We'll All Go A Trolling

King Humphrey, retired, has his 80th birthday approaching. An event that he is not looking forward to. A milestone, of course, but he has found traveling to Torc, the capital of the Valley Kingdom of Torahn, a trial. He enjoys his life in the country, far enough from the center of power where his son Daniel now is King and rules.

Peaceful days sitting on the porch. Reading, writing, passing the time with his guardsmen, his wife, and the visits of his grandson who has moved into a manor very near. Why go to Torc where he was to be honored, but would certainly have a fight with his son, the current king.

The two were just never going to see eye to eye, and Humphrey, at the age of 80, was no longer so concerned with all that happened to others. He was waiting for his audience with the Gods where all his friends had preceded him. It would be his time soon enough.

Yet, the kingdom wanted him to attend the celebrations, and there were to be many. So many feasts and fireworks he could not keep track, but the most important came at the end, when word was brought that the Trolls were attacking once more.

Now Humphrey would sit as regent for his son, who went off to fight the ancient enemy. Humphrey had ruled the kingdom before, so it should not have been overwhelming, but at eighty, even the little things could prove troublesome.

WE’LL ALL GO A TROLLING

by

David W. Wilkin

Regency Assembly Press

www.regencyassemblypress.com

REGENCY ASSEMBLY PRESS

HEMET, CA, USA

First Printing, February 2013

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Copyright © D.W. Wilkin, 2013

Printed in the United States of America

Without limiting the rights under the copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any from, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal ad punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyright materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

ePUBLISHED and SMASHWORDS EDITION, LICENSE NOTES

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Author’s Note

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

About the Author

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I have to thank my writing group for their encouragement in publishing and then refining this book. Deedira Bockhold, Elizabeth Durand.

Author’s Note

While I had hopes that everything I write can stand on its own merits, this part of the tale really has taken the turn that culminates the story of Humphrey and Gwendolyn. I have explored many themes in the series, I hope some successfully. However being familiar with the rest of the tale of our hero, Humphrey and his heroine Gwendolyn’s lives will surely serve the reader much better than attempting this book without any background.

Where Humphrey has before been involved in action and politics, one theme you will find is that at a certain age, you can no longer do everything that you have done when you were young. Just as when you are ten you are rather short to see over the dashboard and operate a car, at eighty it is not expected that you should do the mile in four minutes, or without your walker.

To make the tale entertaining, when dealing with such issues that beset those of a certain age, you have to look past the surface and find introspection of the characters lives as well as your own. That is something that certainly is not the happiest place on earth to dwell. No Disneyland for the soul. But amongst those who do attain such achievements, serenity is an option left to us, for angst at the time described herein will do one little good.

For those who hoped to read this as a stand alone story, I can only apologize and hope that when I reference other parts of our protagonist’s lives, I have done you justice. If you feel I haven’t, the other books are all available, however this book is clearly written as the culmination of a lifetime of adventuring and service by our hero. That alone should provide insight into the direction this story is headed.

In the end, and this is a book about the end, I hope you the reader will enjoy the tale, as I hope you enjoy all my writing. I hope that the issues raised and resolved as they relate to each of us are a way to look at our own world and see that something will happen. That it is part of the process and it is embraceable.

Chapter 1

Hello Grandsire, Jace said walking up towards the manor’s back porch. Can you say hello to your Grandsire, Charlie? Jace had his three children with him, but Charles was the youngest and just learning to talk.

Ganser? Charlie said more as a question, but consented to be picked up and placed in Humphrey’s lap. The boy was too heavy for Humphrey to pick him up without some worry.

That was good Charles. Very good. Kendall, Jason, come give your great-grandfather a kiss. Humphrey liked the visits. They were near daily with Jace and his family.

