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Chapter 13: Down by the Riverside
They both froze.
And then…
“Ha! Ha! Ha! Very funny, Judah.”
Toby jumped up onto the riverbank and ran toward his river elf friend Judah to give him a hug, only to be tackled by Saaba.
Clygon climbed out of the river and joined them, giving Phoenix a fist bump while Judah tried to peel Saaba off of Toby.
“You two look like you’ve been through a war,” Deckor said. “What happened?”
“You name it, it happened,” Toby answered, finally able to climb back onto his feet. “Stalagmites… Stalactites… Rock badgers… Hava leeva pits…”
“Gross!” Phoenix said.
“But more important,” Clygon jumped in, “or is it more importantly?”
They debated important vs importantly for a few moments when Judah finally made the timeout sign so that Clygon could get to what was so important.
“We found the giants!”
Deckor, Judah, and Phoenix looked at them in stunned silence.
“You couldn’t lead with that?” Deckor asked. “Where? When? Give us the details.”
“I was following a tip from the Christmas Giant,” Clygon began.
“Trut Vater, as the giants call him—Truth Father,” Toby added.
“They’ve been living in the middle of this mountain since they… well… since they disappeared. Can you believe it?” Clygon continued. “They’ve been here all along. They have an entire city built in there, along with huge metal forges and furnaces. Toby just showed up out of the blue and we were befriended by some of the giants.”
“But… why have they been hiding this whole time?” Phoenix asked.
Toby noticed he was wearing a Lamar Jackson jersey.
“They didn’t want to get sucked into the divisiveness and hatred unleashed by the Chaos. So they withdrew. Yet all is not well in giant-land. Some of the giants want to re-engage with the world. But others support continued isolation. And that group made a pact with the trolls. The isolationists promised to give Plythar the Sword if the trolls would protect the mountain from outsiders.”
“But… the giants don’t have the Sword to give…”
Judah saw the look on Toby’s face.
“They have the Sword, don’t they,” Judah said.
“I… I had no choice. But.. but… it’s useless anyway. It’s missing a piece and without that piece the Sword will remain lifeless…”
“What is it, Clygon?” Deckor interrupted. “We know that look. You know something.”
“Sorry, Toby,” Clygon said with a big smile.
He reached into his backpack and pulled out a leather bag—and through the opening Toby could see something glowing.
“Is that… the Sword? Did you switch bags? And you didn’t think to tell me?”
“We needed you to be convincing for Lucas.”
“So you don’t trust my thespian skills? I’ll have you know I played Rumpelstiltskin in first grade summer school! And one of the workhouse boys in Oliver! at my church when I was in 5th grade.”
“I’m sure you’re an Academy Award winner, Toby, but not knowing how good you really are, we couldn’t take the chance.”
“Who’s Lucas?” Judah asked.
Before Clygon could answer Toby pointed to his backpack. Something was buzzing in it. He dug around until he found the source of the buzzing—the compass. It’s needle was spinning wildly from the G to the O to the O to the D.
“It’s trying to tell us something,” Toby said.
And then the spinning stopped.
“What do the letters stand for?” Deckor asked, looking over Toby’s shoulder at the compass.
“I don’t know. Apparently we have to figure it out on our own this time around. The only clue we have is to find the GOOD.”
“And what does that mean?” Phoenix asked.
Toby quickly explained the seven words embedded in the Sword and how the word GOOD—technically OOD—a tiny piece of the Sword, was missing.
“We think,” Clygon said, “that the missing piece may be in the ground where Toby buried it at my former stronghold.”
They looked at each other for a moment as Phoenix, Judah, and Deckor tried to process what they had just heard.
“So… are you saying that we need to go to your former stronghold, sneak behind enemy lines, find the exact spot where Toby buried the Sword, find a piece of the Sword so tiny that you can hardly see it, sneak back through those same enemy lines to get to the giants, who are in some sort of civil war, so that they can put the Sword back together, and then take it back to RiverHome and put it in the stone before Loach loses all of its power?”
“Well… actually, we might have the resources to heal the Sword with us, but otherwise, that’s a good summary of Toby’s next Quest.”
Toby felt a bolt of anxiety shoot through him at the thought of a new Quest.
“And don’t forget, Phoenix,” Judah said, “we have to figure out what G-O-O-D means for it all to work.”
“You don’t like to do things the easy way, do you Toby,” Deckor laughed.
“Wait a minute,” Toby said, putting the compass into his pocket while pushing back his growing anxiety while finally finding the thought that had been itching his brain. “What are you doing here? How did you find Saaba? This can’t be a coincidence can it? Or a kissit as Lucas says.”
“I think it’s kismet,” Clygon added helpfully.
“Actually,” Phoenix started, “now that we’re here it makes some sense. A few weeks ago Loach’s energy shifted. We could sense it in the earth. Clovor and I went to check it out, concerned that Loach was beginning to lose its strength. We know it’s a backup for the Sword. We know it can’t last much longer. When we approached it, we immediately noticed that the monument no longer said, I.C.E. Call Toby Baxter. It now reads, I.C.E. Go North. Not terribly helpful as there’s a lot of north north of RiverHome.” Phoenix laughed at his joke, if that’s what it was.
