The Brave Apprentice

by P. W. Catanese

  Cecilia pushed between two of the archers and called down to the men on the drawbridge. “Help the child! You must go and help him!” The men looked up as the rest of the children streamed past them through the main gate. They stared at the three dangerous-looking trolls. None of the men looked eager to venture out.

  The little boy tried to crawl away, but Gursh stabbed one sharp nail through the end of his shirt and pinned it to the ground.

  “Help him!” Cecilia screamed, first to the soldiers on the bridge and then again to the men around her on the wall. “Help him!”

  “Look,” someone shouted. A lanky figure, dressed in fine clothes and a hooded cloak, was dashing out of the dark fields toward the trolls. Patch saw something familiar about the jouncing, loose-limbed stride. Even before the hood fell away from the man’s face and he saw the mess of straw-colored hair, he knew who it was.

  Simon skidded to a halt in front of the trolls. He stuck one leg out before him, with the heel on the ground and the toe up, and bowed deeply. The trolls glowered at him, and a sound like a low angry purr rumbled up from their chests. Simon grinned, did a happy little dance, and picked his way through their legs. “Excuse me, old friend,” he called up to Gursh, and heaved on the troll’s wrist to lift his pointed nail out of the ground and free the child.

  Gursh snarled and swatted Simon with the back of his hand. Simon rolled backward, with his feet flying over his head, and popped up again with a wild grin on his face. He teetered to the left and right, feigning dizziness, until he was close enough to gather the boy up in his arms. The child bawled, and Simon pretended to cry as well, rubbing his own eyes with his free hand. All the while he tried to find a way past the trolls. But wherever he turned, one of them moved in front of him. Simon feinted right and darted left, but Gursh’s leg slammed to the ground, blocking his escape.

  Murok’s raspy voice roared over the fields. “You three—what are you waiting for?” When the three trolls turned to look, Simon ducked low and darted through the nearest gap—between Gursh’s legs. He emerged on the other side, pushing the leather garment up and out of his way, with a disgusted look on his face. Gursh turned and swiped at. Simon, but the fool was out of reach. The trolls snarled. One of them took a step in Simon’s direction, then stopped and joined the others as they loped after the rest of the trolls.

  Simon carried the boy through the snowy field and across the drawbridge, grinning happily with his tongue hanging from his mouth like a dog on a galloping cart. All along the wall, the soldiers cheered and waved their bows. Patch thrust his fists into the air and shouted Simon’s name. He looked at the queen, and she was leaning with her back against the wall of the gatehouse tower, sliding down until she was sitting, smiling, and crying at the same time.

  woke from a dream he could not remember. Last night he’d found it hard to sleep, after everything that had happened. So he turned his mind to the mystery of the trolls. Now that he was awake, he had the uneasy feeling that the answer had been there in his dreams but slipped away when his eyes opened.

  And why had he woken up? A great snore reminded him. Simon was sleeping nearby. They had both spent the night in the great hall, near the warmth of the fire. Patch was not eager to sleep in the barracks, as Mannon’s anger still simmered. Cecilia understood, and she had arranged for straw mats to be brought to the great hall for the two of them.

  Patch chuckled as he looked over at the fool. Simon was hugging an enormous wheel of cheese, his reward for rescuing the boy. “The queen asked me what I would like,” he’d said to Patch, “and I chose this!”

  All the things Simon could have asked for, and he wanted cheese, Patch thought. He’d never seen a person look more joyous than Simon at that moment, taking bite after enormous bite from the wheel. Even now, sleeping and clutching his cheese, the fool seemed utterly content. He must have woken up during the night and nibbled some more, because the cheese was oozing out from the corner of his mouth. The sight reminded Patch of the yellow stuff that trickled from the eyes of the trolls, and the sick-sweet smell.

  He wished he could be as carefree as Simon, because the crushing weight of what might come was settling upon him once more. Giles Addison was free to command the trolls again. Soon he would bring them back to attack Dartham and depose the king. But when? Would this be the day?

