The Legend of Hobart © 2021 By Heather Mullaly
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. To request permission to reproduce selections from this book, contact the publisher at [email protected].
ISBN: 978-1-7364773-9-7
Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Book Cover Design & Formatting by JD&J Design
For
Allison the Courageous
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
In Which I Set Out on a Quest
Chapter 2
In Which I Receive Four Magical Gifts
Chapter 3
In Which I Meet a Very Nasty Wolf
Chapter 4
In Which I Accidentally Drown Tate
Chapter 5
In Which I Have My First Duel
Chapter 6
In Which the Almanac Finally Proves Useful
Chapter 7
In Which Albert Walks on Water
Chapter 8
In Which We Are Set Upon by Bandits
Chapter 9
In Which We Reach the Castle
Chapter 10
In Which I Come Nose-to-Nose with a Dragon
Chapter 11
In Which I Travel Home Again
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
In Which I Set Out on a Quest
In case you’re wondering, becoming a hero is not as easy as you might think.
I tried rescuing a damsel in distress. But all of our local damsels practice martial arts and assured me that the last thing they needed was rescuing.
Saving a baby from a fire would have been perfect, but the housewives in Finnagen are far too careful. We haven’t had a decent kitchen fire in years.
Last spring, when a bull broke out of its pasture, I thought I had found my chance. But when I caught up with the bull, the stupid animal managed to hook his horns through my belt and flip me up onto his head. William the Tormentor already called me Ho-brat instead of Hobart. After that day, he started calling me Ho-brat Bull Hat.
To not be called Ho-brat for the rest of my life, I needed to become a knight. To get into the King’s School for the Education of Future Knights, I had to become a hero before May Day of my twelfth year. It was already early spring.
I was running out of time and ideas when I heard the news: a local maiden had been kidnapped by an ogre. Ogres don’t usually come this far east. And their hides are so thick that martial arts are useless against them. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
I didn’t own any real weapons, so I took the pitchfork I used to clean out the pigpens and set out to face my first ogre.
The ogre wasn’t hard to find. It had left a ten-foot-wide trail of wreckage through the forest, all the way up to the mouth of an enormous cave. I paused for a minute outside. Ogres are big and strong. But if saving damsels was easy, it wouldn’t be the work of heroes.
I tightened my grip on my pitchfork and started into the cave. Halfway down the tunnel, I began to smell the smoke. The farther I went, the thicker it got. I started to cough. My eyes were watering and my nose running as I stumbled forward. Unable to see anything, I eventually tripped and fell face-first onto the ground.
There, sprawled out on my belly, I got my first good look at the cave. There was a fire up ahead of me, its fl licking wet tree branches and sending out thick smoke. The ogre lay on its side wearing nothing but a filthy loincloth. The creature’s skin was covered in mud and dirt. Its head lolled to one side; its dull yellow eyes stared off at nothing in particular. Sitting at the ogre’s head, happily braiding its greasy hair, was a little girl. By little, I do not mean petite. I mean young. This was no maiden on the verge of womanhood. This was a child, no older than five or six, with blonde curls, rosy cheeks, and a mouth like a bow.
The little girl looked over at me and smiled. “Hello,” she said in a sweet voice. “Would you like to play too?”
“N-no,” I said, peeling myself up off the floor. I tried to stand, my head came into the path of the smoke, and I started coughing again. I dropped down onto my knees, coughing so hard I thought I might hack up a lung.
The little girl tilted her head, observing me with interest. “That’s what he did,” she said, pointing to the dazed ogre. “But he bumped his head when he fell.”
I pulled in a few haggard breaths and managed to choke out, “W-we have to g-go.”
“But we were going to have a tea party.”
“W-we’ll do it at h-home,” I said before breaking into another string of hacking coughs.
“All right,” she said brightly and stood up, patting the ogre on the head before skipping over to me.
The little girl didn’t cough or wheeze. Her eyes stayed perfectly clear and her nose dry—because she was so short that she walked under the smoke. There are times when life is remarkably unfair.
The child smiled when she reached me and held out one dimpled hand. I accepted her small hand, and half crouching, I started us back toward the mouth of the cave.
Even that low, I still breathed in too much smoke, and I couldn’t see anything. I told myself it didn’t matter how miserable I was or how young the girl. I had still managed to save a damsel. No one had to know that she hadn’t actually been in distress. I would be a hero, and certainly her family would be willing to speak for me. I was sure I had finally done it.
Until we made it out of the cave.
There, in front of us, stood a line of horsemen. The Lord of Finnagen was mounted in the center, his nephew, William the Tormentor, on the horse to his right. The men all stared at me, half crouched, eyes watering, nose running, being led out of the cave by a small child.
William let out an enormous laugh. “Ho-brat got saved by a little girl!”
