The Prodigal Troll Part 24

On the hill across the river, past the bridge, three tall poles rose straight from the ground. Three bodies topped the poles.

Maggot walked slowly toward them.

he stones of the bridge were smooth under Maggot's feet. They vibrated slightly, or pulsed, a warmth much like that of the charms around his throat. He looked down.

His gaze rolled off the bridge and into the rippling water. In the clear water beneath the central arch, he saw the headless body of the Old One filling the trench where it must have once lurked. Hundreds of silver shapes darted around it, picking at the flesh. Bones poked through the flesh, gleaming white, smooth and k.n.o.bby, like stones polished by the flow of water. A new Old One, three or four feet long, settled along the spine, ready to take the other's place.

A crow shrieked three times in quick succession. Maggot lifted his head and continued across the bridge.

He saw the muddy bank covered with footprints where the Old One had attacked him. The road along that sh.o.r.e led upstream toward the big stone lodge where he'd seen the woman. A second stream entered the river just below the bridge. It flowed out of a gap between steep stone walls. Flood debris was tangled among the rocks. Maggot would have called it a river once, before he saw the rivers near Squandral's town. A path led from the bridge beside this stream, up to the hilltop where the three poles stood.

Maggot mounted the hillside. Purple-black grackles and bluejays hopped from branch to branch, making shrill warnings at his approach. Most of the birds perched in the trees were deciding if it was yet safe enough to feed on the feared shapes of the men. Even the vultures in the sky seemed wary.

Three poles, three bodies.

Piles of gifts were heaped up around the base of the first two poles: bowls of corn, offerings of weapons, fresh scalps with red hair and blonde and curly black among the bits of fingers, thumbs. At the bottom of the third post, the head of the Old One leaned backward with its mouth gaping at the sky. Offerings, according to the customs of Sinnglas's people, meant to carry the souls of the dead men down death's river to the eternally fertile land of heaven's valley.

The smell of blood mixed with filth, knotting Maggot's empty stomach.

All three men were naked, hands bound in front, with the sharpened stakes shoved between their b.u.t.tocks and up through their bodies. The first man was Tanaghri; his face was distorted almost beyond recognition. Damaqua's face, beside him, appeared calm, but sad. There was, in dying, thought Maggot, an erasing of all lost votes and unshared meals. The bound hands of the two men were different; Tanaghri's clutched fistlike, Damaqua's open in supplication.

The thumbs of the third man twitched.

Gelapa. The wizard.

His face was empty, slack. Little beak-shaped bits of flesh were torn away from his cheeks and shoulder, tiny triangular gouges filled with crusts of blood. The point of the pole pressed against the skin of his right shoulder, caught at an odd angle beneath the bone.

The bound hand twitched once again.

Spirits could be willful; this one had lingered here for a purpose. "Grandfather," Maggot said softly. "They should not have done this thing. Do you wish to descend into the good night?"

Gelapa's eyelids fluttered.

"It is over then." Maggot drew his knife and stretched up to press it into Gelapa's heart-a short trickle of thin blood, almost none at all, perhaps none, then nothing.

Two black birds swooped in to peck at Tanaghri's face, screaming shrilly at Maggot, fearing his compet.i.tion.

Ignoring them, Maggot went behind Gelapa's pole, moved the legs aside, and bent his shoulder against it. It tilted slowly, then stuck in the soil and stopped. He dragged it down far enough to slide the corpse off. It was amazingly light, a mere sh.e.l.l of a man, like the ones left by cicadas after the bug had crawled out and away.

He wasn't sure what to do.

Recalling the skins draped about the village pole, he carried the naked body down to the bridge and dropped it in the water. It sunk, surprisingly to Maggot for such a sh.e.l.l, and the current tugged it into the deep trench alongside the Old One's corpse. The fish scattered, like ripples from a splash, and slowly returned in odd numbers. The smaller Old One slithered across the body and covered it. If their skins had spoken to him, perhaps his skin would speak to them.

He saw three roads: upriver, toward the woman he wanted but did not know how to speak to; downriver, toward the light but everpresent tug in his chest; or through the gap marked by the sh.e.l.ls of Damaqua and Tanaghri. That way lay Sinnglas. Sinnglas needed to know what had happened here.

