The Battle of Iron Gulch

by R. G. Thomas

  Leopold looked at the floor as he nodded. “You’ve every right to be cautious, Thaddeus. And I applaud your discretion. Though I mean no harm, I shall honor your desire to keep such a treasure hidden away. Why don’t you get dressed and come downstairs?”

  He turned toward the door, and Thaddeus heard himself say, before he even seemed to think it, “Leopold, wait.”

  Leopold turned back with his hand on the doorknob. He smiled warmly and said, “There are no hard feelings, Thaddeus. Keep the water safe. It has more important purposes than merely satisfying the curiosity of an old wizard.”

  “I know, but…. Hold on.” Thaddeus opened the closet and stood on his tiptoes as he stretched his arms overhead. He grabbed the canteen off the top shelf and held it in both hands against his chest as he turned back to Leopold. “Here it is.”

  Leopold’s childlike smile shaved a decade or two off his face. “That’s really it?”

  Thaddeus grinned and nodded. “It is.”

  Leopold looked him in the eye. “May I smell it?”

  The memory of Fetter—Isadora—seizing the waterskin and drinking it dry made Thaddeus hesitate a moment, but then he nodded and held the canteen out to him. Leopold accepted it and carefully unscrewed the top. Thaddeus’s heart pounded as he watched Leopold lower his face to the opening, half expecting him to simply upend it and guzzle down the water. But Leopold only closed his eyes and inhaled deeply through his large nose. He paused, lingering over the mouth of the canteen a moment, then opened his eyes and smiled at Thaddeus.

  “It smells of salt and minerals and ancient times,” Leopold said. Then he screwed the cap tightly closed and handed the canteen back. “Thank you, Thaddeus, for humoring me.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “There’s just half left, I’m sure you realize.”

  “Yes, I know. I’m hoping it’s enough.”

  Leopold studied him a moment without speaking, then nodded. “I will see you downstairs. There’s a plate warming in the oven for you. After that we can climb to the hot springs and discuss our plans.”

  “All right, I’ll see you in a few minutes,” Thaddeus said.

  Leopold left the room and Thaddeus returned the canteen to the top shelf of the closet. He looked at it for a moment, thinking of his mother’s voice from his dream, or vision, or whatever that had been, and then turned for the bathroom.

  When he finally descended the steps and entered the kitchen, Thaddeus found everyone but his father sitting around the table. Miriam got his plate out of the oven, where she had left it to warm, and set it before him. While Thaddeus ate the scrambled eggs, bacon, and hash browns, they all discussed their plans for the day.

  Miriam, Astrid, and Dulindir were off to do the shopping soon.

  “I was hoping you’d come with Leopold and me to the hot springs,” Thaddeus said to Teofil. “I promised Leopold I’d show him where they were.”

  “Yes, do come, Teofil,” Leopold added. “I’d like to spend some more time with you. I have missed you, dear boy.”

  “Okay,” Teofil said with a nod. “I guess that back flower garden can wait another day.”

  They set off soon after Thaddeus had finished eating, the sun bright and a cool breeze keeping the day from becoming too hot. When they reached the trail, Thaddeus wondered whether the angle of ascent would be too taxing for Leopold, but he kept pace with them without any sign of distress. Perhaps Leopold was younger than he appeared.

  Within an hour they reached the hot springs and paused to look out over the town below. From that height, the difference in the sizes of the houses was even more apparent. The area where they were staying contained sizable homes set on larger lots, the Iron Gulch Inn included. The houses in Aisha’s neighborhood were smaller and built closer together. In the middle of town, just a few blocks off Main Street, stood a large brick building that Thaddeus thought might be the school or city hall.

  “I didn’t notice the difference between neighborhoods when we were up here the other day,” Thaddeus said.

  Teofil nodded. “It is very telling, isn’t it?”

  “The south end where you have been staying must have been the neighborhood where the mine owners lived,” Leopold suggested. “And the mine workers all lived across the river from the downtown area.”

  Leopold turned to face them, his hands clasped together before him, eyes shaded by the bill of his baseball cap. “You two have become quite close, I take it.”

