Trolling, Trolling, Trolling Fly Hides!

Old age is catching up to Humphrey and his friends. He feels it in his bones and with his son and heir having reached the prime of his life, it could very well be time to pass the baton of rule to Daniel. With the Valley Kingdom of Torahn at Peace, that would not be a terrible thing to do. Though breaking his decision to his wife Gwendolyn, the Queen, might be the hardest battle that he ever would fight.

Even as the life of retirement looks to be attractive and possible, however, the Valley Kingdom is beset again. Not Goblins, Trolls, Giants or Men, this time. No. That Humphrey knew would be far too easy. Those obstacles had been overcome before and the problems they presented had solutions that the army of Torahn was trained to deal with.

No, of all the creatures that came forth from Teantellen that they had beaten, the one they had never faced now came forth. Dragons!

Who in the realm knew how to fight these mythical beasts? Was there even away to do so? Now Humphrey who had thought to spend the remainder of his days quietly writing his memoirs and drinking, was faced with the greatest challenge he had ever known.

TROLLING, TROLLING, TROLLING FLY HIDES!

by

David W. Wilkin

dedicated to

Thomas Harrison III

A great friend and lover of Fantasy

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.

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Table of Contents

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.

Chapter 1

I feel old. In my bones. Too many new aches each day. And too many steps. What were they thinking when they built this palace? Humphrey complained but then he was the king. He was allowed to complain, or do almost anything he wished to do.

Well, you are over sixty… Jason was little help. Jason was younger by two years then he which always allowed the man to niggle him about his age. Jason, as a magician, also had lore that allowed him to mix potions and salves that seemed to help quite a deal with the pains of age. He may have been two years younger and still not sixty yet, the man looked like he was in his forties. Jason claimed it was his parentage. Humphrey did not think so, but Jason’s daughter who had married his son Kenneth still looked like she was in her twenties. That parentage remark might have been true, though Jason’s daughter Genevieve also practiced magic.

Kenneth and Genevieve were bringing up their children to cast spells as well. Sometimes it sent lizards up Humphrey’s back if he thought about it too long. He had been orphaned, and now all five of his children were successes. They were the children of a king though.

Humphrey mumbled aloud, A king.

Jason began to laugh and then Tor came over with the drinks that he had gone to fetch. Is he on about that again. Really your majesty, can not a twelfth go by this entire year that you do not dwell on the matter. You make too much of this anniversary celebration.

Not I! Gwendolyn makes too much of it. Twenty years, Humphrey said. The Queen had gone all out, for they were both healthy, though Humphrey would argue his knees betrayed him all the time. Jozakai and Bahgdahnzai laughed at him as well about that. They were smaller, shorter, which Humphrey was sure was the reason the dwarves did not have the same ailments a man had. He believed that battling for so many years, had injured his knees and that was the reason he had such issues now.

Why do you not continue the refurbishment of the Palace? There is the money for it. If you want to make it so that you can conduct all your business here, from this one floor, why not? I have seen the plans, and they seem to be modest enough. Tor was a Duke of the realm now, and Jason was a Baron. Jason had been offered greater titles but had refused them. His grandsons, he said, would be high nobles. His daughter’s marriage ensured that. Jace and Kent were both princes of the realm, sons of a prince, confirmed that statement. Jace had a great deal of magical talent, more Jason said, then he had.

Humphrey worried when the boy, nearly eighteen, so more man than boy, practiced magic. One missed word and the boy would vanish, carted off to some hell that the demons maintained just for spellcasters who mangled their magic. Jason assured him their mutual grandson was too smart for that.

Gwendolyn believes we would not have the privacy we have now were I to order that, Humphrey said. She is not troubled by all the stairs. She says that I can take my time, for no meeting starts until I have come to it, or that the servants can carry me up and down the stairs. As if I should let such an indignity to our person.

Jason smirked, When you start talking all royal I know that you really have something else that is bothering you.

It is our age. I worry… he worried about a lot of things, but lately it was what would happen when he died. Not about the kingdom any longer. They had secured their financial future when they had founded the road to Mah Wee and Welmler. King James the second of Mah Wee, Humphrey’s godson had filled his father’s shoes adequately the last three years, and King Geoffrey of Welmler had also become a good friend for the Torahn Trade road had benefited Welmler as much as the other two kingdoms. The three realms had become quite wealthy.

The money from trade tariffs saw the port of Planterston being rebuilt from nearly the ground up. It was perhaps the greatest port on the entire continent now. Torc too had been very much rebuilt in the last twenty years as well. The second week that he had been king, even before he had a coronation ceremony, he had told his ministers and great lords, to formulate a new name for the capital of their kingdom. It had been the late Duke Franklin who had started to call the city Torcap, for Torahn’s Capital. But then it had shortened to Torc. The name had stuck.

In the twenty years since Humphrey had become king much of the city was changed. The old lands and homes of the council Lords Whelan and Jaston were now the headquarters of the Army and a barracks. Both of those lords had been shortened by a head. Jaston nearly had lived for all that he had betrayed friends. But then it was found that he had paid for the attack on Gwendolyn that had killed Master Dilthruthon so long ago. Humphrey did not relish killing the man, but he had ordered it done. That heinous crime finally put to bed.

When the army had moved out of the palace, and many of the other government ministries, it left the palace to become the seat of government that it was meant to be. And a home for the royal family. Gwendolyn had made it a showcase so that the leaders of Torahn, and then foreign visitors, would come to the Palace and find that they were in the presence of a King. Ceremonies and circumstance she said. It would lend further legitimacy to their reign. Humphrey was in agreement. It had taken some time but her technique had worked.

We were dead forty years ago. Remember? Jason said.

Humphrey smiled, I remember all the time. Not too many are still with us from those days. Not many at all from the first of them. There were many that they had met after those first weeks at Forest’s Edge. Even Hickson was still hanging on, and from what Humphrey had heard, the man could still handle stairs well. But then Hickson had sent the likes of Humphrey and Jason chasing the Trolls at the beginning. He fought, but only from the rear and as a last resort. His knees were bound to be in much better shape.

It is a little rude when you two do that. I may not have been with you when you first fought the Trolls, but I have been with you since then. Well since we went to Mah Wee. When you talk like you are the only veterans in the room, it makes me feel left out, Tor said.

Jason teased, Is the poor Dukie feeling inferior?

Watch it Mage. When My grandson is king, yours will be a court jester.

Humphrey stepped in, Stop it the both of you. You have been friends for more than 30 years. I should never have let my sons marry your daughters. It has definitely caused a strain, he grinned though. The rivalry between his two closest friends only gave them more ammunition in their perpetual war of snipping. I wish you two would take this seriously. I am worried.

That Daniel can not handle your legacy? He will be a great king. Did he not make short work of Parleen last year when they thought to invade us? Did he not do better with the troops he commanded then we ever did? Tor was very proud of Humphrey’s heir, for Daniel was also the sire of Tor’s grandsons.

"Yes, but Parleen only had Men and a