Middle-earth, and all who dwell within it, belongs to Tolkien. I am grateful to him for growing this beautiful garden in which our imaginations can play. Please review!
Betta spent more than her usual share of luck on that fall – perhaps all that she had left – for she landed nearly at the top of the troll's hoard of cloth and leather scraps which proved thicker and had more give than she would have guessed. She had fallen out of trees as well as climbed them, and she knew enough to land on her feet and allow her body to roll and absorb the force as evenly as possible. Even so, the landing was hard and no cloth, however thick, could have cushioned her body as she hit the hard stone floor. The impact drove the breath from her lungs and the thoughts from her head, but only for a moment. When she came back to herself and jumped to her feet, her first thought was to run, but her first sight was of the smooth, white face of the troll staring down at her. His round, black eyes were a mere arm's length from her own grey ones.
She could not move. That blank, lidless gaze held her feet to the ground as if she were frozen in place. The pain of her body was forgotten, all intentions to flee were abandoned. His breath on her face was as cold as the winter's breeze, and she shivered in spite of the fire burning nearby.
The old sentinel, for all his anger that had passed before, stared at her passively. He had expected to find a broad and bearded dwarf tumbling down from his roof and now, like a farmer who shakes a hay bale expecting to find rats but finds instead an exotic and unfamiliar bird, the troll was caught by surprise. He stared at her, frowning and muttering, shaking his head so that the icy strands of his beard rang together. He was luckily not very hungry just then, more eager to eat for the pleasure of it than the need, and he was very curious to find this strange, white animal on his front porch.
So slow were his thoughts that it never occurred to him that Betta was part of the company of dwarves. He thought that she was her own party of one.
"Well, what are you," he asked her, finally, "not the wind, certainly. I have seen the wind crack stone and break tree. You are not large enough to break anything." He jabbed his cold, hard finger against her chest, tipping her backwards into the snow and sending sparks of pain up her aching back and shoulders.
"Not a dwarf, either," the troll said, "not hairy enough. You're not one of the black-headed spear-throwers from the west. They are dark faced as well as dark haired, and you are white as the snow you sit in. Never seen an orc look like that before. Are you made of snow? You do not melt." The troll had run out of creatures that he knew. He squatted down within easy reach of her and rested his hands on his knees; he leaned forward so that his face was still close to hers, his eyes searching for clues. "What are you? What's left?" he muttered. "Are you good to eat?"
After her second tumble, Betta had sat up, but she did not dare to stand; she was too dizzy and did not want to make any sudden movements that might alarm the troll. She could just see around him to the back of the cave where the dwarves lay… or, where Fili lay, for she could also see that Kili was no longer lying unconscious in the snow. He had raised himself up in alarm when she fell and now looked with wide eyes at the small woman sitting face to face with a two-story monster.
"I, ah… I come from the south," Betta said, her teeth chattering from the troll's breath on her face.
"From the south!" the old Sentinel cried, shaking his head. "The Yellow Witch rules that land. I do not go there. There the air burns and the ground is too hot to walk on. How did you live there, little snowflake? What strange wind blew you to me?"
His words were friendly enough, but Betta was wise enough to be wary and afraid. She knew that she was lucky to have stumbled across the troll when he was only a little hungry and more interested in conversation than cooking. There was so much meat in his larder that he did not need to kill her quickly, and he had not eaten the dwarves when he found them.
The troll did not mind waiting for her to answer him, either. The novelty of conversation had not worn off, and now that his anger had cooled and the intruder had been captured, he was content to talk a bit. His pot was not quite boiling and there was time enough to plan how he would cook this new meat. After years alone on a frozen hill, the sentinel's thoughts were cold and glacially slow; he might wait several minutes before he began to wonder why she did not speak.
For her part, Betta was breathing into her cold hands and struggling not to look toward the dwarves. She knew that Kili was awake and moving, but also that she must not do anything to draw the troll's attention to him. If she could keep the creature distracted, she might buy time for Kili to drag his brother into the darkness of the cavern behind them; from there they might find some means of escape. Betta no longer had any hope for herself, but if Kili could find a way to save his brother's life, then she would die satisfied.
Indeed, Kili had been puzzling over just that problem for some time before Betta called down from the hole in the ceiling. He had been awake but playing dead until his strength returned and he could get his thoughts in order. He had hoped that Fili, too, would wake up, for he was convinced that his brother would easily see some way out of their bind, but Fili did not wake. Hearing Betta's voice had raised Kili's hopes, but it had also caused him a great deal of fear. Even the two of them together could not hope to defeat a full-grown troll, and it would take both of them at least to carry his brother out of the cave. When he saw her struck down from such a terrible height, he thought that his fears had been realized. He had thought her dead, but she was not. He was alive, and she was alive, but what more could they do so long as the troll was also alive?
