The Trouble with Trolls Read online

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  The Trouble with Trolls

  The Trouble with Trolls

  Sarina Dorie

  Copyright 2018 Sarina Dorie

  Cover Design by Sarina Dorie

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  The Trouble with Trolls

  Many men in the kingdom of Lower Valdor often joked their wives had the temper of trolls. Some also joked their wives were as ugly as trolls. Unfortunately for Hathgar, the handsomest prince in all the land, his wife was a troll.

  She hadn’t been hulking and hairy when he’d married her. And she hadn’t been foul-smelling and ugly when he’d rescued her. She’d been breathtakingly beautiful. She had long, black hair and dark doe eyes that were simultaneously innocent and seductive.

  He’d found her a prisoner in a cave. Firelight had glittered across her creamy skin, her gown clinging to her curving figure in the dampness. Though Hathgar had been on a quest to locate some magic mirror, he knew he had to rescue the maiden. And Prince Hathgar, being the handsomest man in the kingdom, by all rights, deserved the most beautiful bride in the kingdom. Since he rescued her—and got her with child—marriage seemed like the right thing to do.

  Hathgar’s problems began shortly after their honeymoon ended.

  “I need you to give me a male heir,” Hathgar told his exceptionally comely wife one afternoon as they sat in their chamber, drinking tea.

  Princess Glooglug nodded dutifully, as was expected from the wife of a prince. (Someone with two braincells to rub together may have noticed right there that something was slightly odd about a woman with a name like Glooglug.)

  “I need a powerful son who will be a great warrior and will be able to continue my conquest of Upper Valdor. In fact, what I really need is a son so powerful he can fight for me.” Prince Hathgar didn’t like battle. It wrinkled his clothes and ruffled his hair.

  Princess Gluglug patted her husband’s perfect cheek. Her sweet voice was as beautiful her face. “Worry not, my handsome husband. I will give you a warrior son, an heir who will defeat all enemies. His skin will be tougher than tree bark and no sword will be able to strike him down—at least not when he is in his true form.”

  “What are you blabbering about, wife?” Hathgar asked. He adored his beautiful wife, but his patience wasn’t endless.

  Glooglug smiled and sighed. Hathgar may have been more charming than a troll, but he wasn’t necessarily the brightest.

  “Have you ever wondered about that cave you found me in? Why I was there? Why no one was there to stop you from rescuing me?”

  “No, not really.” Hathgar didn’t like to question things. It led to doubts and wrinkled foreheads.

  Glooglug lifted up her dress and threw it off. Hathgar smiled. He never minded a little afternoon tryst.

  “Do you really love me, my husband?” Glooglug asked.

  “Yes, of course. You are the most beautiful woman in all the land,” he said, taking her into his arms.

  “Then I will reveal my secret to you. This body is not my true form….”

  Before Hathgar could kiss her—or have his way with her—she began to swell. She grew wide and then tall. Dark hair sprouted everywhere over her creamy skin. Her doe-like eyes became small and beady, her perfect nose wide and bulbous, and her mouth filled with razor sharp teeth.

  She leaned forward to kiss Prince Hathgar, but he fainted.

  ***

  Trolls, though not specimens of beauty themselves, often have the ability to imitate beauty. The male trolls are known for capturing beautiful, human maidens to be their brides—before eating them. The females are thought to capture beautiful maidens to study and mimic—before eating them. One slightly more sympathetic to the way of trolls would argue that trolls don’t try to eat humans. They just can’t tell the difference between the rumble of hunger in their stomach and the pang of beauty striking in their heart, as their stomach and heart are very close together, and in confusion they sometimes eat a maiden accidentally.

  When Hathgar woke, his wife leaned over him—his attractive, normal, non-troll wife, wearing her dress and dabbing at his forehead with a cool, damp handkerchief.

  It had been a dream, yes, just a dream. But there was something in Glooglurg’s eyes, a shifty gleam that made Hathgar doubt she was really human.

