The Brave Apprentice (18 page)

Addison pushed his way across the courtyard. “Mannon! Don’t harm that man—what are you doing?”

Mannon turned, his chest heaving up and down, and shouted back. “I heard him talking to the others, trying to convince them to surrender the king and take Giles’s side!”

Addison stood directly over the soldier and stared down. The softening of his features was long gone—it was the same stony face Patch had always known. “Is this true?” Addison asked.

The soldier was on his back, his eyes darting among Addison, Mannon, and the sword at his neck. “What choice do we have? We can’t fight the trolls. I heard what
they did at Half! Arrows don’t kill them. Fire doesn’t burn them. We have to give them Milo—and that apprentice!”

“Lock him away,” Addison said, jabbing his chin toward a tower at the corner of the castle. A group of men came over, lifted the fellow by the arms, and dragged him off. He screamed over his shoulder at them, nearly in tears, “It’s madness to fight! We’ll be slaughtered! And I’m not the only one who thinks so!” The frenzied voice died away as the soldier was pulled inside the tower.

Addison turned to face the growing crowd. “Perhaps it is true,” he said. “Some of you may think it is hopeless to fight this enemy. Perhaps you think we should bind up our king and that boy”—here Addison pointed toward Patch—“and hand them over to Giles.” As he spoke, Addison looked at each man in turn. Some met his glance, others looked at the snowy ground, and others stared nervously at the walls as if the trolls might burst through at any moment.

“I will tell you this,” Addison said. “Giles is my brother; no one knows him better than I do. And for my part, I would rather die fighting those trolls tonight than live one day in a kingdom ruled by my brother. By my false, pitiless, diabolical brother.”

Addison pointed toward the prison tower. “Who was that man?”

“Doggett,” someone replied.

“Doggett, then. Doggett is in the dungeon now. But
consider this—he will be quite lonely in there. Because Milo is not a king who imprisons people for the least offense. How many of you have been treated unjustly? How many have been jailed or whipped without cause? Or seen your friends hang from the gallows, or had every last penny taken from you by the kings taxmen? What, none of you? Well, I can promise you something—if Giles is king, you can expect all of those things. With a king like Giles, Doggett would be in a dungeon so thick with the king’s enemies that none could lie down to sleep.

“And this is why I tell you,
no!
We will not surrender Milo. We will not surrender the apprentice. And anyone who desires otherwise will have to pass through me first.”

“And me,” said Ludowick.

“And me as well,” growled Mannon, shouldering his way through to join them.

“And me,” shouted a frail, ancient man in the crowd. He was a farmer, sitting in a two-wheeled cart. A few in the crowd shouted their approval.

Addison grabbed Patch’s arm and tugged him along as he climbed onto the cart and stood on the bench next to the farmer. “Do you see this boy?” Addison cried out to the buzzing throng. “He is not a soldier. He is not a knight. He is not a lord or a baron. This is Patch, the tailor’s apprentice from a town so small you’ve never heard its name. He stood on a bridge over a fallen friend and
killed one of those beasts. By
himself!”
The crowd gasped. Patch gaped out at them, without the smallest idea of how to react. “So the king summoned him to Dartham—and now the mightiest troll lies drowned in the muck at the bottom of the lake! If one boy can fight them, why can’t we fight them as well?”

The people crowded in close, soldiers and villagers alike. They cheered and shouted Patch’s name and reached out to touch his feet.

“We
can
fight them!” Addison shouted on. “With our swords, our spears, our axes, our lances. With our rakes and pitchforks, if we must. Let them come! Well drop stones on their ugly heads. Let them try! We’ll rain boiling oil on their shoulders from the walls. They say a troll at Half took a hundred arrows and survived? Let us see one take two hundred arrows and live!”

The people in the crowd shouted and hopped about with their fists in the air. Some swarmed up the sides of the cart, clapping Patch on the shoulders, tugging at his garments. He smiled as best he could and tried to look brave. Over the heads and arms of the crowd, he saw Simon dancing happily and slapping his hands together high over his head.

Only when the clamor died away a bit did they hear the urgent voice of the constable calling from the top of the wall, “Lord Addison! Lord Addison! Here, sir, you must come here!”

Two of the trolls were tearing one of the low buildings
outside of Dartham apart. The sharp cracks of breaking wood drifted up to the walls of Dartham, muffled by the gathering mist that rose from the snow.

“See there—they are pulling out the largest timbers and leaving the rest,” the constable said, pointing. The trolls, each with a dozen heavy beams across his arms, added them to a growing pile. “I don’t think they’re for burning. Or they’d have brought them to their fire.”

“Do you know what they’re doing, Lord Addison?” Patch asked. Addison did not answer. He looked at Ludowick, who frowned back at him and took a heavy breath.

“Where is Giles, that snake?” Mannon wondered.

“Haven’t seen him since the mist got so thick,” the constable said. “He’s out there somewhere, though, beyond the range of our arrows. With three of his gang around for protection, I’m sure. Hold on—over there, that Murok is coming.”

The marble-skinned troll lumbered out of the mist with an unlit torch in his hand and walked over to the roaring fire the trolls had built. He touched the end of the torch to the flames to light it and strode toward the gatehouse, stopping on the far side of the ditch, across from the raised drawbridge.

