Everfree NorthWest 2023 winding down and Chapter 9 of Bridge Troll · 4:55am Aug 14th, 2023
Everfree NorthWest is over for another year, the leftover books from Twilight’s Book Nook are all packed, and I missed it because I had to stay at home this week. Darnit. A reminder to anybody who purchased one of my books there or online at Ponyfeather Publishing: Drop me a direct message with your address and the books you bought and I’ll send you a signed bookplate. Oh, and I’ve got another chapter of Bridge Troll after the break. Enjoy, and see you next year there.
awesome! (picture snagged from Xepher)
Past Chapters of The Young Knight, the Fey Maiden, and the Bridge Troll
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
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It was good that Fetch had gotten into the habit of rising before the dawn while growing up in his village. The people of Forselt seemed to view the first peek of sunlight as the starting signal of a race, and the castle of the royal family was no exception.
Fetch had thought there was enough time before breakfast to get his list of things Quartz needed for the bridge written out in his best script, using the room’s beautifully flat and ornate desk with silver inkwell and griffon-feather quill. Unfortunately, he had barely gotten started when there was a knock at the door of his borrowed bedroom, followed almost immediately by a young serving girl breezing inside with a covered platter.
“Breakfast, m’lord, with the King’s apology that he has other matters to attend. Also, Prince Svenson has already departed for Sienna.”
At least he had his underthings, but caught without trousers, Fetch edged closer to the bed and looked fruitlessly for either his own clothes or Svenson’s loose loaners. He was most certainly not comfortable with his current state of near-undress in the presence of a young human lady, but thankfully the servant was practically ignoring the situation, or at least paying him a great deal of unearned respect.
“Your clothes were laundered last evening,” continued the young lady as she placed the platter down on a nearby table. “Andre will be bringing them up shortly.”
Fetch nodded, but was unable to resist adding, “Which keeps me from wandering the halls during King Sigmund’s meeting.”
“I would not have any idea what you mean.” The young lady swept the cover off the platter, revealing a beautiful meal, thankfully lacking in fish. “Will there be anything else?”
“No, thank you. Unless your cook wants to send along a little something for our trip,” he added quickly. “I understand we will be hosting the Royal Engineer at the bridge site today, and I would hate to inflict my cooking upon him after your king has been so kind and generous to us.”
* * *
Despite flying being far more fun, and faster, Fetch really considered riding a far better way of getting from here to there. Particularly with the food that King Sigmund’s cook had sent along. She must have thought Quartz was ten times his real size if the quantity of bread she sent was any indication, and to save the engineer from a most probable carnivorous troll, she had included enough meat to choke a wolf pack. Combined with the hardware samples that the elderly engineer had provided on short notice, and occasional bits from the three knights accompanying them, made their one pack mule look quite resigned to his burden.
The trip began so rapidly that Fetch really did not know any of the knights’ names other than the engineer was called Dent by the older of the knights instead of Edward like expected. In return, the knight was called Numbskull, which was probably not his real name either. Hopefully.
At least the horse that the stables had provided for his transportation was a relatively sedate mare. Miss Triana and Ottao preferred a much more brisk pace whenever they took Fetch for a mushroom-gathering ride in the nearby woods, and with only a saddle blanket to protect his sensitive rear. This saddle-equipped mare regarded their steady pace as perfectly normal, and able to be maintained for days if needed. True to the king’s word, the road was fairly smooth and well-maintained, or at least until they left the last scattered collection of farmhouses and headed into the forest’s edge. At that point, pounded gravel and small stone arch bridges yielded rather rapidly to a thin woodcutter’s path, requiring the three knights to ride ahead, followed by Fetch and the engineer side by side.
“Don’t get out often enough,” said Dent abruptly as they went under a low-lying branch. “Too much time in the workshop, not enough time with the missus. Don’t see how just one troll is going to throw a bridge over that crevice, no matter what he does.”
“He has plans written out,” said Fetch defensively. “I don’t understand them much, but he seems to know what he’s doing instinctively. Have you built many bridges, Mister Dent? Or Edward?”
