Troll Mountain: The Complete Novel

Chapter 9

The next day, guided by Düm, Raf and Ko crossed the final section of the Badlands and entered the foothills of the Black Mountains.

Düm was not at all happy to be heading back into troll territory. But since they were veering east and not sticking to the main road that followed the river, and since Raf had saved his life, he did it anyway.

As they walked, Raf asked, “Is there any way an exiled troll can make amends for his crime and be readmitted to troll society?”

Düm said, “Only one way to undo exile. That is to bring Troll King an offering of fresh human flesh.”

Raf stopped walking. “What!”

Düm bowed his head. “Human meat great delicacy for trolls. Especially soft meat of human woman or child. Man-meat very tough, not as nice.” He threw Ko a bashful look: “And some trolls like marrow of old human bones. Say it has extra flavor.”

“Why wouldn’t it?” Ko said flatly.

Something occurred to Raf. “When exiled in the wilderness, will a troll become hungry very quickly?”

“Oh, yes, Master Raf. Trolls need much food. Hungry troll very sad to see: it get desperate, ravenous, lose all control.”

Raf was thinking of the stories he’d heard about rogue trolls; he also remembered the troll he’d seen abducting his mother. Rogue trolls behaved erratically and killed indiscriminately, and they nearly always took women or children.

Now he knew why: rogue trolls were exiled trolls. When they killed humans, they were doing so either because they were starving or trying to acquire human meat to gain readmittance to the troll tribe.

They wended their way through the foothills.

The landscape was gray and harsh. Any trees that still lived were leafless and dry, eerie skeletons.

Düm said, “But trolls been dying off for some time now. Trolls suffer from illness. Lucky that old troll, Vilnar, create Elixir and Elixir cure trolls.”

“Vilnar?” Ko looked up at the name. “Vilnar was the name of a famous field troll, a very wise little troll who experimented in potions and salves. This is the same Vilnar who found your cure?”

“The same,” Düm said.

“I thought Vilnar lived in the northern lands—”

“He did. But when Troll King defeat tribe of field trolls in north and destroy their lands, he bring Vilnar back to Troll Mountain as prisoner to serve as potion-master for him.”

Ko looked stunned. “Vilnar toils as a slave for your king! Well! That is not right, not right at all—”

They rounded a curve in the rocky path and stopped suddenly.

Two posts flanked the road. Crudely impaled on top of them, mouths open in silent screams, were a pair of troll skulls.

Beyond the grim posts, the path ended at a large stone doorway set into a rock wall. Glyphs and runes were cut into the frame of the ancient doorway, the writings of a civilization that no living person could now decipher.

A massive unbroken spider web spanned the yawning portal. No one had passed through it in a very long time.

Raf stared at the two impaled skulls. They were large, with tusks on their lower jaws; they looked like an unholy cross between a human skull and a bear skull.

“We have arrived at the realm of the hobgoblins,” Ko said. “These stakes are a warning from the hobgoblins to their troll neighbors. Are you still sure you want to do this, Raf? If there are hobgoblins still in there, this will not be pleasant.”

Raf didn’t hesitate. “If this is the only way to reach Troll Mountain undetected, then this is the way I must go. You, however, have come far further than you promised, Ko. You have done more than enough for me. There is no need for you to face this danger.”

The old man looked back down the road, as if seeing his little shack in the distance. Then he turned back to face Raf.

“I have indeed come further than I intended,” Ko said. “And yet now I find myself wanting to come further still. If the trolls of Troll Mountain hold the wise old field troll, Vilnar, as their slave, then this is a wrong that I cannot let stand. If you will have me, I would like to go with you.”

“I would be happy to have you by my side,” Raf said, rather relieved.

He stepped forward and with his flint knife cut a long slit in the spider web sealing the entrance. Then, guided by the firelight of a torch, he led Düm and Ko into the abandoned kingdom of the hobgoblins.