The Fox Run

Chapter Nineteen

Their testing was about to commence.

The Trolls, approximately five dozen, most wearing the usual bearskin tunic and cloak, were assembled on a small field at the east edge of Fox.

The area had been cleared of rocks and debris, and the grass and weeds were cut within six inches of the ground. The Trolls surrounded the center of the field, enthused over the imminent entertainment, talking loudly and making wagers, bartering over the projected outcome of the tests.

In the middle of the cleared tract, nervous and frightened, stood the Family women. Saxon and Nadine stood nearby.

“I’m so scared,” Angela commented.

Jenny hated to admit it, but she was too. She studied the other women, gauging their state of mind, assessing their stability. Angela, the youngest and the smallest, was obviously petrified and would require watching.

Daffodil, the Artist, seemed unconcerned. Lea, the Weaver, was absently fussing with her long black tresses, scowling at the Trolls. Ursa, the Librarian, was thoughtfully preoccupied. Mary, the tanned young Tiller, was in the best physical condition, the result of her long hours in the field.

Saphire was glancing this way and that, her brunette hair bobbing, dismay plainly etched on her features.

Nadine joined the clustered women, limping painfully.

“Be brave,” she encouraged them. “I survived this. You can too.”

“I meant to ask you,” Jenny said, hoping to divert their attention from the impending tests. “What happened to your right leg?”

Nadine grimaced and jerked her right thumb in Saxon’s direction. “He did it, the slime!”

“What?”

“He wanted information about the Home,” Nadine said wistfully. “I refused, so he tortured me.”

“The prick!” Lea voiced her opinion.

“Indeed,” Nadine agreed. “He broke the bone and it reset improperly. I’ve had this limp ever since.”

“Oh, you poor dear!” Ursa said.

“He wasn’t so smart.” Nadine grinned. “I didn’t tell him everything about the Home. Was he surprised to find so many guns?”

“He mentioned that, yes.” Jenny laughed.

“Good.” Nadine giggled. “I just wish our Warriors had killed all of them.”

“They may yet,” Mary reminded her.

“Do you think Joan reached them?” Nadine asked. Jenny had told her about Joan’s escape the night before.

“If anyone could do it, Joan could,” Jenny assured her.

“It’s so far, though.” Nadine squinted at the morning sun. “The only reason the Trolls waited so long to attack the Home was the distance involved. Too many mutates and other creatures. They usually confine their forays to a twenty- or thirty-mile radius, although sometimes they do make longer trips. Once, years ago, they went north, deep into Canada.”

“Canada?” Jenny wanted to ask further questions, but she was prevented by Saxon’s approach.

“Hope you all had a good rest.” Saxon, in a cheerful mood, laid his expansive right hand on Jenny’s left shoulder. She moved away. “Did you like your morning meal?”

“That slop?” Lea sarcastically cracked. “You’ve got to be kidding!”

“Sorry to hear that. I told them to make an extra effort, to make something you’d like. I’ll need to punish the women who made your meal.”

“No need for that,” Jenny told him. “The meal was fine. We all like rabbit.”

“You lied to me?” Saxon frowned at Lea. “It’s not nice to lie to Saxon.”

“The tests!” one of the Trolls yelled. “The tests!”

Saxon swiveled, scanning the encircling Trolls. “My brothers, it is time! Life to the strong and death to the weak!”

The Trolls responded in chorus: “Life to the strong and death to the weak!” Over and over and over.

Jenny remembered a conversation with Nadine in the early morning hours concerning the origin of the Trolls. Apparently, after Aaron was killed by a mutate, the criminals were left to their own devices. All of them were men. Naturally they wanted women. One of the brightest apparently found a paper Aaron wrote, detailing the wisest course to pursue with respect to mating between the retarded criminals in his charge and possible wives. Aaron knew his charges were genetically inferior. He realized their only hope of sustained existence as a viable community depended on finding women of normal or superior capacity. Aaron never advocated abducting women; he fully expected the criminals to die out in due course.

“You will stand over there,” Saxon told Nadine, pointing to the sidelines.

“I only let you come to show you that Saxon is not all bad. I want another lesson later,” he added as Nadine dutifully shuffled away.

The Trolls were quiet now.

