“What?”
“Knee me. Harder this time. And then break my neck.”
“Now hang on,” the hunchback called over. “None of that. We need you
for the Games tomorrow.”
“Do it,” the troll urged. “Kill me. I deserve it.”
She stared at him, deciding whether to tear his head from his shoulders for
taking the easy way out. She took a step towards him, so that they were just
inches apart. She touched his face. His bottom lip started to quiver.
“Don’t you dare,” she said. “Trolls don’t cry. Especially not you.”
“He was my son, too,” he shouted at her, suddenly animated. “How can I
live with this without you? Just finish it, will you?”
She hugged him, so tightly that she fractured two of his ribs. He took the
pain without complaint; all that mattered to him was that they were together
again.
She pushed him away. He could see from her face that she had not forgiven
him; that would take time, and they probably didn’t have a great deal of that
left. But she was somehow softer than before, and that was enough for him
for now.
“What if we don’t make it through the Games?” she asked. “What if I don’t
get to go back for him?”
“It’s going to be okay,” he whispered. “I’m going to look after you, I
promise. I’m never going to let anything happen to our family ever again.”
It was then that he felt something whiz past his left ear, striking his mate
square on the forehead. She sank to her knees, fighting to remain conscious.
He turned to see a small rowing boat in the river, with two people in it. One
was a wizard, trying frantically to row back upstream; the other was a human
woman, standing up, a catapult in her hands. She was trying to whistle
inconspicuously, as if she was just a casual bystander on an afternoon punt
along the stream..
He was stupid, but not that stupid. It was her alright, her and the frightened
looking wizard. With a crazed bellow, he charged towards the boat. They
had hurt his mate; maybe even killed her. He would have his revenge, and it
was going to be very painful for them indeed.
#
As the huge ginger troll pounded along the river-bank towards them, it
occurred to Halfshaft that it would have been sensible to turn the boat around
before they started hurling stones ashore. As it was, he was desperately
trying to point the boat back upstream, wasting valuable time as hideous and
painful Death made its heavy-footed way towards them.
“Now would be a good time to row away,” suggested Cherry, remarkably
calmly in the circumstances.
“I’m trying to turn the boat around,” he snapped.
“Don’t bother. Just paddle the same way as before.”
“We’ve got to go back to the circus, though. Crookback said so.”
“Sod Crookback! What we’ve got to do is stay at least one stroke ahead of
the angry troll who wants to shove us up each other’s bottoms.”
Under different circumstances, the thought of being inserted into any of
Cherry’s orifices might have cheered him up considerably, but not now, not
with a fuming ginger troll in hot pursuit.
He took her advice. Abandoning the attempt to turn the boat about, he
rowed for all he was worth, which wasn’t very much.
The troll reached the river, and plunged in after them. He was maybe
twenty yards away. He lunged through the water, his arms raised above his
head, ready to tear them limb from limb when he caught up with them.
“Maybe you should row faster?” Cherry suggested. “Quite a lot faster,
actually.”
“Can trolls swim?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Buggered if I know.”
It was up to its waist now, wading towards them at speed. The distance
between fragile boat and angry troll shrank quickly. Fifteen yards, ten yards,
five.
Halfshaft started screaming. It didn’t help, but it made him a feel better.
“He’s going to get us! He’s going to get us!”
“I heard you the first time,” she laughed.
“Do something!”
“Okay,” she shrugged. She raised the catapult again, took aim, and sent a
stone arrowing towards his head. It smacked him straight between the eyes,
sending him reeling back into the water. He thrashed around for a few
seconds, shook the pain from his head, and then set off in pursuit again, more
furious than ever.
“Nice shot,” congratulated Halfshaft. “A couple more like that, and he’s
done for.”
“Slight problem,” she confessed. “No more stones.”
He screamed again. There didn’t seem to be much else he could do.
