Chapter Forty-three
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There wasn’t much sleepin’ to be had, by any of us, I think. Though Beky and Alex may have been in comas. Thankfully Izig joined me in the bag when the rude order was given to get some sleep. Izig joinin’ me felt more appropriate than mushed flesh to flesh with a bull I didn’t know ten hours ago. Every ten minutes, seemed I looked at the narrow glass lookin’ for a hint of sunlight. When it finally arrived, I could barely open my eyes. The Sandman had cemented my lids together, the stinkin’ idjit.
A couple bulls rose to stoke the hearth and push a bucket of that horrible soup into the flames. Wasn’t sure I was interested in its warmth enough to suck it down. A good beef stew, maybe, san the veggies. For creatures who mostly live a mile underground, trolls love their stinkin’ veggies. Maybe the greens counter the poisons of all the centipedes and scorpions they love to snack on. Ick. Rather gnaw on week-old road kill. Oh, that thought would sadden Mama to no end. She’d give me her non-judgmental judgmental face. And she’s a chef. Well-loved chef. Not of just troll delicacies.
“Get off me,” Izig growled. “Gotta pee like a race horse.”
I gave her a, “So hen-like.”
“Half troll, not stinkin’ half human,” she muttered, strugglin’ to pull the zipper of the bag down.
Oh, the cold that hit me. Dang weezit. Freeze the nipples off a gnome skinny dippin’ in Black Lake. “How can it be so cold?”
Izig didn’t offer me an answer as she headed for what our ancient ancestor considered a dandy toilet. Made of granite. Be no liquid water flowin’ through the latrine this mornin’. With all these stinkin’ trolls usin’ it, would leave a stink a dragon wouldn’t put up with. And it’s officially summer in a few days. Maybe I’ve softened a bit, living the past few years in the midlands. TIT’s surrounded by peaks, but it’s still five thousand feet lower than these parts.
There were even a few grumbles from the troll bulls as everyone prepared for our dangerous trek. Beky and Alex, or Alder as Hale continued to refer to him, were told to stay put until the last minute. Lucky them. Though without a troll keepin’ their sleepin’ bags toasty, they remained marginally warmer than the rest of us, as we snorted down our soup and readied for what was to come.
While the residence seemed freezin’, the air outside stabbed at exposed flesh—and the not-so-exposed. Didn’t hear Hale complain once about the knit hat a troll made him don. As the bulls wrangled lengths of rope off the sheer cliff, I looked into the sky to pray to a god or five. No reason not to hedge bets. The tinge of orange and gold I found gave me a bit of solace. Until the troll I was ridin’ like a bronc leaned forward, way forward, and edged off the edge of the world, and I could see where our bones would splatter on the plain, way, way below.
“If ya’re prayin’,” the bull I was clamped to said, “implies ya don’t have a great deal of faith in my climbin’ ability.”
“Let’s just say,” I answered, voice breakin’ maybe a little, “I’d rather have my hands on that rope my ownself.”
“Like ya’d know how to use it.”
Plain rude. Oh gods. Maybe I whined a bit more. Wet myself a little—hopefully not. We slipped over the edge and all I could see now was a cacophony of gold dreads that fluttered into my face, as I settled southward in my harness. Maybe not seeing a mile, more like two miles below, was good news. But the snaggity way we hedged an inch at a time toward our death was less than comfortin’.
Fifteen minutes later I garnered the courage to look left and right a bit. Maybe, should have scared me, but those stinkin’ trolls acted as though gravity didn’t bother them much. Not to suggest they acted in anyway casual about their task. But they seemed to go about it without an appropriate level of effort. Reminded me back, watchin’ the ancient troll who care-takes the granite place Hale buys his stone, loadin’ the old pickup truck single-handed, a block which prolly weighed over a ton.