Knowing he might follow all three paths eventually, Maggot chose the middle path, crossing the bridge and ascending the hill beyond the corpses.

The birds screamed at him, rising into the air as he approached and falling into the trees again as he pa.s.sed. As the leagues fell away beneath his feet, he found his appet.i.te again. Wild grapes dangled from vines that spiraled up the trees beside the little river. Some of the fruit lay shriveled and black on the vine, but some was still ripe. Maggot grabbed the vines, ripping them free of the leaves. He stripped away one cl.u.s.ter of grapes after another, shoving the dark, damp fruit into his mouth until his belly filled. Then he went down to the bank of the stream to wash the stringent aftertaste from his mouth and drink to quench his thirst.

Late in the day, he came to a wide meadow where the water curved around a small tree-covered rise with downed trees and a few boulders piled up among the roots. One branch dangled like a broken wing from a split trunk.

It was the same place he had been before, where he had first seen the woman and rescued Sinnglas, but it had been transformed, and so had he. Not full circle, then, but more like a grapevine climbing a branch or a tree, spiraling upward to reach a height where it might bear fruit.

Clouds of mosquitoes rose like fog at his presence, and he hurried on to escape them.

A vast, tense quiet filled the valley as he went on. Few animals were out, and all of them bolted at the scent of him. Sleeping when he grew tired and scavenging wild fruit when he was hungry, Maggot pa.s.sed the night and another day before he neared Sinnglas's village.

Night fell again, but it did not bring comfort to Maggot. The moon hung like a pale lid in the sky. The stars-the eyes of trolls, the band of all the dead ones-came out to stare into the darkness at him.

As he came to the hill where the village sat, he saw that its walls had been knocked down. Young men whooped, but it didn't sound like the dancing Maggot had once joined there. Then a solitary mewl of pain winged across the night like a screech owl's mournful cry.

Maggot slowed his footsteps, drinking in the cool air as he walked up the slope to the place the gate had been.

The walls were tumbled and charred, but the damage extended far beyond that. The council lodge had been knocked down, all the lodges scattered, and the sacred post of the Old Ones where Gelapa had once sat no longer rose above the heads of the warriors gathered in a crowd.

Maggot turned his shoulders sideways to pa.s.s through the circle of men-there were exclamations of recognition-only to find Sinnglas in the middle. There were two men- "Sinnglas, my brother," he said.

Sinnglas spun, his angry, contorted expression changing to a smile of joy. "Maqwet, my brother! How fitting that you join us now." He extended his arms, inviting Maggot to grip them. One hand held a knife.

Maggot took a half step forward and stopped.

There were two men tied to a pair of short stakes with kindling heaped about their feet. Small fires crackled amid the twigs and branches. One man was dead. The hair had been sawed off his head and hot coals heaped on the raw bone of his skull, and there was an odor of burnt and burning flesh. He had no shine about him at all. But one man still lived. Strips of skin had been cut from his chest and arms, but he breathed. Weak flames of green and yellow light spiked out from his head.

"You will stop," Maggot said simply.

With a puzzled frown, Sinnglas dropped his arms. The fire shimmered on his b.l.o.o.d.y blade.

Maggot pursed his lips toward the living prisoner. "You will cut him free and let me take him away from here."

Sinnglas laughed. "You were there when Keekyu died!"

"Nothing you do here will gather his bones."

"Do you know what they did to Damaqua?"

"I saw Damaqua-"

"He went to the invaders to sue for peace, to find out what he must do to protect the women and children of the village."

11 -and I came here to tell you that his suffering is done."

Sinnglas's face twisted. "But our suffering goes on. Our fields have been destroyed. The voices of the Old Ones are stolen from us. Our women have no roofs to cover their heads or shelter their childrenthey hide in the mountains like wild beasts and expect us to give them peace and safety, to bring comfort to the spirits of the dead." He jabbed the knife at the prisoner. "This is how we give it to them."

Maggot finished his step forward, but two men moved to block his way. The glowering Kinnicut swung his long-handled warhammer. Pisqueto stood beside him-Maggot recognized him now, though he had not at the wizard's lodge. He was no longer a young man. Weeks of war had aged him years.

The rest of the men crowded in behind Maggot.