The troll was chest deep in the water now, and closing in on them one giant
stride at a time. His fists pounded the water in front of him like steam-
hammers, churning it up into a froth. Halfshaft carried on paddling,
screaming as he did so, desperately trying to stay a stroke or two ahead of
the troll but failing dismally. He would have preferred to run like buggery
than scream, but he was in the middle of the river, he only knew one
swimming stroke, and to doggy-paddle like buggery just didn’t have the
same ring to it.
The troll seized the side of the boat with one hand. Cherry stepped down
hard on his fingers, trying to drive him away, but he held on grimly, deciding
that a little pain was a small price to pay for savage vengeance.
“Make fire!” Cherry called out to Halfshaft. “Burn the bugger!”
“I can’t make much,” Halfshaft replied.
“Just do it.”
He put down his oars, and made his way unsteadily to the side of the boat.
The troll had hold of the vessel with both hands now, and was lifting it into
the air, ready to send it slamming back down into the water.
“When you’re ready,” she prompted. “Any time in the next two seconds
will do.”
He clicked his fingers. A flame the size of a birthday cake candle sprang
from the tip of his thumb. He flushed red, embarrassed at this pathetic
demonstration of his magical “prowess”.
“Is that it?” she asked. She seemed amused, which hardly seemed
appropriate in the circumstances.
“Pretty much,” he confessed. “I can make water as well, but -”
And then they were airborne, falling from the boat as the troll sent it
crashing back in to the water, flailing around in the current in an effort to
reach the “safety” of the bank. The troll shouted in triumph, grabbing each
of them in turn and pulling them down beneath the surface. Halfshaft gulped
in a lungful or two of muddy water, flailing around as he did so in a futile
attempt to break free of the troll’s grasp. The creature lifted him up again,
just long enough for him to spew the contents of his lungs back into the river.
And then he was back beneath the waves again, at first fighting for the
surface, but then drifting and then vacant as his life started ebbing away into
the cold water current around him.
#
There was a light in the distance. What did they say you should do when
you die? Go to the light? Or, whatever you do, don’t go to the light. He
couldn’t quite remember, but thought it might be quite important to get this
right.
Go to the light, he decided. Surely that was right? He looked around him.
Nothing. Just light in front of him, darkness behind him, and void on either
side.
He took a step forward. This was the Afterlife, it just had to be. But he had
been to Hell before, and last time round it had been all three headed dogs,
taciturn ferrymen and punishments involving sweaty over-sized bottoms.
This was completely different. He had cracked it. Something he had done
between then and now had earned him an upgrade to the Paradise Suite. All
he had to do was stroll through the gates, and find himself a harp and a halo.
The gates came into view. Big ornate gates, glowing white, with a marble
pillar either side. They swung open for him. He no longer minded that he
was dead. None of his hard and seedy life mattered any more. He had made
it here, against all expectations. It was time to pull on a white robe and have
a bit of a lie-down.
He caught a figure peering at him from behind one of the pillars. Doon, the
wizard’s apprentice, possibly the most odious man he had ever met. Doon
had sold his soul to a warlock, conspiring with him to help him take control
of the whole world in exchange for a share of the spoils. What would a man
like him be doing here of all places?
Doon ducked back behind the pillar. Halfshaft came to a halt. He could
hear furious whispering on the far side of the gate. Rana appeared, deceased
Queen of the Amazons, the woman who had tried to kill him and his
companions on their very first quest together. She gave him a tense smile,
and beckoned for him to follow her inside.
“Come on in,” she said sweetly. “It’s lovely here.”
He shook his head, and retreated a few steps. He wasn’t keen on the idea.
“Come on in,” she repeated, rather less pleasantly this time. “I’ll make it
worth your while.”
“No, you’re okay. I’ll just hang around out here for a while, if it’s all the
same with you. I need to have a think about this.”
“Come here now!” she screeched, in a most unregal way.
He turned and ran, scurrying as fast as he could back towards the darkness
from whence he came. His legs seemed to sink into the white ground, as if
he was running through quicksand. He made the mistake of looking over his
shoulder; Rana and Doon were haring out of the gates towards him, Rana
slinging her bow as she ran.
