AFTER PEER’S STICK came whistling down through the leaves, the lubbers dived into the undergrowth and began creeping stealthily uphill. At the edge of the wood they parted the last twigs with their clammy fingers, and stuck out their heads, peering with greedy eyes at Ralf ’s farm.
The door was shut. Loki was visible on the doorstep, lying with his nose on his paws, waiting for Peer to come home.
The lubbers blinked at him. “See?” muttered one. “It’s no use. There’s always a dog somewhere about. I hate dogs.”
“Patience,” said the other in a hollow whisper. “They’ll get careless. They’ve drove out their Nis already, right? Think of those thick, green blankets waiting for us – if we do the job!”
“Aaah…” The first lubber dragged the blackish threads of its old blanket around its sharp shoulders. “You’re right. We’ll wait.” It flung itself down like an abandoned scarecrow.
The other crouched, clawing at the leaf mould for beetles and small worms. After a while, there was a hooting and a pattering in the wood. Hidden in the bushes, the lubbers listened intently.
“Trolls,” mumbled the crouching lubber. “A whole bunch of trolls going down to the mill. Pah!” It spat out a mouthful of shiny black wing-cases and legs, and ran an exploratory finger around its teeth. “That’ll give that boy a shock. Him, and his dog, and his shovel!”
“Hark!” The other lubber tensed. “Here’s someone else. Coming this way. Someone big. Someone heavy!”
With slow thudding footfalls, a man as huge as a marching tree-trunk came up the path. He clutched a club. Shaggy black hair hung over his shoulders, and as he flung back his head, the lubbers saw the pale flash of tusks.
The first lubber sank back with a sigh of relief. “It’s only one of them man-trolls from the mill.”
“What d’you mean, ‘only’?” hissed the other. “Look at him! Big enough to tear us limb from limb.”
“But he’s not after us, is he?”
Over by the farmhouse door, Loki raised his head, suddenly alert. He sprang up, barking. The man broke into a run. With Loki snarling at his heels, he loped past the farmhouse and out of sight, heading for the sheep pastures. A chorus of terrified bleating rose into the air.
The woman who lived in the farmhouse ran out into the twilight, the old brindled sheepdog trotting after her. A couple of fair-haired children followed, a boy and a girl. “Loki? Peer?” cried the woman. “Hilde? I’m coming!” She turned to the children. “Get back inside. It’ll be trolls, after the sheep. The three of us can deal with it.”
“Let me come,” the boy pleaded.
“Do as I say,” said the woman fiercely, and, with the old sheepdog following at a shambling canter, she picked up her skirts and ran towards the pasture. Instead of obeying her, the children climbed on the gate, trying to see.
The farmhouse door stood open, unguarded. Nudging each other, the lubbers crawled out of the bushes and slipped like shadows into the house.
The fire was as bright as a bar of red-hot iron, and it hurt their eyes. A reek and fug of humans swirled about them: peat smoke and salt fish, dogs and leather and oil, broth and cheese and onions. They stood snuffling, blinking and gaping.
From a sort of box near the hearth came a sleepy wail. The lubbers’ mouths spread into wide slit-like grins, and they tiptoed nearer.
“Keep a look out,” whispered one. “I’ll grab the baby.”
“Oh no you don’t; I’ll grab the baby,” the other pushed in front.
“Let me!”
“Let me!”
There was a scuffle, and then, as the lubbers ended up with their heads over the cradle, an astounded silence.
“There’s two babies!”
“Which one does she want?”
“Don’t be more stupid than you can help,” growled the first lubber. “We’ll take ’em both! And if old Granny doesn’t want two, we’ll keep the extra one!” It plunged skinny hands into the cradle and picked up Eirik. The other lubber shouldered in greedily, snatching up Ran. “Here, that’s not fair – yours is bigger!”
For about a second, Eirik’s tousled head nodded sleepily on the first lubber’s bony shoulder. Then he woke. His eyes flew open. His body went rigid. Drawing a gigantic breath, he threw back his head and began to scream and scream.
“Shut him up!” The other lubber danced in terror. “Shut him up!”
The one carrying Eirik tried to get a hand over the little boy’s mouth. Eirik bit it and went on screaming.
“Run for it! Quick!”
They burst out of the farmhouse door. Eirik’s yells faded as his lungs emptied. Sucking in another enormous breath, he began again.
Balanced on the gate, Sigurd and Sigrid turned in time to see two grotesque figures dashing away from the house. One had some sort of bundle tucked under its scrawny elbow. On the shoulder of the other bounced the face of their baby brother, his eyes screwed shut, his mouth wide.
Adding their screams to his, the twins leaped from the gate and tore after him.
“MA!” shrieked Sigrid. “COME QUICKLY! THE TROLLS HAVE GOT EIRIK!”
“MA! PEER! HILDE!” Sigurd yelled. Ahead of them, the lubbers swerved into the wood and vanished into black shadows.
“Which way? Which way?” Sigrid sobbed.
