The Swivel-Eyed Ogre-Thing Read online

  “You’re not wrong there,” agreed Scumbo.

  Wesley closed the book and shoved it back up his sleeve. “Paradise could use those unique odours to find the missing trolls!”

  Ben stifled a laugh. “Like a dog you mean?”

  “Oi, watch it,” Paradise warned, shooting him one of her scary looks. She shrugged. “I suppose it might work.”

  “Then all we have to do is find a sample of their scent,” Wesley said.

  “And where are we going to find that?” asked Paradise.

  Scumbo realised they were all staring at him. “What you looking at me for? How’m I supposed to know?”

  Paradise rolled her eyes and sighed. “Because you’re a troll.”

  “Oh,” said Scumbo. “Yeah. Fair point.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I know where to go,” announced Ben. He took a torch from a nearby wall and held it out to light the way. “Paradise, find us a bridge!”

  The four figures trudged along through the dark, tripping and stumbling on the uneven ground. The moon had long since ducked behind the summit of Mount Nochance, the most imposing mountain in all the four kingdoms.

  The mountain was so named because “no chance” was usually the first thing anyone said if someone suggested climbing it. Even the most hardened of explorers would take one look at its craggy slopes and cloud-covered peak, then immediately develop a nosebleed and remember they really had to be somewhere else.

  Over the centuries a few brave souls had summoned the courage to begin the long climb to the top, but none – as of yet – had ever come back down again. At least, not without making a messy splat at the bottom.

  Wesley walked at Ben’s side, so close that their shoulders were practically touching. He was startled by every sound beyond the circle of light cast by the flame of the torch, and Ben could feel him jump with every noise they heard.

  Whooo!

  “What was that?”

  “An owl,” said Ben.

  Chirp-chirp-chirp!

  “Crickets,” Ben said, before Wesley could even ask.

  RAAAAAAR!

  “What was that one?” Wesley yelped.

  “No idea,” Ben admitted.

  “Sorry,” said Paradise. “That was me. Couldn’t resist.”

  Wesley gasped. “That’s just cruel!”

  “How much further is it?” asked Ben. He’d been right up for an adventure, but as adventures went this one had been really boring so far.

  “We’ve only been walking for ten minutes,” Paradise said. “And that’s the third time you’ve asked that.”

  “Is that all?” Ben groaned. He trudged on a few more paces. “How much further is it?”

  Paradise shook her head. “Not far. We’re nearly at Bibkin’s Trickle.”

  “What’s Bibkin’s Trickle?” asked Ben.

  “Oh no. It’s a monster, isn’t it,” whimpered Wesley. “It’s a horrible big monster that will—”

  “It’s a stream,” Paradise said. “With a bridge over it.”

  Wesley let out a sigh of relief. “Oh, that Bibkin’s Trickle,” he said, then he stopped abruptly.

  “What’s up?” asked Ben.

  “Sssh!”

  Paradise sighed. “What’ve you heard now? A man-eating badger? A killer squirrel?”

  “Don’t. Move. A muscle,” Wesley whispered, and there was something in his voice that made the others stand up straight and pay attention.

  Ben brought the torch closer to Wesley’s face. The wizard looked in a state of mild panic most of the time, but now his expression was like a mask of pure fear. His eyes darted across the ground ahead of them. Despite the cool night air, a bead of sweat trickled down his forehead and dripped from the end of his nose.

  “What is it?” asked Ben. “What’s wrong?”

  “G-give me the torch,” Wesley whispered. He took it from Ben and bent low, slowly sweeping the flickering glow across the road ahead. Down near the ground at the very edge of the light’s circle, two bulging red eyes reflected back at them.

  Ribbit.

  “It’s a frog,” said Paradise flatly.

  “You nearly gave me a flamin’ heart attack!” gasped Scumbo.

  “N-not a frog,” Wesley whimpered. “It’s a t-toad.”

  “Are you getting toads mixed up with something else?” Paradise wondered. “Like bears or tigers or something? I mean, they’re not exactly terrifying.”

