Odin, his nose and eyelids stinging from the tormenting mosquito bites, was now further annoyed by the fog. The mist, cloaked in its blackened mask, darkened the night even more. It hung thick as it settled on and silenced the bog mosquitoes. This quiet was short-lived as sudden shrieks sliced into the hush. The black water bog’s symphony of night sounds had begun. Odin knew it was the prowling hour for hungry creatures.
The friends listened to the primal voices of the bog as the damp air swarmed with screeches and shrill screams of one animal being killed by another. Odin wondered if the voracious meat-eating animals preferred troll flesh. He was certain the noble wolf leading his pack would not harm him. However, he was less sure of the poisonous reptiles that crawled through the bog’s moist moss and slithered up into its dwarfed trees, hanging and striking with lightning speed.
Floating in the bog’s mist, Odin and Punga thought they heard snorts scrambled with a strange language brimming with profanity. Odin stopped and kept very still, fearing it may be oil trolls. His thoughts were interrupted when something wet and sticky crossed over his bare foot. A sizable snail with a blue eye nestled in the whorls of his shell was looking up at him. To make matters worse, the snail had two more eyes at the tip of his tentacles also staring up. Instantly, the snail pulled his two eyes down and crawled off Odin’s foot, well aware that trolls eat snails. But Odin did not have food on his mind. Trotting away, his large ears listened again for the nasal snorts, but not to the small voice on his shoulder that repeated, “Be careful my friend.”
In fleeting moments of moonlight, Punga watched for the sumps of stagnant water that bred water bogies. The bogie was smarter than most trolls, and far more devious. Punga was well aware that the hideous bogie slept at night, wrapped in waterweeds and tucked under rocks. Perhaps they were safe.
The hard pace took a toll on Odin and he stopped to quench his thirst. Punga often cautioned his friend to drink from fresh water fens; drinking stagnant water was dangerous. All that was on the young troll’s mind was his thirst. He slumped down on his knees along the edge of a pond and rested on its mossy boulders. Even with a brief flash of moonlight, the green-blue algae on the water’s still surface shaded any view of the unspeakable life form hiding below. Forgetting the wise words of Punga, Odin steadied himself on the rocks, leaned over the murky water and lowered his body to drink.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
A break in the moving clouds allowed the friendly moon to shine through. Her light, reflecting off the ripples, glittered across the dark surface exposing a hazy silhouette gliding toward him. Odin pulled back.
A creature covered with gray-green scales sinuously floated to the pool’s edge. Slowly, a head emerged. The bogie’s long swollen lips, like the mouth of a catfish, grinned up at him. Breathing bubbles out of her pig-like nose, she winked at Odin. Luckily, the filmy membrane growing on the bogie’s eyes had blurred the moonlit image of Odin. Frustrated, she again tried to focus her eyes on the troll who had awakened her from a deep sleep. How much she would enjoy pulling him to the bottom of her pond.
Each morning, after basking in the warmth of daylight, the rejuvenated water bogie becomes a skilled hunter and can appear out of nowhere. Now, her coarse, weed- like hair, floating in the water in a motion akin to breathing tentacles cleverly concealed her. This made surprise attack her forte. Sneaking along the pond’s edge, the bogie could have reached up with her bony fingers and pulled Odin into her watery abyss. She would coil her strong hair around Odin’s body and drag him under, rolling him over and over until he drowned. Then the bogie would bury him in the primeval mud that lay in the bottom of her pond. Once the mountain troll decayed to her perfection, she would eat him with her razor sharp teeth. Bogies love troll flesh.
However, Odin was fortunate that it was not yet dawn and the bogie was lethargic from her sleep in the night’s chilly water. If the morning sun had arrived soon enough to allow her to solar bask in the clusters of rocks, she would have warmed her slimy body. Once warm, she could move rapidly through the murky water and might have captured this troll. Now she must search for another unsuspecting victim to carry down into the rot’s slime.
Shaken, he hurried away, but stopped to glance back at the sly ogress. Bobbing her head up through the bladderworts, she gave him another gruesome wink, then slithered into the depths of the black water. Repulsed by the bogie’s disgusting wink, Odin decided to pay more attention to his little friend, who was now perched directly on top of his head.