Текст книги "The Sea of Trolls"

Автор книги: Nancy Farmer

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

Chapter Twenty-four
THE QUEST

The next morning Olaf sent Cloud Mane to the king. “It may cool his anger. We haven’t a hope of cooling Frith’s rage.”

“We should take ship and escape to Finnmark,” said Heide. “My brothersss will protect us.”

“No offense, dear wife, but I don’t want to live in a smelly tent with your brothers. Nor do I want to be called a coward.”

“Escape is the only sensible thinggg,” Heide said, drawing out the last word.

“It’s shameful. I’m King Ivar’s man, not an oath-breaker.”

“So you’d rather let us get slaughtered than risk your precious reputation.” Heide was capable of standing up to Olaf as no one else could.

“Reputation is all a man is. Anyhow, you won’t die. I know Ivar. He may punish me and certainly Jack, but it won’t go farther.”

Jack would have welcomed the chance to take ship and escape to Finnmark, wherever that was. He wouldn’t have minded living in a smelly tent forever, but he didn’t have a choice. He was confined to the main hall, his slave collar fastened by a leash to a heavy table. As if I were a dog,Jack thought.

Thorgil, too, was confined, but she was trusted to obey. Olaf had been angered by her outburst in Ivar’s hall. “As if things couldn’t get worse,” he’d growled, “you had to accuse Jack of seiðer!”

“He talks to crows,” she’d muttered under her breath.

Skakki burst through the door. “You’ll never guess what happened! Golden Bristles smashed open his pen and escaped. The queen is furious about it.”

“Worse and worse,” groaned Olaf. “They say when a man’s fate calls him to death, everything he does goes wrong.”

“The king wants you in his hall,” Skakki said. “He wants Jack and Rune, too.”

“Rune?”

“As a lore-master and expert on skald’s magic. And he wants Thorgil because of her accusation of seiðer.”

“Me?”shouted Thorgil, outraged.

“You haff never known when to keep quiet,” said Heide.

Everyone dressed quickly, and Rune wore his white robe because he was being consulted on affairs of magic. They trudged through the forest, with Olaf holding Jack’s leash. Like a dog,the boy thought again. He wondered how the queen would punish him. Perhaps she’d steal his wits, as she had the Bard’s. Or throw him into Freya’s Fen to sink slowly. Or roast him over a fire. Jack could come up with a dozen possible fates, all of them horrible.

At least Golden Bristles had escaped. True, he was a vicious hog, and true, he probably didn’t deserve mercy, but Jack liked him. It was rather flattering to have even a swine appreciate one’s poetry.

The king and queen were seated on the dais. Their warriors lined the hall, and at the front were the priests of Odin and Freya. “The priests have been unable to reverse the spell,” said the king.

Jack was relieved to see Lucy at the queen’s feet. But when the little girl looked up, he saw that her mind had fled. Her eyes were vacant and she didn’t recognize him. Where was her spirit? Not in the castle, certainly, and not in a fantasy with Frith Half-Troll as her mother.

He glanced at the queen, and at once her eyes caught his and held. He was unable to look away. She’d regained her human shape, but she no longer had her luminous beauty. She looked coarse and lumpy, like dough that hadn’t been kneaded properly. Her hair lay in a basket on the floor, and she wore a shawl over her head.

“I want him punished,” the queen hissed. The air stirred behind her, and Jack saw she’d lost none of her fell power. “I want him to suffer as no one has ever suffered before. I want it to take days. I want him to despair, feel hope, and despair again.”

“If you do that, you’ll never regain your beauty,” said Rune.

“And how could that be? When he’s dead, the spell will undo itself.”

“I’m afraid not,” said Rune. “This isn’t some flimsy conjurer’s trick. Jack was trained by Dragon Tongue.”

“Dragon Tongue!”shrieked Frith. The warriors ducked and covered their ears. King Ivar turned ashen. “He’s dead! He’s dead! He’s dead!”screamed the queen.

