Clipped Wings

by J. P. Rice

  I wanted to take a step back from this job, but I owed it to my new family to make Pittsburgh safe for them. Even if that put my life in danger. As I watched four arrows land squarely in one of the dullahan’s chest, felling him from his ebony war horse, I realized that I needed to free the citizens of Sleepy Willow from the tyranny of their king.

  The faeries carried me toward a balcony on the west side of the castle. The archers lining the parapet launched missiles at us. The arrows missed us narrowly and landed on the battle field below. A flash of gold and ‘angel wing white’ appeared out of my peripheral and zipped along the wall of the castle, veering sharply to the right and knocking over the archers.

  The flying mass turned toward us and exposed the rosy red face of the normally pale Sphinx. Kovana rose in the air and circled the bloody battle. A group of shadowy clouds started to move in the sky. At a second glance, it was a formation of dragons moving in from a distance and descending on the castle.

  In a flash, the dragons surrounded the Sphinx. She dodged their fiery expulsions, dipping left and right to avoid the flames. My heart snapped in two, and without thinking, my hand dug into my body suit. I immediately went and grabbed the return potion.

  It was a hard decision, but I had to do it. It was the only chance at survival. I made sure the lid was on tight and conjured a ball of concentrated energy in my left hand. A neon blue spheroid formed, about the size of a baseball.

  I instructed the faeries, “I need you all to hold me steady, so I can rescue the Sphinx.”

  Kovana was living on borrowed time as the dragons drew nearer, the flames nearly kissing her golden mane and setting her body ablaze. I took a deep breath to steady my hand and tightened my grip on the return potion. The faeries kept me as still as the sword in the stone before Arthur arrived.

  I drew back my arm and gently tossed the potion straight ahead, aiming for about five feet above the Sphinx. As soon as I released the glass vial, I transferred the mass of energy into my right hand and wound up to throw it. I kept my arm back and waited for the perfect moment.

  A few milliseconds that seemed like an hour went by and I launched the ball of energy at the vial. The blue spheroid with pulsing green sparks of energy traced through the air. My heart sank as the ball seemed to travel in slow motion. The glass vial was losing momentum and starting to fall.

  My heart beat in my throat, threatening to strangle me as I watched the mass of energy gain more speed. The blue ball smashed into the vial, shattering the glass and causing the potion to rain down from the sky.

  A plume of fire raced toward the Sphinx, and as she dodged to the left, another streak of flames from a dragon’s mouth sped toward her. She was about to be burned severely when her body disappeared. The two blasts of flames collided, but when the dragons realized the Sphinx was gone, they stopped the attack.

  The two dragons began to blur before fading away right before my eyes. What the hell? The only thing that made sense was that their flames had hit the return potion and sent them back to Pittsburgh. That was not intended. My family—that I promised to protect just a minute ago—was directly in danger of dragons. Oh, fuck me sideways.

  The return potion would take them to the field behind my house. Even if my family wasn’t home at the time, the Sphinx would have to deal with them. As if I didn’t have enough to keep me from concentrating fully on this battle, now I had to deal with this.

  As the faeries whisked me away, the battle raged on. I did a double take when I recognized the Rhyming Red Cap on the field. He had removed his cap and was spinning around using the hat as a weapon. As he rotated, the cap stretched out to about fifteen feet and acted like a swinging battering ram, knocking the sidhe opponents around like bowling pins.

  I thought his whirling dervish act would make him dizzy and unstable, but he kept whipping around, his red cap smashing into anyone foolish enough to come within striking distance. The dwarves and elves were fighting ferociously against the much taller sidhe soldiers. The dullahans—with their heads in one hand and swords in the other—were brawling with the king’s cavalry.

  Shade spread suddenly over the entire battlefield and my chin inclined toward the sky to check out the interference. A brigade of bright multi-colored dragons soared through the air, approaching the castle. The compact group began to spread out and form an attack pattern. The bright sun busted through the momentary obstruction, spotlighting the horrific field of battle.

