The Prodigal Troll (26 page)

Though it lay there motionless, Maggot hesitated to drop from the tree until he considered that the wolves might come investigate and then he'd have to fight them off. He didn't have the strength for that, so he climbed down, retrieved his knife, and picked up a long stick.

He poked the bigtooth with the stick. It didn't move. He cracked the stick over its side. It still didn't move. He inched closer and shoved it with his toe-it was like kicking a warm rock, but it didn't kick back.

Then, placing one foot on its side, Maggot pounded the dangerdeath warning on his chest, laughing.

"Too late," he told the bigtooth. "Sorry."

When he nudged it with a toe, his grin turned to a frown.

He couldn't carry the whole beast back down the valley to give to the woman. Maybe he could just show her part of it. The skin, since people seemed to use so many skins.

Looking at it again, he wanted the claws too so he could show how brave he was. And the teeth.

Maggot knelt and took the front paw in his hand-it still had a deadly weight to it. He sawed with his knife, breaking the joints at the ankle to remove the big clawed feet but leave them attached to the pelt. Then he sliced up the belly, and the legs, and hacking, pulling, finally removed the skin in one piece, leaving it connected to the head, which he also cut off. He ate the liver as he worked, and strips of the meat, which were strong-tasting and stringy, but satisfied his empty stomach.

When he finished and looked up, vultures circled in the dawn-pale sky. They could have the rest.

Rolling up his trophy, Maggot slung it over his shoulder and took the long way around the stream so he wouldn't wash off any of his by now impressive scent.

He grew tired like any troll in the morning. Before he returned to the woman's camp, he climbed into the crook of an elm tree and settled down to nap in the notch where its trunk divided into three.

Ants crawling across his skin to get at the bigtooth jerked him awake. He squinted at the sky, turning his head to find the sun. He'd slept straight through the warm part of the day.

He brushed the ants off the bigtooth's tongue and eyes, off the long yellow teeth, licking them off his fingers for a snack as he climbed down and resumed his journey. The cuts on his calf and side throbbed, and a bark scrape on his thigh hurt, but it was nothing bad. When he looked away from them, he forgot that his wounds were there.

The mammut, spear carriers, log-and-mushroom men, and others left trampled grasses, broken limbs, and other signs of their passing along the riverside, an easy trail for Maggot to follow. They had returned for a second day of beating brush in the hills, not knowing their quarry was already dead. Maggot smiled as he went, imagining the woman's surprise when he brought her his gift.

The sun was low behind the mountains, the sky as red as blueberry leaves in autumn, when their camp came into view. Fires burned inside the palisade. Maggot circled around to the hill beside the river, above the camp where he could see over the wall. He concealed himself in the remaining trees to look for the woman again.

He saw her for only a heartbeat, taking long strides through the firelight between tents. She entered one with blue-and-yellow stripes, like the covering on the mammut's back. He counted carefully-it stood in the second arc, third from the end.

When hardly anyone moved about the camp, Maggot took the bigtooth's skin and approached the palisade. Not seeing anyone or anything moving through the cracks, he slung the pelt over his shoulder and vaulted the wall.

He tried counting the tents, orienting himself, but the smoky, meaty stink of all these people made him jumpy. He started walking fast, then running, in what he thought was the right direction. He was rounding the second arc when he came face-to-face with one of the spearmen.

The man looked at Maggot, looked at the bigtooth's pelt, looked at Maggot, and opened his mouth to scream.

Maggot panicked. He grabbed the man by the throat, twisting his head hard as he dragged him to the ground the way he would wrestle a troll. The man went limp when Maggot landed on him. Maggot rolled away, hand still covering the mouth for silence, when he realized that he'd broken the man's neck.

His heart thumped in his chest-other voices sounded nearby, coming closer. He'd dropped the pelt when he lunged. He scooped it up and spotted the woman's striped tent, third from the end, just as he had counted. Dashing to it, he pulled aside the flap and plunged inside.

A fire burned in a polished dish, illuminating the interior to daylike brightness. Maggot blinked.

The woman sat on something beside the fire. She started to move, then stopped when Maggot stopped.

He gaped. Her hair had become suddenly long, longer than Maggot's. The other, older woman held it-pausing in midstroke as she ran something like a knife across it. Maybe she was cutting it-

"You st-stink," Maggot stuttered quickly, in proper troll fashion, before he lost his courage. "You stink a lot."

The older woman's mouth opened and closed like a fish surfacing to eat.

Afraid that she would scream, Maggot quickly made a vigorous "No" expression by thrusting his tongue and shaking his head from side to side.

