“I’m your mother,” the woman said, crying. “Please don’t kill him. He’s your brother.”

For one instant, it seemed as if Gregor was going to ignore her pleas. But his gauntleted fists detached from the highwayman’s neck. He stood up, ripped off his helmet, marched over to where Terry, Maurice, and Arabelle were watching and grabbed the standard.

“I’ll deal with you later,” he growled at the woman, who was standing behind his friends.

Then he marched back to the middle of the clearing, where the highwayman was lying still.

“I am your general,” he shouted to his army, “and this is your standard! We fight for the king!”

There was an uneasy pause. Then someone shouted “Liar!” Then someone else did. They were a sea of mean and sullen faces.

“The king will kill us for traitors! Our only chance is to fight,” someone shouted

“You’re not traitors!” Teresa shouted from the side. “The king doesn’t think you’re traitors!”

“Says the head traitor!”

One member of the army seemed to have taken it to himself to be the leader of the rabble and stepped into the clearing. His tunic was slightly cleaner than the others, and he had an intelligent face. Terry addressed him.

“It was all a horrible trick by the wizard,” Terry said. “Who I killed. Then I talked to the king, my father. All is forgiven—better than forgiven because the king understands you and I did nothing wrong in the first place. It was the wizard’s trick!”

“Prove it,” the leader of the rabble said.

The highwayman moaned and twitched on the ground.

“Oh, thank heavens he’s alive!” his mother said, and rushed to his side. “Doesn’t anyone have a healing potion?” she pleaded as she knelt by her son, removing his helmet gently.

Maurice looked uneasily at Gregor. Gregor nodded reluctantly, then addressed the army again.

“We shall prove that we have the blessing of the king. I will return with a declaration from the king, bestowing on you the official responsibility to purge the forest of trolls and ogres. We must do so quickly, or every forest village will fall!”

The army—or, rather, rabble—muttered amongst themselves.

“If we leave them, they’ll all melt into the forest by nightfall, and the monsters will have free reign for a fortnight,” Arabelle murmured to Terry. “Or forever, if they get a real foothold”

“But they won’t fight without the king’s permission,” Terry replied. “We have to go get it. And it has to come from Gregor.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

The highwayman sat up. Gregor eyed him.

“Don’t kill him,” his mother cried again.

“I’m not going to kill him!” Gregor shouted. “If I was going to, I would have!”

Then he did a surprising thing. He lifted up the highwayman and grabbed him by the shoulders.

“Only you can keep them here until I return,” Gregor said.

“Why should I?” the highwayman responded, weakly.

Gregor’s mouth twitched. “As a favor to your brother,” he said, and then turned serious. “Look. I spared you. Now keep them here or we will lose this forest to trolls for a generation. You don’t want to have to rob trolls for gold, do you? It rarely works out.”

The highwayman coughed weakly. “I’ll do it,” he said. “Listen, do you know this woman calling herself our mother?”

“No,” Gregor said. “I thought I was an orphan.”

“Me too.”

“Tell your rabble to remain here until we return,” Gregor said.

“We will fight—” the highwayman said, addressing the rabble’s leader—“under Gregor. But not until he returns with proof that we have the blessing of the king! And 10 gold coins for each soldier!”

“10 gold coins for each soldier from the king!” the rabble leader shouted in glee. “Hip—hip—”

“HOORAY!”

A great shout echoed through the crowd and Terry tried to keep her face expressionless. The king was going to love that. Gregor looked over at Terry. She shrugged. “Armies are expensive,” she murmured to Arabelle.

“Will the king pay it?” Arabelle asked.

“I think so,” Terry said. “I hope so. We’ll figure it out.”

The four companions took their farewells. Gregor studiously avoided the woman who was claiming to be his mother.

“We’ll be back in 24 hours,” Gregor said to the highwayman. “Hold them together.”

“What about her?” the highwayman said, gesturing with his head towards their supposed mother.

“Figure it out,” Gregor said. “She’s the least of my worries right now. You owe her more than I do--you talk to her.”

As they took their leave, Maurice said to the highwayman, “What is your name, anyway?”

“Oh, good question,” Arabelle said. “I’d been wondering.”

“It’s George,” the highwayman said.

“Better name for a general than a highwayman,” Gregor said, and George seemed a touch flattered.

The four of them began their day’s journey through the woods, hoping to return not too much after nightfall. They slipped through the forest as fast and silently as they possibly could, with minimal discussion, focused on the urgency of their mission. They were making good time, and Terry was mentally preparing how to break it to her father that she had just spent a good chunk of the treasury on raising this rabble army, when the echo of many marching feet came to their ears. The four of them looked at each other, knowing they could not fight an army. Then they scattered. Maurice and Terry swung into the nearest tree, while Gregor and Arabelle faded back a few dozen paces and put their bellies to the dirt.

Stomp

Stomp

Stomp

It was an army of trolls, crashing through the forest. They seemed to have quickly regrouped after the wizard’s sudden demise. As they marched they sang a horrible song.

Feast! Feast! Feast!

On human flesh

Drink! Drink! Drink!

The human blood

One for wine and one for food!

Evil will defeat the good!

The trolls were sickly pale and taller than the average human, with much larger and hairless heads and swollen bellies. Their hairy, pointed ears stuck out, batlike, from their grotesque skulls, and their eyes were baleful and fish-like in their bulbous foreheads. Their mouths were just a gash in their face, with pointed teeth that gleamed wickedly. Monstrous as they were, their hands were human-like and so they preferred to use human weapons for battle, though they did not go for defensive armor—most just wearing a loincloth. Their tough and ugly troll feet did not need shoes for protection. A gagging stench rose off of them, and Terry and Maurice choked in the tree.

They marched for an interminably long time, and when they finally passed the silence had a shocked quality to it, as if the forest itself was horrified at this intrusion. The four of them waited as long as they dared before regathering.

“I think George is in trouble,” Gregor said.