Fifteen minutes later, for lack of anythin’ else to do, I peered up, way up. Nothing but granite and a blue-blue sky. How far had we descended already? Did I dare look down? Oh, darn weezle no. Not a chance. I continued to focus on the words the trolls shot at each other. Sounded as though they spoke a dead language. No idea what they were sayin’ to each other. But they seemed to. They answered back. On this, on that.
“What language are ya speakin’?” I asked my ride.
He chuckled.
~
Hale
~
I was a bit tired of listenin’—in my head—to Bele whinin’. From the moment the residence hitched a hint of sunlight. Complained about the cold, the soup, the stinky latrine, the tight-fittin’ straps that ratcheted her to her lifeline, the long, long way to the plain. Couldn’t she hear me in my head shoutin’ her to shut the stink up?
So I started payin’ attention to the trolls cartin’ us to warm earth. They were amazin’, the way they used their ropes, belayed from rock face to rock face. No nonsense. No chattin’. No jokin’. All business. I could understand what Woriz and Izig saw in the entire endeavor. Though, maybe there’s a sense of altruism to it as well. I’d ask Bele about that.
Not that I can translate expressions into emotions, but I could read the intensity of their mood. Mood’s not the right word—I can’t define mood with the help of a thesaurus. It was the manner of their set jaws, eyes rushin’ from surface to surface, the meanin’ful way their ham-like fists worked their ropes and caressed the granite.
After a slip that had my guy and me drop about ten feet at a thousand miles an hour, and the bull had gotten his breath back under control, he asked me how I was doin’. I considered tellin’ him I’d peed all over his back. Decided against it. My humor never comes out right. So I just told him, “What? Sorry. I was asleep.” He gave me a chuckle.
“Take a nap for me, will ya?” he asked.
“Meh. Take yar own. I’ll wait. The temp is warmin’ up some. Almost like a Southern beach. Kinda enjoyin’ myself here.”
He started cacklin’ so hard I thought he might get cramps, until a roar from ten feet away tellin’ him to keep this mind on his task, straightened him right up.
I whispered, “Sorry.”
After a moment or so, he whispered back, “Ya ever get a wild hair to sketch this recovery, I’d be honored to put it on my wall.”
I asked him how he attached art to a mine wall. He snorted, tryin’ not to be heard chucklin’, I think. He whispered, “I live in a loft a mile up from ya folks. Got a dandy view of Glacier Creek from my balcony.”
We live on Glacier Pool, which somehow leaks into caverns below us, into Black Lake. “We should do a hike together one day.”
“Sounds good,” he said, and introduced himself. Funny there hadn’t been any introductions to this point. Maybe we were all concentratin’ on not freezin’ to death. We quieted then, when a gravel voice reminded him his mind should be on every grip and foothold.
But I had to whisper back, “No more ten-foot drops, huh?” Dang weezit that was scary. Prolly scraped his knees up good too.
“Do my best.”
Trolls aren’t so bad. I don’t know why that thought came to me. I have a troll mother. Troll aunt. Troll cousins. And very lovin’ troll grandparents. Just wish they wouldn’t give me that disappointed look when I don’t dive into their dessert of crisped centipedes.
After that I made myself useful, handin’ him clamps he used in the crevices to lock us against the mountain face. Least I could do. We were about three quarters down when the folk in the track to our right came abreast, and I looked into Beky’s eyes. If I had to guess, she was still a seriously frozen orc hen. Think she tried to give me a smile. Her beautiful features were drawn awfully tight, with ebony smudges ringin’ her normally gorgeous eyes. She was scared. Scared bad. Said the witch genes, I think. ’Cause I can’t otherwise read emotions.
Gotta go visit that troll healer. Learn if there’s healer thin’s she could do to help my—condition. Maybe even ask her about this mind to mind stuff goin’ on between Bele and me. Appointment’s set. Not lookin’ forward to tellin’ Bele about it. If we get off this mountain alive. I lied when I told my guy it was warmin’ up. Don’t know how the granite could radiate the cold the way it does. Like it went straight through my troll buddy.
~
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