CHAPTER SEVEN
Phoenix walked into the crisp, cold darkness and shivered. The torch in his hand cast an uncertain orange light on the ground. Overhead, just visible through the sighing treetops, the waning moon shone in a star-dusted sky. Its pale light served only to make the shadows blacker and the trees bigger.
Again the ominous sound of huge rocks grinding together echoed through the silent forest; and again Marcus yelled his defiance. Phoenix turned toward the noise and ran - carefully. The torch sputtered and sizzled as he peered ahead, trying to pick the safest path. Once he stumbled and almost dropped the torch into a shadowy snowbank. Soon his breath came in sharp spurts as he pushed himself harder and took more chances. He had to get to Marcus before he was slaughtered.
The grinding noise grew louder and Phoenix skidded to a halt as he came up to a large boulder. Holding his torch behind him, he edged forward and peeked around the corner. There, just visible in the centre of a large clearing, stood Marcus. His sword drawn, three dead hares at his feet, the Roman stared upward with a mixture of fear, defiance and resignation on his face. Phoenix followed his gaze and almost dropped his sword in shock.
Towering over his friend was what appeared to be an enormous stack of grey, lichenous rocks, teetering in a strange, gravity-defying formation. The grinding sound he’d heard came from the very top. The piles moved. Phoenix swallowed a gasp of terror. With movement, the heap of rocks resolved into a horrendously huge, living thing. It was over twenty feet tall, with a body that appeared to be made of granite and limbs that were more of the same: lumpy, chunky, hard, stone. He supposed the misshapen pile of boulders on top could only be its head. It had to be a troll.
From high above a long arm descended, thick fingers bunched into a fist. Marcus skipped aside and the fist smashed into the ground with the sound of a small earthquake, splattering the hares. As he turned Phoenix saw Marcus clutched only the hilt of his now-shattered blade. His bow was slung over his shoulder; the quiver empty of arrows. Again the arm smashed down; again Marcus danced away; again that crunching, grinding noise sounded – this time almost rhythmically. With a start, Phoenix realised it was the troll: laughing. The beast wasn’t trying to kill Marcus – it was playing with him!
Marcus had to be tired. He had had little sleep after fighting the Romans in Stonehenge and the wolves had pushed them hard through the forest today. Phoenix heard his breath coming in ragged gasps as he spun away once more. It was only a matter of time before Marcus lost his footing on the wet earth and was crushed to death beneath that juggernaut fist.
Desperately, Phoenix looked around for inspiration. Where was Jade with her ideas when he needed her? Nothing leapt to mind. There were no convenient solutions lying around. His heart raced and his brain seemed to swim in stupidity. Thumping the heel of his hand against his own forehead, Phoenix cursed himself. Think, think!
If he were sitting safely in his chair at home and this were on the computer screen, how would he handle it? Impossible leaps and ninja karate kicks wouldn’t help against a giant made of rock. What would? Not weapons or magic. What was left? Daylight. Phoenix glanced up the silvery moon. Hours away. What was a substitute for daylight then?
A fragment of smouldering cloth fell from his torch, biting into the back of his hand. He absently pressed the small burn to his cold cheek then pulled it away to stare at the scorch mark. He looked at the burning torch.
Well, it wasn’t daylight but, if the trolls were truly creatures of the night, perhaps they hated flame almost as much. It was worth a try. He glanced around. What could he burn, though? Everything was soggy with the recent snow. Everything except... Phoenix looked up at the nearest pine tree and grinned wickedly. Pine forests. Lots of flammable oils in pine needles. His mother was forever telling him, at Christmas time, to be careful in case their tree went up in flames from a carelessly held candle. So, now it was time to see if her worry was justified.
Reaching up Phoenix touched the torch to the lowest branch of a tree and held his breath. The needles sputtered and sparked, flared and went out. Thin grey spirals of scented smoke soared into the air. No! It had to work. Resolutely, he pushed aside the horrible thought that their Christmas tree might actually have been plastic. Everyone knew that pine trees burned easily. He risked a quick look at Marcus. The boy half-knelt on the wet ground, shoulders heaving. He staggered back to his feet just in time to dodge another thunderous blow from the chortling troll.
