He'd heard that name before. Tindra had said it a few times, usually in annoyance because the man fought with his emotionsand not with his head. Gunnar had listened to her curse the man time and time again.
Then another troll shouted at the general, asking why the other trolls weren't here. Why wasn't Torvi with them now? Where was the war band that had been fighting with no one realizing they had been sent out?
Gunnar’s heart thundered in his ears. It was all he could hear. The steady beat that was getting faster and faster, urging him into movement.
"The tunnels," he said without thinking, and then ran.
Ragnar raced after him, his brother shouting over and over again for him to stop. But he couldn't. If he could just get to the tunnels, then he could race out to the battlefield and get to her. The war band was out there on its own. He could fight with them, or help them flee. He couldn't just leave them.
His feet pounded on the stones where so many troll feet had walked before. He ran as though the mountain itself urged him on, and then...
He slammed into the stone that had already been rolled into place. It had been sealed.
"Help me open it," he said, already setting his back against the rock wall and shoving with his arms. "Ragnar, help me open it."
"Gunnar, listen to what is happening outside. We can't open it. The human soldiers cannot find this entrance into the mountain. They don't know any of our entrances. If we open it, that will risk thousands."
"Tindra is out there, Ragnar! Help me open the fucking tunnel!"
His arms strained and his back made a cracking sound. He had to open it though. He could if he just gave it a little more of a push.
Then he heard her. Tindra. The words coming through a small crack that was right next to his head. He could almost see her, but her form was just a shadow blotting out the silver of sunlight that wormed past the stone.
"Gunnar?" she said, her voice loud over the sound of fighting. "Don't open it."
"Tindra, I’m coming for you."
"Don't open it. Save everyone else. You know that's what I want." Another crash, a clang, metal on metal. And then the words that haunted him. "I love you, leafling. Make me proud."
And then she was gone. The sounds of fighting grew louder, then quieter, and Gunnar leaned against the stone for a long time, waiting to see the sunlight again. But he didn't. That shadow stayed right where she had been.
At some point, more trolls came with them. They approached with torches and illuminated the dark space where he waited.
Liquid dripped through the crack. He touched it the same moment something slid out of the way and sunlight emerged once more through the crack. His fingers were stained with blood.
Her blood.
The friend he had never thought he would lose.
Gunnar threw his head back and screamed. He didn’t care if the humans heard him. He didn’t care if he gave up that the trolls were hiding behind this stone. Every part of him that had once been good shattered at the loss of the last person who had loved him.
Five
Rose
Rose stared down at the book in her hands, a little shocked at the information it revealed.
"Are you saying that the elves were able to tell the future, and that's why they left?" she asked as she wandered through the stone halls.
At some point in her teachings, Rhydian had decided he would no longer meet with her in a field. Understandable, she supposed. He brought her books to read all the time, and even though they weren't real, he was still vehemently opposed to even the imaginary risk of damaging them. He had insisted they go to his tower, where they were all held.
It was strange what her mind could conjure. Rose had never seen a tower like the spiraling one they were in now. It was a series of rooms stacked on top of each other, all accessed by a staircase that wrapped around the outside, not the inside. She had gotten used to the brisk breeze that always made her feel a little wobbly as she made her way from room to room. Thelibrary was nearly at the very top, one of the most precarious to get to.
The room itself was rather beautiful, though. The books were stacked haphazardly in towers of their own, some on the many shelves that dotted throughout the space in no rhyme or reason. Others balanced in spirals that could fall if someone brushed carelessly against them.
Rhydian himself stood by one of those tall stacks, precariously choosing a book that was halfway down the middle. He'd never knocked over a single book. She was convinced it was magic, but he told her it was because elves were more graceful than humans.
Rose wasn't sure what to believe.
