Troll Bridge by Jane Yolen Page B

you be making a lovely dinner,” called Aenmarr’s wife.
    â€œDoom, Doom, Doom,” added Aenmarr’s son. “I be glad you are not thinner.”
    Aenmarr roared with laughter. “That be it my lovelies! What else?”
    â€œDoom, Doom, Doom, do not run away in fright!”
    â€œDoom, Doom, Doom, come dine with us tonight!”
    The three trolls hooted and howled, but Jakob’s stomach flipped over. He couldn’t outrun them; he’d have to find somewhere to hide. There was that swamp, but he didn’t want to escape the trolls just to drown in some sinkhole.
    Has to be the forest, he thought, angling left toward a strange awkward stand of trees. Maybe I can find a stick to fight them off with. This thought did little to cheer him. It would have to be a very big stick. Tree-sized.
    He imagined he could feel the trolls’ hot breath on his back as they continued to chant behind him.
    â€œDoom! Doom! Doom!”
    Brambly branches slapped him in the face. Tree roots seemed to reach up and coil around his ankles. Seem to? he thought, now in full panic. In this forest, maybe they actually can!
    Pressing deeper into the woods, he dodged bushes and trees, sidestepped rocks and fallen limbs, leapt over a narrow stream, twisted his ankle, stumbled, recovered … and ran smack into the thick trunk of an old oak. His vision went white, and the breath flew out of him in a painful rush.
    I’m dead, he thought as he fell back onto the mossy ground, lying there trying to get his breath back. The trolls will come crashing in here any second.
    Staggering to his feet, Jakob began running again. His head swam and he collapsed once more. Crawling to a tree, hoping to hide, he was suddenly struck with the silence around him. The drum of footsteps behind him had stopped. So had the chanting. Jakob lay still, listening, trying to figure out what was going on. Or not going on.
    Just then he heard a strange whoosh ing accompanied by a crackle of branches. He threw himself sideways and it was lucky he did, because at that very moment an uprooted tree came crashing through the canopy of the forest, landing where he’d been lying just seconds before. A gout of dirt and dead leaves sprayed over him.
    â€œDid you hit him, Papa?”
    â€œNo.” Jakob heard Aenmarr sigh. “Luck of the very Devil our Little Doom has.”
    Desperately, Jakob started crawling again, listening intently for another flying tree, or for the booming footsteps to start up again.
    There was nothing.
    Why aren’t they chasing me?
    Slowly it came to him: Moving through the forest was easier for him than for the trolls. He could squeeze between the trees; the bigger trolls had to go around, or stomp through, or simply—as Aenmarr had—pull the trees from the ground and toss them.
    This realization gave Jakob strength and he pushed himself to his feet. He’d found his way into the trees by accident—but it might be the one bit of terrain in this awful place where he could outpace the trolls.
    â€œCome, my lovelies,” Aenmarr said. “This chase be boring me. I be too hungry to continue. After dinner, I be sniffing Doom out. He not be getting far. He bleeds.”
    I do? Jakob put his hand to his face where he could still feel the sting from the branches. It came away wet. I guess I do.
    â€œThere be no place in Trollholm he can hide from Aenmarr for long.” The trolls’ footsteps started up again, but receding this time.
    Jakob sighed gratefully and staggered in the opposite direction, wondering if he had done anything more than buy himself a few hours. And wondering as well if any of his running and bleeding and terror had helped save either of his brothers.
    *   *   *
    JAKOB WALKED FOR WHAT FELT like hours, through what seemed to be the same thick dark. Suddenly, he stumbled upon a stream at the far edge of the woods. Barely a trickle really. He followed it,