Briarheart

by Mercedes Lackey

  I’d have liked to dispute that—except the only references I had found to Trolls in Tirendell talked about how the Trolls had appeared in the night and terrorized everyone until the King sent an army to destroy them. So the part about “you daywalkers killed everyone” was right.

  And what if they hadn’t meant to frighten people?

  “So why did you come here if you thought you were going to be murdered?”

  “The Dark Fae told us what to do. He said to take the baby Princess and marry her to me, then the King would be forced to talk to us and protect us.” He shook his head slightly. “I told Father that this wouldn’t work! I told him that it would only make you daywalkers angrier! But the Dark Fae made him think that this was the only way.…” He began crying again, and more hot tears splashed down on my hand, and it was at that point that I realized that although this Troll might look like he was an adult, or near to it, he couldn’t be much older than the equivalent of ten.

  “Stop crying, Prince Kol,” I told him sternly. I was worried that someone would hear him if he cried himself into hysterics. “You are a prince of the Trolls. Remember yourself.”

  He gulped down a breath, sniffed loudly, and did as I asked. I lowered my sword hand a little—just enough so he could see it because I wasn’t taking any chances just yet. “Do you want to keep the daywalkers from murdering your entire tribe?” I asked. “Do you want to keep living here in peace with us?”

  “Y-yes?” he said, as if he didn’t believe what he was hearing. And I thanked the Infinite Light that I was dealing with a child because I probably could not have come to reason this fast with an adult.

  “I want you to guide me to the outside now. I am going to summon my friends. And after we have gone, you are to go to your father, tell him what happened, then I want all of you to leave this kingdom and never come back.” There. That should take care of everything. Aurora would be rescued and the Trolls would be gone and no one would get a hot head and lead a mob here to slaughter them.

  The young Troll’s face twisted up as if he was about to cry again. “But… we can’t. We can’t go back! It’s gone.”

  “What do you mean, ‘gone’?” I asked sharply.

  “Just that. It’s all gone. We bored too many tunnels, and it all caved in. We have nowhere to go, and the Daystar will kill us.” Now he really started to cry, and Aurora started to wail in sympathy, and that was when everything got out of hand.

  “Prince Kol! Prince Kol! Are you all right?” There was shouting on the other side of the door, and before Kol could say anything, something huge kicked the door right off its hinges and loomed in the doorframe.

  All I got a chance to see was something twice the height of a human that looked like a pile of rocks dressed in leather and carrying a sword as long as I am tall in one hand and a club in the other.

  I made the light above me flare to daylight brightness. Aurora screeched. Kol, bless his little heart, flung himself in front of us, shouting, “Don’t hurt them!”

  The thing in the door cried out and retreated. I got poor Kol in my shadow and that of the stone crib—after only moments of direct exposure to the light, his skin had started to look… wrong.

  Then the brute at the door was shoved aside by an even bigger hulk. “KOL!” the creature cried in anguish. “You monster! He’s only a child! Let him go!”

  I didn’t even think; I just reached up with my will and both my Fae and my human magic and dimmed the light down to the level of moonlight, and I put one arm around Kol. The sudden dimming of the light baffled the Trolls and stopped them in their tracks even though they were still more than half-blinded.

  And the sword in my hand flared up with what looked like white fire along its edges.

  “We need to talk. You want to talk about children? You kidnapped a baby!”

  The two creatures at the door stared at me as if I were a terrible beast. But a beast that had suddenly opened its mouth and emitted sanity and sense instead of a roar of rage.

  “You stole my baby sister! How did you ever expect that to end well? It wouldn’t matter one bit if you’d married her to your son! As soon as the King found out where you were and where she was, he would have come in here with armored knights and oil and torches and dragons and burned you out and chased you into the sunlight! You’re just lucky that I found her rather than one of his warriors or some mercenary!”

  At that point, Aurora emerged from her shocked silence and began to wail.

  “And if that weren’t bad enough, you’re making her cry!” I said crossly and irrationally. I looked at Kol. He’d earned my trust. He’d told me everything he could. And he was the one I’d heard telling his father how bad an idea kidnapping Aurora had been. “Can you…?”

  He nodded eagerly and held out his hands for her. I transferred her to him with one hand and turned my attention back to his father and whatever thing was with the Troll King. Kol jounced and soothed Aurora as well as Melalee could have.

  “And you listened to a Dark Fae for advice. A Dark Fae! What were you thinking?” I pulled myself up to my full height and tried to act like Mama in a full scold. She didn’t give out scoldings often, but when she did, they were epic. And I was more than angry enough to half forget that I was yelling at two monsters whose arms alone probably weighed twice as much as I did. “Have you been living under a rock? Don’t you know that they feed on pain and fear?” I realized just after I said that how ridiculous it was because, of course, they were actually living under rocks. But I kept on going. “What could you possibly have expected from them except advice that would manufacture the most pain and fear possible? What is wrong with you?”

  It looked like I was having an effect, and a profound one at that. The guard who had first broken in looked stunned. But the one I thought was Kol’s father was actually hanging his head and clasping his hands in front of him like a boy who has been caught doing something wrong that he is deeply ashamed of.

