Troll Fell. Katherine Langrish

a string round his neck.

      “Fasten ’im to the tail of the cart,” his uncle ordered. “He can run along behind.” He grinned, sneering. “It’s a long way. Think he’ll make it?”

      Loki limped pathetically. “Can’t he ride?” Peer faltered. “Look, he’s lame…”

      His voice died under Uncle Baldur’s unwinking stare, and miserably he did as he was told. Then he clambered up into the cart himself. It was time to go.

      Ingrid came out to see him off, wiping first her hands and then her eyes on her apron.

      “You poor lamb!” she wailed. “Dragged off at a moment’s notice! And Brand’s down at the shipyard, and can’t even say goodbye. What he’ll say when he hears, I don’t dare to think! Come back soon, Peer, and see us!”

      “I will if I can,” he promised glumly. The cart tipped, creaking, as Uncle Baldur hauled himself up. He took a new piece of twine from his pocket, and tied one end round the rail of the cart. Then he tied the other end, in a businesslike manner, around Peer’s right wrist. Peer’s mouth fell open. He tried to jerk away, and got his ears slapped.

      “Whatever are you doing?” shrieked Ingrid, bustling forwards. “Untie the boy, you brute!” Uncle Baldur looked round at her, mildly surprised. “Got to fasten up the livestock,” he explained. “Chickens or boys – can’t have ’em escaping, running around loose.” Ingrid opened her mouth – and shut it. She looked at Peer. Peer looked back. See? he told her silently.

      “Gee! Hoick!” screamed Uncle Baldur, climbing on to the driving seat and cracking his whip over the oxen. The cart lurched. Peer stared resolutely forwards. He didn’t wave goodbye to Ingrid.

      Soon the town of Hammerhaven was out of sight. The steep, rough road twisted up into stony and boggy moorland, looping round white rocks and black pools of peatwater. Low woods of birch and spruce grew on both sides of the road, and rough clumps of heather and bilberry. If the oxen tried to snatch a mouthful as they passed, Uncle Baldur’s whip snapped out.

      “Garn! Grr! Hoick, hoick!” The cart tilted like the deck of a ship as one wheel rose over a huge boulder, then dropped with a crash that nearly drove Peer’s spine right through his skull. The oxen snorted, straining to drag not only the cart, but big fat Uncle Baldur up the steep slope.

      “Uncle,” Peer hinted. “Shall I get out and walk?”

      But his uncle ignored him. Peer muttered a bad word under his breath and sat down uncomfortably on a pile of sacks. His arm was stretched awkwardly up, still tied with twine to the rail of the cart. The pile of chickens slid about, flapping as the cart jolted. He counted them. They were all there: the little black one with the red comb, the three speckled sisters, the five big brown ones. They rolled red-rimmed eyes at him and squawked.

      “It’s not my fault,” he told them sadly.

      Over the end of the cart he could see Loki, trotting along with his head and tail low. Peer called. Loki glanced up briefly. He looked miserable, but the limp had gone – he’d been faking it, Peer decided.

      They came round a bend in the road. Peer turned his head, then pulled himself up on to his knees and gazed.

      In front, dwarfing Uncle Baldur’s bulky shoulders, the land swooped upwards. In heaves and hollows and scallops, crag above crag, upland beyond upland: in murky shouldering ridges, clotted with trees, tumbling with rockfalls, the flanks of Troll Fell rose before him. The narrow, rutted track scrambled breathlessly towards the skyline and vanished.

      Tipping his head back, Peer stared upwards at the summit, where he thought he could discern a savage crown of rocks. But as he watched, the clouds came lower. The top of Troll Fell wrapped itself in mist.

      The light was fading. Fine cold rain began to soak into Peer’s clothes. He dragged out a sack and draped it over his shoulders. Uncle Baldur pulled up the hood of his thick cloak.

      Great shadowy boulders loomed up out of the drizzle on both sides of the track. They seemed to stare at Peer as he huddled uneasily in the bottom of the cart. One looked like a giant’s head with shallow scooped-out eyes and sneering mouth. One had a blind muzzle poking at the sky. Something bolted out from under it as the cart passed, kicking itself up the hillside with powerful leaps. Peer sat up, startled, as it swerved out of sight. What was that? Too big for a hare – and he thought he’d seen elbows…

      From the hidden crest of Troll Fell rolled a sinister chuckle of thunder. A wind sprang up, hissing through the rocks. Mud sprayed from the great wooden cartwheels. Peer clutched the sodden sack under his chin and sat jolting and shivering.

      At last he realised from the angle of the cart that they were over the saddle of the hill, beginning to descend towards Trollsvik. Leaning forwards, he looked down into a great shadowy basin. A few faint lights freckled the dim valley. That must be the village. Frozen and soaked, he thought longingly of dry clothes, a fire, hot drinks and food. He had hardly spoken to his uncle all the way, but now he called out as politely as he could, “Uncle? How far is the mill?”

      Uncle Baldur jerked his head to the left and pointed. “Down there, among the trees yonder. A matter of half a mile. Beside the brook.” He sounded quite civil for once, and Peer was encouraged. Perhaps his uncle could be normal, after all.

      To his surprise, Uncle Baldur spoke over his shoulder again. “Home!” he cried in his shrill toad’s croak. “Lived there all me life, and me father before me, and his father before him! Millers all.”

      “That’s nice,” Peer agreed, between chattering teeth.

      “Needs new machinery,” complained his uncle. “And a new wheel, and the dam repaired,” he added. “If I had the money – if I had my rights—”

      Well you’ve got my money now, thought Peer bitterly.

      “A pity your father was dirt-poor,” his uncle went on. “I’m proud of that place. I’d do a lot for that place. I’m the miller. The miller is an important man. I deserve to be rich. I will be rich. Hark!”

      He leaned back hard, forcing the oxen to stop. The track here plunged between steep banks, and the cart slewed, blocking the road. Loki yelped as the string yanked him off his feet. Peer cried out in distress, but Uncle Baldur twisted round, straining his thick neck and raising one hand.

      “Quiet!” he muttered. “Hear that? Someone coming. Catching us up.”

      Peer stared uneasily into the night, listening. It was too dark to see properly. What had Uncle Baldur heard? Why would he stop on this wild, lonely road? He held his breath. Was that a bird shrieking – that long, burbling cry drifting on the wind?

      “Who is it? Who is it?” Uncle Baldur hissed eagerly. “Could be friends of mine, boy – I’ve got some funny friends. People you’d be surprised to meet!” He giggled, and Peer’s skin crawled. The darkness, the whole wild hillside – suddenly anywhere seemed safer than staying with Uncle Baldur in this cart. He tugged the twine that held his wrist, testing it. It felt tight and strong. He couldn’t jump out and run.

      Stones clattered on the track close behind. Loki scuttled under the tail of the cart, and Peer heard him growling. He braced himself. What was coming?

      There was a loud, disapproving snort. Out of the rain emerged the dim shape of a small, wet pony picking its way downhill, carrying a rider and a packsaddle. On seeing the cart, it flung up its head and shied. There was no room to pass. The rider shouted, “Hello there! Can you move that cart? I can’t get through.”

      Uncle Baldur sat motionless for a second, taking deep breaths of fury. To Peer’s amazement, he then flung down the reins and surged to his feet, teetering on the cart’s narrow step. His shock of black hair and tangled beard mingled with the thunderclouds: he looked like a mighty headless pillar.

      “Ralf Eiriksson!” he screamed. “I know you,