XV
Thalo came to Alvennawl around mid-morning. As he approached the house, a stout, scruffy man emerged from a bush. This was Yonnago. He asked Thalo who he was and why he had come there. Thalo gave him his name and said he was looking for a place to stay.
‘For how long?’ said Yonnago.
‘For however long you will have me, be it a night or a lifetime.’
‘Can you work?’
‘I can.’
After a moment of thought, Yonnago said, ‘Very well then, Thalo man. A night or a lifetime.’
Yonnago named himself and welcomed Thalo into his house. After putting Ondayo up in the barn, he invited Thalo inside and gave him a small meal—Thalo had said he had not eaten that day, even though he had. Besides the two of them, the house was empty.
As Thalo ate, Yonnago said, ‘Tell me who it is I have let into my house.’
‘Thalo,’ said Thalo. ‘I have already said this.’
‘Here, I am no moistly-minded man. Who is Thalo? I would rather know my housemates better than not at all.’
‘Thalo is me. What more need you know?’
‘Why have you come here? And from where? Every man on my bench has a tale to tell—tell me yours.’
Thalo did not mean to say anything of his past, but Yonnago wore much too kindly a smile to deny. He told him of his youth at Klagenn, and then of Asfoa’s death and his departure, but he said nothing of murder.
‘I have since been wayward,’ he said, ‘and the way brought me here.’
‘That must have been a rough road to walk,’ said Yonnago.
‘The days go by well enough, but the nights linger. Sleep is a dear friend, but a distant one. Even so, my joys have thus far outnumbered my sorrows.’
Yonnago said, ‘If it is any comfort, I never knew my father either, and while I do recall my mother, it is only fleetingly. It was the day she dumped me on a farmer’s doorstep and never came back. Maybe it was a desperate kindness, or maybe her intentions were rather crueller—I never knew why. In any case, the householder took me in, but that place was never my home. I was not welcome there, nothing more than another pair of hands, until times grew hard, and I was but another mouth to feed. They chucked me out soon enough, and with barely the clothes on my back.’
‘Where did you go?’
‘Here and there. Much as you have. I ended up living on another farm called Begoroslad. It must be a way south-west of here. Things were better there, until I got dragged into the fighting up north.’
‘You fought?’ Yonnago did not look like a fighter.
‘Poorly. I was there to make up the numbers, more than anything.’ Though Yonnago had kept Kyale at his side for much of his time in the north, that was small comfort next to the toils of war, the fear and the pain and the grief. ‘But enough of that. What I mean to say, Thalo, is that you sit in good company. I too have wept tears of joy and sorrow alike, as have all the men of Alvennawl. Do not overlook it.’
Thalo thanked Yonnago for the meal, and he was put to work the same day.
That evening, Thalo sat down for dinner with Yonnago’s household. Much interest swelled about him, a stranger at their table, the farmboys all gathering round to know better their new companion. At their request, he told them about his travels, but again, he mentioned none of his murders.
All this attention quite disgruntled a man at the end of the room named Omvedho. A former pirate, he was counted among Yonnago’s oldest friends, having dwelt at Alvennawl since the farm was founded.
‘A stranger and a vagrant,’ said Omvedho, rising from his seat. ‘How can we trust your words, Thalo man? How can we be sure you bear no ill intent? What brings you to our house?’
‘Let me tell you,’ said Thalo, rising in turn. ‘An elf.’
A sceptical quiet fell upon the room.
‘An elf?’ said Yonnago.
‘An elf. I met him once while I was still at Klagenn, but fate decreed our paths would cross once more. I met him again in the west and followed him here. He makes for an odd fellow, but let me tell you, gentlemen, he is certainly well bred.’
Omvedho silenced the farmboys’ murmuring with a scoff and took a seat.
‘Nonsense,’ he said. ‘That was no elf. No, what you have, I would wager, is some swishy stake-stalker leading you on under the guise of fatefulness—assuming you followed anyone here at all, besides your own conniving.’
‘If it were so, he would have been long gone before I came here—he has had his fill and then some.’
The farmboys all raised their voices once more, praising Thalo’s manhood, or else jeering at Omvedho.
‘No,’ said Thalo, ‘this was indeed an elf. He turned into a fox. Find me some swishy stake-stalker who can do that, and I will swallow him whole. And he keeps queer company, too, as an elf would. I slew a troll for him.’
Omvedho said, ‘A troll, do you say?’