  While Paradise had been talking, Wesley had carefully lifted a small stone from the ground. With a flick of his wrist he tossed it towards the toad. It bounced off its head with a faint plink.

  A second later, the toad exploded. It went off like a bomb blast, spraying fire and guts in all directions at once. A chunk of slimy leg splattered across Paradise’s face, and the force of the bang knocked all four of them backwards off their feet.

  Once the smoke had cleared Paradise looked shakily across at the others. “That whole not terrifying thing. Is it too late to take that back?”

  Ben helped the others to their feet. “You’ve got toad on you,” he told Paradise. She pulled the leg off her forehead with a gloopy schlop, then shuddered in disgust.

  “An Explodi-Toad!” said Wesley. “I knew it. They blow up at the slightest touch.”

  “So you thought you’d chuck a rock at it,” said Paradise. “Genius plan, Wesley.”

  “I had to be sure,” Wesley whispered. “Because, well you see, the thing is…”

  He inched forwards and held the torch out before him. Dozens of little eyes reflected back at them through the gloom.

  Ribbit.

  Ribbit.

  Ribbit.

  “Explodi-Toads never travel alone.”

  Ben nodded. “So we just avoid touching any more of them and we should be fine, right?”

  He took a few careful steps along the path, but Wesley grabbed him before he could go any further.

  “No!” the wizard warned. “You don’t understand. They’re rarely seen out in the open like this. They usually live underground.”

  “And…?” said Ben, not understanding.

  “Just a few centimetres underground to be exact,” Wesley continued. “They hide right below the surface, out of sight. If you step on one…”

  “Then it’s bye-bye Ben,” Paradise realised.

  “If it sets off a chain reaction then it’s bye-bye all of us,” Wesley said. “We have no choice. We have to turn back.”

  “We’ll find another way around then,” Ben agreed. They all turned, slowly and carefully. Several more sets of eyes blinked at them from the darkness up ahead.

  Ribbit.

  Ribbit.

  Ribbit.

  “Right, so that’ll be us surrounded then,” realised Ben. “Anyone got any ideas?”

  “We stand here and don’t move,” suggested Wesley.

  “For how long?”

  Wesley chewed a fingernail. “Forever?”

  “I’m standing downwind of Scumbo,” Paradise pointed out. “There’s no way I’m standing here forever. What about your glove?”

  Ben looked down at the gauntlet. The flickering torchlight made the metal look alive. “What about it?”

  “Can’t you summon up a portal that’ll suck all these things through?”

  “I suppose I could try,” said Ben. “If you don’t mind having dozens of exploding toads come flying past your head at a hundred miles an hour.”

  “What about you?” Scumbo grunted at Wesley. “You’re a wizard, aren’t you? Can’t you magic them away?”

  “P-probably not,” Wesley confessed. “I’ve tried to use magic to help us in the past.”

  “He tried to fight off a pack of monsters,” Paradise said. “But instead he made custard.”

  “Quite a small amount,” Ben added.

  “Well I’d like to see either of you two make custard out of thin air,” Wesley sniffed.

  “I’ve never had custard,” said Scumbo. “What’s it like?”

 
; “Not bad, actually,” said Wesley. “If you make it right it’s quite creamy and—”

  “Is this really the best time to discuss desserts?” asked Paradise. She waited until she was sure they’d stopped talking, then turned and pointed to a spot on the ground around ten metres ahead of them. “There’s one there,” she said. “We can go around it, then there’s another one a bit further up on the left.”

  “You’re not going to try to go through them!” Wesley gasped.

  “I can find a safe path,” Paradise said. “I can find anything.”

  “But one false step and we go boom!”

  “Well you’d better not make a false step, then.”

  “Are those two the closest ones?” asked Ben, stepping between his friends.

  Paradise nodded.

  “Right then,” Ben said, scooping up a handful of gravel, “we can just do this.”

  He tossed the stones into the darkness ahead of them, then hurled himself to the ground, pulling Wesley and Paradise with him. Scumbo stood blinking in surprise. When he heard the gravel rain down he clamped his hands over his ears, yelped in panic, and dropped like a sack of potatoes.

