Page 55 of A Darkness So Sweet

Silently, the war band moved across their mountain, following the tracks of the cart until Ragnar broke off from the others. He ran faster. Ragnar was able to go ahead of the rest since, as the band’s healer, he didn’t carry any weapons.

But then he came to the edge of a ridge and stared down at deep, black furrows that spread through an area which had once been forested. Like a fire had been lit and left to run wild, it wasn’t hard to see what had made their mountain afraid. Stones had been thrown by ballistae against the side of the mountain. There were deep cracks in the rocky face where a rock slide had been triggered. So many stones that the entire tunnel into Trollveggen had collapsed. And worse, he could see the humans had coated the entrance with a thick black ooze they’d then lit on fire.

It wasn’t an entrance regularly traversed by his people. Smaller than most, usually only women and children walked here to pick flowers or grow crops that simply couldn’t grow underground. It did not lead back to the heart of their kingdom, but it was an entrance, nonetheless.

More signs of humans dotted the landscape. Small rings of fire where the humans had left the flames still burning. The refuse they had thrown in their retreat.

Ragnar started down into the crater left behind. Not a single shrub remained after that fire. There was no birdsong dancing through the air as he walked over stones that were easy to twist an ankle over. Even the wind didn’t seem to want to disturb the ashes on the ground. And as he approached the entrance, he stopped where he was and felt his heart shatter.

Because even here, even this far away, he could see the lovely yellow hand reaching through the rocks. The hand was now limp, no life left in the troll who had desperately begged for help as the entrance had collapsed on top of them.

There was no one here he could save. No one who needed his magic even though it weakly rose in his chest as if it could try to bring this troll back from the dead. Like he could sing their soul back into their body, even though he didn’t know who they were or how he would manage to do so.

Healing was an art form. He convinced the body to knit itself back together, to feel well again. He loved being able to soothe old aches or mend a cut in the skin that would have left an ugly scar. But a moment like this was when he was reminded of just how terrible it was to have been given such a gift.

To know he could have saved them if he had been here in time.

Footsteps approached. Countless trolls of the war band joined them, and together, they all sank onto their knees to honor the fallen troll.

Gunnar was at his side, and he reached to put an arm around Ragnar’s shoulder. “They fought well.”

The troll to his right murmured, “They fought hard.”

No one wanted to say the last bit, though. No one wanted to be the one to admit that this was over and there was nothing they could have done.

So Ragnar took a deep, rattling breath that coated his tongue in smoke and tasted like defeat. “Their spirit joins the warrior’s hall. Someday, we will join them, and on that day, we will feast.”

Growls erupted around him. Rage made the air electric between them all. He wanted to roar at the world that would allow a troll to die like this. He knew this kind of death. It hadn’t been quick. This troll had reached out a hand for help and no one had offered to help them. Not a single one of those monsters who lived at the base of their mountain had done anything when they’d set this trap. They didn’t even kill the troll, so they wouldn’t suffer.

Turning his head to look at the tracks, he stood. The other trolls joined him, all of their eyes on the deep furrows that would lead them right to the humans who had done this.

His brother placed a hand on his shoulder. A steadying voice to listen to as Gunnar murmured, “Ragnar. Your wife is human. Perhaps it should be us that go. You wait here, and we can make sure any injured return to you. If it was a small number of humans with a ballista, they will be easy to track.”

“No. I want my revenge for this.”

“She may not forgive you for it.”

Ragnar knew that. He did. He knew that his troll wife was more sensitive than he was. But she had been by his side during the aftermath of what her own people had done. Surely she would understand that he had to hunt after that.

She had held his hand while he’d knit together flesh and bone. She’d heard the moans and the screams of the dying. Maia had been there while people had begged him to save them and he had known that he wouldn’t be able to. If she denied him this, then she was no troll wife after all.

Baring his teeth in a snarl, he glared at his brother. “Give me a knife, Gunnar.”

“Ragnar, I just don’t think?—”

“Your knife.”

Without another word, his brother reached for the knife that he had strapped to his chest and handed it over. It was a long handled blade, wicked and curved. The glint in the sunlight reminded him of his very first hunt with his father. They had just been boys then. Young and unknowing of what they were going to get into. Ragnar had been the first to kill a deer, and when his father had handed him a knife just like this and told him to gut the beautiful creature, he’d cried.

At first, Ragnar had been ashamed of his reaction. No real hunter would have tears dripping down his cheeks while he gutted the animal that would feed his family for weeks on end.

But his father’s words would remain with him for the rest of his life. “You honor the beast you killed by shedding tears for their loss. Tears show you know you have taken a life, and that is good. We do not kill without reason or meaning, my son.”

And now he knew his reason. He knew his meaning.

Gunnar sighed and reached for the back of his neck. They pressed their foreheads together, two brothers who knew, without question, that they were going to risk their lives yet again. “Kill quickly,” Gunnar said.

“Go for the gut,” Ragnar corrected him. “I want them to die slowly.”

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