“His lore lives on,” said Rune. “He was the most powerful skald in Middle Earth, and Jack is his heir.”

“Now I know I want the boy dead!”

“Great Queen,” said the priest of Odin, “if this is Dragon Tongue’s work, only the person who cast the spell can undo it.”

“That’s right,” agreed the priest of Freya.

Frith paused, seeming to gather her forces. The shadows behind her stopped moving. “Well then, boy,” she said in a voice that was almost sweet, “what are you waiting for?”

Olaf pushed Jack to the front. The boy felt waves of cold wash over him. “I—uh—I—” began Jack.

“Go on! Remove the spell.”

“I don’t know how,” Jack muttered.

“What?”

Jack swallowed. “I don’t know how.”

Then the queen did scream, and everyone, even Olaf, dropped to his knees.

“Well, that’s done it,” said the priest of Odin.

“I’m sorry, boy,” groaned Olaf. “I thought we had a chance there.”

“We still do,” Rune said. Thorgil helped him rise and dusted off his knees, for the straw on Ivar’s floor was littered with bone and gristle, not to mention fleas. “Jack may not know the magic now, but he can get it from Mimir’s Well.”

“Mimir’s Well?” The priest was flabbergasted. “That’s in Jotunheim!”

“I didn’t say it would be easy.”

“It is perilous beyond belief to pass into Jotunheim,” said King Ivar. “I know. I’ve been there.”

“And I as well,” said Olaf.

“But with safe passage, it might be done,” Rune said.

All turned to Frith, who glowered back at them. “I have no love of Jotunheim. My own mother cast me out.”

“She didn’t cast you out,” King Ivar said patiently. “She married you to me.”

“Same thing,” sneered Frith. “I wanted a fine ogre or a goblin, but no.Mother insisted I marry a puny human.” King Ivar passed his hand across his eyes as though he’d had this argument many times.

“It looks like—” Jack cleared his throat as Frith’s attention was drawn to him. Even in her diminished form, she made his mind go blank. “It looks like your only chance to be cured is for me to find this Mimir’s Well and—and—what am I supposed to do with it, Rune?”

“Drink the song-mead it contains,” the old warrior said softly. “It’s the dream of every skald. I’ve wanted it all my life—well, no point regretting what can never be. Song-mead waters the roots of Yggdrassil, the tree that rises through the nine worlds. It’s pure life force, as Dragon Tongue would have said.”

As Rune talked Jack felt a strange sensation. It was like wind over the sea and hawks diving with their wings furled and far-off hills covered in mist. He could see himself walking through a forest of giant fir trees. The air was filled with the smell of ice off a glacier. Good heavens,thought Jack. I think I like this adventure.The feeling was so unusual, he wondered if he was sick.

He opened his eyes and saw Thorgil looking quite sappy about it. “Finding Mimir’s Well,” she said. “What a quest!” Even Olaf had a distant expression.

“It does sound wonderful,” King Ivar said with a sigh. “Alas, I can no longer do it. Well, my little troll-flower. Will you give Jack safe passage so your relatives know he’s a guest and not, um, a two-legged deer?”

Frith scowled and made things difficult. They had to flatter her and plead with her. Ivar promised her many presents, and in the end Frith agreed. From her robe she produced a golden chess piece that she’d stolen from her mother. “It’s the queen,” she said. “I hope it spoiled her set. Anyhow, she’ll recognize it. But I want to be sure you return and don’t go sneaking off like a pack of oath-breakers.”

“We’re notoath-breakers,” growled Olaf.

“The troll-pig broke free in the night,” said Frith. “He’s probably halfway to Jotunheim by now, and that means I have no sacrifice for Freya.”

Tough luck,Jack thought.

“I thought about using Cloud Mane,” the queen said, smiling to see Olaf’s dismay. “Then I had a clever idea. This gift of yours, Thorgil, has turned sour. She won’t talk or anything. She’s boring. So I thought, ‘Why not sacrifice Lucy to Freya?’”

“No!” shouted Jack.

