She shook Macurdy's hand like a man would have, or Melody. "My name is Corla," she said. "I'll take you myself."

After saddling her mare, she led Macurdy and Vulkan to the next farm, a mile up the road. She had them wait in the woods a short distance from the house, and rode up to it. When she'd prepared the farmwife for what she was about to see, she waved them up. Then she introduced Macurdy and started home again.

A worried-looking hired boy led Macurdy and his mount to the edge of the woods behind the field. There they stopped, the boy pointing toward a spring that flowed into a wooden watering trough. Near it lay the remains of a plow ox. Macurdy rode up to it, and looked it over, impressed. The troll had been enormously strong to dismember it as it had.

The boy had remained at the edge of the woods, either he or his saddle mule unwilling to follow. "Can I go back now, Marshal Macurdy sir?" the boy called. His voice broke, partly from fear, partly from puberty.

"How many men are tracking it?" Macurdy asked.

"Six I think. That's what left the house. Please can I go back sir?"

"Sure, go on," Macurdy answered, and the boy, turning his mule, trotted it briskly homeward.

The ox's left foreleg was missing, with most of the shoulder, as if torn off and carried away. Macurdy wasn't much of a tracker himself, but the trail of five or six mounted men shouldn't be hard to follow. The problem was speed.

It was Vulkan who dealt with that. He started briskly up the ridge, Macurdy on his back. ‹My nose,› Vulkan said, ‹is more sensitive to smells than most dogs' are. The troll smell itself calls me, despite the hours and horses that have passed.›

At times the trail was steep enough that Macurdy, riding without reins, gripped the ridge of coarse hair on Vulkan's shoulders to stay aboard. Then they were over the crest, and started down the other side. Here Macurdy was especially grateful for the stirrups. Few horses would willingly tackle so steep a slope head-on. Probably, he thought, the men had walked, leading their mounts.

"How far do you think it'll be?" he asked.

‹Trolls are more intelligent than given credit for,› Vulkan answered. ‹Some more than others. Normally they avoid the vicinity of farms. Big game is their staple. Those which succumb to the temptation of livestock are usually hunted down and killed, sooner or later. Occasionally one becomes clever at avoiding hunters. This is an exceptionally large male, which suggests age, experience, and intelligence.›

"But they can't tolerate daylight, right?"

‹It varies with brightness. At night their eyesight is excellent. In full sunlight they are blind. Even in shade they see only dimly; otherwise they could not be hunted down and killed. In the forest, by dusk, they see decently, and will travel in the evening. But at the first dawnlight, they know the sun will follow, so they find a place to hide. Under the roots of a wind-tipped tree, or in an old bear den, or under a dense copse. Or in a cane-brake, if nothing better is available.›

Shortly they reached broken ground, with narrow ravines, rock falls, and bluffs. Briefly Vulkan paused for breath. ‹He has forced them to leave his trail,› he thought to Macurdy. ‹TrolIs have long, powerful arms. They can clamber up slopes impossible for horses, grasping trees to help themselves. The men have chosen to go around, some in one direction, some in the other, looking for easier terrain. The hounds will follow the scent. Lay low and hold on. I will try to follow it directly.›

The terrain was difficult even for Vulkan, who repeatedly had to leave the trail. At times the troll followed the contour, more or less. And it did all this last night, Macurdy thought, when no one was tracking it. It must have thought this through in advance, visualizing things that might happen.

Vulkan replied to Macurdy's unspoken thought: ‹They plan to a limited degree, varying with the individual.›

"How can it carry that foreleg here? Seems like it would need both hands to climb."

‹It has carried it in its jaws from the beginning. Trolls walk easily on their two feet, but travel faster on all four.›

After a bit the terrain eased, the trail continuing more directly. "Are the hunters back on the trail?" Macurdy asked.

‹They are following the dogs. Do you hear them?›

"No. Do you?"

‹For the last several minutes I've been guiding on their baying. It is quicker.›

They'd been following the troll for nearly two hours when Macurdy first heard the dogs, the sound growing louder as Vulkan gained on them. Thunder rumbled, and he realized the day had darkened. Shortly, beneath the forest roof, it became dark as dusk, and still. Sporadic rain spattered on treetops.

The dogs ceased their trail call, the sound changing to excited barking that said they'd caught up to their quarry. He heard a roar, the scream of a dog, furious barking and raging, more screams. More roars, in two voices overlapping; it hadn't occurred to Macurdy that trolls might travel in pairs. Men shouted. A horse screamed, then another. Vulkan had increased his speed, and with no free hand to fend off brush, Macurdy lay low on the heavy shoulders. Ahead a man screamed, the sound cutting off sharply.

Macurdy's attention was on the noise of combat. He'd totally missed the wind thrashing the treetops. Now a wall of rain marched across the forest canopy, with a sound he could not ignore-like an oncoming train. The fighting was less than a hundred yards away when the deluge struck-rain, hail, leaves and twigs. Lightning stabbed vividly, thunder crashed, branches and pieces of tree trunk thudded to the ground. A wild-eyed horse dashed past, an empty saddle on its back.

Then, in front of him, Macurdy saw two huge shaggy forms. The lesser, beset by a trio of furious hounds, was flailing at them with the broken remains of a man. The other stalked crouching toward two men a few yards distant, one man with a shortsword, the other with a knife. Three horses were down; the others had fled.

Vulkan stopped so abruptly, his rider almost lost his seat. A single thought slammed Macurdy's mind: ‹OFF!› He dismounted, drawing his sword.

Then Vulkan charged the troll who swung the battered corpse, and struck the creature head-on, driving it backward, his powerful neck and shoulders slamming great tusks deeply into the troll's belly. Squalling, spilling guts, the troll grabbed Vulkan even as it fell, taking him down with it.

Macurdy's attention was on the larger troll. Raising his sword, he shot a ball of plasma from its tip, a ball half as large as his fist. Then turning, he aimed at the troll wrestling with Vulkan, but afraid of hitting the boar, he turned back to the other.

His plasma ball had struck through the larger troll's guts. Yet the creature seemed unaffected, except that it had paused in its attack. Before Macurdy could fire again, lightning flashed, accompanied by a stupendous bang of thunder that drove him to his knees.

A minute or minutes later, his wits somewhat recovered, he lurched to his feet, pelted by cold rain and acorn-sized hail. Vulkan had shaken free of the troll he'd disemboweled. The other troll had disappeared, though examination would disclose scattered fragments. The two other men were on the ground. One was struggling to sit up. Macurdy wobbled over to him.

"Damn it, Jeremid," he said, "don't you know enough to get in out of the rain?"

The man stared up at Macurdy. "You!" he husked. "Bhroig's balls! Where in hell…" Then he looked at Vulkan, who was also coming toward him.

"He's my buddy," Macurdy said, gesturing with his head. "His name is Vulkan. He's bigger than me and he's smarter than me, and I think he calls lightning down from the clouds."