"Why am I here?" Betta said, echoing the troll's question. She almost glanced toward the dwarves, but stopped herself and said quickly, "I, ah… I came looking for you!"
"For me?" The troll frowned. His eyes stared steadily, unmoving, unblinking, but she thought that she heard the hint of surprise and even eagerness in his voice. He leaned down even farther, and she had to struggle not to recoil from his icy breath. "No one has come looking for me since the towers were lit and the armies rode forth to battle long ago. Are you a messenger for the Master? If so, then you must know that he is not at home. He went away long, long ago and your message is as cold as your nose." The old Sentinel laughed at his joke. "If you go up the road, you will see that I tell the truth, but why bother! They will eat you up there, little snowflake. Better you stay here and I shall eat you. It will save time."
He laughed and asked again, "Are you good to eat? Good as dwarf stew?"
"Me!?" Betta heard her voice squeak out the word. "No, no! I am not good to eat. I come from the south, remember, where the air burns. I have been overcooked, and if you try to cook me again, I'll be all dried out and tough. No, I'm no good to eat."
The troll sat back on his heels and frowned. "Overcooked, hmmm… well, that does make a difference, but I might eat you raw. The cold has kept you from spoiling, as it does the meat in my pantry. It froze my old friend in the basement. If you are already cooked, then you will make a good snack while I wait for these others to stew."
He gestured back toward the dwarves. Out of the corner of her eye, Betta could see Kili moving; she spoke up before the troll had a chance to turn and see him, too. "You might do that," she said quickly, "but then you won't know why I came looking for you. I'm not going to the fortress. I've seen it already. I came here to see you."
"Me?" the old Sentinel said, and there was the hint of pride in his voice, of long forgotten duty.
"Yes, well, to see one of your kind. They tell tales of snow-trolls in the south, but no one believes them. We have hill trolls and cave trolls, and even trolls that live under bridges, but no one believes in snow-trolls. They say that you're not real."
It was too much for the Sentinel. He had spent many long years forgetful and forgotten, and he had not minded it, but to be told that the little animals of the south had forgotten the power of all his people was too much. "Not real!" he cried, and struck his fist against the floor beside her. "Trolls under bridges! A scandal! We ruled this land before Men came, before the hot-blooded, pointy-eared Elves came out of the west! Armies of my brothers and sisters, they marched through your southern lands with the Lord of Bitter Cold to do battle with the Yellow Witch! We froze the corn so men would starve and froze the waters until the wild wolves could run across them and devour the pitiful villages of the south. We froze tree and mountain until tree and mountain cracked!"
He had risen up in his anger and struck the side of the ice cave with his great fist. "Just a story! Trolls under bridges! A lie!"
The old Sentinel had not been made so angry since the days of his youth. It heated his blood and the heat rose up into his head, confusing him and making him even more angry. He rose up out of the long, cold slumber of centuries and roared louder than the loudest winter wind that ever stormed out of the North and froze the hearts of men. He struck the wall again, and Betta took her chance. She ran toward the mouth of the cave, but her legs were stiff and her feet were bruised from her fall. She stumbled and then slipped on the wet snow.
She fell, and the troll reached down to snatch her up, but before he could catch her and squeeze her into jelly, there came a great shout from the back of the cave. The troll swung round and Betta looked up to see Kili on his feet with his axe in his hand.
Though roused with anger, the old troll had not yet shaken off his cold fetters. He still moved slowly. It had been long since anyone had challenged him openly in battle; the wild herds and small orcs fled in fear, never attacking, and it was a simple thing to chase after them over the open plains, to scoop up and crush what he caught. Now, the old Sentinel saw cold steel in Kili's hands and for a moment he hesitated, remembering the sharp weapons of the dwarves of long ago.
Kili did not hesitate. He saw the troll move away from Betta and put into action the only plan that he had. He ran forward, not toward the troll but to the trivet on which hung the troll's huge, heavy cooking pot. Rust had eaten through the iron spears and the heat and damp had rotted the wooden staves. While Betta bought them time, he had stared hard at the precariously balanced poles and knew precisely where the weak points lay.