  KA-BA-BOOOOM!

  It wasn’t an explosion exactly. It was more like an eruption, as if the world itself were suddenly vomiting up flame and rock and soggy lumps of smouldering toad. The noise was like nothing they had ever heard. It shook their teeth and rattled their bones and filled their heads with its thunder. Pebbles fell like hailstones around them, quickly followed by a heavy downpour of warm amphibian guts.

  When the world was still again, they all stood up shakily. They took a moment to scoop the toady mush from their ears, and flick the worst of it out of their hair, before any of them finally spoke.

  “You maniac!” cried Paradise. “You almost blew us all to pieces!”

  Ben grinned. “Almost blew us all to pieces is just another way of saying didn’t blow us all to pieces,” he said. “Any left?”

  Paradise shook her head in disbelief, then turned and pointed somewhere off to their left. “One or two that way,” she said. “But the bridge is over in that direction.”

  “Nice one,” said Ben. “Lead the way!”

  Through everything, the torch had somehow managed to stay lit. Paradise took it, then set off across the gut-drenched, pot-holed ground. Ben followed, with Wesley and Scumbo slipping and sliding through the gutty mush behind him.

  “So,” said Scumbo, flicking a tiny toad eyeball off Wesley’s shoulder. “What was that you was sayin’ about custard?”

  As they approached the bridge, Ben wondered if it had been worth all the bother. It was barely three metres long, and had been thrown together out of old wood and bits of scrap metal. The bridge was more or less humpbacked – higher in the middle than it was at the ends – but it leaned heavily to one side, as if threatening to throw itself into the water below. There was barely a breath of wind, and yet the bridge creaked and groaned like it was being battered by a hurricane.

  “There she is,” breathed Scumbo, his yellow eyes sweeping across the misshapen planks. “What a beauty. Have you ever seen anything like it?”

  “No,” said Ben, with absolute honesty. “I have never seen anything like that.”

  There were four unlit torches attached to four metal poles near the bridge. Ben used his own flame to light them, and Wesley visibly relaxed as a widening circle of light pushed away the darkness. Wesley glanced at the bridge, then glanced at it again, as if not quite believing what he’d seen the first time.

  “What a dump,” said Paradise.

  “Well now, I wouldn’t call it a dump,” said Wesley.

  “What would you call it, then?”

  Wesley studied the bridge again. “A deathtrap?” he ventured, after some consideration.

  “There’s nothing wrong with it!” protested Scumbo. “Solid as a rock this.” He shook one of the handrails to prove his point. It immediately fell off and plunged into the stream. They all watched it float off until it was lost to the dark. Scumbo cleared his throat. “That bit’s meant to do that,” he said, then he slowly backed away and rejoined the others.

  Reassured by the torchlight, and by the glow of the moon that had once more popped out from behind Mount Nochance, Wesley began to explore. He ventured down to the edge of the stream and watched the water babble on by. “So this is Bibkin’s Trickle,” he said. “You know, some experts believe it might have been named after someone called ‘Bibkin’.”

  “Really?” yawned Paradise.

  “Yes indeed,” Wesley continued. “Although there’s some debate over it.”

  “That’s fascinating stuff,” Paradise said.

  “It is, isn’t it?” Wesley agreed. “Some believe that ‘Bibkin’ was in fact an old word meaning ‘brook’ or ‘stream’ and that actually someone named ‘Trickle’ may be responsible for the naming—”

  “Goblin!” cried Paradise.

  With a yelp, Wesley came hareing up the bank and leapt into Ben’s arms. “Wh-where?”

  Paradise fought back a smirk. “Oh no. False alarm,” she said, as innocently as she could.

  Ben set Wesley down, then strode over to the bridge and peeked beneath it. There was a narrow space just a metre or so wide between the start of the bridge and the edge of the water. Peering in, Ben could see a rumpled blanket in there, half-buried in the mud. It was the only sign that anyone had ever been living there.

  “Definitely no troll,” he said. “Just an old blanket.”

