The interior of the hut functioned as a blacksmith’s forge, and in its centre, positioned behind a large black anvil, was a muscular elf hammering a red hot blade. He sat sideways upon a hammock as he went about his work, tirelessly shaping the metal to his will, a shower of sparks bouncing off his bare, glistening chest. The thick arm he used to swing the hammer was wrapped in an intricate, ivy tattoo that crept from wrist to shoulder. Upon seeing he had visitors, the elf looked up from his work with a face that was almost supernaturally beautiful. His perfect, aquiline features were complemented by a pair of crystal blue eyes and framed with a gorgeous head of flaxen hair. Suddenly, Nat felt desperately underdressed in her Ugg boots and bin bag jerkin. The elf pounded the anvil once more. Was it possible to feel jealous of an anvil? Nat certainly thought so. She did her best to disguise the animal attraction she felt for the blacksmith, but it was clear from the frown Terry wore that it was written all over her face.
“Put a top on, will you?” muttered Terry, who was, in the parlance of his kind, “Well jells.”
“Don’t antagonise the man,” begged Clive, and turned to the elf. “Please, do whatever you want with your top. We surrender unconditionally.”
“Will you stop surrendering to everyone?” Nat cried, digging a finger in Clive’s breadstick arm.
She approached the elf and introduced herself. “Hello—” she started, but Terry slipped in front of her like a bodyguard taking a bullet.
“—Why don’t you let me do the talking, love?” he said, cracking his knuckles and addressing the blacksmith. “Well met, fellow,” he started, looking even more ridiculous than normal wearing his rubber ears in the company of an actual elf. “I beseech thee, good man, wouldst thou summon a healer that he might treat mine wounded companion?”
The elf cocked a brow. “Why is he talking that way?” he asked.
“Thank you!” said Nat, throwing up her hands in agreement. “Seriously, Tel, you sound like a right knob.”
The elf laughed. It was a sound like audible butter. “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Eathon and this is my sister, Galanthre.” He placed a hand on the shoulder of the elf with the platinum mohawk.
Galanthre offered a curt nod then immediately went to Ashley, who had been hoisted into the treetops on his stretcher. She produced a packet—a large, flat leaf bound in twine—and proceeded to unwrap it. Inside was a thick, porridgey paste, which she scooped out with her hand and administered to Ashley’s burned back. He shrunk from her as she applied it, then gasped as the liniment did its job, tranquilising the pain and medicating his wound. Within moments, the ugly burn had disappeared completely.
“Thank you,” Ashley sighed.
Eathon smiled and turned back to Nat. “And what is your name?”
Again, Terry intercepted. “It’s Tel for short, but my real name’s Terry.”
“Terry?” Eathon repeated, incredulously. “Really?”
The rest of the elves began snickering into their palms.
“What’s the joke?” asked Terry, annoyed.
“It’s nothing,” assured Eathon, doing his best to remain composed and failing miserably.
“Are you laughing at me? What is it? What’s so funny?”
“It’s your name,” Eathon explained. “I’m sorry, it’s just that in elvish “Terry” translates to…” He tried to finish, but couldn’t complete the sentence for laughing.
“Translates to what?” Terry insisted.
“It translates to... “testicle juice,”” Eathon replied, tears streaming down his face.
Terry had just about had enough. “What do you lot know about elvish? You’re not elves, you’re just a bunch of tree-hugging hippy people.”
“Chill out, cuz,” said Ashley, attempting to diffuse the situation.
But Terry wasn’t done. “No, I won’t chill out. Elves are meant to be elegant and noble, not a shower of barefoot stigs greased up like Magic Mike. You’re elfing wrong!”
He had a point, but it certainly wasn’t strengthened by the fact that one of his rubber ear tips was hanging on by a latex thread. He could argue the proper way to behave like an elf all he liked, but there was no escaping the fact that he was the one in fancy dress.
“And what’s with all the swords?” Terry went on. “If you’re elves, how come you don’t use ranged weapons?” He waved his plastic bow at Eathon for emphasis.
“We only use bows for hunting animals,” the elf replied. “A person knows how to make use of cover, and there’s no shortage of that in these woods.”