"Over the mountains," Sinnglas said, "where you come from, they may have other ways, but this is our way. You have been a friend to me, Maqwet. Do not make me your enemy here."

Some of the young men trilled, shrill cries that had a more anguished tone than they had before the war began.

The fire crackled. The prisoner let out a sigh.

"The war is done," Maggot answered finally. The charms weighed at his neck as he remembered what the wizard had told him of their power. "Cut him free."

Sinnglas shook his head no. Kinnicut yelled and raised his warclub, but Pisqueto blocked his arm. "Stop."

Kinnicut pulled his hand away and stepped back.

Sinnglas's face fell. "You too, Pisqueto? Will I have no brothers left to stand beside me?"

Pisqueto jerked his chin in Maggot's direction. "He fought beside us at the farm, chasing down the man outside, and he was also the first over the wall. He attacked the mammut with us-"

"But I brought it down!" Kinnicut said.

"Yet Maqwet shared the danger." Pisqueto looked at Sinnglas. "He saved your life from the flood and gave you back to us." He looked to the other men, an equal among them, speaking as a leader. "My friends, my relatives, we owe him one life in return."

Sinnglas turned his back to Maggot and Pisqueto, his head bowed, facing the darkness. "Take him, then."

Maggot ignored the roar of protest from the crowd and rushed forward to kick the coals and kindling away from the man's feet. Drawing his knife, he severed the ropes that bound the man's legs to the pole and those that held his arms behind his back. The man's clenched hands were covered with caked blood-either his fingers had been cut off or his fingernails removed. Maggot couldn't tell. When the last rope parted, the man groaned and pitched face first into the ground. He immediately attempted to push himself up with his hands, gasped in pain, and slumped again.

Maggot sheathed his knife. He lifted the man by his elbow, propping his shoulder to help him stand. The man said something Maggot didn't comprehend.

The warriors argued like trolls before a vote.

Sinnglas stood aside, arms crossed, refusing to look at the scene. "Leave him there, Maqwet, and you will still be my brother. If you keep walking, never show your braid to me again or I will cut it off."

"I am sorry, Sinnglas, my friend. It was good to have a brother. You will still be a brother to me. But war is done." Maggot helped the man limp toward the gate.

The warriors blocked his way, Kinnicut at their head. "Vulture," he said, "leave that carca.s.s for us, or your body will feed the wild dogs with his."

Pisqueto stepped forward to intercede again, but Maggot grabbed the hammer charm around his neck and snapped the silver thread. "Step back or I will break the magic."

Pisqueto's face paled and he fell back.

Sinnglas spun around. "You would not use it to help me, but you'll use it against me?"

Kinnicut growled and lifted his hammer.

The gla.s.s snapped between Maggot's thumb and finger, drawing blood and a brief flash of light in shades of rust and crimson. The men faltered at the burst of fire.

A sound came like thunder from below them. It faded, then came again. The ground began to shake. The prisoner staggered on his unsteady feet, lurching off balance, and Maggot had to grasp him with both hands.

The first rumble became a roar, and the ground swayed from side to side. The damaged lodges bent like trees in a high wind, pieces falling off, the last posts toppling. Kinnicut dropped his warclub and covered his head, while others threw themselves into the dirt.

There was a short pause- -then a sudden up-and-down bucking, like a bull ox with a wildcat on its back. It scattered people like seeds off a tree in the wind. Maggot fell one way, and the prisoner fell another. Then the earth was still.

Maggot climbed to his feet, pulling the injured man after him. Sinnglas stared lividly at him, his hands empty, the tone of his voice hurt instead of angry. "You had this power, but you would not use it to help me?"

"I did not know how to use it then." He hooked his arm around the other man's waist. "But I am using it to help you now. I will scavenge peace for you if I can."

The fire crackled. Wood cracked as another lodge fell over. Those sounded faint and far away to the deafening roar of Sinnglas's silence. Finally, he said, "Go then."

The other man wrapped an injured hand over Maggot's shoulder and shuffled his feet forward. Maggot led him toward the old gate and the path away from the dead village. Maggot's body groaned for rest, but he knew that Kinnicut and some of the others might choose a different path, whatever Sinnglas wanted, and hunt him and the prisoner down.

