The Brave Apprentice (20 page)

“Tell the men in the winch room to raise the inner portcullis. That’s right, raise it. But only to let it fall and crush the first troll who breaks through and wanders beneath it.

“You villagers—we are glad to have you. Your hands and arms are strong from your work in the fields of Dartham. And now your strength will serve in its defense. Take your place on the parapet beside the archers, where you will rain death upon the trolls. There are stones for you to hurl. And while fire does them little harm, our pots of quicklime and boiling oil might do the trick.

“Your king will command the village folk. Marmon will direct the archers. And I will command the soldiers.”

If Addison had any doubts that they could succeed, he’d hidden them someplace where no one could see. His voice and gaze were steady. Patch saw new confidence blossoming among the assembled men they nodded, stood taller, clapped one another on the shoulder. A light was in their eyes now, and many were smiling. Patch wondered if it was possible that they could win this battle after all—but his mind kept returning to the towering, powerful trolls, now thirty or more strong.

“Come, Patch,” Simon said, tugging at his sleeve. “I promised.”

“Do you smell the fire?” Patch asked. He pointed to the smoke, billowing up darker than the fog, rising up outside the wall near the gatehouse. “They’re burning the timbers.”

Simon sighed and frowned, and tugged again. This time Patch followed. They walked through the vineyard, past the rows of gnarled and leafless vines laced to wooden frames. The eastern wall loomed before them. At its base they saw a slim rectangular opening, six feet high. A soldier was stationed there, and he watched them approach. “Thought it might be you. Remember me?” the soldier asked when they stood before him.

“Sure,” Patch said. It was the fellow who’d found him in the middle of the lake.

“Never seen you before,” Simon said, rolling his eyes toward the sky and pursing his lips. Patch recalled how
rudely the soldier had treated the fool when they met. Not that he blamed him.

“Right through there,” the soldier said, pointing at the opening with his thumb. “Quickly now, I’m barring the door after you go.”

“Has anyone else been through?” Patch asked.

“Just Sir Ludowick, and a fellow I didn’t recognize.” Patch nodded.
The queen, in disguise.
He walked through the doorway. As Simon followed, the soldier stretched his arm out to stop him. Simon whimpered like a puppy.

“It’s all right,” the soldier said. “I just wanted to tell you … I saw what you done. Running out there and saving that kid from the trolls. While us soldiers stood there too afraid to move.”

“Oh,” said Simon, with a proud grin spreading on his face. He crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall. “Well, my good fellow …”

A low roar rose up from the distance, resonating in the ground under their feet. Through the mist Patch could only see the vague shape of the wall across the courtyard. A gap appeared in the middle, and he heard the rumble and thud of the great stones tumbling down.

“The wall,” someone shouted. “There goes the wall!”

Overhead came whistling sounds, followed by resounding crashes as boulders were flung at Dartham from the outside. The great rocks exploded on the walls of the castle and shattered tiles on the roofs. The archers bent down to shelter behind the jutting blocks of stone on the
wall. Somebody somewhere began to scream for help.

Patch stepped back toward the courtyard, but Simon wrapped his arms around him and pulled him toward the door. “The king ordered us to leave he shouted at the soldier.

“I know,” the soldier shouted. Patch writhed and kicked, but he could not escape Simon’s grasp. The soldier shoved the two of them into the opening and down the dark tunnel that passed through the wall. When they reached the ironclad door on the far side, he clapped a hand over Patch’s mouth. “If you’re trying to sneak out of here, you two might want to shut your mouth,” he said into Patch’s ear. “Or you’ll be troll food for sure. Now hold on.”

The soldier peered through a small hole at eye level in the door, shifting left and right to widen his view. “Don’t see any of them. They’re out there, though—patrolling outside the walls.” He slid an enormous bolt back and eased the door open. Ahead of them was the deep ditch that surrounded the castle walls. Across it lay a temporary bridge, just a single narrow plank with no railing. “Over you go,” the soldier said. “And good luck to you.”

“He wasn’t such a bad fellow after all,” Simon said. “I should have offered him some cheese.”

