by M. A. Larson
He glanced down at Evie with delight. Then, in two strides, he was at the wall, nose pressed against it, his slobber dribbling down the invisible shield.
“Ah!” he bellowed happily. “There you are! A’right, mate?”
Evie stood stunned beneath the enormous beast. She felt a hand wrap tightly around her arm.
“Evie, step away from the wall.” It was Remington, and his face was as serious as she had ever seen. She let him lead her up the hill, though she couldn’t look away from the hideous giant leering in at her.
“Aw, come back, love!” he shouted.
They reached the top of the road, where a rather large crowd had formed. Princess Beatrice stood in front, her lips parted and her eyes wide as she stared at the giant. All of them, cadets, family members, and staff alike, had looks of abject horror on their faces.
Then, slightly to the east, the tops of the trees began to shudder as another enormous creature shouldered through the forest. Ancient pines, taller than most castle towers, fell like sticks.
“Mith aigle dheo ár greadh . . .” came an otherworldly voice, only this one was singing. “Mith aigle ti sléibhe . . .”
Then, just a bit farther to the west, yet another giant appeared. While the red-bearded monster paced at the wall, grinning with thick, broken teeth, the other two smashed down trees and sent resonant thuds echoing across the forest. Finally, all three of them were there, leering at the tiny crowd at the top of the road. Only a transparent layer of magic kept them out.
“Blimey, they’re big,” said Maggie in awe.
“Well, they are giants,” said Basil, earning himself a dirty look.
“Which of you lot up there is in charge?” bellowed the giant with the red beard. The one to his left was just as big and just as ugly. One of his eyes was fused closed, and he had a burst of course black hair atop the nub of his head. The other one was covered in pink-and-white scabs, which he scratched compulsively.
“I’m in charge,” called Princess Beatrice, stepping forward. The air of positivity she’d exhibited the night before was gone, and her icy hardness had returned.
“You?” The giant bellowed with laughter, his muscular arms clutching his stomach. The other two grunted their amusement as well. “Listen here, you little ant, you’re in charge? How ’bout this, how ’bout I bust down this wall and have you for morning tea with some cream and jam?”
“I want one!” yelled the black-haired giant.
“Me! Me!” bellowed the other, scratching his raw cheek.
“So here’s your current situation, right?” said the red-bearded giant, pointing a finger as thick as an ox at the group. “My name’s Galligantusohn. That there is Blunderbull,” he said, pointing to the one-eyed giant. Then he aimed his finger at the scabby one. “I’ve absolutely no idea what his bloody name is. And the three of us is gonna wait out here and make sure none of you lot go nowhere without being eaten by us, yeah? So that’s pretty much the tall and the short of it. What d’you think of that?”
The itchy giant let out an approving laugh.
“They’ve forgotten how to talk!” boomed the one-eyed creature, Blunderbull.
Evie glanced at Princess Beatrice, whose eyes were as thin and hard as the slits in a knight’s jousting helmet. Her jaw worked back and forth in barely suppressed rage.
“Do not engage them,” said King Hossenbuhr, standing at the back of the crowd with Forbes. “I’ve dealt with giants before. They’re simple creatures, but they’re quite skilled at needling people and forcing mistakes. Fatal mistakes. It’s best to ignore them.”
“Ha!” shouted Galligantusohn. “Look at this bloke! Thinks he knows all about us lads!” The other two joined in his laughter. Hossenbuhr’s face tightened into a snarl.
“I agree with King Hossenbuhr,” said Sir Schönbecker, one of the leaders of the knight brigade. “The fact that there are three of them indicates that they have been quite handsomely paid. Otherwise, they’d be tearing one another apart.”
