Bridge Troll Third Sample Chapter and writing musings · 3:52am Jun 4th, 2022
Sometimes, writers get a little discouraged. Ok, a lot discouraged. When that happens, taking a different approach to a different kind of story can help break the ice. That’s more-or-less what I’m doing with the Bridge Troll story. And yes, somewhere in the back of my mind is a theoretical conversation with a book editor who says something encouraging and frightening like, “This story is pretty good and we’d like to buy it. Do you have any others?” Hey, I write fantasy. There’s no reason I can’t dream it a little too. Anyway, I’m sticking the third chapter of Bridge Troll below the break and links to the first two so you can see what I've been doodling on. Enjoy!
The Young Knight, the Fey Maiden, and the Bridge Troll
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
And Chapter Three below
Stone Tortoise
At least this morning, Fetch managed to wake up before Quartz, although it took a few minutes of blinking before he spotted the troll. He was curled up beside one of the immense boulders scattered around where the riverbank cliff met the growing forest, which provided impressive camouflage for the sleeping grey troll. That’s not to say Fetch had too much of a head start on the day, because Quartz climbed down to the river and came back up with a huge handful of trout before Fetch could get the fire going.
“Tied a rope to some of the driftwood down there,” said Quartz as he dropped the flopping fish in the grass beside the smoldering campfire. “Help me pull it up and that should set you for wood while I’m gone.”
Fetch’s ‘help’ with the task was mostly in keeping the rope untangled and organized while the troll almost casually lifted a few hefty logs up the side of the cliff like he was hauling a bucket of water. In fact, the bucket was the next thing he tied to the end of the rope and gave a toss, bringing up water for Fetch to carry back to the campfire.
“Already got ‘cha a couple jars of water,” explained the troll casually while unpacking some equipment out of the back of his wagon. “Thought in case ya ran thru it all afore I got back, you’d have a way of gettin’ some more. Asides, there’s a couple of streams in the vicinity up and downriver if’n that don’t work for ya. You gonna be good while I’m gone?”
“Good?” Fetch lifted one eyebrow just like Ottao used to do when he was feeling in a fey mood. “I had a good start on starvation before I met you. Now, I’m better than good,” he added, giving a long look at the flopping trout on the grass.
“Goot.” The troll grunted while picking up several metal posts and a hefty hammer out of the wagon toolbox. “Splittin’ wedge is in here, along with a saw. Since you got some time, and you said you’s got lumber experience, chop up that dry log into smaller bits while I’m gone. I’s gonna need some stakes about a handspan long, if’n you want to wack some younger saplings round here, and… Well, get dat done afore I’m back and that’ll be good.”
Fetch hefted himself up to look into the wagonbed while the troll was sorting out surveying equipment. “I thought some longer saplings to make a lean-to might be useful, and some pine boughs to cover it in case we get rain.”
“Naa.” Quartz waved a thick-fingered hand at one of the larger boulders in the vicinity. “I can carve you out one of dem like a pumpkin. Lots drier than sleepin’ under branches, and cooler once we get into summer.”
He had to nod at the thought. Quartz had shown how easily he could carve through rock, another troll talent that his strength only amplified. With a day or two for examination of the surrounding boulders, Fetch felt fairly secure that he could find one of sufficient size for the troll to carve out a sufficient dwelling for the two of them.
Or maybe one cave for each of them, if Quartz snored.
After a few minutes of preparation, the troll vanished over the side of the riverside cliff again. He spent a few minutes on the other side of the chasm, pounding in metal spikes and doing various engineering examinations of things before the noise died out and Fetch was all alone again.
Well, not counting Nutmeg, who was quietly cropping grass a short distance away. Even with the crude hobbles Fetch had made out of a bit of rope, the old stallion showed no interest in getting too far away from his human and the campfire which signaled his safety. For now, Fetch busied himself with cleaning the fish and putting them on the fire to cook. There was much more fish by weight than he normally ate at the village, but the last few weeks had left Fetch with quite a bit of backlogged hunger. A smoker to put away supplies for winter would be a good next step in the long-term, but for now he simply cooked the leftovers slightly more than needed and stored them in the wagon for later.
