Gordan of Riss and the Malformed Sprite (A Madcap Fantasy Adventure Book 1)

by Ryan Drake

  “Pixie dust?” asked Gabby.

  “Yeah,” Max replied, somehow managing to get a whole sentence worth of surliness into the single word.

  “Sprinkle some over my horse too, would you?” asked Gabby.

  “Why?”

  “It’s important to me.”

  “Stuff don’t grow on trees, yeh know,” said Max.

  “Please?”

  Grumbling, Max did as she asked.

  Nothing happened. “Now what?” I asked.

  “Give it time.”

  “Um, we don’t have much of that.”

  I wasn’t kidding. The orcs were only a dozen strides away. They were already freeing their various weapons for use. In moments they would be on us.

  Sighing to myself and quietly lamenting the loss of such a promising life (my own), I set myself to meet their charge … and suddenly found that I was no longer attached to the ground. By the time the wave of orcs had reached where we were, we were no longer there. Instead, we floated twice my own height off the ground.

  I couldn’t help myself; I laughed out loud. Then I discovered I really didn’t have a lot of control over how I floated. In moments my feet were where my head should have been and I had to look up to look down at the orcs below. Gabby appeared to be having similar stability issues and her horse was frantically galloping in the air, sideways, spinning in a slow circle and neighing in sheer terror.

  One more interesting thing about orcs that you rarely notice in normal circumstances is that their neck muscles bulge just as much as the rest of them. Such extreme musculature must be good for something other than impressing other orcs, but it also leads to serious limitations when it comes to looking up.

  As well as expressing their anger in a variety of snarls and curses, the orcs below us were trying all sorts of things just to see us. Mostly, they tipped their heads to the side or leaned back as far as they could without falling over. I even saw a couple who were lying on the ground.

  “Are we safe?” asked Gabby as she drifted through a twisting cartwheel.

  As if in answer, one of the orcs threw a knife at her. But perhaps because of the weird angle the orc had arranged itself in, the throw was wildly off target. Some of the others seemed to think throwing their weapons was a good idea and a couple more knives and a sword went flying with equal results.

  Then one of the orcs yelled out, “We wait!” and there was a chorus of approving grunts all around. They settled themselves in.

  “I’m not entirely sure that we are,” I replied to Gabby. “Max,” I said, craning my neck to find him, “how long will we stay afloat? And will we crash to the ground, or will we drift gently downwards?”

  The pixie was buzzing about not far from me. From my perspective it looked like he was flying upside down, but he wasn’t. It was me who still hadn’t turned right side up.

  “Dunno fer sure. Half hour maybe. But I ain’t never heard of no one crashin’.”

  Great. We’d soon drift gently down into that mass of orc-flesh. I looked around for inspiration, but the only thing near was the Demesne. “Can we go any higher?”

  “Not really. Though I think if yeh’da jumped as yeh took off, yeh would’ve.”

  “Well, how do we maneuver?”

  “Look, I dunno what yeh think yeh know, but it jus’ don’t work like that! All pixie dust does is make yeh weightless for a bit, an’ that’s it! Yeh can’t swim in the air as if it was water, yeh can’t run in it, yeh can’t do nothin’!”

  “So,” said Gabby, “all we’ve gained is another half hour.”

  “Guess so,” said Max, but I wasn’t so sure.

  “Max, can I see that pouch?”

  “Why?” he said. “Last time I gave yeh somethin’, yeh broke it.”

  “Just give me the pouch.”

  I was getting tired of viewing everything from upside down, so I floundered uselessly about for a bit and accomplished nothing more than setting myself drifting a little to one side. I gave up.

  Surprisingly, Max did as I asked. “Careful,” he said. “Tha’s valuable.”

  If I’d been in a position to shrug, I would have. As it was, I simply opened the pouch and sprinkled all its contents on the orcs below.

