Giants

CHAPTER FOURTEEN The Trolock

Woe to him who says to wood, “Come to life!” Or to lifeless stone, “Wake up!”

— Habakkuk 2:19

He waited in the darkness. The others who had awakened had been brutally slain. But he had watched and waited, and had judged the prowess of the grave robbers. A First Born had dared to handle the Master’s weapons, and had turned the weapons against those the Master had loved best. The First Born had dared to profane the awesome lich, and had dared to lay his hands on that which was inviolate.

Such sacrilege must be avenged.

Thus, he waited, even though he ached to move again, to lift his stony arms and to look once more upon the forgotten world of men.

So long, so very long ago he had been chosen, taken down a dark cave and then…

He moaned, and dared to move.

Once he had been Lord Skarpaler, a blond-haired warchief of the Bloodspillers, a champion who had marched south together with the Nameless One’s Niflmen. But his master had been Draugr Trolock-Maker. And with the sudden approach of Arioch the Archangel…

His moaning increased. He adjusted his limbs, making the sound of grinding stones as he did. He lifted his head, but saw nothing in the crypt’s eternal murk. He sensed, however, released spirits. Perhaps that is what had awakened him.

For millennia, he had waited. For millennia, he had listened to the Master rave about those who had entombed him. They had all quailed before Draugr’s rage, and they had all worshipped him in unholy terror. He had bidden them to make terrible promises. And they had made them. In the end, the Master disdained movement. He glared at them, and they discerned over time that his life seeped away. At last, he expired to go to a place of greater torment.

But, they couldn’t leave.

Nor, because of their horrible oaths, could they slay each other. They waited. They went mad. They grew drowsy. At last, they grew still as the Master had grown still, and they pondered in hellish silence the exchange they had once thought so glorious.

He had once been called Lord Skarpaler, the warchief of the Bloodspillers. The shores of a cold northern lake had been his home. His wives had loved him. He’d had many children, and he’d been accounted a mighty warrior, a champion.

That was lost, gone forever. It was dust to dust, ashes to ashes. He was an abomination, a trolock, a servant bound to a departed master. Only one goal, one thought, one mission, dominated his awakened spirit. He must punish the trespassers. He must slay the profaners of the crypt.

Inch by inch he moved about the crypt. His stone hands roved over his slain brothers. His anger grew. He bowed low before the Master, and then he rose and straightened the bones the trespassers had so rudely moved.

The broken weapons he touched brought back painful memories. Lord Skarpaler—

“No,” he said. “I am not he. I am the Avenger. I am the Doom from the Crypt. I am no longer a mortal man.”

He gathered his courage, and for a time he felt the fleshy corpse. It was strange, so very strange. He shook his head, marveling that an age ago he had been made out of such weak substance. It was madness. The Master had bestowed a great gift on him. He clenched his hands. After an age of slumber, he was awake. He must learn who the new powers were. He must be wary of them until he understood their strengths. But first he must slay the profane First Born and his companion giant.

After his courage and rage boiled to a frightful pitch, he went to the door and forced it open. He trod up the steep incline and came to the cave entrance.

Outside, the stars blinded him by their brightness. He had forgotten that such wonders existed. For uncounted centuries, the Shining One-made wall had barred them from the living world. How could he have forgotten such beauty? He could almost remember the touch of his long-lost wives. Such thoughts, however, would lead him to madness.

It was several hours before he moved. His awe of the stars and the soft waft of a breeze—he moaned, wondering once more upon the price of his exchange. He looked at his stony body. It still seemed so strange.

“No,” he rumbled. “I am strong, indestructible, a foe to all those who hate or hated my Master. I will survive until the end of the Age. I will destroy all who deserve death.”

By a facility given him upon his making, the trolock followed the trail of the First Born who had robbed Draugr’s Crypt.