The Way of the Wizard

by Richard Ashley Hamilton

  PROLOGUE

  BIRTHSTONE

  In all his many centuries of life, Kanjigar had never known such happiness. Yes, he had felt thrilled when Rundle, son of Kilfred, father of Vendel, admitted Kanjigar into the select order of Troll scholars. And, of course, Kanjigar had been overjoyed the day he wed his bride, Ballustra. This elation only doubled later, when Kanjigar removed a chip of his own living stone, fit it against one of Ballustra’s, and embedded the matching pieces in a small crystal. But even that moment paled against the swelling Kanjigar now felt in his heart.

  After watching that crystal grow and glow for three decades—the average length of time for Troll development—Kanjigar and Ballustra finally heard the first, faint crack of the Birthstone. They rushed to the splintering crystal just in time to see a little blue foot kick through its opaque surface. Warm, pink light shone from within as Kanjigar broke away more shards of Birthstone and Ballustra breathed, “Husband . . . we have a son.”

  Kanjigar knelt before the little Troll staring back at him. Their eyes were the same. Yet Kanjigar recognized tiny versions of Ballustra’s horns protruding from the newborn’s head. Ballustra took their baby into her arms, nuzzled his face, and asked, “What shall we call him?”

  “Draal,” said Kanjigar, recalling his favorite Troll scholar.

  Young Draal seemed to enjoy the name too. He smiled and gurgled while Ballustra handed him to her husband. And as a father holding his son for the first time, Kanjigar now experienced the most overwhelming sense of pride. Of peace. Of completion.

  This was the greatest happiness Kanjigar had ever known.

  “Look at his arms,” Ballustra marveled. “He’ll make a fine Monger Troll indeed!”

  Kanjigar’s smile faltered. He had just been inspecting Draal’s eight perfect fingers. The thought of those chubby hands holding weapons—which Monger Trolls like Ballustra made exclusively—seemed inconceivable. Kanjigar pushed the image from his mind, ignoring the imaginary war drums he had started to hear . . . only to realize they weren’t quite so imaginary.

  “That’s a Gumm-Gumm combat march,” Ballustra said, also hearing the rhythmic beat echo into their cave. “It’s getting louder. Closer.”

  “Closer than you might think!” cried a familiar voice.

  Kanjigar instinctively held Draal tighter as the Galadrigal brothers, Blinkous and Dictatious, barged into his cave, their dozen eyes bulging in terror. But when he saw the baby Troll, Blinkous clasped his four hands and added, “By Gorgus, your child is born! What a blessed occasion on such an accursed day!”

  Dictatious squinted six beady eyes at Draal and said, “Is he supposed to look this odd?”

  Ballustra moved to strike Dictatious. But Kanjigar held her back and said, “Dictatious, Blinky, you honor us as our son’s first visitors. Yet what makes this day so ‘accursed’? What brings those drums of war to our very threshold?”

  Calming himself, Blinky said, “The Gumm-Gumms have invaded Trollmarket. Our Trollhunter, Gogun the Gentle, does his best to keep them at bay, but their numbers are legion!”

  “And you’ve come here to hide?” asked Ballustra, her contempt apparent.

  “No, not to hide. Only to inform Kanjigar that the Gumm-Gumms are sacking the scholars’ library as we speak,” Blinky said.

  “But also to hide,” Dictatious added hastily.

  “Then it seems we’ve been blessed with two more babies on this day,” said Ballustra.

  She crossed to her worktable and picked up an iron crossbow loaded with crystalline arrows. As Ballustra adjusted its bowstring, Kanjigar placed a hand on her spiked shoulder.

  “Wife, do not do this,” said Kanjigar. “Do not go out there.”

  But Ballustra said, “It is my skill to make arms and my duty to take them up in battle. I am a Monger.”

  “You are also a mother,” Kanjigar replied. “Right now, our son needs you more than our Trollmarket. To leave our cave is to welcome death.”

  “Ah, but death needs no welcome,” growled a darker voice. “It goes wherever it pleases.”

  Kanjigar felt Draal squirm in his arms, frightened by this new presence. Ballustra whirled around and aimed her weapon at the entrance to their home. Through the crossbow’s sights, she saw an enormous Gumm-Gumm filling the entirety of the doorway, his hulking body threaded with veins of pale blue energy, his single eye burning bright.

  “Gunmar the Black!” Blinky exclaimed.

  “Begone, Gumm-Gumm,” Kanjigar said bitterly. “We hold no quarrel with you.”