  “Oi! Yeh flippen’ idiot! What in the name of yer own hairy backside do yeh think yeh’re doin’?” Max buzzed backwards and forwards, clearly aghast at what I’d done but powerless to do anything about it. After a moment though, he seemed to accept it. “Fine,” he said. “I shoulda expected it anyway. But why did yeh hafta do that?”

  “I’m trying to save our lives,” I said. “Hopefully, this will give us something to jump from.”

  “That’s pretty clever,” said Gabby. Or at least that’s what I thought she said. At the time, she was facing the wrong way and her words came to me a bit muffled.

  “Now Max, turn us up the right way so we’ll be ready.”

  “Why should I—”

  “Maximus, just do it!” said Gabby.

  “But yehs are both so big—”

  “And neither of us weighs anything right now,” I finished for him.

  He understood. Moving surprisingly quickly, he flew to my feet and gave them a push, then moved off to Gabby. I started spinning. When I was upright, Max was back to stop me.

  It was just in time. I heard surprised grunts from below. “Get ready!” I yelled. Then there were floating orcs heading our way. “Aim for that!” I said, pointing upwards.

  The orcs apparently didn’t take kindly to being weightless. They panicked and thrashed wildly about, and their menacing battle cries and threats turned into high-pitched squeals like those of animals caught in a trap. They could still be dangerous, I thought, even if only by chance. Many still held their weapons, and they hadn’t lost any of their strength. We had to be careful.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw an orc drifting close to Gabby’s horse, which was still kicking madly and spinning in a circle. Hooves connected. Orc and horse went flying at high speed in opposite directions. I would have laughed again, except that my time had come. An orc was flailing about right beneath me, approaching fast and looking at me with desperation in his eyes.

  I couldn’t let him grab hold of me, I thought, and drew my knife. Fortunately, the orc had dropped whatever weapon he might have had before. He reached in my direction not as a warrior might reach for his enemy, but as a drowning man might reach for a branch. I slashed at him and he squealed in a most un-warrior-like way and pulled his hands back even as he continued to drift my way, turning as he did so.

  It all happened rapidly from there. As soon as he was facing away, I grabbed him by the spiked, armored thing he wore at the back of his neck. Using it as leverage, I brought my feet up to his back, spent a moment to make sure of my target, shifted slightly and kicked off as hard as I could.

  Perfect! I thought. It worked exactly as planned. The orc went sailing back towards the earth at the same time as I launched towards Gabby, who had obviously been just as successful as me. Max had grabbed Gabby’s hair and was holding on for dear life.

  Amazingly, Gabby was grinning as if it was the most fun she’d ever had.

  Together, we soared through the air towards the only place that could save us from the orcs: the Demesne, floating mountain-palace of the Shadow.

  16

  Pingo T’Ong

  Now I’m sure you’re eager to find out what happened next. Of course you are. Go on, admit it. I mean, even I’m eager to find out what happened next, and it’s my story. So you must be just about off the edge of your seats. Or at least I hope you are.

  Unfortunately for you, this is one of those little breaks in the narrative that has to happen from time to time to remind you of the bigger story. You know, that whole Pingo T’Ong and the Fracture thing that’s really what this tale is about. Ok, so it’s also about a series of mostly life-threatening adventures that I had along the way, and let’s not forge
t the interesting, ongoing dynamics between me and Gabby and Max. But it’s the over-story (or story arc, if you want to use the technical term) that holds it all together.

  If you really completely desperately and absolutely just have to know, then yes, we did make it all the way to the Demesne, and we’ll pick the story back up there in a little while.

  But for now, let’s visit Pingo T’Ong in the cavern behind his luxurious residence, where at about the same time as we escaped from his orcs, he was pacing back and forth, seething in anger. Or at least I very much hope that he was, but I don’t have any real proof. For all I know, he might have been about to sit down to an enormous meal, oblivious to my personal adventures. Or he might have been frolicking in his bedchambers with a dozen of his most attractive servants, or even a couple of his ugliest orcs, depending on his tastes. I can’t say with absolute certainty that he wasn’t, but if our positions had been reversed, I would have very much wanted to keep track of all the various aspects of my nefarious plans. And that meant I would have been watching what happened with Thork Yurger and the orcs very carefully, and I would not have been pleased with the results.

