As the crowd lessened, the Guard moved on grimly. Villages were empty. An occasional chicken or cat darted in and out of sight. A lame horse was left in a pasture with the gate open.
As they approached Bellary the woods were completely silent. Two hours later they reached the outskirts of Retona. When the wind blew from the direction of Devona it brought with it the sound of millions of teeth cutting away at all living things—a horrible, loud rasping and crunching. The trodliks were eating.
William ordered the wagons turned on the spot in preparation for a flight back to the castle. He and King Stephen took charge of groups of soldiers who were cutting pine logs and trimming off the branches so they would roll. The mules dragged these to the top of a long, steep knoll overlooking the rolling meadows of Claret. No one could see the trodliks yet, but it was far worse listening as they grew louder.
The Candlewax soldiers made huge balls from dry brambles and cut pine branches, which they rolled to the top of the knoll and placed behind the propped-up logs. The barrels containing pure Candlewax oil were carefully unloaded and rolled uphill. Soldiers pried them open and doused the balls.
William, Conrad, King Stephen, and Sir Gavin rode at a canter toward the dull, roaring sound of the trodliks chewing. Brine stayed back to keep Wolfy from following. Within a short time they pulled up their horses. Some trodliks were scattered here and there on the ground, scurrying from plant to plant. Saints alive, they ARE real, thought Stephen. Until this moment a small part of him had hoped that they weren’t.
Sir Gavin dismounted and tied up his horse on a tree branch. A finger-length trodlik with beady little red eyes ran past him. With a graceful jump Sir Gavin stomped on it, easily crushing its white body with a sickening crunch. He lifted his boot and wiped it on the dry grass. The yellowish guts of the trodlik had squished out of the shelllike skin. The plants and insects it had been eating were smeared on the grass.
“Definitely dead,” proclaimed Sir Gavin. Another trodlik ran past and he crushed it too.
“Try the fire, Conrad,” said William.
Conrad jumped off his mount and stood next to Sir Gavin with a Candlewax torch in hand. Before long, three trodliks came running forward. He lunged at the first and missed. The second ran around him. Sir Gavin grabbed a stick and pinned the third trodlik down.
“Get it, Conrad. I’ll hold it here,” urged Sir Gavin. The trodlik wriggled furiously and started to eat away the part of the stick it could reach. Conrad swooped in and pressed the flaming torch onto its back. It kept writhing under the weight of the stick, trying to free itself. Finally, after a very long time, it hissed as its white exterior expanded larger and larger. The skin popped open, venting steam, and the trodlik ceased moving. Conrad and Sir Gavin moved away from it and inspected their work. It looked as if the trodlik had exploded.
“Dead for sure,” said Conrad, grinning.
“I wasn’t sure about flame,” said William, wiping his brow. “We use trodlik dust and water to douse Candlewax trees. The mixture stops a fire pretty quick.”
“I think its stomach exploded,” said Sir Gavin, looking greenish. He reflexively stomped on two more trodliks running past.
“Aye. The heat didn’t really burn it, but it made the bugger’s belly burst,” said Conrad, smiling. A trodlik ran up his leg and he brushed it off, finishing it beneath his boot.
“Let’s see how bad it is ahead,” said King Stephen. The four men rode on. The horses were soon stepping on trodliks every now and then, tossing their heads in vehement disagreement with the direction of their travel.
Trodliks were in the branches above them, stripping the leaves and then eating the branches, too. Stephen, Conrad, and William slowed and stared up at the awful sight, when a shout ahead drew their attention.
“Stephen!” yelled Sir Gavin from the top of a hill. The Crystal king urged his horse up the hillside, soon joined by Conrad and William. As their eyes beheld what was ahead, they gasped as one.
Below them lay a vast sea of squirming, white trodliks stretching to the horizon. The skeletons of what had once been trees were covered with trodliks still feasting. Farther away the trees had been completely eliminated. There was no sign of any other living thing.
“This was Claret!” William’s furious voice thundered over the din of chewing. Conrad had slipped from his mount and was retching violently.
