by Chris Tookey
Wenda obeyed, and nearly choked as the fetid smell of trolls assailed her nostrils.
Looking through the trapdoor, she saw for the first time that the boats were on two levels. On the upper deck were the fighters. Below decks were strong wooden benches on which sat forty galley trolls, twenty on each side of the boat, two for each of the ten oars protruding from the port and starboard sides of the boat. Wenda saw that an extra troll, smaller than the others, sat at the front with a big drum and a cudgel with which to beat time.
Wenda stood up and asked the question that had been bothering her since the previous day.
“Why do we have to set out so early?” she asked.
Mudskipper grinned, hideously.
“Because early in the morning they’re still drowsy. And most of them won’t have eaten for a few hours, so they’ll be at their weakest.”
“That’s good,” said Wenda.
“Not necessarily,” said Mudskipper. “They’ll be bad-tempered at getting woken up, and really, really hungry.”
As the boats swung out of the harbour, Wenda noticed silvery shapes in the water to each side of the boats. They swam alongside without ever breaking the surface with their fins.
“What are they?” asked Wenda. “Are they dolphins? They’re usually good luck, aren’t they?”
Mudskipper shook his head.
“No, they’re sharks. Great whites. Scavenging. They’re following us in the hope of fresh meat.”
“You mean the sea serpents?” said Wenda.
Again, the bugbear shook his head.
“No, I mean us,” he said.
A horn sounded from the royal flagship.
“That’s our signal,” said Mudskipper. “The smaller boats have to go on ahead.”
As Mudskipper had predicted, the third and fourth boats quickly overtook King Otto’s boat and the one carrying Sir Tancred and his archers. Wenda knew with a sinking sensation in her stomach that the front two boats were intended to be little more than live bait.
“What do the serpents do when they attack?” she inquired nervously.
“They coil themselves around the boat, three or four times, until it breaks and throws us into the water.”
“But I can’t swim,” said Wenda.
“Don’t worry,” said Mudskipper. “Chances are you’ll be dead long before you hit the water. And if not, the sharks will tear you apart long before you can drown.”
As the boats neared the rocks which Wenda knew must really be sea serpents, more and more sharks swam alongside until there were hundreds.
“Do the serpents know we’re coming?” whispered Wenda.
“They’ll sense it,” replied Mudskipper. “They’ll hear the drums, and anyway they can see. They’re starting to wake up.”
Sure enough, some of the rocky islands were beginning to move, and a few of them were beginning to reveal themselves as heads. Great, scaly eyelids flipped up to reveal yellow, baleful eyes the size of warriors’ shields. Wenda counted six heads in all.
When all the eyes of the monsters had opened, King Otto – who was on the Atlantean flagship to the left of Wenda – raised his arm. His knights removed the hoods from the heads of their birds of prey. When the royal arm descended, the birds were released. Silently, without so much as a screech, they flew at the monsters, aiming directly for the eyes.
The sea monsters responded by gnashing their teeth at the birds and turning their heads from left to right as they came under attack. Wenda put her hands to her ears at the terrible noises they made as the birds pecked out their eyes. There was a hissing, roaring and a bellowing all merged into one. Virtually all the birds perished in the teeth of the monsters, but not before they had succeeded in blinding every one of the serpents.
“Maybe now they’ll just swim away and leave us in peace!” she said.
“That isn’t their way,” said Mudskipper.
“You’ve done this before?” asked Wenda.
“Five years ago,” said Mudskipper. “How do you think I got this hook and this leg?”
Wenda gulped.
“That was a sea serpent?” she asked.
“Two of them,” said the bugbear. “One got my arm, the other got my leg. Then they pulled.”
Wenda felt sick.
“I was lucky really,” continued Mudskipper. “One of them might have got my head.”
“What saved you?” asked Wenda.
“I did. I cut my own arm off, then my own leg. It wasn’t pleasant,” he admitted, “but someone had to do it.”
Wenda suddenly didn’t feel nearly as brave as she had done.
“Uh-oh,” said Mudskipper, turning a sickly shade of green. “Here they come!”
One of the larger serpents was stalking them from the port side. It dived below them, and for a moment Wenda hoped it had gone past. But seconds later its huge head, the size of a horse, reared up twenty feet above them on the starboard side. It towered and waved for a moment, like one of the charmed cobras Wenda had occasionally seen in the market-place of Castle Otto, but then it crashed down on to the deck and slithered over the port side.
A huge, glistening coil of the serpent lay on the deck, and Wenda could see from its straining muscles that it was very much alive and doing its best to squeeze the boat in half.
“Quick!” said Mudskipper. “Before it can break the spine of the boat!”
Wenda set to work with her chopper, but it made tiny, ineffectual lacerations on the tough hide of the sea serpent.
“Out of my way!” hissed Mudskipper, firing a harpoon into the serpent.
This evidently caused the monster pain but not enough to save the boat from further attack. A head reared up on the port side, and a second coil crashed down on to the deck a few feet away. This was a different colour from the first, and even thicker, and Wenda guessed that it belonged to a second, even mightier serpent.