The woman reached out a restraining hand to her companion. Never taking her eyes off the bigtooth's skin, she said something that Maggot couldn't understand.

But what was there to understand? She was even more beautiful than he'd imagined her, with sharp lines to her face and a broad, flat nose. She had blue eyes matched in color by a gem that dangled on a golden vine around her neck. Her yellow robe opened at her throat and was slit up the side so that her legs stretched free. She smelled like lavender and lilac.

He fumbled with the skin, holding it out for her.

She raised her eyebrows, said something again.

"It's for y-you," he said, thrusting it out again for her to take.

She glanced up at the older woman, shrugged, and gestured to a spot at her feet.

Yes! He dropped to his knees and spread the pelt out on the floor, tilting the head up to her, making sure she could see the claws. When he stood up, his heart was galloping.

She bent forward to look at it, said something again.

Maggot took this as a hopeful sign of her interest, and, just to make his intentions clear, stepped close to her, spread his legs apart, and waved his painfully swollen sex at her face.

She leaned back in her seat ... then sprang forward and kicked him hard in the crotch.

He toppled like a tree in a storm, slamming into the dirt so hard that it knocked all the air out of him. He tried to inhale, but couldn't catch his breath at all. Probably because his sex was lodged in his throat.

She grabbed a long knife and held it toward him, prodding him with the toe of her foot much as he had done to the bigtooth. When he didn't move, she stepped away and examined the pelt, flipping over the paws, looking at the teeth. She spoke to him the whole time.

He didn't understand the words, but her tone was clearly admonishing. Somehow he propped himself upright on knees and elbows, gulping air, looking at her, trying to fathom what he'd done wrong.

There was a shout outside the tent, and the woman stood and turned sharply toward it. When she moved, Maggot could see her sex through the part in her robe. Though it was obscured by a patch of curly hair, it was clearly not swollen or red. She wasn't interested in him after all. Glancing down at him, she followed his eyes and pulled her robe closed and stepped away from him. A second shout came from outside, more frantic than the first. The older woman ran to the entrance of the tent and shouted out a reply.

Maggot realized that they'd discovered the body of the man he'd killed. And there was no reason for him to stay now. He stumbled to his feet and lurched past the older woman to leave the tent. He paused a second to orient himself.

The flap flew open behind him. The woman stood at the entrance, her hand reaching toward him as she said something else he couldn't understand. The long knife was lowered. Probably she was asking if he wanted the bigtooth's skin back.

Another tent flap snapped opened opposite her, revealing the outline of the boy who'd cast the spear. His eyes widened; then he shouted and began waving his arms.

Quickly, Maggot stared into her eyes, stuck out his tongue, and shook his head from side to side. She could keep the pelt. Then, cupping his crotch, he ran despite the pain, heading for the main gate because he knew he couldn't climb the palisade. Separated by the wall of tents, and the confusion of darkness, men sprinted past him in the other direction.

Only one guard watched the entrance. Grimacing in pain, Maggot lifted his fist to force his way past. The guard took one look at him, threw down his spear, and fled screaming into the night.

Maggot followed. When he overtook the guard, the man covered his face with his hands, shrieked, and fell down.

Enveloped in darkness, Maggot ran until the pain in his groin faded compared to the ache in his legs and in his chest. He kept on running into the hills, toward the tree-covered slopes of the mountains. Water streamed from his eyes.

The moon followed him as he ran, a sliver more than half full ensconced within a bright sphere of hazy light.

The rains were coming.

aggot kept on running into the hills, toward the treecovered slopes of the mountains. Finally, exhausted, he reeled from tree to tree, looking for someplace to hide from the rising sun. The hillside was pierced by out-thrusts of massive lichened stones, thick with nut trees and berry bushes. Smells of redolent spring earth and verdant damp pervaded the air. It was a very trollish place. He'd fled the life of a troll to become a man. Now he returned to trollish habits, following the natural shelter of the hills in search of a safe location, hoping to find the hole where he'd hidden the hollow log.

He was scouring a hillside when he saw, in a dell below, a denshaped mound covered with thick vines and shrubs. Hickory trees towered protectively around it. He went to explore.

Taking hold of the vines, Maggot pulled himself atop the mound. It was constructed of logs, like the palisade but stacked atop one another. A wall and part of the sheltering roof had collapsed at one end, but a fallen tree canopied the hole-its dead branches sustained a mass of fallen limbs and brown leaves. Some of the logs pulled away in Maggot's hands, revealing a spacious den. He crawled inside. The hollow extended nearly the full length of the mound. In parts of it he could stand straight up. It was a good place to hide for the day. To decide where he should go, what he should do next.