The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom Read Online Free PDF

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    The troll looked from the woman’s scowling face to the long, rusty shovel she waved menacingly overhead. It dropped the handful of beets it had been about to eat.
    “Shovel Lady no hit Troll,” it mumbled as it stood up. “Troll make no trouble. Troll go.”
    Enter Prince Gustav. Clad in clanking, fur-trimmed armor and wielding a large, shining battle-ax, he charged at the troll on horseback.
    “Not so fast, beast!” Gustav shouted as he approached, his long blond hair flowing behind him. Without stopping his horse, he leapt from the saddle, turning himself into a human missile, and knocked the troll flat onto its back. The prince and the troll rolled through the garden in one clanking, grunting mass, smashing down freshly sprouted beet plants, until the creature finally got back to its feet and tossed Gustav off. The prince crashed through the wooden planks of the farmer’s fence but nimbly picked himself back up, ready to charge the monster again. That was when Gustav spotted the bright red beet juice around the troll’s mouth.
    “Child eater!” he screamed. All the children were, of course, perfectly fine—and had actually filed back out into the yard to watch the fight—but Gustav was too focused on the monster to notice. The prince swung his ax. The troll caught the weapon in its large, clawed hands, yanked it away from Gustav, and tossed it off into a corner of the farmyard, where it shattered several barrels of pickled beets with a crunch and a splat.

    “Starf it all,” Gustav cursed (which prompted some of the older children to cover the ears of the younger ones).
    Now unarmed, the prince stood face-to-face with the troll. The monster was nearly three feet taller than him, but Gustav showed no hint of fear. Gustav didn’t really do “fear.” Annoyance, consternation, occasionally embarrassment: Those were emotions Gustav was familiar with. But not fear.
    “Why Angry Man do that?” the troll asked. Gustav charged at the creature, but it grabbed him in mid-run and lifted him into the air. The troll spun the prince upside down and rammed him headfirst into the ground with a pile-driver-like maneuver. Dazed, Gustav tried to crawl away, but the troll, still holding him by the feet, swung him to the left, smashing him through a stack of wooden crates. The monster then swung him back to the right, wrapping him around a fence post. Gustav swung his fist at the troll, but his punch didn’t even land. The creature hoisted him overhead and was ready to chuck him up onto the farmhouse roof, when Rosilda stepped up behind the troll and smacked it in the back of the head with her shovel.
    “Ow!” The troll dropped Gustav in the dirt and rubbed the sore spot on its skull. “Shovel Lady said Shovel Lady would not hit Troll.”
    “That was before you started beating up on that poor man,” Rosilda snapped. “Now get out of here.”
    “But Angry Man hit Troll first.”
    “I don’t care. You get out.” She raised the shovel again.
    “No more, no more. Troll go.” And the huge creature shuffled off toward the forest. The children burst into cheers and danced around the garden.
    Rosilda held her hand out to Gustav, who still lay on the ground. He angrily waved the woman’s hand away and stood up by himself. “I had it under control,” he scolded. “You shouldn’t have put yourself in harm’s way.”
    “You know, the troll was about to leave when you jumped on him,” Rosilda said. “Everything was fine. And now look—you’ve wrecked our garden.”
    Gustav surveyed the yard. There were broken fences, smashed barrels, squashed beets, and row after row of flattened plants. “You care about a few vegetables? The monster ate your children!” he shouted.
    “It did no such thing,” the woman scoffed.
    “It had blood on its mouth.”
    “Beet juice.”
    “Are you sure?” Gustav asked, looking around at the giddy, dancing children. “It must have eaten at least one kid. Have you counted