The Sea of Trolls

“Or you could die heroically and go to Valhalla,” added Thorgil.

“You’re always talking about dying,” said Jack. “What’s wrong with living? Anyhow, from what Rune says, shield maidens don’t have a great time in Valhalla. They just wait on tables for the men.”

“You take that back!” shouted Thorgil. “That’s not true! Valkyries are beloved of Odin!”

“Seems to me they’re just glorified servants.”

Thorgil screamed and launched herself at him. She was weak and so was Jack. They ended up panting for breath and draped over each other on the ground. “That’s the most pathetic fight I’ve ever seen,” commented Olaf.

They went to bed before sunset. All three of them had knives at the ready, and Olaf stretched a rope across the entrance to the cave, to trip unexpected visitors. Jack woke up once in the brief darkness. Whisper… whisper… whisper went the trees outside, though there was no wind.

“Ahhh! It’s a fine day for adventure!” said Olaf, stepping out of the cave. “I smell ice.” Jack crawled out and sniffed the air. It was clean and fresh and invigorating. Bold Heart chased a black squirrel out of a tree. It fled round and round the trunk with the crow nipping at its tail until it disappeared into a hole. Bold Heart fluffed out his feathers and warbled.

“You’re right. It’s that kind of morning,” agreed Jack. “Where’s Thorgil?”

The shield maiden was still curled up by the fire. She glared at both Olaf and Jack and took her time about rising. “We’ll look for food,” suggested Olaf. “You can build up the fire.” He shouldered his bow and arrows and strode off with Jack in his wake. Jack was glad to get away from the sullen girl. If she called him a thrall one more time, there was going to be serious violence.

The forest looked cheerful in the early sunlight. Beams of light fell through the trees and picked out golden- flowered moss, purple violets, and spotted pink orchids. There were many other plants Jack couldn’t identify and large butterflies—really large butterflies—fluttering from blossom to blossom. “Are any of these, um, dangerous?” Jack asked.

“You can never relax here, but I’ve found this forest fairly safe,” replied Olaf. “This is a protected valley and warmer than most places in Jotunheim. Beyond we’ll have rock and ice, so we should enjoy ourselves while we can.”

They came to a tangle of fallen logs with thick undergrowth filling the gaps. Suddenly, something gave a shrill whining cry followed by puk-puk-puk and a scurrying noise. Jack almost ran into a tree, he was so startled. “You hear that?” whispered Olaf. “That’s a grouse. These woods are full of them.”

A grouse, thought Jack, trying to calm his pounding heart. Only a bird. No bigger than a chicken. Of course, that was a Jotunheim chicken, he realized a moment later. The grouse flew up with a loud whirring sound. It was three feet long and had a wingspan like a bad dream. Olaf brought it down with an arrow.

The giant slung it over Jack’s shoulder and tramped on to find more. The grouse weighed as much as a lamb. Its claws got hooked under the slave collar and dug into Jack’s neck, but he didn’t dare stop. Olaf was going ahead at a great rate, and the boy decided a few scratches were better than being left behind.

He saw giant mushrooms growing up the side of a tree. They were so white, they glowed, and he saw one of the liver-spotted slugs feeding on them. Another grouse exploded from the undergrowth, and Olaf brought it down. “That’s probably enough,” he grunted, heaving the bird to his own shoulder. “I’ll eat one, and you and Thorgil can have the other. Come on. I’ll show you something interesting.”

They went uphill to a high cliff where the trees broke off and bare rock lay below. Jack saw a huge U-shaped valley with a river meandering along the bottom. At one point, just below the cliff, a deadfall of trees had formed a kind of dam and the water spread out into smaller rivulets before breaking through on the other side. An elk—one of the magnificent animals with giant horns—came out of the deadfall and trotted upstream.

“There’s a hollow inside,” explained Olaf. “The elk use it to hide when they come down to browse on moss. We’ll use it tomorrow before we follow the river north.” The rocks in the valley were dark blue and dotted with white patches of snow. At the far end was the great ice mountain.

Hide from what? Jack thought. The land was so barren and forbidding, it seemed they could see an enemy for miles before there would be any danger.

“Let’s rest awhile,” said Olaf, and Jack was glad to lay down the grouse. “I’m unusually tired,” the giant admitted. “Jotunheim is always hostile to humans, and perhaps that’s what I feel. But it’s a little worrying.”

Olaf tired? Jack thought. Maybe that meant the giant could rip up only one tree by its roots instead of two. Jack hoped so. The idea of confronting trolls without Olaf’s strength was indeed worrying.

After awhile the boy saw something detach itself from a distant cliff and sail lazily down the river valley. It had brilliant golden wings and a long, whiplike tail that sawed back and forth as the creature balanced itself on the air currents. “Is that what I think it is?” whispered Jack.

“A dragon,” said Olaf softly. “She’s the one I used as the model for the prow of Ivar’s ship.”

“You made that?”

“It was an honor. Ivar was a great king before Frith trapped him.”

The elk looked up, realized its danger, and started galloping for shelter. The dragon folded her wings and dropped, rocking from side to side as she gathered speed. She grasped the elk, opened her wings in a flash of gold, and swept upward in a great arc that brought her close to Olaf and Jack’s perch. Jack tried to flee, but the giant held him firmly. “Look into her eyes!”

Jack saw the huge, scaly head of the dragon turn and regard them as she passed. Her eyes opened wide, and in their depths the boy saw a flame kindle. Then she was gone. She sailed off to the distant cliff with the bellowing elk in her claws.

Olaf sighed. “That’s a sight few men have seen, and lived!”

Jack was trembling all over. He’d heard about dragons from Father and the Bard, but nothing had prepared him for their awful grandeur.

“It’s good, too, that she’s eaten,” Olaf pointed out. “They hunt every week or so and spend the rest of the time napping. They’re a lot like cats.”

“W-Will th-there be m-more dragons?” Jack said.

“Not on our path,” Olaf said cheerfully. “When the young ones grow up, the mother drives them away. This is her valley. She probably has a nest up there now. Most of the dragonlets don’t survive. They kill one another off by fighting.”

The giant smiled as he gazed out over the scene. Good Olaf was in charge today. He looked so mellow, Jack decided to risk a question. “Why does Thorgil hate me so much?” he asked.

“She hates you because that’s her nature,” replied the warrior, “and because she was once a thrall.”

“Thorgil was a thrall?”

“I’m not giving you a stick to beat her with, boy. If you mention one word about this, I’ll break your neck.”

Olaf’s threats were never idle. Jack nodded most respectfully.

“The child of a female slave is a slave. Thorgrim never freed her.”

“Then how—?” Jack said.

“King Ivar waged a war against King Sigurd Serpent-Eye. Thorgrim and I, as berserkers, were in the front line. What a fine man he was! He put me in the shade as far as courage went. You’re not to say that in my poems, though.”

“Of course not,” said Jack.

“Thorgrim outran everyone in his eagerness to fight. He chopped right and left with his battle-axe and went through the enemy’s shields—bang, bang, bang—one after the other. I can still see him, though I was cleaving a skull or two myself at the time. But Thorgrim got surrounded. He’d received his deathblow by the time King Ivar and I reached him.

“He asked for a hero’s funeral, and Ivar agreed at once. He asked for the proper sacrifices to be made. That meant Allyson would accompany him on his journey to the afterworld, and Thorgrim also asked for a horse and a noble dog.”

“I see,” said Jack, who was sickened by the whole idea. What bloated sense of self-importance demanded