Chapter Forty-one
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I no longer sensed—anything, from Alex. I rocked a bit, tryin’ to get somethin’ from him. Nothin’. “Alex. Alex?”
“He gone?” Hale rasped.
It had to be afternoon now, not that my brain was much capable of thinkin’ in time right now. How long had we been out of wood? “Alex!” I snapped.
Hale freed a hand from his orc bundle. Back of his fingers pressed against the tip of Alex’s nose.
“Breathin’?” I asked, chest catchin’ with a sob.
“Can’t tell. But my hands are numb.”
That last was an excuse. He feared the worse. Did I even want to know? At this point. This was supposed to be three hours of explorin’ the most famous shrine in the Range. Had we killed the only two folk that ever showed an interest in us? Other than in Hale’s art. My study skills. In us as a bull and a hen. Neither cared about—what our clan could mean to ’em.
“Beky?” I asked.
“She ticks in her sleep now and then,” he said. But he was lying. Wishin’ he could trade his life for hers.
“Don’t even think that,” I hissed. And the sobs came. Dry sobs. As though the tears froze before they could escape. “Not yar fault,” I barely managed to get out.
~
Hale
~
Bele finally succumbed to her—I guess a folk not like me would call it grief—and maybe drifted off to sleep. Grief. Is that the sensation that squeezed my lungs so tight? Or just part of the agony slowly tryin’ to kill me? If I could cry, would it allow me to sleep? Are my episodes a—conglomeration of emotion?
Emotion? Or just a single idiotic condition? I don’t think I’ve ever feared. Or known sorrow. Appreciated a kindness. Piled up meanness, I’ve recognized, in my head, learned to keep away from the thin’s, folk, that slung ’em upon me. I know I can hold a grudge. That must be an emotion. Or. Just intelligence? Self preservation?
If I could separate individual emotions, understand ’em, could I avoid the events, or at least mitigate ’em?
I can wonder about—emotion. That in itself must be emotion. Maybe.
There was a new sound irritatin’ my head, aside from the wind whistlin’ between the cracks of the granite. Thankfully it was just a whistle now, not a roar. Clish. Clish. What could it be? Beky had sunk a bit in my lap, so I pulled her closer to my face, which I settled on the top of her head. As though I could plug her into my ogre energy like that.
Clish. Clish. Clish.
Had to be my imagination. Hm. I know I have an imagination. That’s an emotion, isn’t it? Visualizing what I want to create in granite, definitely imagination. Clish. Clish. For lack of anythin’ else to do, I worked to imagine the source of the sound.
A creak. That was new.
“Bele! Hale! Ya in here?”
Another voice. Distinctly hen. “Hale! Bele!”
Holy moly. Didn’t know I had such a vivid imagination. I pictured booted feet stompin’ off snow and ice, to go with a continuation of my imagination. More voices. Be so cool to have some folk strollin’ into the shrine to visit. Be nice if they carried in some firewood.
Hot, really hot somethin’s lay across my cheeks. I struggled to open my stinkin’ eyes. Had I been asleep? More voices. Staccato words. Urgent. Loud.
My lap seemed to empty of its burden. Oh, no. Had I dropped Beky?
“Ya with us, Hale?” Finally my eyes, blurred, almost blind, managed to let my frozen brain case know, that a gaggle of trolls stood in front of me. A heavy mitt clomped on my shoulder.
“She alive?” A voice, seemed to shout, but maybe not.
The troll the other spoke to was strippin’ Beky’s clothes off, as another troll stripped out of their own. Why? I watched as the bull stroked Beky’s flesh with his bare arms, stepped into a thick, puffy sleepin’ bag, as another zipped it up around them. Why, slowly began to dawn on me. Only warmth on this stinkin’ mountain was from the body of a brawny troll.
Alder and Bele were getting’ the same treatment. The shorter troll, not really a troll, that grasped Bele against her, inside another fluffy bag—a stinkin’ ogre-troll. More troll than ogre—opposite of me and Bele. Stinkin’ cousin that alienated Bele and me our entire lives, until we’d had enough. That is—until Bele had said, enough.
Cousin Izig. Stinkin’ hen, whispered, “Ya’re gonna be okay. Ya’re gonna be okay,” against the side of Bele’s head.
I levitated upward, from strong hands. My leather vest pulled hard, up, over my head, the layers under, pulled off me too. My pants dropped to the floor. Ew. I hate bein’ naked in front of others.
“Ya with me?” another troll-ogre said, as he wrapped me in his arms, pressed hard against me, bare skin to bare skin. Stinkin’ other cousin. Stinkin’ Woriz. Dang golly, the bull’s flesh felt hot. Too hot. Another of those fluffy bags pulled up around me and Woriz, atop my head. My face pressed into his chest. Never had realized trolls don’t have a lot of body hair. Unlike us ogres.
They carried firewood up here with ’em? They must have, ’cause the dark chamber started flickin’ with orange and yellow. I searched for Becky, and that fool Ander, among the gaggle of trolls surroundin’ us. Nothin’ but standin’ room only in here now. Not really any additional standin’ room. Woriz and Izig must have dragged a dozen trolls up here with ’em. Couldn’ta flown up here. No way. The fools dared the near vertical cliffs from the plain? What are they, nuts?
Woriz was rubbin’ his arms up and down my back. “Uh. That’s not necessary,” I explained.
He laughed. Sounded just like his papa, Uncle Jam. Didn’t Woriz get any of his mama’s DNA? My favorite aunt, Aunt Ezra. Don’t ever make that admission to Nuel. She thinks she’s the best everythin’.
“My little cousin hasn’t lost his sense of humor,” Woriz said.
Little. Cousin. “Ya know I can’t even spell humor, right?”
I sensed his laugh, a warm thin’ that rattled in my chest, as though it was my own. Now I can talk with Bele without words, and sense an emotion here and there from others not my sibling? Stinkin’ crazy. Needed that witch-healer to explain this to me.
Lookin’ at all the trolls in the room, I had to ask. “Ya couldn’t find any ogre cousins to bring with ya?”
He snorted. “Like a wimpy ogre could make it up that frozen cliff face.”
“Uh, ya’re an ogre.”
“Half,” he said.
I’d give him that. But wasn’t convinced an ogre couldn’ta done it. “What day is it?”
“We got up here as fast as we could, as soon as we realized the storm was gonna be so bad.”
“Surprised—” Odd, was it an emotion that froze me up?
“Surprised yar evil cousins cared, huh?” Woriz stated, more than asked.
“Surprised ya have the tusks to make it up here.”
He laughed. Trolls have a handsome-sounding laugh. Even if the racket scares a lot of humans. Poor humans. They lack self confidence.
Maybe because they’re so fragile.
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