The man strode over to the punctured ice. “Not hole. Footprint,” he said as his gaze traveled to another large break in the ice a good twenty feet upstream from where they stood.
She didn’t grasp what he meant right away. “You mean those holes were made by a, a––”
“Troll.” His voice dripped with malice. “The most vile and heinous creature ever to be spit from Niflheim.”
She shook her head. “You don’t think the troll step––” Her throat closed, choking off her voice.
“What? Step on your friend? No, I wouldn’t say so.”
A wave of relief swept over her.
The man strode upstream toward the next hole. “Ah no, I’d say it took your friend to its filthy nest for good meal.” He spat out a foul gob of tobacco juice and moved on.
Fighting the urge to gag, Fate stepped around the steaming splotch and chased after him. “To feed him dinner?”
The man stopped and laughed. “Ha! No, to eat him!” He looked at her like she was completely daft. “What? You think a troll will cook up nice plate of lutefisk for your friend and serve it with flagon of ale to boot?”
He pulled out an arrow marked with notches.
She counted sixteen. So this was Leif. He fit her mind’s eye image. He was attractive in a rugged sort of way, though she hadn’t expected his crude, brutish manners.
“Man eaters, these things.” He continued as he fingered the notches on the arrow, a deep scowl etched on his face. “I’ve seen them rip grown men apart. Their dens are filled with bones of humans.”
“No. I don’t believe you,” she argued, clinging to one thought only. There had been no mention of tree trolls eating anyone in this fable.
Shrugging, he slipped the arrow next to a sheathed sword strapped on his belt. “It’s not for me to make you believe.” He turned, continuing up the river to yet another hole the size of a car.
She followed, breaking into a trot to keep up. “I’m going with you. If a troll took my friend, I want to be there when you find him.”
He came to such an abrupt halt, she almost rammed into him. The cold, territorial look in his eyes made her stand rigid. “I be liking the pretty damsels, but not when hunting.” His ruddy expression relaxed, his blue eyes raking over her face with brazen desire. “You would like I come round after dark? Maybe tell you what is found and warm your bed?”
She glared at him, astonished and creeped out. “I’d rather eat overly mayonnaised coleslaw with wizened grape mummies lurking in every bite!”
“Is that no?”
“Yes, that’s no!”
“Suit yourself, little Freya.” He turned without further ado and trudged up the hill.
She glowered at his back, then shot into the air, watching his form shrink to the size of an ant. “Jackass,” she muttered.
Her thoughts turned to Finn as she hovered high overhead. A sickening, empty ache spread through her, knowing he was lost and injured, or possibly worse. Stiffening every muscle in her body ‘til it hurt, she sped through the sky, the tears freezing on her skin as she fixed her gaze on the snow blurring by below. She would find him or die trying.
Chapter 15
VISIONS OF GNASHING FANGS and tearing claws jarred Finn awake. Knifing pain throbbed across his chest, and his feet stung like he’d walked on broken glass. Gritting his teeth, he sat up, the smallest movements driving the pain even deeper into his chest. Afraid to look, he glanced down all the same, nearly passing out from the sight. Four long gashes exposed breastbone beneath shredded, bleeding flesh.
Drawing in a shaky breath to calm the panic threatening to overtake him, he focused on his surroundings. He was in an immense cave. A fire blazed next to him, the light flickering over walls covered in peculiar rune marks and pictographs. How had he come to be here? The last thing he remembered was standing by a frozen river.
The second he pictured the river, his heart hammered with the memory of a foul-smelling creature––all snarls, teeth and muscle––lunging at him, ripping into him. Cold sweat iced his back and forehead. He should be dead.
Forcing back the terror of the attack, he slumped, his body a limp rag. As his breathing steadied, he became aware of a presence. He turned his head, seeing a girl, no more than nineteen, crouching nearby in the dim light. Her face and arms were marked with the same runes as those on the cave walls. A wild tangle of silvery webs held her long ebony hair back from elfin features and she wore a sleeveless tunic with breeches tucked into thigh-high moccasins.