“Th-that’s not wh-what happened,” I stammered. “He’s coming to my tea party,” the little girl said with a broad smile.
The laughter just got louder.
“Do you need a hairbow for your tea party, Ho-brat?” William said between snorts of laughter.
Usually, William pegged me with tomatoes. But we were far enough out of the village that there were no tomatoes at hand. So William kicked his horse into motion and started bearing down on me. I scampered to the side, slipped, and fell headlong into the mud.
The laughter was deafening.
The little girl started toward me; her small hand stretched out to help me up. But I pulled away and ran toward home. The laughter trailed after me.
Maybe, my life would have been different if I hadn’t started stuttering when I was five. Or if my mother hadn’t given me the name Hobart. She named my older brothers after heroes. She named me after a jester she saw at a fair. The man got laughed at for a living. But she thought his name would be a good choice for her son.
I didn’t want to see anyone. And when I reached my family’s pig farm, I thought about hiding in the barn. But hunger won out, and I went into the house. My family was finishing up supper. They all looked up and saw me with my coating of mud.
“What did you do, wrestle a pig?” my brother George said.
“If he did, he lo
st,” Michael said. They all laughed.
Our father just said, “You’re late. Supper is over.”
“Y-yes, sir,” I mumbled and ducked out of the room before Mother could fuss at me about the mud.
When I walked into the kitchen, our cook, Maude, looked up from the bread she was kneading. She sighed.
“What happened?”
I told her everything.
She had to fight back a smile at times, but Maude is a good woman. She didn’t laugh. She set out food for me and started heating water for a bath.
Sopping up stew with my bread, I began to think. The memories of the day tried to bully their way in, but I pushed them away. Remembering my humiliation was not going to help. I needed a plan.
By the time I finished my stew, I was sure. If I still wanted to make it into knight school after this latest debacle, there was only one possibility left. I was going to have to slay a dragon.
It was risky, I know. But I saw no other choice. I was desperate. (When minstrels tell their tales, they always seem to dwell on heroes’ sense of duty. They completely overlook the equally powerful driving force called desperation.) I took my bath and went to bed. When my brothers came into the loft, I pretended to be asleep, but I was actually thinking and planning. At least as much as you can really plan an epic adventure.
The very next morning, I set out. I had no horse, no sword or shield. The only things I carried were my eating knife and a small sack of food that Maude had packed for me.
“Safe journey, child,” she said as she handed me the satchel.
My parents stood in the doorway watching us.
“Have fun playing dragon slayer,” my mother called after me.
She and Father smiled knowingly as I left. I’m sure they thought that I would be home by dark.
They were wrong.
Chapter 2
In Which I Receive Four Magical Gifts
By sundown, I was in the village of Gretten. When I reached the cottage that a townsman had pointed out as belonging to Mildred the Wise, I knocked and was invited inside. I stepped through the low doorway and dropped to one knee in front of the small woman sitting by the fire. (It never hurts to be polite to someone who could probably turn you into a toad.)
“W-wisest Mildred,” I said in my most solemn voice, “I s-seek your c-counsel to find a dragon, that I may s-slay the vile beast and become w-worthy of entering the K-King’s S-School for the E-Education of Future Knights.”
I had spent most of the day practicing that speech. “Do you always have a stutter, or only when you’re trying to speak to wise women?” Mildred asked. “A-always.”
Mildred gave me a look that seemed to see past my skin. “What is your name, young would-be knight?”
“H-Hobart Septavious of F-Finnagen.”
“That is a doozy,” Mildred said, “but not the worst I’ve ever heard.”
“W-what was the w-worst?”
“Peevish Petterbottom,” she said immediately.
That was admittedly worse, but since poor Peevish didn’t live in Finnagen, it didn’t do me much good.
“W-will you h-help me?” I really didn’t know who else to ask if she said no.
Mildred tilted her head, watching me. “Perhaps,” she said. “You know that to be eligible to take the examination for the King’s School for the Education of Future Knights, you must be nominated by three individuals?”
“Y-yes.”
“And how many nominations do you have?” Mildred said.
“N-none.” “Hmm,” she said.
“I-I’ve t-tried,” I told her.
Mildred gave me an assessing look and then said,
“Go bring me some firewood.”
I had been expecting a task, but something much more complicated than collecting wood. “Wh-where is it?” I asked.
Her expression turned sharp.
“I’ll f-find it,” I said and started out through the front door.
I found the neat little woodpile on the back side of the cottage, collected an armload of logs, and went back inside. Mildred promptly set me to work building a fire, peeling carrots, and then setting the table. Soon we sat down to supper.
Mildred turned out to be a fine cook, and I enjoyed the food, if not the conversation. From a long string of questions, she learned almost everything I wanted to keep to myself. That I was the seventh son of a pig farmer. That I had been stuttering since I was five. And that I was tormented by William, the nephew of our local lord.
