The Great Troll War

Troll Defence

Lady Mawgon was in charge of the Operations Room, which was just down the hall and opposite the main reception. The converted reading room was now full of desks, telephones and hastily employed clerks who were taking calls from the network of observers dotted around the country. All the information came through Mawgon, who decided what was relevant and necessary as opposed to what was hearsay and exaggeration. At the same time, she coordinated the regional resistance groups.

‘Good evening, Lady Mawgon,’ I said. ‘How are things looking in the Troll defence network?’

She was ex-Zambini Towers, one of the few who had escaped the Troll/Shandar attack. She and I had not really got along until this moment of National Jeopardy, following which she had transformed herself – I hope permanently – from ‘openly hostile’ to ‘mostly disapproving’, a huge step forward.

‘The situation is not looking favourable, Miss Strange.’

She’d get round to calling me ‘Jennifer’ eventually, and perhaps even ‘Jenny’, if either of us lived that long. Lady Mawgon curtsied to the Princess, whose new role as Queen had got about, and made a short speech of loyalty, then nodded respectfully to Once Magnificent Boo, who she saw not just as a mentor in the mystical arts, but the finest exponent of the often tricky art of looking perpetually moody without really trying.

Lady Mawgon moved to where there was a large map of the UnUnited Kingdoms on the wall. She didn’t so much walk as drift across the room. I knew for a fact she wore roller skates under her large black crinoline dresses, an odd affectation that softened her a little in my and Tiger’s eyes.

‘We’ve just heard that Wales has finally fallen,’ she said, pointing at the map with her stick, ‘and the last two hold-outs of the Duchy of Portland Bill and the economic City State of Financia surrendered last week rather than be eaten. The only part of the UnUK at liberty aside from this tip of Cornwall is the Seagoing Nation of the Isle of Wight, but they will not be of any help: in their eagerness to get away they ran themselves aground on Iceland in the fog.’ She paused for a moment. ‘So aside from a few pockets of resistance where they had either hidden up trees or are marooned on islands, the UnUnited Kingdoms are now Greater Trollvania.’

‘To them,’ said Tiger. ‘The United European Nations will never accept the Troll as legal owner of islands that were invaded against their will.’

‘Actually,’ said Lady Mawgon, ‘that’s exactly what the UEN did. It really is now known as Greater Trollvania. I think it was part of a deal whereby the Trolls didn’t further their territorial ambitions into Europe.’

We stared at the map of the UnUnited Kingdoms for a moment. We really were on our own.

‘If it only took two weeks to conquer the entire UnUnited Kingdoms,’ I said slowly, ‘the biggest question is why they haven’t done it since the Romans last expelled them beyond the Great Troll Wall in AD 130.’

‘The Wall was designed to keep them out,’ said Monty, ‘and as far as anyone knows, they never once tried to invade us – all the Troll Wars since then were instigated by humans.’

‘As a precautionary measure against the Trolls attacking?’ asked Tiger.

‘It was more likely so Daddy and others could sell shedloads of military hardware,’ said the Princess sadly. ‘Nothing like exaggerating a non-existent threat to sell rocket launchers, field artillery and a few hundred landships.28’

It had long been suspected this was the case. The King of Snodd’s Useless Brother had once tried to declare war on the ocean so he could sell thousands of his ‘anti-sea’ artillery shells – all guaranteed to hit the target with one hundred per cent accuracy. But Monty was right. The Trolls hadn’t once tried to invade in nearly two thousand years.

‘They are a distraction to aid Shandar’s plans,’ said Full Price. ‘With the Kingdoms under the heel of the Troll, no one could oppose him.’

‘That sounds logical,’ I said. ‘Carry on with your report, please, Lady Mawgon.’

‘Our observers have been reporting in hourly,’ said Mawgon. ‘Estimates vary but it looks as though there are currently two million Trolls in the Kingdoms and their numbers are still rising.’

She pointed at Trollvania on the map – everything north of the Troll Walls. There were two walls, the second about ten miles north of the first, reputedly the result of a mix-up during the wall-building contract-tendering stage. They ran roughly from the River Clyde in the west to Stirling in the East. Mawgon explained that although the area north of the walls was large in size,29 the number of Trolls ever seen from the air on photo reconnaissance missions was nil.

‘Where are they coming from?’ asked Monty.

‘We don’t know,’ said Lady Mawgon, ‘but it explains why the last five Troll Wars have resulted in utter defeat and failure: the visible number of Trolls was always low, yet their numbers were massive when attacked.’

We mused on this for a moment.

‘What about Shandar’s interest in Quarkbeasts?’ I asked.

