by Bryan Huff
“Hide!” came a girl’s voice—youthful, but full of authority.
Hob saw only her hand, tossing aside the oak branch. Too dizzy to think for himself, he ran on wobbly legs, and collapsed into a thicket of tall bushes at the roadside.
Edric and Monty were still tied together back to back, so the girl rolled them, like a log, off the road and into the bushes.
They crashed through after Hob, and the girl crouched down beside them, taking cover. The next instant, the troll rushed around the first bend, with Captain Fist and the Royal Guards riding immediately behind it. Hob watched through the bushes as they raced by—feet thumping, hooves clattering—hurrying off around the second bend in pursuit of the now rider-less gray charger.
Chapter Nine
The Wizard’s Apprentice
Still hidden among the tall bushes, Hob stood up, dusted himself off, and turned to the mysterious girl crouched beside him. Who was she? Why had she knocked them off their horse? And why didn’t she seem concerned about the little goblin standing next to her?
Hob opened his mouth to ask these questions, but she put a finger to her lips and shushed him. She must have wanted to make sure the guards and troll were really gone before speaking.
Hob had never seen a human girl up close before, and he stared back at her, intrigued. She was young and pretty—at least as far as he could tell—with light-brown skin, long ebony hair tied back with a kerchief, and bright, intelligent brown eyes. She was dressed for travel. She carried a heavy satchel over her shoulder, and she wore a green cloak over a skirt and bodice, leggings, and boots.
Hob couldn’t explain it, but he had a good feeling about her. In fact, he’d already begun to forgive her for knocking him off his horse.
Edric and Monty weren’t so easily won over. Although they hadn’t taken a branch to the chest as Hob had, something much deeper in them had been wounded. Their pride. Still tied together on the ground, Monty on top, Edric facedown beneath him, they began to squirm and gripe.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Monty growled.
“Are you trying to kill us or something?” Edric croaked, turning his head sideways so he could speak without inhaling mouthfuls of dirt.
“Shh! Calm down!” the girl pleaded with them. She grabbed their ropes and fought to hold them in place, while she pulled a small dagger from her belt.
“Ahhk!” Monty hissed. “She’s got a knife!”
“What?” hissed Edric, squirming more violently than before.
“It’s to cut you free!” said the girl. She slipped the blade under their ropes, and began hacking them away, first the ones around their wrists, and then the ones around their torsos. “I’m Stella, Eldwin’s apprentice.”
She said it like it explained everything, but it only made Hob more confused.
Apparently, Monty understood, though. “Little Stella?” he exclaimed, wide-eyed. “You were smaller when I last saw you.”
“I was ten,” said Stella. “Now I’m fifteen.”
“Aye,” said Monty, nodding as he tallied the years in his head. “Prince Edric, this is Stella. She’s on our side.”
“What?” Edric scoffed. “She knocked us off our horse, and rolled us into a ditch!”
“I rolled you to safety,” said Stella, yanking up on her knife, so the last of Edric and Monty’s ropes snapped and peeled away. “I rescued you!”
Monty flopped over onto the ground, while Edric burst to his feet.
“Rescued us?” he snapped, turning to face Stella for the first time. “You call that a …”
But when he saw her, Edric trailed off. Clearly, she wasn’t quite what he’d expected. He watched in silence, as she rose before him, staring back at him with a troubled expression on her young, pretty face. He softened.
“You know what?” he sighed, shrugging off the whole affair. “If Monty trusts you, I trust you.” Then he flashed her one of his charming smiles, took her hand, and fell to one knee before her. “Thank you, fair maiden, for your brave rescue … even if it did hurt a little.”
Stella seemed caught off guard by this. “Y-you’re welcome, Prince Edric, Your Highness,” she stammered. “But don’t think—”
“Just call me Edric,” the Prince interjected. “There’s no need for all that palace talk out here.”
“E-Edric,” Stella repeated. Then she yanked her hand away. “But, like I was saying, don’t think you can charm me like one of those maidens who dote on you at court. I’ve got a job to do. I’ve got to be tough with you.”
