Age of the Amulet

by Richard Ashley Hamilton

  They soon reached the outer wall, which had been constructed from thick logs and lit with torches at regular intervals around the perimeter. In the flickering light, Jim saw two sheets billowing on a nearby clothesline. He pulled them down, handed them to his two Troll friends, and said, “Hopefully, the locals won’t mind us borrowing their laundry.”

  Blinky and AAARRRGGHH!!! donned the sheets, wearing them like cloaks to conceal their bodies. AAARRRGGHH!!! tucked his horns under the fabric and asked, “How we look?”

  “Better than me. I don’t think braces are gonna be invented for another millennium!” said Toby, the metal in his mouth glinting in the torches’ glow.

  Jim approached the village’s front gate, expecting it to be barricaded, but found it open. Oddly, whatever metal hardware used to bar the entrance had been stripped away—violently so, judging by the splintered wood on the hinges. Team Trollhunters slipped past the unlocked gate and stole over to the hamlet’s fire pit, warming their chilled bodies. Jim closed his eyes, feeling the comforting heat along his face before he felt four sharp points dig into his back.

  Startled, Jim and his friends spun around and found themselves surrounded by a dozen grime-streaked villagers, all holding farm tools like weapons. One of them poked with his wooden pitchfork again and demanded something in a dialect Jim didn’t quite understand.

  “What language are they speaking?” Blinky asked, his four hands raised in surrender.

  “It’s Old English,” Claire decided after hearing a few more of their words.

  “Like Shakespeare?” said Toby. “Something tells me these guys aren’t theater buffs!”

  “Shakespeare wrote in Modern English!” Claire pointed out.

  “That’s my Juliet,” Jim quipped.

  “Indeed!” said Blinky. “And Claire’s keen linguistic talents have also pinpointed our setting to sometime in the Dark Ages.”

  “Sounds unpleasant,” AAARRRGGHH!!! said as a villager’s club broke against his back.

  “Maybe my Amulet can help translate what they’re saying,” said Jim.

  He flipped over the device in his hand and watched its outer ring spin. As it whirled, the incantation engraved into the dial shifted from Modern English letters to Latin to . . . gibberish.

  “That’s never happened before,” said Jim, staring at jumbled mess of characters. “Let’s try this again. For the glory of Merlin, Daylight is mine to command!”

  Numerous orbs of mystical energy erupted from the Amulet’s core. The phosphorescent balls crisscrossed around Jim, erecting the Daylight Armor around his body and the Sword of Daylight into his hand. Jim swung the blade in wide arcs, making the frightened villagers back off.

  “Your welcoming committee needs a little work,” Jim told them. “I don’t know if you can understand me, but my friends and I come in peace. We’re Trollhunters—”

  Every single villager wailed in horror at the sound of that last word. But before he could ask why, the Amulet flickered. Jim watched in alarm as his Daylight Armor abruptly fizzled into nothingness and the Amulet, now inert, plopped into the mud at his feet.

  “What’s going on with this thing?” Jim complained as he retrieved the device.

  “And did you see our pitchforky pals’ faces when Jim said ‘Trollhunter’?” Toby added.

  “Not happy,” said AAARRRGGHH!!!

  “Oh no,” whispered Blinky, his six eyes wide with fear. “By Gorgus, it can’t be . . .”

  “ ‘Oh no’ what, Blink?” asked Jim.

  “I pray I’m mistaken,” said Blinky. “That we haven’t just landed in the worst possible place at the worst possible time. My friends, don’t think me a coward, but we must run before . . .”

  “Before what?” Claire asked, then got her answer.

  The village’s outer wall exploded inward with a deafening BOOM. Splintered logs rained down around Team Trollhunters, and the villagers scattered in horror. Once the dust settled, Jim, Claire, Toby, Blinky, and AAARRRGGHH!!! saw a red figure cross through the demolished defenses. A lone horn crowned his head, and armor hung in jagged crimson plates over his imposing form. Blinky found his voice and gasped, “It’s him—it’s Tellad-Urr the Terrible!”

  CHAPTER 4

  CREEPED OUT

  “What’s got everyone’s diapers in a twist?” hiccuped NotEnrique.

  The little Changeling had only now emerged from the bathtub full of glug in which he’d spent the last few minutes. Across the warehouse, the Creepslayerz finally stopped screaming as the shadow portal closed. They stumbled to the empty spot where Team Trollhunters once stood, finding only the Kairosect’s battered remnants.