“It’s yearssince I gave the goddess a human. Lucy’s a pretty mite, and Freya won’t care if she’s stupid.”

“You can’t do that! I won’t let you!” Jack tried to run to the dais. He fell back as the full force of the queen’s malevolence struck him. He gasped for air. He was surrounded by foul darkness and cold. Only the rune saved him from freezing.

“If you kill him, the quest fails,” Rune said.

The dead darkness went away. Jack opened his eyes and saw that his body was covered with ice crystals that melted even as he looked at them.

“I’ll wait until the harvest festival,” said Frith. “That gives you time to reach Jotunheim, find Mimir’s Well, and return. If you are late—or have slunk off with your tails between your legs—I’ll put Lucy into the sacred cart and throw her into Freya’s Fen myself.”

It’s my fault. It’s all my fault,thought Jack as they returned through the forest. The Bard lost his wits because he gave me the rune of protection. I let Lucy get carried off by Northmen, and I messed up the magic with Frith. If I hadn’t freed Golden Bristles, Lucy wouldn’t be headed for sacrifice. Now I’ve caused everyone to go on this stupid quest to a country where people bite off legs. I’ll never find that well. Or I’ll fall into it and drown.

A shadow loomed overhead and settled on Jack’s shoulder. Bold Heart’s claws were sharp. “Ow! Stop it!” Jack cried. The crow transferred to a nearby bush. Olaf, Rune, and Thorgil halted.

“Maybe he does practice seiðer,” said the giant.

“I toldyou,” Thorgil said.

“Nonsense. He merely talks to animals,” whispered Rune. He’d spoken at length in King Ivar’s court, and now his voice was almost gone. He’d argued for rewards if they returned triumphant from Jotunheim. He had the law on his side and the backing of the priests of Odin and Freya. It was the king’s duty to reward heroism.

If Jack was successful, Rune had argued, he and Lucy should be given their freedom. They should be taken home. “If you want Jack to return, he needs something more than life as a thrall before him.” The queen hadn’t liked this, but she also couldn’t understand why anyone would risk his life for anyone else. The reward—or the “bribe”, as she’d called it—made sense to her.

“I’ve heard dragon’s blood gives you the ability to talk to birds,” Rune whispered now.

“I’ve heard that too,” said Olaf. “Dragon Tongue spoke of a man called Sigurd who killed a dragon. He was putting his sword away when he accidentally pricked his finger and stuck it into his mouth. The finger still had the dragon’s blood on it. Sigurd immediately understood what a pair of larks were saying.”

“I remember that story. Nobody ever accused Sigurd of seiðer,” said Rune.

“And no base thrall ever killed a dragon,” muttered Thorgil as they continued on their way.

Dotti and Lotti were extremely relieved to see Olaf again. They fell on him, hugging and weeping. Even Heide gave him a kiss. “Dear ox-brain! You escaped the wolves!” The wives were not as pleased when they learned about the quest.

“You’ve just come back,” wailed Lotti. “Why do you have to go off after trolls?”

“It’s the king’s orders,” Olaf said, settling Lotti on one knee and Dotti on the other. “We have to find Mimir’s Well so Jack can cure the queen.”

“Who wantsto cure her?” pouted Dotti.

“That’s a verrry good question,” said Heide.

“If we don’t do it, little Lucy gets sacrificed to Freya.” Olaf bounced his junior wives up and down as though they were children playing horsey. They squealed and begged for more.

“It will be a great quest,” Thorgil said, her eyes shining. “We’ll meet trolls and goblins and ogres. We’ll raid the forges of the dwarves for gold. I might even fall gloriously in battle.”

“You are sssooo stupid,” said Heide.

“And Jack will drink song-mead from Mimir’s Well,” whispered Rune. “It’s something I always dreamed of.”

“I expected idiocy from the others, but not you.” Heide threw up her hands and went off to work on her weaving. She had a large loom fastened at an angle to a wall. The warp threads were held taut by stones dangling from the ends, and the weft thread was passed through by hand and tamped into place with a long strip of whalebone. The cloth Heide was making was a beautiful red, yellow, and blue plaid, finer than anything Mother had ever attempted.

