Wow, thanks for all the feedback! I'm really glad you like this story. :) Well, here's the second part - of three, and the third one is pretty short ... Enjoy!
"Loki!"
Thor writhed and twisted to free himself from his friends' grip. He had to help his brother – he had to stop the troll from – from –
He shook off Sif, Fandral and Hogun. Volstagg, though, clung tightly to him.
"Let go!" Thor yelled at him. "I have to help Loki! I have to –"
"And what would you do?" Volstagg asked, seizing him around the waist and lifting him off his feet. "It's too late. Didn't you hear Loki? He told us to run."
"No!" Thor howled.
He knew it was futile, he saw Loki fall into the troll's maw but he still kept struggling, kicking at Volstagg.
This couldn't be. This wasn't happening. It had to be one of Loki's tricks. His revenge for being dragged along on this trip.
"I'm sure there is a reason why troll-hunts have been abandoned, Thor", he had said.
But Thor had laughed and pulled him to his feet.
"Come on, Loki, it's going to be fun."
Loki had sighed and rolled his eyes but he had obliged.
And now he was – now he was –
Thor choked back a sob. His vision blurred but he still could see the troll, could hear it smack its lips.
The suppressed sob turned into a howl of rage.
That monster! That beast! He would kill it. He would make it pay for devouring Loki.
Thor squirmed and wriggled but Volstagg still held on to him and started to drag him backwards, away from the troll.
"Come to your senses, Thor", he said, his voice so incredibly calm. "You cannot win this fight. You cannot bring him back."
That simple statement hit Thor like a mighty blow. He stopped struggling. Volstagg was right – there was nothing he could do for Loki except for mourning his loss. And curse himself for dragging his brother along even though he hadn't wanted to come. But there would be time for that later. Now, he had to take care the others didn't share Loki's fate. See to it that Loki's death hadn't been in vain. He had saved them, after all. If he hadn't noticed what was happening, the troll would have eaten all of them.
The troll slowly turned to them.
"We have to go", Thor said. "Back to the forest. We can hide there until it tires of looking for us."
Volstagg set him down and let go of him.
"Why not call Heimdall to take us home?"
Thor shook his head. He cast a final glare at the troll, then turned to the others.
"We cannot risk the Bifrost picking up that beast with us and taking it to Asgard."
He started to move downhill, away from the troll and back to the forest.
He knew the others would follow. They always did. The only one who ever dared to oppose him, argue with him, was Loki.
He tried to push away every thought of his brother. Their fall – or rather roll – down the mountain's flank had brought them back almost to the forest. Its edge wasn't too far away anymore and the ground was frozen but not wholly covered in snow. It would be easier to run here. Thor cast a glance back over his shoulder. The troll started to move, too. It lifted a massive leg and set it down. The ground shook beneath their feet ever so slightly.
"Run!" Thor called.
He fell back a little so he could see the other four. He could hear the troll behind them. He resisted the urge to cast another glance over his shoulder. It would only slow him down.
"When you reach the forest, split up", he told the others.
That would increase the chance of at least some of them getting away.
While he ran, Thor thought frantically. They couldn't possibly outrun the troll. They were close to the forest but it might reach them before they got there. What would Loki do?
Well, first, he would probably curse at Thor for being so stupid. And then, he would pull out one of his magic tricks and save them – once again.
The thought made Thor's eyes sting. He wiped at them with the back of his hand. He looked up ahead again and met Fandral's gaze. It lingered on him for a moment, then went past him. His eyes widened.
"Hurry!" he called, "it's gaining on us!"
Thor sped up his step and saw the others do the same. The heavy thump-thump-thump of the troll's steps behind him grew louder. Thor saw Sif stumble and Volstagg seize her arm to steady her without slowing down. It wasn't for the first time that Thor wondered how a man of such an enormous size as Volstagg could move so fast.
Finally, they reached the cover of the trees. They fanned out as Thor had told them: Volstagg and Sif went right, Fandral and Hogun left and Thor straight ahead. Usually, Loki would have been by his side, a half-step ahead of him. Thor tried to swallow the lump that suddenly formed in his throat. His hands clenched into fists.
One day, this monster would pay, he vowed. One day, he would be strong enough to bring down a troll and then, he would return and avenge his brother's death.
The troll came crashing after him, uprooting trees, snapping trunks like toothpicks. It seemed to slow down a little but the tearing sound of breaking, splintering wood was still far too close.
Thor chanced to throw a look back over his shoulder. The troll was towering over the trees, wading through the forest as a man would wade through a cornfield.
