16

Into the Sun

Small yelled as Bog sailed through the air.

Hannie wailed.

His mother’s eyes widened. She pushed Hannie to the side.

Bog thudded into his mother, knocking her to the ground, cheek to stinking cheek.

He squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for his heart, his blood, his flesh and bone to turn to solid rock.

This was it. He’d join Jeddal as stone.

“No!” Hannie screamed.

Could stone hear?

He took a breath. The air was warm in his lungs. His mother’s stench was worse up close.

He opened his eyes to blinding brilliance, like a thousand piercing pine needles. He squinted, eyes watering. He couldn’t see, but he could feel his mother squirming under him.

How was he still flesh and blood? Sunbeams beat down on his back, legs, arms, head.

His mother pushed him off. Veins throbbed at her temples.

He scrambled away from her and rose to his feet.

From the shadows, Small gaped.

Hannie raced to Bog and clamped on. “You’re okay! Oh, I thought…” Then, for once, Hannie was speechless. She buried her face in his grey chest fur and sobbed.

“What are you?” his mother asked.

But Bog couldn’t tear his eyes away from Small’s face. Tawny fur framed the dropped-open circle of his mouth. His eyebrows were wooly mountains high on his forehead.

Small shook his head and backed up several paces.

Bog’s cheeks burned.

The sun warmed his fur, his hide.

His diluted blood forced him to live.

He was a hopeless failure of a troll.

“Impossible,” his mother was saying. “No troll can resist the sun. Tell me how you did it.”

Bog ignored her. “I’m sorry, Small.” How could he explain, after keeping the secret for so long? He tucked his tail between his legs. His eyes filled with tears.

Hannie wormed her fingers into his fur as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders.

Small’s mouth closed into a tight line. His nose grew rigid.

“I tried to…” Bog began again, struggling to find a way to help Small understand. Then he blurted, “She’s my mother.” He pointed at her. “I’m half human. I…I couldn’t tell you.” He hid his face in Hannie’s forest-scented hair, unable to watch Small’s reaction. “Forgive me.”

A heavy silence fell over the clearing.

Bog squeezed Hannie.

“What?” She squirmed free of his arms. “You’re what?”

“It can’t be.” He heard the disbelief in his mother’s voice. “He said you were dead.”

He turned to his mother, who was circling behind him, as if trying to see him from all angles.

“Patrick?” she whispered.

That name. He’d heard it before. The memory came like a slap to the face—his mother sing-songing his name as she rocked him to sleep in her arms. How could his memories of her be sweet?

“No,” he roared. “I’m Bog.”

“I can’t believe it. You’re alive?” She smiled briefly before her skin flushed. “He said that some rogue forest trolls killed you while I was in town. That liar! That monster!” Her neck muscles corded, eyes slit, lips curled back. “This isn’t over,” she hissed. “I’ll trap him. And when I do—”

“No.” Bog snarled. Not Jeddal. This had to stop.

“He stole you from me. All those years—lost.” With her mouth twisted and her eyes shooting fire, she was the monster, not Jeddal.

“You’ve hurt enough trolls!”

“Don’t you see? He kept us apart! He did this to us!” His mother’s smile was cruel. “Now, give me the Nose Stone.”

“I told you, I don’t have it.” Bog crouched, ready to jump at her. Then he sensed movement behind him. Was Small about to attack him? After all, Bog was a liar.

He spun around. A shadow flitted over him. Small was soaring flat out, turning to stone already, his tail a flag of courage. Before Bog could try to stop him, Small fell onto his mother, using Bog’s own strategy better than he ever could.

They slammed into the ground. A crash shook the forest floor, silencing the morning songbirds. Bog’s mother lay on her back, her legs pinned under solid stone, her feet jerking.

“Small!” Hannie yelped. She crumpled against his side, at his mother’s feet.

Bog couldn’t speak.

His head screamed.

Small lay slantwise across his mother’s stomach and legs, staring blindly at the rocky ground. His arms were by his sides; he hadn’t even tried to cushion his fall. Above him, his tail was a stony plume, fur quivering as if it might crumble into dust at any moment.

“Get…it…off,” his mother moaned. She rose on one elbow and struggled to pull free of Small’s bulk. When she couldn’t budge, she collapsed backward.

“Oh, Small!” Bog bent down and stroked the rocky tufts of fur on the back of Small’s head. If only his mother hadn’t confronted them. If only she hadn’t come after Hannie and the Nose Stone.

His mother lifted her head to peer at him over Small’s shoulder. “Patrick. Help me,” she pleaded.

“Don’t talk to me.” Bog growled.

“But I’m your mother!”

“Don’t call for help. Don’t move. If you try to break off one piece of him, you’ll regret it.” Bog steeled himself against her. Small knew he was half human, and he still honoured his gnark. Bog had to keep him safe until the moon rose.

The sun was a burning disk against a piercing blue sky. Hannie was still weeping. Bog watched his mother’s eyes fill with pain and then close. Her hands went limp.

Bog circled Small to stand next to his mother’s head. Then he crouched down, watching her chest swell with each breath.

He should silence her for good.

Destroy the Troll Hunter, just like he set out to do so many moons ago.

But he turned away, shaking.

He might be a fool, but he wasn’t a monster. Not like her.

He crossed into the shade. He collected his rucksack from the leafy mulch where he’d dropped it. He felt for the Nose Stone, safely wrapped in cloth. Then he headed back into the clearing. He couldn’t help flinching when the sun’s rays hit him again.

Bog dug a length of cedar-bark twine from his rucksack and bound his mother’s wrists together, hating the feel of her furless hide. Then he pulled Hannie off Small, and retreated a few paces.

“We can help him.” He stroked her hair. “We’ll guard him all day.” Endure the company of his mother. “When the moon rises, we’ll revive him with the Nose Stone.”

“Small would like that.” Hannie whimpered, her tears steady.

Bog nodded, holding her close, her slight weight like nothing in his arms. As the sun brightened, he calculated when the moon would rise. He sat back on his haunches, watching the undergrowth for any sign of humans and keeping an eye on his mother.