  “I always thought Lake was a dweeb, but I never wanted him to, y’know, get sucked into a black hole of death,” said Steve.

  “We shall avenge you, Jim!” shouted Eli, thrusting his fists into the air. “So swears Elijah Leslie Pepperjack!”

  “That’s yer name?” NotEnrique snorted, trailing tiny footprint puddles as he approached. “Who filled out the birth certificate—yer worst enemy?”

  The green imp then shook his entire body like a wet dog might, spraying Steve and Eli with glug droplets. But before they could complain, several large Trolls gathered around them.

  “What’re we supposed to do now?” said Bagdwella. “First, we’re forced out of Heartstone Trollmarket, and now our Trollhunters have disappeared!”

  “At least these two are okay,” Rot said, pointing to Steve and Eli.

  “Are you dense, Rot?” Gut scowled beside him. “This’s all their fault!”

  An angry murmur spread across the Trolls, many of them casting menacing glances at Steve and Eli. The Creepslayerz backed away, whispering out of the corners of their mouths.

  “I’ll sacrifice myself so you can get away, Steve,” Eli said. “Tell our story to the world!”

  Steve looked at Eli, seeing at him in a whole new light. He wanted to say so many things, but ultimately settled on, “Okay.”

  “That . . . that’s it?” Eli asked, dejected. “Not even a ‘thank you, Eli’?”

  Steve’s uncaring façade finally cracked, and he blurted out, “Ugh, fine! ‘Creepslayerz never leave a man behind.’ Is that what you wanted to hear, Eli?”

  “There’s the Steve I know!” cheered Eli.

  “And this isn’t our fault!” Steve then shouted to the oncoming Trolls. “You creeps wanna blame something for your missing, unmuscular hero? Blame this!”

  Steve kicked the lifeless Kairosect with his sneaker. The oncoming Trolls halted at once, and a confident grin spread across Steve’s face—until the Kairosect sparked to life again.

  “Steve, I don’t mean to be a nagging nelly, but this time is your fault,” whimpered Eli.

  NotEnrique, the Trolls, and the Creepslayerz all stared in awe as the Kairosect spat out a new swirling shadow portal. It crackled with more of that peculiar green electricity, and the silhouettes of five figures—three small, two large—stepped out of the storming abyss.

  “It’s them!” whooped Eli. “They’re back!”

  The portal then reduced into a tiny black pinprick, and the Kairosect detonated into hundreds of tiny fragments. Once the shrapnel stopped flying, the Trolls rushed up to their returned heroes—only to find that the five figures weren’t Team Trollhunters at all. One of the new arrivals, a Troll coated with black-and-white fur, said, “What manner of trickery be this?”

  “Kilfred?” said Bagdwella, recognizing the striped Troll.

  With an awed hush, everyone bowed before Kilfred and his four companion Trolls—everyone, that is, except for Steve, Eli, and NotEnrique. The elfin Changeling pointed at Kilfred and said, “Who invited the talking zebra?”

  “Bite your tongue, Impure!” bellowed Bagdwella. “This is Kilfred, father of Rundle, father of Vendel. One of the wisest advisors Trollkind has ever known. . . .”

  “Where are my son and young grandson?” asked Kilfred, still disoriented. “Surely they can divine the rea
son for our sudden appearance here. One moment, my four students and I are tending to the Heartstone at Glastonbury Tor. The next, we find ourselves in this strange place.”

  “I dunno how to break this to ya,” began NotEnrique. “But Vendel just got eighty-sixed by that backstabbin’ Krubera, Queen Usurna!”

  “What heresy is this?” wailed Kilfred. “My own kin . . . felled by enemy hands?”

  “And Rundle sadly passed before Deya delivered us to the New World,” said Bagdwella.

  As she and the other Trolls welcomed the shell-shocked Kilfred and his four compatriots, Eli said, “Steve, do you realize what this means?! It means that Jim and the others might still be alive! This Kilfred character clearly lived a while ago, yet he and his students arrived here in the same kind of portal thingy that took our friends. If he’s in the present, then maybe they’re stuck in the past! It’s just like that episode of Sally Go-Back where she had to switch places with Gun Robot to restore balance to the space-time continuum!”

  “These are grave tidings, indeed,” Kilfred said to the Trolls that gathered around him in rapt attention. “As I understand everything you’ve told me, Trolls have been evicted from their rightful place beneath the earth and left without a leader for the first instance in their long history.”

