

  “Exactly,” Thora said. “Your power of balance helped us win that fight.”

  Louise sat up, smiling. “Yeah! I helped us win!” she repeated. “Cool!”

  Zak stood up, then he took a few steps and turned to face Thora. “So where’s that golden jar now?” he asked her.

  Thora rolled her eyes. “It’s not like I can pull it out of my pocket,” she said.

  “So where is it?” Zak repeated.

  Pablo walked up to Zak. “Where’s that bear I saw?” he challenged. “You know, Ursa Major.”

  “Oh yeah, the bear!” said Louise. She let out a little roar and started giggling.

  Zak looked down at his chest and his arms. “Let’s find out,” he said. He closed his eyes tightly and took a few deep breaths. His face started to turn red as he tensed all his muscles.

  Thora grinned. “What exactly are you trying to do?” she asked.

  Zak opened his eyes and let out a breath. “I’m focusing, okay?” he said. “I thought maybe if I concentrated —”

  “What?” interrupted Pablo. “You’d turn into a bear?”

  Thora laughed.

  Zak smirked. “Got any better ideas, Mr. Know-It-All?” he asked.

  Pablo put his hand on Zak’s shoulder. “Sorry,” Pablo said. “But I just don’t think it works that way.”

  “I think our powers work whenever we really need them,” Thora suggested. “But that’s just a guess.”

  Zak walked over to the couch and plopped down. “Great,” he said. “What good are superpowers if you can’t use them when you want to?”

  Thora squinted hard at Zak’s hands. She saw that his fingers were glowing. A silver radiance was creeping up Zak’s wrists and arms.

  “Zak!” cried Thora.

  Zak looked at her. “What, weirdo?”

  “Zak!” said Louise.

  “What is your problem?” Zak asked.

  “Look at your hands!” Thora said.

  Thora wat
ched Zak look at his hands. His eyes went wide. A smile slowly crept up to the corners of his mouth. “It’s happening!” he said.

  “Thora!” cried Louise. “Look at me!” She stood. She seemed as tall as Mara now. Her hair was longer, and it flickered back and forth as if an invisible wind ran through it.

  “Why is this happening now?” asked Thora.

  Mara raised her hand, motioning for everyone to be quiet. They all listened. The faint grinding sound was gone. The library room had stopped moving. The windows, which had been dark rectangles before, now let in a faint reddish light from beyond. The light danced around them like flames.

  One of the windows suddenly lit up with a bright red blaze. The glass shattered and went flying across the room.

  Something in the window hissed at them. Louise screamed.

  “Agna gathool,” cried Mara. “Fire trolls!”

  The troll known as Uzhk stopped at the mouth of a new tunnel that sloped downward at a steep angle. Uzhk peered in and stared at the far end. He made a strange sound in his throat that a human may have thought sounded like a gulp.

  This was the passageway that Uzhk had been seeking ever since he left the human farm far above him. The sight of the great tower rising up from within the abandoned silo had spurred him to come this way.

  Uzhk had seen similar vessels invading the surface before. Centuries ago, they had pierced through openings around the early American colonies. They had attacked armies on horseback in the far fields of Mongolia. The great vessels had soared upward into the Bermuda islands. Each time, they were defeated by the prak tara — the children of the stars.

  But Uzhk had learned a lesson from those battles. The gathool, his evil brethren, never attacked in just one place. More gathool warships, like the one beneath the silo, would be launched, and they would be carrying larger and deadlier warriors. He hoped he could reach the heart of the attacks, the ones who were sending the dark towers into the world of humans. If he could somehow stop them from attacking the surface …