“I don’t care how many trees you have to hide behind,” boasted Terry, “if you go up against Widowmaker, you’re getting an arrow for dinner.”
Eathon laughed. “If you loosed an arrow at me I’d whip out my blade and whittle it into an unflattering portrait of you before it hit the ground.”
Terry got nose-to-nose with the elf. “I’d like to see you try,” he threatened, and began belly-barging him. It was ridiculous. Next to Eathon, he looked like a lowercase letter.
The sight of Terry’s paunch bouncing off of the elf’s perfect abs was too much for Nat to bear. “Would you two put your junk away?” she snapped. “Terry, what’s gotten into you? We’re guests here.”
“I think testicle juice is jealous,” mocked Galanthre, and the room erupted in laughter.
Nat wasn’t laughing. The whole situation had turned entirely too schoolboy for her liking. Suddenly her surroundings seemed less like a treetop paradise than a summer camp from an American movie, with the elves acting the part of the mean jocks and Terry playing the fat kid with the ungainly bosom who insisted on swimming in the lake with his t-shirt on.
The laughter grew until Eathon shot up a hand, silencing his kin and leaving Neville laughing on his own like a goon. He turned suddenly serious. “What do you have there?” he asked Nat accusingly, a finger aimed at her hip. He narrowed his eyes to get a better look, and saw the sword hilt jutting from her scabbard. The elf examined the weapon’s ornate pommel with a look of deep familiarity. “That doesn’t belong to you,” he said, a frown marring his otherwise perfect forehead.
A thought dawned on Nat, abrupt and sour. Eathon had the same golden hair as the dead elf they’d found in Epping Forest. The same eyes. Even the same tattoo.
Eathon Redsky grimaced. “What are you doing with my brother’s blade?” he demanded.
DRENSILA WAS BORED. Bored, bored, bored. Though the elf’s attempt to end her life had been wholly disagreeable, it had at least injected a dose of drama into her daily grind, which consisted largely of sitting on a padded chair doing her best to look regal.
Being regal was precisely what Drensila was doing at that moment, sat in her throne room beneath a velvet canopy and flanked by a pair of troll guards. Ordinarily, she had trouble telling the creatures apart, let alone remembering their names, but the guard stood to her right was easy enough to distinguish. His name was Skullcap, and he was her right hand. He’d survived long enough among Drensila’s dread ranks to attain the title of warlord, earning his vaunted position through brute force and unfailing loyalty. Skullcap towered a foot taller than his fellow soldiers and wore the lid of an elf’s skull atop his head, the habit of which had led to his grisly moniker. He was fearfully strong, ruthless in battle and would gladly die in service of his queen. Since last night’s assassination attempt he’d taken it upon himself to personally ensure Drensila’s safety, and insisted on standing guard over her from dusk till dawn. As comforting as this was, Drensila would have traded Skullcap’s protection for just an ounce of human interaction. Indeed, for a decent conversation with an actual person, she would have personally sent her loyal warlord back into the pit from whence he came. Loneliness was driving her mad, gnawing at her like rats on a bone, eating away at some essential part of her soul. Her desolation had become so great that, if only for the company, she’d begun to seriously consider the idea of talking to her mother. It was just as Drensila was lamenting this sad
state of affairs that the door to her throne room flew open to admit her chief centurion, Thrungle. The diminutive troll strode up to the raised platform upon which Drensila’s throne sat, his necklaces of teeth chattering as they swished to and fro. Coming to a halt at the edge of the platform, Thrungle stomped a heel on the black marble floor and stood to attention.
“I bring news,” he announced.
Before Drensila could reply, Skullcap interrupted, shooting Thrungle a menacing leer. “Is this how you address your queen?” he growled.
Thrungle, a ruthless careerist, had long coveted Skullcap’s rank, a fact well known to his superior officer, who kept him in line by humiliating him at every turn.
“My apologies,” Thrungle beseeched the warlord, and dropped to one knee as was proper. He made a point to log the insult, to be repaid when the time was right. “Please forgive the intrusion, my Queen,” he said with exaggerated smarm. “But I bring news from yonder.”
