“Watch out!” Troll-the-Right shouted, gesturing toward the really tall huldre crunching over the snowy cage floor with his sword.
But this time it was the Tomtegubb who lent a hand—or rather, foot—as he tripped the massive huldre up, sending him flying into the snow.
“Let’s go!”
Everyone followed Troll-the-Left’s orders and charged out of the cage door, where the other huldres—including the old wagon driver—were waiting.
Swords and daggers came toward them.
Grentul sent an ax flying through the air, spinning its way between the two troll heads.
“Psst, under here.”
Martha turned around and saw that while the two-headed troll was being attacked, the Tomtegubb was pointing under the wagon.
“Come on,” he said. “Hide!”
But Martha kept perfectly still, standing in the snow, until the Tomtegubb grabbed her hand and pulled her under. They stayed there for a while and watched Troll-the-Left reach into the cage and grab the ax that had just been thrown at him.
He then began to swing it around, slicing through the crisp night air.
“Not so flenking tough now, are you?” he shouted.
“This is a bad idea,” said Troll-the-Right. “Why can’t we just—”
Troll-the-Right never got to finish his question. His head was sliced neatly off by Vjpp’s sword and landed right in front of Martha.
“NO!” Troll-the-Left was in despair, and swung the ax in wild revenge, killing the wagon driver, then grabbing his sword. Within moments, he had sliced the life out of four more huldres, so only Grentul and Vjpp remained.
“The horses,” whispered the Tomtegubb to Martha as the bloody spectacle continued. “Let’s go to the horses.”
The Tomtegubb then started crawling on his elbows under the wagon. Martha followed, keeping her head as low as possible in the narrow distance between the freezing snow and the wooden panels she could feel touching the back of her head.
Once he was out in the open, the Tomtegubb unfastened two stallions.
“Get on,” he said, making a stirrup out of his hands.
She climbed on one of the horses’ backs, and the Tomtegubb clambered onto the seat of the wagon, to jump onto the other horse he had unfastened. The horse winced as the fat creature landed on his back and kicked him into motion.
“Come on,” the Tomtegubb said, turning back to Martha. “What are you waiting for? Let’s go.”
Martha was a good horse rider, but she had never ridden a horse that didn’t have a saddle. The other reason she didn’t kick the horse into gear was that she was worried about Troll-the-Left.
“Come on!” The Tomtegubb’s cry caused Grentul to turn and look at the two escaping convicts.
“Pijook ediss,” said Grentul. “Enna bikk.”
“Enna bikk!” agreed Vjpp.
The two huldres turned away from Troll-the-Left and ran toward the front of the carriage. Realizing that they were more interested in a human than a troll, Martha kicked the large white stallion toward a gallop.
She followed the Tomtegubb’s horse, holding on to the mane and using it as reins. Turning around, she saw two huldres on two horses chasing after her in the dark, galloping through the snowy landscape.
“Faster!” the Tomtegubb shouted, realizing the huldres were rapidly approaching. “As fast as you can!”
Martha leaned forward, so her arms were holding on to the horse’s neck. She did not kick her legs into the creature’s sides again or threaten it with any more whipping, but simply patted the horse and blew warm breath onto its skin.
The horse responded to softness much better than to hardness, and instantly galloped faster. Soon Martha was neck and neck with the Tomtegubb.
“To the trees,” said the Tomtegubb, with a massive smile on his face. “Stick with me, human girl.”
He turned to look behind him and his smile fell like a stone at the sight of a fast-approaching ax. “Watch out!”
Martha directed the horse so that the ax flew past and landed in the snow.
“Whoo-hoo!” the Tomtegubb said, enjoying himself once again. “This feels amazing, doesn’t it?”
Martha said nothing.
“Now,” said the Tomtegubb, over the sound of hooves pounding snow. “Stay close…I’ll lead.”
His horse went off the road, and through the trees that stood like vertical shadows in the night. Martha sat herself up a bit, to look behind. The huldres were showing no sign of giving up, their cruel faces fixed firmly on hers.