“Ah, let ’em play in their castles a bit,” said Galligantusohn, waving a huge hand at them. “It’ll build my appetite. I’m taking the north, and neither of you whumps better touch my food.” After fixing the other two giants with a threatening glare, he stumbled back through the forest and found a piece of ground he liked. With deafening crashes, he began to clear away trees. The other giants did the same, one moving east, near the knights’ barracks, and the other west, near the princesses’ barracks. Like dogs scratching out patches of dirt, they prepared their areas and made themselves comfortable. Between the three of them, they had the entire northern end of campus under watch. Blunderbull continued to hum the song he’d been singing earlier.
Beatrice turned to face the crowd. “These giants will lose interest within the hour. They’ll be off in search of food before the—”
Crash! There was a thunderous explosion in the sky overhead. A tree as big as a dragon smashed against the invisible wall, branches splintering off in every direction. Blunderbull bellowed with laughter. He reached down and began to work another tree free from the ground, then hurled that one at the wall, too. Several cadets screamed.
“I hate fairies!” the giant roared. The other two snorted with laughter.
Beatrice turned back to the crowd. She was trying to force a brave smile, but it was clear she’d been shaken. She looked around at the families huddled together, the cadets holding one another for comfort, the instructors paralyzed with fear.
“Headmistress,” said Evie, “none of these people were on the last three coaches—”
“This changes nothing,” said Beatrice, trying her best to sound resolute. “A whole host of our birds will have reached their destinations by now, and help is imminent. As you can see, the wall repels giants as well as witches. All we need to do is wait.”
“But, Headmistress, if they weren’t on the last coaches, then the witches’ attack had to be bigger than—”
“That is all, Cadet.”
There was silence in the courtyard. Blunderbull’s heavy tones rumbled softly up from the forest: “Bydd i lahg pøb ghlentÿn . . .”
“What is that?” came a high-pitched shriek. One of the cadets’ mothers pointed down the hill to the wall. Soon, everyone was gasping in horror. Even the giant stopped his song. Beatrice stepped toward the edge of the hill, her mouth hanging open in astonishment.
Like breath on iced glass, dozens of witches clad in black robes began to appear in the trees. Each had a hideous grin on her gray-skinned face. They stepped to the wall and stood as unmoving as the stone before them.
“What’s in their hands?” said Maggie.
Then, at the bottom of the road where the wall opened to allow carriages to pass, the witches stepped aside to let another come forward. This one towered above them all. Where the sinister grins of all the others could be seen, along with their yellow eyes and decaying skin, this one kept her face hidden beneath a heavy black cloak.
“Mercy . . .” said Beatrice softly.
“That isn’t Calivigne, is it?” said Basil. “Blimey, is that really her?”
Then, one by one, the witches revealed what they were carrying. Each tossed a heavy stone object to the ground.
“What are those?” said Demetra.
“I suspect,” said Princess Rampion with a gulp, “that those are our birds.”
The line of witches stretched from one end of the horizon to the other, with Calivigne looming in the center. In front of them was a collection of lifeless stones that had been meant to carry pleas for help to the surrounding kingdoms. While everyone’s eyes were fixed on them, Evie glanced at the Headmistress. She, too, looked horrified. But there was something else in her eyes. Something Evie couldn’t quite place.
The witches, a wall of leering, evil grins, began to recede into the forest. No one moved.
�
��What’s the matter, never seen a thousand dead birds before?” yelled Galligantusohn. Then he bellowed with laughter.
“Well,” said Remington, “next I suppose the moon will fall from the sky and crush us all.”
Evie kept her eyes fixed on the Headmistress. Beatrice was staring straight at Calivigne, who lingered after the other witches had gone. And still there was that strange, unplaceable . . . something in Beatrice’s eyes.
“To the castle,” she finally said, once Calivigne had faded into the forest with the rest of her witches. She cleared her throat and tried again. “To the castle.”
She turned and trudged across the courtyard, leaving a field of stone birds just outside the wall.
“Right, er, everyone, why don’t we head to the Dining Hall and see if we can’t find some tea and cakes?” said Princess Rahden over the din of the increasingly frantic crowd.
“Tea and cakes?” shouted an old man. “I’d rather have some answers, thank you very much!”