  A nervous tremble started low in Thaddeus’s belly. Was he going to say he disapproved of his relationship with Teofil? He squared his shoulders and gave a single nod.

  Teofil surprised Thaddeus by taking his hand. “We have.”

  Leopold smiled. “I am pleased to see it. I believe you two make a good match.”

  Cool relief swept through Thaddeus, and he shared a smile with Teofil.

  “Now, Thaddeus,” Leopold continued. “How are the magic lessons with your father going?”

  Thaddeus released Teofil’s hand and shrugged. “Okay, I guess. I can summon a rock. And you saw me produce the flame above my head, although I didn’t realize I’d done it. That was different from the ball of light I’d conjured before.”

  “Indicative, no doubt, of your anger with me,” Leopold said with a smirk. “You’re learning that magic is strongly bound to emotion. When your emotions are in a tumult, your magic can feel blocked or haphazard. When you learn to put aside your emotions and focus on what you want the magic to do for you, you will find more success.”

  “You make it sound so easy,” Thaddeus grumbled.

  Leopold held out his hand and water jumped from the nearest hot spring to float in a small ball just above his palm. “It can be, once you learn to clear your mind of the noise and distraction brought on by high emotions.”

  “You can do it,” Teofil said, giving Thaddeus’s shoulder a squeeze.

  “Yeah,” Thaddeus said, but he knew he didn’t sound very convinced.

  Leopold closed his hand over the ball of water, and it splashed out between his fingers. “Give it a try. Levitate that small stone.”

  Thaddeus groaned. “Weren’t we supposed to discuss our plan for tonight?”

  “This is an important part of the plan,” Leopold replied. “We will need to depend on you for magical help if we’re to conquer the ghouls.”

  “Well, no pressure there,” Thaddeus said.

  He looked over the small, round stone by his foot and gauged its weight in his mind. It was very similar to the chunk of asphalt, and he’d been able to move that around.

  “Find those things that are top of your mind,” Leopold said, his voice soft. “Scrape away the fears and anger you’re feeling to reveal the calm and quiet beneath.”

  Leopold’s voice soothed Thaddeus and helped him take all of his anxiety and bundle it into a small package. He imagined setting that package aside and opening himself up to a feeling of calm and quiet. Memories of Teofil humming in the yard next door helped even more.

  “Good, that’s very good. Now lift the stone.”

  Thaddeus opened his palm over the stone and gasped when it floated up into the air, pausing midway between the ground and his hand. He looked at Teofil and they shared a smile.

  “Excellent,” Leopold said. “Just like your father.”

  The stone dropped as Thaddeus lost his train of thought and looked at Leopold. “That’s right, my dad told me you taught him magic.”

  “I did indeed. I taught all of the Canes. I mean, your mother, of course.”

  Thaddeus started to nod and reply but then paused and frowned as he considered Leopold’s words. Before he could ask any questions, though, a growl from behind made him spin around and gasp.

  A woman with long red hair and wearing jeans and a white shirt, backed around the far bend in the trail. Even from the back, Thaddeus recognized Vivienne, the librarian from Superstition who had saved him from the Bearagon. Three goblins followed close behind her, growling and s
napping. Thaddeus had never seen a goblin in the daylight, and a chill of fear went through him as he took in the scaly black skin, strong protruding jaws lined with sharp teeth, and spikes growing down their spines. They walked on four legs and reminded him of hyenas with reptilian skin.

  “Behind me!” Leopold shouted. “Quickly!”

  Teofil and Thaddeus both hurried behind Leopold, watching wide-eyed as Vivienne used magic to throw rocks and flames at her pursuers. The goblins dodged her attacks as they closed the distance to her, long claws digging into the dirt of the trail with each step.

  “Vivienne!” Leopold called.

  Vivienne looked over her shoulder, her blue eyes wide with fear. “Leopold! Great directions you gave me. Landed me right in a nest of goblins! How about a little help?”

  Leopold stepped to the side and moved his hands in quick motions. The lead goblin lifted up off the trail and hung squirming in the air a moment until Leopold flung his hands to the left and the beast flew off the side of the mountain.