“Just Dent. Edward’s for the royals, so they don’t treat me like one of the hired help,” he corrected as another low branch nearly swept Fetch out of his saddle. “Oy, there! Numbskull! Break out the axes and clear those branches back. Agravar’s gonna want a weekly trip up here from my boys, an’ I don’t want them lost in the woods, so make it show where we go! Bunch of city kids back at the shop,” he added under his breath. “Can’t tell a flange from a grommet. Won’t have two stones left on top of another by the time I return, an’ if I send ‘em out to your bridge, they’ll wander around out here for weeks, makin’ eyes at the local girls an’ drinking.”
It probably was not polite, but Fetch had to ask out of curiosity. “Do you have a steam engine back at your shop?”
The old gnome’s wrinkled face expanded out in a subdued smile. “Little one. More of a toy than anything. Won’t let Eller play with it no matter how he fusses. Ain’t gonna get the heir killed in my workshop. There’s talk about making a bigger one to run a loom or thresher, but oxen do that just fine and don’t blow up on you if’n the feed ain’t right. You ever seen one?”
Fetch nodded. “A group of engineers visited the lumber project close to my village. They had an engine that drove their boat, and one they tried to set up to drag logs to the river, but neither worked as well as they wanted, so they loaded the dragger back onto their boat and drifted back downstream.”
Giving a brief grunt of understanding, the old gnome reined in his mule and watched the three knights hack away at the overgrown trees. If there had been a fourth axe, Fetch would have gladly helped, but when he started to dismount, ‘Numbskull’ gave him a discouraging look, so he settled back down in the saddle instead.
Thankfully, the conversation continued as they moved onward down the path. Ten years ago when the Wizard’s Bridge was still intact, the road had been respectable if slightly thin for a person on foot. There would be quite a bit of work for Forselt to restore the path from the rocks and overgrown trees that had taken over since then, something that Fetch would take years to do by himself if he could even stay ahead of weather-related washouts and erosion, and then it would need expanding to wagon-sized when Quartz had his real bridge completed.
Sharing a portion of the resulting bridge tolls with both kingdoms made a lot more sense now. It took many people to make and maintain a road over time, much like it was taking more than one troll to build a bridge. In addition, a bridge by itself would not be very useful without roads going to it, or people to travel those roads. Quartz was from a city, so in all probability the roads were already nearby, or perhaps his father had negotiated with the city long before he was born.
“Every time I think I’ve learned something about life, I find two more things I don’t know,” he admitted to Dent.
“Children,” scoffed the old gnome. “By the time you reach my age, you will know absolutely nothing about everything. Then people call you wise.”
After considerable time and tree-clearing, the group emerged from the scrubby forest to the clear area around the crevice, leaving the last few bushes behind and feeling the cool sensation of air that had been around running water wash over him. It was very home-like, and Fetch relished the sensation even though the shadows were getting long and there was still a large amount of open space between him and their construction site.
“Finally!” Even though Fetch was used to having a huge troll around, there was considerable difference between his normal appearance and having said troll come climbing right up out of the crevice in front of him without warning. At least Quartz did not give him a hug. The rest of the group backed up several steps, though.
“Quartz,” continued Fetch rapidly before any misconceptions could set in. “This is Dent, the Royal Engineer for King Sigmund, and several of the king’s retainers.”
“Charmed,” rumbled Quartz, sticking out a massive grey hand that engulfed Dent’s arm to almost the elbow. “Wanna see my plans?”
* * *
Several minutes later, Fetch settled back into his domestic role by stowing part of their gifted food on the shelves in the stone home’s stables while Quartz showed off his plans to their new visitor. To be honest, he had not really expected the big troll to carry them both across one at a time, plus one trip for supplies, although with the way Prince Svenson took people for unexpected flights, the engineer may have suspected the trip. In any event, neither of them had screamed at the shock of being tucked under a troll’s arm and scooted down the ravine and up the other side, and the three knights on the other side of the river did not express any desire to experience the ride either, so all was well.