  “What is their weakness?” he whispered toward the ceiling. There was a vulnerability, he was certain about that. It explained how Giles had been able to seize control of the trolls, something no man had ever done. And it explained other things as well. The trolls seemed nearly invincible, so why had they never attacked like this before? Why exile themselves in a place as desolate and cold as the Barren Gray, when the pigs and cows and horses and people they loved to devour were so plentiful down here? And why were such ornery, solitary creatures suddenly banding together? His intuition had to be right: There was a well-guarded secret among the trolls, a secret that Giles had somehow learned.

  Clues, Will Sweeting had said. Don’t ask why they’re here, ask why they never came before. Patch closed his eyes and imagined that all the bits of information that he’d learned from Griswold were the fragments of some broken vase. All the pieces would come together if he arranged them correctly and turned them just so.

  They call them the stone trolls. The weeping trolls.

  They prefer stony ground.

  They are bolder in the winter than any other season.

  A troll wouldn’t chase a child into a meadow.

  The rare troll that wanders down during the summer prefers to stalk at night.

  People thought trolls were harmed by sunshine—but it isn’t true.

  A troll was once seen going berserk, slapping its head. Then it dropped dead.

  The answer was there, so close if he could only put it together. It was a frustrating sensation, this almost knowing. It was like a sneeze that would not come, or a thread that stubbornly refused to pass through the eye of a needle.

  Patch lay there arranging the imaginary pieces until the growing pressure in his bladder was too great a distraction. He got up, ran to the privy that was nearby, lifted the wooden seat, and relieved himself down the stone shaft. There was a narrow window in the little room. Looking out, he saw a small group of men walking across the courtyard. Two of them had a stretcher between them, bearing a body beneath a blanket. The king was walking beside them, his head bent low. They disappeared into the chapel.

  Patch left the privy feeling uneasy, wishing he knew—or perhaps glad he did not know—who was under that blanket. When he returned to the great hall, Simon was bent over with his back to the fire, waving his naked buttocks over the simmering embers.

  “Do you mind?” Patch said wearily, blocking the sight with one hand.

  Simon hiked up his pants. “Chilly, isn’t it! Like some cheese?”

  “No thanks,” Patch said. He had no idea what to do next. There was no council scheduled, no plan that he was aware of, nothing he was needed for. He picked up his cloak and left the great hall. He heard feet slapping the floor behind him and saw Simon running to catch up, with his cheese tucked under one arm.

  In the corridor Patch saw Emilie, the queen’s handmaiden. Her eyes looked red and swollen, and she was dabbing under her nose with a handkerchief. “What’s happened, Emilie?” Patch said, dreading the answer.

  “Last night,” Emilie said in a halting voice, “Will Sweeting passed away.”

  “No,” Patch said. Emilie swept past him, sniffing.

  Simon’s eyes grew moist, and his lips trembled. “Will Sweeting? Oh, this is terrible.” He put his free hand around Patch and pulled him close.

  Patch sighed deeply, wishing with all his soul that Sweeting had awoken for them one more time, with one more piece of advice that might help them out of this dilemma. “Simon?” he said, his voice muffled against the fool’s chest.

  “Yes?”

  “Do you know who Will Sweeting was?”

  “I hav
e no idea!” Simon sobbed. He dropped the wheel of cheese and hugged Patch with both arms, bawling on his shoulder.

  Patch stepped into the courtyard, and the mild morning surprised him. It was not a spring day by any means, and his breath still formed a white plume in the air. But it was not like the bitter, freezing chill of the last few weeks. The keening wind was gone as well, and tendrils of mist sprouted from the snow. Perhaps this long winter might be ending at last. He pulled the mittens off his hands and stuffed them into the pocket of his cloak.

  “There you are!” Simon said, popping out of the doorway behind him. “I turned around, and you were gone!”

  Patch’s shoulders slumped. “I know, Simon.”

  Simon looked confused for a moment, and then his smile returned. “Where are you off to?”

  “To the chapel. To pay my respects to Will Sweeting.”