The prisoner seemed to sense the same thing. He walked on with grim determination, stumbling but staying upright. He cradled his right hand protectively against his body. They pa.s.sed over wrecked fields to reach the meadows.

They needed distance and a safe place to hide.

"There is a den," Maggot said in Sinnglas's language, in case the other man understood it. "A troll and some people once lived together there."

Hills thick with trees disappeared behind them, and they crossed lush meadows. An owl swooped overhead but did not call to them. The man babbled low under his breath, lapsing into silences that stretched out for longer periods of time until he fell into a steady quiet, punctuated by his regular breathing and irregular exclamations. He stumbled several times, letting Maggot catch him, but each time he marched on.

They came to a low bank by the river, where they stooped to drink. The man scrubbed at his hands, weeping silently at the pain of the cold water.

"We must walk," Maggot said, repeating the phrase in the language of the trolls. The man seemed to understand, rising to walk again. They turned away from the river, toward a north-south range of hills and the den of bones. Pale, splintered moonlight sifted through the leaves and branches.

The man's eyes fluttered closed as he stomped steadily on. Just when Maggot was sure his companion had fallen asleep on his feet, the ground shook again, lightly, just enough to shake the leaves on the trees. The man's eyes jumped wide open in fear.

"Stay awake," Maggot told him. "We're almost there."

The man nodded, strongly, took two or three more steps, and his lids drooped shut again. He pitched forward, out of Maggot's grasp, and crashed into the ground. He got up, shaking. As he stumbled on, he spoke to Maggot, putting his crippled hands together and leaning his head sideways against them.

Maggot indicated the dark uneven line of hills before them. "Can you go a little farther?"

The man nodded, moving in the directions Maggot indicated, and didn't ask to stop again. Maggot put a hand on his elbow and guided him, pushing him as fast as he could stagger. When they were within a rock's throw of the hill, the man simply collapsed.

Maggot looked at the brightening sky. He saw the rounded shape of the mound at the top of the rise. Bending down, he lifted the man and tossed him over his shoulder. His body trembled under a weight more substantial than Gelapa's corpse. He dug his feet into the soil and trudged upward.

It felt as though he were pushing a boulder up a hill. Somehow, he reached the top. New vines and brush had overgrown the mound, but Maggot dragged the stranger through the hole in the wall. Morning light fell through the broken roof. Though his braid had been cut off, and he was naked, and pain had changed the shape of his face, there was no mistaking the man.

It was the one he'd called First, the soldier Maggot had seen in the valley all those months before, the one that had spared him in the battle beneath the tulip poplars.

As injured as he was, he could no longer be a First. But he would still know the woman that Maggot had given the lion's pelt to.

bile he was sleeping, Maggot's muscles had tightened like the strings on Keekyu's bow. When he awoke, he crawled on his knees and elbows, trying to stand, gave up, rolled over on his back, and slowly tried to stretch. Bad as he felt, the other man looked worse. He sat propped up against the wall like a man who'd drowsed off guarding something.

Years before, on the way south to visit Scoop Rock band, Windy had denned up for the day. This was at the time when Maggot had first begun to venture out by himself in the daylight, and he had gone out to a glade, where he hid behind a tree and watched a rabbit. A panther pounced out of the tall gra.s.s and caught it. The rabbit screeched, the panther chewed on it a bit, then let it go, only to swat it down when it tried to run.

Trap, release, swat, repeated over and over again.

Four b.l.o.o.d.y lines soaked the gray fur as the rabbit shrieked, rolled, and bolted. Maggot, upset, chucked sticks at the sleek and tawny cat, distracting it long enough for the rabbit to escape. That was before Maggot knew that, unlike the stocky bigtooth cats, panthers could climb trees. He was small enough then that he ascended out of its reach, swinging sticks at it until night fell and his mother came looking for him.

The man across from Maggot was no rabbit, but he had the same b.l.o.o.d.y lines across his chest: four long raw scabs, seeping a pink and yellowish fluid. His hands were balled up, cradled against his body. Maggot leaned forward-the man's feet were red like nearly ripe cherries, and covered with blisters that had torn during the long trek overland.

The stranger's eyes popped open. He straightened, back thumping hard against the wall.

Maggot didn't move, giving no sign of threat.