King Stephen surveyed the thick blanket of trodliks and groaned in despair. He tore his eyes away to look into Sir Gavin’s greenish face and saw his own feelings mirrored there. Then he tightened his grip on the reins.
“Back to the others!” he shouted. The horses were only too eager to run toward Retona. The Crystal king felt numb. How could they possibly kill all of those trodliks? If only they could hold them at bay for a few days, there might be enough time for Catherine to bring Spelopokos back through the Gate before Lackanay was destroyed.
God help us.
The last of the logs were piled into place on the crest of the hill. The bramble balls were ready to ignite. The King’s Guard had tethered their mounts a quarter mile away from the hilltop. Everything was ready, and still William paced back and forth. Not far away, Sir Gavin and King Stephen observed the creeping mass of white edging ever closer.
William wasn’t sure they had done all they could to prepare. Something was bothering him. He couldn’t think. It didn’t help that the men were constantly swatting at trodliks with long tree-branches. Every now and then someone would yell; the trodliks were taking bites of flesh whenever they could. The soldiers had found it best to stand back to back, striking the creatures viciously as they darted forward to attack.
William sensed his men’s fear. How long can we hold out? They had to wait until the bulk of the trodliks was close enough before loosing the logs and lighting the bramble balls. Then they could retreat.
A trodlik ran up his leg. He tried to shake it off, but its appendages gripped tightly. Its red eyes glistened. He swatted it off with the back of his hand and stomped on it, quickly killing two more of the scurrying pests. It would be so much better if they could destroy the trodliks from a distance. Stepping on them had spattered his boots with yellowish trodlik guts and hearing the trodliks eat was enough to drive anyone mad.
They needed to find a way to turn the creatures back to Devona, but William doubted their defenses would do that. There were too many of them. He wondered for the hundredth time where King Cyril was. Not since the earliest days of Candlewax, when Rogard was king hundreds of years ago, had Candlewax ever been in so much danger.
Rogard. There was something about first the Candlewax king that kept flitting through his head, but he couldn’t get a hold of it. Rogard. Rogard who cleared the Candlewax Wood.
“Why, of course!” he said aloud, slapping his forehead. “Conrad! King Stephen! Sir Gavin!” William shouted at them, a big smile on his face. They looked over, puzzled. “I’ve got an idea!” He waved his arms enthusiastically.
Conrad ran to him, aiming for trodliks as he went. King Stephen and Sir Gavin joined them.
“We need to chop down and set fire to the outer reaches of Candlewax Wood. Retona will be lost, but we might be able to save Bellary! Bellary is surrounded by Candlewax trees!” bellowed William over the noise of the trodliks.
“It would be dangerous, but we could do it! They say that Rogard once cut down burning Candlewax trees,” shouted Conrad.
“That’s what gave me the idea!” boomed William triumphantly. “We should leave immediately. There is much work to be done.”
“Excellent idea, William. The trodliks will be nice and full by the time they reach the fire. It will either turn them away or burst them open by the stomach. Either way it will buy us some time,” yelled King Stephen.
“I shall stay to release the logs!” shouted Sir Gavin. “It will give you more time to set the fire.”
“Nonsense, Sir Gavin. We should all be on the other side of the fire when it is lit. No one can cross a Ca
ndlewax fire. They burn fiercely for days,” said William.
“I’ll stay.”
They turned around. Brine stood next to a growling, snapping, skittish Wolfy, stroking the dog’s head. It appeared Brine had overheard their loud voices and had come to investigate.
“I cannot allow that, Brine. It is a soldier’s task, not a father’s,” King Stephen said.
“Aren’t soldiers fathers, too? I’ll stay,” Brine repeated stubbornly.
“I grew up in Bellary, and I have no children,” said Conrad. “I’ll stay. Besides, there is a way to cross the fire if one knows how.”
Conrad surveyed their skeptical faces and continued. “I shall cover my horse with a cloth soaked in water and trodlik slime. Plenty of dead trodliks around to create it. I’ll make sure my clothes are good and wet too. Then I’ll travel up the river that runs from Bellary to Retona. It is just past the horses about a mile.” Conrad pointed back to where the horses were tethered.
