It was a lonely bridge across a shallow, white, and treacherous river in a deep valley. The sort of place where you got -
A grey shape vaulted over the parapet and landed splay-footed in front of the horse. It waved a club.
"All right," it growled.
"Oh -" the horse began.
The troll blinked. Even the cold and cloudy winter skies seriously reduced the conductivity of a troll's silicon brain, and it had taken it this long to realize that the saddle was unoccupied.
It blinked again, because it could suddenly feel a knife point resting on the back of its neck.
"Hello," said a voice by its ear.
The troll swallowed. But very carefully.
"Look," it said desperately, "it's tradition, OK? A bridge like this, people ort to expect a troll . . . 'Ere," it added, as another thought crawled past, "'ow come I never 'eard you creepin' up on me?"
"Because I'm good at it," said the old man.
"That's right," said the horse. "He's crept up on more people than you've had frightened dinners."
The troll risked a sideways glance.
"Bloody hell," it whispered. "You think you're Cohen the Barbarian, do you?"
"What do you think?" said Cohen the Barbarian.
"Listen," said the horse, "if he hadn't wrapped sacks round his knees you could have told by the clicking."
It took the troll some time to work this out.
"Oh, wow," it breathed. "On my bridge! Wow!"
"What?" said Cohen.
The troll ducked out of his grip and waved its hands frantically. 'It's all right! It's all right!" it shouted, as Cohen advanced. "You've got me! You've got me! I'm not arguing! I just want to call the family up, all right? Otherwise no one'll ever believe me. Cohen the Barbarian! On my bridge!"
Its huge stony chest swelled further. "My bloody brother-in-law's always swanking about his huge bloody wooden bridge, that's all my wife ever talks about. Hah! I'd like to see the look on his face . . . oh, no! What can you think of me?"
"Good question," said Cohen.
The troll dropped its club and seized one of Cohen's hands.
"Mica's the name," it said. 'You don't know what an honour this is!"
He leaned over the parapet. "Beryl! Get up here! Bring the kids!"
He turned back to Cohen, his face glowing with happiness and pride.
"Beryl's always sayin' we ought to move out, get something better, but I tell her, this bridge has been in our family for generations, there's always been a troll under Death Bridge. It's tradition."
A huge female troll carrying two babies shuffled up the bank, followed by a tail of smaller trolls. They lined up behind their father, watching Cohen owlishly.
"This is Beryl," said the troll. His wife glowered at Cohen. "And this -" he propelled forward a scowling smaller edition of himself, clutching a junior version of his club - "is my lad Scree.
A real chip off the old block. Going to take on the bridge when I'm gone, ain't you, Scree. Look, lad, this is Cohen the Barbarian! What d'you think o' that, eh? On our bridge! We don't just have rich fat soft ole merchants like your uncle Pyrites gets," said the troll, still talking to his son but smirking past him to his wife, "we 'ave proper heroes like they used to in the old days."
The troll's wife looked Cohen up and down.
"Rich, is he?" she said.
"Rich has got nothing to do with it," said the troll.
"Are you going to kill our dad?" said Scree suspiciously.
"Corse he is," said Mica severely. "It's his job. An' then I'll get famed in song an' story. This is Cohen the Barbarian, right, not some bugger from the village with a pitchfork. 'E's a famous hero come all this way to see us, so just you show 'im some respect.
"Sorry about that, sir," he said to Cohen. "Kids today. You know how it is."
The horse started to snigger.
"Now look -" Cohen began.
"I remember my dad tellin' me about you when I was a pebble," said Mica. "'E bestrides the world like a clossus, he said."
There was silence. Cohen wondered what a clossus was, and felt Beryl's stony gaze fixed upon him.
"He's just a little ol…