The knights had set to clearing the other side of the upcoming bridge and building a campsite much as if they did this kind of thing every day, with the two younger knights peeling out of their heavy armor and Sir Laris supervising their activity. Fetch had worked so long on this side of the bridge site that he had almost blocked out the concept of another side, much like he had not thought about the roads going to both sides. He was used to thinking his way around complicated scheduling at the village where each of the people needed help for different things at different times, but this required him to think even harder.
It was probably a good thing to learn. Quartz hired him mostly for his mind and only secondly for his strength. He remained quiet and thought deeply while the troll and gnome went over the bridge plans, hefty grey fingers proudly pointing and thin wrinkled fingers pointing out the occasional problems Quartz had missed. It was so entertaining that it took the feeling of thin wooden fingers prodding him in the side to shock Fetch out of his contemplative thoughts, and he turned to look Broom in the… um… handle, since she did not have eyes.
“Oh, Broom. This is a guest,” said Fetch out of habit. “Sir Edward, the Royal Engineer for King Sigmund, but he prefers to be called Dent.”
Since the gnome still had his back to them while concentrating on a problematic spar, Fetch really did not have anything else to say, but the broom seemed impressed. She straightened her bristles, gave the gnome a quick look, and vanished back into the stone house like she had never been there.
Several minutes later, the broom reemerged with a set of pale blue trousers and a loose blue shirt, which she held up next to the gnome, made some sort of disappointed clicking noise, then vanished back into the house again.
“What… was that?” asked Dent, who had just managed to catch sight of the broom before she vanished.
“Broom,” said Fetch. “She came with the house. We think the Wizard of the Bridge made her as a caretaker. She lets us use the stables and we don’t mess with the rock.”
Quartz patted the cool granite of the stone home. “We don’t think the Wizard’s been back here in a decade, but if’n he ever does, we’ll ask nice and purty if we can keep building my bridge.”
The gnome had a most disdainful snort of derision. “Seiki the Bastard has him under one thumb, he and his family both. Poor sot. Seems he was a fair lad up until he got tangled up in politics. Talked wit his mum a decade or so ago down in Rivers, back when he was caring for Princess Lub. Won’t admit it, but she’s proud as punch about him. Now that his family’s all tossed up in that mess, I’d imagine she’s worried stiff.”
There was a noise from the house’s open door and Fetch turned to see Broom frozen in place, still holding the pale blue outfit from before only with a slim needle and thread in one wooden hand. It was a shock to realize the thin outfit was most probably the nightclothes for the Wizard’s young son, and from the look of her, Broom was planning on altering them to fit the gnome’s similar size.
And she had probably heard their entire conversation.
It was still fairly dark out in the stables, but still light enough to catch the faint trembling of Broom’s handle before she vanished back into the house, leaving the door open behind her. Nobody said anything for a long time, but eventually Dent admitted, “I didn’t think enchanted objects could feel any emotions.”
“I’ll… go check on her,” said Fetch.
It was pitch dark inside the stone home, but not as dark as Fetch had feared. There were a few small flecks of glowing foxfire on obvious tripping and bumping hazards that kept him from breaking a foot while following the rustling sounds of bristles, across the main floor and up the staircase set into one side of the living space. Each step had a small bit of light associated with it, most probably to keep small toes from getting stubbed when the Wizard’s children descended from their bedrooms for late-night snacks or early-morning chores.
The noise led Fetch to a small bedroom, little more than a bed with a bookshelf and some wool rugs to keep the chill of stone from bare feet. The mattress was covered with a simple sheet and blue blanket, which Broom was tucking in with serious intent, repeating whenever the slightest flaw or crease became obvious.
“The Wizard and his family,” started Fetch for the lack of any better place. “You knew them for some time, correct?”
Broom nodded but her thin wooden fingers never quit fussing with the bedcovers.
“When they left, they didn’t take you with them because you probably would have driven the whole castle into nervous fits?”
Broom nodded again, but stopped retucking already tucked sheets. Fetch decided that was sufficient progress to move on to the obvious question.
“The Wizard was probably right,” he admitted. “Forselt seems to have struggled to accommodate a griffon and adopted prince, and they’re fairly open to odd things. Plock sounds like a place where they would have used you against your—” Fetch really did not know the next word, so he asked instead. “Do you consider them to be your family, too?”
