The Great Troll War

He was asking all of us, and we all agreed that we did.

‘Jenny and I need to go off-grid for twenty-four hours, do some digging and be back in time for Shandar’s deadline. Agreed?’

We all nodded again.

‘Shandar might be doing mind sweeps of those loose with their thoughts, so this is the cover story: we attempted to gain entry to the HENRY but there was an accident and we fell into the water-filled quarry just over there. We did not re-emerge, and Colin and Tiger, you waited for four hours before returning home. You can tell only the Princess and Once Magnificent Boo that we are safe. We will send word as soon as we can by way of a homing snail that all is well, but that might not be for twelve hours or more. If you do not receive any word in twenty-four hours, then we are truly gone, and the fight is now yours. Do you understand?’

Colin and Tiger both nodded their heads.

‘Good.’

Feldspar stretched his wings, then clasped his brother in a hug, and handed him the thumb ring that had been Maltcassion’s. They then conversed in Dragon for a few moments, and pressed their foreheads together hard.

‘Take care, won’t you?’ said Tiger, handing me the backpack with the jars and the snails and the few snacks the Dragons hadn’t managed to eat. ‘Should we hug in case it goes wrong?’

‘It’s not going to go wrong,’ I told him.

‘No,’ he said, chewing his lip.

‘Okay, then,’ said Feldspar once he had finished conversing with his brother, ‘how long can you hold your breath?’

I recalled swimming in the Wye when I was little, just near the orphanage.

‘Maybe thirty seconds.’

‘Good enough,’ he said. ‘Climb on.’

We took off and then circled around the source of the HENRY.

‘So what was all that hugging stuff you did with Colin?’ I asked. ‘It’s not the standard goodbye I’ve seen you guys do in the past – and you gave him Maltcassion’s ring.’

‘That’s easily explained,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I’m going to die soon. I can foresee it. Not how, or when, or precisely where – but certainly within the next twenty-four hours.’

‘Then we need to turn back,’ I said.

‘The future, once set, won’t change, Jen. If I were to head back now then my death would be something banal and avoidable, like being hit by a car or food poisoning or something. I’ll turn back if you command it, but my end will have no value, and I will have entered the world as I left it, without changing anything for the better.’

He looked around at me with his large green eyes as his wings beat through the air. He was less than a year old and the head jewel in his forehead had not even begun to grow through. He wouldn’t be adult for another century and a half. I knew what he said was true, knew that the end of his life could be spent wisely or foolishly. He was my friend, and I was his. But we both understood what had to be done, and about selflessness, and sacrifice.

Endgame is serious stuff.

Feldspar went into a slow spiral dive to lose height to the west, then made a low approach towards the HENRY on a route that took us over the flooded workings. As we passed over, Feldspar feigned a wing cramp, told me to take a deep breath and then rolled over and impacted the water.

It was immensely cold, and I gripped harder on his rope halter as I could now feel Feldspar swimming below me. The light dimmed, and after a moment or two I felt us stop, some hands holding me, and with a hissing noise the water drained rapidly from the small round chamber in which we found ourselves.

‘You okay?’ said a diver who was operating the controls of the airlock. I nodded. Once the water was out, a hatch at the bottom of the chamber was opened and we climbed down a short ladder. The first thing I saw when I reached the bottom rung was a naval officer with a kindly face. She saluted smartly.

‘Miss Strange?’ she said. ‘I am Captain Lutumba. Welcome aboard DCSV Bellerophon.’

Aboard the

Bellerophon

I was handed a towel and while I dried my hair I looked around. I was inside what looked like a storeroom of circular cross-section about thirty feet long and no more than fifteen feet wide and high. The hull was constructed with multiple circular bulkheads of riveted iron construction, and fore and aft were watertight doors. The sub had been awaiting our arrival beneath the waters of the quarry, and we had dived down and entered by way of a series of hatches between the craft and the water-filled quarry above.