Pete was dreaming again.
He dreamed he was lying on a table as a huge goat, standing on its hind legs and at least as tall as the average human, painted him red.
He dreamed he was repeatedly jumping off the edge of a cliff, only to land on the same cliff over and over again.
He dreamed he was a bird in flight, being chased by a much larger bird, and as he looked over his shoulder the big bird gave a great shriek and exploded into a mass of feathers.
He could not understand why he wasn't dreaming anything useful. Surely the monster would have something important to say now? Heck, even if it was something as simple as, "I don't like your owner, he keeps yelling at me and shining his torch in my eyes" then at least Pete would know he was still on the right track.
But now he was beginning to worry. Maybe the monster wasn't communicating to him psychically through his dreams. Maybe they were just dreams.
He was dreaming about being sat at a dining table, eating squid with a Japanese family except he didn't have any cutlery so he had to ask the father for a knife and fork and everyone was glowering at him when the little daughter of the family ordered him, in a surprisingly masculine voice, to wake up.
And just like that, he was staring into the irritated eyes of his friend Cliffey.
"Come on. We're leaving before you run off again."
"Uff...wait," mumbled Pete sleepily. "Uh...where's Goldberg?"
"He's still shouting at the monster," said Sarah, nodding back towards the room they had just come from.
"Nah, I've finished now," said Goldberg quietly as he emerged, shutting the door behind him. "Are you okay, Pete? Shall we head off?"
Pete tried to think of a reason to keep them there, but he couldn't come up with anything, and he could sense that they were getting tired of his stalling antics.
"Okay, yeah. Let's go."
And so they went. They filed out of the cavern, and Goldberg helped them to scramble up out of the hole.
"So what did you say to him?" asked Pete as Goldberg pulled himself out.
"Just a few firm words," said Goldberg, smiling faintly.
* * *
The trolls strode through the forest, with the great crow walking at their side.
"So his name is Karl?"
"Karl, yes." Jo-Tunn gazed, glassy-eyed, into the middle distance. "He always complained about having such a human name. Some of our less...distinguished members would make fun of him for it, and that would always get on his wick rather."
"So maybe that's why he's snapped? Was he much of an outcast?"
Jo-Tunn sniffed. "All trolls are outcasts, friend. I suppose Karl was something of an outcast among outcasts, yes, but I don't see that that could have caused this."
"Well then what did?"
"It's anyone's guess."
They walked on in silence for a minute.
"Righto, everyone!" shouted Jo-Tunn, suddenly stopping to address the whole group. "It's clear to me that we've a much larger chance of finding Karl if we split up and fan out."
Jo-Tunn organised his trolls into five search parties. One team would head north, one south, one east and one west. The remaining team - consisting merely of Jo-Tunn and the crow - would stay put, on the off-chance that Karl wondered by this spot.
The other four parties shuffled off, and the crow heard some mumblings about leadership laziness. Jo-Tunn seemed not to hear, or otherwise just to ignore them.
Once the two of them were left alone, Jo-Tunn spoke up once more.
"I've just realised that you haven't even told us your name yet, friend. What shall we call you?"
The crow looked away for a minute. Jo-Tunn thought he saw a smile.
"You'll have to try and guess. It starts with a J."
"Hmph. If you're going to play games, I shall just call you crow."
And that was that.
TO BE CONTINUED
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