  “Then Gorgus has sent you here in our hour of greatest need, oh wise Kilfred. You must advise us once more,” said Bagdwella, offering him the staff Blinky inherited from Vendel.

  Kilfred looked at the wooden stick, which had been decorated with Christmas lights, and said, “What’s this piece of junk? Where’s the ceremonial Heartstone Staff that’s been in my family for generations?”

  “We, uh, we traded it for a recipe,” NotEnrique admitted.

  “So be it,” announced Kilfred, accepting the junk staff. “I shall lead you, and, together, we shall restore Trollkind to its former glory!”

  The assembled Trolls roared so loudly in approval, Steve and Eli jumped. The sudden movement reminded Kilfred of their presence. He pointed his new staff at the two humans and said, “Now let’s start by eating those two!”

  The Creepslayerz turned to each other and started screaming again.

  CHAPTER 5

  A TALE OF TWO AMULETS

  Villagers screamed and ran past the stunned Jim, Toby, Claire, Blinky, and AAARRRGGHH!!! as Tellad-Urr the Terrible strode into their hamlet. Jim took a step toward this era’s Trollhunter, only to be held back by four matching hands.

  “Blinky, what’re you doing?” Jim asked. “That’s the Trollhunter. Well, a Trollhunter. If he’s Merlin’s creation in this time, then maybe he can help us get back to our own!”

  “Bring me my tribute, fleshbags!” roared Tellad-Urr. “Or I shall burn down every single one of your pathetic huts and torture any foolish enough to look upon my blighted visage!”

  “I don’t know why they call this guy ‘terrible,’ ” said Toby as the trembling villagers began wheeling their barrows toward the scarlet figure. “He seems pretty effective to me!”

  “Tellad-Urr was not terrible in skill, Tobias,” Blinky explained. “He was—is—so named for his ability to strike terror in the hearts of his victims. This is all stated in A Brief Recapitulation of Troll Lore, had you bothered to study it!”

  “ ‘Merlin’s miscreation,’ ” Claire remembered from her reading. “Tellad-Urr was the only Trollhunter to ever use the Amulet for evil! Until he was defeated by Gogun the . . . something?”

  “Gogun the Gentle,” Blinky confirmed. “Tellad-Urr’s successor and one of the bravest Trollhunters to ever wield the Amulet. Even Kanjigar looked up to Gogun’s noble example.”

  Jim looked back at Tellad-Urr, his heart torn between revulsion and a creeping curiosity.

  “Master Jim, you have only known the Trollhunters as allies,” Blinky continued. “But Tellad-Urr is an enemy unlike any you have ever encountered. What horrible coincidence to have arrived at this exact time and place before Gogun has stopped him and restored order.”

  Jim looked down at the dormant Amulet in his hand and said, “I know I haven’t been a Trollhunter for long. But, so far, I haven’t come across too much coincidence . . . only destiny.”

  He and his friends then watched the last villager leave the last wheelbarrow at Tellad-Urr’s crimson booted feet. The dark Trollhunter looked down upon his tribute and grimaced.

  “Is this is all?” he sneered in disappointment. “Is this how little you think of me?”

  Tellad-Urr beckoned the Sundown Mace into his hand, its spiked ball as red as the rest of his abominable armor. The weapon then burst into flames, and he touched its lit end to a nearby thatched roof. Jim’s eyes rounded in sorrow as it, and the village hut beneath it, started to burn.

  “Good Gizmodius!” Blinky exclaimed. “He’s loaded Magmar the Molten’s Conflagration Stone into his own infernal Amulet!”

  “His Amulet,” said Jim, getting an idea. “It’s like the heart of any Trollhunter. Maybe Tellad-Urr doesn’t want to be this way. Maybe his Amulet . . . I don’t know, called out to mine for help. Sorta like one of Claire’s emotional anchors. Maybe we’re supposed to stop this.”

  “But what about that Gogun guy?” asked Toby. “Isn’t he the one who’s supposed to take down Tellad-Urr?”

  “Tobias raises a point of the utmost importance,” said Blinky. “While I applaud your conviction, Master Jim, we simply cannot tamper with past events. Why, even our mere presence here could serve to undo history as we know it!”

  “History is written by the victors,” Jim heard himself say while moving toward the fire.

