Rise of the Fire Tamer (The Wordwick Games #1) (9 page)

Chapter 9

T
he road wound on, and Gem’s feet started to ache. Sparks had gone to the front of the column, while Kat and Jack lagged behind. Goolrick was nearby, while his men were spread out around the edges of the road. Gem couldn’t make up her mind if they were guarding against threats from the trees or making sure no one ran off. Rio, walking beside Gem, had been quiet for a while, but clearly he’d been thinking.

“What I don’t get,” he said, “is why we’re going this way. If we’re supposed to be fighting the Spurious tribe, shouldn’t we be marching for their village?”

Gem had been thinking about it too, and about what Henry Word had said about Anachronia. She turned to Goolrick.

“We’re heading for the dragon, aren’t we?”

The wizard seemed startled that she had guessed, but nodded.

“Yes. I thought that was the best way to proceed. We will need to face it at some point, and I hope… I hope that defeating it might give us the power to deal with Sebold and his tribe.”

Gem caught the hesitation. Goolrick obviously wasn’t entirely confident about defeating the other tribe. The plan made sense though, even if Gem wished that they had known about it earlier. She didn’t like the fact that Goolrick was keeping things from them. Rio clearly didn’t like it either.

“Is there anything else we should know about?” he asked. “Giant man-eating flowers, perhaps?”

“Oh, nothing like that.” Gem was worried about how matter-of-factly Goolrick said that. “Well, not around here, anyway. Of course, there’s the troll, but-“

“What troll?” Gem demanded. Before Goolrick could answer, the ground shook in a pounding rhythm.

“That troll, I’m afraid. I suppose we could turn back, but then…”

But then they wouldn’t be able to deal with the dragon. The only choice was to keep going, and Gem led the way, pressing forward along the road with the others struggling to keep up.

Another bend in the road revealed the troll, standing in front of an ornate gate of polished brass that in turn stood in a wall that stretched out into the forest. At least, Gem assumed it was the troll. It certainly looked very troll-ish. If the ogres before had been large and ugly, this made them look positively tiny, and positively handsome, by comparison. The troll was only just shorter than the trees, and heavily built with it. Its green skin was more like slime, scaly and warty, with only a pair of long shorts that could have served as a ship’s sail for clothing. Its face featured lank green hair, beady eyes, the longest nose Gem had seen, and a pair of oversized spectacles.

Hang on. That wasn’t right.

The ground shook some more as the huge creature stamped its feet.

“Sorry,” it boomed, in a voice that was probably making librarians a hundred miles away look round for someone to shush. “My legs have gone to sleep, what with waiting for someone to come and try to get past this gate.”

The others had caught up. From somewhere behind Gem, Sparks stifled a chortle.

“Don’t you laugh at me, tiny human!” the troll bellowed. “I am the test, and if you cannot pass, I will eat you one by one! Also, don’t try going around, because that wall goes for miles and your legs will get
really
tired.”

It didn’t look quite so funny when it was talking about eating them. Gem plucked up her courage as best she could.

“What sort of test?”

The troll nodded.

“That’s more like it. It’s all very straightforward, really. No one can pass through the gate,” the troll nodded to the huge gate blocking the road as though they might not have noticed it, “if they can’t use the ruler words properly. Now, I’ve got a list here somewhere…”

It fished around in the pockets of its shorts, pulling out a rather battered looking scroll.

“Just need my glasses now…”

It patted its pockets. Gem sighed.

“They’re on your nose.”

“What? Don’t be silly…oh, so they are. Right then. On this scroll, I have the ruler words. I want to hear five from each of you. If you tell me what they mean and show me that you can use them, then I’ll let you go through. If you fail, I get to eat you. Possibly with mustard.” The troll licked its green lips. It patted its pockets again before frowning slightly. “I don’t suppose any of you have any mustard, do you?”

There was a general silence that indicated that no one had any, or that, if they had, they didn’t particularly fancy being eaten with it. The troll made a rumbling sound of annoyance, then pointed one long green finger past Gem.

“Right, laughing boy can go first. Out you come.”

Gem wanted to push forward and say that she would go first, but there didn’t seem to be much point. They would all have to pass the troll’s test if they wanted to keep going. Sparks strode forward to stand before the creature, who tossed the scroll down to him casually. It nearly knocked the boy off his feet.

“Whenever you’re ready,” the troll said nastily. “I haven’t eaten human in ages.”

Gem saw Sparks unroll the scroll on the surface of the road and look it over.

“Well,” he said after a second, “there’s
boisterous
. That means loud and enthusiastic.” Sparks said the word, and for a moment it was like the air was filled with deafening trumpets. “There’s
renovation
, which is making something new or redoing it.” This time he drew his sword, and a few dents in the edges seemed to disappear. “There’s
evanescent
, which means not lasting long.” A bright light sprang up, but disappeared as fast as it had come. “There’s
divergent
, which means to move apart or go in different directions.” He picked up a stick, which split down the middle. “And there’s
convergence
, which is coming together.” Sparks tossed the whole again stick to one side. “Can I go through now?”

The troll pushed open the gate with bad grace, muttering something about kids today, who spent their time learning words when they could be learning how to make a decent sauce to be eaten in. With a glance back at Gem, Sparks stepped through.