“So you think that becoming a knight will solve all of your problems?” Mildred said.
“P-people don’t t-taunt men with s-swords,” I told her. “It helps if the men actually know how to use the swords,” Mildred said.
“W-which is why I want to go to s-school.”
“Not to serve the king and protect his people?” Mildred said.
“Th-that too.”
Mildred raised an eyebrow at me but didn’t comment.
When our bowls were empty, Mildred folded her small hands. “Are you set on a dragon?”
“Y-yes,” I told her. “I’ve t-tried everything else.” “Dragons are highly unpredictable.”
“I kn-know.”
“And have large appetites,” Mildred said, watching me with a critical eye.
I nodded. It was easier.
“Well, there is only one dragon left in this part of the world. He lives at Castle Flamegon in southern Rona. But there is no use in leaving for Rona until the morning. You can stay here tonight.”
“Th-thank you.” I was glad to spend at least one more night under a roof. I didn’t really know where I would sleep after that. Along the road, I guessed.
When the dishes had been cleared, I wrapped myself up in my cloak, lay down by the fire, and went to sleep.
That night, I dreamt that I was standing in a massive hall with a sword gripped in my right hand. The ceiling was distant, the floor covered in flattened gold coins. Lit torches sat in brackets along the walls. On the far side of the room was an enormous heap of treasure: gold and jewels, weapons, and crowns. And lying on top of the mound was a dragon. The beast was larger than I had thought possible. His green scales shimmered in the torchlight. His wings were folded, his eyes shut. Even with his mouth closed, I could see his teeth—white and sharp and as long as my forearm.
Why had I decided to try and kill this monster? I couldn’t remember exactly. But then figures appeared along the edges of the room. I knew their faces even before William started the chant, “Ho-brat, bull hat!”
My chin came up and my hand tightened around the sword’s hilt as the first tomato left William’s hand. I started down the hall, trying to ignore my uninvited audience. Which wasn’t easy, between the chanting and the flying fruit.
I used my left hand to wipe the mess out of my eyes and kept walking. But then the laughter reached new heights. I looked down to see that my clothes were gone, along with my sword. I stood completely naked, covered in tomato, holding nothing but a stick. The laughter echoed through the hall, building into a deafening noise.
Until the dragon opened his eyes.
I froze. The crowd drew back, suddenly silent as the dragon stared at me with silver eyes. Then the beast began to climb down from his pile of treasure.
“You come to best me with a stick?” The creature’s voice was low and rough like thunder.
“I h-had a s-sword,” I said.
“You seem to have misplaced it,” the dragon said. And then he ate me.
I woke up covered in what I thought was dragon drool. It took me a minute to realize that it was sweat, and then another minute to remember where I was. Mildred the Wise slept nearby; her hands tucked beneath her head. She chuckled in her sleep, rolled over, and began to snore. I did my best to go back to sleep, but my thoughts kept chasin
g after my dream. I couldn’t help but wonder what it would feel like to be eaten.
The next morning, Mildred and I broke our fast on porridge, and then I got ready to start out on my journey. Before I left, Mildred said that she would like to present me with gifts. I felt a surge of relief. Not only was this wise woman going to give me a much-needed sword, but it might even be a legendary blade. Even I would have a chance of slaying a dragon if I had a legendary blade.
“First, take this,” Mildred said, and with great ceremony, handed me a large book. I tried to cover my disappointment, but apparently failed. Because she snapped, “What’s wrong with it?”
“N-Nothing,” I said. “I was just h-hoping for a s-sword.”
“A sword, heavens!” Mildred said. “If you had a sword, you would probably poke out your eye. No, this book will be much more useful. It’s an almanac. It’s not perfect at predicting the weather, but it’s useful nonetheless.”
I opened the book and flipped through the pages until I found the current date. “It s-says that it w-will be s-sunny today,” I said, and then looked from the window, which showed a steady drizzle, back to Mildred.
“I told you it wasn’t perfect,” she said. “Your second gift is this magical satchel. No matter how many times you empty it, it will always fill again.”
Now this sounded more promising. “Wh-what does it h-hold?”
“Turnips,” Mildred said, clearly pleased.
“T-turnips?” What was I supposed to do with an endless supply of turnips?
“They can be used in all sorts of delicious dishes,” Mildred said. “Fried turnips, sautéed turnips, baked turnips, turnip soup, turnip stew, turnip kabobs. . .”
“I g-get the idea,” I told her, but then I had to ask, “Wh-what’s the difference between turnip s-soup and turnip st-stew?”
“Potatoes. Now, your third gift is this spool of unbreakable thread. The only thing that can cut it is a diamond.”
“D-do you have a d-diamond?” I asked.
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