  “Yet you hold something else of interest,” Gunmar snarled, black bile dripping from his jowls. “For I seek to add to our mighty ranks . . . with a recruitment drive.”

  Kanjigar realized with horror that Gunmar now looked directly at young Draal, as if sizing him for a miniature set of Gumm-Gumm armor. The monstrous Troll stepped deeper into the cave and said, “Enlist your whelp in my army. Or he dies on the same day he was born.”

  Ballustra tightened her finger around the crossbow’s trigger while Kanjigar tightened his grip around their son. Gunmar moved closer, only for Blinky to defiantly block his path and say, “Now hear this, foul one! None of us will ever serve you! Isn’t that right, brother?”

  “Well . . .” Dictatious demurred from his hiding place behind Ballustra.

  “You speak as though you have a choice,” Gunmar said, knocking aside Blinky.

  The towering Gumm-Gumm’s right claw flexed, summoning pale strands of energy from his veins and molding them into the Decimaar Blade. Gunmar pointed his sword in Draal’s direction and growled, “Give me your offspring—NOW. With luck, he may survive the rigors of my training and become as fine a killer as my own heir.”

  Kanjigar looked beyond Gunmar to see a second Gumm-Gumm darken his doorstep. This one was smaller, but his red eyes bore the same merciless glare. Still recovering on the floor, Blinky looked up and gasped, “Bular!”

  Gunmar and Bular filled the cave with matching howls, making baby Draal cry. In response, Ballustra fired her arrow directly into Gunmar’s chest. The Gumm-Gumm general grunted in pain, then grunted again as he yanked the crystal bolt from his hide. Bular pulled twin swords from the scabbards across his back and stalked toward Kanjigar and Draal.

  Kanjigar’s first thought was to shield his son from the oncoming beast. But the young Troll slipped out of his hands before he could even react. Bewildered, Kanjigar watched his son’s plump face screw into an angry pout and rocky spikes pop out of his back, just like Ballustra’s. Young Draal then grabbed his toes, tucked his little, naked body into a ball, and rolled headlong at Bular with incredible speed.

  Caught off guard by the bizarre sight, Bular could only watch as the Troll tyke gave a tiny roar and crashed into him like a living boulder. The impact toppled Bular, sending his swords spinning in opposite directions. Kanjigar and the Galadrigals stood in stunned silence, until Blinky said, “I believe this means Draal’s first word was ‘RRRAAH!’ ”

  Kanjigar reclaimed his son and looked over to Ballustra, who now fought off Gunmar’s Decimaar Blade with a matching pair of battle staves. Their weapons smashed and sparked against each other, until a grating, out-of-tune horn blew in the distance.

  “It’s the Gumm-Gumms—they’re sounding their retreat!” Dictatious said.

  “Gogun must have turned the tides!” cheered Blinky.

  Bular retrieved his swords, while Gunmar readied the Decimaar Blade for a final slash. But the horn blared again, far more urgently this time, followed by a stampede of hundreds of Gumm-Gumms away from Glastonbury Tor Trollmarket. Gunmar kept his one eye fixed on the family of three, even as he vanished his Decimaar Blade in a cloud of brimstone.

  �
��You will serve me,” Gunmar said to the infant Draal. “One day . . .”

  Ballustra and Kanjigar tensed their bodies, ready for another violent attack. But Gunmar gave a low, decisive snort to Bular. The two Gumm-Gumms backed out of the cave just as quickly as they had trespassed into it.

  Once the last blast of the horn faded in the distance, signaling a full withdrawal, Ballustra tossed aside the staves and took Draal back into her arms. She cradled him so close to her own body, she could feel his small heart beat against her own. Kanjigar looked at what was left of their meager belongings. He saw the broken crib and toys he’d built in anticipation of Draal’s arrival, now crushed from when Bular had been bowled into them.

  “You have our thanks, Kanjigar, for offering us safe haven,” said Blinky. “And you, Ballustra, for defending us so vigorously.”

  “It’s Draal who deserves your thanks, not I,” said Ballustra, hoisting her boy in the air like a hero. “Not an hour out of his Birthstone and already felling grown Gumm-Gumms!”

  “Hear, hear!” Dictatious called. “To Draal!”

  “To Draal!” echoed Blinky.

  Kanjigar was the only one to not repeat the words. For the sublime happiness he’d enjoyed upon his son’s birth was now replaced by the sharp pang of a new paternal feeling—worry.

