Nancy Farmer - The Sea of Trolls

Jack gazed at Frith in the smoky light of the fish-oil lamps. He felt no fear. He felt no hate, only a calm assurance of the truth of what he had said. Frith had turned pale.

“You look like—” She stopped, seeming to gather her thoughts. “My mother used to host a chess game with someone like you.” She shook her head. “Well, it doesn’t matter. I’ll try your little trick. If it doesn’t work, I can still sacrifice your sister.” She strode over to King Ivar, who was watching Jack with his mouth open. “Wake up, you weakling!” Frith screamed. “Call your warriors! Tell them to bring me my cats !”

Moments later Ivar’s warriors dragged in the cats on leashes. They had bound their feet and mouths, but the cats managed to get free. They bit and scratched and yowled and hissed. The men yelled and swore and shaved. Under Frith’s orders, they shaved off every bit of the beautiful red-gold hair from the beasts until they had a bag bulging with fur and nine absolutely maddened and naked cats.

“Now I know where those things come from,” Jack remarked to Thorgil, who was relishing every minute of the animals’ humiliation. “Jotunheim. They’re troll-cats.”

“Troll- rats , from the look of them,” said Thorgil.

“Oh, my, my, my,” groaned Freya’s priest. “She’s taken all their fur. They’ll never forgive me.”

“I want him and her with me at the meadow,” commanded Frith, pointing at Jack and Thorgil. “And bring Freya’s cart. If anything goes wrong, I want the boy to see his sister die!”

“No wonder the Mountain Queen threw her out,” muttered Thorgil as she and Jack were herded through the forest by Ivar’s warriors. Skakki and Rune had been forced to stay behind.

“I wish she’d married Frith to an ogre,” Jack said.

“Even ogres are picky.”

Behind them the cart rumbled along the forest road. Jack badly wanted to see how Lucy was, but the warriors stopped him. He caught only a glimpse of her in Heide’s arms. The cats pulling the cart were pale in the moonlight. They were in a towering rage and raked their claws at anyone who got near.

Behind them came Frith with a group of house-thralls and King Ivar. He was so infirm, he could barely walk and had to lean on two of his men.

Wuh-huh-huh went the little brown owls in the trees. A lynx screamed in the distance. The cool, green smells of the forest filled the night, and the road was brilliant with the full moon.

They came to a clearing covered in white flowers—Freya’s Meadow. It was like a mass of stars fallen to earth, and beyond, where the meadow ended, stunted trees rose over peat bog and black water. That was Freya’s Fen.

The cart was pulled to the edge of the meadow. Four of Frith’s house-thralls laid a white cloth over the flowers. Two more scattered the red-gold fur on top, but it looked black in the moonlight. The cats hissed and spat when they saw it.

“They’ll never forgive me,” mourned the priest of Freya.

“Shut up or I’ll have your tongue!” shouted Frith.

A murmur rose from among the warriors. “She’d attack a priest?” one of them whispered.

“Shut up or I’ll have all your tongues! All of you get back into the trees—not too far. The boy and Thorgil are to stay here.” The Northmen withdrew, half carrying King Ivar, whose feet were swollen from the walk.

The house-thralls then disrobed Frith. Jack closed his eyes, but Thorgil nudged him. “You want to see this. It’s interesting,” she said.

And it was. Horrible, but interesting. Frith’s body was white under the harvest moon, and her skin looked soft, like a fungus growing on spoiled meat. It kept reshaping itself with bulges and puckers and seams, never quite human and never quite troll. Scales formed on her arms and flaked off. Her toes splayed out, six or seven on each foot, before shrinking to normal human size. Altogether it was disturbing to watch.

The house-thralls folded her clothes at the edge of the meadow. On top glinted the necklace of silver leaves that Thorgil had so coveted and that she had been forced to give up. Jack saw Thorgil’s hand tighten on her sword.

“Don’t even think of attacking me, shield maiden,” came Frith’s cold voice. “You’re ringed with warriors. One move and I’ll have your sword hand cut off. How would you like that? Forever disabled and never to fight in battle again.”

Jack heard the girl’s teeth grind. In the old days she would have attacked and to Hel with the consequences. Mimir’s Well had taught her patience.

Frith sent her thralls away, and now there was only her, Jack, and Thorgil in the center of the meadow. The moon was almost at zenith. Frith lay down on the fur, and it rustled softly under her weight. There was so much of it from nine, huge, long-haired troll-cats. Frith would surely have hair that would be the wonder of Middle Earth.

Slowly, the moon crept up until it was overhead. A loon called from the fen, and something splashed. Wavelets lapped against the far edge of the meadow. “Look,” whispered Thorgil.

Here, there, all over the white cloth the fur began to move. Strands joined together, making long tresses. They writhed and rustled up to Frith’s head and attached themselves. Soon she was lying in a bed of long, beautiful hair, and now she herself began to change. Her body lengthened and thinned. Her face became heart-shaped, the kind of face that made kings throw away their crowns. Jack understood why Ivar had fallen in love with her. Even Freya could not be more fair.

But the fur kept on rustling. Frith had been told to take a third, and she had taken all. The rest crept over her body and then her face. Frith seemed hypnotized or else unaware of what was happening. She stared up at the moon as more and more and more fur covered her until she was as hairy as a wild beast. Her body changed again to something large and shaggy that had never been seen before.

She put her hand to her face and screamed. It was a savage cry with nothing human in it, and nothing troll, either. Frith sprang to her feet and tore the white cloth as easily as you might tear a gossamer web in early-morning dew. She ripped it to shreds, all the while screaming and shrieking. There were no words in her speech. Perhaps she was incapable of them in her new form. Then she reared up and bellowed her rage at the moon.

Jack dashed to the cart to free Lucy and Heide. The warriors had come back, but seeing Frith’s new shape, they halted under the trees. The cats had gone berserk. They bared their teeth and yowled ferociously. The hair would have stood straight up on their backs, if they’d had any. Thorgil drew her sword and slashed their leashes.

They sprang into the meadow. Frith immediately saw her danger and fled. She bounded into the fen, still screaming, with the nine cats in pursuit. Jack heard their feet splashing and their cries disappearing in the distance.

There were safe places to walk through the fen, Rune said, if you knew where. Perhaps Frith and her pursuers knew. Perhaps not.

“Oh, Jack,” Thorgil said, collapsing against the cart with a sigh. “That was the most satisfying thing I’ve ever done!”

And the priest of Freya walked up and down the edge of the fen, calling, “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty. Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.”

Jack lifted Lucy from the cart. She was smaller and lighter than he remembered. She sagged in his arms. “Lucy, it’s me,” whispered the boy. “You’re safe now. We can go home.” But she didn’t respond.

“Her mind iss far away,” said Heide, climbing down. “It may be a good thing. She wass not made to endure such as Frith.”

One of Ivar’s warriors offered to carry the little girl, and Jack walked at his side, holding her hand. King Ivar was loaded onto the cart—he was much too heavy to carry. A pair of Northmen pulled it along. The king seemed bewildered by what had happened, even when it was explained to him several times.