“We begin!” Saxon declared. “Line up here.” He pointed at a wooden stake in the ground near his sandaled feet. All of the Trolls wore sandals constructed from deer hide. The exposed skin was caked with grime, blistered and gouged.

The seven women did as they were ordered.

“See the stake over there?” Saxon indicated another stake imbedded in the dirt twenty-five yards distant. “When I say go, you will run to that stake, around it, and come back to this one. Any questions?”

“What do we win if we’re first?” Lea quipped.

“You stay alive,” Saxon said somberly.

The assembled Trolls were waiting.

“Get set,” Saxon prepared them. “Go!” he shouted.

The women ran, swiftly covering the distance, Mary in the lead. Jenny, Lea, Saphire, and Daffodil in a pack behind her, followed by Ursa and Angela.

As they rounded the far stake, Jenny glanced over her shoulder and saw Angela trip and fall, smashing her elbows as she came down. The Trolls were cheering and boosting their favorites. Jenny ignored them and wheeled, running to Angela and assisting her to stand.

Some of the Trolls began booing.

Saxon advanced across the field.

The other women slowed, apprehensively watching Saxon.

“Are you all right?” Jenny asked Angela.

“I think so,” Angela answered. “My elbows hurt.”

“Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Saxon queried as he reached them.

“I was only helping…” Jenny turned to explain, completely unprepared for the fist Saxon buried in her stomach. She doubled over, wheezing.

“You don’t help the others!” Saxon leaned over her, glowering. “That’s not the way it works! We only want the best. You let the others worry about how they do, and worry about yourself. Understand?”

Jenny nodded, struggling to control her quaking body.

“Good!” Saxon straightened. “When you’re better, we run the race again. And this time…” He paused to stare at each of the women. “No one helps anyone else.”

After Jenny recovered, Saxon lined them up again. “Remember what I told you,” he growled before starting the race. “Go!”

Angela lost.

Next, the Trolls produced a ten-foot length of stout rope. A woman would grab an end, Saxon would stand in the center of the rope, and the two women would heave and pull until one of them was hauled past Saxon. By elimination, the Trolls determined the relative physical strengths of each woman, from the strongest to the weakest.

Angela was the weakest.

The third test was a series of calisthenics, Saxon simply goading them until they dropped.

Angela dropped first.

“Stay here!” Saxon directed the weary, sweating women.

Jenny, sitting on the ground like the rest, watched him cross the field and consult with a trio of Trolls. She was bothered by her intuition; she felt something dreadful was about to take place.

Saxon returned, smiling, the benevolent despot. “On your feet, now! We’re going for a little walk. We have a surprise for you.”

The Trolls closed in on the women, forming a human barrier, the stench of their collective odor almost overpowering.

“I think I might puke,” Lea announced.

“If you do.” Jenny recommended, “puke on the Trolls.”

Saxon led the crowd across the field, into Fox, past ruined buildings, houses trashed by Trolls seeking plunder or wood for their winter fires, and along remarkably preserved streets. In the decade prior to the Third World War, Fox, like many other rural towns, had experienced an upswelling in population as thousands of city dwellers left the nightmare of urban living for a peaceful rural setting. Crime had shot up astronomically in those last years, citizens had been inordinately taxed, and public services had deteriorated to minimal levels.

A large wooden structure was their destination. Saxon entered through two huge swinging doors, the women close behind him, the argumentative Trolls jostling one another in their eagerness to squeeze inside.

Jenny searched her memory of the books in the Family library, but she could not recall any reference to a building such as this. Rows of bleachers rose along all four walls, practically to the roof. The center of the floor was occupied by a square arena, or pen, with walls ten feet high. Access to this enclosed area was gained via two sturdy gates, one in the north wall and one in the south.

Saxon motioned for the women to follow as he climbed the steps of the bleachers, the wood warped and split, in need of a thorough repair job.

When they were as close to the pen as they could get, and above the ten-foot wall, Saxon told them to be seated.

Nadine was with them. She maneuvered through the Trolls and sat next to Jenny.

“Have you any idea what this was?” Jenny asked.

“Not for sure,” Nadine admitted. “I’ve speculated it might have been a cattle pen, or auction area, or even an arena for holding some type of entertainment, like a small rodeo, but I just don’t know.”

