The night was filled with a calm stillness, despite how deep into the wilderness they had travelled. The nocturnal clamour of a typical countryside was replaced with a deadly, harrowing silence. Only those that feasted on meat lived in the Glenn, and they made little noise in nightfall.
But there was one sound. A single, smooth trickle of water, echoing all around despite there being no river in sight.
“Do you hear that?” said Farris, raising a hand to alert the others.
“Caves,” whispered Sir Bearach. “The stone in this region is weak, and rivers have burrowed deep beneath the mountains, forging their own routes under the ground. These river-caves run all over the Clifflands”—he threw a smile towards Sláine— “and we seem to be standing over one.”
The two Humans seemed to share a moment of mutual understanding, but Farris was still as lost as they had been all night.
Then Sláine the White spoke. “Everyone stand back. I’m going to try and open up a way down.”
She walked in a circle along the path, her arms held out to either side. She’s a Geomancer too, Farris realised. Sláine continued to walk slowly about the clearing, as if following a track long lost. Eventually she stopped, waving her arms to catch the attention of the group.
“The ground is weak here!” she called. She crouched and pressed her hands against the stone.
The rocks rumbled softly below Farris’s feet. Sláine stood and raised both arms over her head, and the tremor suddenly amplified in magnitude, as if the mountain itself was shaking. She stepped back, and the floor fell away, revealing a huge, gaping hole. The crashing of the rocks resounded all around. A tiny, rising anxiety fluttered in Farris’s stomach.
The healer stood at the other side of the pit, smiling and beckoning the others to follow, but he saw something shift amongst the rocks behind her.
Sir Bearach laughed with delight as he stepped forwards, but the joy drained from his face as his eyes were drawn to the slow, lumbering movement. He let out a roar before Farris saw that those rocks were not rocks, but the limbs of a massive, grey mountain troll.
“Down!” the knight yelled and threw himself into the pit. The others followed, as did Sláine, without turning to see the brute. The troll glared down at Farris with huge, bulging, bloodshot eyes, peering out behind a shapeless, bulbous nose. It stood thirty feet tall, on two thick legs like stone columns.
Panic washed over his body as the troll beat its chest with fists like boulders, knuckles scratched and scarred.
As soon as his wits returned, Farris darted towards the edge of the pit and jumped down after his companions.
He landed with a splash in a shallow stream. Moonlight from above poured down onto the water, glimmering like liquid steel below his feet. The others were already running deeper into the caves, led by a flame in Fionn’s hands.
Farris followed, praying that the beast would not follow them into the pit. However, a sudden loud thud from behind reaffirmed Farris’s old convictions that Gods did not exist. He scampered off into the tunnel, following Fionn’s glimmering magelight in the distance.
This is your territory now, Garth. If only he had paid more attention to his little brother’s sketches. If only he had listened to his lectures about the caverns of the Glenn.
If only I listened when he told me to stay away from the thrice-damned Silverback and his rebellion.
The cave floor shook as the troll followed behind them, its steps slow and lumbering. The others ahead stopped, and when Farris caught up, he knew that they were doomed, caught between death and a dead end.
“We’re trapped!” cried the mechanic. He rubbed the damp walls with his hands, as if feeling for a way out.
Sir Bearach drew his sword. “Then we’ll fight. If I am to die, I’ll be armed and fighting.”
“Wait!” commanded Sláine. She pressed her hand against the wall. “I can forge a way through. Stand back!”
The stone was already crumbling before they stepped away. Farris heard a deep snort, and he glanced back to see the mountain troll plodding towards them, its hungry eyes leering through the dark.
A fresh sea breeze washed over Farris’s back as the wall fell away.
When he turned and saw the rolling green hills of the Clifflands spreading out into the distance, the weight of the last few day’s trials seemed to lift free from his shoulders. He wasn’t going to die in the depths of the Glenn. He wasn’t going to fail in his mission to warn the Simian people of the king’s plans. Farris Silvertongue—known to many as Farris the Turncloak, to others as Farris the Swift, and to some as Chester the Lucky—was going to live.
“Run!” cried Sláine, beckoning the others out into the freedom of the fields.
“Don’t stop!” roared Sir Bearach as he went, the earth shaking with each thundering step of the troll. “It’ll be morning soon! We just need to keep going until the sunrise!”
Of course. The morning mist was forming along the ground. The earth was different now. The rocky terrain of the Glenn had been replaced with the sandy, tilled soil of the Clifflands. Stout, stone walls surrounded the fields. From the even troughs running beneath his feet, Farris realised they were on a farm.
Terror began to rise in his chest. In the distance, he saw the blurred silhouette of wattle-and-daub buildings. A town. We’ve brought a damned mountain troll to a village.
It seemed as if Sir Bearach had noticed too.
“This way!” he yelled, drawing his claymore and pointing it out with his right hand. “We’ll steer it away until the sunlight!”
As they began to veer away from the village, Farris glanced back to see that the troll was quickly gaining ground. Fortunately, the direction Sir Bearach had chosen was westward, away from the buildings and towards the slow-rising sun.
“It’s getting closer!” roared Fionn, as they approached one of the stone walls. “We’re running out of time!”
Farris vaulted over the wall. We’re lucky it’s still early, otherwise these fields would be full of—
It was at this single thought—not the death of the crewmen aboard the ship, not the ferocity of the beadhbhs of the Glenn, not the monstrosity of the mountain troll—but this idle musing that brought more terror to Farris’s bones than anything he had witnessed since leaving Cruachan.
He saw the cart first, bound to an old draft horse that barely looked fit enough to walk. Before the cart stood three peasants—a man, a woman, and a young girl—quietly tending to their crops.
“Troll!” he yelled, hoping it would at least alert them to the hulking death that was following. “Run fo—”
His ribs cracked, snapping like twigs in a child’s fist. Before he realised that the troll had struck him, Farris lay on the ground, face down with a mouthful of dirt. Using the last of his remaining strength, he forced himself to look up.
The troll stood in the middle of the field, both arms raised in the air with the bearded mechanic held in one beefy fist. Sir Bearach and Fionn stood to fight, the latter with fire burning in both hands. Sláine helped the woman and girl climb into the cart; the man frantically tried to mount the horse.
The troll roared and threw the limp, lifeless body of the mechanic towards the head of the cart. It landed in an explosion of splinters. The horse reeled on its hind legs, whinnying violently in response. The farmhand, knocked from its back, fell to the ground with his foot caught in a stirrup. As soon as all four hoofs hit the ground again, the horse bolted off into the morning mist, dragging the screaming man behind it.