  Movement from the corner of Thaddeus’s eye caught his attention, and he gave a shout at the sight of three more goblins approaching from their right. The goblins stepped carefully around the hot springs, heads held low, saliva dripping from their jaws.

  “There’s more!” Thaddeus shouted.

  “Take care of them!” Leopold shouted back.

  Thaddeus turned to face the three new arrivals. His fingers curled, and he tried to find the calm space he’d managed before, but it was difficult with danger so close. The goblins were fifty feet away and creeping nearer.

  Teofil gathered stones and called support over his shoulders. “You can do it. I believe in you.”

  The sound of Teofil’s voice helped Thaddeus relax. He was strong and capable, and Teofil believed in him.

  Thaddeus flicked his fingers.

  The stone he had levitated before flew forward like a shot. It struck the lead goblin in the eye and it yelped. Teofil threw a larger stone that knocked the goblin to the ground. It got up and swayed unsteadily as its two companions moved past it. Teofil threw another even larger stone with a sidearm move and it hit the stunned goblin on the side of the head, knocking it to the ground where it lay still.

  Thaddeus lifted his right hand.

  The goblin on his right rose off the ground, feet scrambling for purchase in the air and snapping its jaws. Thaddeus gestured, and the goblin flew to the right, smashing against the rocks with a cry of pain before it collapsed in a heap.

  He focused on the remaining goblin and lifted it up in the air. Moving it a few feet to the side, Thaddeus dropped it into one of the hot springs, where it flailed as it struggled to get out. Before Thaddeus could summon more magic, the goblin clambered onto the flat stones around the spring and ran off, disappearing behind a group of rocks.

  “There must be a cave or something back there,” Teofil said.

  Before Thaddeus could respond, Vivienne shouted, “More are coming along the trail!”

  Fear tightened Thaddeus’s belly as he turned to find Vivienne and Leopold backed off the trail and into the clearing with the hot springs. Goblins were lined up in front of them, blocking escape along the trail in either direction.

  “Oh my God,” Thaddeus gasped. “There are so many!”

  “They followed me out of the cave where I manifested,” Vivienne said. “I may have awakened a whole herd of them.”

  “We must be dealing with more ghouls than I anticipated,” Leopold said. He and Vivienne were flinging goblins left and right and backward off the cliff, but more continued to flood into the space.

  Teofil grabbed more stones and threw them with deadly accuracy. It seemed, however, that for every goblin he knocked down or Leopold and Vivienne tossed aside, two more took its place. Thaddeus helped where he could, but several times his magic misfired and just sent the goblin back a few inches, or didn’t affect the creature at all. Fear seemed to magnify his frustration, even though he tried to stay calm. They had been backed beyond the first of the hot springs and were effectively trapped within the horseshoe-shaped inlet.

  “We can’t get them all,” Thaddeus said, his breath tight in his chest. “What can we do?”

  “Keep at it!” Leopold shouted. “Focus your mind and energy.”

  Thaddeus clenched his teeth and held his hands out, palms up. There was one thing, one element, that almost every living thing was afraid of: fire. He concentrated hard and then snapped his fingers. Small flames burst into life, hovering an inch above his hands.

  “I did it!” he shouted. “I did it!”

  “I knew it!” Teofil said. He threw a few rocks, striking several goblins and causing two of them to collapse.

  Now that Thaddeus had conjured the flames, he had no idea what to do with them. He tried to push them out toward the goblins, but couldn’t quite picture how that would work. The flames continued to sputter and flicker above his palms, and the goblins edged closer still.

  Frustration clouded his thoughts, and when a goblin darted forward to nip at him, Thaddeus reacted out of instinct. He clapped his hands together hard to scare it off. The flames smashed together and exploded out from him. He felt a surge of energy rush up through his feet and torso, along his arms, and burst out of his hands.

  The goblins were blown back toward the edge of the cliff and Thaddeus, Leopold, Vivienne, and Teofil were thrown backward. Thaddeus struck the rock wall behind him and everything went black.