She seemed otherworldly––less human and more sprite––in the way her eyes smoldered with shifting colors of green.
Finn managed a pained, half-hearted smile. “I suppose I have you to thank for saving me from the jaws of death.”
Her smooth brow knitted into a frown, as if his voice grated on her ears. Then she nudged her chin and pointed a finger at the bottom of his bed.
He followed the line of her slender arm, jolting with fright. “Holy hell!” The animal that had attacked him was lying over his shins. It took him several seconds to realize the thing was dead.
She lifted the furs covering him so he could see that his feet were buried deep in the animal’s intestines. When the animal’s rank, musky stench escaped, nausea gripped hold. “Oh that’s bloody gross! And the reek, it’s enough to gag a maggot!”
He started jerking his legs out of the carcass but she pinned them down, making it clear by her grave expression he was not to move. Too faint to fight her, he allowed his stinging feet to remain inserted within the animal’s warm, squishy innards. Bilious convulsions rocked him, shooting hot flares across his chest.
She pulled a dagger from a sheath strapped round her thigh and cut out the beast’s dark quivering liver. It steamed in the cold air as she placed the warm organ in his frostbitten hands. Finn stared open-mouthed and mute.
He gagged, gulping back bile. “Here, take it back. I’ll chunder if you don’t.”
She shook her head, gesturing for him to eat it.
“No bloody way.”
Making a growling noise, she pushed the meat against his sealed lips. He turned his head, but she grabbed him by the jaw and squeezed hard. When he opened his mouth to yell, she stuffed the liver in his mouth. He glared at her with pure hatred, but when he saw the unwavering set of her jaw, he knew he would lose against this willful creature. Nibbling off a small piece, he somehow managed to choke it down without throwing up. She continued pushing it in his mouth until he ate enough to satisfy her.
He had to admit, he felt stronger. And now that his stomach was settling, waves of exhaustion overcame him. He wanted to succumb to sleep, allow the world to recede, but a nagging sense of loss wouldn’t let him relax so easily. Something important was missing, and whatever that something was, it had left a hole in his heart that made him sad.
•
Finn was alone the next time he awoke. His feet had been cleaned of the dead animal’s blood and entrails, and they didn’t sting nearly as much. The wounds on his chest, though mighty sore, were bandaged. The animal’s skin had been scraped, stretched and left to dry by the fire. Its foul stench still marked the air, but with much less punch, though now and then, he thought he caught a whiff of…mustard?
Several slabs of skewered meat were roasting over the fire, which he guessed were the animal’s final remains. Bile burned the back of his throat as his stomach lurched in response.
All of a sudden, the ground shook. He was sure it was an earthquake, until he saw a great hulking form lumbering into the cave, carrying the girl on its back. The giant resembled a tree, and he could only imagine how tall it truly was, because it stooped low to fit within the large cavern. A stiff mane of twisted, root-like nubs formed its enormous head. Worn, jagged points, which looked like broken branches, covered its hunched back. The creature’s rough hide was a faded gray, spotted with lichen and tufts of moss growing within gnarled crooks and crannies.
The giant’s eyes had the same shiftin
g colors as the girl, but unlike her guarded gaze, there was only softness and wide-eyed curiosity. The ground continued shaking and rubble fell from the walls as the giant settled along the edge of the cave.
The girl sprang off the creature’s shoulder, landing as light as a bird and strode toward Finn. Lifting a stick from the fire, she blew out its flame and broke it down to a shorter length. She then grabbed his arm and began marking his skin with the charred end.
He jerked his arm away. “Hey, hey there! That’s still hot!”
She ignored his outburst, holding onto his wrist––she was surprisingly strong for such a slight girl––and continued writing a series of runes on him. After she was done with his left arm, she started on the other. When she was finished, she set the stick aside, speaking to him in clipped almost musical sounding notes.
He calmed down as she spoke to him in combination with sign language, making descriptive gestures and scribing the runes in the air. He grew more mesmerized by the second. Somehow she was using this foreign communication to form vivid images in his mind, which became literal translations.
