The Great Troll War

I looked into the twin viewing eyeholes of the periscope and could now see the large skyscraper that was incongruously sprouting out of farmland in Devon. Although I’d not seen the original Chrysler Building I knew it well enough from pictures as I was a big fan of Art Deco and had several scrapbooks containing pictures of notable buildings. This facsimile was every bit as beautiful as the original, the decorative tiles and burnished steel shining in the sun, the geometric patterns and automobile motifs quite lovely to behold. The tower was also indicative of just how much magic Shandar had at his fingertips: if he could build something like this as a base of operations, then it would have been with magical power he had to spare; like the loose change you find down the back of the sofa.

I moved the periscope around. There were Hollow Men in abundance guarding the building but no Trolls as far as I could see. Having studied Colin’s aerial photographs, we knew there was a small entrance on the side facing away from us that gave direct access to the M5 motorway and Exeter Airport, where Shandar’s fleet of Skybus aircraft had been moving in and out, presumably with the Quarkbeasts he was so keen to harvest. When I had seen enough, I thanked the captain.

‘Periscope down,’ she called, and there was a soft whirring sound as it retracted.

The captain called for Full Ahead Both and the Subterrain started to shake as the main cutters bit into the rock. I asked Feldspar whether we should send a homing snail but it had been less than four hours since we left Colin and Tiger and they would not yet be heading home.

‘We’ll be under the building in eight hours,’ said the captain. ‘We can probably manage twice the speed of mole in this stratum, more if we hit a softer section. Go and relax.’

It was good advice. Nothing happened very fast in the Subterrain Service. A battle between opposing fleets of Subterrains had occurred only once, during a totally unnail-biting three weeks in the winter of 1953. The slow progress of the engagement ensured that it was, descriptively and literally, the most boring battle in the history of warfare.

I went for a wander around the large craft, partly out of curiosity, partly out of not wanting to play poker with Feldspar, as he had suggested. There were torpedo rooms fore, aft and amidships, as turning the craft was not an easy manoeuvre. All torpedoes were designed like corkscrews and travelled very slowly, but that wasn’t much of an issue as other Subterrains would be similarly slow to take avoiding action, and buildings couldn’t take any avoiding action at all.

Living quarters were by necessity quite cramped, but the galley was Michelin-starred, and the food astonishingly good. The chef gave me a butterscotch parfait which melted on my tongue. Farther aft was the engine room, where two large in-line diesels ran on recycled vegetable oil, which made the whole sub, and everyone in it, smell very much like a fish and chip shop.

I moved on past the storeroom and came to the room where we’d entered the Bellerophon and sat on some sacks of potatoes near the escape pod. I took the photograph I’d discovered in the Beetle’s glovebox out of my pocket and stared at it for some time in silence. I turned the picture over and looked again at a pencilled note in Zambini’s hand that read: ‘The Assetts’, with the date of my induction into the orphanage. It had to be me. I paused then turned the picture back over and wondered who exactly he had been referring to as assets: Zambini, Zenobia, the Quarkbeast, me – even the car? I was just about to put the photo away when something caught my eye. There was a small hand pressed against the rear window, as though a child were inside on the back seat. I could just see the top of their head too, and they had bunches. Most likely a girl. If this were the day of my induction, then the mystery child had not been inducted at the same time. I had been the only one that week.

I took a deep breath, placed the picture back in my pocket and returned to the captain’s cabin, where Feldspar eventually persuaded me to play poker. As we played, we talked about the enduring mysteries of the Troll: why they had never invaded until now, what did they eat when not eating humans, and crucially, their numbers. All the Troll Wars had been started by humans, usually through fear, a need to try out weaponry or even, as the Princess suggested, to keep the orphan-based economy supplied with free labour. On the issue of size, the estimated number of the invading forces was around two million, but given Trollvania was mostly rock and heather and without visible structures of any sort, it was difficult to see where they came from.

‘Caves?’ suggested Feldspar.

‘They’d all be pasty and squinty and looking like mole-rats if that were the case,’ I said. ‘As far as I can see they’re all very tanned and healthy looking.’

‘Molly might know.’