‘Do you not believe me, Omvedho man?’
‘Not at all.’
‘So be it.’ Thalo reached below his bench for his bag, and standing proud, he unveiled Klovo’s head and said, ‘Do you now?’
To see so gruesome a sight, the severed head of trollsome Klovo above their dinner table, his death-set countenance staring out at them, devoid of life and love alike, the farmboys’ tongues each failed them.
But not so Omvedho’s. He shook his head, his eyes heavy with foreboding, and in a grim voice he said, ‘Queer folk, queer deeds, queer words. They are never ruled by chance. This is an ill omen. Misfortune awaits us. Yonnago, my friend, oust this man at once, for the good of us all.’
This put Yonnago in quite the quandary. Though he understood Omvedho’s concern, he had also taken a quick liking to Thalo, for he too had once been a man of meagre means, in want of a hearth and a home.
‘No,’ said Yonnago. ‘I am not in the habit of turning a man out before he deserves it. I trust your counsel, Omvedho, but I think you are being overly cautious. Thalo, put that thing away and sit down.’
Thalo sat down and bagged the head, and Omvedho set his objections aside, though he did not forget them.
Thalo spent the next two days at Alvennawl, and no misfortune visited. He and Yonnago spoke a great deal during this time. Yonnago told him about his life with Kyale, how they had met in Norlonn, and how they grew closer amid the violence.
‘We found ourselves in a bad spot, you see,’ said Yonnago, sat in the sunset. ‘We were with his uncle. He wanted to end things quick and properlike, but that was not to be. I remember it ever so clearly, seeing Rogwalo charging headlong to certain death, sword drawn and bellowing. They got the better of us after that. I tripped as I ran, and I would have been done for, but then I saw Kyale’s shield. His shield! There I was, groping in the mud, and it was as if the sun itself had come down to defend me. He saved my life. It was a wonderful thing, Thalo, to owe so much to someone who expected nothing in return.’
Yonnago’s memories moved Thalo to consider his own, and most of all his days with Gaydeno, now long lost to him. Had he known him a while longer, he thought, had they each been older, he might have found such a friend in him. He would never know.
Yonnago had worked himself into a very reminiscent mood. ‘But he was important, you know? He was a son of Pearmol, a son of important people, and descended from importanter people. He could stand up and count his ancestors back to gods—they trained it into him. I could lose both hands and count mine. That was no good. I might as well have been a half a rotten log in that house. His love was wasted on me, they said, the dirty ragged wretch, yet he gave it anyway, and I returned it. We soon got ourselves out of important matters. We had little to show for his stock, but we had each other. That was enough.’
Then Yonnago started crying, but he stifled himself.
‘Your husband was a man of status,’ said Thalo, ‘but he laid that aside for you. That is the sort of man I try to be. To know what I want, and to seek it.’
‘And what do you want? Not to spend the rest of your life sat on my farm?’
‘No. There is little fame in farmwork.’
Yonnago nodded. He knew all too well the sort to seek fame. They were the folk who found spears in their chests, the folk buried with gold and glory, but nary a grey hair on their heads. They were the folk he and his war-friends dumped into hastily dug graves, unable to bring them all home. Rarely did they listen to reason.
‘Dead men all sing the same song,’ he said.
Then he went inside, and Thalo went in a little while later.
That night, the month’s full moon took flight, and as the men of Alvennawl put their heads to their pillows, none of them knew what horror stalked beneath its gaze. Its first herald sounded below Thalo’s bench. As he slept, an undeathly energy gripped Klovo’s bag-bundled head, shaking in the shadows. So violent were its convulsions, so frenetic its tremoring, that it woke Thalo at once. He stumbled bleary from his bench to see what was afoot, and, befuddled, found beneath it the trembling bag.
Upon unveiling the head, Thalo’s confoundment gave way to concern, and a great panic arose in his heart. He had stood firm against Klovo in life, but to see his dead head so full of lifely vigour, to see it writhing pale in the darkness, he was moved to a terror unlike any he had known before. He fell backwards onto his bottom, and there he beheld his foe transfixed.
Between the energised head and Thalo’s hapless stumbling, the whole household was soon awake, all eager to know what the ruckus was about. Forth came Yonnago, and he saw in the candlelight Thalo sat upon the floor, Klovo’s head contorting before him.
Omvedho came to his side, and he said, ‘What wicked witchcraft is this? Fie! What doom have you spelt for us, Thalo man?’