  Several months later, when Glooglug was round with child, he walked into her bed chamber and there she was again; big, hairy, and quite menacing.

  “Guards! Monster!” he screamed.

  “It’s just me, dear,” she said in a high, sweet voice that sounded no different than her human form. Before Hathgar’s eyes, she shrunk down to her normal size and comely shape. “I just needed to stretch a bit.”

  It was then that the guards charged through the door, halting when they saw the prince’s wife standing before them naked. Immediately, they turned their gaze to the floor and stammered their apologies before leaving.

  Glooglug smiled slyly.

  Hathgar could see this was going to be a problem. He was prince of Lower Valdor—and a very handsome prince at that. He could have any maiden in the land. But he had a troll wife. What would people say if they found out? This just wouldn’t do. He needed a princess who equaled his beauty.

  It gave Hathgar a headache thinking about it. And worse yet, he felt wrinkles crinkling across his forehead and gray hairs ready to sprout from his scalp. That she-troll had tricked him into marriage and now he would be stuck with her… unless he could outwit her.

  As much as Hathgar tried, he really wasn’t all that witty. So he had to endure every time he walked in on her in her other form. When she changed into a troll while they were sleeping one night, he awoke and screamed.

  “Worry not, my love,” said Princess Glooglug. “I love you. I won’t eat you.”

  Hathgar wasn’t convinced.

  Those sharp teeth and her disgusting face flashed over and over in Hathgar’s mind until he thought he would go mad. As Glooglug’s belly grew rounder with child—or perhaps rounder with troll—Hathgar’s unhappiness increased.

  What if someone should find out he’d married a troll? The other rulers of the Valdorian kingdoms would accuse him of trying to make a human-troll alliance and insist on having a battle for not including them. If the king of Upper Valdor found out Hathgar’s wife was an ugly troll, he would surely use this detail to mock Hathgar in battle and lower the morale of his men. Hathgar would be the laughingstock of the kingdom.

  The night Glooglurg gave birth, she was in labor for hours as Hathgar sat outside worrying and, naturally, drinking. Then in a sudden burst, the doors to the birthing chamber flew open and the midwife and maid servants ran out, screaming in terror.

  “Monster! Monster!” they shrieked.

  Hathgar sighed and entered the chamber just in time to see his wife in her despicable troll form squatting over the bed, a green, slimy baby dropping onto the blankets.

  Glooglurg climbed down from the bed. “Apologies, my love. It is too difficult to birth a child as a human woman would. Troll mothers just pop them out so much easier.”

  Panic washed over Hathgar. “Hurry up and change back before someone sees you!”

  But Glooglurg was too busy biting through the umbilical cord. Hathgar heard the shouting and thumping of footsteps on the stairs behind him. Glooglurg wiped a sweaty brow and began to shrink. Slowly she shifted shape, but she wasn’t fast enough.

  The guards pushed through the door, their swords raised. Glooglurg let out a startled cry, placing herself between her baby and the men. Before anyone could say a word, the guards struck her with their swords.<
br />
  Trolls, as many know, have tough skin and one cannot easily break it with a normal, human-crafted sword. Had Glooglurg’s skin been the thick flesh of a troll at that moment, the guards’ swords would simply have bounced off her. But Glooglurg had been in the process of changing, her skin soft and human under the receding hair.

  The swords of the guards plunged into her body, a great burst of green blood spouting forth. It took the guards a moment to register that the troll, though quite hairy and still bigger than the average human, resembled Princess Glooglurg with her dark eyes and beautiful face.

  “She changed into that monster!” the midwife wailed and pointed to Hathgar’s dying troll wife.

  A squeak of sound escaped Hathgar’s throat. His head swam under the effects of the alcohol.

  The guards looked from Hathgar to the creature in confusion. “This is Princess Glooglurg? We just killed your fair and beautiful wife?”

  Another squeak of noise escaped Hathgar’s lips. Everyone would know now. Everyone would think he was mad. Or perhaps they’d wonder if he was a troll himself. Either way, his reputation with the ladies would be ruined.

