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    Dodging past the swordsman, he turned and started to flee over the bridge, but as he set his foot on it there came a wet, echoey roar from below, and out from among the moss and the ferns beneath the arch there oozed a great grey-green shape. Thick-fingered hands seized the parapet as the figure heaved itself up to block the bridge; dull dark eyes gleamed hungrily behind a fall of pondweed hair; a gout of vapour and a musty smell enveloped Skarper as its broad mouth opened to let out another roar.
    He pointed at it, and turned to look back at his attacker. “Now that’s a troll,” he said.

 
    Skarper had expected the troll to reach straight past him for the softling, who was so obviously larger and more tender and better to eat. Instead, to his surprise, it closed one of its big hands about his leg and lifted him upside down in front of its face, blinking at him with those black, wet-pebble eyes. Trolls, he realized, as it opened its spike-toothed maw to gulp him down, are really stupid. . .
    The softling must have been stupider still. He came charging in under the dangling Skarper and swung his blunt and rusty blade straight at the troll’s chest. Had no one told him that troll hide was as tough as stone? The sword rebounded; it clattered to the flagstones as the softling yelled in pain and stuck his jarred hands in his armpits. The troll knocked off his hat and lifted him by his curly golden hair. As it did so, Skarper managed to lash out with one foot and catch it in the eye with his heel. The troll grunted and stepped backwards. Overbalanced by the weight of its struggling prey, it stumbled against the bridge’s parapet, and the rough old ivied stones gave way. Down they went, man, troll and goblin, into the cold dark swirl of water under the bridge.
    The troll let go of Skarper, but that didn’t help much; water is no place for goblins. He sank, choking and flailing, until a firm hand grabbed him and heaved him up into the air and then ashore. The softling let him go and turned back to the river, drawing a knife from his belt as the water heaved in the bridge’s shadow and the troll burst up roaring, looking for its prey.
    “Over here, spawn of evil!” shouted the softling, waving his little dagger.
    “Hush! Shhh! Psst! Don’t attract its attention! Running’s our only hope!” hissed Skarper, grabbing the flapping end of the softling’s sodden cloak and trying desperately to pull him backwards.
    It was too late; the shouting or the flash of the blade had caught the troll’s eye. Its big head turned; it roared its fury at the pair on the bank.
    Fortunately the parapet of the bridge had not quite finished falling to pieces. One huge stone still teetered, leaning far out over the river but held in place by a tether of ivy stems. At the troll’s roar the last stem broke; the stone toppled, fell, and landed with an ugly thud on the troll’s flat skull. The troll collapsed into the water and did not come up again; a few bubbles rose, and the river whirled them away. The white rapids downstream flushed a rusty red.
    “Victory!” cried the softling triumphantly, and started to wade towards the pool where the troll had sunk, holding his knife aloft. “I shall cut off its head!”
    “Not with that, you won’t,” shouted Skarper, still holding on to the raggedy end of the softling’s cloak and pulling hard to hold him back. “Don’t you know the king of Coriander dresses his bodyguards in trollskin armour because it deflects the blows of any man-forged blade?”
    The softling looked back, a glimpse of doubt in his large blue eyes. “You have been to Coriander?”
    “I read it in a book,” said Skarper. “And I read in another one that trolls’ bones are hard as upland stones,” he added, and fell backwards on the bank as the softling turned and waded back to shore.
    “You think it might only be stunned?” he asked as he scrambled out of the water.
    “Let’s not wait around and find out,”