  I took a deep breath, still concentrating on what Mama would have said, while watching Kol and Aurora the whole time out of the corner of my eye. I must have gone on for at least ten minutes, and all that time, the Troll King was shrinking into himself. Finally, I moved on. “And if it hadn’t been for your son, who has three times the sense of his father, I might well have burned and cut my way through your ranks until we escaped, then brought the King and his knights straight here! Fortunately for all of us, Kol is a decent, smart, fine young Troll whom I would be proud to have as a friend, and he has persuaded me that every single bit of this has been one centuries-long horrible mistake. And that we, you Trolls and we daywalkers, finally have a chance to set things right!”

  Now the Troll King looked as puzzled as a rock could possibly look. “Wait—what?”

  “I said that I’m prepared to sort all this out on my father’s behalf so we can live in peace with one another. But first I want you to take me to the surface so I can signal my friends. Then I want Brianna Firehawk to fly my sister back to my family before my poor mother pines herself to death, which would only bring knights and fire and all the rest of it no matter what we do. Think of it as a gesture of good faith.”

  “Fine!” the Troll King said hurriedly.

  “No,” Kol interjected. “Not yet.” And suddenly there was a very unpleasant smell emitting from my sister. Kol competently changed what passed for a diaper right then and there. He took the soiled moss bundled in the used leather and thrust it at the Troll guard. “Take that to the anthill for cleaning,” he ordered, and the befuddled guard took it gingerly between the tips of his thumb and index finger, and carried it out at arm’s length.

  “Now you can take her,” Kol said, handing my sister back to me. “I’ll show you the way out.”

  For creatures who had been described only in vague but terrifying terms, the Trolls were proving to be anything but terrifying. With Kol leading the way, the King following, and me stomping along as impressively as I could, glowing sword in one hand
and baby in the other, the most I saw of the rest of the Trolls in this lair was the glitter of curious or frightened eyes in the shadows of side tunnels.

  Then we stopped at what seemed to be a dead end. The sword flared for a moment in reaction to my surge of fear that I’d been betrayed—but then Kol did something to the wall, and the stone at the end of the dead end slid aside. We walked out onto a huge ledge that overlooked a heavily wooded valley.

  I sent my light high up into the air and turned it into a little sun again. “Get back into the tunnel,” I told Kol and his father. “Just in case.”

  Then it was just a matter of waiting—and I hoped that it wouldn’t be long because, judging by the stars, it couldn’t be long till false dawn.

  I’d never seen Serulan in flight before. Not in full flight, that is. It was amazing. He powered along with Brianna at his side, he all silvery blue in the moonlight, she like a phoenix flaming beside him, and my friends hardly noticeable on his back.

  Serulan landed with a great show of claws and a gout of flame for good measure. “Where are they?” he demanded as Brianna landed beside him, looking just as impressive as he did, with her wings all fire and flame engulfing the sword in her hand.

  Before anyone could look in the tunnel mouth and spot the Trolls huddling inside, I shouted, “Wait!”

  To my surprise, my voice thundered as if I were a giant, and I felt a brief surge of the magic that had amplified it without my intending any such thing. It was a good thing I had, though, because everyone, even Brianna, froze and stared at me.

  “There’s a whole lot going on that needs explaining,” I said in a more normal tone of voice. “I’ll try to make it short.”

  It didn’t take as long as I thought it would to explain everything. Halfway through, with Aurora dozing in my arm, I gestured to the Trolls to come out. They did, with the King keeping his arm protectively around his son, and both of them stood there quietly while I finished the explanation.

  “Here,” I said, handing Aurora to Brianna. “Can you take her back to the palace and be… diplomatic?”

  Brianna had long since let her fires go out and put her sword away. She took Aurora from me; the baby didn’t even wake up. “I’ll do what I can. It’s not as far as I feared. I’ll be back.” And she lofted into the sky.

  That left Serulan, the Companions, and me with the Troll King. He and I looked at each other in silence for a long time. Finally, he spoke. “You remind me a lot of my wife.” His strange voice sounded a bit like rocks sliding over one another.

  “I hope that’s a good thing,” I replied.

  He chuckled—at least I think that was what the sound was—and rubbed the back of his head with one hand. “You remind me of her when I have been very stupid. And I have been very stupid. Please come with me to a more comfortable chamber before the Daystar rises.” Then he hesitated. “Would your fellow warriors like to come as well?”

  I turned to them and saw that all of them were showing signs that the night had gone on for far too long. Nat and Elle were yawning. “Stay or go?” I asked.

  “We should stay to back you up,” Giles said uncertainly.

  “Actually, you should go back to guard Aurora in case that Dark Fae the Troll Prince told me about has been watching all this and takes the opportunity to strike again. Your first duty is to her.”

  “We’ll go back,” Serulan said firmly, and blew a gout of flame into the air. “And I will sit on the top of one of the towers to discourage any such notion.”

  “That’s an excellent plan.” And I watched them depart before turning back to the Troll King.

  “I would be happy to accept your hospitality,” I said with great formality.

