"Ye tell us one should not eat one's own kind; but whose kind are we? I know your Senator Zigram proposed to recognize us as fellow beings. With mine own ears I heard your Senate howl the proposal down as the greatest jest in years."
Thorolf frowned. "With your own ears? You cannot have been in the Senate chamber. Hast magical powers?"
Wok winked. "Ah! Ask me no questions and ye shall hear no taradiddles. By the way, is that Senator Zigram the same as he who now sits as consul?"
"Aye; he is. He is also my father."
"Ah!" said Wok. "Every lowlander who wishes something of us doth claim he be a brother or son or cousin of some great lowland chief, thinking to overawe us. We have swallowed that bait too often to believe such a tale anew.
"But hold! Edifying though this talk be, we cannot continue it for ay. Your coming relieves us of the need to slaughter goats." To the trolls holding Thorolf, Wok said: "Take, cut up, boil!"
Thorolf struggled, shouting: "But he really is my father!"
The trolls nevertheless hauled him toward a large wooden block, behind which stood a troll with an oversized cleaver.
"Chief Wok!" Thorolf shouted, seeking an idea to forestall his demise. "It is proven impossible for so advanced a folk to practice cannibalism!"
"Eh?" said Wok. "Ye, a lowlander, presume to say what is impossible to me!" To the trolls he added: "Bring back!"
"Aye, sir!" said Thorolf. "A professor at Genuvia University explained it. When a folk has advanced so far in handicraft as to make cauldrons, they will have given up cannibalism. So the old jests about cannibals boiling outsiders in stewpots mean nought. It were what they call an anachronism, like Rhaetians fighting with stone axes."
"Hm," said Wok. "'That shows how much your learned professors know. We may be advanced enough to make cauldrons but not enough for ye lowlanders to accord us the rights ye do each other."
Thorolf had an inspiration. "Chief, you said a dragon is taking your goats."
"That is so."
"A male or a female dragon?"
"A female."
"Why haven't your brave tribesmen slain the beast?"
"By day it lurks in its cavern, where it is certain death to venture. It issues forth at night to raid our herds by stealth. Several who have attacked it in the dark have perished."
"Could I but rid you of this dragon, were that not a fair price for my life?"
Wok snorted, his broad mouth turning down in an expression of contempt. "If our brave warriors have failed, think ye a lowland weakling would fare better? In Trollish: "Take back to block."
"Wait!" shouted Thorolf. "You prize gold, do you not?"
"Aye, since we learned that this pretty but useless metal can be traded for lowland things and used to bribe lowland officials to leave us alone."
"Could I get rid of the dragon and also get you a lusty sum in gold, how would that be?"
"How much?" demanded Wok.
"Let us say a thousand marks."
"Not enough." In Trollish: "Take back!"
As he was dragged toward the block, Thorolf kept raising his bid. But Wok was obdurate, even when Thorolf had reached his ceiling of ten thousand. When the trolls had forced Thorolf to his knees and one had pulled his head by the hair across the block, and the butcher-executioner had raised his cleaver, Wok said:
"This time, methinks, ye speak sooth." In Trollish: "Let go!" To Thorolf again: "How mean ye to slay this beast? Hast a magical sword?"
It occurred to Thorolf that if he had stopped at a lower ceiling, say five thousand, Wok would probably have accepted that offer. But it was too late for that now. He said:
"Nay; merely the common hanger your people took from me. Against a beast so large and tenacious of life, 'twere no more effective than a flywhisk. I have another scheme, for which I shall need a goodly length of braided leathern rope, some sapling trunks, and the help of your lustiest trolls."
"Ah! I do perceive ye plan some sort of snare. Ye shall have your chance, albeit it grieves me to have the goodly repast ye'd furnish end up in the dragon's belly instead of in my people's. Blame me not if the beast escape your trap and devour you!"
"In that case, I shan't be in condition to blame anyone. Meanwhile—"
"Aye, aye, ye shall have food and lodging until your gin be ready. I trust your finical lowland gorge rise not at roasted goat!"
"Thanks," said Thorolf. "One thing more. I relish not the idea that, after I have overcome your dragon, you will find some further pretext for devouring me."
"Sirrah! I brook no insults—"
Thorolf held up a hand. "Easy, good my chief. All I ask is that each of us swear by that which he holds most sacred—I by the antlers of our god Kernun, you by the spirits of your ancestors."
Wok flinched. "How know ye that I cannot break such an oath?"
"I study these matters," said Thorolf with feigned nonchalance. He privately blessed Professor Reccared, who in his lectures had included this bit of lore along with much misinformation about the trolls.
"Oh, very well," grumbled Wok. "Ye shall swear first."
Five days later, the rising sun was tinting the snows on the eastern flanks of the peaks a rosy pink, when a gaggle of golden-furred trolls, bearing ropes and poles and led by Thorolf, neared the dragon's cave. The mouth of the cave was a darksome blot on a rocky hillside. The scree that had spilled out included stones of all sizes, from pebbles to boulders.
Motioning the trolls to stand back and remain silent, Thorolf approached the cave mouth. He cocked an ear toward the darkness within and stood immobile, listening. At last he made out an intermittent sigh that was not quite a snore.
"Good!" he whispered. "Dragon sleep. Put poles here and here ..."
When places were found into which the poles could be thrust between the stones of the scree, Thorolf directed the rigging of his snare. Then he divided his score of trolls into two equal parties. Each group took the free end of a rope and retreated to one side of the cave, where they hid behind boulders.
Back at the cave mouth, Thorolf loaded one of the trolls' slings. He shouted: "Ho, dragon! Come forth!"
Receiving no reply, he whirled the sling and let fly. The slingstone struck a wall of the cave and rebounded, rattling. Thorolf repeated his challenge.
This time he heard a sleepy grunt. He fitted another stone and slung it; he was rewarded by a meaty thump. There was a loud, groaning roar, followed by a scrabbling of claws on stone.
"Come on, dragon!" yelled Thorolf. "Here I am!"
The scrabbling came closer; and presently a large, pearl-gray, reptilian head emerged from the cave, its golden eyes blinking in the sudden sunlight. The dragon had a long crocodilian muzzle and jaws full of curved ivory spikes. Its powerful scaly legs, furred with silvery bristles, raised its belly a good yard above the ground.
"Yah! Yah!" shouted Thorolf, capering. The monster shook its great head as if it could not believe its gemlike eyes. Then, roaring, it started for Thorolf at a shambling trot, yawning to show its scarlet gorge.
Thorolf scrambled down the rocky slope, guiding the dragon's course between the poles on either side of the cave. From the poles hung two large loops of rope. As the scaiy head penetrated the loops, Thorolf shouted: "Pull!"
The trolls popped out of hiding, each grasping a section of rope. All backed away from the dragon, so that the two loops, falling from the poles, tightened around the reptile's neck.
The dragon checked its rush and swung its head right and left. When it lunged to its right at the trolls pulling on the rope on that side, the trolls on the other side braced themselves and pulled. The dragon then lunged to the left, with a similar result. It swiped at its neck with one of its forefeet, trying to get its claws beneath the strangling loops. Thorolf held his breath; if the beast severed either loop, he would call to the trolls to flee and take his own advice.