Thor's foot caught on something – a root, a rock, he didn't know. But it made him lose his balance and fall. He raised his arms to protect his face. A moment later, he hit the ground and winced when his ankle was twisted. He scrambled to his feet again.
The troll mustn't get him. If it did and killed him, too, how would he be able to exact his revenge?
A tree went down to Thor's right, crushing the underbrush. He started to run again as fast as he could with his twisted ankle, dodging trees and low-hanging branches. At least, since the troll was obviously following him, he knew that Sif and the others were safe. For the time being. Another tree flew over his head and landed to block his way.
Thor cast a quick glance back. He couldn't go around it – the troll was too close. Thor saw it was wielding one of the trees it had ripped out of the ground like a club. If it hit him –
The thought triggered a surge of energy in Thor. He scrambled up the fallen tree's massive trunk, using its branches to pull himself up and leapt down on the other side, wincing when he landed on his injured foot. He wouldn't be able to go on for much longer. But he couldn't hide, either.
He had barely cleared the tree when the troll hit it with its improvised club and sent wooden splinters flying everywhere. Only moments later, it stepped on the remains of the tree. It sounded like the breaking of a giant's bone and Thor knew he would be next. With its next step, the troll would squash him underneath its foot. Its strides were too wide to outrun it when it was that close.
Thor stopped and turned around, pulling himself up to his full height.
"Eat me, then!" he yelled at the troll. "Just as you ate my brother!"
He would meet his end like a warrior, standing tall and unafraid – though he did wonder how it would feel to be eaten by a troll and whether it was a death worthy enough so he would be allowed to enter Valhalla. Probably not, he assumed, since he wasn't about to die in battle. Oh well, at least he would be re-united with Loki – in more than just one way as he acknowledged with a grim smile.
The troll dropped the tree it was clutching. It bent forward, reaching for Thor – and stopped in mid-motion. Thor frowned. It looked as if it was listening to something. Not something in the forest, for the woods had fallen deathly quiet, as if the trees themselves were holding their breath. Rather, something that was happening within itself. It frowned. Reached for its throat. Thor could see it swallow hard, once, twice. Something was bothering it. And swallowing didn't help, obviously, for now, it started to cough. A loud, rasping, earth-shaking cough. Large gobs of spittle flew over Thor's head as it coughed harder. And suddenly, there was something else. A dark, vaguely man-shaped blob hurtled over the treetops at break-neck speed and disappeared somewhere in the foliage. Thor's eyes went wide.
"Loki?" he whispered.
No, impossible. Unless his brother had somehow got stuck in the troll's throat. But even if, by some miracle, he had survived that, there was no way he could have survived hitting the ground after the troll had spit him out. Still, Thor started to move again, in the direction that blob had flown. Maybe, if he went fast enough, he could find his brother's body before the troll killed him. Maybe he could see Loki one last time.
The troll, however, despite its enormous size, was too fast. It picked up the tree-club again and hurled it after Thor. He managed to fling himself aside and avoid getting hit by it but his legs were trapped beneath one of the branches. Not in a way that made it impossible for him to move but it would take him some time to wriggle free. And time, he realized as the troll bent down to him once more, had just run out. He could do nothing. He couldn't fight. He even lacked the energy to taunt the beast again. He didn't close his eyes because a warrior ought to meet his end with his eyes wide open but that was all he could do.
He saw the troll grinning at him. He noticed how its focus shifted. How its grin turned into a confused frown.
And then, he noticed the light. Not much, at first, like the first light of dawn immediately before sunrise. But it grew brighter and brighter, much faster than during a natural sunrise, until the forest was lit as bright as day.
It was impossible, Thor thought. The night had barely started – it couldn't be the sun. Not yet. He still could see the stars above the troll's head.
Luckily, the troll didn't seem smart enough to look up and check. Its eyes widened in horror. It raised an arm to protect its face from the light and howled in fear as it turned and fled.
The light lingered a little longer, then it went out as suddenly as it had come.
Thor blinked and briefly closed his eyes to help them adjust to the renewed darkness. When he could see tolerably well again, he started to writhe and twist and shift to get out from under the branch.
"Thor!"
He looked up. Sif and Volstagg entered his field of vision.
"Are you hurt?" Sif asked.
He shook his head.
"Only trapped. Help me."
With Volstagg lifting the branch as high as he could, getting out from underneath it only took mere moments. Thor brushed leaves and twigs off his clothes.
"Hogun and Fandral?" he asked.
"Over there."
Sif pointed at the trees behind Thor. He turned just in time to see the two emerge from the underbrush and nodded.
"What in Asgard's name was that light?" Fandral asked. "Did you see where it came from?"