Then it was time to face the dry log that Quartz had pulled out of the riverbed.
“It was too much to expect a troll to have human-sized tools,” grumbled Fetch as he struggled with the saw. It was sharp, but difficult to handle without injury, which was something that would be catastrophic this far from a healer. The result made for slow going, but far better than what Fetch had seen with the lumbermen who worked the forest next to home. One unaimed blow with an axe could leave a man without a leg, and a mis-handled saw would make for far less of a hand in short order.
With a bit of judicious planning of his saw cuts, Fetch managed to make one thick slab of wood smooth on both sides, which he proceeded to split off into marginally usable writing planks. With some sanding and a little mashed walnut husk for ink, he would be able to write out the tables of numbers that Quartz had been teaching him instead of them occupying the slate. For such a huge and muscular troll, it was revealing how much Quartz thought about a problem before trying to solve it. And to Fetch’s inner satisfaction, he had contributed to the project by suggesting a rope bridge as an interim measure.
It was afternoon by the time Fetch had the short slabs of wood smoothed down to a satisfactory degree. Spending that much time sitting in one place made a quick stroll around the area practically mandatory. After all, at home he was constantly traveling from one shop to another house on various tasks. Some moving around helped him not worry about the people of his home village or King Seiki, and eventually brought another distraction to his attention.
“Now that’s odd,” murmured Fetch while looking into the darker woods. “That boulder has moss on top.”
The huge boulder Fetch was sitting on was mossless, as a sharp contrast to a larger one a short distance away. The lumpy boulder outside of the shadows of the tall trees was a rich verdant green all across the top and in clumps almost reaching down to the forest floor. It was by no means the only boulder with a green cap in the woods, but it was the biggest, nearly the size of a house. It only looked larger when Fetch went over to examine it more closely, running his fingers over the thin cracks in the surface and peering at it intently.
“Granite,” he said, fairly well exhausting his knowledge of rocks. Most of the ground around it was a fairly thin soil made out of weathered limestone and other materials, and as he worked his way around the huge boulder, he found something else that made a shudder travel down his back.
There was a thick collection of bushes and scrubby trees snugged right up against the side of the massive boulder, and they extended a distance into the dark forest before making practically a right-angle turn, continuing for a short distance, then making another right turn until the brush pressed up against the boulder on the other side.
“That ain’t right,” drawled Fetch in his best attempt at Quartz’s casual drawl. Trees just did not act that way, and there was no immediate explanation for their odd placement other than somebody had planted them. He had found old tree markings and signs out in the forest when he had been hunting rabbits, all of which had indicated somebody lived in the area several years ago, and the frazzled remnants of the rope bridge across the ravine only made that more obvious, but…
Fetch gave the huge boulder a very long look, then began to work his way around it, feeling the surface for cracks or hollow spots under the fuzz of moss and the roughness of lichen. It was a rather silly suspicion since the boulder seemed quite solid across the entire breadth of the stone. Besides, it could wait until Quartz got back. He would be able to carve out a fairly large residence, and the house-rock was positioned well. It was comfortably far enough away from the sharp edge of the river ravine, and positioned within eyesight of the slender road headed off into the forest.
His suspicion did not seem so silly any more. The boulder was actually placed in the perfect spot for a house, and combined with the thick thicket around back…
A few futile minutes trying to climb up the thick scrub of tangled trees and bushes left Fetch picking splinters out of his hands and mourning over the new rips in his dirty shirt. Over the prickly hedge was a failed idea, and over the boulder gave a similar failure, only with slippery moss that left him mostly green. Throwing the rope over the top of the boulder, tying it down on the other side, and climbing up was an option, but Fetch got the sneaking suspicion that it would fail even more spectacularly, and landing on his head would put an end to his exploration in a hurry.