But before Thalo could answer, before anyone thought to lay a hand on the head, the door of the house began rattling, creaking in its frame, wood wailing, hinges hurting, bolts breaking. All eyes turned upon the door until, with one thunderous crash, the whole thing was torn away. Every candle went out, and Klovo’s head fell still. The household stood stiff in the silence, awaiting their fell visitor with an unyielding apprehension, and then, lit only by the mighty moon above, into the room stepped a man, a gangly creature, tall and thin, with long, spindly fingers, knuckles jutting from fleshless hands, pallid and spectral in the moonlight. That was Fowdho, the last of his kind.
Fowdho saw Klovo’s head lying in the middle of the room, and in a low, croaky voice, he said, ‘My brother.’
The head was thereupon possessed by a new vigour, a terrible light shining forth from its eyes, illuminating the room in a pale death-glow. With a piercing, guttural howl, Fowdho took one step forwards and struck the man closest to the door, Salveno, knocking him to the ground. At once, all the men of Alvennawl were released from their awe, save one. As they found their mettle anew, took up whatever weapons they could, and charged the troll, as Fowdho pried his eyes from his brother’s and turned to flee shrieking into the night, as a handful of men ran boldly behind him, Thalo remained still, his heart yet anchored by dread. Yonnago offered him a helping hand, but his legs would not be stirred. It was not until the light of Klovo’s eyes had faded, until Fowdho was run far off into the darkness, melted once more into the shadows he long had known, that Thalo could rise again.
But that would not be the last of the night’s trials. As Thalo knelt to bag Klovo’s head once more, Omvedho strode up to him and pushed him over.
‘Now do you see?’ he said. ‘He consorts with unnatural folk, and see what terror it has brought us! We must be rid of him at once, lest that beastly man return and lay into us with hexes and curses.’
Then he bade the farmboys seize Thalo and drag him outside. Dispirited as he was, Thalo was of no mind to resist them—his every thought was of keeping his hard-won head in hand—but Yonnago stayed his friends.
‘Omvedho,’ he said, ‘I do the bidding here. I suspect we are all rather tired and witless. Let us see the night through, and if no further fearfulness should beset us, we will settle this matter in the morning as men of even minds.’
So Yonnago put everyone back to bed. Thalo put his head-bag beneath his bench and tried to sleep, but nothing came of his efforts. Indeed, no one slept much more that night.
In the morning, the household came together to reflect on the previous night’s events, and to determine Thalo’s fate. Omvedho was the first to speak.
‘My friends,’ he said, ‘I need not say much, for we have each borne witness to all the proof we need.’ He pointed at Thalo. ‘This man is a danger to every one of us. I warned you all, but was I heeded? Not so! I bid you heed me now. We must cleanse our house of this man and the wretched company he keeps, before calamity calls once more.’
Second to speak was Salveno, a terrible troll-dealt bruise across his face. He said, ‘I got a good look at the ghoul, close as I was. He seemed to have eyes only for that head of yours, Thalo man. As long as it remains here, I fear, we will never know peace again. If the man himself will not go, that at least must.’
Third to speak was Thalo, in defence of his place at Alvennawl. Though he had slept little in the night, he had taken enough rest for all the troll-terror to wane, and he spoke as spunkily as ever. ‘I hear your concerns, gentlemen, so let me allay them. I am going nowhere. This is where I must be, so here I will remain. Nor will I relinquish my prize unless it is pried from my death-frigid fingers. If that displeases you, I see no reason why you cannot leave this place instead.’
‘I do,’ said Yonnago. ‘I cannot work a farm with no farmhands.’
‘And my concerns stand utterly unallayed,’ said Omvedho. ‘We have told you our demands, and you have flatly refused them. If you do not comply, we will turn to whatever force is necessary.’
‘No force will be necessary, for I will not be leaving. As for your concerns, this I swear: if the troll returns, I will kill it. What tumult can a dead man make? Not one of you need fear him, for I am Thalo Thennelo.’
Omvedho spat at Thalo’s feet. ‘We have seen for ourselves what tumult a dead man makes. We have seen for ourselves your staunch resolve. You alone sat idly by as this troll attacked. Thalo Thennelo? You flaunt a foul past with foul folk. It should be clear to all that you are their agent, driven by fell forces to bring us ruin and despair.’
Yonnago said, ‘Is that true, Thalo?’
‘A fruitless question. He will deny it either way.’