  “To Draal the Deadly,” said Ballustra. “The greatest warrior Trollkind shall ever know!”

  CHAPTER 1

  REST IN PIECES

  Twelve hundred years after his birth, Draal the Deadly was dead.

  Jim Lake Jr. dropped to his knees. He stared wordlessly at the lifeless stone body of the Troll, the bodyguard, the friend who’d fallen to his death so that Jim might live. It had taken the young human Trollhunter a while to descend into the geode pit, to scale the massive white crystals studding its walls. The fact that Jim’s clothes and shoes were waterlogged—the result of his recent escape from a submerged catacomb—hadn’t helped during the arduous, slippery climb. But now that he’d reached the bottom and seen Draal’s remains illuminated in the crystals’ harsh glare, Jim didn’t know what to do next.

  When Jim and Draal had first met, it was as enemies. Draal believed the Amulet should have chosen him, not some fleshbag, after leaving its previous champion—Draal’s own father, Kanjigar. And so Draal challenged Jim to trial by combat, only for the newly minted Trollhunter to best his blue, spiked opponent. Even more surprising, though, was the way Jim broke with Troll custom afterward and spared Draal’s life. As a means of repayment, the humbled son of Kanjigar made an oath to guard the Trollhunter, his mother, and their home.

  And Draal had indeed kept his promise, protecting Jim’s loved ones and training the Trollhunter in swordsmanship. The loyal Troll had even sacrificed his own right arm to thwart one of Gunmar’s earlier attempts to escape the Darklands. Now, Jim understood, Draal had sacrificed the rest of his body in service of his beloved Trollhunter—just as the Gumm-Gumm king had eventually succeeded in returning to the surface world. But to lose Draal, with Gunmar still alive and free, seemed so pointless to Jim . . . so unfair . . . so unreal . . .

  For a while, all Jim heard was the soft pat of teardrops against his knees, adding to the denim’s dampness. Then, from a respectful distance, a voice softly said, “Master Jim?”

  The Trollhunter stood, quickly wiping his eyes with the back of his sleeve. He saw his six-eyed Troll mentor, Blinky, reach the base of the pit, followed by the rest of his soaking-wet friends—Claire Nuñez, Toby Domzalski, and AAARRRGGHH!!!

  Claire hugged Jim, the streak in her hair all the whiter under the crystals’ light. She said, “We got worried when you didn’t come back up. We thought maybe you and Angor Rot—”

  Angor Rot.

  Jim’s mind flooded with hatred for the assassin who’d killed Draal. Team Trollhunters had long believed Angor Rot dead, only to discover he was back and working for Gunmar. And Jim had been so focused on stopping Gunmar earlier, he hadn’t noticed Angor Rot stalking behind him, his dagger laced with lethal Creeper’s Sun poison. But Draal noticed. Draal put his body between Jim and the dagger. Draal turned to stone and fell to his doom. Not Angor Rot. Not Gunmar. Not Jim.

  “Not possible,” Jim muttered through clenched teeth.

  Claire looked up at Jim, her wide eyes searching his. He looked away and said, “Angor Rot’s gone. He must’ve escaped this pit and the mountain above us somehow. I . . . I’m sorry I made you worry, Claire. All of you. I guess I just wanted to be alone for a bit. . . .”

  Toby joined Jim and Claire, making it a group hug, and said, “No disrespect, Jimbo, but when someone says they want to be alone, that’s usually the time not to leave them alone.”

  The warm reunion ended when they heard a panicked yell, followed by a tremendous racket. Seconds later, an old, bearded figure landed on the floor in front of them. The latecomer dusted off his emerald armor, adjusted his skullcap, and said, “Greetings, everyone. What’d I miss? Besides that third crystal step, that is?”

  “Dude, are you sure you’re Merlin?” asked Toby. “I know you just took us on a magical tour of Troll history, but I always pictured someone a lot less . . .”

  “Accident prone?” suggested Blinky.

  “Clumsy?” added AAARRRGGHH!!!

  “Slapsticky McClownpants?” offered Claire.

  “All the above,” finished Toby.

  “Ah yes, kick the wizard when he’s down, is it?” muttered Merlin. “As if all your legs would work properly after a thousand-year slumber? Why, if you hadn’t let my Staff of Avalon fall into Gunmar’s claws, I’d use it to teach the lot of you some manners—starting with the chatty one who smells of toffee.”

  “It’s nougat, actually,” Toby corrected cheerfully.