“Isn’t this the best game?” the Tomtegubb asked her.
But if this was a game, it was a very strange and dangerous one. And it was still impossible to say who was going to win, as the huldres remained exactly the same distance behind.
No closer.
No farther away.
Two more axes whizzed past, but they thudded into tree trunks, and even though the huldres held their swords in the air, there wasn’t much they could do with them until they got nearer.
As the chase went on, Martha started to feel a oneness with the horse she was riding. The rhythm of the hooves matching the rhythm of her heart.
“Keep going!” the Tomtegubb shouted. “Run them into the sun!”
At first Martha didn’t know what the Tomtegubb was going on about. After all, the sky was still dark.
But then they reached an open plain stretching before them like a large sheet of white paper. She could now see a faint line of purple on the horizon. As the snow melted into the earth, night was slowly melting into day.
She didn’t understand why this was important, but she did notice that the two huldres were gaining ground. She noticed also that there seemed to be a new desperate urgency in their voices.
“Felooka felooka!” Grentul shouted, and turned his horse back toward the cover of the trees.
“Bastipool!” Vjpp kept going, thinking of nothing but the delicious cruelty he was going to inflict on the human.
The purple was joined by orange now, pushing the night sky up toward the stars.
“Any time now,” said the Tomtegubb, with a singful voice.
Vjpp galloped alongside Martha’s horse. He swiped his sword and Martha ducked just before it sliced her in two.
The Tomtegubb looked up at the brightening sky. “Any…time…now…”
Right then, just as the Tomtegubb was muttering the word now, something happened to Vjpp.
He evaporated.
The first light of day had caused his flesh to vaporize, leaving his skeleton to clatter off the horse. Martha turned to see the huldre’s skull, with its wide-apart eye sockets, staring up at her from the snow.
“Whoa there,” said the Tomtegubb to his horse, who was more than happy to slow down. The horse that carried Martha did the same.
“That was a close one, wasn’t it?”
Martha nodded.
“Where do you want to go now?”
Martha said nothing, but the Tomtegubb knew the answer. “You want to go home,” he said. “Back to the Outer World.”
Martha nodded. If Samuel was still alive, he would have surely headed back.
“I will lead the way,” said the Tomtegubb, turning his horse. “I will take you as far as I can, and then tell you how to get back.”
Martha felt a great relief, and wanted to thank the creature.
“I might write a song about our adventure,” said the Tomtegubb, fiddling with his golden whiskers. “Yes…It will be a long song. Even longer than ‘The Purple Trouser Song.’ Now, what shall I call it? ‘The Lucky Escape’? Or maybe ‘Galloping to Glory’? What about ‘The Triumphant Tomtegubb and the Heroic Human’? No, that’s too long. Maybe I could just call it ‘The Triumphant Tomtegubb’ and then mention the ‘Heroic Human’ in the verse…Oh, all right, I’ll mention it in the chorus. But it’s hard to find things that rhyme with human…Now, before we decide the words, we really ought to get working on a tune…”
Martha felt something happen to her face. Her cheeks lifted, and her mouth widened. She was smiling, and it felt good.
The Tomtegubb saw the smile but decided not to comment on it. Instead, he started humming different melodies, and the horses slowly carried him and Martha back toward the trees.
As Samuel and Ibsen had just begun to follow Troll-Father’s shortcut, it had started to snow. Broad, white snowflakes fell around them like feathers. Within moments, it had become a blizzard. Ibsen kept his mouth open, to catch the flakes on his tongue, while Samuel found shelter under a tree.
The snow was so heavy that there was no use trying to walk any farther until it stopped. So Samuel sat himself down on the patch of sheltered ground and, as there were no pine needles, found it a lot comfier than before. Ibsen curled up beside him, and within no time they had drifted asleep.
They were still asleep when the snow stopped, and when a two-headed troll walked past on the nearby path. One of the heads had been chopped off and was being carried under an arm, but was still alive. And still very cross. The two heads were so busy arguing they didn’t even notice the dog and the human boy under the tree.
