by RyFT Brand
more than nubs sticking out from an over-inflated whether balloon. His head was the size of a big beach ball; his eyes looked about to pop from their sockets and his lips were stretched thin. The whole of him was covered in welts. If he were purple I’d say he looked like Violet Beauregard after eating the Everlasting Gobstopper.
His mouth moved ever so slightly. I didn’t want to see his face split open, so I knelt down beside him. He was trying to say something, but mute dry air came out. I looked around and took a cacti flask from a fallen warrior’s belt and squeezed some water into the king’s quivering mouth. He choked a little then managed a word. “Why?”
“I promised you if I left without my companion, that we would be enemies and you were okay with those terms. I don’t suffer my enemies to live.”
Waggling one of the sausage shaped fingers at the end of his arm (the whole of the limb reminded me of a balloon dachshund) he managed to point at my belly.
“Yeah, I know, I’m dying. But that’s the point, isn’t it. I’m leaving a legacy, namely a long list of fallen enemies. You’re not the first, and you won’t be the last.”
“How?” he managed to croak though an apparently swollen throat. One should keep one’s mouth shut when attacked by the smallest of the fey.
His question gave me the first chance to think, and therefore to realize just how well this crazy plan of mine had turned out. I smiled. “Didn’t take more then a little misdirection. A flower ward friend of mine had been hurt by one of my enemies. I sort of implied that you, being one of my enemies, had been the one to do it. The fey didn’t like that an elf, a magic kin no matter how distantly related, would harm one of its own. I think nearly every fairy here on Mirth came out to meet you in battle, your highness. You should feel touched.”
He was trying to speak again, but it had become impossible to make the words out. When I stood I found DJ standing behind me, staring with her arms crossed. She looked outright disgusted with me. But I’d saved her. Maybe she’d just spent too much time in the forest dwellers’ company.
“DJ, look—” I meant to explain, but something strong grabbed my ankle and ripped me upside down into the air. “What the crud?” I shouted as I watched my helmet drop to the floor.
“Jazz!” DJ shouted and charged the king’s throne.
Sure enough the throne tree had me by an ankle hanging twenty feet off the ground. “Heel you stupid plant!” I shouted just before another branch wrapped around my throat.
“Jazz!” DJ squealed and ran toward the tree. I reached for my chili pepper bombs, but another extension of the branch choking me bound my wrists together. “Let her go!” DJ shouted and kicked at the great trunk. “Stupid tree!” DJ shouted and ran away.
I gulped and thrashed like a fish on a hook, but not a lick of air would come. The branch around my throat tightened and the pain ramped up to staggering.
DJ ran back carrying a long pole arm. The first time she swung it back it pulled her over backwards. She sprang back up, widened her stance, and chopped the trunk with the next swing.
Good old DJ. I could count on her even when she was furious with me. Then the branch tightened more and I could hear my vertebra popping. My head swam. I couldn’t hold out much longer.
“Hold on Jazz, I’ll get you out,” I heard DJ shouting and furiously chopping. For a moment my vision cleared. DJ had choked up on the pole arm. She was hacking away but had barely made it through the thick bark. My head swam again and my lungs burned like I’d inhaled fire. Okay, so I was going to die a little earlier than I’d thought, but DJ was free. Ship would take her home, safe and sound. Then the pain jumped right over the world-record high jump bar and blinded me. I wanted desperately to scream, but, aside from having absolutely no air in my lungs, I’d blacked out. Or was dreaming because I felt like I was flying though through the total blackness of deep space, was flying through a place where I was free and weightless. Then I hit the ground.
I rolled onto hands and knees, gasping in great gulps of air that burned even more then when my lungs were empty. After some minutes, my vision went from black to very spotty shades of grey—I hadn’t seen colors in a very long time.
I rolled over onto my butt, spotted the cacti canteen, and squeezed some water down in an attempt to sooth my burning throat.
“Jazz, Jazz, are you okay?” DJ asked as she grabbed me by my upper arms and stared into my teary eyes. “Jazz?”
