“Yes, I murdered your brother—in self-defence I might add—but this upstart and her pack of servile gigolos are the ones you should be angry at. It was her trail that led me to your hidden village. Some champion.”
“Typical,” Nat muttered. “The first human woman I meet in this fantasy land and she’s a stone cold bitch.”
“What did you say, you rancid little trout?” spat Drensila. “You think this is a fantasy land?
The world you hail from has pocket machines that contain the collective wisdom of an entire species, and we’re the fantasy?”
“How does she know that?” asked Neville, eyebrow raised.
Nat sucked air through her teeth. “If I had to guess, I’d say she might have found my phone.”
Drensila turned back to Eathon. “Well then, can I assume you won’t be surrendering willingly? Not that it matters. I really just came here to say farewell before my trolls wipe you off the face of my land.”
“This is our land,” replied Eathon, “and I don’t see any trolls on it.”
Elsewhere, Terry had decided the time for talk was over. While the others were busy trading barbs, he’d been slowly moving around the perimeter of the room to secure a weapon. A bow. Not his LARP bow, but a real bow hanging from an iron peg by the hut door. A bow that came with a quiver of arrows tipped not with foam rubber but with sharp iron points. Terry carefully slipped an arrow from the quiver and put it to the bow. He nocked it to the string, drew it taut with a mighty heave, and let it loose at Drensila the Black.
“Wait,” yelled Clive, but the warning came too late. The arrow went winging towards Drensila straight and true, like a hawk in flight.
“Yes!” shouted Terry, elated that his shot had found its target, but his celebration, like a teenager’s lovemaking, was premature.
Instead of Drensila, it was Galanthre who took the hit. The arrow passed clean through the evil queen and impaled the elf, puncturing her armour and embedding itself deep in her chest.
“Sister!” screamed Eathon, who rolled out of his hammock and began desperately clawing across the floor to his fallen sibling.
Terry stared at the bow in his hand. “What happened?” was all he could say.
Drensila cackled, and as she did she flickered and went out of phase like two misaligned transparencies.
“She’s not really here,” said Clive who’d sensed Drensila’s trickery.
“So, what then?” asked Neville. “An illusion?”
“Even a magician of my power cannot manifest a glamour over such a distance,” replied Drensila. “What you are looking at is a hologram.”
“A hologram?” scoffed Neville. “You’re mixing genres. Holograms are sci-fi.”
“Holograms are science-fact, you cretin, and thanks to your friend’s telecommunications device I now have the knowledge of them. Holograms and all manner of technologies that were never meant for this world.”
All eyes turned to Nat, who held up her hands by way of apology. “Mistakes were made,” she said.
“This girl has spelled your doom,” said Drensila, and laughed in that way villains are won’t to do. “My army will be here by sunrise, and believe me when I tell you they will arrive armed with more than just swords.” Grinning like a Cheshire, she made a finger gun and blew smoke from its tip before vanishing into thin air.
“I don’t understand,” said one of the stunned elf guards. “What was that hand motion she made?”
Nat weighed her words but found them too heavy.
Eathon had other things on his mind. “You shot my sister,” he yelled at Terry, cradling Galanthre’s limp body in his arms.
“It was an accident,” he protested, looking for support and finding none.
Nat examined the wounded elf with the arrow jutting from her chest. Despite being less than two years into her medical training she could tell Galanthre was alive, even though her breathing was shallow and her body stock still. By the looks of things, the arrow had glanced off her collar bone, taken a downward path through her upper chest and exited through her trapezius muscle. Though Nat was fairly certain the arrow hadn’t penetrated any major arteries, there was a risk of it having nicked a lung, which could lead to some serious complications. Of course, that was assuming elven physiology was a match for humans.
“Haven’t you people done enough already?” Eathon told Nat as she went about her work, then turned to chastise Terry some more. “I told you the bow was no way to fight!” He patted his sister’s face and grimaced when she didn’t react. He’d just learned of his brother’s death and now Galanthre looked set to join him.
