Mark Lawrence - King of Thorns

“Hello,” I said. It sounded stupid, one thin voice in that great chamber, but I could think of nothing else to say, and fighting them just didn’t appeal. The only comfort to be taken was that both those pairs of black eyes were fixed on Gorgoth rather than me.

“Can’t you hear them?” Gorgoth asked.

“No,” I said.

The leftmost troll leapt forward without the preamble of feints or growling. He threw himself at Gorgoth, reaching for his face. Gorgoth caught the troll’s wrists and stopped him dead. Both monsters stood, locked together, leaning in, muscles writhing and twitching. The troll’s breath escaped in quick rasps. Gorgoth rumbled. I hadn’t seen him struggle with anything since he held the gate up at the Haunt. Every task since then, be it unloading barrels, shifting rocks, anything, hadn’t so much as raised a sweat.

Row lifted his bow again. For the second time I caught his arm. “Wait.”

They held each other, straining, the occasional swift readjustment of feet. Troll claws gouging the rock. Gorgoth’s blunt toes anchoring his weight. Muscle heaped against muscle, bones creaking with the strain, spit flecking at their lips as harsh breaths escaped. Moments stretched until they felt like minutes. My own nails bit into my palm, white knuckles on sword hilt; something had to give, something. And without warning the troll slammed into the floor, a beat of silence and Gorgoth let out a deep roar that hurt my chest and set Row’s nose bleeding.

Gorgoth heaved in a breath. “They will serve,” he said.

“What?” I said, then, “Why?

The troll on the floor rolled over and got to its feet, backing to its companion.

“They are soldiers,” he said. “They want to serve. They were made for it.”

“Made?” I asked, still watching the trolls, ready to try to defend myself.

“It has been written in their dena,” Gorgoth said.

“By Ferrakind?”

“A long time ago,” Gorgoth said. “They are a race. I don’t know when they were changed.”

“The Builders made them?” I asked, wondering.

“Maybe then. Maybe after.” Gorgoth shrugged.

“They are Grendel’s children,” Sindri said. He looked as if he thought he was dreaming. “Made for war in the ashes of Ragnarok. They’re waiting here for the final battle.”

“Do they know what made these tunnels?” I asked. “And where they lead?”

Gorgoth paused. “They know how to fight,” he said.

“That’s good too.” I grinned. “You’re talking to them in your head, aren’t you?”

Gorgoth managed surprise again. “Yes,” he said. “I suppose I am.”

“What now?” Sindri said, still looking from one troll to the other, testing the edge of his axe with his fingers.

“We go back,” I said. I needed to muse and musing is more comfortable under a duke’s roof than on a windswept volcano or buried in fetid caves.

“Gorgoth, tell the trolls we’ll be back and to keep our visit to themselves.” I looked the pair over one more time. I wondered what kind of havoc they’d wreak on a battlefield. The best kind I thought.

“Let’s go back,” I said. And see if our perspectives have changed any after our climb.

Four years earlier

The forests in the Danelore have a character all their own, dense pines that make a perpetual twilight of the day and an ink-black soup of each night, moon or no. Old needles deaden every footfall and hoof, leaving the dry scratchings of dead branches the only sound. In such a place it takes no leap of imagination to believe every goblin tale of the long-hall. And in breaking clear once more into open air you understand that it was with the wood-axe man claimed these lands, not the battleaxe.

We came back to Duke Alaric’s hall early with the cocks crowing and every shadow stretching itself out over the grass as if to point the way. A ground mist still hung in shreds around the trees, swirling where the horses stepped. A few servants were on the move, to and fro between the great hall and the kitchens, stable-boys getting horses ready to ride, a baker up from the nearby village with warm loaves heaped on his cart.

Two lads from the stables took our horses. I gave Brath a slap on his haunch as they led him off. A light rain started to fall. I didn’t mind.

The rain made the stonework glisten, falling heavier by the moment. There’s a word. Glisten. Silver chains on holy trees, the gloss on lips for kissing, dew on spiderwebs, sweat on breasts. Glisten, glisten, listen. Say it until the meaning bleeds away. Even without meaning it stays true. The rain made the grey stone glisten. Not quite a sparkle, not quite a gleam, but a glisten to the soaked cobbles, a gurgle from gutters where the dirt ran and leaves twirled in fleeting rapids, bound for dark and hungry throats, swallowed past stone teeth. A piece of straw ran by my feet, arrowing the straightest path; a kayak on white water, it bobbed, plunged, surged, reached the drain, spun twice, and was gone.

Sometimes the world slows and you notice every small thing, as if you stood between two beats of eternity’s heart. It seemed to me I had felt something similar before, with Corion, with Sageous, even Jane. The air hung heavy with the metallic scent of rain. I wondered: if I stood out there, in the flood, would the rain wrap a grey life and make it shine? Should I stand, arms spread, and raise my face? Let it wash me clean. Or did my stains run too deep?

I listened to the fall of it, to the drumming, the drip, the pitter, and the patter. The others moved around me, handing over reins, taking saddlebags, the business of living, as if they hadn’t noticed me step outside such things. As if they couldn’t sense her.

Rike stumbled from the great hall, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

“Christ, Rike,” I said. “We’ve been gone a day. How did you grow a beard?”

He shrugged, rubbing at stubble near deep enough to lose his fingers in. “When in Roma.”

I ignored his bad geography and the fact that he even knew the phrase, and asked the more obvious question. “Why are you up?” On the road Rike always came last from his bed-roll and would never rise without some kind of threat or enticement.

He scratched his head at that. Sindri came back from the stables and clapped a hand on my shoulder. “He’ll look good with a beard. We’ll make a Viking of him yet!”

Rike frowned. “She said to meet her at the end of the lake.”

“Who said?”

He frowned again, shrugged, and went back into the hall.

I looked out across the lake. At the far end, faint through the grey veils of rain, a tent stood, a yurt, yellowed with age, a thin line of smoke escaping through the smoke-hole. The strangeness came from there. That was where she waited.

Sindri looked too. “That’s Ekatri, a volva from the north. She doesn’t come often. Twice when I was young.”

“Volva?” I asked.

“She knows things. She can see the future,” Sindri said. “A witch. Is that what you call them?” He frowned. “Yes, a witch. You’d best go to her. Wouldn’t do to keep her waiting. Maybe she’ll read your future for you.”

“I’ll go now,” I said. Sometimes you wait and watch, sometimes you walk right on in. There’s not much to learn from the outside of a tent.

“I’ll see you inside.” Sindri nodded to the hall, grinned, and wiped the rain from his beard. He’d be waking his father before I got to the end of the lake, telling him about the trolls and Gorgoth. What would the good duke make of all that? I wondered. Perhaps the witch would tell me.

The ground trembled once as I walked along the lake, setting the water dancing. I could smell the smoke from the witch’s tent now. It put an acrid taste in my mouth and reminded me of the volcanoes. The wind picked up, blowing rain into my face.