Murok glared up at the men through the narrow slits of his helmet, and a long, low, murderous purr rolled up from his throat. He drove the sharp bottom of the torch handle through the snow and ground it into the soil.
Then he straightened up and began to speak. It made the men grimace and wince to hear his rusty, grating voice. “You have until this stops burning. Then you will surrender the king and the boy and leave the castle. Remember—the queen stays. Lash her to the throne.” Murok began to walk away, then pointed at the torch again. “Until it goes out. Then the walls come down.”

He growled something at the two trolls who had collected the timber. They grabbed the heavy wooden beams and came toward the walls.

“Archers!” Addison called, raising one hand high. Three dozen men stepped to the edge of the wall and pointed their arrows at the approaching beasts.

The trolls stopped on the far side of the moat that surrounded the walls of Dartham, ten feet deep with a bottom of frozen mud. They hissed up at the men along the wall and heaved their timbers into the ditch.

“Do not move, or we will fire,” Addison warned. The trolls grinned at one another and leaped into the ditch. “Now!” Addison shouted, and a flock of arrows flew shrilly down.

The trolls were crouched with their backs facing the men, and the arrows clanged off the thick armor that covered their backs and heads. The creatures began to claw at the side of the ditch nearest the castle. Every hard, triangular nail on their huge, dense hands was like a shovel. With fearsome strength, they punched and gouged at the frozen earth, throwing chunks of
soil and rock behind them. Another volley of arrows whistled down, seconds after the first. Most clattered off the trolls’ armor in random directions, but some stuck in the skin of their arms and legs. The trolls ignored the wounds. They went on clawing and digging, and soon had nearly disappeared into the ground, tunneling quickly toward the walls where the men stood.

“What are they doing?” Patch asked.

“Undermining,” Ludowick replied, looking grim. “They’ll dig tunnels directly under our stone walls, and use those timbers to prop up the foundation so the walls won’t collapse at first. When that torch goes out, they’ll set the timbers on fire. And when the timbers burn through, down come the walls.”

Murok watched from a distance, smirking. When the two digging trolls disappeared into their hole, he stalked off and vanished in the mist.

“I think it’s time to speak to the king,” Addison said.

leaned against the wall, staring at the closed door to thereat hall. He had followed Addison and Ludowick. But when they arrived, Addison told him to wait outside—not unkindly, but firmly—while they spoke to the king and queen. He suddenly heard a familiar voice singing and looked around for a place to hide.

Patch!! Hoo ha, it’s Patch!”

Too late; Simon had spotted him. The fool had his
enormous wheel of cheese again, and he balanced it on his head as he wandered about alone, singing at the top of his lungs. He ran to Patch, taking careful, mincing steps to keep the cheese from falling. Then he plopped down in front of his friend with his long legs, so flexible that it was painful to watch, pointing in nearly opposite directions. “Have some cheese,” he said, holding the wheel under Patch’s nose.

Patch looked to the ceiling and chuckled despite his dark mood. “I think I will,” he said. He hadn’t eaten in a long while, and his stomach was rumbling. He ripped a chunk away from a place that Simon had not yet gnawed and stuffed it in his mouth. “It’s delishish,” he said, still chewing.

“A gift from the queen,” Simon said dreamily, squeezing the cheese against his chest and rocking it like a baby. Patch wished again that he could be as carefree as this simple man, Simon Oddfellow.

“Simon,” he said, “is that really your name—I mean the Oddfellow part?”

Simon turned to him with an earnest expression. “That’s an interesting story, Patch. For a long time, all I knew was Simon, never the second bit. So I went to this man who was said to be very wise and asked him what my last name was. And he says, ‘Well, what family are you from?’ And I say, ‘I haven’t the slightest idea!’ And he just looks at me and says, ‘You surely are an Oddfellow!’ And that’s how I learned my name.”

Simon took another enormous bite from the wheel and rested contentedly against the wall. Patch struggled not to laugh aloud—but the urge to laugh disappeared quickly when he thought of those trolls digging their way under the walls, carving out in minutes what would take men days.

“What’s wrong, Patch?” Simon said, tipping his head sideways.

“I’m afraid of what’s going to happen.”

“I know how to cheer you up!” Simon cried, putting the cheese aside.

“I’m not squeezing your nose,” Patch grumbled.

“No, no, no,” said Simon, wiping his hands on his shirt. “I’ll draw you pictures. Even the trolls liked this. For a while, anyway. Before they swatted me.” A pouch dangled from his belt. Simon untied it and turned it upside down, spilling dirt onto the floor.

“You carry dirt with you?” Patch asked.

“Don’t you?” Simon replied, with his brow furrowed. “Anyhow, watch this.” The fool spread the dirt in a thin layer across the wooden planks. A tiny stick was hidden in the dirt. He plucked it out and began to draw with its sharpened point.

“First, I always draw a pig,” the fool said. And very quickly, he produced a fine picture of a pig.

“You’re a good artist, Simon,” Patch said.

Simon’s face shone, and somehow it made the sadness in Patch deepen. An unspeakable horror was lurking
just outside the castle walls, poised to attack, and yet every small pleasure and every compliment gave Simon such joy.
Who’s the real fool?
Patch wondered.

“Second, I always draw a cow….”

The door to the great hall opened. Addison was there, and he beckoned Patch to come inside. “Stay here, Simon,” Patch said.

“Come back and I’ll do more!” Simon called after him.

“Join us,” Milo said, and Patch took a seat among the king, the queen, Addison, and Ludowick.

“I thought you should be here, Patch,” Milo continued, “since it is you and me that Giles has invited to drink the wine—the poisoned wine. A lesson to all men, I suppose: Beware what tactics you employ, for they may surely be used against you in turn.”