  So let’s assume that my imaginings are as close an approximation to what really happened as it is possible to get, and witness an enraged Pingo, fat fingers pulling at his hair in frustration as he looked for something to kick.

  “How can he keep surviving?!” he cried, voicing his displeasure loudly enough that the walls of the cavern echoed it back to him.

  That was the only response he got, however. His servants hung back, all but one completely out of sight. That one was the unlucky youth responsible for keeping the torches lit. No doubt he would have been happier to be gone from his master’s sight as well, but his duties forced him to hover at the door, peeking in to make sure none of the torches burned out while his master was in the cavern.

  Unfortunately for him, his peeking caught Pingo’s attention.

  “You, boy!” Pingo bellowed at him. The youth froze. “Come here!”

  He had no choice. Tentatively, the youth came fully into Pingo’s view and stepped cautiously into the cavern. “Come here I say!” Pingo snarled in impatience.

  The boy hurried, only to have Pingo grab a fistful of his tunic and propel him towards the Fracture still trapped in the pentagram.

  It did not look as it once had. It continued to shimmer as before, but the tendrils of fire that danced around its edges looked somehow more dangerous. And every now and then it flashed brightly all through its surface. Pingo understood that this was his doing, a result of the use he put the Fracture to and the power he was siphoning from it. Soon, he thought, it would be no more. But it would last long enough to grant him his every desire.

  He savagely thrust the boy towards the Fracture as if he meant to hurl him through, but at the last moment held him back. “Tell me what you see,” he snarled.

  For a moment the boy didn’t speak.

  Pingo shook him as if he were nothing. “Tell me!”

  “I-I see a man in a cage with a woman, an army of orcs and a handful of soldiers … or guardsmen, maybe. The orcs and soldiers are fighting … there’s blood everywhere and … and there’s a little man in a dark cloak. He’s pointing a crossbow … at the other man, who is trying to escape. The crossbow—oh! The man in the cage is shot … he’s dying.”

  “Good. Excellent.” Pingo shook the boy again. “Again. Tell me what you see now.”

  “Huh? Um, now I see the man … the one who died … but he’s not dead? He’s out of the cage, on a horse, and so is the woman. The orcs are after them … they’re not gaining. But the man’s horse has fallen! The orcs are catching up! He tries to fight … I think he has only a knife … now he’s down. The orcs have killed him, and the woman as well.”

  “Again!”

  “It’s changing … the man and the woman look like they’re flying. Floating, maybe. How? The orcs are throwing things at them, but they’re not doing very well. Now … now they’re waiting. Still waiting. Now the man and woman are drifting down … the orcs are up, weapons ready … oh! They’re tearing him apart!”

  “Exactly!” Pingo declared. He wrenched the boy backwards and glared at him, standing so close their faces almost touched. “Three deaths! Three possible deaths, and they weren’t the only ones! Thork has killed him, my orcs have killed him, even a band of goblins has killed him! So you tell me, how is it that this Gordan of Riss still lives!?” He shook the youth as I might once have shaken Max, but much harder. “Why is he heading this way?!”

  The boy could barely keep his wits about him. “I don’t know,” he stammered.

  Pingo snarled, letting flecks of spit land on the boy’s face. “Then what use are you to me?” he demanded. He considered using some of the power he’d extracted from the Fracture to turn the boy into ashes, but was unwilling to spend that power unnecessarily. Instead, he flung the boy away from him with force enough that he landed painfully on the floor.

  “Be gone with you!” Pingo exclaimed. “Get away from my sight!”

  Once the boy had hobbled away, Pingo T’Ong once more contemplated the Fracture, seeking some way to accelerate his plans at the same time as doing away with Gordan of Riss once and for all.

  In case you’ve forgotten, that’s me.