“I told you we shouldn’t have tried to escape,” said Troll-the-Right as the purple blood dripped from his neck. “I told you, but you didn’t listen.”
“Would you just stop moaning? Just for a second? If you’d had it your way, we’d be lumps of stone by now.”
“If I’d have had my way, we’d have never been locked up in the first place. Why was it me? Why did they slice my head off? That’s what I don’t understand. Where’s the justice in that? It wasn’t my idea to escape. It wasn’t my idea to pick up the ax.”
“It could have been worse, that’s all I’m saying,” said Troll-the-Left.
“Oh, right. Worse. Sure. Could you tell me something worse than having to be carried around by a great, ugly, stupid flenking idiot like you until the end of time?”
Samuel’s half-asleep eyes opened to see Troll-the-Left squat down and place the head of Troll-the-Right on the snowy ground, and then walk off toward Trollhelm.
“Hey! Hey!” Troll-the-Right’s head shouted. “What are you doing? You can’t leave me here! Come back!…Hey! Get back here!…I’m…I’m…I’m sorry…I didn’t mean to call you ugly…or stupid…or a flenking idiot…hey, come back!”
Grentul’s Reward
Grentul pulled his horse back just in time. He waited under the shade and saw Vjpp become a skeleton, his skull and rib cage clattering together as they hit the ground.
He looked around, desperate. Where was the nearest caloosh hole? If he stayed aboveground any longer, even in shade, he would die. Light was filtering through the canopy of leaves, lending the forest its terrifying daytime colors.
He felt the light pressing down on him, like a drowning man feeling the full weight of the ocean.
Then he saw it. A familiar circle of earth that he knew was a caloosh trap. He dismounted and ran toward it, out of the safe darkness, and felt the light burn his gray blood, ready to dissolve his body.
He reached the circle just in time and down he fell, onto feathers. He called for help. Help came.
Other huldres wanted to know what happened. Their questions tore at his head like angry wolves. He didn’t answer. He just kept running through underground tunnels, heading always in the same direction.
North.
Eventually the tunnels became smaller, less well presented. These tunnels he was now entering were hardly ever used. They provided a connecting route to the Changemaker that could only be used during the greatest of emergencies. Normally the Changemaker wanted them to travel to him aboveground, under the cover of night, so they could police the forest along the route.
But if ever there was an emergency, then this was it. Huldre guards had died. Prisoners had just escaped. Two humans were loose in the forest.
He kept running through the unlit, unpopulated tunnels until he was finally there, right under the Still Tree. He felt for the ladder, and climbed up. After about twenty steps, he rose up through the latch door and into the darkest chamber of the tree palace.
He rang a bell, and waited. A few moments later Professor Tanglewood entered the windowless room. He was in a bad mood, because it was the day before his birthday, and he knew no one cared.
“Shadow Witch!” he called, having seen the huldre in the candlelight.
“I am here, master.” The witch emerged from her chamber. Dark vapors left her mouth, then drew back inside.
“Enna klemp oder flimp tee, Jangoborff,” said Grentul nervously.
The Shadow Witch closed her eyes and mumbled her usual translation spell. The huldre spoke again but was this time understood.
“I have brought some news for you, Changemaker. About the prisoner.”
“Is it bad news that you bring?”
“Yes, Changemaker. It is.”
“Tell me.”
“There was a snowstorm. The wagon got stuck…in the snow.”
The Shadow Witch looked worried. “A snowstorm?”
“Silence,” Professor Tanglewood commanded her. And then, to Grentul: “Go on.”
“The wagon…got stuck…and…”
Like a wheel in the snow, the huldre was finding it hard to continue.
“Go on,” said the Professor.
“It got stuck and…and…we noticed the Snow Witch was mumbling something, over and over. A prayer. A curse. At first we didn’t know what. So we…opened the cage door. And we went inside to try and stop the Snow Witch…to stop her magic…and that is when they escaped and attacked us, killing five of the guards.”