  Chapter THIRTEEN

  THADDEUS AWOKE with a shout and sat up. Wide-eyed, he looked around the darkened bedroom. What had happened? How had he ended up back in town? The last thing he could remember it was late morning and goblins had been closing in on them. Now it looked as if the sun was about to go down.

  “Dad?” Thaddeus called.

  He tried to get out of bed, but a wave of dizziness forced him to lie back down again. Why was he so weak? He lifted his head and squinted in the dim light to inspect himself. There were no obvious wounds visible, so he wasn’t badly hurt. So why did he feel so weak?

  “Thaddeus? Oh, good, you’re up.”

  Vivienne entered the room. She switched on the lamp before sitting on the edge of the bed.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked.

  “Really weak,” Thaddeus replied. “And confused. What happened?”

  She smiled. “You saved us.”

  “I did?”

  “And in quite the rush of power, I must say,” Vivienne said.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “When you clapped your hands together, you released a burst of energy that knocked all of the goblins off the side of the mountain. Unfortunately, it also blew us backward against the mountain. We came around pretty quick, but you were out cold. Teofil carried you down the trail and back home.” She brushed a lock of hair from his forehead and smiled. “He is very taken with you.”

  Thaddeus blushed and looked away. He was grateful to Teofil, but felt ashamed he’d had to be carried back to the inn. “I’m just not strong enough to do magic yet, I guess.”

  “Oh, Thaddeus, that’s not what I meant at all,” Vivienne said. “What you did up there, the power you unleashed, was incredible. You created a concussive blast larger than any beginner should be able to achieve. I’ve never generated that kind of power, and I was raised as a witch!”

  “Really?” Thaddeus couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Had he actually, somehow, become good at magic?

  “Yes, really! How did you do that?”

  “I don’t know. I just did it to scare the goblins off, like clapping my hands at an animal.”

  “Well it was more than just a hand clap. It was a thunderclap!” Vivienne smiled. “That kind of discharge of energy is exhausting. You probably feel like you’ve run a marathon or two!”

  He nodded. “I’m really weak. I thought I’d been injured.”

  “Nothing we could see,” Vivienne assured him.

  “So I’m okay?”

&
nbsp; She smiled. “You’ll be fine.”

  He let out a breath. “Good.” His stomach rumbled and he looked up at her. “Sorry.”

  Vivienne laughed. “You must be hungry, you’ve been out for hours. Let’s get you up and see how well you do.”

  Thaddeus was glad to discover he was steadier on his feet than he’d expected. He walked back and forth across the room a few times, then excused himself to use the bathroom. When he returned to the room, Vivienne was gone, but he could smell food cooking. His stomach rumbled again, louder this time, and he looked at the clock beside his bed, stunned to realize how late it was already. The town meeting was about to start.

  He hurried downstairs and into the kitchen. Vivienne was just taking a plate of food out of the microwave.

  “The town meeting is starting!” Thaddeus exclaimed.

  “I know,” Vivienne replied. “Your father, Miriam, Astrid, and Teofil are all there. Dulindir and Leopold have gone to the tree to retrieve your weapons. I volunteered to stay here and look after you. Now, sit down and eat.”

  “But….” Thaddeus looked around and lowered his voice. “The ghouls. They could attack at the meeting.”

  “We have a signal all prepared in case that happens,” Vivienne said. “And Teofil, Miriam, and Astrid have been busy preparing a potion that should help us expose the ghouls.”

  “Really? What’s it do?”

  “It should counteract the sticky substance the ghouls secrete. If it works like she explained, it will make the human skin peel away from the ghoul.”

  “Eww,” Thaddeus said and made a face.

  “I agree, but we’ll need it to convince the other townspeople what’s been going on.”

  “Yeah, I get it. And they took the potion with them?”

  “Yes. Teofil said he had an idea on how to store it, but I didn’t hear what it was. Now, sit down and eat.”

  Thaddeus hesitated, but then his stomach rumbled again and he gave in. Vivienne set his dinner before him and he ate quickly, barely tasting the chicken breast and steamed vegetables. The food helped him feel better, and though he was irked at having to miss the town meeting, he was glad Vivienne had insisted that he eat.