Beatrice and the other top-ranking staff were halfway to the castle when Princess Wertzheim approached with several other nurses. “All of you who’ve just arrived, come with me to the Infirmary, please.”
Remington locked eyes with Evie and tried to give her a reassuring smile. It didn’t work. “I’ll see you after, all right?”
She nodded, then he, Demetra, Basil, Marline, and the others trooped up the road to have the nurses look them over after their ordeal in the forest. The panicked crowd began to follow Beatrice across the courtyard with a frenzy of questions:
“What do we do now, Headmistress?”
“They’ve captured all the birds!”
“Where’s the bloody Queen? Why hasn’t she come down?”
Beatrice wheeled. Her face was granite, hard as stone and cracked by time. The anger in her eyes froze the crowd. “What we are going to do now is carry on,” she said, her nostrils flaring. She ran her narrow eyes across the crowd and her demeanor slowly began to soften. When she spoke again, her voice had lightened. “You must all keep your heads, ladies and gentlemen. Even if they did intercept our birds, help will still be returning with our supply convoys. I know that the prospect of giants in our woods is somewhat frightening, but you must understand that we have extensive experience with all manner of beasts. All will be well if you’ll—”
“That’s what you said last night!”
Beatrice took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “All will be well if you’ll trust in my staff as I do. We’re here, all of us together, safe behind the wall. Our final three missing were recovered in the night, and we will get to the bottom of these new arrivals as soon as they’ve been cleared by the medical staff. Nothing has changed. In very short order, you’ll be back in the safety of your own homes with quite a story to tell. Now, why don’t you go with Princess Rahden and have a spot of tea? Perhaps she can take you to see Swansdown Castle when you’ve finished.” She nodded to Rahden, who nodded back. “It’s a sort of museum to the great heroes who have passed through our halls. If anything can reassure you that we are well prepared for the monsters of this world, it will be a visit to Swansdown.”
The hysteria seemed to have gone out of the crowd. Though there was still fear on every face, Beatrice’s words clearly had a calming effect. “Tea might be nice,” said the old man. “Warm the bones a bit.”
“That’s the spirit,” said the Headmistress. “Allow me and my staff to assess this new information and make certain we’ve got every box ticked. In the meantime, enjoy what our Academy has to offer. Forget the giants. Think of them as nothing more than very large pests.”
Several people chuckled nervously. Cadets began to lead their parents away to the Dining Hall. Beatrice turned to go, her smile instantly fading.
“Forget the giants?” said Evie. “She’s bonkers.”
“Come on, Evie, I could really use a cuppa right now.”
“There’s something she’s not telling us, Maggie. These attacks were much bigger than they said last night. She wants us to trust her, but she’s not being honest.”
“What are you saying?” said Maggie with a huff. “You’re saying I’m not getting my tea, aren’t you?”
Evie glanced out at the three enormous, shaggy figures occupying the forest beyond the wall. “I’m saying I want to talk to someone who I know is honest.”
• • •
Smoke wisped out of the crooked chimney atop the sweet little timber-framed cottage that was slowly being swallowed up by the mossy hillside behind it. Evie knocked on the old, knotted door. There was muffled movement inside, and then a voice.
“Who’s there?” came the dry croak of Rumpledshirtsleeves, the tailor troll.
“It’s Evie and Maggie. We need to talk to you.”
“It’s about bloody time you turned up!” he barked. His voice was so raw, it was almost painful to hear. “Go round the side! Hurry up!”
“The side?” said Evie to Maggie. Then, loudly, “Can’t you just open the door?”
“Go round the side!”
The left corner of the cottage was covered by earth and moss and thick tangles of ivy. The other was a bit clearer, though it, too, was sinking beneath the hillside.
“Look!” said Maggie, grabbing Evie’s arm. There, behind an overgrown spotted hemlock bush, poked the oblong head of one of Rumpledshirtsleeves’s miniature troll assistants. He had burrowed through the earth, and dirt was smudged across his face and arms. He made a chattering noise, then waved them over with thick gray fingers.