The Shadow Witch looked confused. “My sister? Why was she there?”
“Quiet!” barked the Professor.
“I don’t understand,” said the Shadow Witch. “Those that are brought here are killed. You said my sister could be spared.”
“Silence!” boomed the Professor.
“You were going to have me kill my own sister,” said the Shadow Witch quietly as the realization took hold.
The Professor flapped her words away. “Silence, you witch. Silence!”
He turned back to the huldre. “Who? Who escaped?” asked the Professor. His voice was calm.
Too calm.
“The prisoners…A Tomtegubb, a two-headed troll and the human girl.”
“The human girl? What human girl?”
The huldre grimaced, as though in pain. But why was he so worried? His master would reward his honesty. Surely he would now understand the strength of Grentul’s devotion.
“The girl who fell down the hole. Yesterday.”
“Yesterday? Are there any other humans?”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes…a boy.”
“A boy?” The Professor turned to the Shadow Witch, with a look in his eyes that seemed to require a response. The Shadow Witch said nothing. Her mind was somewhere else, lost in a snowstorm.
“Yes,” said Grentul.
“Was he in the cage? Did he escape?”
“No…no, Changemaker. We passed him. By the side of the path. We went after him but he got away.”
“Away? Two humans. Running free in the forest. This is the news you come to tell me?”
“Yes, master.” Grentul allowed himself a slight, nervous smile. Surely now the Professor was about to reward him for carrying this news so far underground.
The Shadow Witch dared break her order of silence. “My sister. The Snow Witch. Did she escape as well?”
“No,” said Grentul proudly. “She’s dead.”
The word paralyzed the old witch for a moment. Then black tears clouded her eyes and fell down her cheeks. The tears went unnoticed by the Professor, who still had more questions.
“Where did you last see the humans?”
“The girl rode off with the Tomtegubb. We lost her on the plain.”
“And the boy?”
“He ran toward Trollhelm.”
“Well told,” said the
Professor.
The huldre looked relieved. “Thank you, Changemaker.”
Professor Tanglewood looked at his reflection in a mirror. He turned, his face flickering in the candlelight.
“Almost well told enough to let you live.”
“Master? I thought—”
The Professor turned to the Shadow Witch, and told her: “Finish him. Do it. It is my order.”
The Shadow Witch hesitated, but then obeyed. She was still thinking of her sister as she blew the dark vapors toward Grentul. They surrounded him like a cloud, and he began to choke.
The Professor smiled, and took a closer look. “That really is quite a cough you’ve got there…Not enough air, that’s the problem. All those years living under the ground, walking through those tunnels. Never seeing sunlight…But you can remember it, can’t you? You can remember the golden days, chanting your hymns to the sun. The warm light on your face. The happy times when you could look down and see your own shadow, stretched across the grass. When the sun was something you worshipped, not something you feared.”
It felt to Grentul like he was choking as much on words as shadows. As the words kept digging deeper, Grentul remembered the last tender moments before the Shadow Witch had arrived in the village. His mother making dinner at the log stove, laying four places at the table, then going outside to see the two ravens that had landed outside the house.
“Do you remember, Shadow Witch? Do you remember?” asked the Changemaker. “The shadows fled to you like lost children.”
He was closer to the huldre now. Standing over him as the sun-fearing creature cowered at his feet, choking inside the shade that hung like a mist around him.
“If you get to live your life again, huldre, which I doubt very much, I give you one piece of advice. Save a witch’s life. If you save a witch from the clutches of death, you own her life much like I own yours. Anything you wish for, she can make reality.”
The Professor laughed, and turned around to see the Shadow Witch. He noticed her black tears.
“Why are you crying?”
“It is for nothing, master,” said the Shadow Witch.
“If it is for your sister, then you are right, for death is nothing. Nothing at all.” He laughed again as the huldre choked below him. “Your tears are too late, Shadow Witch. I have tested the love you held for your sister, and it was no match for your servitude…Keep going! More shadows! He’s still alive.”