A Blink of the Screen

listen.’
    ‘Who did you think was bidding against you?’ said the horse.
    Cohen the Barbarian stayed leaning against the tree. He was not sure that he could pull himself upright again.
    ‘You must have plenty of treasure stashed away,’ said the horse. ‘We could go Rimwards. How about it? Nice and warm. Get a nice warm place by a beach somewhere, what do you say?’
    ‘No treasure,’ said Cohen. ‘Spent it all. Drank it all. Gave it all away. Lost it.’
    ‘You should have saved some for your old age.’
    ‘Never thought I’d have an old age.’
    ‘One day you’re going to die,’ said the horse. ‘It might be today.’
    ‘I know. Why do you think I’ve come here?’
    The horse turned and looked down towards the gorge. The road here was pitted and cracked. Young trees were pushing up between the stones. The forest crowded in on either side. In a few years, no one would know there’d even been a road here. By the look of it, no one knew now.
    ‘You’ve come here to die?’
    ‘No. But there’s something I’ve always been meaning to do. Ever since I was a lad.’
    ‘Yeah?’
    Cohen tried easing himself upright again. Tendons twanged their red-hot messages down his legs.
    ‘My dad,’ he squeaked. He got control again. ‘My dad,’ he said, ‘said to me—’ He fought for breath.
    ‘Son,’ said the horse, helpfully.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Son,’ said the horse. ‘No father ever calls his boy “son” unless he’s about to impart wisdom. Well-known fact.’
    ‘It’s my reminiscence.’
    ‘Sorry.’
    ‘He said … Son … yes, okay … Son, when you can face down a troll in single combat, then you can do anything.’
    The horse blinked at him. Then it turned and looked down, again, through the tree-jostled road to the gloom of the gorge. There was a stone bridge down there.
    A horrible feeling stole over it.
    Its hooves jiggled nervously on the ruined road.
    ‘Rimwards,’ it said. ‘Nice and warm.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘What’s the good of killing a troll? What’ve you got when you’ve killed a troll?’
    ‘A dead troll. That’s the point. Anyway, I don’t have to kill it. Just defeat it. One on one. Mano a … troll. And if I didn’t try my father would turn in his mound.’
    ‘You told me he drove you out of the tribe when you were eleven.’
    ‘Best day’s work he ever did. Taught me to stand on other people’s feet. Come over here, will you?’
    The horse sidled over. Cohen got a grip on the saddle and heaved himself fully upright.
    ‘And you’re going to fight a troll today,’ said the horse.
    Cohen fumbled in the saddlebag and pulled out his tobacco pouch. The wind whipped at the shreds as he rolled another skinny cigarette in the cup of his hands.
    ‘Yeah,’ he said.
    ‘And you’ve come all the way out here to do it.’
    ‘Got to,’ said Cohen. ‘When did you last see a bridge with a troll under it? There were hundreds of ’em when I was a lad. Now there’s more trolls in the cities than there are in the mountains. Fat as butter, most of ’em. What did we fight all those wars for? Now … cross that bridge.’
    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, okay? 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