The Sea of Trolls

Chapter Thirty-two THE ICE BOW

At the end of the valley, where the stream plunged underground, Golden Bristles found an opening hidden by vines. It was invisible until you were actually in it, and when you got to the other side, all you saw was a crack in the hillside. The air turned cold at once.

This trail was at the bottom of another deep ravine. It twisted and turned with occasional forks as it went down. Golden Bristles selected their path. When darkness fell, they were still in the ravine with only rocks to lie on.

It was a cold, miserable night. Jack and Thorgil slept sitting up with the troll-boar’s massive body for a backrest. The pig was infested with troll-lice. They crept through his hair and through Jack’s and Thorgil’s hair as well, though they didn’t bite. They didn’t seem to like human blood. Jack still woke every time he felt their stealthy claws.

Not that he slept much between times. The wind found its way into the ravine, and toward dawn an icy frost came down. Jack sheltered Bold Heart under his tunic, which helped them both a little.

Only Golden Bristles spent a comfortable night under his layers of fat. He snored atrociously, slobbering and whining through his long snout, and his trotters jerked when he dreamed.

“How much more of this is there?” Jack moaned as they slipped and clattered over the stones after dawn. He could hardly keep his footing, even with the staff he’d cut from the ash tree.

“I’ll ask,” Thorgil said. She was noticeably cheerful now that they were all suffering. She put the question to Bold Heart, who put it to Golden Bristles. The boar replied at length. The crow translated, taking a long time about it. Then Thorgil answered: “Not long.”

“That was a lot of talk to end up with ‘not long’,” Jack said.

“Yes, it was,” Thorgil said happily.

“You’re hiding something.”

“You’ll never know.”

Brjóstabarn, thought Jack. They stopped to eat, though little was left. A cloak full of fruit and nuts didn’t last long when you had to share it with a troll-boar. Thorgil and Jack took turns riding on the pig’s back. He was so wide, they could barely hold on with their legs, and he snarled when they tried to grasp his ears.

On and on they went until Jack despaired of ever getting anywhere. Then, just as he thought he’d collapse with weariness, they came out onto a dazzling sheet of ice. The sunlight was blinding after the shadowy ravine. The ice itself was as clear and blue as a river, and he could see the bodies of animals and humans and far stranger things suspended in its depths. It made him queasy to look down.

Even worse was the shiny surface. Thorgil tried to hurry, and her feet slid out from under her. She scooted along, coming to rest at the edge of a crevasse. After that she was more careful. Jack held on to Golden Bristles’ fur in spite of the pig’s complaints. The boar seemed to have no trouble, but of course he was made for such things. His massive trotters dug in like knives, and he left a trail of deep scratches behind him.

“Look!” cried Thorgil as they came around a bend. Ahead rose the ice mountain, higher than Jack had dreamed possible and more complicated and magnificent than it had appeared from a distance. It resembled an enormous castle with turrets and airy walkways and courtyards. It was like something from one of Father’s stories, and Jack wished Lucy could have seen it.

“How are we ever going to cross that?” he murmured. For reaching out from the shelf where they stood to the home of the Mountain Queen was a soaring bridge. It arced above unimaginable depths, going up and up and then down and down in a shining bow of ice—brilliant, breathtaking, and slippery.

Bold Heart croaked urgently. “He says Golden Bristles will have to carry us,” Thorgil translated.

“Can he ask whether the boar will let us hold on to his ears?” Jack said, looking into the chasm under the bridge. He couldn’t even see the bottom. A cold mist shifted and flowed around the base of the mountain. Bold Heart put the question to Golden Bristles, who growled.

“I take it that means no,” said Jack.

“He says his ears are sensitive. He’ll let us hold on to his hair, if we don’t pull too hard,” Thorgil translated. She looked doubtfully at the chasm. “I wonder if people who fall off bridges go to Valhalla.”

“I’m sure they do,” said Jack. “It’s dumb enough to qualify.”

At the last minute he had a clever idea. He tore Thorgil’s cloak into strips and made a long cord. He looped one end around Golden Bristles’ neck for a collar and looped the other end around his and Thorgil’s waists. They sat, legs spread wide on the giant hog’s back, with their hands clutching his hair. Jack had tucked the staff under the pig’s massive chin. It made no sense to take it, but it reminded him of the Bard, and Heaven knew he needed the Bard’s help now. Bold Heart was nestled inside Jack’s tunic.

“Let’s go,” the boy said with a sigh, thinking, I hope I’m allowed to visit the Islands of the Blessed when we fall off.