Mother,Jack thought sadly. He didn’t know whether she or any of the others were alive. His pathway home lay through Jotunheim, where you met goblins and ogres as easily as you ran into sheep on Father’s farm. He was never going to make it. Never.

Chapter Twenty-five
JOTUNHEIM

Olaf had his long, lean karfipulled out of the water. He caulked the seams with plugs of animal hair and wool. He chipped off barnacles and checked the ropes for signs of wear. Dotti and Lotti repaired holes in the sail. Skakki and Heide took care of provisions. Jack ran around and helped everybody with everything.

They would need only a small crew, for this was no war mission. Six men, including Sven the Vengeful, Eric Pretty-Face, and Eric the Rash, volunteered. At the end of a week they were ready. The dock was crowded with well-wishers, and fishermen aboard small boats cheered as they passed. Before they got out of sight of the village, Bold Heart landed on the deck, cawing loudly.

“I wasn’t trying to leave you behind,” Jack explained. “I only thought the trip was too dangerous for you. We’re going to see trolls and ogres and stuff. It’s not the place for a bird.” For answer, the crow turned his back and deposited a dropping on the deck.

“Stop talking to him. It makes me nervous,” growled Sven the Vengeful.

Thorgil steered them back down the fjord to the open sea, for Jotunheim was not to be reached by land until the last part of the journey. A direct trip over the mountains was far too dangerous for humans, according to Olaf.

“The Sea of Trolls,” murmured Jack as they came out into the gray-green vastness.

“It’s ours now,” said Olaf. “It was theirs when it was covered in ice. Jotuns don’t like deep water, nor do they like sunlight. They were made for ice and winter. Some call them frost giants.”

“So that’s what frost giants are,” said Jack. “The Bard told me they lie in wait for humans, stunning them with their misty breath. He said you could never lie down outside in the dark of winter, no matter how tempting it was. The frost giants would make you sleepy when in fact you’d be freezing to death.”

“Sounds like a troll trick to me,” said Olaf.

In spite of everything, Jack found the trip exhilarating. The endless sea and sky filled him with joy. He loved the cry of the gulls. Bold Heart wasn’t as fond of gulls. He rose from the ship and drove them away, but the gulls always came back.

Jack learned to play the Wolves and Sheep game with the warriors. He joined them in their songs. Fame never dies!rang out again and again over the waves. Even Thorgil sang until Rune told her she had a sweet voice, causing her to withdraw in a fit of sulks.

They saw fewer villages as they went north along the coast and met fewer ships. After a while they saw nothing at all. The trees towered up and up, and their trunks were so thick, six men could hide behind one of them. You could believe it was a forest made for Jotuns and not men. Giant elk with horns wider than Olaf’s outstretched arms stared out at them from the shadows. Once Jack thought he saw a bear.

One afternoon they met a herring run, and Jack saw what Olaf had meant when he said you could lay an axe on the water and it wouldn’t sink. Thousands upon thousands of the thrashing fish crowded the sea and absolutely stalled the boat. Eric the Rash dipped them out with a net and Bold Heart made off with one in his claws, but you could have taken them out with your hands.

“A shame to waste all this bounty,” said Olaf. “By Thor’s bottomless belly, I wish I could send these home.”

“Thor would be a good companion now,” Sven the Vengeful said. “He knew how to sort out trolls.”

“The Jotuns stole his hammer once, did you know?” Rune said to Jack.

The boy shook his head.

“Thyrm, the king of the trolls, took it while the god was sleeping,” said Olaf. “As you know, Thor’s strength is in his hammer. Thyrm said he’d give it back if Freya would marry him.”

“As if anyone would hand over the goddess of love to a dirty Jotun!” said Sven.

