The Place
The Brook Holds is a hold of black stone and cold water, and the cold is the whole of the place, because a hold that is cold is a hold that has been kept, and the kept is the law. The holds sit along a cold brook that runs out of the black ridge, and the brook is the measure the trolls trust, because a brook that runs the year is a brook that keeps the strength. The stone of the holds is black, a black that is more water than rock, and the black is the color of the strength, which is to say it is a color you can see in the cold and not in the heat. The water of the brook is cold to the bone in every season, and the every is the constant, because the brook has no summer that warms it, and the not-warming is the law. The sky over the holds is a flat grey, the color of the ridge when the rain is near, and the rain is near, and the near is the calendar. It smells of cold water and wet stone, a smell that is the hold and is also the patience, and the one sound under the water is the grind, a slow low stone-on-stone from the center of the hold that is the strength being read as a word, and the word is the oath, and the oath is the long. There is no landmark the way a brook has a landmark, but there is one: the First Bridge, a single slab of black stone across the brook, the oldest slab and the first oath, and the bridge is the door, and the door is the grind. What makes the Brook Holds itself is the grind: the holds keep their strength the way the brook keeps its cold, and the keeping is the strength, and the strength is the word, and the word is the end.
How They Live
The Trolls keep their holds in the stone, living in chambers of black rock and cold water, their halls above the brook and their entrances at the brook's edge, and a hall is laid down one slab at a time, because a slab is the season and a slab is the calendar. The halls are low and deep, a dark stone over a colder floor, and the dark is the wall and the colder is the law, and the law is the cold. Light comes from the hold — the cold grey-white of the stone, which holds the thin sun of the season and gives it back, and the giving back is the daylight, and the daylight is the kept. Food is the hold: the small game, the brook-fish, the ridge-moss, and the salt the traders leave at the bridge, and the fish is the staple, because the fish is the strength, and the strength is the kept. Water is the brook, and the brook is the water, and the troll drinks and grinds and remembers in the same cold run. Heat is not something the hold offers, and the not-offering is the constant, and the trolls have stopped asking it to. The defense is the hold itself — a visitor who crosses the First Bridge is already in the word's path, and the word is the alarm and the welcome and the sentence, because the hold has a chokepoint, and the chokepoint is the bridge, and the bridge is the law. The day is measured by the strength, which is also the calendar, because the stone is the only clock the oath needs, and the clock does not lie about what is owed. Every troll that is named must cross the First Bridge through one full grind before the holds will call it one of its own, and the crossing is the naming, and the naming is the only thing the stone ever gives back.
People
Home of the Trolls, whose holds are counted by strength. Nine holds at the last count, and the count is kept by the strength-keepers, which is to say the count is as reliable as the grind, which is to say it is reliable until the word breaks. The strength-keepers lead, and rank is decided by the crossing, because a keeper who crosses the First Bridge the season the water is lowest is the keeper the hold trusts. Nothing that cannot cross is welcome, and the not-crossing is not an insult, because the hold has an oath, and the oath has a patience, and the patience has an end. A traveler who once stood at the far end of the First Bridge called it a country that keeps its strength the way the brook keeps its cold, and the calling was the truest thing he said and the thing the hold paid the least attention to.
In Stories
The place where the strength is the only honest thing, and the thing is the word, and the word is the oath, and the oath is the end. The Forgotten have crossed the First Bridge once, on the way to the black ridge, and the crossing was in the season of the low water, and the low was the decision. Uaellaen heard the grind once, at the center of the bridge, and the hearing was the patience, and the patience was the only thing that lasted.