Jack sat in front and Thorgil was behind as the troll-boar began to climb the bridge. His trotters bit into the ice. Jack could see fragments break off and disappear into the gorge. His stomach lurched, and he forced himself to look straight ahead.

Scritch, scratch, scritch, scratch went Golden Bristles’ trotters on the bridge. The ice shivered under his weight. An eagle—a Jotunheim eagle, so it was enormous—coasted by. It turned when it saw the humans and flew close enough for Jack to look into its yellow eyes. “Go away!” Thorgil shrilled, brandishing her knife. The bridge shuddered.

“Don’t move!” Jack cried.

The wind, which had calmed during the trip across the ice sheet, picked up again. It whistled past Jack’s ears and blew down the neck of his tunic. Bold Heart moaned. Jack’s hands were turning blue.

The eagle streaked by a second time and struck Jack on the shoulder with its talons. He felt the blow but no pain. He was too numb with cold. “I’ll kill you!” roared Thorgil from behind him. She lunged at the eagle and almost fell off. The bridge shuddered again. Jack was too sick with shock to yell at her. He didn’t hurt, but his body knew something grievous had happened. He began to tremble uncontrollably.

“Hang on!” screamed Thorgil. “If it comes by again, I’ll get it.”

Jack wanted to tell her to stop moving. If she unbalanced the boar, they’d all fall into the chasm.

Scritch, scratch, scritch, scratch went Golden Bristles’ trotters on the ice. They’d reached the top of the arc. The hog grunted and started down. The eagle streaked by a third time, and Thorgil leaned out and stabbed it. Shrieking, it tumbled away, but her lunge sent her over the side. Jack tried to hang on. His hands were too numb, and he followed her down.

The only thing that saved them was the cord tied around their waists. Both Jack and Thorgil hung over the abyss from Golden Bristles’ neck. The wind twirled them round and round, and the cord tightened around Jack’s waist and drove the breath out of him. Hurry, hurry, hurry, he begged the pig silently.

But Golden Bristles moved slowly and carefully. He was not made for climbing down things, especially with a rope around his neck. He wheezed.

The staff had slipped partly out of the pig’s collar during Jack and Thorgil’s fall. Only the last few inches were still jammed under Golden Bristle’s throat, but it was enough to cut off the animal’s breath. Jack reached up and grasped the end of the wood. It pulled free, but he almost dropped it. Warmth. I need warmth, he thought. He saw spots in front of his eyes. The staff began to slide from his numb fingers.

It’s only cold if you think it is, said the Bard from somewhere.

It’s supposed to be warm. It is warm, Jack thought as he reached for the life force burning at the heart of the frost giants’ world. Heat radiated from his hands and flowed out the end of the staff. A jet of flame shot up and struck the ice bridge. Water dripped off. Golden Bristles’ trotters lost their purchase, and he began to slide.

Groooooink! roared the giant troll-boar as he slid down the bridge, going faster and faster until he shot off the end and rolled over and over in the snow beyond. Jack and Thorgil were yanked after him into a deep drift. Thorgil was up at once, digging Jack’s face out of the snow. She untied the cord and pulled Bold Heart out so he could breathe too. Her eyes were wild with joy.

“What—a—wonderful—adventure!” she gasped. The cord had almost strangled her, too, but she was too elated to care. “I fought a giant eagle! I hung over the edge like Odin on Yggdrassil! I’m—so—happy!”

Groooooink! Golden Bristles said resentfully. Jack, whose senses were reeling, looked back to see a hole melted right in the middle of the bridge. Only two little bars of ice remained at each side. His staff had melted into the snowdrift—he could see the blackened end poking up.

“I didn’t know you could do such magic,” Thorgil cried. She danced around in a kind of mad glee.

“Neither did I,” Jack said. Now that they were safe, he could feel the deep wound the eagle had left in his shoulder. A shadow fell over him. A foul, sulfurous smell belched from somewhere.

“Maybe you’d better do more magic,” Thorgil said, feeling for her knife. But it was gone. It had plummeted into the abyss with the eagle.

Jack looked up to see a creature from his very deepest and worst nightmares. It was eight feet tall with a shock of bristly orange hair sprouting from its head and shoulders. Eyes the color of rotten walnuts brooded under a browridge that resembled a fungus growing out of tree bark. It had long, greenish fingernails crusted with dirt, and its teeth—for the creature’s mouth was hanging open—were like jumbled blocks of wood. Two fangs the size of a billy goat’s horns lifted the sides of the creature’s upper lip in a permanent snarl. It belched, and the sulfurous smell drifted over Jack again.

He couldn’t help it. He fainted. He had just met his first troll.