“I’m not spending another thousand years here,” she screamed at him. “Get
back here now, little man.”
He was a little puzzled by this; it hadn’t been all that long since he had last
seen her, and technically that was in the future anyway so she shouldn’t have
even been born yet. Maybe time moved differently here. Maybe it moved
backwards, or sideways, or in some other direction that hadn’t even been
invented yet.
His consideration of the matter was hastily shoved on to the back-burner
as he felt an arrow whistling past his ear. Just run, he told himself. Just run.
You’re good at that. Practice makes perfect.
His legs were turning to jelly with the effort of ploughing through the
gelatinous void. He looked back over his shoulder again, knowing that this
was a very poor idea, but deciding to do it anyway.
Doon was just a few steps behind him, reaching out for him, ready to pull
him kicking and screaming into what he had now deduced to be the back
gates of the Underworld. But all of a sudden, the wizard’s apprentice shot
backwards at speed, as if he had been attached to the gates by invisible
elastic, nearly bowling Rana down as he went. He smashed his face against
the right-hand pillar, struggled back to his feet and set off in pursuit again.
He wasn’t going to give up easily.
Rana was closing in on him too. She was slowing down; there was
obviously some force pulling her backwards as well. But she was stronger
than the apprentice; more determined. She fought to keep her footing,
struggling womanfully against whatever it was that was trying to hurl her
back into the fiery pit where she belonged.
She raised her bow again. “Take my place, Wizard, or I’ll shoot you where
you stand, and then we will both be here forever. Take my place, and at least
in a thousand years you will have your own chance to escape, too.”
He hesitated. What to do? No way was he going to swap with her. He would
rather they both get roasted than give her a free ticket out of there. But he
wasn’t too keen on being shot with her arrow. Granted, he was already dead,
but it looked like it would hurt.
He could see Doon racing towards the pair of them, hoping to overtake her,
planning to swap with Halfshaft himself. He wasn’t too keen on that either.
He needed a plan.
“Three steps closer,” he told her, “and I’ll swap.”
“What is this trickery?” she asked.
“Doon’s coming. Better be quick.”
She took a step forwards, her face creased with effort and concentration as
she fought to stay on her feet.
“You’d better be quick. He’s nearly here.”
She took another step towards him. Beads of sweat appeared on her
forehead, her breasts, her stomach; soaking into her furs as it trickled down
her taut body. The effort of standing upright was proving immense.
“That is as far as I am coming,” she announced. “Come to me.”
“Doon’s here!” lied Halfshaft.
She turned to see the apprentice still a dozen or so steps away. And then
she was flying backwards through the void, back towards her anchor point,
thudding heavily against the gate-post from whence she had started. She was
on her feet immediately, and heading back towards him in no time at all.
Doon gave a shout of triumph, and surged forwards. Halfshaft turned and
ran. He could sense the apprentice gaining on him, but was determined not
to turn round again. If there was one thing he had learnt from Rana, it was
that facing the front had a lot to be said for it.
He felt a hand clutch at his robes. He shook it off like a wet terrier drying
itself off, and surged forwards again. It was only a matter of time. If the
apprentice had had the good sense to take his feet off the ground when he
had seized the wizard’s robes, they would both be hurtling towards Hell right
now, and all would be lost.
Surely he couldn’t be far from where he had started, where he had entered
this strange vacuum of a land? He had to take a risk. His legs were shot, so
he wasn’t going to get much further anyway. As Doon shouted out in
triumph behind him, presumably on the verge of seizing his robes one last
time, Halfshaft dived forwards, trusting to Luck and whatever Gods would
have him to send him sprawling to safety.
He hit the ground hard. He felt something pressing against his chest. He
spat out water, what seemed like bucketfuls of it. And then he opened his
eyes. He groaned, and shut them again.
For looming above him, practically blocking out the sun, stood a very
agitated trolless. Maybe Hell was not so bad after all.