“Quiet!” barked Patch. There were terrible sounds all around them. They heard grunts and howls of trolls, more screams from the walls above. A roar came from
within the walls, and it made Patch shiver despite the growing warmth in the air—at least one of the beasts must have climbed over the fallen rubble into the courtyard of Dartham.

There was a tower not far away.
Ffft, ffft.
Patch heard arrow after arrow fly out from the narrow slits that the archers hid behind. From out of the mist, trolls heaved boulder after boulder at the tower, rocking it and dislodging the stones. The tower would not take this battering for long, Patch could see.
Not long at all.

Amid all the noise, they heard heavy thumping steps approaching. “Run,” Patch whispered. They fled just as an ugly silhouette, twelve feet tall and nine wide, holding what looked like an enormous axe, emerged from the mist.

They dashed across a frozen vegetable field, the snow turning to slush under their feet, and came to a knee-high rock wall. The plodding steps could still be heard—and the pace seemed to have quickened.

“Up on the wall—so we don’t leave tracks,” Patch said, putting his mouth close to Simon’s ear.

“Brilliant!” Simon exalted, clapping his hands.

“Hush!” Patch hissed. Behind them he heard a sound in the fog. The footsteps were coming straight toward them for certain, squishing in the soggy field. The two ran along the wall, making noise only when a loose stone moved under their feet and grumbled against its neighbor. When the wall ended after a few hundred feet, Patch turned to stop Simon, putting a finger to the fool’s lips. “Listen.”

The footsteps were still out there. The mist made it hard to judge, but the troll no longer seemed to be heading their way. The sound faded. Patch turned to tell Simon that the troll had lost their trail. But Simon was staring up goggle-eyed over Patch’s shoulder, and he had thrust his knuckles into his mouth. Patch whirled about. For a brief, terrible moment, he thought he was seeing the largest troll yet, twice the size of any they’d met, with arms spread thirty feet wide—but then he recognized the shape for what it was. He practically fainted with relief and leaned against the fool. “Windmill, Simon. It’s a windmill. Come on.” They hopped off the wall and ran inside.

Simon stared up at the innards of the mill, at the wooden wheels and gears that would turn the grindstone when the wind turned the sails. “What are we doing here?”

“Thinking.” Patch shrugged off his pack and laid it on the stone, which was sprinkled with fine meal. The man who worked the mill had lived here as well; his straw mattress lay in one corner, and the crude table and bench where he took his meals was nearby. Patch sat and crossed his arms.

“Thinking? At a time like this?” Simon said.

Patch bolted upright, knocking the bench over, as they heard a high scream not far away. It was followed by a shout: “Run! I said
run!”

“It … sounded like Ludowick,” Patch said, a numbness
coming over his brain.
And that scream might have been Cecilia.
“Stay here,” he cried.

Patch raced out the door and turned in the direction of the shouts. As he ran, faster now without the heavy pack across his shoulders, he heard the deep voice of a troll somewhere before him: “Gargog! Over here!” And an answering cry, behind him: “Hold on!”

There was a patter of feet, so light compared with the thunderous steps of the trolls, and Patch glimpsed a small figure in the mist, moving stealthily off to his right. He could not risk calling out from this distance, so he ran as quietly as he could toward the person. The closer he drew, the more certain he was that it was the queen, dressed like a stable boy. She disappeared behind a tiny cottage. When Patch rounded the corner to follow, he found himself staring down the length of a sword pointed at his throat. At the far end of the sword he saw Cecilia’s face—her eyes wide and fearful, then suddenly relieved to see him. She lowered the sword and rushed forward to embrace him.

“We have to hide,” she said, looking toward the door of the cottage. Patch shook his head and took her hand. He led her toward the mill, but stopped when he heard the low, gravelly voices, one just before them and one just behind:

“Where are you, Yurg?”

“Right here, you stupid lump!”

There was a hay wagon nearby, tipped over with its
load of hay spilled on the slushy ground. They pressed themselves against the hidden side just as the two trolls stalked into the clearing. Patch looked at the ground around them. He was relieved to see many sets of footprints that the fleeing peasants had left in the snow—theirs would not stand out among them.

“What was it?” the one called Gargog asked.

“A man. And a woman—might have been the queen. She screamed when she saw me, or I’d have thought it was a boy.”

