Troll Mountain: The Complete Novel

Chapter 14

Carefully and silently, Raf scaled Troll Mountain.

He moved with tremendous caution, making sure not to dislodge any loose stones or rocks — in the eerie silence of the night, a bouncing stone would ring out like a bell.

He scaled the mountain in a zigzagging fashion. At first, this motion took him westward, but for some unknown reason, the western flank of the mountain became sheer and vertical very quickly, so he traversed to the eastern side. It turned out to be far more climbable and had the added bonus of offering more concealment within its crags.

A short way up the eastern flank, Raf came to a paved stone path, worn smooth from constant use. It stretched from the Main Gate up to a side doorway halfway up the mountain.

According to Düm, this path (and another that led from the Main Gate down to the trolls’ dam) was used for dragging stone sleds filled with food from the lowlands and water from the dam to the Mountain King’s halls.

This was Düm’s job as a dragger — the lowest of the low in troll society. All day, every day, he and the other draggers pulled the heavy sleds up the paved path to a kitchen area adjoining the Great Hall.

Düm had also said that low-born trolls, when returning to the mountain, were only allowed to walk up these paths. High-born trolls — the king’s family and the families he favored — could use the more direct route to the Great Hall: the magnificent staircase that rose in a dead-straight line from the Main Gate to the hall’s arched doorway on the front face of the mountain.

Raf didn’t dare step out onto the path. Rather, he kept within the crags on its upper side and ascended the mountain parallel to it.

Further up the dragging path, Raf beheld one last watchtower, this one perched two-thirds of the way up the mountain, on its rear corner, facing north-east.

To avoid being spotted by its guards, he bent back around toward the front face of the mountain, climbing close to the corner spine of the great peak, roughly equidistant from the Main Gate and this watchtower, moving carefully, using the folds of the rocky slope to conceal his progress.

At one point in his journey up the front face, he came within twenty yards of one of the high stone windows that opened out from the Great Hall.

Raf wanted to peek inside it, but he didn’t dare. He could hear deep snoring sounds within, even from this distance. It was the sound of many trolls sleeping. With their great noses, it seemed trolls were loud snorers.

He climbed ever higher.

A short way up from the window, he came across a small shelf cut into the mountainside, within which was a curious object.

It was a pedestal of some kind.

A monument.

It was cut from beautiful black stone and inscribed on it were words in an ancient language that Raf did not know. Had he been able to comprehend them, he would have read:

The pedestal had the same look to it as the rock-cut doorways in the hobgoblin kingdom — it had been made by that same civilization of clever men.

A deep crack, however, presumably the result of a blow from a troll hammer, split the monument down the middle. Troll graffiti covered it.

Raf moved on.

Further up, about a hundred feet below the flat floor of the king’s open-air Winter Throne Hall, Raf peeped over a rocky crag to discover a most sickening sight.

He saw a set of sharp wooden stakes, a forest of the things, on which were impaled the bloody corpses of trolls and people. All of the dead bodies were in advanced states of decay — the vultures of the mountains had fed on them.

Raf looked upward and saw, directly above the grisly collection of stakes, the southern edge of the Winter Throne Hall.

These poor souls — humans and trolls alike — had been thrown down here …

Raf looked at one of the fresher corpses more closely and recognized something about it.

This corpse wore the distinctive wooden necklace of an elder of his tribe. He had been a Northman!

Then, to his horror, Raf realized that this man had been one of the two elders who had originally been sent to parley with the trolls when they had cut off the river flow — the two elders who had never returned.

Raf stared at the corpses for a long time before he continued on up the slope.

As Raf scaled the mountain, Ko and Düm continued to watch his progress from their ledge.

It was hard to follow him in the gloom, especially when he disappeared behind a crag, but since they knew his objective — the summit — they were able to keep track of him.

“Are there any other troll tribes that you know of?” Ko asked Düm as they watched Raf step around the stakes beneath the Winter Throne Hall.

“No,” Düm said sadly. “We last troll tribe.”

“Really? The last one?”

“Yes. We mainly mountain trolls with a few field trolls and cave trolls. They joined our tribe when their tribes failed. Every year our tribe get smaller.”

“Why is that, do you think?” Ko was genuinely curious.

Düm shrugged. “Trolls very simple. Enjoy fighting and sporting and not doing much work. Toughest trolls rule and take wives and eat most food. Strongest troll is king.

“So lowly troll happy when wife give birth to big strong boy. Troll sad when wife give birth to she-troll or runt. Often baby she-trolls and runts killed by parents, because they no use in troll tribe. Only boys useful.”

Ko frowned. “Does that mean you have few females and many males?”

“Yes. That right.”

“Do the males compete for the females?”

“As Düm already say, trolls enjoy fighting. Dispute over she-troll just another reason to have fight. Yes, many fights over that.”

“I see,” Ko said darkly. “What about the smart trolls? I was under the impression that smaller trolls were quite clever and inventive.”

“This true. Wise trolls often smaller trolls, runt trolls. But now few of them. Some time ago troll kings begin to dislike wise trolls, because they often disagree with king, say king doing wrong thing. But king no want to look like fool so he sometimes throw troublesome wise troll off top of mountain. Many recent kings do this. Now king no longer disagreed with.”

“But without clever tribe members,” Ko said, “how does your society develop new ways of doing things?”

Düm shrugged again. “Trolls just keep doing things the way they always been done. Fight as have always fought. No need to farm, since trolls take tribute from humans. Düm not even know how to farm. Düm just know how to drag, drag food and water up dragging path. Senior trolls spend most days lazing and drinking and having death fights for sport.”

Ko didn’t speak for a long time.

Then he turned to face Düm.

“Is this what happened to the other troll tribes?” he asked.

“Düm not know. Düm just humble worker troll. But some draggers come to Troll Mountain from other failed tribes and, yes, them say same things happen in their tribes.”

Ko gazed out at Troll Mountain.

“Your race is dying and it doesn’t even know it,” he said softly. “Your very culture is killing you off. Within a generation or two, there will be no more trolls walking the earth.”

There was a short silence.

Then Düm nodded at Raf on the mountain.

“What about Master Raf? If trolls catch him, they be very angry. Very angry.”

Ko nodded. “All we can do now is keep an eye on him. But if our young friend is not back by morning, we must assume he has been captured.”

“And if he captured? Then what? Master Raf nice human. Save Düm’s life when no have to. Seem bad if he be left to die among trolls.”

“I’m inclined to agree with you,” Ko said. “There is something about that boy that I like a lot. He’s different from the other members of his tribe. He has a future while they do not. I would not like to see him meet a gruesome end.”