“Right, now spill,” said Paradise. “How did we save your life?”
“And what are you so scared of?” added Ben.
Ben’s bedroom was tucked up in the attic of the house, right below the thatched roof. There were no windows, but Scumbo still glanced in all directions before he started to speak.
“Someone’s been taking trolls,” he said, his voice hushed.
“Who would do that?” asked Ben.
“And why?” said Paradise. “Why would anyone choose to be around a troll if they didn’t have to be?”
“Dunno,” Scumbo admitted. “It’s a puzzler all right. But it’s happenin’. I saw it with my own two eyes.”
“What exactly did you see?” said Ben.
Scumbo leaned in. “No trolls, that’s what I seen,” he said. “No trolls nowhere.’Cept me.”
“Maybe they’ve gone on holiday,” suggested Paradise. Her nose crinkled as she caught a whiff of Scumbo. “Or for a bath, with a bit of luck.”
Scumbo shook his hairy head. “They been pinched,” he said. “Snatched away by some ’orrible troll-taker. Swiped right out from under their bridges the lot of ’em.”
“Why weren’t you taken then?” Ben asked.
“Well, ’cos I don’t got a bridge no more, do I? You lot broke it. And if you hadn’t done … well, who knows where I’d be now?”
Scumbo plonked himself down on the end of Ben’s bed. It shuddered violently and gave a loud creak of protest.
“Let’s just say you’re right, and that someone really is kidnapping trolls,” said Paradise. “How is that our problem? If you ask me they deserve a medal.”
“Paradise!” said Ben. “That’s a bit harsh.”
“No it isn’t,” Paradise insisted. “Trolls eat people.”
“No we don’t,” Scumbo said.
Paradise frowned. “You do so! Back at the bridge you said—”
Scumbo stood up. The bed gave a squeak of relief. “Oh yeah, I mean we say we eat people. We say it all right, but how many people do you know what’ve ever actually been eaten by a troll?”
“Mr Asquith the baker had his arm bitten off by one,” Paradise said.
“Oh yeah, I mean – granted – we partly eat people. We partly eat ’em, yeah. I mean who doesn’t partly eat—”
“And both legs.”
“We mostly eat people, I’ll give you,” Scumbo said, after just a moment’s hesitation. “We gobble up most of ’em, of course, but we don’t fully eat ’em, that’s the point I’m trying to make here. Beside, we provides a valuable public service, we do.”
“Oh, don’t talk rubbish,” Paradise said. “What public service?”
“How many wild goats you had come trip-trappin’ into town before tonight? Tearing the place up and scaring all the little kiddly-winks? Hmm? How many?”
Ben and Paradise exchanged a glance. “Well … none,” Ben admitted.
“That’s ’cos of all us trolls guarding all them bridges,” Scumbo said. “Stopping them goats getting past. Stopping other things, too. Worse things. Things so nasty they’ll make your eyes burst just looking at ’em.”
“What, like Paradise you mean?” asked Ben, then he jumped back to avoid a slap. “I’m kidding!”
“Yeah, you laugh while you can,” said Scumbo, in a voice as solemn as the grave. “But without no trolls to guard them bridges, this whole place is gonna be neck-deep in nastiness before you can say ‘I wish we’d helped out that nice Scumbo fella when we had the chance. He knew a thing or two, he did’.”
“Help you?” Paradise said.
“That mayor what you went looking for,” said Scumbo. “Find him, did you?”
Ben nodded. “We did.” He jabbed a thumb in Paradise’s direction. “She can find anything.”
“Then find them trolls. Find ’em, and find out who took ’em.” The troll looked from Ben to Paradise and back again. “Or else one little angry goat is gonna be the least of your problems.”
The cogs inside Tavish’s mechanical arm whirred quietly as he reached up to scratch his head. Now he was really confused.
“So … he is a troll?”
“Yes,” said Ben.
“It came as a real surprise to all of us,” said Paradise.
“’Cept me,” Scumbo added.
“Yes. Except him.”
“And you want to go with him to find some other trolls who’ve all been…?”
“Taken,” said Ben.
“By…?”
“We don’t know.”
“For…?”
“We don’t know that either.”
Tavish frowned. “So … let me get this straight. You want to go out in the dark with a man-eating creature to track down some other man-eating creatures who’ve all been kidnapped by someone—”
“Or something,” added Scumbo.
“Thank you, yes. Or something which by default must be even worse than they are, for reasons currently unknown.” He leaned in to give the next part extra emphasis. “On a school night.”
“That sounds about right,” said Ben.
“It sounds a bit dangerous.”
A voice from the doorway interjected before Ben could reply.
“Oh come now, Mr Tavish. It’s nothing the great Benjamin Blank can’t handle!”
They all turned to find the Mayor of Loosh filling the doorway.
He flashed them his polished smile and closed the gap between them with three determined strides. The mayor ruffled Paradise’s hair. “Sorry I didn’t wait for you when that goat attacked, my dear,” he said. “I knew my safety would be your number one concern. And, of course, I knew you’d be perfectly fine.”
“She was almost trampled,” Ben said. The mayor turned his smile on him, and Ben felt his skin crawl. He might be the closest thing Paradise had to a dad, but there was something about the mayor that made Ben uneasy.
