The Sea of Trolls

Chapter Eighteen THE SEA OF TROLLS

The air turned cold and more clouds filled the sky as they went north. Fog showed up earlier and stayed longer. The shoreline became steeper. Olaf urged his men to row swiftly. “We’re almost home!” he bellowed. “We carry great wealth! We’re covered with honor! We’re the Queen’s Berserkers!” The men burst into the song that ended with Fame never dies.

“The Queen’s Berserkers?” said Jack. “I thought you served the king.”

“Yes, well, he hasn’t quite been himself since he got married,” admitted Olaf.

“That’s why we call him Ivar the Boneless,” said Sven.

“Only not to his face,” said the giant. “I can hardly wait to hear the song you’ve written about me. You can perform it at the welcome-home party.” Olaf looked radiant at the prospect of showing off his personal bard before the king and queen.

Jack tried to appear enthusiastic. He had a wonderful poem, courtesy of Rune, but it had so many complicated words, Jack was sure he was going to mess up. Which would be a very grave mistake, Rune told him, with the emphasis on grave.

Soon the mist closed in, and while it wasn’t thick, it was damp and depressing. Jack understood why the Northmen couldn’t dry their own salt. Now and then the mist parted to show a forbidding scene. Waves clashed against cliffs. Rifts in the shoreline led to gloomy and barren valleys. It looked like a place dragons would love.

“Those are fjords,” said Olaf, who was all smiles now that he was about to be feted and praised.

“Does anything live back there?” said Jack, peering into an especially grim inlet.

“Nothing good,” said the giant, laughing. “Of course, we live at the end of a fjord. But we aren’t good either.”

You can say that again, thought Jack.

“I fought my first Jotun in one of those,” Olaf said. “I was only a beardless youth, and the troll still had his baby fangs. Ah, where does the time go?”

“You won, I suppose.”

“Of course. Warriors who don’t defeat their trolls get eaten. I’ll tell you about it sometime so you can write a poem.” Olaf continued reminiscing about his youth. He knew every rock and tree along the coast. His memory was fantastic, and soon Jack was sorry he’d asked questions.

They came to a place where the land broke off. The sea became rougher, and a wind rose and blew the mist away. The view thus revealed was anything but cheerful. Great swells rolled from the north under a strange milky sky. The water was pale green, and the wind carried upon it the smell of ice. The ship tipped dangerously as they turned and followed the coastline to the east.

“We call that the Sea of Trolls,” said Olaf.

“They live out there?” said Jack.

“They came from there. Now they live in the high mountains where the snow never melts.”

“I didn’t know Jotuns knew how to make boats.” Jack thought of them as huge and clumsy. They were supposed to be—or perhaps were hoped to be—stupid.

“They walked,” Olaf said.

“On the water?” Jack was appalled. Father said only very pure monks could do that. There had been one on the Holy Isle, though he’d given up the practice to avoid the sin of pride. It was shocking to think a dirty troll had the same power.

“Not on water. Ice. Long ago this sea was frozen,” said Olaf. “No human ever saw it so, but the Jotuns have been here much longer. Their old home lay in the Utter North near a mountain that belched fire.”

“You’re joking,” said Jack.

“Such things exist. Rune saw one in Italia. He said a dragon lived inside it. Anyhow, the trolls’ mountain belched so much fire that it split in two, and their land sank beneath the sea. The Jotuns had to run away across the ice.”

“Maybe they lied about the whole thing,” said Jack, who couldn’t believe the rolling, endless sea to the north had ever been frozen.

“Trolls don’t lie,” Olaf said simply.

“They kill people and eat them, but they’re too virtuous to bend the truth?”

“What I mean is, they can’t lie. They don’t talk as we do, though some have learned our speech. They think at you.”

And Jack remembered something the Bard had said long ago about trolls: They can creep inside your mind and know what you’re thinking. They know when and where you’re going to strike before you do it. Only a very special kind of warrior can overcome them. “They get inside your mind,” Jack said.

“That’s it!” said Olaf. “They’re impossible to ambush because they know what you’re up to. At the same time they can’t trick you. They can’t think lies at you.”

Jack considered this as he clung to the railing. The ship rolled in the pale green sea, and poor Cloud Mane, who was tethered to the mast, kept slipping and sliding. The cliffs to their right were topped with massive trees. Clouds of seabirds wheeled above foaming rivers that tore down the mountainsides. “How can you fight an enemy who knows your every move?” Jack wondered.

“Ah! That’s where berserkers come in,” Olaf said. “We never know what we’re going to do when the fit is on us. We can’t even remember what we’ve done. Jotuns can’t read our minds because we don’t have any!”

So that’s the special kind of warrior the Bard meant, Jack thought. He glanced at Olaf, who was standing tall and proud at the helm. The wind blew back the giant’s white beard and ruffled his bushy eyebrow. Olaf looked as eager as a child at a Yuletide party. His face was rosy with cold, and his eyes were bright blue and excited.

It was hard to hate Olaf when he was like this. It was hard to remember how he killed monks and slaughtered entire villages down to the cows and horses. And perhaps that was because he genuinely didn’t remember what he’d done. There was Good Olaf, who carved toys for Lucy, and Bad Olaf, who sat panting on the ridge overlooking Gizur’s village.

