Q.E.D.: he had to make haste.
Carahue’s gaze rested gravely on him before the Moor said, “As you wish, my friend. Let us take the straightest path, then.”
Hugi shrugged and led on. The burrow twisted, rose, dipped, rose again, cornered, writhed, widened and narrowed. Their footfalls sounded like drumbeats. Here, here, here we are, troll. Here, here, here we are.
When the rock walls closed in so they almost brushed each shoulder Holger found himself behind Hugi, with Carahue at his back and Alianora guiding the horses in line to the Saracen’s rear. Before his eyes were only red-shot glooms as the torch sputtered. He heard Carahue murmur:
“The heaviest of my sins is that ever I let so sweet a maiden enter so foul a place. God will not forgive me this.”
“But I will,” she breathed.
He chuckled. “Heh! That suffices! And after all, my lady, who needs sun or moon or stars when you are present?”
“Nay, I beg ye, we must no talk.”
“So I shall think instead. Thoughts of beauty, grace, gentleness, and charm: in a word, thoughts of Alianora. “Och, Carahue—”
Holger bit his lip till the pain stabbed him.
“Quiet back there,” Hugi rapped. “We’ve come to his very nest.”
The tunnel ended. Torchlight would not reach far into the cavern beyond. Holger had confused glimpses of walls curving upward to lose themselves in a moving darkness. The floor was piled deep with branches, leaves, moldering straw, and bones: everywhere the gnawed bones. A stink of death overwhelmed him. He retched.
“Still, I say!” Hugi ordered. “Think ye I like this place? Noa, soft across yon space. There’ll be exits aplenty on t’ other side.”
The carpeting crackled underfoot, louder for each step. Holger swayed in its thick unevenness. He tripped over a log. A branch scratched his cheek, as if trying for his eyes. A human chine fell apart when he trod on it. He heard the horses sink under their weight, wallow about and whicker indignantly.
The torch brightened. At the same moment Holger felt a cold draft. “Ho, we’re na so far from the top!” Hugi exclaimed.
“Ho,” went the echo. “Ho-o-o.”
The troll crawled from beneath dead leaves.
Alianora screamed. Even then Holger thought he had never before heard real fear in her voice. “God have mercy,” Carahue choked. Hugi crouched and snarled. Holger dropped his sword, stooped to get it, dropped it again as sweat spurted out of him.
The troll shambled closer. He was perhaps eight feet tall, perhaps more. His forward stoop, with arms dangling past thick claw-footed legs to the ground, made it hard to tell. The hairless green skin moved upon his body. His head was a gash of a mouth, a yard-long nose, and two eyes which were black pools, without pupil or white, eyes which drank the feeble torchlight and never gave back a gleam.
“Ho-o-o,” he grinned, and reached out his hand.
Carahue shouted. The saber flared. It struck with a butcher sound. Smoke rose from the wound. The troll’s smirk did not change. He reached the other hand toward Carahue. Holger got his sword and attacked that arm.
The troll batted at him. Holger caught the blow on his shield. The wood cracked. He tumbled into the rotten heap on the floor. A moment he lay struggling for breath. Carahue’s mare shrieked in panic and plunged about. Alianora hung from the reins. That much Holger saw before he got back to his feet. Then his gaze focused on Carahue.
The Saracen danced over the nest. Incredibly, he kept his balance in that tangle. Each clumsy lunge he dodged, ducked, and never did his sword rest. It whistled and clamored, a blur, behind which he smiled. Each blow went far into green flesh. The troll only grunted. But Carahue continued to seek the right wrist, coldly and carefully.
Until with a final blow he lopped off that hand.
“Next!” he laughed aloud. “Give us some light, Hugi!” The dwarf had stuck the faggot upright between two branches and now tried to help Alianora control the mare. Papillon circled about looking for a chance to help.
The stallion got his chance as the troll made a left-handed swipe at Carahue. He rushed from behind. His front hoofs smote the broad back with a drumbeat fury. The troll went on his face, Papillon reared to his full terrifying height and came down again. The troll’s head was shattered.
“Merciful heaven,” gasped Carahue. He crossed himself. Turning to Holger, he called gaily, “That wasn’t too bad, though, was it?”
Holger looked at his own caved-in shield. “No,” he said in a rueful mood. “Except for my own performance.”
The mare still shivered, but had calmed enough for Alianora to stroke her neck. “Come, let’s gang on oot,” said Hugi. “The fetor here’s like to melt ma nase.”
Holger nodded. “Shouldn’t be far—Jesu Kriste!”
Like a huge green spider, the troll’s severed hand ran on its fingers. Across the mounded floor, up onto a log with one taloned forefinger to hook it over the bark, down again it scrambled, until it found the cut wrist. And there it grew fast. The troll’s smashed head seethed and knit together. He clambered back on his feet and grinned at them. The waning faggot cast red light over his fangs.
He lumbered toward Holger. The Dane knew a moment’s blind wish to bolt. But there was no place to go. He spat on the ground and lifted his sword. As the troll reached for him, he swung with all the might he had.
Through and through that oak-branch arm the blade went. Iron belled in the dark. Ice-green blood spurted, turning black in the smoke of unnatural flesh. The sword seemed to glow. The arm sprang off at the shoulder. It rolled into a pile of leaves, flopped about, and began hunching its way back.
Carahue smote from the right side. His saber carved a slab off the troll’s ribs. Greasily, with a sucking noise, that chunk crawled toward its master. Papillon reared and smote with his forefeet. Half the troll’s face was torn off. The jaws landed under the stallion and clenched about his ankle. He neighed and bucked. The troll raked his haunches with the remaining hand. Blood welled forth. Carahue got in the way of another buffet, took it in the armored belly, went down with a clatter and did not rise.
Unkillable indeed! Holger thought. What a place to die. “Get out, Alianora!”
“Nay.” She grabbed the torch and neared Papillon, who was going mad with the grip on his leg. “I’ll get it from ye,” she shouted. “Hold still and I’ll free ye.”
The troll scooped up his left arm and put it in place. His half a face seemed still to laugh. Holger struck again and again, he opened deep wounds, but they closed at once. Back he stumbled. Over the troll’s shoulder he saw Alianora duck under Papillon’s flailing hoofs, seize the stallion’s bridle and somehow bring him to a halt. She knelt to try and pry the jaws loose.
As her torch came near, they let go. Startled, she flinched aside. “Ho-o-o,” said the troll. Turning from Holger, he scuttled toward the bones, picked them up and put them in his head. Teeth clashed as he went back to meet the Dane.
Alianora cried aloud. She struck his back with the torch. He hooted and went on all fours. A charred welt across his skin did not heal.
The knowledge burst open in Holger. “Fire!” he roared. “Light a fire! Burn the beast!”
Alianora plunged the faggot into a heap of straw. It flared up. Smoke stung Holger’s nose... clean smoke, he thought crazily, clean flames, burning out the tomb stench around him. He braced himself and hewed.
A hand flew off its wrist, halfway across the cavern. Alianora pounced on it. The thing writhed in her grasp. Fingers like green worms sought to claw free. She hurled it into the fire. For a moment the hand twisted about, even crawled from the flames. But it was already blackened. As it sank down dead, the fire moved out to engulf it.