“He can’t possibly expect us to go in there,” said Maggie.
“I expect that’s exactly what he expects.” His gray face popped back out with bulging eyes. He made more sharp noises, like a squirrel preparing for a fight.
Evie looked at Maggie, then nodded to the tunnel, urging her in.
“Ladies first,” said Maggie, holding out her hand.
“Thanks,” said Evie ruefully. She climbed behind the hemlock bush and brushed aside some dangling purple wisteria. She scooped out a few handfuls of the rich, black soil to make the passage bigger. Then, with a grimace, she shimmied in, using her elbows to propel herself through the tunnel. Damp clumps of earth fell onto her face and mouth with every inch she moved. Once her entire body was inside, she began to feel quite claustrophobic—
Suddenly, the troll’s face appeared right in front of her, jabbering wildly. “Stop that!” she said, perhaps a bit too forcefully. “I’m coming, all right?”
“You’ve barely moved a foot,” came Maggie’s muffled voice behind her, complete with laughter.
“Yeah, enjoy it while you can. You’re next, you know.” She dragged her elbows ahead through crumbly dirt that smelled of the deep forest. Inch by inch, she shimmied forward until she reached a bend in the tunnel. She took a deep breath to try to calm herself, though the air was thick and pungent and altogether not calming. She willed herself on, bending ever so slowly around the back wall of the cottage.
Before long, the air became warmer, with hints of cinnamon. Finally, she saw a dim light. It was coming from a window in the side of the tunnel that opened into the cottage. She slithered through, landing in a plop on the floor. Her face, her hands, her hair, her clothes . . . all were grubby and grimy from the tunnel. She stood and tried to get her bearings. She was in some sort of storeroom, with crates and debris piled to the ceiling. The only light came from the doorway to the main room. Maggie’s face appeared behind her, smeared with mud. A six-inch-long earthworm dangled from her ear.
“Get it off! Get it off!”
Evie hadn’t meant to, but she broke out in laughter. She reached through the window and took the worm off Maggie’s ear, then draped it over her nose.
“Evie, I’ll kill you!”
Evie laughed even harder. She took the worm away, then pulled Maggie’s hands until she suddenly slipp
ed free. “We ought to hide out in here. No self-respecting witch would dare go through that.”
“Well? Come on, ladies!” shouted Rumpledshirtsleeves from the other room.
“He’s in a mood,” said Evie. They brushed themselves off, though with hands so filthy it had little effect, then went through to the main room of the cottage. They were shocked by what they found.
Trolls of all sizes lined the far wall. Some were asleep. Others sat listlessly on worn wooden benches. Evie recognized some of them but was surprised to see so many she hadn’t even known were on campus.
“Come, ladies, you’ve much to tell me,” said Rumpledshirtsleeves. He lurched toward them from the wan light near the front of the cottage. He was dressed as impeccably as ever, in a sleek black suit with a custom-tailored pink shirt beneath. His face, however, contained an anger unlike anything they’d seen before. “I hear there’s now a giant as well?”
“Three, actually,” said Maggie. “What’s going on in here? What’s wrong with your door?”
“There is nothing wrong with my door, except that it has been magically affixed to keep in prisoners. Well-dressed, highly educated prisoners.”
“Who would do such a thing?” said Evie.
“Beatrice,” he spat. “Your ever-charming Headmistress General. A woman whose hatred of trolls has found new depths.”
“Beatrice locked you in your cottage?” said Maggie, eyeing the rest of the trolls sitting glumly in the back. “Why?”
“When it became quite clear to me that these attacks were orchestrated by the witches as part of a larger maneuver, I went straight to the Headmistress and told her we needed to act immediately. Her rather predictable response was that the last thing we needed was a panic. I replied that perhaps the very first thing we needed was a panic. She decided our conversation was at an end and locked me and my brothers-under-the-bridge away where we couldn’t be a bother.”