Edric straightened up, now looking truly worried. “I don’t like the sound of that,” he said. “Where’s Eldwin?”
“Aye, lass,” added Monty, finally picking himself up off the ground. “Are you takin’ us to him?”
Stella went quiet for a moment, refusing to make eye contact and looking more troubled than before. “Not exactly …” she mumbled.
Even Hob could tell something was wrong.
“What do you mean, not exactly?” asked Edric.
“Umm,” said Stella, still averting her gaze. “Come on. Let’s get away from the road.” She fetched a wooden magician’s staff from the bushes, where she must have hidden it earlier, and headed into the trees.
Nervous and confused, the others hurried after her. Stella led them a short distance through the forest, marching over a small rise and into a little gully on the other side. She stopped there, just out of sight and direct earshot of the road, and turned to face them.
“So?” said Edric, as he, Monty, and Hob gathered around.
“S-so,” Stella mumbled, “I’m afraid I have some bad news.” She met their eyes again, but looked no less troubled. “It’s Eldwin. He’s, um … well, he’s … gone missing!”
“What?” Edric exclaimed, clutching his forehead. “Not him too?”
Stella cringed and nodded.
“Are you sure, lass?” asked Monty. “He is a wizard, after all. They do have a habit of disappearin’.”
Hob gasped. Eldwin must have been the wizard Edric and Monty were searching for, the one they were hoping to meet in Valley Top!
“I’m sure,” said Stella, darkly. “Nearly a week ago, I went to meet Eldwin at his cottage, to join him on this quest. But, instead, I found him missing, and his cottage burned out, torn apart! I couldn’t find any clues as to whether it was some sort of goblin attack, or just one of his experiments gone horribly wrong. I mean, he once spent a whole month transmogrified into a newt! All I know is there was no trace of him.” She shook her head. “I waited as long as I could for him to return, but with no luck. Then I realized it would be up to me to guide the quest in his place … at least, until he could find us. So, I gathered up all his surviving notes and supplies, and set out to meet you.”
Hob noticed Edric and Monty exchange horrified glances. Edric had gone completely pale. He looked as if he might be sick.
“I’m sorry to hear that, lass,” said Monty, putting on a brave face, and turning back to Stella. “I’m sure he’ll find us eventually.”
“We’re doomed!” cried Edric, showing no such tact.
“What? No! You can’t think that way!” Stella admonished him. “We have to stay positive!” She sounded forcefully upbeat all of a sudden. “Take me for instance. For me, this is a chance to prove myself.”
Edric shook his head in disbelief. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know you’ve been through a lot. But nothing about this is positive! The Royal Wizard is gone! And all we’ve got is, what, his assistant?”
“Apprentice!” Stella shot back, looking hurt. “And you could do worse! I’m organized. I’m motivated. And I’m capable of some pretty advanced magic for my age. I mean, I just saved your necks.”
“You hit us with a stick,” Edric groaned. “Thanks again and all, but that’s not very magical.”
“It didn’t feel very magical,” Monty admitted, cracking his sore back.
“I had a
vision!” Stella persisted. “That was the magic! I saw the three of you being chased down the road on horseback, and I knew right where to find you. Didn’t you wonder about that? Didn’t you wonder why I wasn’t shocked to see this goblin helping you?”
Edric and Monty went silent. Everyone stared at Hob.
“I wondered!” Hob piped up. “You didn’t try to run away, or kill me, or anything.”
“No,” said Stella, “because I’m a seer, just like Eldwin. Though, I can’t control my visions like he can, yet. Certain things, events, just trigger them without warning.” She pulled a crumpled piece of parchment out of her satchel, and unfolded it for everyone to see. “Look what triggered this one. The Royal Guards put them up all over.”
It was a wanted poster, with a woodprint of Edric’s face on it. It read: wanted alive and unharmed, edric, crown prince of yore. reward, 1000 gold pieces.
Edric took the poster and examined it. “That doesn’t look good,” he grumbled. Then he smirked to himself. “I mean they could’ve at least made me smile in this thing. I look like a criminal.”