Mudskipper had picked up a spear and was waving it at the first serpent’s head, which had resurfaced on the starboard side. It was looking full at the peg-legged bugbear and closing in for the kill. Wenda gasped as the sea serpent dislocated its own jaw and allowed it to drop so low that its fanged mouth was more than large enough to accommodate an entire troll.
The serpent seemed impervious to the arrows that were hitting it on and around its head, and Wenda screamed as it fastened its jaws around Mudskipper’s waist and snapped him in half.
Her scream merged with the shouts and yells of the trolls beneath her as the boat snapped in two, sending them into the foaming sea.
She could not have known it, but the high pitch of her scream attracted the attention of the second, and even larger, serpent which had just surfaced behind her and was even now dislocating its jaw in order to enjoy Wenda as a tasty hors d’oeuvre before the rest of the boat and crew.
All she felt was darkness descend, and a foul odour, as the gigantic snake lowered its head over her and swept her up from the deck. She felt herself upended as the serpent raised its head, and she slithered head first down its neck and into its stomach where she landed among its last few evil-smelling meals, which even now were being broken down by its stomach juices. As she battled for breath, she knew beyond doubt that she was about to die.
And she would have done, too, had the serpent not at that moment received three well-aimed arrows to the throat, which caused it to collapse on to the deck and regurgitate the contents of its stomach across the deck.
Even as Wenda staggered to her feet, gasping, another serpent might have torn her apart, had a muscular young man not swung by on a rope and snatched her up from the deck, gathering her by her waist and depositing her on a small platform halfway up the ship’s mast.
“You can’t stay here,” said Sir Tancred. “The boat will go down in a few moments, just like the other two. You’ll only be safe on the
King’s.”
“Thank you,” said Wenda, who was still shaky, counting her limbs and unsure how much of the blood and vomit in which she was drenched was actually hers. “But why…?”
“No time to argue. You see down there?” He pointed down to the water, where sharks were massing between Wenda’s stricken vessel and Sir Tancred’s.
Wenda nodded.
“We’ll need to jump,” said Sir Tancred. “On a count of three. Okay?”
“But I can’t swim!” cried Wenda.
“You won’t have to!” he shouted. “Just hold my hand and do as I say! Right?”
Wenda nodded, dumbly.
“One, two, oh dammit,” said Sir Tancred, as the boat began to split between them. “Three!”
Wenda had no time to panic as she hit the cold water. The sharks under her feet not only broke her fall; their backs formed a useful if treacherous causeway for the dozen or so feet between her own capsizing boat and the King’s.
Her feet slipped and slid as she clambered, crawled and found herself pulled along by Sir Tancred. The sharks threshed beneath them and gnashed their teeth; but Sir Tancred dragged her along so fast that the sharks had no time to pitch them into the water. The knight reached the King’s boat first and hauled her up a rope that dangled from its side. Reaching the deck, she fell into his arms.
“Are you all right?” asked the knight, who was even more handsome close up than he had appeared from a distance.
“You saved my life,” was all she could think of to say.
“And you owe me your body,” he replied.
“I beg your pardon?” she asked.
“You heard me, boy,” he said. “It’s one of the perks of my job.”
Wenda’s mouth gaped. This wasn’t how she’d imagined Sir Tancred to be at all.
“But, but – there’s a battle to be won.”
“All over bar the shouting,” he said. “We’ve lost three of the boats, but the serpents are scattering.”
Looking around, Wenda could see that he was right.
“Why did you rescue me?” she asked. “I’m no one special.”
“I don’t know,” said Sir Tancred. “I must have taken a fancy to you.”
“But I’m covered in blood and I don’t know what else.”
“I certainly don’t want you now,” said the knight, grimacing. “Just clean yourself up, come to my room tonight and let me have my evil way with you.”
“Now, now, Sir Tancred, what are you up to?” said a voice from behind Sir Tancred.
Wenda flinched. It was the King.
“Having your wicked way with one of the volunteers?” asked King Otto.
His voice was bluff and friendly but with a hint of menace.
“No, of course not, sire,” replied Sir Tancred hastily.
“This lad looks as if he has been through enough without you forcing yourself upon him.”
“I was just making sure he’s all right, sire.”
“I think you’d best leave that sort of thing to the medics, don’t you?” the King asked quietly.
“Oh, absolutely, sire. It’s just that he seems to be injured.”
“I’d be surprised if he wasn’t. He’s damn lucky to be here at all. No one else seems to have survived from the other boats except you two.”
“It’s a damnable shame, sire,” said Sir Tancred, though Wenda noted that his eyes were alive with excitement, and he had shown no grief for anyone who had died in the attack.
“It certainly is,” said the King, whose spirit seemed considerably more subdued. “But at least this should keep those market-traders off my back for another few years.”
Wenda plucked up what was left of her courage to address the King directly.
“Do you think all the serpents will have gone, sire?” she asked.
“I shouldn’t think so,” said the King. “There’s always a few that hang around underneath the island, in search of easy pickings. But they’re not going to be brave enough to hang about here out in the open sea, not for a while at least.”
All the time he was talking to Wenda, he was studying her face.
“Do I know you, boy?”
