The Brave Apprentice (8 page)

“I think you’re right. I feel it too. But what were the clues?” he asked.

The sound of rustling fabric caught his attention. There was a curtain behind the table, and the figure of a woman emerged from behind it. She was lovely, small and slender, with a river of glistening black hair that flowed down her back. She looked at Patch from the corner of her eye and smiled. A moment later she slipped through an archway. Patch did not doubt that this was the woman he’d seen on the balcony the night before; was it the queen?

When he looked back at Will Sweeting, the old man had slipped away again, staring at nothing and rocking gently in his chair. He did not respond when Patch called his name or took his hand.

Patch walked around the curtain behind the great table. There was a simple chair there, unoccupied. He went to it and put his hand on the wooden seat, feeling the warmth under his palm. A person could have sat there unseen, during this or any other council, and heard every word.

h
was
enough poison. Indeed, many eyebrows were raised and glances exchanged when the multitude of toxins was brought before the king and his court the next morning. There was aconite, belladonna, thorn-apple, henbane, hemlock, bittersweet, arsenic, and mercury. There were lethal extracts from laurel berries, mushrooms, tares seeds, bitter almonds, and the pits of apricots and cherries. The physicians and apothecaries hastened to explain that these were used (in only the smallest quantities, of course) for the valid treatment of various maladies, for the control of insects, the disposal of mad animals, and other perfectly legitimate practices.

“Make certain the effect of the poison is delayed,” Milo commanded, “so all the trolls may drink before any fall sick.”

The physicians and apothecaries huddled together. After a loud and vigorous debate, they agreed on a formula and mixed the poisons into the wine. “Perhaps the
strongest, deadliest potion ever brewed,” one white-haired physician said when the work was done, wiping his hands over and over with a damp cloth.

Within an hour the twelve casks were loaded on the wagon, and Ludowick climbed aboard to drive it. Patch and the others followed on foot, staying out of sight in the forest by the road. They had left their horses farther back, with a group of soldiers who waited, spears and axes in hand. If the poison only sickened the trolls, Mannon would signal the fighters with the hunter’s horn that was slung across his shoulder, and they would come to help finish the task.

“Ludowick’s putting his neck on the line for this plan of yours, tailor boy,” Mannon grumbled. Patch wanted to tell him, tell everyone, that it wasn’t a plan at all. It was only something that had occurred to him just before Milo asked for his thoughts, and he wasn’t sure in the least that it was a good idea. But things were in motion now, and he thought it would be better not to respond. Nothing he said would please Mannon, anyway.

“Don’t worry, Mannon,” said Gosling. “Ludowick’s got a dog with him. He’ll have plenty of warning if the trolls are near.” He winked at Patch.

“The trolls cavern is just up that hill,” Addison said, gesturing at the opposite side of the road. “And this is where the winemaker was attacked.” Patch looked to his right and saw the place that Ludowick had run to escape the trolls the day before. Past a scattering of evergreen
trees, there was a wide flat beach where a tiny fisherman’s house stood. A boat was pulled on shore and turned upside down, waiting for warmer days when it might be useful again. Just beyond that sprawled the snow-swept ice of Lake Deop.

It was only a moment later that the hound at Ludowick’s side leaped out of the wagon and ran, whining, into the forest. Ludowick pulled back on the reins and the single ox that was hauling the wagon slowed and stopped. Ludowick stood up, peering at the hillside.

“Get out of there,” Mannon whispered. As if hearing him, Ludowick vaulted over the side of the wagon and dashed into the forest. “Over here,” Addison called, just loud enough to be heard, and Ludowick joined them, finding his own tree to hide behind. “They’re coming,” Ludowick said. It was another cold day, but Patch noticed sweat trickling down the knight’s temples.

Patch saw shapes moving through the trees on the hillside, dark against the thin crust of frozen snow that remained on the ground. A group of the trolls stalked onto the road. Hurgoth, the massive troll they’d encountered at the river, was among them—easy to spot with his pale, chalky skin and the small pack strapped to his back. He strode toward the ox, his spiked club in his hand. Patch closed his eyes as the club rose.

“Wait—what about the ox?” he’d said an hour before, when he realized his plan meant doom for the animal that hauled the poisoned wine. “There must be sacrifices,”
Addison had replied. “Or hadn’t you considered that?”

The sound came, a terrible crack of wood on bone. When Patch looked up again, Hurgoth had picked up the ox in one hand
—one hand!—
and tossed it to another troll.

“Go on, fellows, have some wine,” Gosling urged.

The trolls surrounded the wagon and laughed, pleased with their prize. A particularly fat troll lifted one of the casks and began to pry at the spigot. Hurgoth snarled at the troll, then turned to say something to the rest. The trolls lifted the dozen casks out of the wagon and carried them back up the hill.

“Didn’t they drink the wine on the spot yesterday?” Addison said to Ludowick. Ludowick nodded, frowning.

“Maybe they’re saving it to wash down the ox,” said Gosling.

Addison stared up the hill at the retreating trolls. “Then we shall have to follow them.”

Addison led the way to a ridge that overlooked the lair of the trolls. They lay on their stomachs and crawled to the edge to peer over. Below them, in a bowl-shaped depression in the hill, they could see the trolls milling around the gaping black mouth of their cave. The ox had been skewered and was suspended over a fire, and the casks of wine were in a pile, unopened.

“What do you suppose they’re doing?” Mannon wondered, scratching the back of his neck.

“And where’s Hurgoth?” Gosling asked.