“That’s because they think you are a criminal,” said Stella, taking back the poster, folding it, and returning it to her satchel. “Or at least a delinquent. Good thing I have a plan. We still have business in Valley Top, so we’ll have to sneak you into the city. My hay cart’s hidden near the edge of the forest, just off the road into the mountains. Let’s go before anyone comes back to search for us.” She paused. “Or don’t you want my help?”
“No, no …” Edric sighed. “You might not be Eldwin, but we clearly need you. I guess we’ll just have to make do.”
“I guess we will,” said Stella, pointedly.
“And what do we do with him?” asked Monty, glaring at Hob. “If we leave him here, he’ll just follow us again.”
“Then take me with you! For real this time!” said Hob. It was worth a shot. “I’ve been helpful so far. I rescued you twice before Stella did.”
Everyone stared at him once more, Edric smirking, Stella biting her lip, and Monty turning tomato red.
“No way!” snapped the dwarf. “You’re still a goblin!”
“Oh, come on, Monty!” Edric began. “I say he’s—”
But Stella interrupted him. “Wait!” she said. “This could be important. As your new guide, I suggest we think it through very carefully.” She tapped a finger against her chin. “On one hand, this goblin was in my vision. And I have reason to believe Eldwin may have foreseen him coming as well. All of which suggests fate has brought him here for some purpose.”
Edric opened his mouth to offer his own opinion, but before he could, Stella carried on.
“On the other hand,” she fretted, “I really don’t know what purpose that could be. And it does seem awfully risky keeping a goblin around, with our luck running so thin.”
Once more, Edric went to chime in, and Stella cut him off.
“On the other, other hand, we have to be very careful we don’t jump to any—”
“We’re keeping him!” Edric blurted out. “I want to keep him!”
Stella went quiet.
Monty gaped.
And Edric scrambled to explain himself. “I mean, he has helped a lot. And we can’t just leave him in the woods with Captain Fist and that troll. And, Stella, you may be our guide, but I’m still the Prince. And that has to be good for something. So … Hob’s coming!”
Hob’s heart leapt. Had Edric just let him join the quest?
“I never said he couldn’t come,” Stella muttered, with a frown. “I just said we should think it through.”
“And you did,” Edric replied. “And I made the tough call.”
“Ugh,” Stella sighed.
“Don’t worry, lass,” Monty whispered. “He doesn’t listen to me either.”
Edric had only just accepted Stella into the company, and now the two were fighting again—because of Hob. Hob hoped Stella wouldn’t hold it against him.
She took a deep breath. “Well, we know—Hob, is it?—may have a part to play in all this. But we don’t know what it is yet. And we do have to get going. So, why don’t we keep him with us until we understand more, and then make a final decision? Can we all agree to that?”
“Works for me,” said Edric. “Monty?”
“Fine,” Monty grumbled. “But if he so much as looks at us funny—”
“I won’t!” Hob promised, suddenly unable to contain his excitement. “I’ll stay in line, and carry my own weight, and follow orders, and—”
“Be quiet!” said Monty. “That’s rule number one. Be quiet.”
Using her staff as a walking stick, Stella led the others to the place where she’d hidden her hay cart. For almost an hour, they trekked straight through the trees and undergrowth, veering steadily away from Old Foresters’ Road in the direction of the mountains. Edric and Monty used this time to fill Stella in on the events of their journey so far. And Hob did his best to follow orders and stay quiet.
Finally, they reached the hay cart. It sat hidden in a small glade surrounded by thick evergreens. As Stella had promised, the glade stood near the edge of the forest, right on the road to Valley Top. Below the curtain of dark branches on the far side, Hob could see a strip of golden brown, suggesting the wide sunlit road beyond. They merely had to wheel the cart through the trees, and they’d be on their way.
The cart itself was small and rickety and had two woolly mountain goats harnessed to the shafts. As the little company approached it, Stella plucked three wooden clothespins from her satchel, and distributed them.
