Troll Blood Read Free

palms by the time the men give up. Maybe their hearts are not really in this search for a small boy. They return to the chief and his golden son empty-handed.
    The chief shrugs. It’s clear he thinks it doesn’t matter much. He gestures to the bodies lying on the ground, and goes on talking to his son. Obediently the men drag the bodies down to the water’s edge. They wade yelling into the cold river, carrying the dead out to the smaller, slenderer of the Serpents, which jerks and snubs at its tether as if outraged at being given such a cargo. One by one, the bodies are tumbled in.
    Where’s the child?
    Sidling up the roof like a crab.
    At least he’s pulled his foot in—no, don’t go near the ridge!
    As if he hears, the child sinks down just below the ridge, but he keeps popping up his head and peering over. Kwimu bites his nails in agony.
Stop doing that, they’ll see you!
    The chief gives another order. Whatever it is, the child on the roof understands: He flattens himself again, and the men troop back to the houses and begin emptying them. Everything is carried out. They stagger down to the river under bundles of furs, and heave them into the belly of the second Horned Serpent, the big one with the eagle’s beak. They bring out gear, pots, sacks, weapons. Shouting, they load up with timber: logs and planks from a pile on the other side of the houses. The creature—vessel, it must be some kind of vessel—sways this way and that as they adjust the cargo till it’sriding level, a lot lower in the water.
    “They’re leaving!” Kwimu says with a gasp of relief. “They’re going away!”
    Sinumkw makes a brushing movement with his hand:
Quiet.
He watches the scene below with a hunter’s intensity.
    At last, all is ready. A small, fat canoe collects the burly chieftain and his golden son—
they
don’t have to wade through the freezing water. The chieftain hoists himself aboard the big Serpent, but his son is ferried to the smaller vessel, and nimbly leaps aboard. Kwimu shades his eyes. The boy strides up and down, pouring something out of a big pot. He upends the pot, shakes out the last drops, and tosses it overboard. With an arm twined around the Horned Serpent’s painted neck, he leans out and catches a rope that uncoils through the air from the bigger vessel. He knots it at the base of the neck, and jumps down into the waiting canoe. In moments, he’s back with his father.
    The men lift out long, thin paddles: It’s as if the Serpent is putting out legs like a beetle. Slowly it turns away from the shore, swinging with the current till it’s pointing out to sea.
    Kwimu has never seen paddling like this before, with all the men facing the wrong way. How can they see where to go? But it seems to work. The red and black
jipijka’m
is crawling away out of the river, loaded with furs and timber, and towing its companion behind it—the red Serpent of the Dead.
    So they’re going, and they haven’t found the child. Does he know he’s safe? Kwimu glances down at the roof.
    The child is sitting up, staring.
    Get down, get down—they might still see you
…
    But the child gets slowly to his feet. He stands in full view of the river, conspicuous on the rooftop. He lifts his arm, both arms, and starts to wave and scream. He’s dancing on the roof, yelling in a shrill voice.
    “He mocks his enemies!” says Sinumkw in deep appreciation.
    But Kwimu isn’t so sure. He’s got a cold feeling that if he could understand, the child might be screaming, “Come back, come back! Don’t leave me!”
    For a second, the crawling motion falters as some of the men lift their arms to point. Then it picks up again. They’re not stopping; they’re not turning. They’re leaving the river now, heading into the bay. There’s still a lot of haze on the water: You can’t see the horizon.
    They’re doing something else now: casting off the rope. A feather of fire flies through the air, curving into the red Serpent. A