Jack hurried forward next, and picked his words out quickly.
Asylum
, meaning a place of safety, made a bubble spring up around him.
Scrutinize
, or to look at carefully, gave them all a close up view of the troll’s features that Gem wasn’t sure she wanted.
Pretentious
, or being self important, made Jack look a lot bigger than he really was, while subtle, meaning shy, small and not showy, achieved the opposite. Finally, Jack chose
emulate
, or following someone else’s example, which made it look like there were two trolls for a moment. Gem noted that, while he rattled off the definitions quickly, Jack had chosen small, non-damaging things for his words, and had still jumped when he used them.

Kat seemed to take longer. Maybe it was just that her confidence didn’t seem to be there after everything that had happened. Finally, she picked out
foster
, meaning to promote or aid, which made her look a little better,
enervating
, meaning tiring, which made her look a
lot
worse,
aesthetic
, meaning pertaining to beauty, which made Kat seem very beautiful, and
superficial
, meaning shallow or concerned only with surface appearances, which made an image of Kat appear a little way away.

“One more,” the troll reminded her. Kat looked at the list for inspiration. To Gem, it seemed that she was taking a long time. Finally though Kat grinned.

“Oh,
surreptitious
, of course. It means secret,” she added as she faded from view. The troll opened the gate again, grumbling louder than ever. Gem looked to Rio, then stepped forward.

“My turn,” she said, smiling up at the troll, who didn’t seem very pleased now with his test.

“Oh, just get on with it.”

“Well, there’s
venerable
. That mean’s respectable because of age.”

“Hey!”

The troll suddenly sported a long gray beard.

“Oh, sorry,” Gem said, not particularly meaning it. “Would
precocious
help? It means gifted beyond your years, doesn’t it, so I suppose it would only apply to someone young.”

The beard fell out in a shower of gray hairs.

“Be more careful,” the troll grumbled. Gem kept going.

“There’s
orator
, that means speaker.” She heard her voice take on an almost musical tone. “There’s
capacious
, that means very large or spacious.” The troll seemed, if anything, even bigger. “And there’s
longevity
, which means long, particularly a long life. I’ll just-’

“Don’t you dare,” the troll snapped. “Not after last time. You can have that one. Go on. Through the gate with you.”

Gem went through to where Sparks, Kat and Jack were waiting. They seemed to be staring at the gate. It gate slammed after her.

“What is it?” Gem asked. Sparks nodded at the gate.

“Look.”

Gem glanced back, expecting to see only brass, but somehow she see through it from this side. Through it, she could see Rio perfectly well, working his way down the troll’s list. He didn’t seem very confident.

“Well, there’s…
hedonist
. That’s… that’s…”

“You don’t know it, do you?” the troll said.

“I do. I just…”

“Come on, come on,” the troll said.

“I didn’t pick the right word, that’s all,” Gem heard Rio say. “Let me choose another.”

“I’m getting hungry here, boy.”

“Me too.” Rio looked up at the troll. “And you know what? I have a really hard time remembering definitions when I’m hungry.”

“Well you’d better start remembering soon,” the troll snapped back. Gem knew she had to do something. But what? An idea came to her.

“Excuse me,” she yelled over the fence. “I have some food here, if it will help.”

Gem started at the feel of Sparks’ hand on her arm.

“What are you doing?” the boy demanded.

“Trying to help Rio. We can’t just leave him.” Louder, she called to the troll. “If you’ll let me back through the gate, I can give him the food and you’ll get your answer.”

It was quite disconcerting when the troll leaned its head over the wall, obviously standing on tiptoes.

“Why would I do that? What do I get out of it? Unless…”

“Whatever it is, don’t do it,” Sparks said. Gem just looked up at the troll.

“Unless…”

“If you come back through and the boy gets it wrong, as he will, I get to eat you both. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” Gem echoed. Sparks gave her an imploring look, but she hurried over to the gate, which opened to let her back through. She walked over to Rio slowly, trying to buy him time. That was what this was about, she was sure. After all, Rio had food of his own in his satchel.

“Any ideas?” she asked Rio, who just looked nervous. He took a swig out of his water bottle.

“I don’t know. I’ll look at the list again.”

He stared at it. He kept staring at it. Gem started to get a sinking feeling. She moved in close behind Rio, putting one hand on her bow, ready to draw it. She didn’t know if arrows would pierce that slimy troll hide, but she’d give it a good try if it came to it.

“Look,” Rio called up to the troll. “I can’t read this. I think I need like, glasses or something. So unless you’re willing to lend me yours...”

They were probably the size of a sofa. The troll looked disgusted.

“Oh, honestly. Do I have to do everything?” It reached down and snatched up the scroll with an impatient sound. “Very well.
I
will read out the words. If I get to the end and I still haven’t heard a definition from you, you and your little friend are no more than a snack. Now listen:
abate
,
abhor
abstain
,
arid
…”

The troll rumbled on. Gem tried to think of something. Something that would help against the troll. Hang on, arid meant very dry, didn’t it? And the troll was wet and slimy…

“
Arid
,” Gem said, pointing at the troll. It paused in its reading with a crackling sound.

What happened then looked to Gem a bit like one of those commercials you saw for moisturizers on TV, only in reverse. With a sound like tearing cardboard, Gem watched the creature’s skin dry, and dry, and finally crack. It made a hoarse gurgle, then fell over backwards into the gate. The gate resisted for a moment, then gave in, toppling over as quickly as the troll.

“Is it dead?” Goolrick asked, moving forwards.

“Yes, I think so,” Gem replied. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. It did mean though that there was now a conveniently troll sized hole in the gateway, which Goolrick’s men would be able to get through. Somehow, if dragons were worse than trolls, Gem had a feeling that they would need them.