“You’ll be needing these,” she said.
“Why?” Edric grumbled.
As soon as Stella pulled down the cart’s back hatch, he got his answer. The hay pile inside reeked so badly of dung that it nearly made everyone fall over at first whiff.
“You’ve got to be kiddin’!” croaked Monty, fanning the stench away from his nose.
“You want us to get in there?” added Edric.
“That’s what the clothespins are for,” said Stella, pinching her nose to demonstrate. “You have to hide in the hay, or someone might see you. You’re wanted, you know.”
“I know,” said Edric.
Seeing no point in arguing, he and Monty slipped the clothespins on their noses, and piled into the stinking hay. Hob went to follow, but Stella pulled him aside.
“Wait,” she said. “Remember how I mentioned Eldwin may also have foreseen you coming? Here’s why …”
She reached into her satchel, and pulled out a pair of strange old goggles. They had a small parchment tag tied to them with a string. It read: For a new recruit.
“They’re yours,” said Stella, pulling off the tag, and passing the goggles to Hob.
Hob turned them over in his hands, examining them closely. They had soft leather straps, intricate metal rims, and glass lenses so clear—yet oddly dark—he could see his reflection in them.
“They should allow you to see in the sunlight after we leave the forest,” Stella went on. “Eldwin designed them mainly to see through magical illusions, but, as an added feature, he tinted the lenses to shade the wearer’s eyes. At first, I couldn’t understand what his note meant, but now I do. He foresaw you needing them.”
“Wow,” said Hob, trying on the goggles. “Thanks!”
The dark lenses made everything he saw only a quarter as bright—which was perfect for him, even in the shady glade. They felt like a cool drink for his dry, thirsty eyes.
A short time later, the little hay cart was on its way up the road to Valley Top. The road climbed a steep pass—a long, winding gap in the mountains, which was the only way through for hundreds of miles around.
Thankfully, the Royal Guards and troll were nowhere to be seen. And there was only one other tiny ox cart, miles ahead. Few travelers risked venturing through those goblin-infested lands so late in the day.
The hay cart bumpe
d and wobbled as it climbed, with Stella driving and the mountain goats pulling. Edric, Monty, and Hob hid in the stinky hay, peeking out.
Edric and Monty parted the hay in front of their eyes, while Hob poked the lenses of his new goggles out in one direction after another, eager to test them on all the different sights.
Whether or not the goggles actually saw through illusions, they worked like magic for him. The same far blue peaks he’d often admired from his secret spot now soared overhead, shimmering under a late-day sun. And he could soak up every vivid, sunlit detail without dizziness or pain. He felt amazingly lucky to be in that place, wearing those goggles. He felt amazingly lucky for everything that had happened that day.
Hob continued to take in the sights as the journey unfolded. First, the pass climbed due west, up through tree-dotted foothills and smaller mountains. Then the pass curved northward around a much greater mountain, whose gravelly, scree-covered lower slopes were crowned distinctively by three craggy peaks. And finally, after making the turn around the great three-peaked mountain, the pass narrowed, and snaked down between walls of rock into a deep chasm.
For a few minutes, the rickety hay cart shook as it negotiated the steep bends. Then the road leveled out, the rock walls parted, and the cart emerged at the bottom of a great ravine cutting across the pass.
The ravine ran down, from west to east, between the mountain peaks, and was embanked by sheer, cliff-like slopes on both sides, forming a deep trench, effectively splitting the pass in two. At the bottom, the road crossed a small stone bridge over a trickling stream.
As the cart rolled over the bridge, Hob, Edric, and Monty peeked up the ravine and saw the stream’s source. A few hundred feet above, barricading a gap between two opposing mountain peaks, there stood a towering dam.
“Once a wide river filled this ravine, fed by countless glaciers high up in the mountains,” Stella said, stopping the hay cart on the bridge. She seemed unable to resist educating the others, even if it meant acknowledging they were probably peeking out of the hay. “But it’s been reduced to a stream for an age, held back by that dam. The Riven Gate.”