#
Halfshaft squealed like a little piggy. He had quite a range of different
squeals, each one suitable for a different type of threatening situation, but
this was probably the shrillest of them all. It was even giving him a headache.
Cherry leaned into his field of vision. “It’s okay. She’s friendly.”
“I’m not friendly,” the trolless contradicted. “There’s nothing I’d like more
than to rip your beardy head off, and suck all the marrow from your spine.”
“There you go,” grinned Cherry. “Trolls don’t get much friendlier than
that.”
She helped him to his feet. He felt awful. He had had many near death
experiences in recent weeks, but drowning had to be one of the least
pleasant. Especially with Hell lurking in the dark waters below.
He looked around. The two hunchbacks stood nearby, one of them looking
extremely embarrassed as the second berated him. “What sort of a stunt was
that?” he was asking. “When they find out about this upstairs, you’ll be off
the show. You’ll be cleaning the toilets, along with all the other hunchback
has-beens.”
“What happened?” Halfshaft asked. “Why aren’t we dead?”
Cherry looked towards the trolless. “Sorry. I don’t know your name?”
“Bastard-mate,” the trolless replied, with pride. “And this is my mate,
Bastard.”
“I can’t think why they called him that,” Halfshaft bitched.
“Yes you can. He was called that, because he’s always been a vicious little
bastard since the moment he was born. Which is why they made him Lord
of the Trolls. There’s no-one that can grind bones like him. You would have
found that out for yourself if I hadn’t have pulled him off you.”
“Why did you? Don’t get me wrong, I’m very grateful that you did. Just a
little puzzled.”
She looked tearful, and a tearful troll is not something you see every day.
“We left our little boy behind,” she said. “He’s delicate. We need to go back
and see what’s happened to him. We need to win the Games. If Bastard
drowned you before they even started, they’d kill us both as punishment,
and our little Buster would be wolf-meat without us.”
“He’ll be alright,” Bastard muttered unconvincingly. “He’s a strong little
bugger, deep down. Very deep down.”
Bastard-mate punched him hard in the testicles. She watched him double
over in excruciating pain, nodding her head in satisfaction. “One more word
from you,” she warned. “Just one more word. And I’ll bite them off.”
“Thank you,” Halfshaft said, changing the subject, as it was making him
wince. “You saved my life.”
Bastard-mate made as if to punch the wizard in the testicles, but thought
better of it as the hunchbacks closed in on her. “Not really,” she told him.
“I’ve just put back your death. You two chucked stones at us. When we see
you at the Games, we’re going to kill you, and eat you. And not necessarily
in that order.”
“See,” Cherry chimed in. “I told you she was friendly.”
#
It was to be the last event of their training. Speed.
The bad news was that it was to all intents a donkey derby. The hunchbacks
had lined up all the candidates for tomorrow’s Games, and had mounted
each of them in turn. Only Selene had refused to allow a hunchback astride
her. She had insisted that hers do all the running. So he stood, humped and
doubled over, scissored between her long legs, ready for the starter’s whistle.
The pair looked like a fur-bikini-clad Esmeralda giving birth to Quasimodo,
which was a very disturbing image indeed.
The good news was that Takina was there too. She had tried to follow
Selene’s lead, but her hunchback wasn’t having any of it, and had refused
point-blank to carry her. She hadn’t had quite enough gravitas to carry it off,
so had eventually consented to him climbing on her back instead. Halfshaft
was four places away from her in the starting line-up, separated by two elves
and a dwarf. He kept grinning over at her, and she kept smiling back. But
there was no opportunity to talk. The race was about to begin.
All of the Candidates were there. Apart from Halfshaft, Cherry, Takina and
Selene, there were the trolls (who were fortunately lined up several places
away, on the far side of the Amazons), a pair of witches, two dwarfs and a
couple of elves. As an incentive to do well in the training task, whoever won
would be given a two minute head-start in the Games the following day.
