Troll Mountain: The Complete Novel

Chapter 18

After he stepped off the elevator, Raf was pushed by a pair of guards through a dark horizontal tunnel that delved into Troll Mountain.

He heard shouts and cheers from somewhere.

At the end of the tunnel he came to a fork — he could go up, presumably to the Winter Throne Hall, or down.

He was shoved downward.

The cheering became louder. As he proceeded down a steep passageway, Raf heard a series of dull thunks followed by a chanting of “Grondo! Grondo!”

A rush of fear shot through Raf’s body. Where were they taking him? What had he got himself into?

Then Raf turned a corner and suddenly he found himself standing inside the upper reaches of the vast space that was the Great Hall of the Mountain King.

His breath caught in his throat.

Raf stood at the top of a staircase that wound in an elegant spiral down the outside of a gargantuan stone column. (While the immense column appeared to be an addition to the hall, it — and the three other mighty columns holding up the ceiling — had actually been cut from the mountain itself. Similar spiral staircases wound around the flanks of the other columns.)

In the center of the immense space was a high pyramidal podium on which stood the Troll King’s throne, far larger than the one up on the Winter Throne Hall. A horde of perhaps two hundred trolls was gathered at the foot of the throne, thronging around a pair of trolls who were engaged in combat, cheering and shouting at every blow.

And sitting on the throne, flanked by what appeared to be his sons, his cronies, and a pair of hobgoblin jesters, biting down on a meat-covered bone, contentedly lording over the scene, was the Troll King himself.

As Raf was led down the spiral staircase, the two fighting trolls continued their battle, hitting each other’s shields with their hammers. Then the bigger troll disarmed the smaller one and broke his wooden shield with a lusty blow and the crowd chanted ever louder, “Grondo! Grondo!” The big troll started unleashing more blows on the now-defenseless smaller one, knocking him to the ground and pinning him, before turning to the king.

A hush fell over the hall.

All eyes turned to the Troll King.

One of the hobgoblin jesters made a throat-slitting gesture.

The king said simply, “Kill him, Grondo.”

Grondo’s hammer came down on the head of the fallen troll and made a sickening noise.

The crowd roared, the jesters danced, the king smiled, and as the trolls gathered around the victor, Grondo, a pair of worker-trolls dragged the dead body of the vanquished one away.

Grondo was escorted up to the king’s throne. He dropped to one knee before the king and bowed his head.

The king stood. “You are a worthy champion, Grondo. I thank you for this fine gift of death you have given me on my son’s wedding day.”

“It is my honor and privilege, lord,” the champion said.

“Please stay here by my throne today,” the king said, and the crowd gasped for this was clearly an honor. Grondo took his place among the row of courtiers and troll princes standing behind the king, his head held high.

Gripped by his guards, Raf was brought across the floor of the chamber and made to stand directly in front of the king’s mighty throne. The huge crowd of trolls stood closely around him, grunting, whispering, and glaring.

Standing in their midst, Raf looked small, frail, and alone and he felt like that, too. He barely reached their shoulders.

“My lord!” called the senior guard. “I bring you the thief caught on the mountain during the night!”

The king leaned forward, eyeing Raf closely. The crowd of trolls encircling Raf fell silent.

Raf was assessing the Troll King, too. Like all the bigger trolls, the king had a long snout and a pair of tusks jutting up from his protruding lower jaw. Draggers like Düm had flatter faces and no tusks, while field trolls were just small.

As he looked at the king more closely, Raf noticed that he further distinguished himself from the other trolls by wearing foul decorations on his body: a necklace made of human fingerbones, a cloak made of a mountain-wolf pelt, and worst of all, a weapons belt featuring two daggers and a longer blade made of a sharpened human leg bone.

The Troll King spoke.

“I was told about this thief. He was discovered in the Supreme Watchtower, trying to steal the Elixir. No thief has ever made it so far. He must be … slippery.”

No one spoke.

The king grinned meanly. “But not slippery enough.”

The assembled trolls sniggered.

One of the hobgoblin jesters was glaring right at Raf, cruel and hard.

“You are not the first human to attempt to penetrate our stronghold and steal our Elixir, young thief,” the king said. “Here is another.”

The king held up the meat-covered bone on which he had been gnawing. Raf’s blood froze.

“Nothing tastes sweeter than the marrow of an enemy,” the king said. “And since today is a special day, I think I shall—”

“My tribe is dying,” Raf blurted, and the entire crowd gasped at the sheer gall of someone interrupting the king.

The king looked as if he had been slapped in the face.

“You cut off our water,” Raf said, “so our crops grow poorly and we Northmen become weaker and more susceptible to the illness. I came here only to—”

“Silence!” the king boomed, his voice ringing through the enormous hall. The assembled trolls quailed. The jesters literally cowered.

But Raf stood his ground.

The king’s eyes bulged. “Impudent thief! How dare you address me so! I have a good mind to snap one of your arms off right now and eat your bones in front of you! Northmen! Northmen! I know this tribe. A dirty rabble. They sent elders to bargain with me months ago. I received those old men on my winter throne. They, er, fell before me.”

The trolls near Raf sniggered.

The king boomed, “Then these same Northmen sent a delegation of three young princes several weeks ago, princes who arrived with three porters. The lead prince, Bader was his name, offered me his porters in return for a small bottle of the Elixir.”

Raf’s eyes widened in surprise.

The king saw it.

“Yes. Your prince offered his own people as payment for a sample of the Elixir. He did not ask for water or food or even a barrel of the magic drink. Just a single small bottle.”

Raf saw the scene in his mind. Bader had come here not to save the tribe from the illness at all. He had only come to save his own sister. And he had brought along the three porters not as assistants but as unsuspecting sacrificial offerings.

The king leered at Raf, his huge troll mouth salivating. “I saw little honor in this Northman prince named Bader so I ate his porters anyway and threw him and his fellow princes in my cells to contemplate their treachery.”

Raf said nothing.

The king’s eyes narrowed. “But you, thief, you are not like him. You came here alone, under the cover of night, and you scaled an entire mountain to steal my Elixir. Were it not for my own precautions, you might have succeeded. No, you are motivated by a far more dangerous emotion than your prince was: the desire to save others. You … are a hero.”

The king raised his chin. “Trolls! Today, as you know, is a special day, the day of my son’s wedding. And so, as a wedding gift, I will give this hero to my son, Turv”—the king nodded to the tall red-robed troll at his right hand, who, Raf noted, also wore a grim fingerbone necklace plus a bone-sword at his waist made from a human leg—“as his matrimonial meal. While not as succulent as the meat of a child or a woman, the tough sinew of a hero will bring Turv that hero’s strength.”

The crowd of trolls gasped and then applauded vigorously. This was an astonishing gift: captured enemy warriors were usually eaten only by the king himself.

“Tonight,” the king announced, “at the wedding banquet for Turv and his bride, Graia, this thief will be ritually killed and his bones served bloody and fresh to Turv! Until then, put him in the cage, so I may look upon him throughout the day!”

Raf was led to a small iron cage that hung from a great chain. He was locked inside it and hoisted aloft, high above the floor of the hall for all to see: the live prisoner who would become that evening’s celebratory meal.