One
 
 
I kept Katie back and to the right of me as we followed the she-troll into the clearing. Here the snow was deep enough to see the paths the troll had made and to see where she was heading. Even with the sheep slung over her shoulder and one of Katie’s crossbow bolts in her right thigh, the she-troll had stayed ahead of us, weaving in and out of the trees, climbing for the last mile or more. Not for the first time this winter, I swore over the loss of my Doc Martens. The trainers sucked in this rough terrain.
“Be careful, Sarah,” Katie called to me in a hoarse whisper.
I glanced back at her, letting a grin grow on my face. We so had this.
Halfway across the clearing, the troll spun around, launching the sheep at us. I barely got my head turned around fast enough to dive to the right. Katie wasn’t as quick. She dropped her crossbow while trying to avoid the ovine missile, but went down under two hundred pounds of meat and wool.
“You okay?” I called, rolling to my feet, keeping between Katie and the troll.
The she-troll roared, overwhelming Katie’s reply. I drew my sword Gram and squared to face the beast, expecting her to fall on me, but she stepped back, ripped the bolt from her leg, and screamed once again. Blood ran down her rough britches and stained the snow beneath her huge feet.
“I know you, berserker,” the troll growled. “I will not let you destroy what is mine.”
“You’re one of Jean-Paul’s beasties, then?” I called. Her only answer was to scoop a fallen tree limb from the ground and lumber at me.
I caught the downward stroke of her cudgel against Gram. She was strong. I nearly fell beneath the sheer power of the blow. I slid backward on the ice, barely keeping my feet.
“Not anymore,” she grunted, swinging at me again.
I parried, spinning around. It was a beautiful move, at least in my mind. It should have caught her in the neck, smashing through the arteries. Instead, my shoes slipped on the ice and I stumbled, missing her by half a foot. She lunged forward, punched me in the chest with the cudgel, and slashed my right leg with her claws.
Lucky for me, the universe is random and capricious. The wound in her leg kept her from putting her full strength and balance in the blows, so I didn’t lose my leg. As it was, she punched through my chain mail and sliced into my upper thigh.
I screamed with the pain and fell backward. Luckily, rocks and ice broke my fall. I clamped my right hand over my thigh and kept Gram up between me and the killing machine. She loomed over me and roared. Spittle flew over me, and for a moment she looked like King Kong raging on Skull Island.
“Oh, shit,” I said, trying to scramble backward with one good leg. She had me dead to rights, only we’d both forgotten about Katie.
Katie smashed the crossbow into the side of the troll’s head, causing her ugliness to lumber to the side. I rolled up onto my good knee and shoved Gram upward, sending six inches of black steel into the troll’s neck.
The troll jerked backward, flailing with both arms. She caught Katie a glancing blow. She staggered backward to fall against one of the old oaks.
I forced myself to my feet as the troll fell to her knees, clutching her throat. She looked at me, really looked into me, pleading. I could see the pain and fear in her huge green eyes. She opened her mouth, gasping something through the foaming blood. I couldn’t make out the words. Tears rolled down her pocked face as she tried over and over to say something. I think it was “mercy,” but I couldn’t be sure. After a minute her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she fell backward. The forest shook with her falling.
“Damn it,” I shouted, looking around to Katie, who was limping toward me.
“Hang on,” Katie called, pulling her pack and guitar from the underbrush. She fell to her knees at my side and pushed me onto my back. “Let me stop the bleeding,” she ordered.
I leaned back on one elbow and watched as she peeled the chain and cloth from the wound. I grunted as she pulled several links out of the rent flesh. “Fuck, that hurts,” I growled.
She looked around, picked up a small stick from the ground, and thrust it at me. “Bite down on this,” she said and pushed me onto my back.
I bit down onto the stick and tried not to make too much noise as she dressed the wound.
“Not too deep,” she assured me, pulling her first aid kit from her pack. She’d been training with our doctor friend Melanie for weeks—basic wound care and treatment. She used an irrigation syringe to clean the wound with distilled water. Then she had me hold it partially closed while she applied four wound closure strips.
“Gotta keep it open some,” she said, grimacing. “Can’t risk infection.”
She slathered the wound with antibiotic ointment and applied a sterile bandage over it. I held that down tight, applying pressure to help it stop bleeding while she tore off several lengths of muslin and duct tape to finish off the dressing.
“At least you didn’t wreck the runes,” she said, cupping my calf.
I had runes running down my left calf—Thurisaz, Dagaz, Kenaz, Gebo, Tiwaz—the same runes that ran down the length of the fuller on my sword, Gram. I inherited them when I became tuned in with the blade. Just popped up on my calf one day, pretty as you please. Damn funny thing about magic swords. They mark you in some ways. I just never figured it would be so literal.
She did a quick and efficient job of binding the wound. Within a few minutes, I was standing. I wouldn’t be running any marathons, but I could get around.
I cleaned Gram and sheathed her before examining the troll.
She was dead, for sure.
“What was that at the end?” Katie asked, looking around for a branch long enough for me to use as a cane.
“I think she said ’mercy,’” I said. “She was already dying, knew it by the look in her eyes. Why would she ask for mercy then and not when we had her cornered?”
“No idea,” Katie said. “But she was definitely making a stand here. We should look around.”
We hadn’t gone very far across the clearing when we heard crying. I looked at Katie, who shrugged and pushed forward, her short sword out. I pulled Gram from her sheath and hobbled forward, leaning on the staff.
Beyond the clearing, where the rocky slope pushed upward, we found the troll’s lair. The opening was fairly low, but firelight shown from inside. Katie went in ahead of me. The opening jagged to the left and expanded into a huge, dry cave.
The place was amazing. Most of the floor was covered in sheepskins, and several pieces of crude furniture were placed around a central fire pit. The cave went back about thirty feet. The smoke from the fire wound its way upward, being pulled out through a natural chimney of some sort.
A spit was erected over the fire and several cook pots sat off to one side. Katie and I looked at each other in astonishment. It was dry, warm, and homey.
“Christ!” I breathed. “How long has she been here?”
That’s when we heard the cry again. I’d forgotten it in the shock of seeing the way the cave had been made into a home.
“Oh,...