‘While I was being held for ransom in the Cambrian Empire,’ said Once Magnificent Boo, ‘Quarkbeasts from all over the planet were being traded, cajoled, trapped and tricked into returning to the UnUnited Kingdoms in Shandar’s private aircraft. There are thirty-six of them in total and I think we should assume he’s almost got the full set.’

‘Quark,’ said the Quarkbeast, who was under the table, licking the chrome off an aircraft’s undercarriage he had found.

We all fell into silence after this, thinking about just how bad this might be.

‘Oh, I get it,’ said the Princess, who was lagging behind. ‘Shandar wants to harness not just the power of a pair of Quarkbeasts conjoining – but all thirty-six together.’

‘And focus all that power into himself with the Eye of Zoltar,’ I added.

Monty gave a low whistle and even the Mysterious X seemed to glow more brightly in his Kilner jar for a moment. It would be an awesome amount of wizidrical power. And given that Shandar was already powerful, it would put him on another level entirely.

‘How much crackle are we talking about?’ asked Tiger.

‘With all thirty-six conjoining simultaneously,’ said Lady Mawgon, ‘there would be about 2.1 TeraShandars.30 Enough to do some pretty strong magic – but he must need every possible ounce of power if he wants your Quarkbeast as well.’

‘Wait a minute,’ I said, recalling an earlier conversation with Once Magnificent Boo, back when I first met her at her home – a sort of refuge for abused Quarkbeasts, ‘didn’t you say that as soon as the combinations are fulfilled, they will come together and merge into a single Quota of fully Quorumed Quarkbeasts, and all the great unanswered questions of the world will be answered?’

‘I did indeed,’ said Boo, ‘but I wasn’t expecting this.’

‘2.1 TeraShandars is a lot of power,’ mused Full Price, ‘enough to achieve world domination.’

‘Is that what he’s after?’ asked the Princess.

‘Megalomaniacs generally are, ma’am,’ said Lady Mawgon. ‘It’s very tiresome. We’ll assume it’s what he wants until we know otherwise.’

‘It might explain,’ I said, ‘why he was willing to sit out most of the last three centuries as stone: so he could wait until there were thirty-six pairs of Quarkbeasts, then harvest the awesome power of a mass conjoinment to feed his plans for planetary conquest.’

‘So the Quarkbeast was simply a Wizidrical Energy generating device?’

‘Looks like it.’

‘There’s a problem here,’ said Full Price, ‘2.1 TeraShandars is big, sure, but could only maintain world domination for about a year – maybe two if you economise on palaces, go for a less extensive wardrobe and cut out crowd-pleasing yet pointless demonstrations of power.’

‘Even a year of being World Emperor is still four months and three days longer than anyone else has managed.’

‘Maybe he’s going for the record,’ said Tiger.

‘It’s possible,’ said Boo, ‘but there are easier ways of getting into the Guinness Book of Records.’

‘He’ll be in for a sticky end once his power fades,’ said Full Price. ‘There’s a very good reason why there isn’t a murderous ex-megalomaniacs club.’

‘I have a question,’ said the Princess.

‘Go on.’

‘Shandar already has tons of power. Teleportation, setting up that HENRY, helping the Trolls, turning in and out of stone, destroying Zambini Towers, that sort of thing, right?’

‘Right.’

‘So why does he need to negotiate with us at all? If he’s so powerful, he could just kill us all and take the Quarkbeast. We have no magical powers to counter him, and even if he couldn’t or doesn’t want to kill us, he could just remove the Quarkbeast spookily, quietly, and without us even noticing. I can understand why he asked us to get the Eye of Zoltar as he wanted us out the way, but his recent demands? We’re missing a trick here.’

This was a very good point.

‘He must have a vulnerability,’ I said, ‘something that can stop, alter or ruin his plans. And if that’s so, it’s something we can exploit.’

I paused. ‘Why are you all staring at me?’

‘It’s you,’ said Lady Mawgon. ‘The Quarkbeast chose you to be its keeper, and you single-handedly brought the power of magic back into the world when you did that whole Berserker thing with Exhorbitus. Shandar foretold you would be the Last Dragonslayer – it was etched on the sword’s blade. You are part of this, you are the fly in his ointment, you have the power to oppose.’

‘That’s complete and utter nonsense,’ I said, knowing full well that’s exactly what it looked like. ‘There’s nothing chosen about me. I can’t do magic, I’ve never had that power.’

‘Maybe your power is the power to channel.’

‘That makes no sense. Sorcery is only ever about channelling.’

‘Copper has no power of its own,’ observed Colin, ‘but can transmit vast quantities of electricity.’

‘You’re all wrong,’ I said. ‘I’m just an orphan with accidental relevance. I’m going for a walk. Let me know when Feldspar gets back with a fix on Shandar’s location.’

And I walked out of the door feeling hot and annoyed.