“Permission to speak,” replied Drensila.
“There has been a discovery in the Whispering Woods,” Thrungle reported. He held out a hand, palm side up, and presented Drensila with the smart phone unearthed by his patrol.
“What is this?” asked Drensila, taking it from him and examining the curious device closer.
She inspected it as a jeweller scrutinises a rare gem, marvelling at its polished surface. She turned it over to inspect the faux marble finish of its rear, a subtle contrast against the genuine marble of the throne room floor. A meeting of the real and the unreal.
“What a wonderful toy,” she cooed.
Drensila recited a magical incantation and the device came apart, opening up like a flower to reveal the secrets within. The components of the device hovered in the air like an exploded instruction diagram, allowing her to see inside to the very heart of the machine.
“My, my,” she said, hungrily.
In her mind’s eye, Drensila spied a hole. Not an actual hole but an abstract one, a transcendental window to a world beyond. The hole was small. A chink in a giant dam. Something tantalising lay on the other side of it though, of that she was certain. She tried squeezing her psyche through the hole but it wouldn’t fit. She put her mind’s eye to it to see the other side, but it was too dark. She hammered her head against the crack, but the dam wouldn’t give. She pounded and battered and pounded some more until finally, with an ear-splitting crack, the hole exploded. A tidal wave of information wave broke through the void, a bewildering flood of images that filled Drensila’s mind to its very brim. Images of suffering. Of victories. Of faraway wars and brutal despots and futuristic killing machines. She gasped, almost drowning under the deluge, before breaking above it and resurfacing in the physical world. The sum of another dimension’s knowledge was hers. Drensila had magic and now, thanks to this technological crystal ball, she had science too. Nothing was beyond her grasp. Not anymore.
“Good work, Centurion,” she said, her eyes lit like a pair of smouldering coals. “Tell me, what is your name?”
“Thrungle, m’lady,” the troll replied, head bowed reverently.
Drensila beamed at him. “I believe a promotion is in order.”
Thrungle looked to Skullcap, who sneered with naked animosity. He smiled blithely back at him then returned to his queen. “There’s more, my lady…”
Chapter Eight: Magic Potion
THE ELVES IN the blacksmith’s hut drew their weapons and Nat instinctively did likewise, whipping Cleaver from his scabbard and keeping them at bay.
Eathon spoke slowly and deliberately. “I crafted that sword to kill Drensila the Black and gave it to my brother for that sole purpose. So, I’ll ask again, what is it doing in your hand?”
It didn’t look as though anyone else was going to volunteer an answer, which left Nat to share the bad news. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this,” she said softly, “but your brother… he passed away.”
“What?” demanded Eathon, jaw tight. “What did you say?”
“He found a way into our world somehow. We found his body. We don’t know what happened to him.”
“You’re lying,” said Eathon.
Galanthre snatched a hammer from her brother’s anvil and marched in Nat’s direction with murder in her eyes. She was inches from taking a swing when an unexpected voice stopped her.
“Leave it out, will ya?” it barked. It was Cleaver. Nat’s chatty sword had finally decided to weigh in on the conversation. “The bird had nuffin’ to do with your bruvver,” he assured the siblings. “Gilon got himself done in by that moody slag’s scorpion. He went down swinging though, you’d best believe that.”
Eathon stayed his sister’s hand.
“I don’t understand,” said Galanthre, jabbing a finger at Nat. “Why is she a part of this?”
“Before your bruv joined the choir eternal, he found himself a fill-in,” explained Cleaver. “This is her. Say hello to your new champion.”
The elves looked to Nat in disbelief.
“Her?” spat Galanthre.
“I know she don’t look like much,” admitted Cleaver, “but she’s your man.”
Nat ignored the casual sexism and got to the meat of the matter. “He’s way off the mark,” she assured the elves. “I’m not your champion. I’m not even the champion of my hockey team.”
Clive was happy to back Nat up. “She’s right, there must be some mistake. Look, you guys obviously have some grieving to do, so how about you whip us up a portal and we get out of your hair?”
