Page 3

So it was that I began to hate, and I began to fight back, and I began, even, to kill, with sword and crossbow and knife, the only weapons that sometimes worked against the trolls. So it was that I had become a Hero, something I was completely indifferent to as an honour, something that only brought me danger.

But danger it was that brought me the reward I craved, the chance to avenge myself on the trolls.

I turn back again, squeezing with my knees and using reins and goad until the ‘saur stands still, leaning into the torrent and trembling. "Queen Morgana? She’s there?" I say over my shoulder to the mutant, pointing towards the glow. "You’ve actually seen her?"

"Yis, Morgana qheen. I see." It’s difficult to make any kind of sense of the creature’s trilling. Despite the rain I can smell it, a strange odour a bit like a slow-burning fire. No wonder the ‘saur is uneasy.

"She’s there where the glow is?" I ask. "You saw her there?" I relax the reins as a sign to the ‘saur to walk, but keep enough pressure so that it does not think of running. "Where is the glow?"

All I get in return is hysterically fast shrilling.

I was given my sword back in the early days, when hope was not quite dead and the people were not yet resigned to defeat and extinction, at a time when just another day of survival wasn’t a measure of victory.

It was a blacksmith who gave me the sword. It was not an ancient weapon loaded with arcane magic. It was simply a sword the blacksmith had made himself, from the chassis of a broken-down lorry, and fitted with a crude wooden handle made from a child’s hockey stick. Over the years the handle had grown dark and polished with sweat and grime and dried trollsblood, and the blade had been sharpened until it could have cut a hair.

It had saved my life many times, this sword. By now it’s the only weapon I trust, the only ally I have, in my personal battle with the trolls.

And, like all good weapons, it has a name. I had called it after her, of whom the trolls had robbed me; the sword’s name, now, is Mara.

I reach over my shoulder and loosen Mara in the scabbard, ready for fast drawing, and try to think what to do. The ‘saur is going fast now, as fast as I will let it, head held low, the last of the St Elmo’s Fire still glowing green on its jaws. We are almost at the top of the slope, and in a vivid flash of lightning I can see the old ruined cathedral. The pulsing white glow is now a pillar of white light, faintly edged with pink, flickering. It comes from behind the cathedral.

I haul back on the reins and the ‘saur stops, throwing up its giant head, the white light reflecting on its dagger-teeth. I raise myself as far as I can, to understand the situation. As yet I can’t see any trolls or just where the light comes from, or what it’s about.

Briefly, I consider dismounting and going ahead on foot. Sometimes one can leave ‘saurs with orders to stay, and they have enough training to obey. But this particular ‘saur’s already spooked with the lightning and the rain, not to mention the mutant on its back, so I can’t even depend on it not to attack me.

What does this mutant want, anyway? Why has it come to me? What does it want with me? Why has it told me something - about Morgana? What has it told me?

Before going on any further, I need to talk with this mutant.

Even before I turn, I feel the ‘saur relax and calm down, and I know what I’m going to find. The mutant has gone. All that remains of it in the darkness is a fast fading odour, and in moments the rain washes that out of the air.

I have not lived as long as I have without developing a sense of danger, or, to put it more bluntly, of knowing when to run away. Everything in my training and common sense now shrieks at me that I should go, now, while I still can. But another part of my brain, a different part, dark and cold, tells me that there is no way I can run away from this. I need to find the cause behind that pillar of fire, and if at all I can, I need to find a way to strike a blow at the enemy. And if there’s any truth at all in what the mutant told me...a great blow it will be, indeed, if I can destroy Morgana, Queen of the Trolls.

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