  He marched through the smoke and embers, recalling how Strickler used to recite that Winston Churchill quote all the time in AP World History. Jim thought, Man, that seems like a lifetime ago. Back when I only had to worry about normal teenage responsibilities.

  “Who’s Victor?” asked AAARRRGGHH!!!

  “I’ll tell you later,” Blinky sighed in resignation. “Provided that we don’t destroy the very fabric of reality with a time paradox!”

  The two Trolls removed their cloaks and joined Toby and Claire in following Jim’s path toward Tellad-Urr the Terrible. The dark Trollhunter looked upon the five approaching strangers with impassive eyes.

  “Tobes, please tell me you packed your Warhammer,” said Jim.

  Toby reached behind his back and pulled a hefty crystal mallet from his waistband. As the handle telescoped to its full length, he replied, “Never leave home without it.”

  “And I think I’m getting my second wind,” said Claire, extending her Shadow Staff. “How about we put out those flames with an ‘alley-oop,’ AAARRRGGHH!!!?”

  “On it,” said AAARRRGGHH!!!

  The large Troll picked up a pair of water troughs by the stable and hurled them into the air. Claire concentrated and formed two much smaller shadow-portals. The troughs flew through the first black hole and came out of the second—dousing the burning hut in one fell swoop.

  Jim wanted to say, “Good going, guys!” But Tellad-Urr’s hand whipped around to grasp his windpipe with such speed, Jim couldn’t utter the first syllable. Gasping for air, he looked down and saw his denim-covered legs dangling a couple of feet off the village’s pockmarked turf.

  Claire, Toby, Blinky, and AAARRRGGHH!!! ran to Jim’s aid, but stopped short as Tellad-Urr applied more pressure to his throat. They seethed in place, calculating the next move.

  “Where did you find that trinket?” said the dark Trollhunter, his eyes on Jim’s Amulet.

  “It found me,” choked Jim.

  “You’re no Trollhunter,” snarled Tellad-Urr. “For there will be no more Trollhunters after me. I’ll not allow Merlin’s curse to afflict another—”

  Jim’s Amulet suddenly went haywire, its gears no longer stalled but now whirring faster than they ever had before. Both Trollhunters, old and new, watched in confusion as lambent energy drifted out of Tellad-Urr’s Amulet—and poured into Jim’s.

  “Th
at’s why Master Jim’s Amulet malfunctioned,” marveled Blinky, spellbound by the exchange. “Two Amulets cannot operate simultaneously. Merlin’s magic won’t be shared!”

  The others remained entranced by the flow of siphoned energy, but Tellad-Urr had seen enough. He released Jim, breaking the link between the Amulets, and shouted, “Enough!”

  AAARRRGGHH!!!, Blinky, Toby, and Claire helped Jim up. His partially recharged Amulet blinked and ticked sporadically. Tellad-Urr stalked around them in a circle, never taking his eyes off the foreign boy who somehow stole a fraction of his own strength.

  “Tellad-Urr the Terrible, formerly Tellad-Urr the Triumphant!” Blinky addressed the dark Trollhunter. “We outnumber you five-to-one!”

  “Is that so?” Tellad-Urr said before tapping the hijacked device on his chest.

  The Amulet flushed with pink light in response, and four more Tellad-Urrs sprang into spontaneous existence beside the original. The identical savages rushed Team Trollhunters.

  “Looks like he’s got the Aspectus Stone, too,” wheezed Jim. “I hate that thing.”

  Two of the Tellad-Urr duplicates tackled Blinky and AAARRRGGHH!!!, while two more snared Toby and Claire. This left Jim to face off alone against the first Tellad-Urr. Without his armor, Jim felt practically naked under the dark Trollhunter’s withering glare.

  “You may claim to be from tomorrow,” said Tellad-Urr. “But you die today.”

  Tellad-Urr the Terrible swung his Sundown Mace. Jim’s twitching Amulet went bonkers and spewed out what little energy it had taken from the other. Blue light gathered in front of Jim’s heart and solidified into the metal chest plate a split second before the mace struck it—just like it had once done during Jim’s first battle with Bular. As before, the collision of enchanted weapon against enchanted armor sent Jim rocketing high into the night sky.

  “Jim!” screamed Claire as Jim flew out of the ransacked village.

  Blinky and AAARRRGGHH!!! struggled against the carbon-copy Tellad-Urrs, but to no avail. Suddenly reinvigorated with rage, Claire willed her staff to open a small portal and said, “Don’t worry, I’ll catch him!”