I held up my, ‘one minute please,’ finger then pressed a palm to my tender throat. When I looked back at DJ, I had confusion in my eyes. Then Moxie, the little flower fairy that had bound herself to me, flew into my face and squeezed my nose in a tight embrace. She flew on fully restored quada-wings and applied dozens of tiny kisses to my cheeks. Each kiss sent little magic-charged shocks though my skin as her beating wings buzzed in my ear. But for a change I didn’t mind. I was happy to see that her people had healed her after the horrible things Boss Geeter had done to her, all because she loved me, the dope.
“Here, Jazz, drink this.” DJ held the cacti-canteen over my head. I opened my mouth and she gave the green canteen a squeeze. I let the water run down my throat and it helped sooth some of the burn. I heard something creek and my hand went to the macdady’s holster. The throne branch came at us, but little Moxie flew up between us. With all four of her wings beating furiously, she set her hands on her ample little hips and her pudgy face pursed out in disapproval. The branch stopped an inch from her. She waggled a finger at it and shook her head, sending her little blond curls bouncing.
Like a scorned child, the branch curled in and sulked away. I guess she’d told him. Moxie spun, shot me a smile that glowed so brightly I had to squint, then flew back and applied a new series of kisses to my face. There was a time, not very long ago, when her attention would have annoyed the crap out of me. Actually it still annoyed me, but I guess I’d grown more patient. As gently as I could I cleared my throat, then tried a few careful words. “Help me up.”
DJ gave me a sad little smile and took one of my hands. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
Although Moxie was smaller than my pinky, she wrapped her arms around it and, wings beating at a blur, she did her best to help DJ get me standing. My right hip ached somewhere deep inside; must have bruised it when the tree dropped me, and my broken ribs had set a squeak in my breathing. The flower wards are, by magical evolution standards, a very primitive race. They don’t have any speech that I’m aware of so I guess I can’t blame Moxie for not telling the tree to set me down gently.
“Come on, let’s get you out of here,” DJ said getting one of my arms draped over her shoulder. Moxie parked herself, and I’m pretty certain she wasn’t wearing underpants under that little dress of hers, on the tip of my nose. I gently relocated her to the breast pocket of my jacket. She perched inside it with her elbows resting on the top of the pocket and her chubby face perched in her hands.
DJ did her best to weave us around the bodies strewn throughout the city. The great leafen gates still hung open, just as I had ordered DJ to leave them, but by the look in her eyes she was blaming herself in part for the carnage all around us. I’d loved to have told her that she was just following orders, but I knew it would bring her precious little comfort. A few steps from the gate and the entire forest erupted in sound and motion. The trees shook and thrashed the ground with their branches. The huge pink-polka dotted salamanders hissed and licked the air with forked tongues.
“Woah,” DJ said and brought us to a stop. She watched the forest express its anger, then looked back over her shoulder with dread in her eyes. “Jazz?”she said with the same dread in her voice.
“Set me down,” I said pointing at a chair shaped rock beside the gate. DJ eased me down as gently as she was able. I took the microphone from my rucksack and clicked it on with my thumb. “Ship, now please.”
DJ’s brow wrinkled with concern, which always made her look so much cuter, but the little elven dress made her look almost child-li
ke. “You said you couldn’t bring Ship here.”
I nodded, not sure how she was going to take the answer. “But there aren’t any elves left to protest.”
“Not so, girl,” a week voice said from several feet away. I sprang to my feet, drew the macdady, cocked the hammer, and pointed it in the direction of the voice. Now I’d of been lying if I said that move hadn’t hurt something awful, but it was good to know I could still do that.
“One elf still breathes in Feitshire.” An elf lay not far off, partially hidden by the lush underbrush. He had a dagger with a long, curving blade held in a Hollywood grip resting on his chest. DJ rushed over to him but I grabbed her arm, bringing her to an abrupt stop.
“Jazz, we have to help him.”
I held her tightly; he was armed. “No, we don’t.”
The elf had been badly stung by fae magic, but less so than the others I’d seen. “But I saved you, human.” His breathing was shallow and his voice week.
“Making this your fault then,” I said.
“True,” Fenrissis said then struggled in another breath.
“Jazz, you can’t,” DJ said.
She was so young, so innocent, she didn’t understand. “Yes, actually I can.”
“No more!” DJ shouted and stomped the heel of her red boot, apparently she’d kept her