Troll Shaman

Chapter One

Chapter 1: Cullen

Early Spring

The Sacred Truce Bridge stretched over the deep canyon of the Roaring River. Gabriel Cullen stood at its center, more than a hundred feet above the tumbling waters. His stomach fluttered as the structure creaked and groaned in the sharp spring wind.

A year ago, if someone had said he’d be working to reconcile humans with trolls, he would have laughed in their face—or punched them. Yet here he stood, staking his hope on a fragile peace—and on Gheen, the young troll shaman and Holy One of the Three Valleys clan. The bridge stood as a testament to the trust he had in his friend. It was a tangible link between two communities that had known nothing but war, but hoped for something more.

Not everyone welcomed the River Crossing Accord, not even his own daughter. His gaze lingered on the western end of the bridge. He half expected Isabo to storm across, her eyes blazing with the same fury she’d shown when she’d led the raid into the troll lands to rescue him. She’d been unaware that he had chosen to aid the trolls against a dark enemy. They called her the Troll Slayer now. Many on both sides had fallen in skirmish after skirmish, culminating in her final attack on the troll village high in the mountains.

Some, at least, were grateful for an end to the troll raids and shared his hope for lasting peace. A ramshackle trading settlement had sprung up at the western end of the bridge. Hastily erected shops, drinking rooms, and stock pens now stood along the edge of the canyon. The locals had already christened it Bridge Town.

On the eastern end, a similar group of buildings rose. Gammush Tor, the trolls called it—The Gateway. It was a name few humans bothered to learn. It came to be called Troll Town.

Cullen’s gaze flicked toward the troll settlement, where a young troll in polished leather armor lumbered onto the bridge. Like most of its kind, this hulking creature had pale, gray-green skin and thick tusks. It moved with nervous, halting steps, and its focus was intense, as though it were undertaking a critical task it was desperate to get right. Beside the troll walked a human. Cullen recognized the man and groaned. It was Aydin, the servant of the previous shaman of the Three Valleys clan. That shaman was now dead, and Cullen’s friend Gheen had assumed that position. Did Aydin and the troll carry a message from his friend?

The human walked with a bowed head, keeping a respectful two paces behind the troll.

As the pair neared the center of the bridge span, the troll turned its head to whisper a question to the servant. Aydin glanced at Cullen and murmured something he couldn’t catch over the wind and roaring waters of the river below.

The troll stopped and faced Cullen. It tugged its armor into place and cleared its throat in a low, rumbling growl. “Greetings to the pakh-hu Gabriel Cullen. I am Koraya, daughter of Khun, niece to the Holy One of the Three Valleys clan, who was once called Gheen, the son of Ama. The Holy One asks that Koraya be permitted to address Gabriel Cullen, son of…, son of…”

The creature—a female troll, apparently—hesitated to find the correct words. Cullen hadn’t met many troll women, or hadn’t recognized them when he had. He stared again at the young troll. Before, he’d have just seen a tusked, murdering beast, like all those who had plundered and killed his people for generations. Now he saw one of the trollim, and this one had the slight narrowing of the eyes and broad forehead that reminded him of his friend Gheen. She’d said she was his niece. He inhaled deeply through the biting wind and grinned. A tracker for most of his life, he possessed the scent-gift, the ability to detect trolls from a great distance. This one bore the distinct tang of the Three Valleys trolls he’d encountered before, with a subtle hint that marked her as a close relative of Gheen.

Koraya bowed awkwardly at Cullen’s silence, at a loss for how to regain her composure. The wind whipped thin, straggly hair into her eyes. She reached to brush it away, then jerked her hand back to her side, as if unsure whether she dared to do such a thing.

“My father’s name was Asher,” Cullen said helpfully, stifling a faint smile. He was tempted to give the creature a reassuring pat on the arm, as he would a child painfully repeating its lessons, but he didn’t want to embarrass the thing further. He’d never seen a troll nervous before a human.

“Urm, yes,” she said, shifting from side to side. “Koraya asks to be permitted to serve the Troll-hu zur Anush, Gabriel Cullen, son of Ashhher.” Her eyes widened as she spoke, as if the weight of her uncle’s trust both thrilled and terrified her.

She drew a thick black dagger from a sheath at her side, and Cullen stepped back quickly. She raised the blade over her head and ran a thumb across the blade. Blood welled, dark and glistening. The wind snatched it, scattering the droplets into the canyon. Switching the blade to her other hand, Koraya drew a circle in blood on her forehead. “As Holy One is bound to his ancestors, so Koraya is bound to Cullen…son of Ashhher.”

