Read Online The Way of the Wilderking by Jonathan Rogers - Free Book Online

schoolchildren was herded onto the platform. A polite silence fell over the crowd as the spectators turned their attention toward the children who, as their tutor proudly explained, had memorized the Wilderking Chant in class.
    The recitation got off to a ragged start. One of the boys obviously didn’t have it down yet; he appeared to be mouthing the words “Watermelon, watermelon, watermelon,” and his hand motions were a full second behind those of his peers. But the rest of the children’s confidence grew, and by the time they had reached “Watch for the Wilderking,” the crowd joined in on the refrain in a kind of responsive reading.
    It would have been quite a moving experience, this public recitation from the old lore, if Aidan didn’t understand what it all meant. When the children reached the line “Watch for the Wilderking, widows and orphans,” a widow in the fifth row raised her hands and fainted rapturously away.
    When the children had shuffled off the stage, a mime troupe reenacted the Battle of Bonifay Plain. The players had to cut it short, however, when the mime playing Greidawl the giant fell off his stilts and wrenched his knee. It was all so ridiculous, Percy couldn’t help howling with laughter.
    Eighteen years old, Aidan thought, and I’ve already passed into legend. The villagers, in fact, were so taken with the legendary version of Aidan being presented on the stage that they paid surprisingly little attention to the real Aidan. They gave a very warm welcome to the bard who stood to sing “The Ballad of Aidan Errolson.” All of Hustingreen seemed quite familiar with this versified (though not precisely accurate) account of his first expedition into the Feechiefen:
    It’s a dangerous thing to be feared by a king,
    And Aidan struck dread in King Darrow.
    His most loyal service just made the king nervous
    And pierced his black heart like an arrow.
    One feast night the king sentenced Aidan to death
    As he sat in his pride and his pomp.
    He said with tongue forkéd, “I want a frog orchid,
    And it grows in the Feechiefen Swamp, boy,
    Nowhere but the Feechiefen Swamp.”
    Oh weep, won’t you weep for a kingdom whose royalty
    Can’t tell high treason from untainted loyalty.
    It seems funny, don’t it, that the old boy who wanted
    The orchid sat safe in his hall
    While the bold son of Errol ran headlong toward peril
    And dispraised his king not at all.
    Young Aidan was neither the first nor the only
    To outdare the vast Feechiefen.
    There were brave men of yore who dared to explore,
    But none of them came out again, boys.
    Nobody comes back again.
    I ask you, what good kings—who else but dictators—
    Send subjects to get et by panthers and gators?
    Last Camp hangs grim at the kingdom’s far limit.
Beyond it? That’s anyone’s guess.
Beyond it, pure mystery throughout all of history.
But beyond it lay young Aidan’s quest.
    At the great river’s bend lives a tough breed of men;
    The Last Campers fear very few.
    But they said with a shiver, “If you cross that river,
    Dear Aidan, we sure will miss you, boy,
    Dear Aidan, we sure will miss you.”
    Aidan stood by the Tam with his pack in his hand
    And watched where the brown water swirled.
    He said his good-byes to all things civilized,
    Then he stepped off the edge of the world, boys.
    He stepped off the edge of the world.
    Could you face the Feechiefen, there take your chances?
    Could you leave your country with no backward glances?
    Aidan went for to wander way over yonder
Where graybeard moss sways in the breeze.
Where gator jaws snap and craney-crows flap
And moccasins drop from the trees.
    Who knows what occurred? No one ever heard.
Our young hero never did say.
But he somehow survived where so many men died
And he brung the frog orchid away, boys.
He brung the frog orchid away.
    And thereby was proven, or so it would seem,
Young