Grosha’s face changed just enough to reveal the hint of fear that had suddenly uncoiled deep in his belly. The wolf dogs must have felt it, too; their much stronger response was mirrored in their yellow eyes. Both of them backed away suddenly, going into a crouch and whimpering.

Grosha looked down at them, confused. Then he wheeled back on the ragpicker. “What are you doing to my hounds, you skinny old …?”

He didn’t finish. His knife swept up in an attack meant to disembowel the ragpicker with a single stroke. But the latter caught the Troll’s wrist with one hand and held it fast, pinning it to the air in front of him, his grip as strong and unbreakable as an iron cuff.

“Were you speaking to me?” the ragpicker asked, bending close. “What was it you called me? Say those words again.”

Grosha spit at him in fury, yanking on his wrist, trying to break free. But the ragpicker only smiled and held him tighter. The other Trolls started forward, but a single glance from the ragpicker stopped them in their tracks. They saw in his eyes what he was, and they wanted no part of him. Not even to save the son of their Maturen. Instead, they backed away, as cowed as the Skaith Hounds, which had retreated all the way into the rocks, still whining and snapping at the air.

The ragpicker forced Grosha to his knees. The Troll’s mouth was opening and closing like a fish gulping for air. His scream was high and piercing. He groped at his belt with his free hand for another weapon, but he couldn’t seem to find one, even though there was a dagger not three inches away.

“Speak my name!” the ragpicker hissed at him.

“Ragpicker!” the hapless Troll gasped.

“My real name! Whisper it to me!”

Grosha was crying and sobbing. “Demon!” he moaned.

“Am I your master and you my servant?” The ragpicker put his face so close to the other he could see the veins in the Troll’s eyes throb. “Or are you detritus to be tossed aside?”

“Anything! I’ll do anything you ask of me!” Grosha was slobbering and drooling, and his hand and wrist were turning black. “Please!”

The ragpicker released him. When Grosha sank down all the way, cradling his damaged hand, the ragpicker put a foot against his chest and pinned him to the earth.

“Now tell me what I want to know. Everything I want to know. What are you doing here? What are you looking for? What is inside this fortress that you want so badly?” He looked up at the rest of the Trolls, hunched down amid rocks and debris and on the point of fleeing. “Don’t try to run from me! Get down here with your friend!”

He shifted his gaze to Grosha once more, his eyes gleaming. “You were about to say?”