The Sea of Trolls

“I’ve selected Thorgil to go with us,” the giant announced.

“Thorgil!” cried Jack. “She’s impossible! We need a full-size warrior, not this—this—runt!” Thorgil threw herself at him, and Jack stepped aside and yanked her leg out from under her. He’d learned a thing or two about fighting in the past weeks. She twisted around and grabbed him. They both fell to the bottom of the ship. Olaf pulled them apart. He held one in each hand, shaking them the way a dog shakes a rat.

“Save your anger for the trolls! I’m letting Thorgil come because I think she’s earned a quest. Besides, she wants to fall in battle, and this adventure is a perfect opportunity. By the way, you’re both runts.” Olaf dropped them to the deck. Jack and Thorgil glared at each other, breathing hard.

Bold Heart fluttered over to land on Jack’s shoulder. “Not you,” he cried, trying to brush him off. “This trip isn’t for birds.”

“And I don’t want a witch’s familiar along!” screamed Thorgil.

Bold Heart dug his claws into Jack’s tunic and refused to leave. The boy stopped hitting at him and slumped dejectedly in the bilge. “I can’t take you along, so get used to it.”

“I wonder,” Rune said, kneeling with some difficulty to look at the crow. “I wonder why this creature came to us in the middle of the sea. And why he stays with us.” He extended a gnarled finger, and Bold Heart gently nibbled at it. The old warrior smiled.

“He stays because he’s a witch’s curse,” snarled Thorgil.

Rune smoothed the feathers on Bold Heart’s head. The bird warbled and cooed. “I think… even if we keep him here, he’ll escape and follow you, Jack. He’s part of your fate.”

“Are you telling us to take him?” Olaf said.

“Oh, no!” cried Thorgil.

“I don’t think we have a choice. He’ll go whether we like it or not. You’ll have to carry him through the meadow, Jack. Birds faint more easily than people in poisonous fumes.”

“You got your way,” muttered Jack as Rune slung a bag, containing Bold Heart, around his neck. “But you’re not going to like it.”

Chapter Twenty-six THE DRAGON

The last part of the trip was made at top speed. The warriors rowed for all they were worth and rammed the boat onto the shore. Eric Pretty-Face and Eric the Rash jumped out to steady it. Olaf, Thorgil, and Jack started running the second they hit the ground.

Jack had been right. The ground was boggy. The mud sucked at his feet and made it difficult to move fast. Bees as large as walnuts drifted over the meadow, and Jack saw one struggling in the grip of a particularly large and sticky-looking leaf. The leaf appeared to be folding itself over the unlucky bee. Then Jack brushed against one of the leaves and found, to his horror, that it stuck to him. He tore himself loose and immediately blundered into more. They were everywhere!

He was tiring rapidly, or perhaps it was the smell of the flowers. His foot came down on a slug as long as his arm. It reared up, pale yellow with liver-colored spots, and waved its eyestalks at him. Bold Heart poked his head out of the bag and cawed. “Get back inside,” panted Jack, shoving the bird down.

The perfume was so strong, he wanted to throw up. His vision blurred and his senses swam. No! No! No! I won’t stop! He had the distinct impression the slug was no innocent visitor to the meadow. It was looking for food, and what better meal than a stunned human boy? Jack staggered and stumbled. He kept his eyes on the forest, but he knew he couldn’t reach it. He sank to his knees.

“No time for a nap,” grunted Olaf, plucking him from the rustling leaves. The giant ran through the meadow and on through the trees until he reached a hill. He bounded up the side and deposited Jack on a sunny field. But it was normal grass, not the eerie leaves of the meadow. Thorgil lay not far away. Olaf removed Bold Heart from the bag and put him next to Jack.

The boy stretched out in the sunlight, letting the fresh air clear his senses. He felt for Bold Heart and was encouraged when the bird flapped his wings. “Get up if you want to see the ship,” Olaf called.

Jack, woozy and sick, got to his feet and dragged himself to the top of the hill. He saw the ship moving across the lake. Olaf waved, and someone—it was too far away to see who—waved back. The warriors were rowing vigorously. Jack saw—or thought he saw—the ripple of something long and dark following them.

“Whew! I don’t want to do that again,” said Olaf, leaning back against a rock. “I didn’t know the poison would be that strong. I went another way last time.”

“Why didn’t we go that way this time?” said Jack. He was still dizzy, and Thorgil was too weak to sit up. She kept trying to rise and failing. It made her furious to see that Jack had recovered faster than she. She’d do better, Jack thought, if she didn’t waste her breath on all those curses. Bold Heart had managed to get to his feet, but he kept tipping over. He grumbled to himself. It may have been crow curses, for all Jack knew. It certainly didn’t sound nice.

“I ran across a nest of baby dragons on the other route. I figure they’ve grown up by now.” Olaf drank some water and handed the skin to Jack. “I had to carry Thorgil out of the meadow and then go back for you. It was almost too much for me. Whew! I’m not as young as I was.”

Jack wanted to lie down, but it was much more rewarding to sit up and irritate Thorgil. He moved his head from side to side, to see if the dizziness was still there. It was. “What were those leaves in the meadow?”

“Sundews. They trap and eat bugs,” said Olaf.

“Plants eat things?”

“Sundews do. Hey, that sounded like poetry. Maybe I’ll turn into a skald yet. In our world sundews are tiny, but in Jotunheim…”

“I know. Everything’s nastier,” said Jack.

“I think we should spend a day here. Give us time to recover. I saw a place in the rocks that should be easy to defend.” Olaf got up and began to gather firewood.

“The thrall should do the menial chores,” Thorgil called. Olaf ignored her. Jack studied the trees surrounding the field. They were enormous firs towering up and up, with deep green needles and trunks so dark that they were almost black. It went without saying that the shade beneath them was equally gloomy. I wonder what lives in there, Jack thought. He heard the same odd murmuring—almost whispering—he’d noticed on the ship. He strained his ears to make out the sound. Or was it voices?

Jack got up and moved closer to Olaf.

“Don’t leave Thorgil alone,” said the giant. “She’s more helpless than you.”

“I am not!” shouted Thorgil.

After a while Olaf carried her to a campsite he’d selected in the rocks. It was a shallow cave the giant had explored carefully, and once inside you were hidden from the outside world. The entrance was concealed by a fallen tree. Olaf struck sparks with a piece of quartz and his knife and started a small fire. They ate dried fish and bread you had to gnaw at like a rat. Jack’s jaw ached by the time he was finished.

Thorgil revived considerably with the food. She was back to her old habit of ordering Jack around until Olaf told her to stop. “We’re on a quest. All of us are equal.”

“Including that witch’s familiar?” she sneered, pointing at Bold Heart.

“I don’t know what role the crow is to play, but Rune thought he was important. That’s enough for me.” The giant stretched out his legs and tried to get comfortable. The roof of the cave was so low, he couldn’t stand up, though it was more than high enough for Jack and Thorgil. Because it was midsummer, darkness was late in coming and would not last long.

Perhaps that’s good, thought Jack. Who knows what comes out in the middle of the night? He thought of wolves and bears, then of stranger creatures he’d heard about in Father’s tales: cockatrices, manticores, and dragons. How big was a baby dragon? How big was its mother? “We’ve started badly, haven’t we?” he said to Olaf.

“Quests always have their ups and downs,” rumbled the giant. “The point is never to give up, even if you’re falling off a cliff. You never know what might happen on the way to the bottom.”