“Why didn’t you tell me something was up?” begged Terry, coming to his own defence. “You must have known that witch lady wasn’t really there.”
“How must I?” spluttered Eathon.
“Because you lot are meant to have great perception. You know, “What do your elf eyes see?” and all that?”
“Both of you, shut up,” ordered Nat, and a hush fell on the room. Someone had to deal with the wounded elf, and as the only one among them with any degree of medical know-how, the burden of fell on her. Taking advantage of the rare moment of calm, Nat got to work. She began the treatment by snapping the head off the arrow and swiftly pulling it through the entry wound. She regretted it immediately. A jet of warm blood spurted from the hole, as human as any she’d seen. What was she thinking? A school nurse would have known better than to remove an object that size. She pressed a hand to the opening but the blood continued to come, soaking through the elf’s clothes like a wet, red flower. Something had to be done, and fast.
“Reach inside my pocket,” she yelled at Eathon, even though he was only inches away.
“What for?”
“Just do it!”
Eathon did as he was told and stuffed a hand down the front of Nat’s trousers; an act that would have been absolutely thrilling for her only moments ago. From her pocket, he pulled a white packet that Nat set her teeth into, tearing it open and seizing a small cotton cylinder from within. Working quickly, she stuffed the thing into the elf’s wound, where it expanded, plugging the hole and stemming the flow of blood. Having done that, she rolled the elf over and repeated the process with the wound on her back.
“What are those things?” asked Eathon.
“Trust me, cuz,” said Ashley, “you don’t wanna know.”
“They won’t last for long,” said Nat, turning to Eathon. “Does your village have a healer? A shaman? Anyone that can help?”
“We have a herbalist,” he replied, “but she’s out gathering supplies.”
“Ain’t you got no more of that magic potion?” asked Ashley, pointing at the empty leaf lying by his stretcher.
“Of course,” cried Eathon, and swivelled to Nat. “You must visit the sacred tree, its fruit is the source of the healing salve. Go quickly, my men will show you the way.”
The elf guards led Nat outside at speed. “Over there,” said one, pointing to a tree across the way. It was a glorious thing, with a girthy trunk and a copper tint to its bark that set it apart from the rest. Its boughs were resplendent with exotic flowers and peculiar fruit quite unlike anything Nat had ever seen. It was also—she noted with alarm—completely isolated, with no walkway to connect it to the rest of the platforms supporting the elf village.
“How do I get there?” she cried.
A guard handed her a vine and motioned for her to swing over to it, as though it were the most natural thing in the world to be Tarzanning through the treetops to procure a dose of magical elixir for a wounded elf. Nat rolled her eyes, grabbed the vine and wound it around her wrist. Then, despite all the good sense in her head, she took a deep breath, stepped off the edge of the walkway, and swung in the direction of the sacred tree. The vine carried her like a pendulum, sending her arcing through the air and delivering her to the tree’s circular platform, upon which she managed to snag her toes and drag herself. After she’d managed to catch her breath,
Nat got to her knees and crawled over to the trunk of the tree. She wrapped her arms around it and attempted to shake loose some of its fruit, and as she did a hole opened under her hand. It was the shape of a mouth, and just for a moment, Nat thought it was about to chew her fingers off at the knuckle. Instead, the mouth spoke.
“Hello,” it said in a voice not unlike the actor Sir Anthony Hopkins.
“What the hell?” said Nat, recoiling. “Does every inanimate object in this frickin’ place talk?”
“Sorry, did I frighten you?” asked the tree, which was now sporting a pair of blue eyes that blinked open with a creak like a yawing boat.
“Don’t worry,” Nat managed to say, “it’s just that I’ve been having a bad time of it lately, especially with your plant life.”
“You needn’t be scared of me,” said the tree, smiling benevolently. “My name is Elderwood, how do you do?”
“I’m good thanks,” said Nat. “Listen, um, I know this is a weird question, but please can I have some of your fruit to heal my friend?”
