goodbye; he was moving his fine new boat to Hammerhaven, where he could sell his catch for a better price. And just as he was leaving, he’d taken her hand and earnestly asked her not to forget him. Surely that must mean something!
But I never blushed, whatever Sigrid says, the little wretch. I wonder how he is. I wish I could see him. I wish—
She tripped over a rock. It was nearly dark now. Scraping the wet hair from her eyes, she glanced upwards, flinching. The storm leaned inland like a blind giant, black arms outspread over Troll Fell.
“I think we left it a little late,” shouted Ralf, half turning. “Sigrid, Sigurd–keep close!” He caught Sigrid’s hand and they hurried on together, the wind tugging their cloaks. Hilde’s sodden skirt clung to her ankles.
A bird called high up on the hillside, the eerie whooping cry of a curlew. Hilde wiped the rain from her eyes. On her left, the wet grassy slope plunged away. To the right, scattered with stones, the land tilted sharply up to the base of a long, low crag. Shadowy thorn trees craned over the edge like a row of spiteful old women.
Another bird screamed from somewhere on top of the crag, a long liquid call that seemed to end in syllables: “Huuuuututututu!” Immediately an answering cry floated up from the hidden slope to their left, and a third, more distant and quavering, from far below.
With a quick stride Hilde reached Ralf and grabbed his arm, dragging him to a halt. “Did you hear that? Those aren’t birds. Trolls, Pa! On both sides of us.”
With a gasp, Sigrid shrank close to her father, and Hilde cursed herself for speaking without thinking. Sigrid was terrified of trolls.
Ralf cocked his head, listening. The bubbling cries began again, relayed up the hill like a series of signals. “You’re right,” he muttered. “My fault. I should have got us home earlier. Never mind, Sigrid, the trolls won’t hurt us. It’s just the sort of night they like, you see–dark and wet and windy. Let them prance around if they want–they can’t scare us.”
“Are they stealing sheep?” Sigurd asked.
“I don’t know, son,” said Ralf slowly. “It sounds as though there’s a line of them strung out up and down the hillside.”
“Can’t we get home?” Sigrid’s voice was thin.
“Of course we can,” said Hilde.
“We’ll slip past,” said Ralf. “They won’t bother us.”
“They will!” Sigrid clutched him with cold hands. “They stole Sigurd and me; they wanted to keep us for ever!”
“No, no, the Grimsson brothers stole you,” Hilde tried to reassure her,“and the trolls kept them instead, and serve them right. Don’t worry, Siggy. Pa’s here–and me. You’re safe with us.”
There was a blast of wind, strong enough to send them staggering forwards. Rain lashed the hillside.
“Come on!” shouted Ralf. “Nothing can see us in this. Let’s go!” Swept along by wind and weather, they stumbled half-blind down a sudden slope into a narrow gully. At the bottom, a thin stream rattled downhill over pebbles. Something ran across their path out of the dense curtains of drifting rain. The whooping calls faltered. Sigrid shrieked.
Trolls were all around them: tails, snouts, glow-worm eyes. Dim lines of trolls louping and leaping from the raincloud. A pair of thin, thin legs that raked like a cockerel’s, and a round hairless body on top. Ralf and the children skidded to a halt, appalled. Hilde grabbed the twins and tried to bundle them back the way they had come.
I’ve seen this before!
There was something weirdly familiar about the two long wavering columns, steadily trotting in opposite directions; and about the way the trolls seemed to be carrying things, and the way they scrambled over obstacles like rocks and ridges; and about the way those two over there, who were tugging something along between them, had got it stuck on a rock and were sawing to and fro trying to get it free…
She saw and thought this in a flicker of time–then the trolls stampeded, racing up the slope with gobbling yells. Hilde tried to drag Sigrid aside. She slipped. The wet hillside reeled and hit her. Sigrid screamed, Ralf shouted, Loki barked. Hilde clutched dizzily at wet grass and stones, trying to scramble up. A troll bounded over her. Its rat-like tail switched her legs. She collapsed, grunting, as a horny hoof drove hard into in the small of her back. A hot, sharp smell prickled her nose.
Then the trolls were gone. Loki tore after them in hysterical fury.
Hilde sat up, hair in her eyes and mud on her hands. Ralf loomed over her, shouting her name. He dragged her up, holding her against him. The world steadied. Here was Sigrid, curled up on the ground, sobbing. Hilde fell to her knees and tried to soothe her.
“It’s all right, Siggy, they didn’t mean to hurt us. We frightened them just as much as they frightened us.”
“Loki chased them!” Sigurd arrived at his father’s side. “Where is he? Loki!” He lunged forward up the slope. Hilde grabbed his arm. “No, you don’t. Stay here, Sigurd!” And she stepped on something that crunched and splintered.
“Let go! I have to find him!”
“Loki can look after himself.”
“He can’t, he can’t! Peer told me to look after him!” Sigurd sobbed, trying to wrestle free.
From the ridge above they heard a volley of barks, and a high screech rattling off into the familiar troll cry: Huuutututututu! Silence followed, and then Loki came sliding and scrabbling down the stony gully, wagging a jaunty tail. Sigurd flung himself forward and hugged him tightly round the neck. “Good boy, Loki! Brave dog!” he choked into Loki’s fur. Loki shook himself free.
“They’ve gone, Sigrid. The trolls have gone.” Hilde’s heart was still pounding. “What were they doing?”
“Carrying off my sheep and lambs, I’ll swear!” Ralf growled.
“No,” said Hilde. “I think…” She hesitated. It had happened almost too fast to remember. What had she seen? Jerky, ant-like purpose. Ants! That was it! In just the same way she’d seen lines of ants scurrying to and from their ant hill. But who could imagine an ant hill as big as Troll Fell?
“Baskets. They were carrying baskets, Pa. But what was in them?”
Sigrid raised her head from Hilde’s lap. “Bones,” she gulped.
“What?” Ralf squatted down in front of her and held her shoulders. “Bones, Siggy? Are you sure?”
“Some fell out.” Sigrid buried her face again. “They fell on me. A bundle of bones, like firewood.”
Slowly Ralf shook his head. “Well, now! I don’t like the sound of that. Let’s get home. Shoulder-ride, Siggy?”
Something else snapped under Hilde’s foot as she trod forward–something thin and curved that gleamed faintly in the dark. She brushed her dripping hair back to look at it. “She’s right. These are bones,” she whispered.
Nearby, Ralf was kicking at