After a long time, the broom nodded. Fetch looked around the empty room and considered his words carefully. “I’m certain the Wizard would approve of you housing our Royal guest for the night. He’s old enough that a mattress would be a far better bed than the hammock I brought back from Forselt. Although child’s nightclothes…” Fetch gave a long look at the pale blue outfit that Broom had dropped on the floor. “I’ll ask if he wants them.”
* * *
The next morning, Dent joined them for breakfast, yawning and stretching with no end of compliments about how comfortable he had slept and what a marvelous device the stone house was. Flattery was not as effective as Fetch wanted, because Broom showed no indication of letting any of them back into the house, not even the gnome, once he had stepped out the door to join them at the breakfast table/drafting table in the stable.
“The thing’s just a thing like a wind-up toy,” said Dent, waving a piece of oatcake on his fork. “I can understand why you don’t want to upset the Wizard, but he just left it behind to dust and water the plants.”
“There’s more to her than that,” said Fetch. “But, your mind’s made up, and nothing I say is going to change it, right?”
Dent stopped with his mouth open as if to rebut the missing argument, then finished off his oatcake. “Smart boy,” he admitted. “It’s gonna take more than smarts to get your bridge built. Putting it in this narrowing makes it easier to cross, but it’s gonna focus the water, erode the abutment, and eventually scour it to collapse. If’n there was a central span, it’d take a cutwater to protect it, so we’ll need a modified cutwater on each side to divert flow to the middle, an’ don’t get me started on how much wood it’ll take to build the false-works around the whole thing if’n you don’t want to build it one brick at a time an’ finish when you’re old n’ grey as Quartz.”
“No risk there,” chuckled Quartz. “He’s browning up under the sun pretty fair, ‘cept where that hat he got from his girl protects his ears.”
“It’s not her hat.” Fetch rearranged the aforementioned headgear to disguise the reddening of his ears. “Her father paid for it.”
“She picked it out,” said Quartz with a smirk. “Matches hers, don’t it?”
“When we take Nutmeg into town,” continued Fetch quickly, “I’ll get a list of things we still need from Quartz, and—”
“You ain’t goin’ with me,” said Dent. “I’ll circle around on the back road and come in from the side. You come with me and everybody will associate my visit with your bridge. Agravar won’t like that. Tongues will wag.”
“Yep,” said Quartz in an unmistakably good-natured fashion. “We don’t want wagging tongues, do we?”
Dent had a matching quirky smile. “But you do want brass thimbles, creosote-soaked timbers, and oak pulleys from Forselt, along with a pretty gravel road right up to the edge of your bridge so no wagons are gonna sink down into the mud, right?”
“Ain’t that the truth.” Quartz nodded. “Suppose them wagging tongues are a bad idea. Lots of time for people t’know about my bridge when it’s actually a bridge. Gettin’ ahead of myself. So is your fellers across the river gonna be alright wit your trip?”
The three knights on the other bank of the ravine had spent their time productively, with a leafy lean-to for shelter and a campfire for their meals. An outline of future development had been laid out in marked trees with pieces of colored string, and the horses had been restricted to a rudimentary corral.
“At home, they’d just be guardin’ doors and standing around lookin’ pretty for a week,” said Dent. “I’ll see ‘em when I get back. An’ see if’n you can find some more polite way of gettin’ across the river in the meantime.”
* * *
It felt good to settle back into a routine, even if the routine was something different every day. Quartz had decided to give each face of the crevice a full inspection, from top to bottom, one tap of the hammer and chisel at a time. Fetch had the task of raising and lowering a bucket for Quartz to deposit his rock samples into, which also was handy for lowering a bottle to give him a drink between rocks. At least Broom seemed to have softened her bristles, so to say, and provided several cold bottles of water during the process.
The chill was a little surprising, but welcome. The stone home obviously did not have anybody cutting ice in the winter, but magic undoubtedly compensated for the lack of an icehouse and a whole village turning out in the coldest day of winter to drink cider and harvest the frozen river. He missed the songs and feasting most of all, because the lumbermen took off the week from their log skidding and dragging to contribute to the festivities in their own way.