  He ducked lower and began to clamber into the gap. “You’re not seriously going in there!” gasped Wesley. “It might be dangerous.”

  “It’s OK, Wes. I’m pretty sure I can handle a blanket.”

  “Although you did get knocked unconscious by a slice of toast last month,” Paradise reminded him. She smiled sweetly. “Just saying.”

  Ben ducked into the shadows beneath the bridge and Paradise followed. Scumbo stuck close to them, leaving Wesley to quickly squeeze in behind the troll. “Don’t leave me out there by myself,” he said, before a cheeky parp from Scumbo forced him back.

  “You really need to see someone about that,” Paradise wheezed, pulling the neck of her tunic up to cover her mouth.

  “Nah, we’re all a bit on the gassy side, us trolls,” Scumbo said, and he sounded quite proud of the fact. “What’s really special about a troll guff is it’s lighter than air, so it always wafts gently upwards into the nostrils.”

  Paradise coughed and wiped tears from her eyes. “I think both mine just melted.”

  Ben squatted down and examined the blanket. It was soaking wet and caked with slippery mud. “Looks like the water got to it,” he said.

  “Great,” sighed Paradise, pinching her nose. “So between the stream washing the scent away and him farting the place up, there’s no trail for me to follow.”

  “Can’t you get some sort of reading off the blanket or something?”

  Paradise looked doubtful, but held out a hand. “Give it here and I’ll try.”

  Ben dragged the blanket out of the mud and passed it to her. Dirty water drizzled from it and dribbled its way back into Bibkin’s Trickle. On the ground, right where the blanket had been, Ben spotted a shape pressed into the mud. He studied it from all angles, trying to figure out what it was.

  It was a large sort of triangle shape, with four knobbly ovals up near the widest end. Each oval was larger than the one on its left, and Ben couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something strangely familiar about the outline.

  “Nothing,” said Paradise. “The water’s washed it clean. I’m not getting anything from it.”

  “Look at this,” said Ben. Paradise and Scumbo joined him in staring down at the imprint.

  “Cor,” said Scumbo. “That’s big, innit?”

  “What is it?” asked Paradise.

  Slowly, Ben looked from the shape to his own left foot. Without a word, he placed his heel into the pointy end of the triangle. The
tip of his boot barely reached a quarter of the way along to the ovals, which he now knew had to be toes.

  Wesley’s head popped up over Scumbo’s shoulder. “What we looking at?” he asked, then he spotted the footprint in the mud.

  “Must’ve been one big troll,” Ben whispered.

  Scumbo shook his head. “That ain’t no troll footprint,” he said. “Trolls only got three toes.”

  It was Paradise who eventually asked the question that was on all their minds. “So what is it?”

  “Whatever took the trolls must have made it,” Ben said. He turned to Wesley. “Any ideas?”

  Wesley puffed out his cheeks. “Run away screaming?” he suggested.

  “I meant any ideas on what made that?”

  “Yes!” Wesley yelped. “Something massive and terrifying that will almost certainly kill us.”

  Ben looked to Paradise. “Can you find whatever made this footprint?”

  “Please say no,” Wesley squeaked.

  Paradise shifted uncomfortably. “I’m not sure I really want to,” she said, but she edged past Ben and knelt down in the mud. Her fingers traced the contours of the footprint and her eyes closed over. A frown flickered across her brow as she tried to get a lock on the owner of that foot.

  “Anything?”

  “I don’t … I’m not … maybe,” Paradise said. Her forehead furrowed as she concentrated harder. “I’m picking up something, it’s just…”

  “What?”

  “It’s just, I don’t know. It’s moving fast. Really fast.”

  “Yeah, that doesn’t help us at all,” said Ben. “We need to know where it is.”

  “Give me a minute!” Paradise said. She focused, and groaned with the effort. “It’s…”

  Ben leaned in. “Yes?”

  “It’s…”

  “Yes?”

  Paradise’s eyes flicked wide. She stared, first at Ben, then at the footprint. “Oh no,” she said, in a voice that could barely be heard above the babbling of the stream.