Phoenix thrust the torch right into the midst of a dense patch of needles. This time they caught, flickered, dimmed and then burst into bright little flames that ate their way quickly up to the base of each needle. He held his breath, watching, hoping. Just as he thought the fires would stutter and die, a gust of wind fanned the little flickers into bigger ones that jumped up to the next branch and the next. With a massive whoomph that seemed to suck the oxygen from his lungs, the whole tree overhead blazed and came alive with dancing golden light and heat. Startled, Phoenix shielded his face and backed away, afraid the whole thing might start dropping fire on him.
There was a horrific, deafening avalanche of sound. He spun. He’d backed into the clearing. Marcus ran full tilt toward him. The troll roared again and took two large steps toward them but the burning tree was right behind, warming their backs. The troll put his hands up to protect his craggy face and stayed where he was. He turned his ponderous head to and fro in an effort to see past the glare and find his quarry.
Panting, Marcus grabbed Phoenix’s arm. “Thanks,” he gasped.
“It’s not over yet,” Phoenix warned. “The only thing that kills them is sunlight and there’s still quite a few hours of night left, I’m afraid.”
“What...” Marcus puffed, frowning, “are we supposed to do then?”
“I think...,” Phoenix turned to look up at the tree. Its burn-time had been short. Even now the last of the oil-rich needles were sizzling into extinction. There wasn’t enough wind to make the fire jump to the next tree. “I think,” he repeated, “we’re going to have to run for it.”
Can’t you just,” Marcus waved an arm at the tree, “set a few more alight and drive it away?”
“Sure,” he replied, “but that might set the whole forest on fire or even send it straight back toward Jade and the others.”
“Can’t Jade do anything?”
“She’s still asleep. We couldn’t wake her up – believe me, I tried. Besides, Truda tells me magic doesn’t work on trolls either. Must’ve been what was causing her so much trouble before.”
“Is that what that thing is?”
Phoenix nodded. “Evidently we’re right in the middle of troll-country.”
“Oh, this keeps getting better and better,” Marcus muttered.
Phoenix quirked a quick grin. “Ain’t it great? Can’t have things getting too dull.”
Marcus sent him a sardonic look. “Dull would be a nice change. I’d even opt for boring.”
The troll chose that moment to roar at them in its unintelligible, gravelly voice.
Phoenix gripped the torch tighter and pointed with it in a direction away from the cave.
“I don’t like your chances of dull or boring happening any time soon,” he said. “Let’s take turns distracting it and hope it’s too stupid to realise what we’re doing. We’ve got to keep it away from the others until morning.”
So began the longest night in Phoenix’s life – either of his lives, in fact. For hours the two ran, staggered and fell through the cold forest. They took turns hiding and resting while the other carried a torch and ran in a different direction, making enough noise to attract the troll’s short attention. Whenever it looked like losing interest, they would yell or light another tree to get it stirred up again – always careful now to choose isolated trees. It had occurred to Phoenix only after setting the first one alight, that a full-scale forest fire might not be such a great idea.
/> Always the troll thumped after them remorselessly, untiringly; sometimes roaring, sometimes laughing as though this were a hilarious game these puny humans had invented just for its enjoyment.
Late in the night, the moon set and the boys could no longer tell what direction to run. They were exhausted, cold and soaked from the knees down. Phoenix couldn’t feel his feet or fingers any longer. He wondered if they were frostbitten. The ground was treacherously slippery underfoot. They stumbled and fell more and more often. At last, even their torch sputtered and gave up, leaving them in utter darkness. Starlight gleamed off to their right. Water. A lake. Considering how many lakes and streams they had seen, it was a miracle they hadn’t fallen into one.
“I can’t keep going,” Marcus whispered. He rested in the deep shadow of a tree just to Phoenix’s left. Phoenix stood with his back pressed to another tree, head down, hands on bent knees taking weight off his legs, breathing hard.
“Me neither,” he admitted.
Not far away, a loud crunching, crashing sound told them the troll was close on their trail. Although made of rock, the beast seemed to have the nose of a bloodhound and the night vision of an elf. It delighted in sniffing out their hiding places.
“We could try the lake,” Marcus suggested.
“I don’t think you can drown a rock,” Phoenix said. “Besides, we’d freeze to death in that water.”
“Got a better idea?” The Roman sounded aggravated.
“Actually,” he tried to sound confident; hoping he was right, “I do. We need to make for high ground. Dawn’s not far away now.”