  The guards bowed before him. “Sire, please forgive us. We had no idea. We thought the beast had eaten Princess Glooglurg.”

  Hathgar wasn’t sure he had heard them correctly. They were sorry?

  “If only we had known! How tragic!” They threw themselves at his feet. “We’ll do anything for your forgiveness. Oh, please spare our lives!”

  Despite the initial shock of the events and his sluggish brain, Hathgar at last saw how this could work to his benefit. “Yes, it is a tragedy, but fortunately for you, I am a forgiving man. But if people learn what you have done, they may demand that I take your lives. As such, we will not speak of what has happened today, nor… what you have seen. We will say Glooglurg died in childbirth.”

  The men prostrated themselves at his feet, expounding on their gratefulness. Hathgar turned to look at the baby. Once the midwife wiped the green blood away, Hathgar could see it was a healthy, pink boy.

  The midwife handed the baby to Hathgar. Immediately the baby began to cry, an animal-like shriek that pierced Hathgar’s ears. Slowly before his eyes, the baby grew hairy and hideous. Hathgar handed the baby back to the midwife.

  “No one must know this is my child. They will… they will…” Another brilliant idea formed in his mind. “blame you as the midwife in charge, and say it is your fault and that you are a witch. As such, we will have to hide it away in some dark place and let it die.”

  Many of Prince Hathgar’s subjects mourned the death of his late wife, never suspecting she’d turned into a troll and died by sword.

  “My son, surely you must feel horrible,” Hathgar’s father, King Ailhad, said. “What can your mother and I do to ease your suffering?”

  “I must not think of my own suffering. I must think of my kingdom,” said Hathgar. “I must look beyond my wife’s tragic death. I know—why don’t you throw me a ball to find the current most beautiful maiden in the land so that I might marry her.”

  After his ball and some minor mishaps with a maiden losing her shoes, Prince Hathgar married Cinderethylaide and they lived fairly happily… for a while.

  ***

  Hathgar did not—could not—forget his child. Even he wasn’t sure what motivated him to allow the midwife to care for it in secret. He felt obliged to allow her to feed the revolting creature and keep it in the dungeon.

  The troll child grew rapidly. By his third birthday, he was as large as one of Hathgar’s mastiffs. By his sixth birthday, he was almost as tall as Hathgar.

  It was then that Hathgar remembered Glooglurg’s promise their son would grow big and strong, and be a great warrior in battle so Hathgar didn’t have to wrinkle his clothes.

  Hathgar bid the best dog trainer in all the land, as well as his general, to train the creature so he could use it in war. But what they did to the nameless child was nothing like training, more like the baiting of a bear to make it mean and cruel. They made it so wild it could barely be controlled. By the child’s tenth birthday, the creature was large enough and strong enough to be used in war.

  In the troll child’s first battle, Hathgar’s enemies quivered in their boots, for Hathgar’s weapon was ugly and fierce as well as hulking. Neither arrow nor sword could pierce his skin. Only when he gorged on the human flesh of Hathgar’s enemies and grew so full he could barely move were Hathgar’s men able to chain the troll up again and drag him back into the vault where they kept him.

  Seeing his son’s insatiable lust for blood, Hathgar was now more relieved than ever that Glooglurg had died. He suspected it would have only been a matter of time before she had been tempted to eat him.

  As the troll son grew older, he also grew more restless. The chains and the cage they used to keep him in hardly seemed sufficient to hold him. By the time the troll was eighteen, and Hathgar had become king, the troll trainers could barely control him on the way to battles.

  “He’s a monster. He needs a good sacrifice to appease him,” King Hathgar said. “Maybe a pyre of burning cattle. Or all the heads of the leaders of the last battle for his feast.”

  But when Hathgar asked his warrior—his monster pet—what he wanted, all he could say was, “Grrrrgrrrp.”

  No one was sure what that meant, but Hathgar took a wild guess. “He’s bored. He wants a maiden to play with—or perhaps eat.”

