Читать книгу Troll Mill - Katherine Langrish - Страница 7

A few hours earlier, just before sunset, Peer’s best friend Hilde stood high on the seaward shoulder of Troll Fell, looking out over a huge gulf of air. In front of her feet, the ground dropped away in fans of unstable scree. Far, far below, the fjord flashed trembling silver between headlands half-drowned in shadow. On the simmering brightness, a tiny dark boat crept deliberately along like an insect.

She flung out her arms as if she might soar away like an eagle. A strong wind blew back the hair from her face and slapped at her skirts. She closed her eyes, leaning on the wind, feeling its cold buoyant pressure. She heard it hiss in the thorn trees that clung to the slopes, and she heard the sheep bleating–the dark, complaining voices of the ewes and the shrill baby cries of the lambs.

“Hiillde!” A long drawn-out yell floated from the skyline. She turned quickly to see her little brother racing down towards her, a small brown dog running at his heels. Bracing herself for the crash, she caught him and swung him round.

“Oof! Don’t keep doing that, Sigurd. You’re pretty heavy for an eight year old! Where’s Pa and Sigrid?”

“They’re coming. What are you looking at?”

“The view.”

“The view?” Sigurd echoed in scorn. “What’s so special about that?”

Hilde laughed and ruffled his hair. “Nothing, I suppose. But see that boat down there? That’s Peer and Bjørn.”

Sigurd craned his neck. “So it is. Hey, Loki, it’s Peer! Where’s Peer?” Loki pricked his ears, barking eagerly.

“Don’t tease him!” said Hilde. Sigurd threw himself down beside Loki, laughing and tussling.

Fierce sunlight blazed through a gap in the clouds. The wide hillside turned an unearthly green. Long drifts of tired snow, still lying in every dip and hollow, woke into blinding sparkles, and the crooked thorn trees sprang out, every mossy twig a shrill yellow. Hilde’s eyes watered. Two figures came over the skyline and started descending: a tall man in a plaid cloak, holding hands with a little fair-haired girl whose red hood glowed like a jewel. Shadows like stick men streamed up the slope behind them.

Sigurd pushed Loki aside and jumped to his feet, waving to his twin sister. “Sigrid, come and look! We can see Bjørn’s boat.”

The little girl broke free from her father and came running. “Where?”

Sigurd pointed. “Lucky things,” he complained. “They get to go fishing, and we have to count sheep. Why can’t Sigrid and I have some fun?”

“You can when you’re older,” said Hilde. “And I didn’t go fishing, did I?”

“You didn’t want to,” Sigurd muttered.

“I know who she wants to go fishing with,” said Sigrid slyly. “With Bjørn’s brother,Arnë! She likes him–don’t you, Hilde?”

“Don’t be silly,” said Hilde sharply. “You know perfectly well that Arnë doesn’t even live in the village any more. Not since last summer. He works a fishing boat out of Hammerhaven—”

“Yes, and it’s bigger than Bjørn’s,” Sigurd interrupted. “Bjørn’s boat is a faering, with a mast but only two sets of oars. Arnë’s boat is a six-oarer!”

“That’s right, and he has a partner to help him sail it,” Hilde said.

“You do know a lot about him,” Sigrid giggled.

“That’s not funny, Sigrid. Arnë is twenty-two; he’s a grown-up man.”

“So? You’re fifteen, you’re grown-up, too. When he came to say goodbye to you, he held your hand. You went all pink.”

Hilde gave her little sister a withering glance, and then wrapped her arms around herself with a shiver. A swift shadow came gliding down the fell, and the sunlight vanished. Out to sea, the clouds had eaten up the sun.

“It’s going to rain, Pa,” she said as Ralf joined them.

“We can see Peer,” Sigrid squeaked, pointing at the boat. “Look, Pa, look!”

“Aha!” Ralf peered down the slope, scanning every rock and boulder. “Now I wonder if our missing sheep have gone over this edge. I don’t see any. But they wouldn’t show up against all the grey stones. Anything falling down there would break every bone in its body. Sigurd! That means you, too, d’you hear?”

“How many are lost?” Hilde asked.

“Let’s see.” Grimly, Ralf ticked them off on his fingers:“The old ewe with the bell round her neck, two of the black sheep, the lame one, the speckled one, and the one with the broken horn. And their lambs, too. It’s a puzzle, Hilde. It can’t be wolves or foxes. They’d leave traces.”

“Stolen?” asked Hilde. “By the trolls?”

“That thought does worry me,” Ralf admitted.

A chilly wind gusted through Hilde’s clothes. She rubbed goose bumps from her arms as she looked around. The fjord below was a brooding gulf of shadows. She glanced up at the skyline. Troll Fell loomed over them, wearing a scowl of cloud.

Sigrid tugged at Hilde’s sleeve. “The boat’s gone. Where is it?”