“Can you really make it, Conrad?” asked William, concerned.
“If I do make it, you’ll have to give me a rematch. If I don’t, you’ll have to cry your eyes out because you’ll never know if I might have been the one to finally best the great William of Candlewax, champion wrestler of all of Lackanay.”
William laughed so loudly that heads turned. “By Rogard’s fist, it shall be as you say, Conrad. You will keep two other Candlewax soldiers with you to beat off the trodliks. The vermin will be thickening as it gets to be time to loose the logs. Choose your men! We must be off.”
“I’ll ask Peter and Raff. They can run fast and they are able, brave men.”
Sir Gavin opened his mouth to protest, but King Stephen bade him hold his peace with a shake of the head. William regarded the Crystal king respectfully. He knows that my men will defend Candlewax with their lives and will brook no usurping of that honor.
“Good. Take what you need for your horses and yourselves. We will wait for you in Bellary,” said William.
Conrad ran to where Raff and Peter were swatting trodliks. William, King Stephen, Brine, and Sir Gavin watched as Conrad explained the plan to them. Both men looked over at William and held up their makeshift branch weapons.
Their battle cry rose over the trodlik din.
The sky toward Bellary was full of smoke, an occasional plume of flame shooting high into the air. Conrad wiped the sweat from his brow. They couldn’t wait much longer or the horses would tear free and bolt. Their angry whinnies and stomping hooves only seemed to spur on the attacking trodliks. The horses, like the three of them, had begun to slip and slide on the bodies of dead trodliks. The men’s clothing, now soaked with slimy trodlik guts in order to stave off the fire, felt abominable and smelled rank.
Raff and Peter were beating back the trodliks, but even they couldn’t keep up for much longer. The sound had grown deafening. Conrad was bleeding in several places on his legs, hands, and back where the trodliks had taken bites. Raff and Peter were in the same shape. Just over the crest of the hill, the thick carpet of trodliks scrambled mercilessly toward them. It looked like it might be a foot or two deep, maybe three in places. He pulled a hatchet from his belt and took aim at the rope.
“Get ready!” he shouted hoarsely. Peter looked up and nodded. He nudged Raff, who hadn’t heard. Raff looked relieved and took another swing at the trodliks with his battered tree branch.
Conrad struck the rope hard and got through half of it. He swung again and felt a satisfying snap as the weight of the logs crashed down the hillside. Without a moment to waste, the men ran to the next pile of logs and loosed them, working feverishly until all ten piles were released.
Raff and Peter took burning Candlewax torches and lit the bramble balls. Flames shot high up in the air and they jumped back from the searing heat. Conrad breathed in the reassuring fragrance of the Candlewax oil as he felled the rope that was holding up the bramble ball brace. The balls tumbled and bounced, picking up speed as they flew down the steep hill over the backs of the trodliks.
The three of them looked on in rapt horror. The logs had crushed hundreds of thousands of trodliks, but the mass was now divided into narrow rivers of white still flowing uphill around huge, smeary yellow patches of dead trodliks. The fireballs finally came to a rest, burning harmlessly. A few pops here and there came from exploding trodliks stuck in the trails of burning oil that streaked the hillside. Conrad sighed and shook his head. It hadn’t been enough.
“To the horses!” shouted Conrad. The ground around them was now writhing with trodliks. Still carrying their battered branches, Raff and Peter sprinted toward the horses. Conrad ran hard. He focused on Peter’s back and breathed in shallowly through the horrid smell of trodliks and the thickening smoke. It was only another fifty yards and the trodliks were thinning as they ran.
Conrad glanced behind to see a mass of trodliks squirming over the crest of the hill. In terror he slipped and tumbled to the ground. Half a dozen trodliks sunk their razor teeth into his calf muscles at once. Conrad could hardly hear himself screaming over the din. He frantically grabbed at something moving in his hair, flinging it off as he saw that Peter had stopped and was running back to him. Out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed the beady red eyes of more trodliks scurrying closer. Something was crawling on his back. Peter grabbed his arm and yanked him to his feet, beating the trodliks off of him.