Fetch had learned some of the most… interesting songs during those times.
“Tha’s about it.” Quartz heaved himself up over the edge of the crevice. “Well, fer this side. Figure we’re gonna haf to carve away just a bit of overburden to make the cutguard go all the way up to the high water mark, but not much. If’n the other side matches, it’ll put us back about two weeks from my schedule, but Edward had it right and I was wrong. Don’ want ta’ put in that much work and have the bridge fall in a decade later. Done right this’ll last a century or two.”
“So… you want to check the other side too, then?” Fetch squinted to look across the crevice and waved at the knights, one of who waved back.
“Probably tomorrow. Gettin’ pretty late and don’t want to be caught halfway up the wall when it gets dark.”
* * *
And the next day went much the same, only with the advantage of talking to the knights while hauling the sample bucket up and down. Most of them could not tell the difference between the varieties of granite, but Sir Godfreed was in charge of the engineers in the field, so he had a wealth of knowledge about the stability of ground and the breaking strength of catapult crossbars.
There were enormous similarities between siege structures and bridge falseworks, the most common factors being wood, rope, and work. It probably would have been twice as easy to build the bridge completely out of wood except for rot, fire, and tall floods eroding the pilings anyway, which somewhat defeated the concept of a wooden bridge in the first place if all you could do was watch it float downstream. Wood was more for military constructions, tossed up in a hurry and used to defend against attacks.
To be honest, Fetch was cooling on the concept of becoming a knight fairly rapidly. It was not just the violence done at another’s command, but the idea of destroying instead of creating. He understood just exactly why the knights existed, because without them a neighboring kingdom could just stroll in and kill anyone who stood in their way much like Seiki’s men had when invading his village.
The sticking point with becoming a knight was he had been raised to help instead of hurt, and a bridge would help a large number of people without hurting anyone. After the bridge was complete and Quartz settled in for a long career of collecting tolls, perhaps Fetch could find peaceful jobs in both kingdoms, using his new skills and knowledge to solve larger problems and make the lives of the people better.
Sir Godfreed was less than optimistic about the idea, once Fetch had the courage to bring it up.
“It’s foolish, but you’re young, and you’ll learn better,” the old knight said, rubbing his smooth chin. “Workin’ for two masters makes you a point of contention, and each one of ‘em will want to bend you in their direction. You ain’t little Princess Adriana, making eyes at all the young eligible men. Pick one and stick with it, like I did with my wife.”
As much as Fetch tried to ignore it while pulling the most recent bucket of stone chips up for Quartz, his ears burned with embarrassment, and Sir Godfreed was far too experienced to pass it off as sunburn.
“Don’t tell me you’ve got eyes for Tully’s little girl,” he said practically under his breath and with a glance over his shoulder to make sure his two subordinates were off doing their tasks. When Fetch did not respond more than to dump the stone chips into another container and start lowering the bucket to Quartz again, the old man chuckled. “Oh, you’ve got it bad.”
“I do not,” hissed Fetch, and let out the rope just a little faster than he intended, which made Quartz far below give out a surprised guttural curse, most likely from having caught an empty bucket to the face.
Thankfully, Sir Godfreed did not laugh any more, or add in any disparaging remarks about a mere peasant having aspirations far above his station. Instead, he just looked thoughtful and changed the subject to martial matters instead of marital aspirations.
I still have my copy of Sisters! from the BC Bookstore but really should get a copy of the seapony set. It seems fitting to have a copy since I helped edit the first one ^^;
I'll drop you a DM soon I swear.
5742093 'Drifting' was one of the few books I produced that had such good comments from the editors that I had to include them in the back. You and Tek together (even virtual in a document) are a riot, and an absolute pleasure to work with. I owe you both a great deal.
5742103
You lovely sweetheart. It was a delight working with everyone on such a great story n_n
I reread Drifting the other day and I had completely forgotten you included a bunch of our comments (Including the one of me asking they be saved in some format.)