“I, I… don’t think so, sir.”
“Where are you from?”
“I work in the kitchen, sire.”
“You remind me of someone,” he said. “You have something elvish about you.”
“That would come from my mother’s side, sire. She used to taste your food.”
“Of course she did!” exclaimed the King. “Martha!”
“Martha was my mother,” said Wenda.
“And you are her son?” asked the King. “I thought she had a daughter.”
“I am her daughter,” said Wenda.
“Daughter?” echoed the King.
“I’m sorry, my liege,” she said. “I pretended to be a male so I would be accepted on this expedition.”
“Well, well,” said the King, laughing uproariously. “A kitchen wench! What do you make of that, Tancred?”
Sir Tancred had taken a step away from her. It was obvious that he had suddenly lost interest in Wenda. She was uncertain whether her fault was being female, or the news that she was a mere servant from the kitchens.
“I’m sorry, sire. I, I had no idea,” said Sir Tancred.
“That she was a girl?” asked the King, who had evidently been thinking along the same lines as Wenda. “Or that she is merely a servant from the kitchens?”
“I had no idea that she was not fully human,” said the knight stiffly.
“You find that offensive?” asked the King. “I can’t think why. Elves are an attractive race.”
He turned to face Wenda.
“I remember your mother as being exceptionally good-looking. As you are yourself.”
Wenda found herself blushing.
“You also seem to be exceptionally resilient,” said King Otto.
“Oh, I’m all right,” said Wenda. “I don’t think much of this blood and stuff is mine.”
“No?” asked King Otto, who lifted up her hair to look at the back of her neck. “How interesting.”
“What is, sire?”
“Oh nothing, my dear. But you do look very like your mother used to. Perhaps one day you will be my food-taster yourself. In the meantime, I shall have a word with Mrs Scraggs. Perhaps you would be so good as to bring my nightcap of an evening.”
“You wear a nightcap, sire?”
The King laughed.
“It is not a nightcap that you wear. It is a little drop of something before I retire for the night. Brandy, if we have any. I will tell Mrs Scraggs to let you bring me some of an evening.”
“It would be an honour, sire,” said Wenda, bowing.
“I look forward to meeting you again,” said the King. “What was your name again?”
“Wenda, sire.”
“Ah yes, I shall remember that,” said the King, lifting a lock of her hair and gazing again at the curve of her neck. “Wenda.”
8
Beware Falling Trolls
In which Wyrd survives a catastrophe and visits the seaside
Wyrd was relieved to see Wenda come back alive, and felt guilty that he had not gone with her. This remorse at his own cowardice was tempered by the information that she was the sole survivor from the third and fourth boats.
Like everyone else, Wyrd was in the market square when the King announced a famous victory against the sea serpents. Almost everyone cheered, although Wyrd heard one stallholder grumble to another that the expedition had cost more Atlantean lives in a day than the serpents had taken in a year. Shortly afterwards, Wyrd noticed the opinionated stallholder being hauled off by two of the King’s knights.
King Otto decorated Sir Tancred for bravery and
proclaimed him a Hero of Atlantis. This handsomest of all the knights acknowledged the cheers and screams of approbation with the kind of mock-humility that he showed in most situations. Wyrd was struck by the fact that Wenda failed to join in the cheering, even though Sir Tancred had done so much to save her.
“What’s the matter, Wenda?” asked Wyrd. “Don’t you feel proud to have been part of an historic event?”
“I suppose so,” said Wenda doubtfully.
She looked around her, before whispering:
“It’s just that being there, it didn’t feel like quite as much of a success as everyone says it was. I mean, over a hundred trolls must have died. There were at least forty on my boat alone. And then there were all the knights who died, and the volunteers.”
“Ssh!” said someone angrily. “Don’t disrespect the King!”
As the King came to the end of his speech, he thanked the market-traders for upholding the finest traditions of free trade and vowed that he would do all in his power to avoid the twin dangers of boom and bust.
Wyrd wasn’t sure what the King meant by these terms and was fairly sure that the King didn’t either. But his words seemed to satisfy the crowd, and he was given a rousing ovation as he stepped down from the stage.
***
It was a few days later that Wyrd became aware that certain Atlanteans had grievances against mankind in general, and the King in particular, when a troll nearly fell on him. This was no small matter, since trolls were as huge as they were ugly, between fifteen and twenty feet tall. When one fell over, usually after a drinking session, it was as impressive, and sometimes created as much rubble, as a small tower collapsing.
Wyrd didn’t know much about trolls except that they were big, rude and kept themselves to themselves. But he had learned from his mother that trolls had lived in Albion for thousands of years, long before any humans found the place warm enough to inhabit.
Though trolls were notorious for their bad temper, and some of the more rebellious of them made a living as highwaymen, hiding under bridges and robbing travellers of coins and jewellery, the majority earned an honest wage as builders in stone. Architects of castles and stone circles all over Albion made use of trolls to carry large boulders and, since the creatures were so tall and strong, they made the use of ladders and complicated machinery unnecessary. It was said that the largest of all stone circles, Stonehenge, erected thousands of years before, had needed only three trolls to construct it.