“So the three of us set out last week, having no idea where we were going or why. We’ve been sticking pretty close to the river and last night we camped out not too far from here. We had decided to make our way up the mountain this morning when Saaba found us. He lead us here… and here you are.”
Saaba bowed. At least Toby thought he did.
“Did you get any information out of that troll Clovor dragged out of my hotel room?” Toby asked.
“None,” answered Deckor. “He was too far down the food chain, so to speak, to have any information. But,” Deckor thought for a moment, “he did say that if he failed in getting the Sword Plythar would move on to plan B, and the B stands for Big. I wonder if that was Plythar’s inside joke, knowing he would side with some of those giants.”
“Hey! Is anybody else hungry?” Phoenix asked. “All this Quest talk makes me ravenous.”
He sat down on a nearby log, pulled out a bag of ham and cheese sandwiches, passed them out, and the five of them, plus Saaba, ate quietly, trying to figure out their next move.
They heard the faint sounds of popping behind them up the mountain a ways.
“Not again,” Toby sighed.
“It goes in cycles, Toby,” Judah explained helpfully. “They call it…”
“No. Don’t!”
“Pop-cycles!”
“And then it…”
“No. Really. Don’t!
“Re-cycles.”
“Okay, Judah,” Deckor said. “No more pop-corn for today!”
Phoenix high-fived his cousin. Toby rolled his eyes.
They cleaned up, washed up, and then sat down once again, this time to come up with a plan.
“Saaba,” Phoenix said, “get the word out to Jerry and the gnomes, Oreea and the ogres, Blythar and his Resistance buddies, and to Donold, Clovor, and Mathilda back home. And of course our friends, the wolves. Here…”
Phoenix was writing on small pieces of paper with an oversized pen from Disneyland when he noticed Toby staring at him.
“What! I collect pens like I collect NFL jerseys.” He proceeded to pull a handful of pens out of his backpack from Al’s Car Wash, Circle 8 Motel, IHop, and others Toby didn’t care to read.
“You can never have too many pens!” Deckor chimed in.
Phoenix attached the notes to Saaba’s neck with pieces of twine. Saaba ran over to Toby, gave him a big wolf lick on his cheek, and took off downstream.
“Now… if you two are ready to go” Judah said nodding to Toby and Clygon…
Suddenly the earth shuddered underneath them. It was strong enough to knock Toby onto his butt. The shaking lasted fifteen seconds but felt like several minutes.
“Was that an earthquake? Do you have those here?” Toby asked, not able to hide the anxiety in his voice.
“That was no earthquake,” Clygon said glumly. “I fear that something bad is happening in the middle of the mountain. We need to go. We need to find that missing Sword piece. Follow me. I know some secret back roads into the troll stronghold.”
They quickly packed up their gear as they felt the ground shiver and shake once again. Toby looked up the mountain and prayed that Oliver, Evy, Harold, Pumpernickel and the rest of the giants would be okay. And suddenly he felt overwhelmed by the pressure of what was ahead.
“It’s okay, Toby,” Deckor whispered.”
The ground shook again knocking Deckor to his butt.
“Okay… maybe it’s not okay…”
Just then they heard what sounded like a boulder rolling down the mountain straight toward them. At once they all looked up the mountain searching for the cause of the sound. They could see trees moving back and forth like something was smashing its way through the middle of them.
The sound grew louder. They were about to jump out of the way of whatever it was that was rolling towards them when a giant broke through the trees. Followed by a second. Both of them had scrapes, bruises, and cuts on their faces and muscular arms. Both of them were holding swords.
The river elves stood frozen in shock, their mouths hanging open in the “I-can’t-believe-I’m-actually-seeing-giants” expression.
“Oliver! Evy!” Toby shouted, running to them. “What’s happening?”
“No… time… Toby,” Oliver said, gasping for breath. “You and… your friends need to… run... Now! We’ll hold them off… the best we can.”
“Hold who off?” Clygon shouted.
“Go! Now! Find the GOOD!” Evy yelled. “Our fate is now in your hands, Toby and Clygon. Go!”
Toby felt a hand grabbing his arm. It was Judah, apparently recovered from his initial shock.
Just as Toby was turning to run he saw them… dozens of giants and trolls, weapons drawn, hurtling their way down the mountain, with only Oliver and Evy to stop them.
“We can’t leave them,” Toby yelled as he tried to pull free from Judah. “They don’t stand a chance.”
Clygon grabbed him.
“Toby! The only chance they have is for you to find the GOOD and heal the Sword. Let’s go! They’re counting on you.”
As they ran along the river away from the battle and toward the trolls stronghold Toby could hear the clanging of swords and the cries of pain.
Anger mixed with despair filled him.
He let out a scream.
Something behind him exploded.
And then everything went dark.
(Coming Monday: Chapter 14—Hitting the Brakes)
Copyright 2024 Tim Wright.