Among the trees, it was hard to tell the direction of Eirik’s terrible screams, and they were getting fainter. Sigurd looked wildly this way and that.
“Uphill!” he cried. “They’ll be taking him back up Troll Fell. Quick!”
Scrabbling, panting, crying, the twins clawed their way up through the birch forest, clutching at branches, heaving themselves higher and higher.
“MA!” Sigurd’s voice cracked.
“It’s no good,” wept Sigrid. “She can’t hear. Oh, oh, we’ve got to find him!”
“Listen.” Sigurd jerked to a halt. “Is he still screaming?”
Over their thumping hearts and rasping breath, they thought they could still hear a distant cry. Then an owl swooped past with a long, shivering hoot.
“We’ve lost him!” Sigrid burst out. Sigurd punched the trunk of the nearest birch tree as hard as he could. He nursed his broken knuckles.
A lonely wind sighed through the boughs. Then there was a rustling, a pattering, a crackling, as if the undergrowth was on fire, as if all the creeping things in the wood were stirring and scurrying and hurrying up hill. Sigurd caught his sister’s hand.
“We haven’t lost him yet, twin. See, here come the trolls.”
Something bounded out of the bushes. It was too dark to see very well, but the twins thought it had a longish beak. Its arms seemed far too long for its body. It let out a deafening cry: “Huuuutututututututu!”
Sigrid hid her face. The crackling and pattering got closer. Then the leading troll bounded on, and after it in a long file came other shapes, eyes dimly gleaming green and red; snuffling and snorting, panting and wheezing, carrying baskets and bundles and sacks. But the gangling figures with the big heads, which had carried Eirik away from the farm, were nowhere to be seen.
“Where is he?” Sigrid choked. “What if he’s in one of those sacks?”
It was an unbearable thought. “We’ll follow,” Sigurd whispered. “Come on! We mustn’t lose them again.”
They fell in at the back of the odd procession. The trolls never looked round, but jogged on with their burdens. Sigrid and Sigurd struggled after them. They clambered beside steep little waterfalls, splashed ankle deep through boggy pockets of marsh. Suddenly they were out on the bare hillside. Troll Fell reared up ahead, featureless against the sky. A bright, thumb-nail moon was edging over the crest.
From far up the hill came the warbling cries of the trolls.
With bursting lungs, Sigurd and Sigrid ran, and trotted, and ran again, falling further and further behind. “Come on, Siggy,” gasped Sigurd.
“I’m – trying,” panted Sigrid. “But I’ve – got a – stitch.”
Sigurd dashed the hair out of his eyes. The column of trolls was out of sight, but there was one lone, lame straggler. “Come on, Siggy, we can keep up with that one!”
They puffed on. Presently Sigurd gave an exclamation. “I see where we are. That’s the crag where we bumped into the trolls before. And this is the stream that runs out from it.”
The twins dodged up the slope, taking cover in the black moon-shadow at the foot of each grey rock. The troll was in difficulties. It was a smallish furry creature, with a long stripy tail. The pale moonlight showed two little knobby horns on top of its head. Its ears were folded flat, and it was hissing and spitting to itself, as it worked to get its heavy sack up the rocks. First it tried pulling. Then it clambered awkwardly down – “Poor thing, it’s limping!” breathed Sigrid – and tried pushing the sack from below, head and shoulders almost buried. This was better. It got the weight balanced on a ledge, and scrambled up – just as the whole thing tumbled off.
Sigurd whispered, “It makes you want to go and help!”
With a sizzling noise exactly like water drops scalding in a hot frying pan, the troll jumped down again. It wrestled the sack up the cliff, clinging on somehow to invisible cracks and crannies. It reached the top, and its whisking tail disappeared over the edge.
“Quick! We mustn’t lose it.”
There were plenty of ledges and footholds: even in the shadow it was easy to climb. With grazed knees and knuckles the twins pulled themselves up.
The top of the scar was split, as though a giant axe had chopped through the rocks in a criss-cross pattern. In the moonlight, the clefts were very black. Small thorn trees grew out of them, their dry roots clinging to the stones.
The troll had vanished, but the twins could still hear muffled noises. They hunted about between the rocks. One of the clefts was particularly deep. They knelt side by side on the edge, peering in, and sounds of bumping, squeaking and snarling floated up to them.
“It went down there,” said Sigurd.
They looked at each other, ghostly in the moonlight. Sigurd squared his shoulders. “Go home, Siggy. Tell Ma and Peer what’s happened. I’ll go on.”
“No!” said Sigrid.
“But you’re frightened of trolls.”
“No I’m not. I was before we started chasing them, but now, I don’t know why, I’ve stopped.” She stuck out her bottom lip. “I’m not afraid of them any more. I want to find Eirik.”
Sigurd looked undecided. “I don’t know, Siggy. I think you should go back.”
“Well I won’t!” hissed Sigrid. “You can’t make me! And we’re wasting time!”
Sigurd shrugged. “All right then. Follow me.”
And he swung his legs into the hole.