Olaf continued: “Thor put on a dress and veil and went to Jotunheim. ‘Ooh, let me in, you big, strong Jotuns,’ he said in a squeaky voice. ‘I’m Freya, and I think you’re all so cute!’ You can bet they opened the gate fast.

“‘Ooh, I’d like a bite to eat,’ said Thor. They brought him eight salmon, a roast ox, ten chickens, a pig, and a sheep. Thor ate the lot and washed it down with a keg of beer.

“‘Thunder and lightning, this goddess eats a lot,’ said the Jotuns. Thyrm lifted her veil, saw Thor’s burning eyes, and jumped back as though he’d put his hand on a stove. ‘She’s hot!’ he cried. ‘I can tell she’s in love with me.’ The trolls brought out Thor’s hammer to trade for Freya. Thor threw off his veil and grabbed it.” Olaf paused, watching Jack expectantly. The other warriors wriggled in anticipation.

“What happened next?” Jack said at last.

“He bashed out everyone’s brains and went home!” crowed Olaf. The warriors laughed and punched one another with glee.

“That was the end of Thyrm, all right!” Sven cried.

“Bang! Crash! Crunch! Smash!” Thorgil swung an imaginary hammer.

I’ll never understand Northmen,Jack thought.

“THE FISH ARE LEAVING,” said Eric Pretty-Face. Jack saw the seething, shimmering mass move away to the south. The ship trembled and broke free.

“Let’s pull in and eat before we get to Jotun Fjord,” said Rune. “I don’t think we’ll have much time to relax once we’re there.”

Jotun Fjord. The water was dark and deep as they went in. In the distance, towering over the far end of the water, was a mountain covered with ice. The cliffs on either side of the fjord were seething with kittiwakes, auks, puffins, cormorants, and gulls. Thousands of nests clung to the rocks, and the air was full of the crying of birds. Sea eagles soared lazily as they surveyed their prey. The water, too, was teeming with cod, haddock, halibut, and salmon.

“It’s like this at the border between worlds,” Rune said.

“I don’t understand,” said Jack.

“We’re leaving Middle Earth and entering Jotunheim. The life force is strongest here. Yggdrassil encircles the border with one of its branches.”

“I don’t see anything.”

“Try harder,” said Rune. So Jack went to the prow and cast his mind out. At first he saw nothing. The noise of the birds distracted him, and Eric Pretty-Face’s humming didn’t help. Jack was afraid he might call up fog by accident or, worse, a downpour. He didn’t really know what he was doing.

Reveal yourselves, living presences of the earth and sky. Show me your pathways in the sea. Uncurl in the leaf, flash in the sun, fill the air with your music.Jack didn’t know where the words came from. They were simply there, shimmering all around. The air thickened like honey; the water began to stir.

It was full of roots. They snaked everywhere, drawing the sun to their green depths. Fish glided in and out of their coils. The roots grew upward and became branches when they reached the air. They unfurled leaves such as were never seen in Middle Earth. Green and gold they shone, and the birds hid their nests among them.

It was too much. The vision was too intense to bear. Jack felt his head swim and then he fell. He woke with Rune holding a skin of water to his lips. Olaf knelt at his side. “What did you just do?”

“I—uh—” Jack choked on the water.

“He called to Yggdrassil,” said Rune.

Jack sat up to see Eric Pretty-Face, Sven the Vengeful, and the others clustered at the other end of the ship. They looked utterly spooked. Bold Heart perched on the mast and warbled joyfully. He, apparently, hadn’t found the presence of Yggdrassil upsetting at all.

“Rune said the life force was strong here and that I should try to see it,” Jack said.

“Don’t do that again,” said Olaf. “We heard you chanting a poem. The air filled with the sound of wings. I thought a dragon had discovered us. Then the sea churned, and Sven thought we were being attacked by a sea serpent. I know you’re used to such things, but the rest of us don’t like them.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack said.

“It’s my fault,” said Rune. “He’s untrained and likely to overdo things.”

“Like turning the queen bald. That was a good trick, though.” Olaf smiled. “You’re a fine skald, and if we survive, I expect many poems out of you.”