  “Then I shall go too!”

  Patch squeezed his eyes shut. “With that cheese under your arm?”

  Simon didn’t seem to hear him. He was biting his bottom lip and looking around the courtyard. “It looks like ghosts are everywhere,” he said, and his legs began to quake.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, it’s just the snow melting into the air,” Patch said. The words came out too sharply, and he regretted it at once. He was about to tell Simon he was sorry, that Will Sweeting’s death had rattled him, when a commotion arose at the gatehouse.

  Three mounted men rode into the courtyard, ducking impatiently beneath the rising portcullis. One of them was Addison. He dismounted and handed the reins to a servant. “Hold the gate open until the people are inside, then shut it tight,” he called up to the constable on the wall. Patch looked through the passageway under the gatehouse and saw them coming—more men and women and children from the sprawling village that surrounded Dartham. Some of them carried bushels of food and drink, some rode carts loaded with goods, and some drove oxen and cows and horses and pigs and sheep and goats and geese before them.

  Simon squeaked like a little girl. “We’re having a festival!”

  “It’s not a festival, Master Simon,” came Ludowick’s voice as he walked past them toward Addison. “They’re taking shelter inside the walls. Preparing for a siege.” But there won’t be a siege, Patch thought, recalling the tower of Half that the trolls had torn down. Were the walls of Dartham so much stronger? Sieges take a long time. This will be swift.

  Milo emerged from the chapel, and he and Addison walked briskly toward each other. “Simon,” Patch said, holding the fool by his arms and looking him in the eye. “I want to hear what Lord Addison is saying to the king. Please, please—stay here and don’t follow me.”

  Simon’s mouth drooped at the corners. “I suppose.” He lifted his cheese and gnawed meekly at a fresh curve of the wheel.

  Patch didn’t arrive in time to hear Addison, but he saw the shocked look on Milo’s face and heard him say, “How many?” And then high screams came floating through the open gate.

  On the wall the constable shouted, “Run! All of you, run!” Villagers and their animals streamed in through the gate. Patch followed Milo and Addison as they ran for the gatehouse tower, pushing through the growing crowd. The constable’s voice grew more urgent: “Forget the food, forget your animals! Pick up your children and run!”

  Into the tower Patch raced, up the dark stairs that curved to the right. As he passed the opening to the winch room, he saw a soldier hefting a heavy mallet, poised to strike a peg that would allow the great wooden drum to spin freely, unwinding the chain and dropping the portcullis to the ground in an instant.

  Patch stepped into the weak morning light. Once again archers took their places along the battlements. He saw an open place among them and ran to it. A moment later Ludowick came up and stood beside him.

  Directly below, people still stampeded into the courtyard. They crowded and pushed each other on the bridge, and a few tumbled into the ditch and scrambled up the side to reach the arched opening of the main gate.

  Patch looked out over the fields and the village. It was an eerie sight. Overhead he could see blue sky, but the landscape below was blurred by the rising mist. The fog was thicker outside the walls; after a few hundred yards, nothing was visible. But there were sounds—a dog howling, the squeal of a pig abruptly ending, low grunts and snorts. A lone duck waddled out of the fog, quacking absurdly. There was the growing stomp of heavy feet, and then dark shapes began to appear behind the curtain of white.

  “Archers,” Addison called out. “If the trolls attack, aim for their eyes.” There were nearly a hundred bowmen along the parapet, and they all drew arrows from their quivers and fitted them to their longbows.

  The shadowy forms were resolving themselves, but something about the shape of their heads looked different. “Armor—they’ve got armor!” one of the soldiers shouted. It was true. The trolls tromped out of the mist, and now they wore helmets that shielded their eyes, with only narrow slots to see through. Some, but not all, had crude armor covering their chests and backs. But that was not the worst of it.

  There were more of them now. A dozen were already in sight, but other hulking shapes came into view, trolls that Patch did not recognize from the original band of twelve. They spread out in a line, forming a wall of gray that looked almost as daunting as the walls of Dartham. More and more appeared, until there were at least thirty of the towering beasts in a line two hundred feet across.

