Troll Mill. Katherine Langrish

and a round hairless body on top. Ralf and the children skidded to a halt, appalled. Hilde grabbed the twins and tried to bundle them back the way they had come.

       I’ve seen this before!

      There was something weirdly familiar about the two long wavering columns, steadily trotting in opposite directions; and about the way the trolls seemed to be carrying things, and the way they scrambled over obstacles like rocks and ridges; and about the way those two over there, who were tugging something along between them, had got it stuck on a rock and were sawing to and fro trying to get it free…

      She saw and thought this in a flicker of time–then the trolls stampeded, racing up the slope with gobbling yells. Hilde tried to drag Sigrid aside. She slipped. The wet hillside reeled and hit her. Sigrid screamed, Ralf shouted, Loki barked. Hilde clutched dizzily at wet grass and stones, trying to scramble up. A troll bounded over her. Its rat-like tail switched her legs. She collapsed, grunting, as a horny hoof drove hard into in the small of her back. A hot, sharp smell prickled her nose.

      Then the trolls were gone. Loki tore after them in hysterical fury.

      Hilde sat up, hair in her eyes and mud on her hands. Ralf loomed over her, shouting her name. He dragged her up, holding her against him. The world steadied. Here was Sigrid, curled up on the ground, sobbing. Hilde fell to her knees and tried to soothe her.

      “It’s all right, Siggy, they didn’t mean to hurt us. We frightened them just as much as they frightened us.”

      “Loki chased them!” Sigurd arrived at his father’s side. “Where is he? Loki!” He lunged forward up the slope. Hilde grabbed his arm. “No, you don’t. Stay here, Sigurd!” And she stepped on something that crunched and splintered.

      “Let go! I have to find him!”

      “Loki can look after himself.”

      “He can’t, he can’t! Peer told me to look after him!” Sigurd sobbed, trying to wrestle free.

      From the ridge above they heard a volley of barks, and a high screech rattling off into the familiar troll cry: Huuutututututu! Silence followed, and then Loki came sliding and scrabbling down the stony gully, wagging a jaunty tail. Sigurd flung himself forward and hugged him tightly round the neck. “Good boy, Loki! Brave dog!” he choked into Loki’s fur. Loki shook himself free.

      “They’ve gone, Sigrid. The trolls have gone.” Hilde’s heart was still pounding. “What were they doing?”

      “Carrying off my sheep and lambs, I’ll swear!” Ralf growled.

      “No,” said Hilde. “I think…” She hesitated. It had happened almost too fast to remember. What had she seen? Jerky, ant-like purpose. Ants! That was it! In just the same way she’d seen lines of ants scurrying to and from their ant hill. But who could imagine an ant hill as big as Troll Fell?

      “Baskets. They were carrying baskets, Pa. But what was in them?”

      Sigrid raised her head from Hilde’s lap. “Bones,” she gulped.

      “What?” Ralf squatted down in front of her and held her shoulders. “Bones, Siggy? Are you sure?”

      “Some fell out.” Sigrid buried her face again. “They fell on me. A bundle of bones, like firewood.”

      Slowly Ralf shook his head. “Well, now! I don’t like the sound of that. Let’s get home. Shoulder-ride, Siggy?”

      Something else snapped under Hilde’s foot as she trod forward–something thin and curved that gleamed faintly in the dark. She brushed her dripping hair back to look at it. “She’s right. These are bones,” she whispered.

      Nearby, Ralf was kicking at a greyish tangle, barely visible in the grass. He nodded to her through the rain.

      “Let’s get the little ones home.” Hilde shivered.

      Ralf picked up Sigrid and swung her on to his shoulders.

      “But, Pa, what about the trolls?” asked Sigurd. “What if they follow us?”

      “They won’t,” said his father easily. “They were running away, weren’t they? Loki here has chased them all into the foxholes amongst those rocks. Forget them. I wonder what your Ma has for supper?”

      Talking cheerfully, he set off at a rapid pace. Hilde followed, Sigurd tramping manfully along beside her. At last they came to the proper track that led down to the farm. Far ahead in the dim, wet night they were glad to see a tiny speck of warm light. Gudrun had lit the lantern to guide them home.

       CHAPTER 3 A Warning from the Nis

      “Bones?” exclaimed Gudrun, ladling out four bowls of hot mutton stew. “What sort of bones?”

      “Just bones–dry ones.” Ralf took a long gulp of ale and wiped his mouth with a sigh. “Old dry bones,” he repeated. “I kicked some with my foot. Looked like bits of a sheep’s ribcage, years old. Sigrid got a fright, but so long as it’s dry bones and not ones with meat on them, the trolls can have them and welcome!” He looked at Gudrun over the rim of his mug, and his eyes said, Let’s talk about this later.

      “They’re always up to something,” said Gudrun darkly, plonking the bowls on the table. “Eat up, twins, and then straight to bed.”

      “Oh, Ma…” they complained together. But Gudrun shook her head. “Look at you both–pale as mushrooms, dark circles under your eyes! I hope this won’t give you nightmares again, Sigrid.”

      Sigrid blushed, but Sigurd spoke up for her. “She’s grown out of that, Ma. She hasn’t had a bad dream in ages.”

      For more than a year after being trapped under Troll Fell by the trolls and the Grimsson brothers, Sigrid had woken every night, screaming about trolls. Best not make a fuss, thought Gudrun, sighing. “Well, Ralf, as you say, it’s hard to see what harm dry bones can do. Unless the trolls killed the sheep in the first place, the thieves! Come and sit down, Hilde.”

      Hilde was bending over the cradle near the fire, admiring her baby brother. He lay breathing quietly, his long lashes furled on the peaceful curve of his cheek. The firelight glowed on his golden curls.

      “Has Eirik been good today?”

      Gudrun laughed. “I can’t turn my back on that child for half a minute. He tried three times to crawl into the fire, and screamed blue murder when I pulled him back. If it weren’t for the Nis, I’d be tearing my hair out.”

      “The Nis?” Hilde asked, intrigued. “Why, what does it do?”

      “Haven’t you noticed how it teases him and keeps him busy? It croons away and dangles things over the cradle; it’s very good with him. Of course, I never see it properly, only out of the corner of my eye, but I hear the baby gurgle and coo, and I know he’s all right for a while. It was a blessing when Peer brought that creature into our house.”

      A gust of wind rattled the shutters and the smoke swirled over the fire. The family bent their heads over their meal. By the hearth Loki lay, watchful, resting his chin over the back of Ralf’s old sheepdog, Alf. Suddenly he raised his head and pricked his ears. Alf too woke from his dreaming and twitching, turning his milky eyes and grey muzzle towards the door.

      Which burst open. In from the dark staggered a tall, tattered boy, white-faced, streaming with water, dragging a ripped and flapping cloak like stormy broken wings. He turned black, desperate eyes on Gudrun, and shoved something at her.

      “Take it!” he gasped. “Please, Gudrun! Take the baby!”

      They all jumped up. Gudrun stared at the bundle he held out. She reached for it slowly at first, as if half afraid–then snatched it from him and peeled the wrappings back. The round dark head of a tiny baby lolled on to her