When Gwendolyn and he had stepped down from the Throne, after their son Kenneth had died in the Dragon War, they had a mansion that was close to Torc in a very nice setting built for their needs. There were no steps Humphrey had to climb, though the servants and guards found several flights of stairs in the manor. Humphrey could walk everywhere he needed to without placing a strain on his knees. There even was a ramp up to the ramparts so he could look out over the adjoining lake.

From the ramparts he could see only one other home on this side of the lake, that of Jace’s and his family. The young magician had moved out of Torc ten years before with his wife and first child, named Jason in honor of Humphrey’s old friend who had died a few years before that. All of the old friends were dead, or decrepit like he was. No longer able to really do much of anything to help guide and manage the kingdom like they had years before.

It was not just the hard fought battles of the Dragon War that had reduced them to this, but the battle they could never win. The one they all fought against, aging. Humphrey was now nearly eighty. Another week Grandfather. Are you packed yet?

I don’t need much and still a week away. Your grandmother is packing though. At least she is telling everyone in the household what to do again.

Jace laughed, She will always be the queen.

Humphrey nodded, Yes, she will. Now tell me about your research.

I surely will. Let me send the children inside to find grandmother, and then you can tell me what is in the paper today. Jace motioned for a nurse to come take the children. There was a half squad of guards near Humphrey’s seat on the garden porch, and Jace had two warriors with him. The Cutter family always had armed guards with them. Not that Humphrey expected an attack any longer. Not while the kingdom was at peace and not that any of their enemies would think attacking an eighty year old man was anything but symbolic.

It was considered an honor to guard the former King.

Jace, you know you are in the succession. You really should read the papers. Humphrey began when his grandson sat. They had this conversation more than twice a twelfth.

Grandfather, I do love that you will always try and convince me to be more like you, and I will go on holding fast to my beliefs. You know how much I have to write and read each week. Why would I want to read what happens in the city. Uncle Daniel is doing quite well, and George and the others are ahead of me in the succession. Even Uncle Charles and his children would come before I.

Humphrey said, Only as long as I am alive. For then Charles is considered a son of a living king, even though I have not been king for almost twenty years. Now when I am gone, after George and his brothers, then the line will go to back up to the next of my sons, your father and you become the next in line after Daniel’s branch.

Well, father is dead, and I would do like you did in any case. I would resign. Kent would be more fitting as King. He is soon to be Chief General when Uncle Ayech retires.

Humphrey smiled, Humphrey Tor is a great general. Don’t tell him, but I think he is better than I. His improvements to the college for officers has made more of them think like good commanders. I believe the Sergeants even would grunt that it is so. But Kent, he would not be as good a king as you, or others of my grandsons. He still burns with anger over your father’s death. He even blames me for it still. He will be fine as the Chief General of our army, but he has Daniel over him to keep him in check. Promise me that were you to ever become King you would not abdicate like I did. Kent can not be King. Humphrey had never said that to Jace before. His grandson saw that he was serious. Not a joke. He and Jace teased each other many times each week so the young man would know the difference.

Soon they were talking about all that was happening in Torc and all Torahn. Greater Torahn Humphrey had started to call it. The country was nearly half again as large as it had been before the Troll War. That crisis was almost sixty years ago. What are they calling this league, the Greater Northern Prosperity and Enterprise League. What a hogwash of a name is that.

Jace smiled, Not my name. Uncle Daniel is the one who proclaimed it.

Ha, just us, Mah Wee and Welmler. Well those ties are strong as you would know, Humphrey said. Jace shrugged his shoulders. Jace had married the third daughter of the King of Welmler. He had met Clarisse when she had attended as a lady in waiting on her cousin Katherine for two years. Katherine was the wife of Prince Charles, Jace’s uncle and Humphrey’s youngest son. The only people who knew Clarisse was the daughter of Welmler’s king in Torahn when she had come were Charles, Katherine and Katherine’s father, the ambassador from Welmler.

King Daniel had a difficult time negotiating the marriage for Jace but there was not anything he would not do for the children of Kenneth.