Chapter 14. The Trolls in Lone Tree
The trolls, once they hit the shore, knew they were in trouble. Once the water no longer buoyed them, they felt weak and sluggish.
They hadn’t been feeling well, of course, since Schmoozeglutton had woken them from the Big Sleep. They were hungry. The little bit of food they had eaten had helped for a short bit, but was now churning in their bellies. Something was definitely wrong there. It was the hot dogs, they were sure, though trolls didn’t know the word for what they had eaten. The problem, they sensed, lay in the fact that the food had been dead for an overlong time. The fish, though difficult to catch, at least proved their state of “alive” by becoming dead as they were eaten. Thus, they were fresh as they hit the troll’s bellies. This already long-dead food didn’t seem to be good for them.
In any case, the food wasn’t settling well, even in the trolls’ cast iron bellies. Ordinarily, trolls could digest anything, food or not: fish entrails, mastodon marrow, the yeasty sediment that collected at the bottom of their beer kegs. The bodily noises that accompany the life of any troll—those noises that are at once the bane to the trolls’ social lives and yet their primary delight—had doubled, then trebled, in intensity. The ordinary burps and belches that the trolls so enjoyed punctuating their conversations with were now a bit too powerful, both in volume and in scent.
And their muscles, already weakened by their long hibernation, seemed to be further weakened. Just why, they couldn’t identify: was it the stress of awaking in a new, strange world? Or was it the harrowing experience of sitting through Schmoozeglutton’s challenge? Or, perhaps it was simply the fact that they hadn’t truly had much exercise since they were walking these very plains in search of a wooly mammoth. Were their muscles simply unused to working?
Just as the trolls knew nothing of hot dogs, they knew nothing, either, about botulism and its accompanying nerve toxins. If someone had been able to explain the effects of botulism, however, it would have come as no news to them. They were already beginning to feel its effects. In addition to the weakness in their muscles, they had a hard time focusing their eyes, and their already heavy eyelids seemed intent on closing.
Of course, trolls are stubborn and hardy creatures, so they weren’t about to give up on their decided plan of action. But the residents of Lone Tree can count themselves lucky that the trolls weren’t at their best. Where healthy trolls might, upon reaching land, have tried to kill and/or eat anything that moved, now they were more tenuous. Where in ordinary circumstances the trolls might have set after people, household pets, and the occasional automobile, in fact the casualties were much lighter. They consisted, if you can excuse the odd trampled garden and felled stop sign, of a small pack of poodles, one aging horse, and a pizza delivery van.
For right now, though, all that was ahead of them. For right now, it was enough to walk upon the land, as they hadn’t since it had been covered to the horizon in nothing but ice and snow.
Despite their queasy, tender stomachs, and despite the fact that their skin hung loosely on their frames after losing their layers of blubber, and despite the fact that none of the trolls were entirely comfortable yet following a new leader, they were a grand sight. A dozen trolls slogging out of the waves and up onto the land was something no one in this world had ever seen. As they left the water, a dozen troll bodies stopped and stood fully erect in this new world, shedding water, smelling the air with their big troll noses, and taking in the sights that were before them. They looked in every direction, not in defense but in the calm knowledge that this world would soon be theirs.
In Schmoozeglutton’s eyes were the lights of victory. It had been a tough few hours, yes, but now that the trolls were ashore and looking to the future, the larger picture was coming into focus. He was now the leader of the Rabid Band, and this was going to be their finest hour. Brumvack—too careful, too self-assured, too smart for his own good—was a thing of the past. Let him pout in the cave if that’s what he wanted.
Schmoozeglutton looked over his subjects. They were a sorry bunch, he knew. A ragtag group of trolls if ever there was one. He had his work cut out for him to make them into a welloiled machine of trollish terror. On top of that, they were anxious, they each felt sick to the stomach and light in the head, they were in serious need of some food that in all probability their bellies wouldn’t be ready for.
But, for all of that, they were ready to face this new world. Maybe within the span of a generation, Schmoozeglutton thought, they would once again be a large and happily destructive troupe of trolls that would once again reflect the true dignity and power held within the name “Rabid Band.” Let tonight, he thought, be a worthy beginning.
Where Brumvack would surely have chosen this time to make a speech, tell a lengthy story that no one really wanted to hear, and grapple with ornery individuals for a slippery sense of control, Schmoozeglutton went for the simple approach. He opened his mouth and said two final words: “Let’s go.”
The once-great Rabid Band, the last few iterations of the once-grand species of troll, walked forth with a sense of purpose and a spirit of discovery.