The Liar's Key

“Yes.” Even Snorri didn’t sound pleased about it.

“No tinderbox,” Tuttugu said, rummaging as if he might find one even now.

“Let’s have a little more light,” Snorri said, holding out his hand.

“He just said we didn’t h—” I broke off as Kara dropped the orichalcum into Snorri’s palm. “Oh.”

The glow became fiercer, pushing back the shadows to the margins of the cavern. The floor beneath us lay level, hard-packed mud left by some underground river. Lower down, the walls had been smoothed by ancient currents; higher up they became rough, the ceiling studded with stony icicles like so many of Damocles’s swords depending above our heads. Some of these had already fallen and lay in pieces across the floor. They had a blackened look to them. In fact so did the walls . . . and the ground beneath our feet . . . as if a great fire had burned here, filling the place wall to wall.

“There,” said Snorri, gesturing with his axe to a clot of darkness that resisted the orichalcum’s glow. “And there.” He indicated another further around the cavern wall.

“There what?” I squinted at them.

“Trolls.”

An oath, sharp with terror, escaped Tuttugu before he mastered himself. I retreated toward Kara, gripping the spear tightly and wondering if I would ever be safe again.

“You beat a troll, right, Snorri?” I asked, mouth suddenly dry, cracking my voice.

“One,” he said. “I got lucky.” He nodded to a dark passage leading off from the far end of the cavern. “Two more there. The only thing I don’t understand is why we’re still alive.”

One of the creatures detached itself from the wall and moved a few paces closer. Even so it remained hard to see, its hide swallowing any light that fell upon it. A black creature, taller and more powerfully built than Sven Broke-Oar who had hardly been a man at all. Long inky limbs, a face so black as to deny all features. Another step closer and I saw the gleam of its eyes, dark as Aslaug’s, and a wide mouth opening to black teeth, black tongue, now stretched in what should be a roar though only a hissing reached me, running along the edge of hearing.

Snorri held his axe ready for the swing. He and Tuttugu wore other men’s blood. The scent must be calling more of the things and driving those before us wild. I considered dropping my spear.

“Who are you, truce-breakers?” A voice rolled out behind us, the kind of deep voice that sounded at home here among the roots of mountains.

We turned to see the speaker. With so many enemies it became impossible not to aim your back toward at least one of them. Not that my front would help fend off a troll. The spear was a magnificent weapon but I had the feeling these trolls might just bite the end off. As I turned I saw for a heartbeat that small smile the Silent Sister offered me in the dream. Had she seen this moment with her blind eye? Was this the source of her amusement?

The thing that regarded us through eyes slitted against our light might once have been a troll but something had twisted it. I doubted God would touch such creatures so that left a darker hand altogether, reaching up from the brimstone to warp the beast. His rib bones erupted from his chest like long black fingers, almost coming together above his heart. An image of Aslaug and unfolding spider legs skittered across my mind and I shuddered. This one stood maybe seven foot, perhaps a little more, a foot shorter than the others, but considerably more solid, and clad in a hide that the shadows whispered might be red. Cat’s eyes, teeth a direwolf might envy, and in place of the other trolls’ long fingers ending in black claws, his fingers were thick as a child’s arm, three to each hand, ending in blunt red nails. Also, unlike the others, he wore a robe of some sort, more of a toga really, of dark highland tartan. I had plenty of time to drink in his details while waiting for one of our number to overcome their astonishment and answer his question.

“We’ve broken no truce.” It was Kara who at last found the wit to answer him.

“You may not have intended to break it, you might be wholly ignorant of its existence, but you most certainly have broken the truce.” The monster troll spoke with remarkable calmness for a savage beast, and with a degree of culture that wouldn’t be out of place at court if it weren’t spoken in a voice deep enough to cause nosebleeds.

“A great magic was worked in this cavern,” Kara said. “It called us here. What happened?”

“Two fire-sworn disagreed.” A terse reply as if the memory pained him.

“What place is this? And what is your name?” Kara asked, perhaps hoping to keep the conversation from the topic of broken truces.