Thor shook his head.
"No, but it scared the troll away." He cast a glance at where the troll had disappeared. "We better leave before it realizes it has been fooled and returns."
He turned and started walking in the direction where he had seen that dark blob fly earlier. The others, he noticed, weren't following him.
"Where are you going?"
It was Sif who finally called after him.
"Heimdall can pick us up right here."
He cast a look back at her.
"The troll spit something that way", he said. "I'm not sure but I think it might have been Loki. He – he must have got stuck in that beast's throat."
He noticed fully well how his voice caught in his own throat.
"Do you think he –" Fandral started.
"I think that I want to recover his body", Thor quickly cut him off before he could say something that might get their hopes up. "I dragged him along on this, even though he didn't want to come. The least I can do is to take him back home."
Suddenly, that hard lump was back in his throat.
The sound of footsteps behind him told him that the others had started to move. He was well aware that this fake sun had been magic – there was no other explanation. And the only magic-wielder around here that he knew of was his brother. There was still a chance, though, it had been done by someone else. Or that it had been Loki's last spell ever, cast to save him and the others. Better, thus, to presume his brother dead and maybe, find him alive than the other way round.
Since Thor knew only the basic direction but not how far to go, it proved difficult to find his brother. At some point, Sif suggested it might not have been Loki that the troll had spit out.
"Well, unless it ate someone else I don't know who or what else it might have been", Thor told her sharply. "As far as I can see, you, Hogun, Fandral and Volstagg are here and we didn't encounter anybody else, so –"
"Alright." Sif lifted her hands in a soothing gesture. "Let's assume it was Loki. How are we to find him here, in the middle of the night? It's too dark. Why not wait until the morning?"
She looked at the others for support.
"I mean – if he's still alive, he'll probably do the same. He'll find a place to spend the night and come looking for us in the morning, since that's the sensible thing to do. And if he's dead – well, does it really matter whether we find him a few hours later?"
"It does." Thor turned away from them and strode on. "I won't have the wolves feed on him."
He didn't care whether the others followed him. He had to find Loki – he had to know.
"Stay here and set up camp if you want", he called back over his shoulder. "I will return once I've found him."
He heard soft murmurs behind him, then the footsteps of two persons following him. A moment later, Sif and Fandral caught up with him.
They walked on in silence until they reached a small clearing. Thor recognized it from the charred remains of a campfire in its center. It was the same clearing where they had spent the previous night. Fandral stopped.
"Maybe we should get Hogun and Volstagg and set up camp here again", he suggested.
Thor shook his head.
"They will have finished by now."
He scanned the clearing. Suddenly, something moved among the bushes opposite him. His hand dropped to the hilt of his sword. Sif and Fandral noticed, too, and tensed almost imperceptibly.
It was no animal, however, that broke through the bushes. Thor's heart almost stopped. It was Loki who staggered into the clearing.
"Loki!" Thor roared.
He rushed to his brother and hugged him against his chest in a tight embrace.
"You're alive!"
Loki didn't hug him back. In fact, he even stiffened a bit. Probably because he was angry. Thor didn't care. He hugged him even tighter. Loki was alive. All was well.
"Are you alright, brother?" he asked.
"You do realize", Loki said slowly, "that I'm covered in troll slobber, don't you?"
Thor laughed. In fact, he only noticed now that his brother was covered head to toe in a slimy substance.
"I don't care", he told Loki and gave him a kiss on the brow.
"Ewwww."
Loki pushed him away.
"You're disgusting."
That made Thor laugh even louder. He tried to put an arm around Loki's shoulders but his brother stepped aside.
"Stop touching me. You'll get it all over you, too, and there is no need for both of us to look like –"
"- you just hatched from an egg?" Fandral finished.
He and Sif had approached Loki more slowly than Thor. They were both grinning.
Loki snorted.
"Would have to be some egg."
He took a look at the clearing.
"This is where we camped last night, isn't it?"
Thor nodded.
"Yes. Volstagg and Hogun have set up camp that way," he pointed the way he, Sif and Fandral had come, "and – where are you going?"
"To that pond where we fetched water last night." Loki turned to him. "I want to get myself cleaned."
"What?" Thor hurried after his brother. "But – it's freezing. You will catch your death!"
"Rather that than having troll slobber all over me." Loki glanced at him. "You could do with a bath as well."
Thor shook his head.
"When we are home again. Not now."
Loki just shrugged and turned again, continuing on his way to the pond. Suddenly, the moonlight caught on something he was holding on to. Thor frowned.
"Loki? What's that in your hand?"
tbc