  “To-may-toe, toe-mah-toe,” said Merlin. “And tell me something. Is everyone in this era always this dour? I’ve seen happier faces at a funeral—”

  “Merlin, please!” hissed Blinky.

  The six-eyed Troll nodded toward Jim, who had returned to Draal’s side. Blinky leaned closer to the wizard and, in a low voice, added, “Perhaps you might impart some wise words of comfort to our Trollhunter?”

  “Hmm? Oh yes,” said Merlin absentmindedly. “Yes, I suppose I could say something to bolster the boy’s resolve.”

  Jim and the others watched as the wizard stood over Draal and held out his hands with great authority, as if about to cast a powerful spell. Merlin cleared his throat and closed his eyes.

  “Here lies a warrior true, his words were few, and mostly said as a battle cry,” he began.

  Jim sighed heavily, remembering Draal’s legendary temper and aversion to small talk.

  “It’s such a shame, er, with Gumm-Gumms to blame, that Draal’s gone to that big Hero’s Forge in the sky,” Merlin finished in a rush, clearly making up that last part on the fly.

  Startled by the eulogy’s abrupt conclusion, every single member of Team Trollhunters glared at the wizard. But none more so that Jim.

  “Not! Helping!” Blinky snapped at Merlin.

  Claire arched an angry eyebrow, and one didn’t have to be a sorcerer to understand what the look meant: Not cool. She shook her head, turned toward her boyfriend, and said, “Don’t listen to him, Ji—”

  Claire cut off. She saw Draal’s stilled form, but no Jim keeping vigil over it. Team Trollhunters then heard the squeak of Jim’s wet sneakers as he climbed out of the geode pit.

  “I’d better talk to him,” said Toby, hitching up his pants in preparation of the long ascent.

  “No talk, Wingman,” AAARRRGGHH!!! said. “Jim want quiet. AAARRRGGHH!!! go.”

  Toby and AAARRRGGHH!!! shared a silent fist bump before the musclebound Krubera Troll bounded up the white crystals after Jim. Blinky pinched the space between his many eyes in frustration and said, “How could a wizard be so clueless when it comes to human feelings?”

  “I, Merlin, am clueless?!” Merlin repeated with umbrage.

  “Aha! You admitted it! No ta
ke-backs!” said Toby, flashing a braces-filled smile.

  “ ‘Take-backs’?” Merlin said in confusion. “What are ‘take-backs’? Some breed of Goblin or Gnome or some such?”

  As Toby explained “take-backs” to the fascinated wizard, Claire turned to Blinky and said, “This is bad. I’ve never seen Jim so upset, and Gunmar and Angor Rot have a major head start on us.”

  “Agreed,” Blinky said, rubbing his chin in thought. “Our considerable loss here at Merlin’s Tomb has brought Gunmar one step closer to the prophesied Eternal Night. I suggest we table our grief for the moment and return to Arcadia Oaks posthaste.”

  “You don’t have to tell me twice, Blink,” said Claire. “As soon as we get out of this magic-free mountain, I can shadow-jump us to—”

  “Ahem,” interrupted Merlin. “There won’t be any ‘shadow-jumping.’ ”

  “Because there’s an even faster way back? Like a super wizard gyre?” asked Toby. “Word of warning, though. I don’t do so well on gyres. Especially after Taco Tuesdays.”

  “No,” Merlin said flatly. “No gyres, no Shadow Staffs, no travel spells. And no tacos.”

  Blinky did some quick mental math and said, “Merlin, the distance between your mountain and Arcadia is more than seven thousand miles! How, exactly, do you propose we return home?”

  “It’s simple, really,” Merlin said with a shrug. “We’ll walk.”

  CHAPTER 2

  TWO TROLLS WALK INTO A CAVE . . .

  “What?! That’s crazy talk!” roared a River Troll.

  He slammed his fist into the hot oil bath—one of many natural pools of crude that had formed in the underground cave—splashing the second River Troll beside him.

  “Shmorkrarg speak true,” said the second, the large boulder atop his head adding extra emphasis. “Shmorkrarg saw Garden Trolls sneak into River Troll camp, plant their ugly seeds.”

  “Those mossy meddlers!” said the first River Troll. “If I ever get ahold of them, I’ll kick ’em so hard in the gronk-nuks, they’ll—”

  The River Troll’s voice trailed off as large bubbles appeared on the oil bath’s surface. He pinched his nose and said, “Aw, Shmorkrarg!”