The Sea of Trolls - Farmer Nancy. Страница 16

He had never been so deep in the life force. He swam through it like a minnow, like a woodland creature with no more thought than to be.It was enough. It was more than enough. The glory and wonder of it swept him on.

“Jack… Jack…”

The voice reached him from a great distance. He turned from it, unwilling to become human again.

“Jack… oh, please! I’m so cold and scared!”

He came to his senses. For a moment he was filled with unreasoning anger. How dare anyone disturb him!

He heard gulping, hiccupping cries that cut him to the heart. It was Lucy! She was nearby but hidden by a fog so thick and heavy, it frightened even Jack. He’d really outdone himself this time. “Lucy, I’m here,” he called.

“Where’s ‘here’? It’s so dark and awful. I know there’s monsters.” She began to sob.

“Don’t move, Lucy. Just keep talking so I can find you.”

“When I went outside, it was sunny. You were supposedto be in the garden. Father said you were in the garden, but you weren’t.” Some of Lucy’s fear was replaced by indignation.

Jack tripped over a rock and scratched himself on a branch.

“I saw you from far away,” said Lucy. “You were walking fast. I wanted to call, but I didn’t want Mother to know I was outside. She’s been so mean to me today. She wouldn’t let me play outside or anything.”

Jack thought Mother was out of her mind with worry. She knew the danger they were in. So did Father, but he chose to ignore it.

“I walked to the Roman road, but you were gone. You went off and left me. Bad Jack! Then the fog came in really fast. It got dark and I got scared. Have you been doing magic? Father says wizards do magic and then they go to Hell. Are you going to Hell?”

“I couldn’t even find it in this fog,” muttered Jack. He felt the edge of the road with his feet. A moment later he saw Lucy crouched on the stones. He touched her arm, and she screamed. “It’s me,” he said, fending off her blows.

“Why did you sneak up on me like that?” she wailed.

“I wasn’t sneaking—oh, never mind. Listen, I’ve got a very important job to do, and I need you to be quiet.”

“I’m always quiet. I can keep my mouth shut for hours. Father says I’m like a dear little mouse. He said I was changed into a mouse by a bad fairy when I lived in the palace, but a good fairy changed me back.”

“How about being quiet now?” Jack said. It seemed to him the air was beginning to move. Perhaps a sea wind had sprung up.

“It’s a good story. I can tell it really well. Father says I know as many words as a ten-year-old.”

“Shh!” Jack pulled her down into the bracken.

“I’m getting wet,” cried Lucy.

“Be quiet. Someone’s coming along the road,” Jack whispered. “Maybe a monster,” he added. Lucy clung to him and made no more complaints about wetness. In the distance they heard voices. They were too far to distinguish words, but something about the sound made Jack’s hair prickle on the back of his neck. Then, shockingly, someone blew a hunting horn nearby.

Lucy tried to dive under Jack’s shirt. He held her close, feeling her tremble and himself tremble. Far away another horn answered.

“Hva? er ?etta?”someone said so close that Jack almost yelled. He heard more voices—four or five. The fog was definitely thinning. He could see shapes on the road, shaggy beings who walked with a heavy tread. He heard the clank of swords.

Come forth. Come forth to me. Cloak the air with your gray presences,he called to the life force, but his concentration was broken. Terror threatened to overwhelm him. These were the wolf-headed men. They were real. They were on the way to the village.

“Are those knights?” whispered Lucy.

“No. Be quiet.” Even without fog, Jack thought they would be well hidden in the bracken. They could escape. But what of Father and Mother? Or the Bard?

“I think they’re knights,” Lucy said.

“They’re monsters. Be quiet.”

“Hva??”said one of the men on the road. He strode to the edge and peered out over the bracken.

“Ekkert. ?etta er bara kanina,”said another.

The words were almost like Saxon, Jack’s own tongue. He’d heard a few other languages in his life, from people who passed through at village fairs. He’d heard Welsh, Erse, Pictish, and of course Latin, but he could speak none of them. They were nothing like his own speech. This was. He was almost certain the first man had said What?and the second had replied Nothing. It’s only a rabbit.

Lucy wriggled beside him, and he tightened his hold on her. The warriors above were growing ever more clear. They were cloaked in sheepskins and wore leather caps over their long, pale hair. Swords and axes hung from their belts. One was only a boy.

For a long moment the men conferred, and then, miraculously, they turned back the way they had come. They would miss the village! Jack hugged Lucy. “They’re going,” she whispered.

“Shh,” said Jack. The boy had turned and was once again scanning the bracken.

“ Komdu,Thorgil,” called one of the men.

“They’re the knights come to take me to my castle,” Lucy cried out suddenly. “Here I am! Here!”

The boy on the road shouted, “?arna er kaninan!”He leaped into the bracken, knife in hand, and grabbed Lucy. Jack tried to knock him down, but the boy yanked her up by the hair and held the knife to her throat. By now the men were running back.

Jack had one instant—only one—in which he could have fled, leaving Lucy behind in the clutches of the berserkers. He couldn’t do it. She was so little and helpless. He was her brother. He had no hope of defeating such a band of warriors, but he could stay with her, little though that might accomplish. At least they would die together.

In the next instant a huge man with one bushy eyebrow extending across his forehead fell on Jack like a tree and knocked him senseless.

The ground was moving. It tossed him up first and then slid him down in a nauseating roll. Jack gulped for air, got foul-tasting water instead, and then he did vomit. He crouched on hands and knees. He had been lying facedown in a filthy pool, and his whole body was wet and cold. The ground heaved again.

“?r?llinn er vakna?ur,”someone said.

Jack’s head throbbed. He looked down to see a drop of blood plop into the disgusting pool. He felt his hair. It was matted and sticky. How had that happened?

“Hei ?r?ll! ?u hefur svoliti? kettlingaklor ?arna.”There was crude laughter, and several other voices joined in.

Jack struggled to understand. They were speaking something like Saxon, but the accent was so barbaric, he could make out only one word in three. Was ?r?lltheir word for thrall? If so—Jack had to think hard—it meant “servant” or possibly “slave.” That didn’t sound good. Kettlingur,which was close to kettlingaklor,meant “kitten.” What did kittens have to do with him?

Jack looked up—his head hurt so much, he was afraid to move quickly. The ground pitched again, and he saw, beyond a wooden railing, a vast expanse of gray water. He looked to the other side. More water.

He was on a ship! Jack had been in little coracles close to shore. He used them to reach small islands at low tide, to gather seagull eggs and whelks. He never went far. Now he saw no islands, only a heaving gray sea with a pitiless gray sky above. He moaned and ducked his head to shut out the terrible sight.

“Skr?fan ?in.”

Skrafan thin.Jack easily translated that into his own language. It was a favorite insult thrown back and forth between the village boys: “scaredy-pants”. Well, he wasscared. Who wouldn’t be? He was adrift on the open sea with no memory of how he got there.

He turned to get a look at who was talking and flinched. It was a giant.Maybe not a true giant—they were supposed to have hands big enough to pick up an ox. But this creature was certainly taller than any man Jack had seen. He had blond braids hanging past his shoulders, a massive beard covering his chest, and one bushy eyebrow extending all the way across his face.