She explained this was the magic of the ancient language of the Elder race, passed down through the rune marks. When drawn on the skin, they sank deep into the soul, allowing communication with and control over the earth, the animals and the elements.
He could tell the Elder race language ran along similar veins as the Dark Speech, but it seemed to be older, more of a root language to the Dark Speech than anything else.
Eager to test the intrinsic power of the runes marked on his arms, he stammered troll speak back to her, awkwardly signing with his hands. It was an effort at first, but after a while he got better at voicing the new sounds and the signing became more fluid. Within a few short hours they were communicating easily, delving into long conversations that took them deep into the night.
Finn learned the giant was a tree troll named Grysla. Her voice was deep and gruff, like a bear’s, yet when she signed the runes and gestured pictures in the air, her huge arms moved as gracefully as branches swaying in the wind. With sadness in her smoky green eyes, Grysla shared her family’s tragedy and how the gift of her human daughter had healed the hatred she once had for humans. So she raised Tove in the ancient knowledge of the Elder race in the hopes that her daughter would someday help humans and trolls understand one another.
As she recounted her story, the tree troll’s memories materialized in his mind. He witnessed the injustice and experienced her sorrow. Unlike the Dark Speech, this form of communication was not an invasive connection. The Elder language linked hearts gently and intimately.
When the sun rose in the hush of the morning, Finn woke, peaceful and reenergized, unaware of when he’d fallen asleep. They ate a breakfast of dried berries and jerky. Then Grysla and Tove asked to hear his story.
He signed, speaking in their language. “I don’t know how I came to be here in your snowy mountains.” Shaking his head, he frowned, frustrated with his inability to remember. “I can recall my life much further back,” he offered. Then talked of how his grandfather had taken him to Scotland when he was thirteen and how he’d learned of his Druidic lineage. He shared a few of the mystical adventures he’d had before he was ordained within the Order, only a few months ago when he’d turned nineteen. But anything beyond his time in Scotland was shrouded in a thick fog.
This troubled him greatly.
The old tree troll and her daughter exchanged a knowing glance. Tove leaned into the light of the fire. “We received many messages from the animals in the forest about a lost spirit. They called you the Shining One, and they wanted our help to save you.” She paused, her gestures fluid as she transferred images of the snow fox, hawks, rabbits and a prowling wolverine, which Finn recognized as the vicious predator that had nearly torn him to shreds.
He smiled wryly. “I think we know which one wasn’t out to save me.”
Tove looked puzzled. “Do you not understand that the devil bear sacrificed himself to warm the ice-rot from your feet and renew your strength with his flesh?” She went on to explain how the laws of nature had dictated the circumstances, such as the predator hunting its prey. Even though she’d speared the animal to save him, the spirit of the devil bear had been willing to die for him, the Shining One.
Her insight humbled him. Placing his hand over his stinging wounds, he silently thanked the wolverine for its sacrifice. After a moment he smiled, but with confusion. “What’s all this about the Shining One?”
Grysla answered, her voice a deep rumble, her gnarled fingers fluttering as she marked the runes. “The animals named you the Shining One because your spirit is much brighter and larger than other humans.” Her gentle eyes softened. “But they saw a far greater danger for you than that of freezing to death. Your bright spirit is dimming because of a darkness growing inside you.”
Finn turned his gaze to the fire and swallowed. What the hell happened to me?
Chapter 16
FATE FOUGHT TO CLOSE THE DOOR against the glacial winds and snow blustering into the cabin. Out of breath and bone-tired, she drew back her fur-lined hood and kicked off her boots.
Sithias tsk-tsked and shook his head. “I wasss beginning to worry, misss. You’re much later than usual.”
She was grateful he didn’t mention she’d returned without Finn yet again. Shedding her parka, she rushed to the fireside, trembling violently with her hands held close to the flames.
“You shouldn’t ssstay out passst dark,” the snake admonished, “you could freeze to death out there.”
Her teeth chattered so violently she could barely speak. “If th-that j-jerk, Leif can d-do it, so can I.”
“He’sss been hardened by yearsss of exposure to sssevere weather, but you, misss, have not,” he said as he slithered to the bathroom to run her a hot bath. A nightly routine they’d fallen into.
