'Yeah?'
Cohen tried easing himself upright again. Tendons twanged their red-hot
messages down his legs..
'My dad,' he squeaked. He got control again. 'My dad,' he said, 'said to me...'
He fought for breath.
'Son,' said the horse, helpfully.
'What?'
'Son,' said the horse. 'No father every calls his boy 'son' unless he's about
to impart wisdom. Well-known fact.'
'It's my reminiscence.'
'Sorry'
'He said... Son... yes, OK... Son, when you can face down a troll in single
combat, the you can do anything.'
The horse blinked at him. The it turned and looked down, again, through the
tree-jostled road to the gloom of the gorge. There was a stone bridge down
there.
A horrible feeling stole over it.
Its hooves jiggled nervously on the ruined road.
'Rimwards,' it said. 'Nice and warm.' 'No.'
'What's the good of killing a troll? What've you got when you've killed a
troll?'
'A dead troll. That's the point. Anyway, I don't have to kill it. Just defeat
it. One on one. Mano a... troll. And if I didn't try my father would turn in
his mound.'
'You told me he drove you out of the tribe when you were eleven.'
'Best day's work he ever did. Taught me to stand on other people's feet.
Come over here, will you?'
The horse sidled over. Cohen got a grip on the saddle and heaved himself fully
upright.
'And you're going to fight a troll today,' said the horse.
Cohen fumbled in the saddlebag and pulled out his tobacco pouch. The wind
whipped at the shreds as he rolled another skinny cigarette in the cup of his
hands.
'Yeah,' he said.
'And you've come all the way out here to do it.'
'Got to,' said Cohen. 'When did you last see a bridge with a troll under it?
There were hundreds of 'em when I was a lad. Now there's more trolls in the
cities than there are in the mountains. Fat as butter, most of 'em. What did we
fight all those wars for? Now... cross that bridge.'
It was a lonely bridge across a shallow, white, and treacherous river in a deep
valley. The sort of place where you got...
A grey shape vaulted over the parapet and landed splay-footed in front of the
horse. It waved a club.
'All right,' it growled.
Вы читаете Troll Bridge