  17

  The Demesne

  When you think of the Demesne, you probably think of a place of beautiful, golden towers wreathed in ivy, and wealth and power beyond measure. I certainly thought of it that way. But what most of us don’t often consider is that as well as serving as the home of the Shadow, the Demesne is mostly just a floating mountain. It’s made of rock and dirt and other stuff mountains are made of, all held together by a network of roots and sheer stubbornness with the towers and luxury and everything else just a sprinkling on the top.

  So when Gabby, Max and I drifted ever closer to it, we pretty quickly realized we weren’t going to land on soft, manicured lawns. Instead, we were going to crash into the side of the rocky, inhospitable bit upon which all that luxury had been built…

  “Max! Can you stop us?” I asked.

  “Huh? Why do yeh want to stop?”

  “To change our angle. I want to get to the top.”

  Still holding Gabby’s hair as if it were a set of reins, Max looked up. “Nope,” he said.

  Given that the aforementioned side of the rocky, inhospitable bit of the Demesne was fast approaching, that wasn’t exactly the answer I was hoping for. But it could’ve been worse. At least we weren’t about to go underneath. That could have ended very badly indeed.

  There wasn’t anything for it. We were going to hit.

  “Gabby, grab hold of anything you can!” I called. We’d been lucky when we kicked off from the orcs. Even after traveling this far, we were still close enough that we could speak to each other quite clearly.

  “Don’t call me that!” she returned.

  There was nothing else that needed to be said and not much time in which to say it. The Demesne came closer, closer … and then we collided with a wall of rock and earth. I managed to latch on to a fairly thick root that was growing on the outside of the rock and Gabby seemed to have caught hold of something as well.

  Then Gabby uttered a curse. I saw a sliver of light open up between her and the wall. The sliver grew wider and she scrabbled to find something to hold on to, but the only thing that accomplished was to push her further away.

  For the first time since I’d met her, she seemed afraid.

  “Help.” She said it quietly, as if she didn’t really want to ask.

  I measured the distance between us and knew at once she was too far away. Looking quickly, I spied another root that was closer. Without thinking, I launched myself towards it, caught hold, forced one of my feet under it (hoping as I did that it wouldn’t simply snap), wrapped my tail around it as well and stood up, sideways on the wall. I stretched as much as I could and saw that she was
still too far away.

  “Max!” I shouted, and for once he responded quickly.

  He darted down to her foot, caught it, and flapped his wings in an effort to slow her down and drag her towards me.

  It was never going to be enough. Even with Max’s efforts, she was going to pass just out of my reach. There was nothing I could do.

  Except that instead of trying to reach Gabby directly, I stretched as much as I could and grabbed hold of Max.

  He yelped in surprise.

  “Don’t let go!” I gritted. He hadn’t and didn’t, so I pulled both him and Gabby back to the wall.

  Gabby clutched the same root I’d found and turned to me. “This doesn’t make up for my crystal ball or anything, but thank you.”

  I didn’t know quite how to respond, so I changed the subject. “Can you climb? I don’t think I want to be hanging on to this root when the pixie dust wears off.”

  We climbed. It was surprisingly easy to do so. Not only did our weightlessness mean that we weren’t fighting gravity on the way up, but the roots also helped us by conveniently becoming thicker and stronger the higher we went.

  Sooner than I would have expected, we reached the grassy edge of the Demesne and clambered over.

  Perhaps I should have anticipated it, but the thought never entered my head. Of course the Shadow would have posted guards. Of course they would be orcs, garbed in golden armor and bristling with weapons. And of course there would be one patrolling the Demesne just where we gained the top.

  This particular orc was at least as big as any of those that had so recently been after us. He was watching us with a mixture of surprise and curiosity twisting his abnormally brutish face. His reactions, however, were just as swift and potentially painful as those of any of his kind. He aimed a pike with a particularly nasty-looking ax head and spike arrangement at the pointy end our way.

  “Who you?” he asked, his voice as deep and gravelly as any orc could hope for. “What you doin’ here?”