‘Either way, I want an answer.’
Thalo said, ‘It is true enough that I am working with my elf, but my task is neither ruin nor despair. My single task is to slay this troll.’
‘So,’ said Omvedho, ‘you knew he would come?’
‘I was not expecting him.’
The room fell silent. No one was sure what to make of all this, so Yonnago strode up to Thalo, put his hands upon his shoulders, and peered into his eyes, searching for whatever hint of intention he might find. After a moment, he stepped away and said, ‘I believe him. There is no malevolence in this man, or none that I can find. Only folly.’
‘Malevolence or folly,’ said Salveno, his bruise turned towards Yonnago, ‘what difference does it make? His presence here is a danger either way.’
‘I will tell you what difference it makes: a fool may right his wrongs.’
‘Yonnago,’ said Omvedho. ‘Perhaps you are older than you claim. Take a moment to fully consider this.’
‘I have. This is my house. I choose who stays, and Thalo stays. That said, I will not be meeting this troll again. So long as you keep that gruesome head of yours, Thalo, you will not be sleeping here. You will be rid of it, or you will sleep alone in the smithy. If the troll returns, it is yours alone to defend, as is your life, as is your oath. If the troll returns, you will kill it.’
Then Yonnago sat down, and thus the council of Alvennawl was concluded. Thalo moved his things into the smithy shortly after breakfast, too stubborn to be parted from Klovo’s head. In the evening, after a rather fraught dinner in the house, he retired to the smithy and went to bed. But though he lay there with much anticipation, no howl sundered the quiet of the night, no grim light shone from Klovo’s eyes, and no troll came to tear down the door. The night passed without incident. The next night unfolded likewise.
Then, on the third evening since Fowdho’s visit, Yonnago came to the smithy as Thalo was preparing to sleep.
‘Say,’ he said, ‘just how long do you intend to sleep out here? You need only be rid of the head, and a sound night’s sleep awaits. If I may be crude, I think it would do you good.’
‘Perhaps it would,’ said Thalo, ‘but I must decline. That head is my trophy, and I will keep it.’
‘But why? A right nasty thing it is, and if it was indeed the troll’s cause for coming, there is every chance he intends to come back for it. Are you willing to take such a risk? Is that what you want?’
‘What I want is of no matter. I need him to come back.’ Thalo paused for a moment, pondering his words, his thoughts resting on the sheer terror Fowdho had struck in his heart the night prior. ‘I could only sit by while everyone else rushed to fight. I will kill him for that. I will cut his head from his shoulders and prove my valour once more. I must. If I can lure him here, away from you in the house, that would be the safest way to go about it.’
‘If even half your tales are true, you have proven quite enough already. You need not prove anything more.’
‘I have more self-respect than to let this shame stand.’
A smile slowly rose on Yonnago’s face, but it was a sad smile. ‘You remind me of the lads from Pearmol. When we were all up north, they seemed to only speak of honour, or dignity, or pride, or whichever such virtue you like. They yammered on about it all until their dying days—and I should know because I buried the poor sods. I have met a lot of boys who lived only for glory, Thalo, and every one of them died for it.’
‘Then they died for a worthy cause. I hope to do the same.’
‘You might yet.’
‘Do you mean to dissuade me?’
‘No. I know better than to force a matter. But you are still a young man. If nothing else, you can at least be careful.’
Then Yonnago left the smithy, and Thalo went to bed, though he could not lull himself to sleep.
That night, duplicitous fate yielded up a battle keenly awaited. Thalo still lay awake when Klovo’s head was invigorated once more. He leapt up from his sleeping spot, unbagged the head, and found it trembling just as it had three nights prior. And again, he knelt before it, unable to shift his gaze, so enchanted by that troll-doled trance. Fowdho had returned.
The smithy door soon began rattling in its frame, and Thalo was afflicted by a fresh fear, his knees stuck fast upon the floor, his eyes held captive by the foreglimmer gloom rising in Klovo’s own. Fowdho beat and battered the door, thundering in the night until he sent a time-tempered fist splintering through the wood with a roar and tore the whole thing down. A moment of silence passed, whereafter Klovo’s eyes lit up, bathing the room in their dreadful glow, and Fowdho stepped inside.
There he stood, the moon waning behind him, but twice over full before him. To see his brother’s eyes shining in the shadows, his head convulsing with grisly glee, life returned to Fowdho’s lifeless face.
‘My brother,’ he said. ‘I have found you.’