There was a fairly small sledgehammer in the wagon, something that Quartz would use for fine detail work but Fetch would take both hands to lift. Giving the rock a few good solid wacks sounded quite tempting at the moment, but Fetch decided on a more intellectual approach for now. After all, Quartz was in charge of smashing and building. Fetch was in charge of helping and thinking things that the troll happened to miss.
Smashing could wait. He could never out-smash the troll, but Fetch had proven that he could out-think him on very specific topics. In this case, there was a house to out-think. If there was a house behind the boulder.
He took several steps back and looked around the boulder in the afternoon light in order to think. Houses had people. People walked. Dirt crushed underfoot. Crushed soil did not grow grass.
A few times around the boulder showed several paths where the vegetation was stunted in curving lines, but the granite at those points seemed just as solid as anything. Still, he tried not to doubt his instincts. Instinct had guided his path away from King Seiki’s army, although it had gotten him captured first. Instinct had driven him to seek a knighthood as a path to his new life, but that had turned in a rather unexpected way. Instinct had brought him back from the rabbit-filled forest without incident, most probably in this unusual boulder’s direction, so if he just closed his eyes and let instinct guide him to…
The door had no lock or latch, merely the hint of a ridge under his fingertips as he pulled and allowed the door to swing open. A puff of dry air blew past his face, smelling slightly of dust and mildew, and Fetch opened his eyes.
Then he blinked several times, not believing what he saw.
He had lowered his expectations over the hours, gradually settling on a mental image of some crude chamber chopped from the bare rock. He had never been so wrong. This was a house, no a home with an airy feel to it and several rooms arranged in a rough circle. Admittedly it was a fairly bare home with many of the expected accouterments removed or never placed, including a small kitchen with no pots or pans, and a room that had to be some sort of general living area but with no tables or chairs. Aside of the practical furnishings, there were also no wall hangings or decorations, and only one tattered rug across the polished stone floor.
What he could see in the dim light was not the whole picture, either. The stone walls rose up in a curved arc, flattening abruptly into a flat ceiling that suggested a second floor above him. A curved staircase to one side only reinforced that suggestion, although the walls had a few childish drawings tracing the path upward, fluttering slightly in the breeze of the open door.
“Hail there,” called out Fetch, tilting his head to peer in the direction of the dim kitchen. Very little light poured into the cave-house through the open doorway, but as his eyes adjusted to the interior gloom, his opinion of whoever had created this only increased. There was considerable artistic talent behind the creator, something that seemed more like a hobby than a profession due to the occasional flaw or inconsistent pattern in the stone. There also seemed to be a theme behind the construction, less that of a single person carving out a dwelling for themself and more like…
“Family,” murmured Fetch under his breath, looking around with renewed interest. “Looks like a couple and a child. Or children,” he added with an additional examination of the childish drawings on the stairway walls. He really did not want to go any further into the stone home because it felt too much like trespassing, and closing the door would only ensure he would never find it again because it was so cleverly hidden and balanced that he could move it with one finger.
“Ello again,” he called out, listening intently for an answer. “The door was unlocked.”
This time he heard something moving around in the gloom, a sort of scratching noise instead of footsteps.
Having outstayed his welcome, Fetch decided to back up and close the door anyway, and did not mind a bit when it shut so tightly that he could not tell where the edges were. At least the thing making the scratching noise was inside while he was outside.
* * *
That evening when Fetch arranged his blankets underneath the troll’s wagon and settled down to sleep, he could not help but keep an eye on the huge boulder a short distance away. There could be a monster living inside it, but Fetch’s definition of a monster had taken a rather abrupt turn when he met Quartz, and… Well, the house had seemed perfectly fine, just occupied by something. Whatever the something was, it had not roared or pursued him outside, and there were no indications of any clawed footprints or other monster signs, so it could just be a… Honestly, he did not know, and the lack of identification itched at the back of his mind. Fetch liked to have everything line up in neat rows, carefully labeled and arranged.