“I could write poetry too,” said Thorgil. “If I tried.”

“You? Don’t make me laugh,” said Olaf. “Everyone knows women can’t write verses. It’s only for men.”

“I can do anything a man can!” cried Thorgil. Her face turned red.

“You’re a good shield maiden, and you’ll be a great berserker someday. Don’t ask for the moon.”

“I can do it! Don’t laugh at me!”

“Better I laugh than throw you overboard,” said Olaf. His voice had become quiet and dangerous. Thorgil stopped arguing, but she cast poisonous looks at Jack as she plied the rudder.

As they went deeper into Jotun Fjord, the teeming bird-and fish-life disappeared. Jack saw only one salmon rising to snap at a fly. But that salmon was enormous. Jack’s skin tingled, and he heard something—wind in the trees, perhaps—that was too faint to identify. “It feels strange here,” he said.

“That’s because we’re in Jotunheim.” Rune’s voice, always quiet, was even quieter now.

“Already?”

“We’ve crossed the border from our world into theirs. They”—the old warrior indicated the forest, the mountains, the fjord—“belong. We don’t. What you feel is the watching.”

Jack wished Rune hadn’t said that. Now he could feel the attention directed toward the ship. The trees seemed more alert. The mountains loomed closer, and yet they couldn’t have moved—could they? Eyes watched from beneath the spruce and junipers. Jack couldn’t see them, but he knew they were there.

“They don’t like us, do they?” he said.

“We don’t like them either, when they invade our world,” said Rune. “Fortunately, a troll is far weaker in our world than in his. If it weren’t so, Eric Pretty-Face’s teeth would be decorating a Jotun’s chest instead of the other way around. We’d never have captured Golden Bristles on his home ground.”

“Does that mean we’reweaker here?”

“Yes,” said Rune.

The ship glided deeper into the fjord. The snowy mountain Jack had noticed when they entered seemed higher now. The air over it shone with a kind of shimmering, shifting light.

“That’s where the Mountain Queen lives,” said Olaf, who had joined them. “Frith’s mother.”

“Who’s Frith’s father?”

“Some poor wretch,” said Olaf. “He may have been a great hero. I don’t know. He died long ago.”

“Jotuns are long-lived,” said Rune.

“Why would any human marry a troll?” asked Jack.

Olaf and Rune looked at each other. “It isn’t a matter of choice,” Olaf said. “Troll-maidens get their husbands by capture. They’re bigger, you see. They usually find themselves a nice lout.”

“‘Lout’ is what they call a male troll,” explained Rune.

“But now and then they’ll go for an ogre or even a largish human.”

“Like… you?” Jack said, looking at Olaf.

The giant winced. “I escaped that fate, though only by the greatest good fortune. Ivar wasn’t so lucky. We’d been poking around, trying to find a dwarf forge and perhaps some gold. The Jotuns ambushed us. I fell down a cliff trying to get away and landed in a lake. The trolls thought I’d drowned, but they got Ivar. The Mountain Queen shut him up in her cave.”

“So Frith didn’t capture him. Her mother did,” said Jack.

“The Mountain Queen was getting a little desperate. None of the louts would have Frith. None of the ogres or goblins, either. The Mountain Queen could have tortured them into agreeing, but it’s a poor way to start a marriage.”

“Was… Ivar tortured?”

“Oh, no! He was delighted. He couldn’t see Frith’s true nature, as the others did. He thought he was getting the most beautiful princess in the world.”

“He was always somewhat shallow,” commented Rune. “ Icould have seen through her in a second.”

“By the time I arrived, they were already married,” said Olaf. “I didknock a few Jotuns around to free Ivar, but they didn’t resist much. The Mountain Queen was anxious to move her daughter out of the house.”

They had come now to the end of the fjord, where it widened out into a lake. On the far side Jack saw a meadow covered with swaths of blue, pink, yellow, purple, and white flowers. The perfume reached them from across the water. “That’s nice,” said Jack, wishing they could stay in the meadow and not get closer to the mountain.