Jenny noted they were sitting directly above the gate in the south wall of the pen. The floor of the pen was bare earth. She detected patches of white here and there, littered all over the dirt floor. What were they? she wondered. She leaned forward for a better look, then recoiled, shocked at her grisly discovery. May the Spirit preserve them! Those pale things were bones! Human bones!

Saxon was still standing, watching, waiting for the Trolls to finish filing into the building. He glanced down at the women. “You did well this morning,” he told them.

Nadine knew the nature of the next episode, realized she could not prevent it from happening, and averted her eyes in shame.

The Family women were edgy, aware an unpleasant event was going to transpire, but uncertain of how it would unfold, unsure of what action they should take.

Jenny looked at Angela, recalling Nadine’s words: “You will be thrown, alive, into a pen of ravenous wolverines.” Angela apparently remembered the warning too, because she was deathly pale, her tiny hands gripping the edge of the bleacher. What can I do? Jenny asked herself. What could she possibly do to stop Angela from being killed? There had to be something!

Saxon grinned. “Now we come to the best part of the day.” He paced back and forth in front of the women as he addressed them. “Some of you might be wondering what this is all about,” he said, unaware Nadine had divulged the terrible secret of the bone-filled pen. “I’m going to tell you.”

Jenny focused her attention on the gate in the north wall, positioned opposite the bleachers they were in. That gate was closed, but she knew it would be the means of ingress for the star attractions.

“More years ago than any Troll can remember, a raiding party went north into new territory,” Saxon was saying, still pacing. “They did not find women, but they found something much better. A pus head and an animal Trolls had never seen before fought each other. Both died. When the raiding party found them, the two were dead. But close to the body of this dead animal were two young. Our men caught them and brought them back to Fox.” Saxon observed Jenny was not paying attention, and paused. “Are you listening to me?” he asked her.

Jenny, preoccupied with reflections on Angela’s impending fate, nervously glanced up at him. “Of course,” she assured the giant.

“Good. You must learn from this.” Saxon turned, continuing his measured back-and-forth walk.

The Trolls were quiet now, waiting, expectant.

“We didn’t know what these animals were called, not until Nadine joined us. We did learn these animals are strong, the toughest animals anywhere, tough like the Trolls. We have a saying. You’ve heard it. Life to the strong and death to the weak.” Saxon said the words proudly. “The Trolls must be strong, not weak. We do not want weak Trolls.” He stared at the women. “We do not want weak females either.”

From across the pen, behind the north gate, came a throaty growl.

Saxon grinned devilishly. It was time! “The Trolls wear the hide of the bear,” he stated, drawing out the suspense, savoring their manifest fear.

“Our bearskins are a mark of our courage, our strength. A Troll must prove himself to get the bear hide, must show himself worthy. I don’t want you to think the Trolls are unfair.” He stopped, his body inches from Angela, his hands draped behind his back.

The growling was louder.

Saxon nodded his head at the north gate. “Those animals we caught mated. Several litters have been born since then. The first pair are long dead. They don’t seem to hold up well in captivity, and it’s hard finding enough food for them. They can’t get enough. Lucky for them, and us, we found a way to feed them and rid ourselves of weak ones at the same time. Would you like to see how?”

The women’s eyes were riveted on the north gate. The animal behind it was scratching on the wood, hungrily pushing against the gate, attempting to force it open. The gate was secured with a metal latch on the pen side. A rope, tied to the latch, hung from the hands of a Troll in the bleachers immediately above the entry.

“Life to the strong and death to the weak!” Saxon suddenly shouted.

The Trolls, on cue, responded: “Life to the strong and death to the weak!”

Without warning, Saxon spun, grabbed Angela by her shoulders, bodily lifted her from her seat, and tossed her into the pen.

Ursa, Saphire, and Mary screamed.

Angela landed hard, tumbling into the dirt. She gamely jumped to her feet, aware of pain in her left ankle.

Saxon made a waving motion with his right hand.

The Troll with the rope flicked his wrists and the latch opened. Snarling, a male wolverine bounded into the arena.

Jenny, without really realizing what she was doing, leaped up and vaulted over the top of the pen wall.

An instant later, from the west side of the pen, a large Troll with a Bowie knife in his left hand followed suit, as two more wolverines charged through the north gate.