Fowdho crept past Thalo, each step soft, almost silent. Thalo meant to set upon him, to take up his sword and rule over his life, but there was yet such a terrible weight hung upon his heart that he could lift nary a foot or finger. So Fowdho came in unopposed, and at the end of the room, he reached out for his brother, the dear twin from whom he had long been parted.
Yet the moment his fingertips brushed Klovo’s forehead, the moment the brothers were reunited at last, the moment Klovo’s head fell still, Fowdho’s fate was fixed. That was the moment Thalo saw a beast pawing at his prize, and all the terror in his heart dispelled at once. In its place arose a deadly hatred. His beltknife in hand, Thalo sprang forth and seized the troll’s wrist. Fowdho recoiled with a shriek, but that served only to drag his enemy closer.
‘Wretched troll!’ said Thalo, his mind glory-garbled, his hand clutching Fowdho’s gnarly neck. ‘Die!’
Fowdho tried desperately to free himself from Thalo’s murderous grip, to shake the little man off or peel him from his body, but Thalo would not allow it. He firmed his knife in his hand and stabbed him in the back.
‘Ay!’ cried Fowdho, and he collapsed to the pillow-strewn ground.
Thalo fell beside him, and there they grappled. Thalo got himself on top, straddling Fowdho as he wriggled and writhed, flailing his arms and striking at everything nearby, but he would not be deterred. He bore each blow as best he could and put all his strength into restraining his foe. It was tiresome, sweat dripping, arms aching, but he could not yield. Possessed by some unshakeable bloodlust, the same deadly thrill that had impassioned him once before, he stabbed at Fowdho’s chest, neck, stomach, any patch of flesh he could find. And how he revelled in the violence! How he howled!
Fowdho too was weakening. His thrashing diminished, and his formerly frenzied yelps became only whimpers. He tried one last jolt, one final start for freedom, and pushed himself upwards with all the force he could.
But Thalo held him down. He kept up the assault, his thoughts set singly upon Fowdho’s death, stabbing and stabbing until each contender’s strength was utterly spent, until the troll’s life was spread across the floor, staining both cushions and clothes, skin and soul alike, and until he sat gasping amid it all. Still, Fowdho managed some final, laboured contortions beneath him.
‘Away with you!’ said Thalo, and he reached for his sword, slender Sleme, sleeping nearby. He summoned the last of his strength and stabbed the blade down into Fowdho’s neck once, then twice. Though Fowdho lay still, he would take no chances. He got up, his sword held as high as the roof would allow, and brought it down once more, parting head from body.
Only then did he stop to breathe. He slumped backwards into his blood-sodden bedding and admired the corpse before him—a gory triumph! But that reprieve would be short-lived. Klovo’s head took to its trembling once more, and Fowdho’s joined it, each with eyes alight.
‘Stop!’ cried Thalo. ‘I have slain you!’
‘Tell me,’ said Fowdho.
These two words filled the room with a new dread. Thalo crumpled over Fowdho’s head, peered into his anguished eyes, and he saw such life yet within them. ‘What horror is this?’
‘Tell me, mortal man, who are you to come against me?’
Thalo stumbled backwards, open-mouthed and wheezing. Fowdho repeated his question, and a moment later, Thalo said, ‘I am a man with no name.’
‘Do not lie to me. All mortal folk are named. Tell me who you are.’
‘I have no name.’
‘Liar! Tell me of your kin and kind! Tell me who you are!’
‘No. I have no name, no mother nor father, no kin nor kind.’
‘Heed me, murdermonger. Long have I dwelt in this world, though my life has been fleeting. Long have I been deprived of wealth and warmth, and all worldly pleasures. I will know the one who slays me, who denies me joy and justice both. Such is the right of all dead folk. Tell me who you are!’
But as the rage in Fowdho grew, so too did Thalo’s pluck. He said, ‘Troll, I am none but your death.’
So Fowdho growled and spoke this verse:
‘In secrecy the slayer strides,
while, silently, the slain abides—
the wounded one awaits, unwept,
the warlike one with worth ill-kept.
But daring deeds will yet be done,
and doleful dirges dourly sung,
for bold will be that hero’s blood
when body breaks, befouled by mud!’
Thalo had heard enough. His spirit flagging, he stood as tall as he could and said, ‘I am Thalo Thennelo, the bane of trolls twice over!’