The sounds of the nighttime forest made for an unsettling rest, moreso when Fetch noticed a dark shadow appear on the boulder-house, much like a door opening a crack so the inhabitant could look outside. There was enough moonlight to see some sort of spindly creature busying itself in the open doorway, then an additional light like a candle appeared. It bobbed up and down several times, then the creature placed it against the stone wall of the boulder and it stuck, much like a lantern put out to guide a traveler back to their home.
Then the door closed again, leaving Fetch wondering if he had actually seen it or if his imagination was running wild. If so, his imagination was illuminating the boulder’s side quite well.
“I wonder if the master of the house is about to return,” Fetch murmured to himself. “That would make the creature some sort of pet, or more probable servant. Makes as much sense as anything. Hope he’s not upset that I’m camping on his front lawn.”
Staying up all night would not bring the theorized home-maker back any faster, and talking to himself was a bad habit that Fetch was trying to break. He settled down under the troll’s wagon with the intent of going to sleep despite the anticipation of finding out who had created the clever dwelling, but there was another soft noise out in the darkness that made him sit up straight and hit his head on the bottom of the wagon.
It was most certainly not the tread of a human. It had been a snort of some kind, and it was followed up by another, and then another. Back when he lived a normal life in the village, he had lived in secret fear of the hogs they kept for garbage disposal. He much preferred bacon and chops that resulted, and always was more than a little afraid of the fierce beasts deciding to make a meal of him instead. With one quiet snort out in the dark, all the fears came cascading back onto him again.
“Boars,” whispered Fetch to himself even while he could see Nutmeg move closer to the wagon in slow steps, seeking human reassurance. If he could have taken the hobbles off the horse and jumped onto his back, Fetch might have been able to leave the hostile swine behind, but wild pigs could just as well chase them, and that would certainly be deadly. Even real knights who made a sport of hunting boars occasionally came back with severe wounds, or even dead.
There was another option, however.
Keeping an eye on the darkness under the trees, Fetch grabbed for the crude halter he had made for Nutmeg, then undid the horse’s hobbles. The expanse of moonlit grass between them and the boulder seemed to stretch for miles, but with the light to guide him, Fetch found himself at the disguised door rather quickly, and knocked on the surface of the rock.
“Sir. Or Ma’am,” he added out of respect for the unknown occupant. “Could you let us stay the night inside? There’s some wild pigs out here, and I’m not sure—”
The door gave out a little popping noise when it opened just a crack and something made out of wood poked just barely outside. With Fetch’s luck, he expected a solid drubbing by the apparent club, but there was a long pause, and then the door opened the rest of the way.
It was the second time in one day that Fetch had been struck speechless.
The thick wooden object was a broom, but not an ordinary broom, because it had arms. They were thin, spindly things more like twigs with long, thin fingers, but they held onto a second broom of a more normal nature.
There were no other unnatural features to the unnatural broom, no glowing eyes or fanged mouth, just… a broom carrying a broom, like it was some sort of home-owner broom checking out a strange noise in the night with a broom being carried for defense. Oddly enough, despite a lack of facial features Fetch got the feeling of disapproval, much like the broom was considering his request and leaning in the direction of keeping the strange dirty human outside with the pigs.
“Ma’am,” started Fetch as soon as he could get his mouth working, “we didn’t realize how dangerous it would be outside tonight. I mean I could climb one of the boulders, but Nutmeg would be out with the wild pigs and he’s a little old to be defending himself. Maybe you could just find a place to let him stand tonight and I’ll go back out—”
There was a low snort behind him, and Fetch cast a quick look over his shoulder at where two tusked pigs had trotted out into the moonlight. Whatever woody thoughts the broom had been thinking shifted, and thin wooden fingers grabbed Fetch by the front of his threadbare shirt and pulled him into the stone house, followed closely by Nutmeg. The door closed with a thump behind them, leaving Fetch in pitch darkness, although he was still being politely but firmly pulled along by the broom with the horse clopping along right behind.