“Don’t worry, Siggy. It’ll be coming in to land. We can’t see the shore from here; the hillside gets in the way. Pa, we really should go. Those clouds are coming up fast.”

“Yes.” Ralf was gazing out to sea. “The old sea-wife is brewing up some dirty weather in that cookpot of hers!” He caught their puzzled looks, and laughed. “Did Grandpa never tell you that story? It’s a sailor’s yarn. The old sea-wife, Ran, sits in her kitchen at the bottom of the sea, brewing up storms in her big black pot. Oh, yes! All the drowned sailors go down to sit in rows on the benches in Ran’s kitchen.”

Hilde gave an appreciative shudder. “That’s like a story that Bjørn told us–about the draug, who sails the seas in half a boat and screams on the wind when people are going to drown. Brrr!”

“I remember it. That’s a good one,” said Sigurd. “You think it’s just an ordinary boat, but then it gets closer and you see that the sailors are all dead and rotten. And the boat can sail against the wind and catch you anywhere. And the draug steers it, and he hasn’t got a face. And then you hear this terrible scream—”

“Well, Peer and Bjørn are safe tonight,” said Ralf. “Let him scream! But we won’t see Peer this evening. He’ll stay with Bjørn and Kersten, snug and dry. Now let’s go, before we all get soaked.” But he stood for a moment, still staring west, as if straining to see something far away, though all that Hilde could see was a line of advancing clouds like inky mountains. Drops of rain flew in on the wind and struck like hailstones.

“Hurry up, Pa. It’s nearly dark and I’m hungry.” Sigurd hopped from foot to foot. “What are you looking at?”

“Oh…” Reluctantly, Ralf turned away. “Only trying to catch a glimpse of the islands, but it’s too murky now.” Sigurd and Sigrid dashed ahead with Loki.

“I passed those islands once, you know,” Ralf said to Hilde, following the twins inland around the steep fellside. “In the longship, the summer I went to sea.”

“I know you did, Pa.” Hilde wasn’t really listening. Rain was hissing all around them now. The only path was a sheep track twisting down between outcrops of rock, so she had to watch where she put her feet. The ground slanted at a forbidding angle. Hilde felt exposed, unsafe–as though Troll Fell might suddenly shrug its vast turf-clad shoulders and send them tumbling helplessly down into the fjord…

“I’d never seen them so close before,” Ralf called over his shoulder. “Never been so far from home. Some of them are big, with steep cliffs where seagulls nest. A wild sort of people live there. Fishermen, not farmers. They climb on the cliffs for gulls’ eggs, and gather seaweed and shellfish—”

“Yes, you’ve told me.” She’d heard the story many times, and just now she wished he’d be quiet and hurry up. In the rain and early darkness, it was hard to see what was what. Grey boulders scrambled up as they approached, trotted away bleating, and were sheep. And some were really rocks, but with movement around the edges. There! Hadn’t something just dodged behind that big one?

Ralf was still talking. “—But many of the islands are just rocks, skerries, with the sea swilling over them and no room for anyone but seals. They’d lie there, lazily basking in the sun, watching us. It’s tricky sailing. The tides come boiling up through the channels, sweeping the boat along, and there’s rocks everywhere just waiting to take a bite.

“But we got through. And further out, and beyond the horizon–many days’ sailing–well, you know what we found, Hilde. The land at the other end of the world!”

Hilde pulled herself together. “East of the sun and west of the moon,” she joked. “Like a fairy tale.”

“Just west,” said Ralf quietly. “And no fairy tale. To think I’ve been so far away! Why, by the time I passed the islands again on my way home, they seemed like old friends. How I’d love to…but I’ve promised your mother…and there’s the baby. Ah, well!”

He strode on. Hilde squelched after him, looking affectionately at the back of his head. She knew how part of him longed to go off again–to sail away to that wonderful land, adventurous and free. He’ll never be quite contented here, she thought. That worries Ma, but I understand it. I’d like to see new places too. Why, even Peer’s seen more of the world than I have. He used to live miles away, in Hammerhaven. I’ve spent my whole life here.

Hammerhaven…Her mind skipped to the day, last year, when Arnë had made a special visit to the farm. He’d come to say 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 a greyish tangle, barely visible in the grass. He nodded to her through the rain.

“Let’s get the little ones home.” Hilde shivered.

Ralf picked up Sigrid and swung her on to his shoulders.

“But, Pa, what about the trolls?” asked Sigurd. “What if they follow us?”

“They won’t,” said his father easily. “They were running away, weren’t they? Loki here has chased them all into the foxholes amongst those rocks. Forget them. I wonder what your Ma has for supper?”

Talking cheerfully, he set off at a rapid pace. Hilde followed, Sigurd tramping manfully along beside her. At last they came to the proper track that led down to the farm. Far ahead in the dim, wet night they were glad to see a tiny speck of warm light. Gudrun had lit the lantern to guide them home.