  As I re-focused on my main task, I noticed the faeries were guiding me onto the balcony outside Alayna’s room. I could hear the king yelling at someone inside the castle as the faeries released their grip on me. I whispered thank you to the faeries, blew them a kiss and tiptoed up to the open balcony window.

  Instead of opening the door, I wanted to make an entrance that would catch the king by surprise. I planned to dive headfirst through the window into a front somersault and then spring back to my feet. I took a quick peek inside to make sure I wouldn’t dive into a stone statue or a cactus.

  The flowing purple robes of the king captured my eyes and I yanked my head back from the opening. The king had his back to the window so he hadn’t seen me. I manipulated some of the air around me into a dense, clear square.

  I pushed the invisible mass inside the window and off to the side, closer to the king. I scrapped the first plan and simply sneaked in through the window like a common burglar. As soon as the sole of my second shoe hit the stone floor, I leaned to my left and heaved the mass at the king.

  The king spun on his heels and I caught a quick glimpse of Alayna behind him. The moment he turned around completely and his eyes landed on me, the heavy air blasted him in the chest. The magic lifted him off his feet and heaved him into the stone wall. He crumpled into a heap on the ground, motionless.

  I ran over to Alayna and immediately noticed the lumps and bruises on her body. She was dressed in a simple gray long sleeved shirt and a pair of black pants. Her head had been shaven unevenly and her silvery-gray roots were visible under the red dye. My fragile heart snapped into a thousand pieces.

  “I’m so sorry. That wasn’t really me that did this in the first place,” I rambled as I removed the gag from her mouth.

  Her fiery eyes told me that she wasn’t quite ready to forgive me just yet. I understood. One piece of the fabric wouldn’t come loose until I jammed my pinky in and gave it a quick yank. The handkerchief came loose and I pried it out of her mouth.

  Alayna took a few breaths through her mouth and massaged her jaw. “Glad you came back,” she said simply. I waited for her to say something else. Or even yell at me. But only four words escaped from her mouth.

  I moved to the chains around her legs and found that they didn’t have protection wards set on them. It made me wonder how she hadn’t escaped. That didn’t matter now. Removing the chains around her legs only took a few seconds.

  I moved up to the ties around her wrists. Instantly, I noticed that these had protection spells on them. Without time to mess around, I conjured fire to my fingertips and planned to bypass the spell. My fingernails shaded from pink to pumpkin and I felt the heat rippling just below the surface.

  I positioned my hand near the underside of the chair’s arm, right next to the tie. I wanted to make sure I wouldn’t burn Alayna. After steadying my nerves, I ran my fingers along the tie. A wave of green sparks jumped from the tie and hit me with a blast of energy that launched me four feet back. I landed on the small of my back and my head whipped against the stone floor.

  Everyone always talked about ‘seeing stars’, but these were more like shooting stars. Or better yet, little silver particles of energy running around an accelerator. I sat up slowly, shaking the cobwebs loose and trying to figure out a better plan.

  The king still hadn’t moved. I wasn’t sure if he was dead or just knocked out, preferring the former. I opened my eyes wide and shook my head to regain focus as I approached Alayna. I leaned down and shifted my vision to another dimension so t
hat I could see the makeup of the spell. As I concentrated on the spells and attempted to find a compromised area to exploit, Alayna asked in a raspy tone, “Are you all right?”

  My head stayed down and I continued to study the spell as I answered, “I’m fine. It’s you I’m worried about. There’s a battle going on outside, too. The Rosendales and the Red Cap came to your side. Along with the Sphinx, who played a big role too.”

  I found a weakness in the spell and adding a small amount of heavy air, blocked it completely. Calling fire to my fingers again, I ran them along the tie around her left wrist. The searing heat shredded right through the fabric and singed the mahogany chair. Alayna lifted her hand from the arm of the chair.