That, at least, was true. In the last few minutes, black shadows had lightened to dark grey. A hint of pale sunrise colours showed in the east. If they were really lucky, they might be able to keep the troll occupied for another half an hour. Then, if they were really, really lucky, it would be too far from its home to run back when the sun rose.
Unfortunately, Phoenix had become so turned around during the night that he had no idea in which direction his friends were. He did, however, have a very bad feeling that the cave that currently housed an unconscious Jade and two children was the home of their friendly little troll.
The tree holding Phoenix up shook violently. With another grinding chuckle, the troll grabbed and pulled it back like a giant slingshot. Fear gave both boys a spurt of adrenalin and they sprinted away just as the rock-hands released the trunk. It twanged and creaked in an arc toward them, the tip of the pine dipping low before snapping upright again and swaying to and fro, showering them with ice and snow.
Phoenix scrambled uphill as best he could, picking his way between huge boulders. Hopefully none of them would turn out to be trolls as well. Marcus’ uneven breathing rasped close behind. Too close for comfort, came the sound of enormous rocky feet stomping on the slope below.
“Have you...” Phoenix panted, “got your...flint and…tinder?”
“Yes!”
Phoenix paused to glance up and then back over his shoulder. The beast gained on them but so did the light from the eastern sky. It would be close. Resolutely, he gritted his teeth and pushed on his aching thighs to force himself up the slope.
“When we get to the top,” he called breathlessly, “I’ll distract it while you find something to set fire to. I don’t care if it’s your own clothes. I want it trapped in a circle of fire when dawn comes, got it?”
“Right.” Marcus wasted little breath on the acknowledgment.
Abruptly, the slope levelled out and they emerged from beneath the canopy onto a strangely level hilltop. It looked like a small mountain had been sheered off cleanly by an enormous sword. Phoenix searched rapidly for a hiding place. Unfortunately, the area was not only perfectly flat but also perfectly clean. Not a tree, rock or even a bush broke the unforgiving openness of the space before them. Not even a convenient patch of long grass or ferns.
There was nowhere to hide.
Phoenix had no breath to spare on swearing. He staggered to the very centre of the clearing and cast a desperate glance over his shoulder at the eastern horizon. It glowed beautifully pink and grey in a way that early-rising joggers would have admired. For Phoenix and Marcus, however, it had a worrying lack of bright, shimmering sunshine. Sunrise was at least twenty minutes away and there remained absolutely nowhere they could hide from the troll for that long.
Phoenix stood a few moments longer in the middle of the space and exchanged despairing glances with Marcus. His legs were jelly and each breath stabbed at his lungs. Sometime during the night he’d fallen badly on his side. He suspected one of his ribs was fractured and was sure his right ankle was seriously twisted. As long as he didn’t actually look at the bruising, he could convince himself the pain was irrelevant.
“Go,” he managed to gasp at Marcus. “I’ll try and keep it busy.”
The Roman nodded and stumbled off to the other side of the clearing. Phoenix prayed he would find enough dry tinder and willing trees in time. The top of this hill was bigger than he’d hoped. Marcus would have a difficult job to get the entire thing encircled by flame in time for sunrise. If he didn’t, this could be the first and last sunrise that Phoenix would ever almost see.
Even as the morbid thought of his own death by flattening occurred, relief spurted through the exhaustion and fear blanketing his mind. He had already died once. His knife still had six jewels on it. Hypothetically, he could die five more times and still come back to life. But one death had been more than enough and he wasn’t even slightly keen to test this hypothesis. Besides, there was always the chance that the troll would simply squash him repeatedly with that enormous fist until all of his remaining lives were gone.
What would happen then? Would he be truly dead, or would he find himself back in the real world? Was that an option? Could they just die enough times to get free of this game? No, they had a task to complete as well. Stopping Feng Zhudai was more than just winning this game – it would save both worlds from a horrible future.
From just beyond the edge of the plateau, thunderous footsteps and that crunching laugh sounded, ominously close. Phoenix saw the troll’s ugly head and massive fingers appear as the beast idly brushed aside a fifty foot tree like it was made of spider web.
Phoenix sighed and squared his shoulders as the troll spotted him and chortled roughly. OK. There could be a chance that dying six more times might launch him back into his real life; but there was an even bigger chance it would just make his world and this one a hell-pit of death and disaster. He couldn’t take the easy way out by dying. Easy! Hah!
It was time to duel with Death in a world where Death was programmed to win.