‘Thalo!’ said Fowdho, but before he said a word more, Thalo howled and booted his head across the room. As it struck the wall, Klovo’s head fell still, the troll-light illuminating the room faded, and Fowdho died with it.
Triumphant at last, Thalo collapsed and fell fast asleep in the blood.
The morning was well underway when Thalo awoke. He was alone in the house, rather than the smithy, and thus he rose disoriented from his bench, still sullied by blood and sweat. He went outside, and Yonnago came to meet him.
‘Thalo!’ he said. ‘You jammy thwarter, you! You got him!’
‘I did.’
‘Are you hurt?’
‘Only bruises, I think.’
‘Wearing the other fellow’s blood, then? As it should be.’
Then Yonnago told Thalo what had happened after he fell asleep. He said they had heard the commotion in the house, though no one dared to intervene until the night had long fallen silent. When they came to the smithy at last, he and the farmboys found Thalo asleep beside Fowdho’s headless corpse, and together they awed at it in the candlelight. They had tried to wake Thalo there and then, but no one could stir him, no matter how they manhandled him or what insults they shouted, so they carried him back into the house to spend the rest of the night in a proper bedstead while they cleaned up in the smithy.
‘And you should clean yourself up,’ said Yonnago. ‘Then we can be done with all this. Back to work, and all that.’
‘What did you do with the head?’ said Thalo.
‘We buried them, good riddance. They ought not trouble us again.’
‘Both are buried?’
‘Both are buried.’
‘Where?’
‘Over the river.’
‘Where over the river?’
‘What does it matter? We are rid of them. No need to worry any longer.’
Yonnago tried to conclude the conversation there, but Thalo would not have it. He gripped Yonnago’s shoulder and turned him on the spot. ‘You must tell me where.’
Yonnago said, chortling, ‘Why? Do you mean to dig them up again?’
But Thalo’s face remained flat and earnest. ‘I do.’
‘They are dead and buried, boy, and so they will remain. Let the dead rot. I will hear no more about this.’
Then Yonnago walked away, and Thalo let him go.
Thalo went down the hill to the river shortly thereafter, both to bathe and to look for the trolls’ grave himself, despite Yonnago’s objections. There he found Omvedho bent over on the bank, beating the bloodstained bedding upon which Fowdho had died. Thalo stripped off, black and blue all over, braced for the cold, and ventured into the water without a word.
They each did their business in silence for a moment, but Omvedho could not abide it. Before long, he said, ‘You killed the troll.’
‘As I said I would.’
‘Folk say a great many things. What comes and goes is whether they follow through.’
‘I always follow through.’
‘I do not doubt your conviction.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘I mean exactly what I said.’ Omvedho leant back and looked Thalo up and down. ‘Are you trying to impress me? You killed the troll, but I would rather you had not led it here at all.’
Thalo scoffed. ‘I have come to bathe. Or does that bode ill as well?’
‘The river is long, and yet here you are.’
‘Here I am.’ Thalo paused briefly, then continued, ‘Did you see it?’
‘See what? Not much to see here.’
‘The corpse.’
‘Did I see it? I think I did. In fact, I think I buried it. Yes, I cleaned up your mess, a mess I warned against, a mess that never should have been made. Did I see it? Pah! Who did not?’
‘Where did you bury it?’
‘Where? On the south bank, a little way west of the ford.’
Thalo nodded, lowering himself until the water came up to his chin. After another brief silence, he said, ‘And are you impressed?’
‘More than I should like.’
That was enough. Thalo promptly got out of the water, dried himself off, and left Omvedho in peace.
Before he went back up the hill, he followed the river up past the ford, until he spotted what looked very much like a fresh grave dug on the opposite bank. He firmed its location in his mind and returned to the house.
Thalo spent the rest of the day helping on the farm. Once the household had gathered for dinner in the evening, Yonnago arose and made a toast in Thalo’s honour, commending him for the killing of Fowdho. When he was done, the farmboys all put up their cups and cheered a hearty, ‘Oy-oy!’
The meal then unfolded uneventfully.
That night, Thalo crept out of the house armed with only a sack and a spade. He stole back down to the river, his path lit only by the failing moonlight, until he came to the spot where the trolls were buried. Down he dug, and there lay his treasure: one body, two heads, and his every glory. Though the trolls’ builds had been similar only in their immense height, their faces were one and the same, with the same sunken black eyes, the same slack jaw, the same pallid skin. They looked rather more alike in death than they had in life.
