The Sea of Trolls

Lucy wriggled beside him, and he tightened his hold on her. The warriors above were growing ever more clear. They were cloaked in sheepskins and wore leather caps over their long, pale hair. Swords and axes hung from their belts. One was only a boy.

For a long moment the men conferred, and then, miraculously, they turned back the way they had come. They would miss the village! Jack hugged Lucy. “They’re going,” she whispered.

“Shh,” said Jack. The boy had turned and was once again scanning the bracken.

“Komdu, Thorgil,” called one of the men.

“They’re the knights come to take me to my castle,” Lucy cried out suddenly. “Here I am! Here!”

The boy on the road shouted, “?arna er kaninan!” He leaped into the bracken, knife in hand, and grabbed Lucy. Jack tried to knock him down, but the boy yanked her up by the hair and held the knife to her throat. By now the men were running back.

Jack had one instant—only one—in which he could have fled, leaving Lucy behind in the clutches of the berserkers. He couldn’t do it. She was so little and helpless. He was her brother. He had no hope of defeating such a band of warriors, but he could stay with her, little though that might accomplish. At least they would die together.

In the next instant a huge man with one bushy eyebrow extending across his forehead fell on Jack like a tree and knocked him senseless.

The ground was moving. It tossed him up first and then slid him down in a nauseating roll. Jack gulped for air, got foul-tasting water instead, and then he did vomit. He crouched on hands and knees. He had been lying facedown in a filthy pool, and his whole body was wet and cold. The ground heaved again.

“?r?llinn er vakna?ur,” someone said.

Jack’s head throbbed. He looked down to see a drop of blood plop into the disgusting pool. He felt his hair. It was matted and sticky. How had that happened?

“Hei ?r?ll! ?u hefur svoliti? kettlingaklor ?arna.” There was crude laughter, and several other voices joined in.

Jack struggled to understand. They were speaking something like Saxon, but the accent was so barbaric, he could make out only one word in three. Was ?r?ll their word for thrall? If so—Jack had to think hard—it meant “servant” or possibly “slave.” That didn’t sound good. Kettlingur, which was close to kettlingaklor, meant “kitten.” What did kittens have to do with him?

Jack looked up—his head hurt so much, he was afraid to move quickly. The ground pitched again, and he saw, beyond a wooden railing, a vast expanse of gray water. He looked to the other side. More water.

He was on a ship! Jack had been in little coracles close to shore. He used them to reach small islands at low tide, to gather seagull eggs and whelks. He never went far. Now he saw no islands, only a heaving gray sea with a pitiless gray sky above. He moaned and ducked his head to shut out the terrible sight.

“Skr?fan ?in.”

Skrafan thin. Jack easily translated that into his own language. It was a favorite insult thrown back and forth between the village boys: “scaredy-pants”. Well, he was scared. Who wouldn’t be? He was adrift on the open sea with no memory of how he got there.

He turned to get a look at who was talking and flinched. It was a giant. Maybe not a true giant—they were supposed to have hands big enough to pick up an ox. But this creature was certainly taller than any man Jack had seen. He had blond braids hanging past his shoulders, a massive beard covering his chest, and one bushy eyebrow extending all the way across his face.

Now the boy remembered. In that fragment of time between seeing Lucy with a knife at her throat and the utter darkness that followed, there was an instant where a huge one-browed man had hurled himself at Jack. This was he! This was a berserker in the flesh, every bit as dreadful as the stories said. Beyond him Jack saw other men pulling on oars. They were smaller than the giant but just as evil-looking.

Lucy! What had happened to her? Had they—? It was unthinkable! But men who could slaughter the gentle monks would think nothing of killing a girl. Jack closed his eyes. He had failed to save the one person he was bound to protect. His fragile little sister had been tossed aside as if she were of no more importance than a mouse.

He found that having his eyes closed made him even more seasick.

Jack pulled himself up and staggered to the rail. It would take only a small effort to throw himself over the side. Why not? What did he have to live for? Lucy was dead, perhaps even his parents. He didn’t know what had happened while he was unconscious. His future was bleak. The berserkers would probably kill him in some entertaining way. They might even eat him.

Jack felt dizzy with pain and despair. He’d failed everyone, even the Bard. If the old man hadn’t given him the rune of protection, he might have withstood the Nightmare.

Jack felt at his neck. There it was, invisible but still warm to the touch. What a laugh! It saved his life for what? He was a miserable failure who let berserkers kill his sister. He let the Nightmare steal the Bard’s wits. The poor old man would wander until he found the Valley of Lunatics. At least there he’d make friends.

Jack’s mouth quirked. What was wrong with him? He had nothing to smile about. Yet the thought of the Bard having a party in the Valley of Lunatics—all of them saying “wudduh” and “gaaw” and nodding wisely—well, it was kind of funny. No, it’s not, Jack told himself sternly.

Yes, it is, said his mouth, insisting on quirking up.

He felt warmth spreading from the hidden rune. It filled him with a distant hope. After all, he didn’t know that his parents were dead. The Bard might recover. Life was precious and not to be thrown away heedlessly.

At that moment Jack looked down the length of the boat and saw the boy who’d killed Lucy. Jack lurched forward, but he saw he wouldn’t get past the men. They sat squarely in the middle, each one hauling on a pair of oars. The giant sat in front on a wooden chest.

“Hvert ertu a? fara?” said the giant.

Where are you going? Jack translated.

“To kill that boy,” he said, pointing.

For a moment the giant appeared to be working it out. Then his eyes opened wide. “A? drepa ?etta brjostabarn. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!”

“Eg er ekki brjostabarn!” came the outraged voice of the boy.

“Ju, ?a? ertu!”

The men all seemed to find this extremely funny. They roared and hooted. The boy protested in his higher, shriller voice.

“?a? er gott,” said the giant, wiping tears from his eyes. He moved his tree-trunk- size legs to one side and signaled the other men to do likewise. “A? drepa ?etta brjostabarn. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!”

What kind of people were these? thought Jack. They knew he wanted to commit murder, and they liked it! He didn’t understand the word brjostabarn, but drepa most definitely meant “kill”. He pushed his way past the berserkers, stepping over legs and under elbows. He didn’t know what he was going to do when he got back there.

He came out from under the last smelly, sheepskin-clad arm and tripped over Lucy. She was crouched in the dirty water at the bottom of the boat. “It’s about time,” she sniffled. “I’ve been suffering most horribly, and all you did was sleep.”

“You’re alive! Oh, thank Heaven!” He hugged his little sister, who at once burst into tears.

“I’ve been trying to tell these knights to take me to the castle,” she sobbed.

“They aren’t knights,” Jack said, unsure of how much to tell Lucy.

“You can say that again! They smell like hogs and bark like dogs. And they laugh at me. Tell them to take us home right now.”

“I don’t think they’ll obey me,” said Jack.

“Hei ?r?ll! ?vi drepur?u ekki ?etta brjostabarn?”

“He’s asking why you don’t kill me,” said the boy in perfect Saxon. “If you try, I’ll cut your head off.” He continued plying his oar, which was different from the others. It hung from a kind of hinge and went straight down