Eathon ignored Clive’s wittering and went to console his sister. He wiped a tear from her eye and forced a heavy smile. “There’s no need to grieve for Gilon,” he said. “Like the sword said, he died a warrior’s death. He’ll have been sent to his final reward.” It was a platitude that seemed to be spoken as much for his own sake as it was hers.
“Yeah, I’m sure he’s fine,” said Neville, moving the conversation on. “Sooo, it’s probably about time us lot knocked together our ruby slippers, eh?”
“You’re not going anywhere,” said Galanthe through gritted teeth. “Not until your so-called champion kills Drensila the Black.”
“I’m not killing anyone,” Nat spluttered.
“You must. It is your destiny.”
“How is it?”
“Because,” Eathon answered on his sister’s behalf, “the enchanted blade you hold can only be wielded by a warrior pure of spirit and fierce of heart. The one fated to put an end to Drensila the Black.”
Nat lifted Cleaver’s face to her eyeline. “You never told me any of that.”
“You never asked,” he told her.
Ashley piped up. “I don’t get it. Why don’t you take the sword and finish what your boy started?”
Eathon shifted in his hammock and kicked his legs on top of the anvil he was sat behind. Both were missing, severed from the knee down, just a raw stump where the lower part should be. It was a fair sign of the elf’s diminished martial capacity. “Does this answer your question?” he replied.
“Oh mercy,” thought Nat. “Now he’s hot and vulnerable.” She fought a sudden urge to stuff Eathon under her jumper and nurse him back to health like a broken bird.
“So, what will it be?” the elf asked Nat. “Will you defeat the menace that blights these lands and save us from extinction?”
Nat prevaricated. “What should I do?” she asked Terry.
“I reckon we need to be Switzerland on this one,” he replied. “This isn’t our fight. This isn’t even our world.”
Nat took the temperature of the room. As she suspected, Terry’s sentiment looked to be shared by the rest of the boys. Despite this, Eathon stared back at her with eyes wide with hope. Nat drew a breath, then—
“—Hello, darlings,” purred an unfamiliar voice.
Nat turned to see a young woman strolling casually into the hut. She was dressed a long gown with draped sleeves and a collar of ebon ostrich feathers. Nat knew who right away who she was look
ing at.
Drensila the Black.
“Shit the bed,” cried Cleaver.
Everyone gasped and recoiled. The room bristled with weapons. Despite the magic that kept their village camouflaged from outside elements, the elves had been invaded by the very person who conspired to exterminate them. Even more surprisingly, she’d arrived alone and apparently unarmed.
Nat watched as Drensila sashayed over to Eathon, not a care in the world. Her eyes were made up with a smoky, silver shadow surrounding a pair of irises blacker than a goth’s laundry basket. The rest of her features were exquisite too: alabaster skin, pouting lips and cheekbones you could carve mutton with. “Great,” thought Nat, her brittle ego ready to snap, “the Jolie to my Aniston.”
Neville’s jaw dropped. “Yowzers,” he whispered. “I wouldn’t mind getting Helm’s Deep in her.”
“Talk about D&D,” murmured Ashley, admiring Drensila’s cup size.
Cleaver’s reaction was graded somewhat differently. Instead of showing his appreciation for the intruder’s appearance, he made to murder her, straining at Nat’s hand as though Drensila were magnetic. “I’ll facking ‘ave her!” he shrieked.
“So,” said Drensila, regarding the girl on the other end of the weapon, “this is your new champion?” She smiled. “My dear, you are meddling with forces far beyond your ken.”
Nat managed to pull the sword away and thrust him back into his sheath. She wasn’t about to be instrumental in a murder, at least not before she’d exercised a bare minimum of diplomacy. “What are you doing here?” she asked Drensila.
“That depends. Either I’m here to accept your surrender or I’m here to hang your entrails from these trees like bunting.”
Apparently, Drensila was not for negotiating.
“You murdered my brother!” yelled Eathon, snatching up his smithing hammer. Only his sister kept him from taking a swing with it, certain that the queen wouldn’t have entered their domain without some tricks up her sleeve.
Trolled: The Complete Saga (The Trolled Saga) Page 7