“Hellebore, wolfsbane, nightshade, and troll’s breath,” said Rune. “In our world they’re poisonous if you eat them. In this one the perfume alone knocks you out.”

“You’re joking!”

“This is Jotunheim. Everything’s nastier.”

Jack eyed the approaching shore with dismay. The flowers were larger than the ones he was used to and swayed slightly in the breeze ( wasthere a breeze?). The ground beneath them looked boggy. “Once you’re on the other side, there’s a reasonably safe stretch of forest. You can camp there,” said the old warrior.

“ Ican camp there? What about you?”

“Once I would have welcomed such a quest, but now…” Rune sighed. “Speed and concealment are important for your success. Thus, only two men will go with you. Olaf will, of course, be one of them. The rest of us will wait back in the fjord. This lake, peaceful as it seems, isn’t a good place to stay.”

Jack was stunned. He hadn’t welcomed the trip to Jotunheim, but the presence of six Northmen plus Olaf, Rune, and Thorgil offered some safety. Now he was down to two! “How will we ever find you?”

“We’ll return here every day,” said Rune. “I’d suggest waiting in the forest until you can see us.”

They stopped some distance from shore, where the perfume wasn’t too intense. Still, when the breeze shifted, the Northmen moved more slowly and Bold Heart fell off his perch a couple of times.

They packed food and some water, though water would be plentiful until they got to the ice. Rune gave Jack a small bottle of poppy juice to dull pain, “in case you need it.” That probably means Iwill need it,thought Jack. The bottle was of blown glass, not the dull flasks the Bard stored his best elixirs in, but clear as ice with a poppy molded on its side. “Sometimes pain can kill as surely as a knife blade,” said Rune.

He gave Olaf a flask molded in the form of a wolf’s head. The odor sent a chill along Jack’s nerves. It was bog myrtle, already brewed and ready to go. Somewhere along the way Olaf intended to go berserk.

“I’ve selected Thorgil to go with us,” the giant announced.

“Thorgil!” cried Jack. “She’s impossible! We need a full-size warrior, not this—this—runt!” Thorgil threw herself at him, and Jack stepped aside and yanked her leg out from under her. He’d learned a thing or two about fighting in the past weeks. She twisted around and grabbed him. They both fell to the bottom of the ship. Olaf pulled them apart. He held one in each hand, shaking them the way a dog shakes a rat.

“Save your anger for the trolls! I’m letting Thorgil come because I think she’s earned a quest. Besides, she wants to fall in battle, and this adventure is a perfect opportunity. By the way, you’re bothrunts.” Olaf dropped them to the deck. Jack and Thorgil glared at each other, breathing hard.

Bold Heart fluttered over to land on Jack’s shoulder. “Not you,” he cried, trying to brush him off. “This trip isn’t for birds.”

“And I don’t want a witch’s familiar along!” screamed Thorgil.

Bold Heart dug his claws into Jack’s tunic and refused to leave. The boy stopped hitting at him and slumped dejectedly in the bilge. “I can’t take you along, so get used to it.”

“I wonder,” Rune said, kneeling with some difficulty to look at the crow. “I wonder why this creature came to us in the middle of the sea. And why he stays with us.” He extended a gnarled finger, and Bold Heart gently nibbled at it. The old warrior smiled.

“He stays because he’s a witch’s curse,” snarled Thorgil.

Rune smoothed the feathers on Bold Heart’s head. The bird warbled and cooed. “I think… even if we keep him here, he’ll escape and follow you, Jack. He’s part of your fate.”

“Are you telling us to take him?” Olaf said.

“Oh, no!” cried Thorgil.

“I don’t think we have a choice. He’ll go whether we like it or not. You’ll have to carry him through the meadow, Jack. Birds faint more easily than people in poisonous fumes.”

“You got your way,” muttered Jack as Rune slung a bag, containing Bold Heart, around his neck. “But you’re not going to like it.”