As if to answer the question, Hurgoth emerged from the cave, trailing a rope behind him. He tugged at the rope, and a man came stumbling behind, with the other end of the rope knotted around his waist. The man was gangly and loose-limbed, with unkempt, straw-colored hair and—strangely—a loopy, happy grin.

When Patch saw him, his mouth dropped open, and he gulped in a lungful of ice-cold air.

“I’ve seen that fellow before,” Mannon muttered, pointing.

“It’s Simon,” Patch groaned. “The fool from Shorham.” He remembered Simon skipping off across the lake in search of a friendlier audience—unwittingly heading for the western shore, near this very place.

“What on earth are they doing with him?” said Ludowick.

Simon waved his hands at the trolls that surrounded him. “Hullo, boys!”

Hurgoth dropped something into the snow in front of the fool. Simon picked it up. It was a goblet.

“No …,” Patch moaned. He looked at the others. They were watching the trolls with bewildered expressions, except for Addison, who stared gravely back at Patch.

Hurgoth gestured toward the casks of wine. Simon looked at the casks, at Hurgoth, at the goblet in his hand, back at Hurgoth, and back at the casks again. Then his grin broadened into an enormous, open-mouthed smile. He shouted, “Hoo ha!” and pranced over to the casks.

“I don’t believe this,” Gosling said.

Patch felt a sickness in his stomach, a tightness in his throat. “They’re making him drink the wine—making him taste it before they do?”

Ludowick said, “Remember—the poison’s effects are delayed. It will not matter if the fool drinks first.”

“Patch,” Addison said. Patch turned to look into those dark, flinty eyes. Addison didn’t have to speak—Patch understood the message.
There must be sacrifices.

Patch shook his head. “But my lord … this … this isn’t like the ox. This is a
person!”

Below them, Simon stood in front of the casks. He held the goblet high and rubbed his belly in a broad circle, nodding gaily. The trolls gathered around him.

“He’s just a fool,” Mannon said. “Leading a wretched life,”

“This is our chance to kill the trolls, Patch,” Addison said. “You saw what they did at Half—what they’re capable of. The life of one fool is not too high a price to pay. We may save hundreds more.” He edged closer to Patch as he spoke. Now he was nearly arm’s reach away.

Simon opened a spigot and bloodred wine gushed out, splashing over the edges of the goblet and staining the snow. His tongue hung out of his mouth, and he panted like a dog. He filled the goblet to the brim before closing the spigot. The trolls drew closer, forming a thick, high wall of pebbly flesh.

Patch could feel Addison’s will pressing against him,
like a lion’s paw on a mouse. He watched Simon raise the goblet toward the trolls, toasting them, and then bring it to his lips.

Suddenly it seemed to Patch that he’d stepped outside of his own mind somehow—because surely that couldn’t be his own self leaping up and screaming, “Don’t drink, Simon, it’s poison!” And surely Addison wouldn’t seize him by the collar and shake him and call him that awful word, and Gosling and Ludowick wouldn’t look at him with those horrified, thunderstruck expressions, and Mannon wouldn’t be reaching across Addison, trying to choke him.

The world seemed all wrong, like a forgery of the world he knew—the colors were blurred, the voices didn’t sound right, his head and arms and legs felt numb, and everything was happening too fast or too slow, he couldn’t tell which. There was a blur in the air over Addison’s head, like a large, swift bird, and a loud splintering crack as the limb of a tree exploded behind them.

“They’ve seen us. They’re coming!” someone shouted. Everyone broke into a run as the trolls stormed toward them. Patch looked back and saw their heads cresting the overlook, and their arms reaching up to clamber over the edge.

As Mannon ran he brought the horn to his lips and blew. Not the single long note that would have signaled, “Come finish them off,” but three sharp bursts: the warning cry. The trolls thundered after them, plucking rocks
from the snow and slinging them as they advanced.

Patch felt his jumbled senses clear as he ran. He could have easily outraced the others, but he slowed so they would not fall behind. They rushed down the hill toward the road, and more stones soared over their heads and between them, some careening along the ground and shearing sheets of bark from the trees they struck. He heard the trolls behind them, grunting, roaring, and barking, and heavy Mannon puffing as he ran. Then Ludowick shouted, in a voice suddenly cracked with emotion, “Go! To the horses!
Don’t look back,
just go!”

They came to the road and turned toward Dartham. Five of the mounted soldiers were coming back for them, each leading another horse for them to ride. As they raced toward each other, Patch’s blood turned icy cold as he heard Mannon cry, “Where’s Gosling?”

Patch and Addison turned to look. Only Mannon and Ludowick were behind them. Mannon stopped and took a step back toward the hill. Ludowick seized his arm as he ran by and pulled him toward the horses. “Keep running!
Run!”
he screamed, and Patch saw tears streaming down Ludowick’s face.

Mannon resisted, pulling his arm free from Ludowick’s grip. The trolls came out of the forest and onto the road, just a hundred feet away. Some lumbered toward them, while others searched for more stones to hurl.

“He’s gone, Mannon. He was next to me, and then a stone came, and he was gone,” Ludowick shouted, and
Mannon staggered like a drunkard. Ludowick steadied him, then tugged his arm, and Mannon stumbled to his horse, his face slack. They mounted and raced away, leaving the bellowing trolls behind. The horses ran for a mile before Addison threw up his hand and they stopped. Addison whirled his horse around to face Patch, who bowed his head and stared at his hands.

“Milo insisted we bring you along, against my advice,” Addison said, his voice shaking only a little. “So I trust you’ll tell him what happened here today—and how we lost our chance to destroy the trolls. Or perhaps you’d rather take the road back to Crossfield.” He spurred his horse and rode alone toward Dartham.