  I moved over to her other side. “The dragons showed up again. The Sphinx helped me get the Dragon Horn from inside the castle.”

  “How did you do that?” Alayna asked as she fidgeted in the chair, clearly anxious to get the hell out of here.

  I found the compromised area in the ward and exploited it with a blocking spell of my own. “I’ll explain that later. Right now, we have to get you out of here before the king gets up.” I shifted my vision back to normal as soon as the defense ward was broken.

  My fingers burned away the tie around her other wrist and Alayna stood up from the tiny chair. I wanted her to hug me more than anything in the world. But she didn’t. She gave me a look of thanks and nodded her head slightly, but it was more of a business thank you than anything on a personal level.

  What did I expect? I’d delivered her right to the evil King’s doorstep. It could take some time for her to forgive me for this one.

  I whisked her over toward the balcony and kicked open the door. A rush of air from the dragons’ wings gusted in through the opening and the awful sounds of battle returned to full volume. Gazing over the battlefield, it appeared that the Rosendales’ warriors were not only holding their own but winning the battle.

  The iron in the wine barrels had reduced these incredibly skilled sidhe soldiers into an army of bumbling fools. All that was missing was the Benny Hill music in the background. Their sword strokes were missing wildly and some were falling on their faces without anyone around them and laughing about it.

  I watched Pembrooke do a barrel roll and spit orange flames that matched his flesh at a black dragon. The streaking noble dragon spun around to face the castle and his eyes widened. Pembrooke beat his wings rapidly and the resulting gusts of wind blew my hair back. The dragon streaked toward us, his focused eyes never leaving Alayna. Within moments, the orange dragon the size of a school bus hovered near the balcony.

  Chapter 30

  Pembrooke moved closer and gestured with his head for Alayna to get on. I helped to hold my mentor over the ledge, so that she could ease onto the base of his neck. I pulled the Dragon Horn out of my suit and placed it in her hands as she got on the dragon.

  Alayna looked up at me, and said, “Get on, too.”

  I heard moaning from behind and spun around to counter a sneak attack. Instead, the king was getting back up to his feet. We made eye contact and he turned and ran into the castle. I couldn’t leave now. I’d put the Rosendales’ and the Red Cap’s lives in danger with the promise that we would take out this king.

  It would be the easiest thing in the world to get on this dragon and fly away with Alayna. That was the original reason for this whole adventure. But then I’d seen the utter despair of the city as I’d walked to the Sphinx’s cage. That had caused me to wonder how many more creatures were caged up around the island.

  And of course, there were the Blood Hustlers. If a new king and queen could put a stop to that practice, it would be worth laying down my life for that cause alone. I turned to Alayna. “You guys help out here. Escape if you have to. But I’m going after the king. I’m going to liberate the citizens of Sleepy Willow.”

  Alayna’s lips appeared to start curling upward, but I turned and ran back into the castle before I could see the smile come to fruition. The King weaved down a serpentine stone hallway. The old man was quite nimble and I tracked him by following the rippling cape that trailed behind him.

  I started to catch up as the king hooked a quick left through a door opening. I could hear his husky breathing as I turned the bend and entered an open room. It was a banquet hall, but all the furniture had been pushed into the corners of the expansive room with a thirty-foot high ceiling.

  More importantly, the three remaining Wardens stood in the middle of the room. The man who was in charge of the West cracked his knuckles and all three of the men marched toward me to the delight of the king. The Santa Claus lookalike stared at his goons with a crooked smile on his pudgy face. I’d never wanted to blast Ole Saint Nick in the mouth more.

  The king chuckled. “Now it seems the tables have turned. The odds have shifted to my favor. You can give yourself up and we will take you to the portal so you can go home and never come back.”

  “Is that the only option?”

  The king’s wry smile faded and he stared at me blankly. “Death is another. I’m sure my men could oblige that request too.”

  I held my open hands in front of me, pretending that they were scales as I weighed my choices. “I think I’ll pass on both. What other options do you have?”