Cullen started. He knew just how tightly Gheen was bound to his shaman predecessors. Far under the distant mountains, he and the troll had completed an ancient blood ritual, giving the troll access to the memories and magic of his ancestors.

He was coming to see how important blood was to the creatures.

Koraya dropped to one knee with a resounding thunk against the planks of the bridge. “In token of peace between our people, Koraya will attend you and act as hostage.”

“Hostage?” Cullen asked, not sure if he’d heard correctly.

She nodded diffidently. “The Holy One and our clan are in your debt. Koraya’s blood is yours, to do with as you wish.”

He stared at the troll, kneeling with the blade still raised over her head.

Aydin cleared his throat and stepped forward. “I speak the words of the Holy One of the Three Valleys clan: ‘Gabriel Cullen is honored above all pakh-hu for his service to us. The Holy One asks that you accept Koraya-ush into your home and protection. She is my kin, but should the Three Valleys clan, the Gray Face, or any other troll clan party to the River Crossing Accord, violate the terms of the agreement, Koraya’s life is forfeit to you. Until that time, she is bound to you as a servant.’”

A servant? Such a thing was unheard of. Trolls took humans as slaves; they didn’t serve them.

Except sometimes in a stew.

Koraya’s fingers trembled as she wiped the blood from the dagger and sheathed it. Her eyes carried an odd mixture of nervous fear and firm resolve that Cullen couldn’t yet decipher.

The wind whistled sharply, and the bridge creaked. Cullen glanced at the cluster of troll buildings at the east end of the bridge, then back to the human settlement on the western end. Already, people and trolls gathered, curious about the impromptu ceremony in the middle of the bridge.

“Uh, look, Koraya, stand up. I don’t need a servant. Your—uncle?—said to take you into my home. I have no home here. I’m staying in a plain room at the Rook’s Roost in Pineholm. I’m only here to—” He paused, as momentarily lost for words as the troll. What was he doing here? Trying to enforce the peace?

“Aydin,” he said at last, “what’s your purpose in all this? Are you her escort? Are you Gheen’s messenger?”

The man cringed a little at that. “The Holy One no longer has need of a name. He is simply the Holy One. But, yes, I was told to bring Koraya-ush to you, and to bring back any message you may have for my master.”

Cullen managed a chuckle. “You’re free, you know. The Holy One and Grimmum agreed to free any humans who wished to go. Is Grimmun still the chief of the clan?”

“He is. I chose to stay with the trollim, like many others. It is what we know. I was born in Druzh and have served in the temple of the Holy One for most of my life.”

Aydin’s eyes softened as he spoke of the temple, a flicker of loyalty to an existence he’d chosen over freedom.

There had been a fateful day in the fall when Cullen had returned from the troll village in the mountains, accompanied by the shaman and the chief of the Three Valleys clan, and leading nearly a hundred humans the trolls had captured and enslaved over the years. Most had been welcomed back by friends and family, but some returned to the Uplands and the Dimwood to find their homes abandoned and their families long gone. Trolls had raided for generations, and some of the humans had been born in the high mountain valleys of the trolls and knew no other life. It wasn’t surprising, then, that Aydin and others returned across the canyon and journeyed back to the troll village of Druzh, to the only homes they still knew.

The trollim, for their part, welcomed their return. After all, humans tilled their fields and did all the tasks that trolls could not, or would not, do themselves.

“So are you going back now?” he asked Aydin.

The servant of the Holy One nodded and bowed his head. “I am, but he also bids me to say that he is sending an expedition to the abandoned city of Dhugash under the mountain, and would be grateful for your aid once again. He also sends greetings from Smiga Longtooth, Holy One and Chief of the Gray Face.”

The news that Gheen wanted to return to the ancient city took him by surprise, but it shouldn’t have. He and Gheen had stumbled upon the place deep under the Guardians, the high twin peaks of the Blue Mountains. They had gone to find lost trolls possessed by a demonic creature called Azuk. They hadn’t found the trolls, but they defeated Azuk and found the magnificent, empty city.

As for Longtooth, he didn’t really have an opinion. He’d met the ancient crone of a troll twice, once in Druzh and once here, at the signing of the treaty. If anything, she’d been older than Gheen’s predecessor as shaman, and that was saying something.