  “That’s what Giles was waiting for,” Patch said.

  “Reinforcements,” said Ludowick.

  One of the larger trolls stepped forward from the middle of the line. It was Murok, Patch realized. Even with the helmet on, Patch could tell who he was by the exposed skin of his arms, which looked like veined marble.

  Giles Addison appeared over Murok’s shoulder. He had been riding the troll’s back in some sort of harness. “Are you there, Milo?” he shouted, with a cupped hand beside his mouth.

  “What do you want, Giles Addison?” The king’s voice boomed strong and clear, with an authority Patch had not heard until now.

  “To discuss your surrender, of course!” “Then you are wasting your breath and my time,” Milo answered.

  Giles laughed. “So say you now! But hear me out, my friends. There is no need for any more blood to be spilled. First, let me warn you: Get those archers out of my sight, and don’t even think about sending an arrow my way. My trolls will attack at once with a ferocity you cannot imagine. Have you noticed how many more we are now? I was waiting for the others to arrive—they were busy getting our armor ready. We found a country blacksmith, and—er—persuaded him to fashion this armor. Do you like our helmets? I thought you might aim your arrows at their faces. After all, that’s what I would have done.

  “Now, hear my terms, Milo. And I must tell you, I have altered them since your dirty ruse on the lake. You’ve angered me, you and your apprentice. Before he nearly drowned me, I was planning to let all of your people go. All you had to do was unlock the door to your treasury and vacate the castle—leaving your crown on the throne before you left, of course. Exile would have been enough. But not anymore. Now, Milo, I expect you and that brat to surrender yourselves to me. So that I may treat you to a fine cup of wine.”

  A low laugh came from the trolls as one of them stepped forward and planted a wine cask in the snow beside Giles.

  Patch glanced at Ludowick, who winced and nodded. “One of ours,” the knight said.

  Giles sat on the cask and smiled up at Milo. “The rest of your court can go free. With one exception. The queen stays here. With me.”

  Milo’s mouth twisted with anger. Nearby, where the constable stood, a pair of the archers still had their arrows notched in their bows. They held them low, out of Giles’s sight behind the wall. The constable stared at the king without blinking, waiting for a signal. Milo gave the tiniest shake of his head: No.

  “Forget this, Giles,” Milo shouted. “The knights won’t stand for it. The people won�
�t stand for it. Wearing the crown won’t make you king.”

  “You are right about that.” Giles swept his arm toward the line of trolls. “Intimidation will make me king. So, Milo—do you accept my terms? The alternative is a brutal death for everyone inside those walls. I’m asking a small price, don’t you think? Just you and a peasant boy?”

  Milo’s face turned purple, and he was about to shout back when Addison grasped his arm and whispered in his ear. Milo thought for a moment, nodded brusquely, and turned to address Giles once more.

  “We will take some time to consider what you have said,” he called out. Patch noticed the king’s eye twitching.

  Giles laughed. “Taking counsel from my brother? Such a cool-headed, steady fellow that Goran is. Let me guess—he advised you to buy some time, so you might better plan your defenses. Fine with me, if you want to play games. But there will be no escape for any of you in the meantime.” He turned to the trolls and pointed right and left. A small group of the monsters stayed with Giles, but the rest began to move off, spreading out along the walls and vanishing into the fog.

  “And one more thing,” Giles called loudly to the men lining the wall. “You soldiers, you servants, you lesser knights. I’m sure some of you are secretly grateful that a new king will take the place of this spineless worm. Milo the Mild! I know you call him that when his back is turned. You’ll welcome a king who doesn’t spend so much time worrying about ‘the poor folk.’ A king who dreams of bigger things and a bigger kingdom. A king who knows how to reward the people who matter—those who protect the throne and fight for its glory.

  “Remember this: If Milo hesitates to surrender himself and Dartham, you may want to give him a nudge in the right direction—if you understand my meaning. I will remember those who stand with me.”