  I was pretty sure that his definition of comfort and mine were a great deal different, but that wasn’t what mattered. What mattered was getting all of this well sorted out before King met King and it all became official.

  The tunnel—or corridor, as it was much more finished than the tunnel into the palace—was wide enough for two Trolls to pass without brushing shoulders and very dimly lit by metal baskets full of a glowing fungus hung high up near the ceiling. He hadn’t taken me far, no more than a hundred feet away, before he opened the door of another chamber just off the corridor and waved at me to precede him inside.

  It wasn’t what I would have called comfortable, since the furnishings were crude and minimal and completely unpadded, but at least there were stools I could sit down on. My feet were killing me after that long walk. The Troll King sat down across from me and pounded with his fist on the table between us. When another Troll appeared, he said, “Drink…?” and looked at me.

  “Water is fine,” I said, not knowing what they would drink besides water. But a stone pitcher and two stone cups appeared, and the cold water tasted like it had come from a very deep well. I drank it greedily, and he poured me a second cup while looking at me as if he wanted to start a conversation and didn’t quite know how to do so.

  “Why did your old home collapse?” I asked. “And did all your people come here?”

  “We ate it; we ate at the mountain until the walls that were left could no longer bear the weight of the earth on top of them. We eat rock and goat milk and cheese and sometimes goat meat, and we flavor the rock with wild things we pick in the forest late at night. There was just enough left of the mountain after the collapse to act as a minimal shelter—I suppose it would be like a camp in the forest for you daywalkers. Half of my people are still there, including my wife, the Queen.”

  “But why come here?”

  “First I must explain why we left,” he said solemnly. In that moment, I got the impression that Trolls were very deliberate—and literal—about what they said. And anything he told me was going to include a lot of explanation before he got to the answer to a question. “We had abandoned this place as unsafe in the before times when my father’s father was King. One day some of our goats went missing from the herd so we searched for them and found them penned beside some wooden houses that had sprung up in the valley when we were not looking. We took them back, and daywalkers came spilling out of houses waving torches and weapons.”

  “I can guess the rest. But why come back when you knew it was dangerous?”

  “We can eat only certain kinds of rock.” He shrugged. “That kind of rock is here in abundance. And when our mountain fell, the Dark Fae told us how to make the ruler of this place protect us.”

  I snorted, and he hung his head. “Yes, I know,” he said contritely. “I was very stupid.”

  “Well, I would like to suggest two things immediately. One, that when Lady Brianna returns, you swear to be an ally of the Light Fae and uphold the Fae Compact. And two, that I take you and a very few of your retinue to my papa, the King. I will explain about your situation, then you and he should talk until you have made amends and worked out a treaty between you. So tell me more.”

  It seemed that Trolls liked to tell stories. I heard plenty of them from the “before times.” I learned all about why Trolls eat only certain kinds of rock (nothing that contains metal or gemstones) and how they also became goat herders. My impression about Trolls being storytellers was proving to be correct as the Troll King seemed willing to talk forever—and I was willing to listen for as long as it took Lady Brianna to return. In fact, it took her so long that I had a nap in a heap of moss and the Troll King ordered a meal of soft cheese for both of us. He spread his on rocks and ate them while I pulled pieces off with my fingers until Brianna finally appeared with young Kol, who pounced on the remains of the meal and gobbled it up without shame.

  “I stayed long enough to summon Domna and Bianca, and left them to calm down your papa,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  It was just going dark again when we left, or otherwise we would have had to wait longer because the Trolls obviously couldn’t travel by day. The Trolls moved much faster than I had thought they could—at least as fast as our horses. While Brianna flew, I rode on the should
er of the Troll King at his invitation. Although he was a bit uncomfortable to sit on, it wasn’t dull at all. He and I and Brianna kept up a rather lively conversation off and on for the entire trip.

  “My poor friends,” I said sadly. “So dissatisfying for them. To have gone all that way in the dark only to hear, ‘Oh, everything is all right, you can go home now.’”

  “Better that than to find themselves in great peril, King’s Daughter,” the Troll King said. “You are all young now. You do not think of these things. When you have children of your own, you will.”

  I didn’t contradict him. I had certainly thought of those things. In part, that was why I had gone on alone, hoping I could get Aurora out before the Trolls noticed. I hadn’t wanted to lead my friends into peril, and I also understood why Papa had reacted the way he had.

  So I held my tongue and listened carefully while the Troll King and Brianna discussed the best way to approach the palace since we would probably be met by half the fighters in the kingdom regardless of how well Bianca and Domna had done their job of calming Papa down.

  I spoke up when there was a lull in the conversation. “The best thing, I think, is to go to the Abbey of Everon. The Abbess will listen to reason, the abbey chapel is big enough to hold Trolls, you’ll be out of the sun when it comes up, and you’ll be on sacred ground. Not even Papa at his angriest is going to send armed men into a chapel of the Infinite Light.”

  Brianna almost stopped flying, she was so astonished. But I’d been thinking about it the whole time they’d been talking, and that was the closest thing I could think of to safe, neutral ground for the first meeting. “That’s an excellent idea, Miri,” she said after a moment. “In fact, I can’t think of a better one.”