“Almost trampled is merely another way of saying not trampled,” the mayor said. “And for that I’m eternally grateful.”
“Who’s the fatso?” asked Scumbo, peering up at the newcomer.
“He’s not a fasto, he’s the Mayor of Loosh,” explained Tavish.
“Looks like a fatso to me.” Scumbo’s nostrils flared. “An’ he smells funny.”
“Ahaha. Charming,” said the mayor, brushing off the insults. “Did I hear correctly, Mr … Troll thing? Were you asking for young Benjamin’s assistance?”
“He was, but it sounds dangerous,” said Tavish.
The mayor rested a hand on Ben’s shoulder. Ben tried to pull away, but the mayor was stronger than his flabby frame suggested. “Dangerous? For the boy who defeated the Shark-Headed Bear-Things and saved me from a fate worse than death? Nonsense! It’s nothing he can’t handle.” He placed his other hand on Paradise’s shoulder. “Besides, he’d have my Paradise to help him find his way home.”
Tavish didn’t look convinced, but Ben could see it wouldn’t take much to tip things in his favour. “Remember what the Soothsayer High Council told you?” he said. “This stuff – battling monsters – it’s my destiny.”
“Yes,” said Tavish. “That’s what I’m afraid of.” He looked down at Ben and smiled sadly. “If I say no, will you go anyway?”
“Of course not!”
“Tell me the truth, Benjamin.”
“Yes,” Ben admitted. “Probably. Those trolls could be in trouble and, well, someone’s got to help them, right? It’s like you always told me. There’s the easy thing to do and there’s the right thing to do, and they aren’t always the same. This is the right thing to do, Uncle Tavish. I can feel it.”
“Oh, this boy,” said the mayor, wiping an invisible tear from the corner of one eye. “This boy!”
Tavish sighed. Ben held his breath. Scumbo farted loudly.
“Sorry,” he said. “Been hanging on to that for ages.”
“Good grief,” yelped Paradise, recoiling. “That’s disgusting.”
The smell hit Tavish and he stepped back. Even though an old cooking injury meant the blacksmith’s nose was made almost entirely out of wood, the smell somehow still managed to find a way through.
“Right, go, go,” he urged. “Go do what you have to do, and take that thing with you. Just please … be careful.”
“I will,” Ben promised. He turned to Paradise and Scumbo. “You two go wait outside.”
“Good. Fresh air!” wheezed Paradise, her voice muffled by a handkerchief she had pressed over her nose and mouth. She made a move towards the door, then stopped. “Wait, what about you?”
“I’d imagine Benjamin is going to get that wonderful glove of his,” said the mayor. He smiled, showing too many teeth. “Isn’t that right, Ben?”
“Uh … yeah. That’s right,” said Ben, and he headed for a small door at the back of the room, with the mayor’s gaze following him every step of the way.
Ben tiptoed down the rough stone stairs leading into the dark depths of the basement. It had only been a few weeks since he’d been running up them, a Shark-Headed Bear-Thing snapping at his heels. Since then he’d only been back once, and as the flickering torch in his hand sent shadows scurrying across the walls, he felt his heart begin to beat a little faster.
At last, he reached the bottom and stepped down on to the hard-packed soil floor. The torchlight picked out two shapes tucked against one wall – a box, and something hidden beneath a faded old blanket. Beside them, a large hole in the wall had been barricaded with boulders and bits of scrap metal. Ben checked the barrier to make sure it was still secure, then made his way over to the box.
He opened the lid and there, just where he’d left it, was the metal gauntlet. Tavish had given it to him before his encounter with the Bear-Things, but insisted Ben put it back after the adventure was over. It wasn’t a toy, Tavish had said, but Ben wouldn’t have dreamed of playing with it anyway. It had been one of two items found with Ben in the wreckage of an old wagon, back when Ben was just a baby, and that meant it was something much more important than a toy.
It was a clue. A clue to his past, and to what had happened to his parents.
He slipped the metal glove over his right hand and felt a brief tingle travel along his fingertips. According to Tavish’s Automated Magic Detecting Device, the gauntlet was packed with magical power. Unfortunately, Ben hadn’t quite figured out how to use it properly. Still, just by wearing it he felt braver somehow, like there was no challenge he couldn’t face.
And speaking of challenges…
Ben turned to the blanket. He pulled it away, revealing the second object that had been found alongside him in that wreckage. The handle of a sword stuck up from a lump of heavy rock. The blade was buried deep in the stone, with only a few centimetres of the polished steel showing. A symbol in the shape of a clawed creature was embossed on the weapon’s hilt. Its eyes seemed to follow Ben as he reached out and took hold of the handle.
“I’m ready,” he whispered into the darkness. “This is my sword, and I’m ready.”
He pulled. His grip slipped off the handle. He took hold and tried again.
“I’m ready,” he said, more loudly this time. “Come … out!”
But the sword stayed stuck in the stone, no matter how hard he pulled.
Releasing his grip, Ben let out a sigh. “Oh well,” he said, looking down at the wooden sword stuck in the belt of his tunic. “Looks like you’re just going to have to do.”