Troll Mountain: The Complete Novel

Chapter 3

Raf hastened to the head family’s hut to see what could be done.

A crowd was massing at the entrance. They were gathered around three young men of the head family who were dressed in their finest fighting clothes and bearing weapons.

Raf sighed when he saw who was at the center of the commotion: Bader. People were handing the tall young warrior sacks of produce and handicrafts.

“What’s happening?” Raf stopped a youth hurrying by with a wooden shield in his hands. The boy’s name was Timbuk and he was a year younger than Raf. Wide-eyed and eager to please, Timbuk yearned to join the ranks of the head family’s warriors. So he acted as their errand boy and they let him, even as they joked about him behind his back.

“Didn’t you hear?” Timbuk said breathlessly. “Last night, Lilibala took ill with the disease.” Lilibala was the chief’s only daughter and youngest child, his favorite. “The chief is sending a war party to demand the Elixir from the trolls! He is sending Bader, both with gifts and swords. The chief is such a man of action.”

“Yes,” Raf said, “a man of action who has not acted till one of his own was struck down.”

“Bader will save us,” Timbuk said keenly. “I know he will.”

Timbuk rushed off with the shield, handing it reverently to Bader.

Raf stared at the bustle. The chief of the tribe and his clique of related elders all patted Bader on the back and wished him good fortune.

Raf stared at their fat bodies and then looked at his own skinny form — as the rest of the tribe starved, the chief’s family were clearly still eating their fill.

Something in him stirred and he stepped forward and hailed the chief.

“Sir, my sister, she has taken ill,” Raf said loudly.

“As has my beloved daughter,” the chief said. “Put your faith in Bader. He will show those trolls that the Northmen are a noble people and demand of them some of their fabled Elixir.”

“What of the bargain they are said to demand for use of the Elixir?” Raf asked.

Even he could discern what the bargain was: you traded yourself for the Elixir; your loved one survived, but you remained with the trolls. It struck Raf that the head family were not the kind of people who willingly sacrificed themselves for anyone.

“We do not bargain with trolls!” the chief said, raising his voice so that all could hear. “Other tribes may, but the reputation of the Northmen is a currency that they do not possess! Bader will bring back the Elixir and our tribe will be cured of this accursed disease!”

The crowd cheered.

The chief smiled.

Then the war party — Bader and two other burly young men, with three smaller tribesmen carrying their gifts and provisions — departed, heading north out of the valley.

Raf watched them go in silence before returning to his hovel to tend to his sister.

Bader’s party never returned.

They were expected back within a week, but soon seven days became ten, then fifteen.

Every day Raf kept watch at the northern edge of the valley, but he saw no sign of Bader or his party.

All the while, Kira’s health deteriorated. Her eye sockets grew dark and hollow. The boils on her skin multiplied. Her gums became withered and dry.

Raf tended to her with great devotion, to the point where he had to hold food and water to her mouth just so she could eat and drink.

One evening, Kira smiled weakly at him through her cracked lips. “I never … thought I would see … the day when you would dote on me.” Her little chuckle became a pained, hacking cough.

That night, Raf stroked her hair as she fell asleep. He couldn’t stand this. With every passing day she was getting nearer and nearer to death, yet still there was no sign of Bader’s war party.

The next afternoon — the sixteenth day after Bader and his warriors had departed — Raf made his decision.

That evening, Kira awoke from a restless sleep to find Raf kneeling by the fire filling a rabbit-skin pack.

“Raf. What are you doing?”

“I’m going to Troll Mountain. To get you the Elixir.”

“Raf, no! You can’t! You can’t give yourself to the trolls in exchange for curing me. How can I live knowing you traded your life for mine?”

Raf turned to her, and she saw a fire in his eyes, a gleam of fierce determination.

“Kira, I didn’t say I was going to trade myself for the Elixir. I said I’m going to Troll Mountain to get the Elixir. I’m going to steal the Elixir from the trolls.”