‘Discourteous? That’s a Troll out there, Ulath.’
‘Just because he’s a Troll doesn’t mean that he has bad manners. Oh, I almost forgot. When he comes into camp, he’ll want to sniff us. It’s polite to sniff him as well. He won’t smell very nice, but do it anyway. Trolls do that so that they’ll recognize each other if they ever meet again.’
‘I think you’re losing your mind.’
‘Just follow my lead, and let me do the talking.’
‘What else can I do, you clot? I don’t speak Trollish, remember?’
‘You don’t? What an amazing thing. I thought every educated man spoke Trollish.’
The Troll approached cautiously, moving smoothly up through the birch forest. He used his arms a great deal as he moved, grasping trees to pull himself along, moving with his whole body. He was about eight and a half feet tall and had glossy brown fur. His face was simian to a degree, though he did not have the protruding muzzle of most apes, and there was a glimmer of intelligence in his deep-sunk eyes. He came up onto the bench where the camp lay and then squatted, resting his forearms on his knees and keeping his paws in plain sight. ‘I have no club,’ he half-growled.
Ulath made some show of setting his axe aside and held out his empty hands. ‘I have no club,’ he repeated the customary greeting. ‘Undo your sword-belt, Tynian,’ he muttered. ‘Lay it aside.’
Tynian started to object, but decided against it.
‘The child of Khwaj you have made is good,’ the Troll said, pointing at their fire. ‘Khwaj will be pleased.’
‘It is good to please the Gods,’ Ulath replied.
The Troll suddenly banged his fist on the ground. ‘This is not how it should be!’ he declared in an unhappy voice.
‘No,’ Ulath agreed, dropping down into a squat much like the Troll’s, ‘it is not. The Gods have their reasons for it, though. They have said we must not kill each other. They have also said we must not eat each other.’
‘I have heard them say it. Could we have misunderstood them?’
‘I think we have not.’
‘Could it be that their minds are sick?’
‘It is possible. We must still do as they tell us, though.’
‘What are you two talking about?’ Tynian asked nervously.
‘We’re discussing philosophy,’ Ulath shrugged.
Tynian stared at him.
‘It’s fairly complex. It has to do with whether or not we’re morally obliged to obey the Gods if they’ve gone crazy. I’m saying that we are. Of course my position’s a little tainted by self-interest in this particular situation.’
‘Can it not speak?’ the Troll asked, pointing at Tynian. ‘Are those bird-noises the only sounds it can make?’
‘The bird-noises pass for speech among those of our kind. Will you take some of our eat with us?’
The Troll looked appraisingly at their horses. ‘Those?’ he asked.
‘No.’ Ulath shook his head. ‘Those are the beasts which carry us.’
‘Are your legs sick? Is that why you are so short?’
‘No. The beasts can run faster than we can. They carry us when we want to go fast.’
‘What kind of eat do you take?’
‘Pig.’
‘Pig is good. Deer is better.’
‘Yes.’
‘Where is the pig? Is it dead? If it is still alive, I will kill it.’
‘It is dead.’
The Troll looked around. ‘I do not see it.’
‘We have only brought part of it.’ Ulath pointed at the large ham spitted over the fire.
‘Do you share your eat with the child of Khwaj?’
Ulath decided not to explain the concept of cooking at that particular moment. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It is our custom.’
‘Does it please Khwaj that you share your eat with his child?’
‘It is our thought that it does.’ Ulath drew his dagger, lifted the spit from off the fire and sawed off a chunk of ham weighing perhaps three pounds.
‘Are your teeth sick?’ The Troll even sounded sympathetic. ‘I had a sick tooth once. It caused me much hurt.’
‘Our kind does not have sharp teeth,’ Ulath told him. ‘Will you take some of our eat?’
‘I will.’ The Troll rose to his feet and came to the fire, towering over them.
‘The eat has been near the child of Khwaj,’ Ulath warned. ‘It is hot. It may cause hurt to your mouth.’
‘I am called Bhlokw,’ the Troll introduced himself.
‘I am called Ulath.’
‘U-lat? That is a strange thing to be called.’ Bhlokw pointed at Tynian. ‘What is it called?’
‘Tynian,’ Ulath replied.
‘Tin-in. That is stranger than U-lat.’
‘The bird-noises of our speech make what we are called sound strange.’
The Troll leaned forward and snuffled at the top of Ulath’s head. Ulath suppressed a strong urge to shriek and run for the nearest tree. He politely sniffed at Bhlokw’s fur. The Troll actually didn’t smell too bad. Then the monster and Tynian exchanged sniffs. ‘Now I know you,’ Bhlokw said.
‘It is good that you do.’ Ulath held out the chunk of steaming ham.
Bhlokw took it from him and stuffed it into his mouth. Then he quickly spat it back out into his hand. ‘Hot,’ he explained a little sheepishly.
‘We blow on it to make it cool so that we can eat it without causing hurt to our mouths,’ Ulath instructed.
Bhlokw blew noisily on the piece of ham for a while. Then he crammed it back into his mouth. He chewed reflectively for a moment. Then he swallowed. ‘It is different,’ he said, diplomatically. Then he sighed. ‘I do not like this, U-lat,’ he confided unhappily. ‘This is not how things should be.’
‘No,’ Ulath agreed, ‘it is not.’
‘We should be killing each other. I have killed and eaten you man-things since you first came to the Troll-range. That is how things should be. It is my thought that the Gods are sick in their minds to make us do this,’ He sighed a hurricane sort of sigh. ‘Your thought is right, though. We must do as they tell us to do. Someday their minds will get well. Then they will let us kill and eat each other again,’ He stood up abruptly. ‘They want to see you. I will take you to them.’
‘We will go with you.’
They followed Bhlokw up into the mountains all that day and half of the next, and he led them finally to a snow-covered clearing where a fire burned in a large pit. The Troll-Gods were waiting for them there.