Conrad felt light-headed. Why are we moving so slowly? Why can’t I run faster? Peter pulled him forward. He was shouting something to Raff. Conrad focused on the horses. His head felt somewhat clearer. The closer they got to the horses, the fewer trodliks there were. His legs felt stronger, reflexes quicker. He sprinted with Peter to Raff.
“Here!” shouted Raff, shoving the reins into their hands. The horses jolted their heads up, nostrils flared and eyes wide. Conrad almost lost his grip on the reins. Above the horses’ leather leggings there were a few bleeding bites, but they were more scared than hurt.
The three of them swung up on their mounts and galloped toward the stream, reaching it in minutes. Conrad looked on in dismay. The stream was smaller than he had remembered from his youth. The water was at most a foot deep in the middle. Conrad cursed. He should have remembered that this was the dry season, but it would have to do. He slowed his horse to a trot and headed toward Bellary on the trail that followed the course of the water. Raff and Peter followed behind, grinning and waving every time he looked back. He tried to look confident and smiled. What have I gotten them in to?
Another half mile and they would be in the midst of the fire. They stopped and dismounted. Conrad took off the rolled cloth from the back of his saddle. It was yellow and slippery with trodlik guts. He unrolled it and tied the makeshift fire shield around his horse. Next he pulled open the empty linen flour sack that was also covered in yellow slime. Raff held the reins while Conrad slipped it over his horse’s head. There was a hole for the horse’s nose but none for the eyes. Seeing the flames would panic them. For some reason his horse allowed him to do this without too much fuss. Conrad wondered at his benign cooperation.
“He knows I’m trying to help!” he cried to Raff.
Raff’s horse was just as cooperative, but it took all three of them to secure the grotesque shield around Peter’s horse. Only when the hood was fastened did the animal finally calm down. Conrad led his horse down the trail at a brisk walk. The smoke was getting thicker. His eyes were burning. They breathed through rags tied over their faces, holding the horses’ reins in one hand and trodlik-soaked blankets in the other. The sound of the fire ahead was louder than the trodliks behind them. Great billows of smoke darkened the sky.
The trees were changing from pine, spruce, maple, and oak to Candlewax trees; they were getting closer to Bellary. The air shimmered with heat. Conrad led his horse off the trail and into the water. Great burning globs of oil floated downstream on the surface. One hit Conrad’s knee but he felt nothing through his trodlik-soaked pants. Still, they pulled the blanket
s over their heads and shoulders. It wouldn’t be long now. A pine tree near them ignited with a whooshing sound. Close to it, a Candlewax tree stood fast, impervious. Conrad knew a cut Candlewax tree was an entirely different matter.
William stared at the wall of flames they had created. It was difficult to look away. Columns of fire shot out of the cut Candlewax trunks and logs. Even as far away as they were, the heat was searing and smoke kept rolling back at them whenever the wind changed. Everyone was covered in greasy soot. Already one of his men’s clothes had caught fire. They had rolled him on the ground until the fire stopped, but he knew their task was getting more dangerous by the minute.
Gavin was glancing over at him again, his lips pressed together. Like everybody else, his eyes were bloodshot from the smoke, yet they all were compelled to watch the wall of fire together. He knew what Gavin was thinking. There was no way Conrad, Raff, and Peter could get through the inferno they had created. The stream was completely obscured by smoke. William ground his teeth.
The soldiers had split up into two groups, making the line of fire longer on each end. King Stephen and George Brine were off cutting more trees.
William nodded at the trumpeter. He sounded a loud, high blast on the long brass horn. Perhaps the sound would reach Conrad and help him and the others find their way through. “Keep blowing. Don’t stop ‘til I say so!” he shouted over the roar of the blaze.
His hands were raw from cutting down trees, but he would not stop working now. He and Gavin were headed for the other end of the fire, trying to extend it. They had discovered they could hack away only part of the outer bark in order to torch it. It was much easier than the first mile of trees they had cut down completely. The fire was sucking up the oil from the roots. It would take days for the trees to stop burning.
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