Chapter 2. Present Day: The Trolls
The cave was in an uproar.
Schmoozeglutton had awoken first. His stomach was rumbling from hunger after centuries of sleep, and brought him awake like an alarm clock. He grunted, made a face, and waved away the nasty green fumes that wafted out of his mouth. Over the years, various fungi had taken up residence there. His tongue felt like a loaf of moldy bread.
Schmoozeglutton sat up in his rocky bed. His brain swam slowly awake. He felt awful. His arms and legs were like lead weights; his joints creaked when he moved. While Schmoozeglutton couldn’t articulate his problem, he knew what it was: sleep is hard on a body. Especially sleep that lasts hundreds of years.
Eventually, however, the empty feeling in his gut overcame the sluggishness of his brain, and Schmoozeglutton got out of bed. It was a chore unpiling all the rocks he had buried himself in, but he managed it with the stubbornness that trolls bring to most operations. His muscles felt weak, though, and he was only barely able to remove the last rock from his lap. He could see that he had lost a lot of weight. The skin covering his belly, where before it could barely contain his bulging gut, now hung loosely to his knees. He tree-trunk legs were now little but bone covered with more folds of loose skin. He needed some food.
It was Schmoozeglutton’s angry yell that shook the rest of the trolls awake. He had gone to the hollowed-out rock where he kept his food, and found it empty. Though he clearly remembered that he had set aside a few mudfish for when he awoke, they were now gone, as was the mammoth bone he had been saving. He stared at the empty rock in disbelief for about a minute and a half. Anger built up inside him with a slow trembling intensity. There was only one way to relieve the anger within him: to strike back at whoever or whatever had taken his last few morsels of food. He went to the corner of his room to fetch his club.
The reader knows, of course, that his club wasn’t there either.
When Schmoozeglutton discovered the fact of his missing club, his eyes grew wide in disbelief. He was angry, in fact livid, but now none of that anger had anywhere to go. Where he wanted to vent his anger onto somebody’s head via his club, now his anger just bounced around inside his diminished frame, looking for a way out. Some of it found a way out when Schmoozeglutton opened his mouth; it poured out of him in a scream that shook the cave walls. More of it came out as Schmoozeglutton jumped up and down, shaking the caverns and loosening small overhead rocks. More of it came out as he ran up and down the length of the cave, still screaming. When that didn’t satisfy, he grabbed a rock and pounded the floor with it. Still unsatisfied, he pounded his head on the floor, then further pounded his head with the rock. He screamed again.
Schmoozeglutton was a very angry troll.
The other trolls, perturbed by all the commotion, slowly came to life as well. As they unpiled themselves from their beds, they found a similar emptiness in their larders and weapons stores. Before long, all the trolls had joined in with Schmoozeglutton’s ranting cacophony. Oh, the unfairness! Much yelling and headbashing ensued. The ground shook with it.
The only one who wasn’t awake was Brumvack, their leader. He slept through much of the commotion, snoring away and dreaming peacefully. After his feast of his last waking days, he could have slept another century. Only when another of the trolls—perhaps it was Schmatzenbladder, a short but stout troll known for his strength—flung a rock that bounced off the top of Brumvack’s head did he stir to life. As soon as the rock careened off of his head and broke against the wall behind him, Brumvack sat up and eyed the mayhem about him. But he didn’t join the fray. Ordinarily, getting hit by a rock—even accidentally—would have been met with swift retribution. Brumvack knew that he should leap out of bed, grab a rock of his own, and use it to pound the guilty party. Payback was important to a leader. But still he sat in his bed. Though he hadn’t been awake at the beginning of all this madness, he had a pretty good idea what the others were on about. He vaguely remembered his last days awake, alone and well fed and comfortable.
Finally, he roused himself. If he was going to stay out of trouble, he’d better get busy. The first order of business was to look to his own empty larder, his own empty weapons rack, and to feign surprise. “AAARGH,” he yelled. “Where’s my stuff?” He joined in the screaming, the foot-stomping, the head-pounding. Especially the head-pounding. If he didn’t look pretty bruised up when he was done—at least as bruised up as the rest—the other trolls would look at him skeptically. Wasn’t he as mad as everyone else? Wasn’t he prepared to defend his honor as a troll? Did he perhaps know something that the others didn’t? His leadership would be challenged. It hurt, pounding his head against the cave floor without the energy of anger behind it, but it was necessary.
After a good couple hours of violence, the trolls were exhausted. They sat in disarray around the cavern, breathing heavily and grunting their helplessness. Brumvack saw his opportunity to bring them to order.
“Auuugh (burp) snivel,” he said. “We’ve got to arrrgh go up and (cough) wring the necks of whoever got our (wheeze) stuff.”
The walls of the cave rang with the noises of assent from the trolls. Brumvack spoke of troll honor, and of taking the enemy before the break of the morning sun, and of making the enemy pay for breaking into troll territory. It was necessary to tell them these stories, because without a clear mission they were likely to forget where they were going along the way. Trolls’ stomachs often spoke more loudly than their brains. Especially after their long slumber, they were likely to wander off alone, leave the band. Where would Brumvack be without them? A leader, with no followers?
With his speech, Brumvack had the trolls once again at a fever pitch of excitement, but this time it was controlled, directed. They were going up to the lake, to the shore if necessary, to find the culprits. To find them and, if possible, to eat them.