Mark Lawrence - The Liar's key

A few moments later I picked up a loose stone and lobbed it over Hannan’s head, out across the lake. The question was never if I would throw a stone, just when.

• • •

We stayed up on the crater rim until the sun began to fall and the wind grew chill. I had to call the boy back from whatever silly games were occupying him at the lakeshore. He’d found a twig somewhere and set it to sail where new melt water had gathered on the ice.

He came running up between us, Snorri staring into the distance across the valleys choked with forest, and me huddled in the blanket that was serving me as a cloak.

“We’re going down already?” He looked disappointed. “I want to stay.”

“We don’t always get what we want,” I said, remembering as the words left my mouth that he didn’t need advice on hardship from me. He’d watched the man who raised him die within moments of our acquaintance. “Here.” I held out a silver crown between two fingers to take his mind off it. “You can have this coin, or you can have the most valuable piece of advice I own, something a wise man once told me and I’ve never shared.”

Snorri looked around at that, taking in the two of us with a raised eyebrow.

“Well?” I asked.

Hennan furrowed his brow, staring at the coin, then at me, then at the coin. “I’ll. .” He reached out, then pulled his hand back. “I’ll. . the advice.” He blurted it out as if the words pained him.

I nodded sagely. “Always take the money.”

Hennan looked at me uncomprehending as I stood, pocketing the coin and pulling my blanket tight. Snorri snorted.

“Wait. . what?” Hennan’s confusion giving way to anger.

Snorri led the way and I followed.

“Always take the money, kid. Bankable advice, that.”

• • •

By the time Gorgoth finally reported that the Danes had been spotted entering the forest we were all eager to be on the road again.

We left on a dreary late afternoon with a north wind raking rain across the slopes. The plan was to travel by night on our long journey but the earliest part of the route, down from the Heimrift, lay through lands so sparsely populated that the Danes said that there was no need for concealment. My bet was that our escort just didn’t want their first meeting with a horde of trolls to be in the dark.

Still wearing what we’d escaped the wreck of the Errensa in we wound our way down the black flanks of Halradra toward the pine forests in the valleys below. Snorri kept us at the rear of the column and we counted one hundred and forty of the beasts as they left the caves, hissing at the light. An eerie thing to follow a hundred and more trolls, creatures few men have ever glimpsed even in ones or twos, and fewer men have lived to speak of. We five made more noise than they did, with barely a sound passing between the lot of them. And yet the exodus proved orderly and swift. Kara maintained the creatures must speak together in some manner beyond our hearing, without the need for words. I offered that sheep will form an orderly queue to leave their pen and they’re just dumb animals. A troll at the rear turned his head at that and fixed those wholly black eyes of his upon me. I shut up then.

Once within the shelter of the trees Gorgoth called a halt and the trolls spread themselves about, breaking noisy paths through the dense thickets of old dry branches.

“We will wait here, as agreed,” Gorgoth said.

How he knew where to wait I couldn’t say. It looked like a random piece of forest to me, indistinguishable from any other, but I was content to wait now that we were out of the worst of the wind and rain. I sat against a tree, my wet shirt sticking unpleasantly to me. If it weren’t for the presence of a hundred trolls I would have been fretting about pine-men and other horrors that might lurk in the shadows. Snorri and I hadn’t had good experiences with the region’s forests on our journey north. Even so I leaned back and relaxed, not caring how bad the troll stink got. A price well worth paying for peace of mind.

“. . man in charge. .” Tuttugu chatting with Gorgoth a short distance from me. The two of them seemed to get on well despite one being a vast devil wrapped in a red hide, and the other a fat ginger Norseman not reaching up much past his elbow. “. . duke’s nephew. .”

A ripple of unease ran through me, as if a stone had dropped into the recently calmed pool of my peace.

“The duke’s nephew what?” I called out.

“The duke’s nephew is leading our escort, Jal, they should be here soon,” Tuttugu called back.

“Hmmm.” It seemed fair enough. Only fitting that a Prince of Red March should have a noble in charge of escorting him safely home. Albeit a minor noble. Duke’s nephew. . somewhere a bell was ringing.

I shrugged off my unease and sat watching Kara watching Hennan while the rain dripped on me through the dense needles above. After a while I spotted the troll-stone that must be the reason for the place having been chosen as our rendezvous. An ancient and weathered chunk of rock, moss-covered and bedded in the ground at a slight angle. I could tell it was a troll-stone by the way it bore not the slightest resemblance to the trolls to either side of it.

• • •

“Horses! They’re coming.” Snorri stood, spear in hand, his axe now secured across his back with an arrangement of goat-hide thongs he’d fashioned during our stay in the cave.

Seconds later I could hear them too, branches snapping as they forced a passage through the trees. A short while later the first of them came into view.

“Hail, Gorgoth.” The man sounded uneasy. I could see three of them in total, all mounted, pressed close together by more than just the trees. All around us black shapes moved in the shadows. The horses seemed even more nervous than their riders, the scent of troll making them roll their eyes.

They came closer, all of them in wolf-skin cloaks, round shields on their arms, helms not dissimilar to the Red Vikings’, close-fitting, bound with riveted bands of bronze, eye guards and nose-piece reaching below the rim and elaborately worked.

“Good to meet again.” Gorgoth lifted one of his huge hands in welcome. “How many are you?”

“Twenty riders. My men are down on the forest road. Are you ready to go?”

“We are.” Gorgoth inclined his head.

The riders tugged on their reins but, as they turned, their leader caught sight of Snorri, pushing from the trees.

“Who are your guests. . Gorgoth?” I heard the hesitation as he fought to give the monster some honorific, but failed.

My unease returned. The man looked to be young, of medium build. His golden mane spread across his shoulders. That struck a sour chord.

In my moment of hesitation Snorri came to the fore, grinning, showing his teeth in that way of his that mysteriously turns strangers into friends in such short order.

“I’m Snorri ver Snagason, of the clan Undoreth from the shores of the Uulisk fjord. This is my kinsman Olaf Arnsson, called Tuttugu.” He spread a hand toward Tuttugu who stepped from behind Gorgoth, picking twigs from his beard.

Kara came forward, as ignorant of protocol as the rest of them. A prince should take precedent and be introduced before commoners. I’d thought even commoners knew that!

“Kara ver Huran, of Reckja in the Land of Ice and Fire.”

That was new! I’d assumed she came from one of the Norseheim jarldoms. I’d met the occasional sailor in Trond who’d been to the Land of Ice and Fire, but very few. They called the crossing treacherous, and when a Viking says treacherous you know it means suicidal. Little wonder she seemed so at home living in caves on volcanoes.

I cleared my throat and stepped forward, wishing that I could make my introduction from horseback and at least look the fellow in the eyes, or better still look down at him.