Which would ordinarily have been just about enough time, the wizard
speculated, to hide himself away in a ditch or rotten tree-trunk, and refuse to
come out until everyone else had killed each other. But that plan had gone
out the window now. He had to look after Takina. And work out how to let
Cherry down as gently as possible.
There was a shrill whistle. They were off. Three laps of the Big Top,
finishing back here by the entrance. And then inside for a show and some
light refreshments.
The trolls were off like a shot, disappearing round the side of the Big Top
before Halfshaft had staggered forward a couple of paces. The elves were
not far behind, the male elf a little in the lead. They were tall and slender,
not unlike the Amazons in build but wearing forest camouflage rather than
the Amazon fashion of as-little-as-possible.
Selene picked up her hunchback, tucked him under her arm like a huge
deformed rugby ball, and set off in pursuit.
Takina hurried after them, surprisingly strong for a woman of her size. She
was not like other Amazons. She was of “normal” height for a start, which
was considered such a defect by her tribe that she had been relegated to
servant’s duties her whole life, when all she had ever wanted to do was hunt
with the tribe. She was a lot like Halfshaft in some ways (though very
different in others!). Both of them wanted to prove themselves to a sceptical
Outside World, he with his limited magical abilities and she with her warrior
prowess. Theoretically, the Games would be the perfect place for the two of
them to prove themselves to a sceptical universe. In practice, however, he
would have done just about anything to avoid taking part in the contest the
following day.
Cherry was close on Takina’s heels, with Halfshaft staggering along behind
her. He was old, he was unfit, and he had a hunchback astride him. He was
never going to make it round the tent, yet alone manage three circuits.
To his surprise, he was not last. He turned to see how the dwarfs and the
witches were doing. The witches had thrown off their hunchbacks, and were
conjuring up some sort of spell between them. They stood opposite one
another, their hands moving in a complicated rhythm in mirror-image to
each other, the air between them crackling with energy. He expected their
hunchback to step in, to forbid them to use magic, but he appeared to be
encouraging them. The wizard put his own hunchback down. If the witches
were up to something, then there did not appear to be much point carrying
on. Things were going to “kick off” big time.
The dwarfs were in difficulty. Each was mounted by a hunchback twice the
size of them. Their stubby knees bent outwards with the effort of bearing
their weight. Each time they attempted to take a step forwards, they tottered
to one side, fought to regain their balance, and staggered back again, only to
repeat the process a few seconds later. They were clearly going nowhere
fast.
The trolls emerged from the far side of the Big Top, one lap done already,
and bounded towards the witches at a gallop. The witches stepped aside to
allow them to pass, their spell not quite ready. The elves passed through soon
afterwards, jostling for position with Selene, who still had her hunchback
tucked beneath her arm. Cherry was not far behind, having overtaken
Takina. She seemed to be enjoying herself.
He took Cherry’s arm as she went to pass him, pulling her towards him.
“Easy, Big Guy,” she said. “There’s only room for one of you on my back
at a time.”
“The witches are up to something,” he cautioned. “I’d stay here if I were
you.”
She shrugged. “You’re the boss. I was just starting to enjoy myself though.
I reckon I could’ve caught the trolls on the next lap.”
Halfshaft waited for Takina, but there was no sign of her. Cherry, in the
meantime, looked over her shoulder at the hunchback who was still firmly
in her “saddle”. “Okay, piggy-back’s over. You can hop off now.”
“Maybe another minute or two?” he enquired hopefully.
She threw him off, laughing as he struggled to his feet. “That’ll teach you,
you dirty little bugger.”
Halfshaft went in search of Takina. With a shock, he saw her racing away
towards the river and the distant hilltops, her hunchback in hot pursuit. She
was escaping! But, very much more to the point, she was escaping without
him!
#
Takina was halfway across the river in no time, swimming for all she was
worth. Her hunchback doggy-paddled after her, commanding her to return
to the race or face the consequences. And Halfshaft closed in on them both