The Troll Bridge

In a different time, in a different place, two young trolls were one day approaching a bridge from opposite ends. One, called Aegar, was seventeen years old and had the visage of what you might call a fairly traditional troll. He was ten feet tall and broad, with tree trunk-like arms and legs, a great round belly and mostly elephant grey skin. He was bald, with green eyes, a big, wide nose and only a few teeth, save for two large fangs protruding from the bottom of his jaw, like a sabre-toothed tiger's canine teeth, only in reverse.

Approaching the other end of the bridge was Skillet, who was fifteen years old, a mere eight feet tall and rather skinny for his race. He had blue and purple skin that looked almost reptilian, four arms with sharp bone claws for fingers and black hedgehog-like spikes (ranging from six inches to a foot in length) all across his back. He was also bald but had three crimson eyes (the third being half the size of his other two, between but a little above them).

Now, something you need to know about some trolls is that when they reach adolescence, their sole purpose in life becomes finding a decent bridge to guard. Some find their bridge quite quickly, whilst others can spend years searching the land for a good one. Either way, once they find their bridge, it becomes their home for good. They will guard it with their lives and any human wanting to cross it must pay the toll - or rather, they must pay the troll. This toll has remained the same for centuries: exactly one tenth of all the possessions they are travelling with. This toll is mainly paid by merchants - who know well enough to bring extra goods with them to pay with - but even a small boy, wanting to cross a bridge empty-handed, would have to give the bridge's troll one tenth of the clothes he was wearing, even if it meant ripping off a quarter of his shirt. This may seem harsh, but it is the way of the world and a form of commerce between trolls and humans that is accepted by all.

Skillet had been looking for a bridge to call his own for just over six months, but Aegar had been searching for nearly three years. The bridge they had just now found was an exciting find for them both. It was clearly new - some humans had tied together six tree trunks that were about eighty feet in length, to cross from one side of a river bank to the other, with the two banks being just sixty feet apart. The river running underneath this bridge was about seven feet deep at its centre - too deep for travellers to cross with their horses, but a good depth for either Skillet or Aegar to stand in without any fear of being swept away by the current. It was also in a rather scenic location, as on both sides of the bridge were great fields of marigold flowers with one single dirt road running through them. This meant little to Skillet, but Aegar had loved gold all his life and from a short distance away the bridge looked to him like a man-made island in the centre of a magnificent lake of gold. After so long searching for an ideal home, Aegar could not help but smile. He bent down and gingerly picked one flower from the side of the road, then sniffed it with one of his giant nostrils. Unfortunately it didn’t smell like gold to him, but that was fine. No troll should fulfill every dream in one day, after all. Nonetheless, he stuffed the flower in a back pocket of his patchwork leather trousers and resumed his march towards the bridge.

Suddenly spotting each other at the same moment, Aegar and Skillet both started running to reach the bridge first. You see, troll law stated that once a troll claimed a bridge, no other could ever contest their claim.

Aegar was much closer to the bridge, but Skillet was twice as fast as him. Still, it seemed as though Aegar would reach the bridge a second or two before Skillet, but then... he tripped over his own left foot. Aegar was slow, Aegar was clumsy, but Aegar generally had good reflexes, so as he fell forward like a great tree coming down, he reached out one hand to touch the bridge, and did just that... one second before Skillet got his right foot on it.

"Aegar! Is that you?" Skillet called from his side of the bridge.

"Yes, it is Aegar!" he called back, clambering back to his feet. "Now get off my bridge! I have claimed it!"

"Ha! I haven't seen you since the last great gathering, but you're clearly still as stupid as I remember. You cannot claim a bridge with a hand, you have to step on it. Which I did first, so it's mine!"

"It is you who is stupid!" Aegar called back. "There is no such law, and never has been!"

Skillet shook his head and boldly walked across the bridge, the timber creaking beneath his weight. Now they were both standing on Aegar's side of it.

"Did you hear that? This bridge is weak; it barely supports my weight, much less a troll as big and fat as you..."

"Then I will stand beneath it!" Aegar bellowed. "Or I will tear down more trees to reinforce it. My mother was a great builder, she showed me how."

"As did mine. But it is a moot point. I stepped on it first, it's mine."

"I touched it first, it's mine!"

They stared and snarled at each other, their faces just inches apart.

"Well," Skillet said after a few moments. "We both believe we have a fair claim and neither of us is willing to concede. It seems we only have one recourse here."

"Yes," Aegar replied gruffly, "we must fight to the death for it."

A shocked expression crossed Skillet's face for a moment... then he began to laugh. Aegar joined in with great hearty laughter of his own.

"Ahhh, you got me for a moment there, brother. ‘Fight to the death' indeed. What are we, humans?" Skillet chuckled.

"Of course not." Aegar replied, still smiling broadly, "we trolls are far more civilised than those savages. So, 'fist headbutt spit' then?"

"Of course. Shall we say best of three?"

"Make it five. I have always favoured a longer contest."

"So be it then. Best of five."

'Fist headbutt spit' is the standard game trolls play to resolve disagreements. It is a game of close observation, a skill well developed by any self-respecting troll who would claim a bridge to guard. In this game the two trolls stand opposite one another, then together count to five. On five, they each do one of three things: thrust out a fist is front of them, make a headbutt motion (both without actually trying to hit the other), or spit in the other’s direction. A fist beat spitting, a headbutt beat a fist and spitting beat a headbutt.

Aegar and Skillet now assumed their positions in front of each other. They began to count. One. Aegar noticed a twitch in Skillet's jaw. Two, three. Skillet noticed Aegar's right arm beginning to tense. Four, five. Skillet went for a headbutt, expecting Aegar to thrust out his fist, but instead Aegar spat at him, a great glob of phlegm landing at Skillet's feet.

"Hmph. Well played." Skillet simply said.

They played on. In the second round, Skillet spat and Aegar put out his left fist. Two rounds to Aegar. In the third, Skillet again chose to headbutt, but again Aegar spat, this time all over Skillet's chest. The contest was over.

"Nooo!" Skillet screamed. "Damn your eyes, Aegar!"

Aegar simply smiled. "As I said, this bridge is mine."

"Fine." Skillet replied sadly. "You have bested me completely. The bridge is yours. Treat it well."

"I will, of course. But, before you continue on your way... perhaps you could help me reinforce it? I lied before. My mother never taught me a damn thing about bridge construction. She was a cook, and not a particularly good one. Everything she made tasted sweet. Disgusting!"

Skillet thought on this for a moment, then agreed. His mother really had been a great bridge builder, and he would proudly show off the skills he had learnt from her.

So he stayed, he helped. They ate together, they exchanged stories. When the first humans came by, Aegar chose to give a third of his toll to Skillet. He found he actually enjoyed Skillet's company. Guarding a bridge alone can, after all, be rather tedious. So after a while they started to work together: Skillet on the bridge, Aegar under it. It was not the usual troll way, but they were both young enough to defy tradition if it suited them.

Years later Skillet did finally leave Aegar's bridge to go find his own. A few months later, he found a real beauty. In time, he became a widely respected bridge troll, famous throughout the land. Aegar would often hear humans talking about him as they crossed his own little bridge. He, of course, missed his friend from time to time, but mostly he was just glad to have known him for a while.