“Galanthre is your friend?” the tree mused. “But you only just met.”
“How do you know that?” Nat asked, surprised by the tree’s grasp of things.
“I know a great deal,” Elderwood told her. “I have stood on this spot for more than twelve thousand years watching the ebb and flow of civilisation. In that time I have seen kings deposed, queens usurped, empires rise and fa—”
“—Sorry to cut in,” Nat interjected, “but there’s an elf in that hut over there bleeding out...”
“Sit down and listen,” the tree ordered, and dropped a fruit on Nat’s head.
“Ow,” she cried, rubbing her skull.
“You humans, always in such a rush...” the tree grumbled. “You know, I’ve been watching you, Nat Lawler...”
“You know my name?”
“I do,” he explained. “I don’t exist solely in this world, you see, I have roots in yours too. Despite appearances, our earths are much the same. Their differences lay in the balance of magic and science. Of wonder and order. Of myth and math. Where sorcery exists in our world, technology exists in yours. While you may look at this place and see it as something alien, in truth there is only a thin veil separating our dimensions. A veil so thin that some are able to cross either side of it.”
“Like who?” asked Nat.
“The fairies that frolic at the bottom of your gardens. The hairy, two-legged beasts that roam the woods of your Pacific Northwest. The monster at the bottom of your Loch.”
“And me.”
“And you,” replied the tree. “With a little help from yours truly.”
“So, you made the door we came through?”
“Indeed I did. It’s not the first time I’ve granted your kind passage, mind you. I once allowed a young author named John to visit these lands. A keen, inquisitive mind he had. Too bad he broke his promise to never speak of this place and concocted a thinly-veiled story from our secrets. Something about rings and lords if I remember correctly.”
Nat hung her shoulders. Others had already come here, meaning she wasn’t quite the daring pioneer she thought she was when she jumped through the portal.
“But I digress,” said Elderwood. “You aren’t some conniving scrivener, your purpose here is far more noble.”
“You mean the whole saving the world thing?”
“Frankly, I’m as surprised as you are,” said the tree. “When I sent the elf beyond the veil I did so to spare the enchanted blade from falling into Drensila’s hands. I hadn’t anticipated it finding its way to the Chosen One quite so soon.”
“The Chosen One? You mean like… Jewish?”
“No!” said Elderwood, dropping another fruit on Nat’s noggin. “The Chosen One is this world’s champion.”
“And that’s meant to be me, is it?” she scoffed. “Just because I picked up some talking sword?”
“Any person of good intentions can pick up the blade, but only the saviour of the Broken Lands may wield it. Like it or not, Nat Lawler, you are this world’s champion.”
“That dead elf was your champion and look what happened to him. I mean, isn’t a champion supposed to, like, win?”
“No one wins every time. The champion is the person best suited to the job, but there comes a time when every champion falters. When they miss their shot or stumble at the finish post or have their head sliced off by a worthier opponent.”
“You’re not exactly selling this gig,” Nat huffed.
“It is not my job to sell it,” replied Elderwood, spreading his boughs in a majestic sweep and sending a sprinkle of blossoms floating every which way. “It is the prophecy.”
“Right,” said Nat, “and did the prophecy say anything about your champion making everything worse?” That was the way she felt, like a foreign body running amok in a fragile ecosystem that couldn’t accommodate her. She shook her head and muttered under her breath. “Ugh, when they said mobile phones would be the death of civilisation...”
Elderwood dropped a third fruit. “Concentrate on what I’m telling you,” he urged. “Take the baton and finish the quest Gilon started, because without you, this world is finished.”
“There has to be someone better suited to the job,” Nat complained. “Some tatted up MMA guy with karate skills and a couple of Uzis. Basically anyone but me.”
Elderwood sighed. “You must decide to jump, my dear, I cannot push you. If you truly believe you are not The Chosen One I will open a portal and send you and your friends back whence you came. The choice is yours. Before you make up your mind though, you had better attend to business.”
“What business?”