The troll roared and reached down to grasp the insolent dwarf, but Kili was too quick for him. He darted aside and swung his axe not at the monstrously thick fingers but at the nearest wooden stave, chopping it in two as easily as he might chop a sapling in the forest. Not halting in his momentum, he swung again, this time splintering the shaft of an iron spear. The trivet fell inward and the cook pot tipped outward, rolling onto its side.
"Betta, run!" Kili shouted, as he ducked out from under the collapsing device. He caught hold of Fili by the collar and dragged his brother's unconscious body out of reach beyond the spreading water.
The fall of the pot was not random. Kili had struck his blows with an eye for its direction. Part of the water washed into the fire and sent up a great cloud of smoke and steam that enveloped dwarves, woman, troll and all, but the rest of it washed out and over the feet of the troll who sent up such a howl that the whole cave was filled with the sound and the valley below echoed with it. The pain cut deeper than any sword; the Sentinel's frozen hide was built for cold weather, not for blistering heat. He felt a flame hotter than any he had ever felt before and in his rage and fear he fled from it. He would have fled into the black cavern behind the cave, but Kili dropped his brother and snatched up a burning branch from the remains of the fire. He threw it into the troll's face.
With another howl of pain, the old sentinel spun about. His front porch was filled with heat and smoke, his head was full of confusion and anguish. He ran again, this time out of his house and onto the cliff where the air was clear and cold. He either did not know or did not remember that morning was on the way.
From the back of the cave, his sight obscure by smoke, Kili saw a flash of light shine forth as the sun rose above the eastern horizon. It washed over the troll's shoulders as surely as the boiling water had washed over his feet, and the heat was just as terrible. The old Sentinel roared again and for the last time as he looked up and saw the eye of the Yellow Witch upon him. He threw up his arm against her and turned back toward the cave, but it was too late!
Kili heard a sharp crack and a groan, and then a low cry that faded slowly into the growing dawn. When he looked again, the troll was gone, and in its place was a towering figure of white ice with two gouged holes and a wide, crooked crack where a face might have been.
"Ha, ha!" Kili cried triumphantly, and then doubled over in a fit of coughing as he choked on the smoke that still lingered in the cave. He leaned on his axe until the fit passed and then looked around at what was left of the field of battle.
The ceiling was cracked in many places; small holes had been enlarged into great gaps that let in the growing dawn. The floor was a mess of puddles and soggy wood from the fire, the broken wreckage of the cook pot that had shattered when it struck the floor. There was not enough wind in the cave to blow away all the smoke, and much more still rose from the soggy fire pit. Kili wiped his eyes and stared around, but he could not see Betta.
He had shouted for her to run when the troll began thrashing about the cave, but she had not run past him into the cavern. Had she been caught by the boiling water or been trampled under the troll's feet as he fled in his rage?
"Betta!" he shouted, waving smoke out of his face as he ran toward the mouth of the cave. He reached it, but still had not found her. Where was she in all this mess? He turned back to the cave.
And then he heard a woman's heavy cough from somewhere above his head. To his left was a pile of broken stone and, looking up, he saw through the mist a shape perched atop it. Shaking and holding her right arm close to her chest, sat Betta. Her boots were damp and steaming from the boiling water, but she was dry and mostly uninjured. She stared in confusion about her from her island of stone in a sea of smoke that was slowly drifting out of the cave and through the holes in the roof.
"Betta!" Kili climbed quickly up the broken stone. "Are you hurt? It is safe. Did you see? We have defeated a snow-troll!"
"I saw," Betta said, still coughing. She allowed him to help her climb down to the floor again. The battle over, her limbs saw fit to punish her for her fall. Her arms and legs ached and her back was sore, there was a sharp pain in her left foot, but she could still walk upon it. She was bruised but not broken, and once back on flat ground, she threw her arms around Kili's neck. "I thought you both were dead," she said, holding him tight.
"So did I, once or twice," he admitted, and held her close. If his embrace was less earnest than hers, it was only because he remembered her fall and how much his own bruises had pained him. "We must keep a better eye on you in the future," he added, smiling.
Betta smiled at him in return, but then her smile faltered and she looked around. "Where is Fili?"
Whew! That was close, but we're not out of danger yet!
A great big Thank You to all of you who've stuck with me this far. And a great big Hello to all my new readers. Especially mad props to those of you who've read the whole thing all at once and caught up so fast. That's a marathon that I do not have the stamina to run, and I wrote it!
To all my wonderful readers, please review! I can't know how I'm doing if you don't tell me :)
-Paint