  Hathgar considered his options. He was getting rather tired of Cinderethylaide. She hadn’t bore him any male heirs—just twelve girls. She was starting to get wrinkles, and worst of all, had an annoying habit of leaving slippers all over the castle. But Hathgar knew getting rid of Cinderethylaide would be no easy task. The people of the kingdom loved her. And she was always guarded by a fierce army of mice.

  Hathgar decided that if he could train his troll son to speak one word, and then he asked what the troll wanted to eat in front of a crowd of people, the troll would be forced to say the only word he knew. Hathgar decided that word should be Cinderethylaide.

  Hathgar called forth his general and dog trainer to teach the troll son to speak.

  Unfortunately for Hathgar, when they arrived at the entrance to his son’s cell in the dungeon, the door swung on its hinges. The troll was nowhere to be seen.

  ***

  After breaking out of his cell, the nameless troll followed the scent of pine trees and summery air through the twisting passageways of the dungeon, and took a tunnel that emerged in a cave. This cave was within the forest. He wandered into the warm sunshine, a gentle breeze dancing over his pelt of fur. Birds chirped cheerful songs in the balcony of leaves above his head.

  His stomach grumbled. He hoped to find something—or someone—to eat.

  After a short length of time, the troll stumbled upon a maiden picking blackberries in a small clearing. He stomped over to her, ready to eat her up, but froze when she turned her face towards him.

  She was the most lovely maiden he’d ever seen. Of course, she was also the only maiden he’d ever seen. The troll’s stomach—or perhaps it was his heart—suddenly fluttered. Strange sensation swept over his body. He felt weak and vulnerable, his skin tingling as he stared at her.

  The maiden’s long, tangled hair was as black as night, her eyes bright as emeralds and there appeared to be a hint of mossy color to her skin. She wore a green peasant dress with berry stains on the once white apron. Had the troll known anything of the world of humans or that of the fairies within the woods, he would have seen she was part fairy and should have feared vexing her.

  But he didn’t know anything other than fighting and eating, as that was all he’d ever been taught. His pulse quickened, his mouth watered and the troll growled his most ferocious growl.

  The maiden cast an unimpressed glance at him and resumed picking berries.

  He loomed over the maiden, reaching out toward her. One of the branches from the ber
ry bush snapped at him. The troll yowled in pain and jumped back. He’d never been injured before. Humans had shot arrows at him, tried to stab him with their swords and even fought him with iron maces—none of which had scratched him.

  But this most incomprehensible creature had somehow made a blackberry bush scratch him! He stared down at his bleeding arm, suddenly noticing his hair receding to reveal pale pink skin. His size decreased, leaving him more vulnerable by the second. It took him but a moment to realize what was happening. He was human. No longer could he be considered a monster.

  He roared. It didn’t sound as ferocious as usual, though. His voice sounded human. A string of grunts that almost sounded like he was speaking escaped his lips.

  The fairy maiden glanced at him, her plump lips frowning. “Sorry, I don’t speak troll.”

  He grumbled and growled, trying to give voice to his problem. He had listened to humans speak to him, whether to issue commands or beg mercy. He tried again, pronouncing each word carefully, lest he not be understood.

  “What have you done to me, witch?” he asked, surprised to hear the rough grumble of his voice.

  “Me? I haven’t done anything to you. You’re doing this to yourself.” Her face was calm, her voice uninterested.

  This infuriated him. He roared the best he could with his pathetically human voice and reached for her again. Another branch of bush snapped at him as if it had a will of its own, scratching his arm with its thorns and making him bleed.

  “Hasn’t your mother ever told you it’s rude to growl at people?” the maiden asked.

  “I have no mother and no father. I am a monster.”

  The maiden continued to fill her buckets with blackberries. “Is that so? Well, sorry to hear about your parents. What’s your name, monster?”

  “I have no name. I am the king’s pet. I cause men to quiver in their boots, make the brave fearful in battle, and kill all before me so that I may suck the marrow from their bones. I am the nameless monster who haunts—”