What Jack had to keep in mind, though, was that both of them were supremely dangerous.

“Without berserkers, humans would never have survived here,” said the giant. “Do you know what the trolls used to call us? ‘Two-legged deer’. ‘Jotun snacks’ was another term. The first humans were hunted like livestock. The skinny ones were fattened up in pens.”

Jack shivered. “Do trolls still, um, do that?”

“It’s more of a sport now. They know we’re people and not animals. A young troll can’t have his browridge tattooed until he brings down his first human. He’s still allowed to eat the trophy. Oh, look! There’s one of the vessels from our battle group.”

Olaf pointed at a raiding ship that had just darted out of a fjord. The three ships of Olaf’s group had become separated during the long sea voyage. “I’ll bet Egil Long-Spear thinks we’re enemies and is coming out for battle,” Olaf said, naming the captain of the other ship. “Is his face going to be red when he realizes his mistake!”

But Egil’s face was more a chalky white when he recognized the berserkers. He bawled apologies across the water. “You’ll pay for this with a skin of wine!” Olaf roared back. Good Olaf was in control at the moment, and Egil, fingering the charm around his neck, gratefully promised the giant a wineskin.

The two ships sailed on together. Of the third there was no trace. Egil shouted that he thought it had gone down in a storm. No one, at least among the berserkers, seemed depressed about that. Thorgil said the men had been lucky because now they were feasting in the halls of Aegir and Ran. “I’d rather go to Valhalla, though,” she said. “It’s much more glorious.”

I wish you were there already, thought Jack. She was going to give Lucy to Frith, rider of Nightmares. Jack remembered the being who had passed over the Bard’s house. It had ridden a horse draped in shrouds of icicles that broke off and clattered into the room. The rider had been even darker than the sky, so black that it sucked the light out of the stars. Its thorny legs had clasped the belly of the horse, drawing white, oozing blood that was more like pus than anything.

Jack felt dizzy with fear. He understood it wasn’t actually the queen riding the Nightmare, but her spirit. If that spirit, weakened as it was then from being cast across the sea, was that terrifying, what would it be like up close? Jack felt the rune of protection about his neck. It radiated warmth like a small sun clasped to his chest.

Should he give the rune to Lucy? She’d need it more than he, if she fell into Frith’s hands. Once given, it was gone forever. He could not take it back. Jack watched Lucy, who was playing peekaboo with Eric Pretty-Face. The grim warrior covered his ruined face with hands that resembled slabs of bacon. “Peekaboo!” shrieked Lucy when he uncovered his eyes. “HAW! HAW! HAW!” rumbled Eric Pretty-Face. It was far too babyish a game for her, but Jack realized it was perfect for the slow-witted Northman.

Lucy was simply too little to understand the importance of the rune. The only thing that would interest her was the bright gold, and that would only be visible while Jack transferred the rune to her neck.

“What do you keep clutching?” came Thorgil’s voice.

Jack dropped his hand at once.

“You’re hiding something there. Give it to me!” She snatched at his throat, and Jack kicked her. Thorgil immediately fell on him, screaming and pounding him with her fists.

Jack tried to defend himself, but he was no match for the shield maiden. Not only was she better trained, she threw herself into battle with complete abandon. Jack found himself on the deck, his ears ringing and blood pouring from his nose. She put her knee on his chest and snatched again at his throat.

“Aaaaiii!” Thorgil shrieked, falling back. “He burned me! He burned me!” By this time Olaf had arrived. He looked at Jack’s bleeding nose and Thorgil’s agonized face. She held up her hand, showing a raw square of charred flesh. “Throw him overboard!” she screamed.

“Seems to me you got as good as you gave,” remarked Olaf.

“He used witchcraft! He’s unnatural!”

“I’ve told you a dozen times not to fight with my thrall,” said the giant. “For this you will be punished. You will not be allowed at the high table at our welcome-home feast. You will sit by the door with the better-class thralls.”

“That’s so unfair! I hate you! I’ll kill you!” wept Thorgil.

“Keep that up and you can eat with the hogs,” Olaf said. “If the lad used a little magic to defend himself, well, that’s what skalds do. Now go to the stern and stay there until we’ve got into port.”

Jack stuck his tongue out at her as she stumbled, weeping noisily, to the stern.

“You”—Olaf’s big hand yanked him up—“can stop baiting her. I’ll have order on this ship or you’ll both be picking your teeth off the deck.” He carried the boy to the mast and tied him by the neck next to Cloud Mane.

For the rest of that day Jack sat glumly with a rope around his neck. He wiped his bloody nose on his sleeve and felt his body for bruises. One of his teeth was loose. Lucy wasn’t allowed to talk to him.

Being punished was nothing new in Jack’s life. Being tethered like a horse was. He felt the shame of it deeply. “It’s all right for you,” Jack told Cloud Mane. “You aren’t smart enough to feel insulted. You think everything’s fine as long as you get your oats.”

Cloud Mane gazed at Jack with dark eyes. He twitched his nostrils as though he smelled something bad.

“None of us have had baths, so don’t take it out on me,” grumbled Jack as the ship sailed east along the coast.