Using data from satellite imagery that shows the destruction caused when entire troll herds move, and established deer and pygmy mammoth herd patterns, Talia points to the locations of the only two GMT herds off the ice sheets: one in the Rock Mountains, and one vying against hill trolls for territory in the Adirondacks.
“What about the Vinland herd? Were you tracking them before the massacre?” I ask as lightly as possible.
Talia grimaces and leans her hip against the display table. “We know they were from Montreal, but it’s hard to track trolls within the ruins.”
“Why?”
“There are so many of them. More concentrated there than any other place that we know of, but they don’t hunt near there. They travel far north or east along the coast for food. Usually bears and wolverines, and they even hunt the icebergs and ocean for whales and seals. We have a harder time tracking coastal herds without physically tagging them, since they disappear under water occasionally, and there have been requests for funding for that for absolutely ages. We only suspect that they keep their hunting away from the ruins because the mothers use it as a meeting grounds.”
“Wait.” I hold up my hand. “There are still multiple mothers in Montreal? Which one came to Vinland?”
“Oh.” Talia looks surprised. “She didn’t come from Montreal. We know from descriptions you gave and the Mad Eagles that she’s not one of the three mothers known to rule.”
Soren says, “We thought the herd was definitely from Montreal. The Mad Eagles’ report indicated that.”
Talia flips her hand. “Some of them were—all of them, we guess, other than the troll mother. She probably came from high north, where we have no tracking equipment, and drew off some of the sons from the other herds. It’s a normal way they cull family groups to keep the gene pool diverse.” She flashes a smile. “They’re really so very complicated as a species, more so than we give them credit for.”
“She … was alone before,” I say carefully, “but gathered a new herd to attack us?”
“As far as we can tell. But the information is scattered; it’s truly a bare guess, not even a hypothesis.”
I walk around the table to press my hands along the edge nearest Vinland. I point to the north peninsula. “This is Jellyfish Cove.”
Talia pipes up. “It’s likely if she left the island she either crossed back over Leif’s Channel, since it’s the narrowest point to head back up into Canadia, or went south directly to New Scotland.”
“I know they can go under the ocean. They walk across the bottom, not swim, because they’re so dense?”
“Or use icebergs. We’ve never tagged a greater mountain troll mother and don’t truly know everything they’re capable of. The Thunderer always cautions us not to underestimate them. Actually …” Talia adjusts her glasses. She says in one long breath, “Actually I was wondering if you think maybe I might be able to ask you some questions about your troll or even see him.”
“Oh.” I glance at Soren and back to her. “I can answer your questions, but I don’t know about access.”
“It’s just I’m writing my thesis about seasonal calcification and migration—really, about how calcification can be affected by temperature, and you’ve been with yours for a few months, haven’t you, and gone with him from cold to this hot? Have you noticed if he wakes more slowly in the heat? Or is there a difference to the texture of his shed skin? I’d like to—”
I hold up my hands. “Stop, Talia. Stop.”
She does. And waits. Her eyelashes flutter a little, but otherwise she regains her composure.
“I promise to answer all your questions that I can, but not today,” I say. Soren brushes his hand against my back, and I make my voice even. “I’m in the middle of something pretty important—”
“Revenge,” she interrupts, then presses her lips shut.
“Yes. Is there anything you can do to help us find her now?”
“I can do some in-depth analysis, call some of my peers at the Ohiyo center who were looking into bird habitats and troll migration. They might have noticed something. Unfortunately …” She pauses.
“Yes?”
“Well, there’s been so much movement out of pattern this week.”
My hopes fall. “All the excess sightings around the country. Are you sure there’s no pattern that might be … attributed to her?”
Talia chews on the side of her tongue as she thinks. “It will be hard to really mark what’s unusual, because it’s all unusual. We’ve been keeping records for fifty years, and with satellites for nearly twenty. This whole situation is unusual.” She crosses to one of the computers and types in a series of lightning-fast commands. The wall-sized monitor flares to life, with a detailed map of the Gulf Coast. She flings her arm to it as a string of orange dots appears along the Mizizibi River, clusters especially around the cities of Memphis and Port Orleans. “For example, in the past five days there have been more lesser-troll sightings per capita right here in Orleans and Watauga king-states than in the past ten years put together.”
“Could there be more sightings because people are looking harder?” Soren asks.
Talia shakes her head. “We’ve adjusted for that.”
I sink back against the table. “If she culled trolls from other troll mothers—she pulled them to her? Could she be doing that with the lesser trolls, too? Calling them?”
“I suppose so, though I’ve never heard of it; there’s no suggestion in any of the research that mothers cull across species.”
“Still. Can you …” I approach the monitor. “Can you expand out, still mapping these lesser-troll sightings?”
“Sure. It sticks with the Mizizibi River, roughly, for a while, and then I’m not sure. I’ll have to … hang on.” Talia types more commands into her computer, pulling up additional websites. She hums to herself while I clutch my hands together and try not to pace and grind my teeth.
“I had to access the Ohiyo institute database,” she says after a moment. “Here.”
Orange dots flare across the country, but they’re obviously concentrated in a thick strip spreading north and east along the Mizizibi River and following the Ohiyo River all the way north to the banks of Lake Erie. “Odd-eye,” I whisper. This is a highway of rivers and lakes from Port Orleans all the way northeast to Canadia and the Gulf of Lawrence, which connects to Leif’s Channel and Vinland. Through both Ohiyo and Vertmont. All along it, there have been even more lesser-troll sightings over the past two weeks than in the rest of the country.
The troll mother could have walked almost wherever she wanted to underwater, unseen, avoiding the sun from Vinland.
Unferth whispers a line from the old poem The Song of Beowulf.
From the mere slunk the troll mother, dripping and wet, black fury in her heart.
Soren touches my back. “Signy, look at the dates.” His eyes are on the monitor, not the map. I try to read the list quickly and see what he sees, and Talia says, “Here,” and types in more commands.
The LED lights blink out. “They’ll come on as I say the dates,” she says.
Talia begins a month ago, when the new pattern of excess sightings began. It starts in the northeast, near Montreal and New Scotland, with tiny pockets in major cities around the country. As time progresses, the troll sightings bloom toward the south and west, spilling across the map like a virus. The most intense groupings grow along the rivers from the Great Lakes down the Ohiyo to the Mizizibi, dragging inexorably closer to us here in Port Orleans.
“Did you see?” Soren asks. His palm is hot, burning through my T-shirt to my skin. “Play it again, please, and stop when I say.”