He peered over Aydin’s shoulder at Gammush Tor—Troll Town—and then back at Bridge Town. A pair of trolls with a large basket peered at goods in a market stall. A human child stood behind them, looking up with eyes wide in wonder. As Cullen watched, the child’s mother, her face a mask of terror, hurriedly snatched it away to safety. The trolls hadn’t noticed. His chest tightened. Isabo’s voice echoed in his mind, calling this peace a betrayal. Was she, like this young mother, right to fear them still?

“He wants to go back to Dhugash?” he asked after a moment. “When does he want to go? Gheen knows I’m needed here, unless he thinks that city holds answers that will help us keep this peace.”

“At the next new moon,” the man said, stepping forward. “In three weeks.”

“I’m not sure I can do that, Aydin,” he said at last. “Things are…fragile here. We’re building trust, but it might take a long time.”

Koraya gave a wistful smile and a low rumbling noise that reminded Cullen of her uncle. She cleared her throat. “The trollim say ‘Gornok won’t bake forever—snatch it before the oven turns it to ash.’”

Cullen gave her a blank look. “Uh, what does that mean?”

She returned the quizzical glance as if not sure what he didn’t understand. “Poem means that a troll can wait too long for a thing that is good.”

“A poem? That’s troll poetry, is it?”

She nodded eagerly. “Is part of ‘Sayings of Khurum the Wise’ that trollim teach to their young.”

“I need a drink, then,” he said with a half smile. “Let’s go to the New Day. They can give us a late lunch. Aydin, join us. I need to think of a message for your Holy One.”

Though the troll towered over Cullen, she shuffled nervously. “Koraya will do as Cullen bids. Must I drink in the pakh-hu, urm, hooman settlement?” She glanced hopefully back over her shoulder at Troll Town.

“If Gheen sent you to me, then he wants you to see how we live. Let’s go.”

***

Cullen gave a bemused smile as he stepped off the bridge and into the burgeoning town. Until six months ago, this had been the windswept edge of the prairie that ended abruptly at the narrow canyon. Now it was home to a score of hastily erected shops, drinking rooms, and stock pens. A handful of the wooden structures wore fresh whitewash, with neat plank shelves standing outside displaying the available wares. Others had been slapped together with a mixture of reused boards and barely trimmed greenwood. A very few boasted neatly lettered signs; most either had no signs or poorly drawn pictures of items for sale.

The structures stood on either side of a narrow street. Those on the east clung to the canyon’s edge. Cullen watched as a shopkeeper tossed a bucket of slush from a back window into the chasm below.

He waved at the buildings. “All this has been built in the last six months.”

The troll nodded thoughtfully. “Koraya saw it grow.”

“You’ve seen it? You’ve been here before?”

She nodded. “I watched as Gabriel Cullen led the pakh-hu over bridge. Dorukh, who lives in Gammush Tor across the bridge, is kin to my mother. Koraya visited him many times.”

“So you came to Bridge Town?”

“No,” she said, stepping to avoid a pile of offal in the street. “Our chief did not give permission for all trollim to cross the bridge. Only some can come and trade.”

That was vaguely troubling. He had thought that trolls could come and go at will. “Doesn’t your Holy One set the rules? He was the one who agreed to free the humans your clan held.”

Koraya glanced at Aydin, who looked away. “Grimmun is chief,” she said, “but he cannot rule against the Holy One. That would be unwise. Holy One holds great power.”

“I’ve seen it in action,” Cullen said with a faint shudder. The memory of the previous shaman blasting Grimmun’s father with a bolt of energy was not easily forgotten. Nor was the resulting acrid scent of sizzling troll flesh.

“There is a distinction between the roles of Holy One and chief,” Aydin said after a pause. “Once the Holy One makes a decision, Grimmun is bound to abide by it. In most things, though, the Holy One is content to let the chief see to the running of the clan.”

That would bear watching. It wouldn’t bode well if Grimmun were making rules that went against Gheen’s direction.

Cullen turned to the right, following the buildings northward. A pair of trolls carrying heavily laden baskets nodded in greeting as they saw Koraya walking with Cullen.

He looked up to the young troll. “Like I said, I don’t need a servant, but what I do need is—”

A wail tore through Bridge Town. Tomas Figg, Pineholm’s butcher, staggered around a corner, his face pale. “Master Cullen! It’s Isabo—she’s killed two trolls!”