Steely gray swirling clouds press low to the blackening tree line and snow falls silently, muffling the wind around us. We’re the only two people in the world.
Unferth and I drag the cushions, shield, and troll-spear to the other side of the boulders, where he’s hidden a sled. It all stacks easily, secured by bungee cords, and we each take a rein to drag it like a pair of workhorses. Snow falls harder as we go, but there’s a gravel path this way, narrow and curving widely back toward the meadery. I wish for gloves immediately, and a hood and scarf as I bend into the snow. The wisps of hair loose from my braids freeze to my neck and forehead, and the only thing keeping me warm is the rough work of pulling the sled. We don’t speak, our hot breath puffing in rhythm. I lose track of time but for night falling. The wind blows harder and my legs shake from effort and there’s as much sweat streaking down my back as snow dripping down my face. My skull begins to throb.
A low moan, like a distant horn, calls out to us. Elf-kisses draw up my spine: we are too close to home, too far from Montreal.
Unferth stops and swings a hand out to stop me, too. “That’s not the twilight call.”
I blink snow from my eyes and reach for my seax. “What is it?”
His chin is up, eyes on the sky, and when the call repeats I see the tight line of his mouth, the shift of muscles at his jaw. “Danger.” He drops the rein with one sharp shake of his head and jerks his hand for me to follow as he pushes on faster. I struggle to catch up. Unferth grabs my coat at the shoulder, bunching it in his fist to keep us together.
The meadery rises through the trees at the end of the gravel road, black and leaning on one side. I never noticed from the front. That low moan calls again, louder and right here. It sounds as if the cry echoes from lungs as large and cavernous as the hollowed-out building. Unferth pulls me close and says into my ear, “Go to the truck and get the UV light from the glove compartment.”
Snow topples onto me when I tug open the passenger door, and I shake it off to dig into the narrow glove compartment. There’s a wide-faced flashlight that must be the UV. I grab it in stiff fingers and head for the meadery. Its door hangs open, half off the hinges. Unferth is a lithe shadow waiting there, and he nods, points to the button that will turn on the light, and again leans close to whisper in my ear. His breath is warm and all my nerves crystallize into hot, bright excitement at its touch against my neck.
“I’ll go first and you follow right after. Be ready to turn it on, and aim for the face. If we blind it—calcify the eyes—it won’t be able to defend itself. I’m going to go for the lockbox in the cellar and my sword. You calcify as much as possible and stay out of its way. Understand?”
I nod.
With no further warning, Unferth slips inside.
I follow. The roar comes fast, tripping me as if it’s a physical force. I roar back without thinking and flip on the flashlight.
The spear of light scours over the wall and flies across part of the ceiling, bobbing everywhere as I spin, and there! It catches the edge of a bulbous shoulder and I go to my knees as a huge arm swipes for me. I jerk the light up, pinning the spot of it onto the rageful face of a greater mountain troll.
It stumbles back, shaking the floorboards, and cries again, this time high-pitched. I immediately think, It’s terrified.
Knees burning from the broken glass I landed on, I stand, training the light on the hulking black shadow of the troll.
It hides its face with one hand, still backing up, messily, heavily. I follow. Under my light, the troll’s bluish skin cracks and hardens, turning paler and mottled bluish gray, but only as long as the light remains. It turns, knocking shoulders into the wall, careening the other direction until it hits the counter and then lashes out at me.
I fall back, seeing stubby tusks and bright fangs flash. I catch myself hard on one hand, bite my tongue, but keep the light up as my shield.
There’s Unferth suddenly, tossing a chain around the troll’s neck, putting his sword to its throat. The monster’s small yellow eyes roll and I shine my light directly into them. It cries again, but it hunkers down. It covers its head with one arm, curls into a ball. It’s missing its other arm, and the stump bleeds thick purple ichor.
“Hold it, Signy,” Unferth says calmly, evenly. “Take my sword in your other hand.”
He transfers the grip to me and I try not to shake. The tip of the sword scrapes against the troll’s shoulder and the light bobs, tracing an uneven line of calcification from the troll’s head down its chest. The poor thing moans, digging its fingers into its hardening skin.
Unbelievably, my heart aches. It must be in pain. Afraid and alone.
Even as small as it can make itself, the troll remains a solid two meters at the shoulder, and if it stood straight it would certainly be three. Unferth tightens the chain around its neck, puts more around its wrists and feet, too, punching it to get it to shift and let him in. He’s unafraid, methodical, and excellent at looping the chains. He has a sledgehammer from somewhere and hammers the ends of the chains into the wooden floor.
Just before my strength gives out, Unferth gently takes back his sword, and the UV light as well.
Outside the snowstorm howls.
“Happy birthday, Signy,” Unferth finally says.
SIX
SNOW CRYSTALS HANG off the troll’s blunt tusks, glittering in the thin morning light from the broken windows. Because he’s young, his calcified features are a rough sketch carved into the stone. He’s a beautiful pale blue, with darker blue veins like polished marble. His right arm is missing from just below the shoulder, torn away—recently, too, by the thick purplish blood now crystallized into amethyst. The edge of the shoulder is sharp and rough, like broken rock. A line of reddish lichen crawls down his spine. Unferth says it’ll get thicker as he ages.
We’ve waited until the sun arrived in order to take this next step in a more controlled fashion, so the troll is trapped inside the meadery just in case.
“Shut it,” I say, gripping my seax in my fist.
From atop a ladder missing several rungs, Unferth reaches out and swings the shutters closed. Snow puffs down. “He might be too young, and so even this ambient light could keep him calcified.…” His voice fades away as the beast’s entire body shivers.
I lift my seax to put the sharp tip of the broken back blade against the troll’s marble chest. Over his heart. I hold my breath, wondering why the entire world doesn’t pause for the occasion. Here I am, ready to slice into this martyr who came to me like a gift. The stone heart will be crusted with blood crystallized to amethyst.
As the troll wakes, dust flakes away from his skin and settles onto the mangy rug. The chain looped around his neck rattles. Tiny cracks appear all over his body, like the bed of a sun-baked river.
A fissure catches my eye: it looks like the rune child.
I suck in a quick breath and pull back the seax.
“The gift of mothers,” I whisper to myself. A kenning for sacrifice. Mothers always lose the most, they say.
A thin layer of stone sloughs off from his chest. The pieces clatter and clink down to the floor.
This is too easy. Here is a lost troll, crippled and weak, hardly ferocious, as trolls are supposed to be. I’m not even afraid of him. Defeating him barely counts as a triumph.
“Signy,” Unferth says softly from right beside me. “Why do you hesitate?”
The troll opens his mouth, revealing square molars, and he moans. His breath is sweet like rotten bananas.
“This is wrong,” I say, thinking of the rune sacrifice in Malchai Elizabethson’s iris. I will know my martyr when I see him.