“For heaven’s sake,” replied Elderwood, “there’s an elf bleeding to death in that hut over there.”
Back in the blacksmith’s, Terry was beginning to wonder what was taking Nat so long.
“It’s not as simple as just helping yourself to some fruit,” explained Eathon, as if reading Terry’s mind. “First she must commune with the sacred tree.”
“Righto,” replied Terry, resisting the urge to twirl a cuckoo sign by his head.
Neville, who sat propped on a stool, noticed something on the floor and reached down to scoop it up. What he found was a polished orb made of a multi-faceted glasslike substance. It was warm to the touch and had metal threads inside that were laid out in a sort of three dimensional circuit board pattern. Though Nev couldn’t be sure what it was, it looked very much not of this world. So where did it come from? He looked down at the spot he’d found it and noticed a clean path leading across the hut’s charcoal-smudged floor to the point Drensila’s hologram had vanished. Clearly, the orb had landed there, rolled some, and come to rest under his stool.
“Does anyone know what this is?” he asked the room.
Eathon shook his head. “It is not of my making.”
Neville scrutinised the object some more. “What is this thing?” he wondered. He prided himself on being a problem-solver, and had spent countless hours taking machines apart and reassembling them again. To this day, his favourite smells were burning solder and WD40. It was his love of all things technological that had led Nev to undertake an Engineering diploma. He did this despite knowing it was a course looked down upon by many of his contemporaries, who considered their A Levels loftier and more intellectually rigorous than his lowly BTEC. How Neville relished the day one of them came to him asking for help with their broken down car. “Did you try fixing it with your Philosophy degree?” he’d fantasize asking. “Maybe Jean-Paul Satre’s Critique of Dialectical Reason has the answer for that cracked head gasket.”
Neville turned the orb over in his hand and tried to figure out its purpose. He supposed it must be a projector of some sort—one that generated Drensila’s holographic image—and given that she’d managed to engage them in conversation, it must also be able to transmit light and sound back to its source. So, it was a projector, surveillance camera and microphone al
l rolled into one. What’s more, it could hover in the air like a drone, but without any visible means of propulsion. Neville had no idea how it worked, nor did he expect to. What he was looking at was well beyond his scope of understanding. Whispers stolen from his own dimension made solid by witchcraft. The industrial fused with the unfathomable.
“This is bad,” announced Neville. “So bad. That nutty cow’s trouble enough and now she has tech? How long before she’s upgraded from magic missiles to actual missiles?”
“I feel ya,” agreed Ashley. “It’s like Nat gave the atom bomb to a... a lady Hitler.”
“Go easy on my girlfriend, will you?” implored Terry. “She dropped her phone, she didn’t know she was starting an arms race.”
“You’re courting that fair maiden?” asked Eathon, taken aback.
“Why so surprised?” huffed Terry.
“No reason,” Eathon replied, looking Terry up and down. “No reason at all.”
Nat burst into the hut, fresh from her life-or-death scrumping mission. In her hand she clutched a fruit, which she crushed in her palm to get to the fig-like flesh within. She raced over to the stricken elf and immediately applied the pulp to her chest. As with Ashley, the wound repaired itself instantly, closing up like something from a time-lapse film. Nat checked Galanthre’s wrist. Despite the salve’s remarkable properties, her pulse remained almost non-existent.
“Sister?” pleaded Eathon, but Galanthre lay slack in his arms, her skin cold as the grave. “What’s happening?” he begged.
Nat was furious. “That stupid tree,” she screamed, and whipped the fruit’s husk at the wall.
Then, much to everyone’s surprise, Galanthre came to, bolting upright, eyes bulging from her head. She sucked in a gulp of air and her skin flushed pink.
“What happened?” she asked.
Eathon clinched her tight and Ashley hooted in triumph. Elves and humans came together in celebration, hugging and slapping one another on the back. The flood of goodwill was such that Terry decided to banish any lingering tension with a joke.
Trolled: The Complete Saga (The Trolled Saga) Page 8