“The queen? Did you catch her?”

“Oaf! Does it look like I caught her?”

“So what happened?”

“The stupid man got in the way. Waved his spear in my face while the woman ran. He took off when I broke the spear—but it’s the woman we have to find. She’s wearing a brown cloak. She’s got to be near here somewhere. I caught her scent—I’ll smell her out!”

Patch glanced at the queen. Her lip was curled up in an expression of utter disgust.

“I’ll tell you what smells, Yurg. This whole business. Letting a man make slaves of us.”

Patch had been waiting for the right moment to dart away with Cecilia, but now he craned his neck, suddenly eager to hear every word.

“You know the game, Gargog,” Yurg said. “If we don’t obey … you know what he’ll do. Can’t have that, can we?”
“Why not just kill him? Won’t that solve the problem?”

“Because, idiot, he said he’s not the only one who knows.”

“I think he’s just saying that—so we don’t snap his scrawny neck and make a stew of him.”

“You want to take that chance? Hold on!” Yurg began to sniff at the air. Patch risked a peek over the top of the wagon and saw the troll turn his nose to the right and left. He saw Yurg gesture toward the cottage, and Gargog bare his fangs in a smile. They crept—as quietly as such massive creatures could creep—toward the low building.

Patch looked at the queen and whispered, “Get ready.” The trolls snarled and began to tear the roof off the cottage. With the sound covering their footsteps, Patch led Cecilia away, keeping the wagon between them and the trolls for a while before turning toward the windmill. Soon the high domed building and its four broad sails loomed before them.

Simon had unpacked what was left of his cheese and was sitting on the large round millstone, munching contentedly away. He grinned as Patch and Cecilia came through the door. “Hello, Patch. Hello, young man.”

Patch eased the wooden door shut behind him. “This is the queen, Simon. She’s only dressed like a man. Now put that cheese away before the trolls catch a whiff”

Simon looked back and forth at the queen, the cheese,
and the queen and cheese again, utterly baffled. Finally Cecilia took the cheese from his hands and placed it in the pack for him.

“It sounds like Ludowick got away,” Patch said.

“Thank goodness for that,” Cecilia said. “Those devils! But Patch, why are we here? We were told to flee.”

Patch paced across the floor. “We can’t, Your Highness! You heard the trolls. Giles knows something about them, it’s the only reason they obey him. But what is it? Will Sweeting knew the answer was there. If we can only figure it out …” His mind was abuzz with that feeling again, the sensation that the answer was so close. He slammed his fists on the table, and Simon squeaked with surprise. “Think about what we know,” Patch said. “The clues. They stick to stony ground. But what does that mean?”

“They can’t fly!”

“Simon, don’t be—”

“They can’t swim!”

“We know that, but that doesn’t—”

“They don’t like the fields!”

“Well that’s—”

“Or the meadows! Or the flowers!”

“But what about the cold?” Patch asked. “They’re supposed to prefer the cold. They invaded during winter, after all. But Simon, you said they built a fire to warm their cave it doesn’t make any sense.”

“You’re right,” Cecilia said. She shrugged off the heavy cloak she’d been wearing and draped it across one arm,
then took the seat opposite him. She leaned closer and looked into Patch’s eyes. “Keep thinking.”

Patch rubbed his temples with his fingers. Simon’s answers had been ridiculous, of course. But were they really? There was something to what the fool said.
The meadows, the fields
… when Patch thought about that again, the answer seemed to swim up closer and closer to the surface. The Barren Gray: Griswold said it was known for its desolation, its lack of vegetation.
No plants, no flowers.

The humming in his head grew louder still. And Patch began to listen to it, instead of hoping it would go away. And he began to understand what that low hum might be.

“Simon, keep talking,” Cecilia said, keeping her eyes on Patch. “What else do we know about them? What did you learn when you were in their cave?”

“They liked my songs!” Simon said, puffing with pride. Then he deflated, adding, “Until they swatted me.”

Patch spun on his chair to face Simon. “Sing it. Sing that song, Simon. Not too loud, though.”

Simon stood, brushed himself off, and put a finger to his chin, collecting his thoughts. Then he began to bend and unbend his knees, bobbing to some inner rhythm, and sang.