“What ch-choice do I have?” she said. “F-Finn’s out there s-somewhere, lost and injured.”
He returned to the room and coiled up beside her. “Now I thought we agreed he’sss more than likely been ressscued by Grysssla. Leif would’ve found hisss body by now if the worssst had happened. Ssso you mussst remain hopeful.”
“Why isn’t there any mention of him in the fable? Or us even? The story hasn’t changed a bit since we got here!” Still shivering, she glared hard at the flames to fend off tears of frustration.
“From what I’ve ssseen, the fable remainsss the sssame until sssomething pivotal happensss to bring about a different end,” he explained. “Now go sssoak in the bath until you’ve warmed up through and through.”
She trudged to the bathroom, closed the door and stripped down. The steaming water was near to overflowing. Turning off the tap, she climbed in, her tight, shivering muscles relaxing as soon as the heat wrapped around her body.
She sank beneath the water, where silence engulfed her. The moment she closed her eyes, she saw nothing but miles of snow and those sharp, distorted trees. After spending every day of the last grueling three weeks, four days and eighteen and a half hours scouring the vast Twisted Bone Forest for any sign of Finn, the landscape had imprinted on her brain.
Her stomach contracted into a tight knot, a clenching pain squeezed her chest.
She broke the water’s surface as a sob made her gasp for air. What if she was on a wild goose chase, hoping against hope he was still alive? Nothing could blot out that blood-stained hole in the ice and the rushing river beneath it. In her worst moments, she pictured his broken body sweeping along icy currents to some distant place, far from where she searched.
She sank back under the water, feeling guilty for luxuriating in such pleasurable warmth when he might have died in freezing water.
She sat up, hard and fast, the sobs wrenching through her chest convulsively.
“Misss?” Sithias said from the other side of the door. “You’re doing it again. You know thisss isssn’t productive. Come out and have sssome hot chocolate.”
His voice somewhat pulled her out of the gloom. She watched the last of her tears ripple the water drop by drop as the gnawing ache in her chest waned to a dull throb. Then she reached for the soap.
A few minutes later, she padded barefoot into the main room, pink from the heat and wrapped in a fluffy robe.
“That’ss better. It’s good to sssee the glow of warmth in your face,” he said, looking up from his work, where he was busily writing with his tail coiled round a pen. To fend off the boredom of being cooped up in the cabin for weeks, he’d returned to his playwriting.
She sat down on the sheepskin rug next to him.
Setting his pen aside, he took the brush from her motionless hand and gently combed the tangles through her wet hair while flapping his wings to help it dry. When he was done, he pointed at the cup of hot chocolate sitting on the hearth. “Drink up, and tell me about your day.”
Fate sipped on the frothy milk. “There’s nothing to tell.”
“Surely you were able to find more of Grysssla’s tracksss?”
“Of course, I always find her tracks, but they never lead anywhere. It’s like she’s purposely trying to throw me off. The Yeti’s got nothing on her when it comes to being elusive.”
“Maybe it’sss not you she’sss avoiding, but the troll hunter.”
She shrugged. “Maybe, but I’ve given up on tracking her. I’ve started following Leif. He’s been circling the same area for days now. At first I figured he was closing in on Grysla, but I’m pretty sure it’s some sort of mound he’s interested in.”
“Well, thisss troll hunter of yoursss may be onto sssomething. It’s pure conjecture, mind you, but troll moundssss are purported to hold great treasuresss. Of courssse, diggingsss have proved to be fruitless venturesss. It’s sssaid that trollsss can make gold look like rocksss and rocksss look like gold. One never knowsss what he hasss in hand until he isss far from the magic of the troll mound.”
She frowned. “He’s not my troll hunter. He’s a hideous belching man who spits disgusting gobs of tobacco everywhere he goes and farts tunes for his own personal amusement. He’s repulsive, Sithias. Even the word repulsive finds him repulsive.”
Fate's Fables Boxed Set (Fables 1 - 8): One Girl's Journey Through 8 Unfortunate Fairy Tales Page 16