Free The Last Changeling by Jane Yolen Page A

again.
    â€œNow . . .” She said the single word in the calmest way she could, though she felt neither calm nor sure it would work. Her next words were hardly calm at all, tumbling out of her like a river in full spate. “The apprentice is fine, the baby is fine, tell me what’s troubling you, Huldra. And then we will find you a cave or a cabin nearby where you can sleep during the day.” She stopped and took a deep breath, ready to say more.
    â€œNot sleep. Hungry. No food. Two days.” Huldra’s big hands clutched her belly.
    â€œYou
must
eat for the baby’s sake,” Snail told her. How often she’d heard Mistress Softhands tell a mother that.
Well, actually three times
, she thought. The first had been an ostler’s wife who had the after-birthing wobbly-cobbles. The second, a drow’s wife upset that she’d only had four babies and not six, which meant her husband would beat her and possibly eat her or, failing that, throw her out of the nest. And third, a pretty young Border Lord’s wife who wanted to get up out of her birthing bed to go riding with her man.
    â€œThere is no food for me. No . . .”
    â€œWhy doesn’t
 
. . .” Snail tried for a moment to remember Huldra’s mate’s name, but gave up. “Why doesn’t your mate hunt for you?”
    Even as she said it, she recalled the pitifully small rabbit he’d come home with when she and Aspen had just helped Huldra give birth. Surely the mate wasn’t much of a hunter.
    â€œUkko is . . .” And then Huldra’s blubbing began anew, only this time, tears and snot fell like a storm threatening to drown Snail, baby, and all.
    As Huldra rambled in between wiping her nose with an increasingly messy sleeve, Snail listened and thought about next steps. And she kept bouncing the baby to make sure he stayed asleep.
    â€œThose jerker berserkers, those skirted scourges, those sword-waving hordes, those roguish brogue-ish monsters . . .” Huldra said.
    Suddenly Snail saw it: The baby is diapered in a swatch ripped from a kilt. Huldra is talking about the Border Lords. Of course.
    Just as Snail had that realization, Huldra’s story stumbled out of her gigantic mouth. She’d been in the forest doing an evening of berrying, the baby safe in Ukko’s arms back in their cave, when a troop (“Scouting party,” Aspen amended from behind Snail, but she didn’t take time to admonish him) must have stumbled onto the cave.
    â€œProbably drawn there by the smell of a haunch of venison cooking on an open fire,” Aspen whispered.
    â€œHush!” This time she turned to warn him. But he was probably right. The cave in the Hunting Grounds where the trolls lived gave off magical odors to suit any prey’s desire. She’d smelled cabbage soup, and Aspen had smelled roasted nuts and honey. “Let her continue. We don’t have all night.” Or at least the troll didn’t.
    â€œSo the Border Lords . . . er, the jerker berserkers found your cave, and then what happened?” Snail asked.
    Another mammoth wailing cry, and then Huldra said, “Ukko fought bravely, but one of the little swords . . .”
    Nothing little about those swords
, thought Snail, knowing even a Border Lord had to use two hands to wield one, but didn’t say it aloud for fear of stopping the story’s flow.
    But there was no fear of that, for Huldra was now herself the river in spate and nothing was going to stop her till the tale was done. “My handsome hulking husband, the lofty love of my life, was kicked and pricked by the kilted cult and died defending our son. Our Og.”
    Aspen said, “What did you do then?” before Snail could stop him.
    â€œI ate them, of course.”
    Snail felt sick at the thought but worked hard at not showing it.
    â€œI had not time to boil them. Nor the