Thalo bagged the heads, filled in the grave, and hastened back up to the house. But as he came to the door, he heard on the roof above a quiet tutting. Taking a step back, he saw Knale sat above him, biting his nails.
‘Where have you been?’ said Knale. ‘I told you to stay here.’
‘By the river,’ said Thalo.
‘Hush! If you think I care for your silly excuses, you are thicker than ever I thought. I told you to stay here, so you stay here.’
‘Why? The troll is dead. What further business do we have here?’
‘The troll is dead?’ Knale fell clumsily from the roof and rushed up into Thalo’s face. ‘Truly dead?’
‘I just said that.’
‘Klovo, you mean?’
‘And the second one, or so I think. You tell me.’ Thalo took Fowdho’s head from the sack and presented it to Knale. ‘Is this the right one? Or might there be a third troll abroad?’
When Knale saw Fowdho’s severed head, when he set his golden gaze upon those death-dim eyes, he was overcome by such relief, such boundless elation, that he shoved the head aside, seized Thalo’s face in his hands, and pressed a kiss upon his lips.
‘He is dead!’ he said, pulling away. ‘They are dead! One dead, two dead! Dead at last!’ Knale skipped a little, but quickly stopped and turned back to Thalo, his face dour. ‘You killed him?’
Thalo said nothing, still reeling from his kiss. He was bound up in whatever preternatural power lay within it, scarcely able to think of anything but the soft touch of his delicate lips, until Knale snorted at him, and he was released.
‘You killed him?’ said Knale.
‘Yes,’ said Thalo. He put Fowdho’s head back in the sack. ‘I killed him. I am the bane of trolls twice over. What now?’
Knale’s face hardened again. ‘What now?’
‘I have slain your trolls. What now?’
‘What now?’ Knale strutted off into the gloom. ‘What now is up to you. I have delivered you twofold triumphs. It is for you to tell everyone about them.’
‘But we had a deal. You gave me your word.’
‘So I did, and so I have kept it. Our deal is done.’
‘No. You promised me glory. My immortal glory.’
‘And I have given you all you will need to find it. But you must find it for yourself. Or have you already forgotten what your poor mother told you?’
Thalo was at once pulled back to the day of Asfoa’s death, her dying words sounding in his mind. That was a moment he shared with his mother alone as she lay in his arms, but perhaps not as alone as he thought.
‘Were you there?’ he said.
Without turning to face him, Knale said, ‘Our deal is done.’
Then he put on his fox fur and vanished into the night.
Standing alone in the dark once more, Thalo considered his options, and decided to go to bed.
Thalo declared his intention to leave Alvennawl the following morning. As he was readying Ondayo for the road, Yonnago came to him, and he came with Yamveke, that shield so finely wrought, decked in flourishes of silver and gold. Though it was well worn, bearing many scars and scratches, it remained strong and firm.
When he saw Yamveke in Yonnago’s hands, Thalo said, ‘Tell me, how did Yonnago, the crude bumpkin that he is, come to own such a thing?’
‘It was Kyale’s,’ said Yonnago. ‘With this shield, he ever defended me. He was a man of Pearmol, but this was all he ever had to show for it. It was his inheritance, his by right, but his kin were rather more wealth than worth. They did not yield it readily.’ Yonnago ran his hand over the face of the shield, each blemish a story in its own right, some far older than anyone could know, though few would ever be retold. He presented the shield to Thalo. ‘Take it. I imagine it will serve you better than me. Let Yamveke ward the weary once more.’
Thalo took the shield and examined it, watching its adornments glinting in the sunlight. ‘Are you certain?’
‘It is unbecoming to refuse a gift, lad. Yamveke is far from all I have of Kyale. I have my house and my head, and all the memories within. When I look at that shield, it brings to mind many matters I would rather leave buried. It is time to pass it on, I think.’
‘Then I will use it well.’
Yonnago stepped back, smiling at Thalo before him. He had spent only seven nights at Alvennawl, but they had forged between themselves a firm friendship, one each would carry for the rest of his life. ‘Where are you off to now, then?’
Thalo looked into the distance, then at the shield in his hands, and then back to Yonnago. ‘Time will tell.’
‘Well, I expect you will end up somewhere.’
‘As do we all. The ground, mostly.’
‘So it is. Good luck, lad.’
Thalo nodded slowly and climbed atop Ondayo. The pair offered a farewell each, and then Thalo rode away. He had already determined his course.