The Wizard And The Warlord Read Online Free Page B

herself and where she could look down at her house and buildings and spy upon small Sigurd to see if he was doing his work or not. Many times she had chased him around the rock with a switch in her hand, training him and teaching him to defend himself against the enemy she had known would appear—the warlord.
    Since the trolls had stolen everything remotely edible in the house, he spent the afternoon hunting for a bird or a hare. At once, he learned that the game was either too wary for him to approach or it was frightened completely away. He also found the place where the trolls had eaten his sheep. The fleece, and much of the meat were shamefully wasted. At the end of the day, he returned to his ravaged house with a tight knot of apprehension in his empty belly.
    Somehow he managed to sleep a while, curled up beside the fire in the rubble of his past. He was exhausted, but he awakened instantly when light feet ran softly across the turf roof. He’d barricaded the place as well as he could, and the turf walls were ten feet thick. Still, he armed himself and waited, listening to the creatures scratching and battering at the stout timbers of the door and digging at the turves on the roof. Dawn put an end to their labors, however. Looking at the evidence of their attack, Sigurd wondered if he would survive another night. He found a small parcel of dried meat Thorarna had stowed under the eaves which the trolls had somehow missed and went to work repairing the worst of the damages.
    The trolls returned in greater numbers the following night, but they did not break through his roof until the night after. Sigurd waited below the hole with his axe, watching the earth crumble away beneath their eagerly scratching claws. They jostled and snapped at each other in their fury to get at him, with a sound like dogs worrying a rat to death. When a paw or head appeared in the opening, Sigurd slashed at it with his axe, sending its imprudent owner howling. His resistance to being murdered and the advent of dawn diminished the trolls’ ferocity by slow degrees, ending with their ultimate retreat in grumbling twos and threes. When sunlight shone through the hole in Sigurd’s roof, he peered out warily and saw four heaps of stone where the sunlight had touched the carcasses of four dead trolls. He was too exhausted to be much astonished at anything and spent the day sleeping and refortifying his tottering fortifications. When he climbed onto the roof, he saw that the trolls had finally hit upon the idea of digging a second hole through the turves. When they got through, it would be short work for a dozen of them to dispose of one lone defender. Not without penalty, however, he told himself grimly and made certain his weapons were honed to the utmost sharpness.
    The trolls returned about midnight. It took them nearly until dawn to break through the second hole, which they did with horrible, triumphant snarling. Sigurd, however, had inspired them with enough respect that the brutes did not immediately rush through the breach to attack. They hung back, shoving one another and squabbling, as if trying to thrust down the lesser trolls to be cut to ribbons first as a diversion for a cooperative attack on Sigurd.
    Sigurd hacked at them determinedly, and finally retreated from the loft when they continued to show reluctance in attacking him. He barricaded the little loft entrance from below as best he could and waited for the trolls to break through from above. They would make particularly vulnerable targets squeezing through the small opening.
    During the interval, he thought he heard someone blowing a horn high in the fells. More likely it was his ears ringing from the cumulative effects of fatigue and suspense, he told himself. Then he noticed the sudden silence from the loft. The trolls were motionless for a few moments, then began a scrambling rush back onto the roof and outside. Silently they poured over the side of the low eaves and galloped