Glumly, we commenced the still more difficult job of hauling up the lieutenant, cursing the weight. “Heave,” the captain said with each effort, speaking through gritted teeth and putting his back into it. “Heave.” Eventually, the lieutenant’s head emerged — red hair and beard all wet and plastered to him. As he struggled into the noon light, he spit out the dagger on the ground, then his teeth were chattering, his face ashen. Almost, he collapsed when he planted his bad leg.
He revived before the hearth, though his sleep was fevered.
On the third day it was my turn, for we had no other plan. Unlike the lieutenant, I stayed fully clad, with the broadsword at my side and my wallet on my back, trusting in whatever enchantments had guided us. I put my foot in the loop of rope and they lowered me quickly.
Down I went, counting to myself, minute after minute, knowing that the rope I had brought could never be so long. It seemed that hours passed. The pit became colder, and even darker, until my comrades let out a great length of rope at once, and I plunged without warning into thin ice and freezing water, gasping desperately before I sank. Down, down in the water I went — the cold clawing at my heart — spinning on the rope like a child’s top, able to see nothing in the pitch-black, peer though I might. All the while, I held my breath, till my lungs were bursting for air. Suddenly, I was through; my bones were miraculously warm as if in the friendly glow of a fire, and my boots slapped against firm land. It was not so dark now, and far away in the distance, like the first chord of dawn, was a gleam of brilliant light, so I headed in that direction, patting myself in disbelief — at my dry shirt and leggings, my trusty engine in its scabbard. Before long the way grew lighter still, and then I saw a golden sun rising in the sky — yet here I was, leagues (as it seemed to me) below the ground. Soon everything about me was bright and beautiful.
I came to a herd of fat brown cattle, lowing disquietly as I passed, and then to a palace like nothing I’d ever seen. It was larger by far than the citadel in Tromsdal, like a crystal mountain, with steep, straight walls of gleaming yellow quartz. The entrance was unguarded, and I crossed an emerald bridge that arched above a clear, narrow stream. I entered the crystal halls without hearing a sound or meeting a soul. The doorways and ceilings were built for a giant twice my height, and piles of gold nuggets were hoarded in random corners; I wondered at the wealth hidden away in this other world. Finally, I heard the hum of a spinning wheel. When I entered the high-ceilinged chamber, a beautiful young woman was sitting there, dressed all in silk and surrounded by amber light with no specific source. Against the far wall was a great couch with round, satiny pillows, but the woman sat on a polished wooden stool; she was spinning copper yarn. Tall as she was, she seemed scarcely more than a child; her neck was like a swan’s, while her white skin looked softer than down — surely this was one of the King’s daughters.
“What are you doing here?” the Princess said. “What do you want?”
“The King, your father sent me. I’ve come to set you free.”
She ceased her spinning and looked about, her breast heaving with emotion. “If the troll returns, he’ll kill you.”
I was speechless when she mentioned a troll, but not exactly afraid, for I thought my life was charmed.
“He’s a wood troll, larger than a bear. He has three heads.”
“I’ve journeyed all the way from Tromsdal,” I said. “I don’t care how many heads it has.”
She told me to creep behind a big brewing vat that stood in a hall outside.
When it came in, the troll walked so heavily that the solid quartz floor seemed to shake beneath my feet, even a room away, though this must have been an enchantment, for nothing is that weighty. “I smell human blood.” Its voice was like a lion’s roar. I could hear its noses sniffing away at the air. “Human blood and bone,” it said with a different voice, like a honking bird. The third voice was more human, but viciously accusing. “What are you hiding from me?”
“Please, dear,” the Princess said, “don’t be angry. A crow dropped a bone with the flesh still on it. Everything is tainted. When I threw it out, the crow dropped it back. I had to bury it in the rose garden. I fear it’s an ill omen.”
The troll growled suspiciously in a discord of voices, and sniffed some more.
“Lie in my lap,” she said. Her sweet voice was like a songbird’s. Who could resist? “Let me scratch your heads.”
Again the troll growled.
“You know how you like it, and the smell will be gone when you awake.”
Finally, the troll did as she offered. When I heard its three heads snoring in unison, I came out from behind the vat, and into the chamber. As I did so, the Princess freed herself from the couch, bolstering the troll’s heads against a pile of pillows. For long seconds I observed the knuckly, hairy creature. The chamber was full of its musky scent, not wholly unpleasant. I noticed that a great sword rested now against one of the crystal walls, sheathed in a jeweled scabbard, and I walked to it, thinking it a more adequate engine than my own broadsword for what I must do. With all my strength, I tried to lift the troll’s sword, but it was too heavy. Then the Princess kissed me on the lips, and I seized up the murderous engine from its scabbard, swinging it more mightily than I could have imagined. I severed the troll’s three necks in one blow, and its blood flew everywhere. I staggered back — amazed at what I’d done — as the troll twitched, and fell like a tree. Then I caught my breath and examined the monstrous corpse.
It was shaped roughly like a man, though many times larger, with its ugly tusked heads like grotesque masks where they had fallen. One head’s eyes were open, as if to accuse me for my guile. The troll’s gnarled feet and hands were overly big, even for its giant size. It went naked, save for a sword-belt of black leather, but its body was covered with reddish hair half a cubit long. Beneath that its hide was thick and wrinkled, and armored with knobs of ironwood and sinews like tough vines.
No blood had clung to the Princess. She threw her arms about me and covered my face with more kisses. For one moment I held her close to me, feeling the flutter of her heart, the softness of her breast swelling against mine. We’d faced danger, and triumphed. And yet, for a warrior, there was something unseemly about this, slaying a foe in his sleep, however little choice I had of it — for a fair fight would have been unequal; I’d never have stood a chance.
And so, my friends, I became what you see, a troll-slayer.
We humans have reveled in the deaths of trolls. We’ve been more thorough, more zealous than the Bright Ones who gave us the fire, the blades of stone — then the copper, the bronze, the iron and steel — to slay whatever we found threatening or unwanted or ugly. A troll will prey on human flesh when it can. Every village has its story of a three-headed man-eater that hid in the ice, the rocks, the dark forest, stalking the fringes at night, catching children in their beds, until some hero ended its reign of terror.
Yet, more trolls than humans have died.
“We must rescue my sisters,” the Princess said.
“Yes.”
She guided me across a courtyard with a lush garden of roses in full bloom, then along many crystal corridors, and through another huge doorway, this one framed by blocks of amethyst — it led to a high-ceilinged chamber, where the second Princess sat on her stool, tall and fair and beautiful, spinning silver yarn. “What do you want?” she said, sounding fearful and looking about.
“I’ve come to kill the troll,” I said. “We’ll set you free and return you to the King, your father.”