In less than a dozen steps, the broom stopped and opened a more conventional wooden door which led out into an empty stable of some sort. The moonlight illuminated the open area around the back of the boulder that Fetch had been unable to reach from the outside, allowing Fetch to fill in the mental slot of “What Is In There” which had been bugging him all evening.
“Thank you, but—”
The door closed in Fetch’s face, leaving his attempts at communication with the odd domestick tool cut off abruptly, which was probably a good thing because Fetch felt as if he were about to start babbling nonsense. After all, he had never spoken to a broom before, and that left him completely out of obvious discussion topics.
Settling for looking around instead, Fetch poked about the stable, admired the fine craftsmanship of the short wooden roof that projected out from the top of the boulder enough to allow for more space out of the weather, inspected the small chicken coop where household fowl could be kept away from night-dwelling predators, and lamented briefly over the lack of oats or hay in the supplies.
“Probably hasn’t been used in quite a few years,” murmured Fetch as he brushed some dusty spiderwebs off the stable walls. “Looks like about one horse and a cart would fit nicely. Plus some shelves for supplies. If the broom would let us use this area, it would save time on the bridge project. But if there had been a cart stored here at one time, I wonder…”
Fetch followed Nutmeg out into the hedged clearing, which looked larger in the moonlight. There were no obvious doors in the hedges, but there was an outhouse at the other end of the open space, and some judicious checking showed it to be free of insects other than a few industrious spiders. Any further checking would wait until morning, since there were no end of things that could live under an outhouse and bite bare intruder behinds. It felt more than a little odd to do his business behind the outhouse, although Nutmeg had no such problems. He was quietly cropping some nearby weeds and providing fertilizer to the scruffy dirt of the corral in return.
Just when Fetch had decided to ignore the problem of the missing cart and find a place to settle down for the night, he heard a sudden squeal from out in the darkness. Whatever was out among the wild swine was giving as well as it was getting, because the frustrated squeals and snorts grew to a deafening crescendo, then faded out as the pigs fled for safer, presumably broom-free areas of the dark woods.
Finally, there was the faint sound of the boulder’s front door closing, which made Fetch move closer to the stable door in expectation of the odd housekeeper evicting both of her unwanted guests back out into the forest. Nothing of the sort happened, even after quite some time passed without interruption. It was probably for the better, since Fetch was unsure if the pigs had gone for good, and he was much more comfortable with the rest of their night spent right here in relative safety, if not necessarily freedom.
Nutmeg did not seem to mind the relocation of their evening a bit, since there were still a few weeds in the clearing for him to finish off, so Fetch settled down on a short stack of dusty bags inside the stable to sleep. After all, morning would come too soon anyway, and staying up to worry about how he was going to get out of the hedge-enclosed cell would wait for sunlight.
It was a remarkably quiet night.
The concept of an animated broom as a wizard's assistant is nothing new. Disney took it to a fairly high limit, for example. My favorite is actually Simon Hawke's The Wizard of 4th Street which came out in 1987 and I have an original first edition paperback. It's a pleasant read, not jammed full of weirdness so it's easy to follow, and part of a very consistent series. I enjoyed it.
I mean, I'd buy it. There's a reason I got a bunch of your books on my e-reader that get reread pretty regularly.
I wonder if the loss of the origional bridge and the homes occupants is related?
Someone really didnt like paying bridge tolls, and might return. to get their backpayments and dues?
5662089 One of the critical tasks of a writer is to have the reader asking little questions like that as they go through the story, with every question you answer being replaced by yet another question. One of the best comments you can give a writer is that he/she is on the right track with leaving a trail of such breadcrummy questions leading deeper into the Dark Woods.... I mean story. Thanks!
Hm, some interesting developments.
I'm guessing that the title, "Stone Tortoise", refers to using the stone house for protection?
I thought this snippet flowed well and found myself wondering what happens next.
I like the idea of a boulder hut too.