  The king shrieked, “This isn’t a supper menu where you choose what you want. Enough of the cute stuff. You’ll live longer that way.”

  “You see, you threaten me with death, but I’ve already died. I’ve already been to hell. And now I’m back and angrier than ever. Who wants to die first?” I asked and waved my index finger at the Wardens.

  “Oh, hell no. Fuck this. I can hear what’s going on outside.” The Warden of the South pointed at the king. “And I’m not dying for this smug bastard over here. Not me. I saw what this kid did to our friend from the East. I shall be leaving.”

  The Warden of the South walked by me and headed for the exit, but I had to remain alert that he wasn’t setting up a sneak attack. I wouldn’t put anything past the king. I listened as the warden’s boots sounded like they were stomping down the hallway. Still, that could be a decoy.

  The hot room gave off a musty smell, not that of an old library but more of a sweaty old sock that had sat in the corner of your room for months. The kind of stank that you could almost taste. I kept moving back and forth because the floor was sticky, stained with copious amounts of wine from the last party.

  I held my nose. “Would it kill you turdburners to run a mop over the floor every once in a while? You ever heard of bleach? Mr. Clean? Come on, you’re a king for fuck sake. Have some pride.”

  King Ballistar stared at me, his chest and big belly ballooning with his snarling. His eyes never left me as he moved off to the side and stroked his beard. An evil grin formed on his face and I wondered what had spurred it. Now I had to be wary of him or the other wardens pulling a sneak attack.

  The two wardens were similar in size and stature, tall and muscular. They were both wearing leather hunting outfits similar to that of Native Americans. The main difference I spotted was that the Warden of the West had red hair and his counterpart from the North had long dark hair tied in a ponytail.

  Both men removed their jackets and tossed them aside. The man with the short auburn hair cracked his neck and turned to his associate. “You want me to go first?”

  “Be my guest.”

  The king screeched from the sidelines, “Nooo. Both together. Don’t let him survive.”

  The two men shrugged at each other, unsure of how to proceed. I remembered that the Warden of the East had a strange code of ethics in which honor in battle topped the list. Every man—sidhe or human—was an individual as I’d seen with the warden who’d stomped out of the room. So I couldn’t be sure how the king’s guards would act.

  The king’s encouragement emboldened the men to set aside their normal battle customs where they would fight an opponent one on one. They had a ritual similar to chivalrous medieval battle. I real
ized they didn’t always follow the custom as the two men crouched into battle mode and started creeping toward me.

  With my magic begging to be released from within my body—from within my soul—I manipulated the air to form a large hand, like one of those foam fingers. Then I added elements to make it a hard metal. With the wardens still stalking me, I mentally tucked the fingers into a fist.

  Using telekinesis, I moved the fist into position near the Warden of the West’s face. As I positioned the invisible object to adjust to their movement, I kept moving backward to remain well out of the reach of the two men.

  I went to unleash the punch when the king screamed in warning to his guards. The two men yanked their heads to the left, but they still couldn’t see the fist. Without any time to adjust, I sent the hand flying toward the first warden and it cracked him square in the nose. The size of the fist almost covered his entire face.

  I moved the fist back and sent it flying toward the other warden. It whistled through the air and the unsuspecting warden took a straight right jab to the chin. I watched as his eyes rolled back into his head and his rubbery knees gave way. His dead weight fell and his forehead smacked against the sticky stone floor.

  My confidence brimmed as I realized that the wardens weren’t very strong with magic. The king could see the fist I had formed but his wardens were unable to see it. The Warden of the West had droplets of sweat forming above his red eyebrows. He backed away with his hands up.

  I stalked toward him, jerking my neck to look over my right shoulder at the king. The terror glued to the king’s face and his trembling lips told me his confidence in his closest protectors was waning rapidly. I figured I’d make quick work of the warden and then take out the king to liberate his oppressed citizens.