Swords & Dark Magic: The New Sword and Sorcery

And, too, she watched the progress of those who’d managed to escape the fire. Most fled westward, across the mudflats, but some had filled the hulls of doggers and dories and ventured out into the bay. She’d seen one of the little boats lurch to starboard and capsize, and was surprised at how many of those it spilled into the icy cove reached the other shore. But of all these refugees, only two had headed south, into the hills, choosing the treacherous pass that led up towards the glacier and the basalt mountains that flanked it. The daughter of the sea troll watched their progress with an especial fascination. One of them appeared to be unconscious and was slung across the back of a mule, and the other, a woman with hair the color of the sun, held tight to the mule’s reins and urged it forward. With every new explosion, the animal bucked and brayed and struggled against her; once or twice, they almost went over the edge, all three of them. By the time they gained the wide ledge where Saehildr crouched, the sun was setting and nothing much remained of Invergó, nothing that hadn’t been touched by the devouring fire.

The sun-haired woman lashed the reins securely to a boulder, then sat down in the rubble. She was trembling, and it was clear she’d not had time to dress with an eye towards the cold breath of the mountains. There was a heavy belt cinched about her waist, and from it hung a sheathed dagger. The sea troll’s daughter noted the blade, then turned her attention to the mule and its burden. She could see now that the person slung over the animal’s back was also a woman, unconscious and partially covered with a moth-eaten bearskin. Her long black hair hung down almost to the muddy ground.

Invisible from her hiding place in the scree, Saehildr asked, “Is she dead, your companion?”

Without raising her head, the sun-haired woman replied, “Now, why would I have bothered to drag a dead woman all the way up here?”

“Perhaps she is dear to you,” the daughter of the sea troll replied. “It may be you did not wish to see her corpse go to ash with the others.”

“Well, she’s not a corpse,” the woman said. “Not yet, anyway.” And as if to corroborate the claim, the body draped across the mule farted loudly and then muttered a few unintelligible words.

“Your sister?” the daughter of the sea troll asked, and when the sun-haired woman told her no, Saehildr said, “She seems far too young to be your mother.”

“She’s not my mother. She’s…a friend. More than that, she’s a hero.”

The sea troll’s daughter licked at her lips, then glanced back to the inferno by the bay. “A hero,” she said, almost too softly to be heard.

“That’s the way it started,” the sun-haired woman said, her teeth chattering so badly she was having trouble speaking. “She came here from a kingdom beyond the mountains, and, single-handedly, she slew the fiend that haunted the bay. But—”

“Then the fire came,” Saehildr said, and, with that, she stood, revealing herself to the woman. “My father’s fire, the wrath of the Old Ones, unleashed by the blade there on your hip.”

The woman stared at the sea troll’s daughter, her eyes filling with wonder and fear and confusion, with panic. Her mouth opened, as though she meant to say something or to scream, but she uttered not a sound. Her hand drifted towards the dagger’s hilt.

“That, my lady, would be a very poor idea,” Saehildr said calmly. Taller by a head than even the tallest of tall men, she stood looking down at the shivering woman, and her skin glinted oddly in the half-light. “Why do you think I mean you harm?”

“You,” the woman stammered. “You’re the troll’s whelp. I have heard the tales. The old witch is your mother.”

Saehildr made an ugly, derisive noise that was partly a laugh. “Is that how they tell it these days, that Gunna is my mother?”

The sun-haired woman only nodded once and stared at the rocks.

“My mother is dead,” the troll’s daughter said, moving nearer, causing the mule to bray and tug at its reins. “And now, it seems, my father has joined her.”

“I cannot let you harm her,” the woman said, risking a quick sidewise glance at Saehildr. The daughter of the sea troll laughed again, and dipped her head, almost seeming to bow. The distant firelight reflected off the small, curved horns on either side of her head, hardly more than nubs and mostly hidden by her thick hair, and shone off the scales dappling her cheekbones and brow, as well.

“What you mean to say, is that you would have to try to prevent me from harming her.”

“Yes,” the sun-haired woman replied, and now she glanced nervously towards the mule and her unconscious companion.

“If, of course, I intended her harm.”

“Are you saying that you don’t?” the woman asked. “That you do not desire vengeance for your father’s death?”