“There’s not a series of leaping stones set over a bottomless pit we have to cross, or a maze, or some foul guardian to fight?”
He sounded disappointed even to himself.
“I can’t find the mechanism to open up our hidey-hole, if that is even what I am sensing.” She swatted her hand backwards and hit the table and Thorn saw a few pages of the open text flip over.
“Did you look under the book?”
“Now I know why your Mama named you Foxwise, Thorn. That has to be it.”
Barb stood excitedly and indeed the lever they needed to push over was there, mounted on the table top under the bookstand. This time the rolling marble sounded like it was as big as Thorn’s head and instead of a splash there was a deep rock-on-rock thump.
A section of the wall, right where Barb had been searching only moments before, slid down into the floor revealing a cubbyhole containing a wooden chest and three glass vials. Barb inspected these by pulling the cork and taking a whiff. By the way her nose scrunched up, he knew he didn’t want to smell them. She tucked one of the vials away in her robe and then with an arcing red flare from her finger, cut through the lock and opened the chest.
From where he had moved up behind her all Thorn could see was the yellow glow of gold reflecting the light around them. It didn’t draw either of them all that much, for the elves of the Lurr Forest had little use for gold, but it was beautiful.
Barb turned suddenly and Thorn felt a cold wave of nauseating bleakness waft over him. He turned too and the power of the battle berries fled him, for there was Pwca.
Pwca was only two feet tall and he looked like a tadpole, or maybe a living turd, with flipper-like appendages. It had a round, apple-sized head, and a toothy mouth that opened up far too wide. He could probably pose an immediate physical threat to them, but Thorn wasn’t sure how. The little devil commanded legions upon legions of rats, and the rumor was that he owed the hoar witch a few favors.
“Give that chest to me,” a voice that grated inside their heads and was as loud as thunder sounded.
“Now!”
“There is your terrible foe,” Barb heaved out a sigh and then darted past Thorn towards the stairs. Thorn started to follow, but Pwca’s menacing chuckle and the squeaking snarls of all the large dire rats coming down the stair stopped him. Thorn wasn’t sure what happened next. The stuff in the chest was clattering and ringing as it spilled all over the stairs and the rats.
Pwca made a whistling sound that was accompanied by a deep hum and a pulse of dark devilry shot forth and slammed Barb violently into the wall. She hit the floor limply and blood poured out of her mouth and ears, then the battle rage consumed Thorn and he started killing rats, as swiftly as he could manage, with no regard for Pwca whatsoever.
To his great disappointment he eventually collapsed in a heap of exhaustion amid the score of vermin he’d slain. The contents of the chest were gone though. Besides the rat corpses only Barb’s limp form remained. Once he could control the heaving of his chest, he crawled to her side. She was breathing, he could tell, but her arms and legs were broken and swelling faster than he thought possible.
“Go,” she croaked. “Heeere. Swallows— Two swallowsss.”
The vial she’d kept, along with a crystal shard a little bit bigger than Thorn’s finger, fell out of her robe and clanked together on the tile floor.
“I’ll not leave you,” Thorn screamed at the ceiling and gnashed his teeth together.
“Yessss,” Barb hissed through a bubbling gurgle of blood, and then went still.
It took a few long moments for Thorn to accept the fact that she was dead.
His years of service as a soldier, and then commander, helped separate the pain of her loss from the moment. His duty was to get the shard back to Queen Corydalis now, as fast as he could manage. He wasn’t sure about taking two sips of the stuff, but he decided he would do so after he hauled Barb up and buried her deep in the snow so they could come retrieve her later and bury her properly.
He was so exhausted that he could only get her halfway up the stairs. He knew he had to get the shard back to his queen and as much as it pained him, he left Barb’s body there on the ornate stairway and fled the tower.
Any regret over leaving Barb behind was wiped away when Sloffin nearly clawed him from the open expanse of snow between him and the lake.
Two swallows, he heard Barb and as he ran as fast as his tired legs could carry him, he pulled the cork with his teeth and took them and was immediately grateful for the stuff.
The frigid world around him sizzled and popped, and everything took on a slightly blue tint. Sloffin was coming back around but Thorn followed the creature’s eyes and saw that it was looking right at his boot-tracks in the snow. Thorn was now looking at his boot-tracks too, the only thing was he was still standing in them but didn’t see himself.
He took two swift steps backward and made sure to put his feet back as close as possible to where they had been. He was lucky. As he looked up, the witchborn creature swept past where he had just been. Even invisible, he would have surely been mangled had he not moved away. Nevertheless, he charged crazily toward the water while his attacker was turning for another pass.
He knew he was leaving a trail of prints, but he hit the icy liquid and swam, mostly underwater until the cold and exhaustion sent his mind floating completely away from him.
SEVEN
When he woke, he knew he was back in the Underland. The sugary smell of the place was unmistakable. He remembered the lake, and the freezing water and having to dive a few times to avoid the hoar witch’s beast, but he didn’t remember traveling to the Lurr, or even climbing out of the far side of the lake.
“You’ll be taking it easy for bit,” a tiny sparkling finger-sized sprite with a white vest marking it as a Medika, told him. Another sprite zipped away and Thorn heard her calling down the tunnel ahead of her, “General Posy-Thorn has awakened. Posy-Thorn has come to!”
Within a matter of moments Thorn’s healing room was filled with his fellow honor guards and Queen Corydalis. The beautiful, lavender-eyed ruler of the Lurr Forest Fae seemed sad and Thorn suddenly remembered that Barb and Bristle hadn’t made it back.
“You’ve cast the beckoning then?” His voice was raw and speaking wasn’t easy. He figured he must have been unconscious for some time.
“Most of a season ago.” The queen touched his brow gingerly.
“Rest, as the Medika have told you. Soon you will venture from the Shadowmane again, for the Emerald-Eyed Champion will need someone to guide him into the Underland.”
“He’s answered the call then?” Thorn and a few others around the room grew hopeful. Thorn tried to sit up, but his body wouldn’t allow it.
“Answered isn’t the proper word. His name is Vanx Malic Saint Elm. His father was Captain Marin Saint Elm from the sea tales. He has ridden on the back of a red dragon and saved the Kingdom of Parydon from powerful evil. He knows not why he is drawn to us, or that he is even being drawn, but he has stepped off of a ship and is in our land. I have felt it.”
“Let us pray he hurries,” one of the Queen’s honor guard said. “The Heart Tree is waning.”
“Let us have hope and faith that he will,” the queen kissed Thorn’s forehead and then ushered everyone out of the room. “Let us have hope and faith.”
The End
OTHER TITLES BY M. R. MATHIAS
Short Stories:
Crimzon & Clover I - Orphaned Dragon, Lucky Girl
Crimzon & Clover II - The Tricky Wizard
Crimzon & Clover III - The Grog
Crimzon & Clover IV - The Wrath of Crimzon
Crimzon & Clover V - Killer of Giants
Crimzon & Clover Collection One (stories 1-5)
The Saga of the Dragoneers
The First Dragoneer - Free
The Royal Dragoneers - Now Available
Cold Hearted Son of a Witch - Now Available
The Confliction
- Now Available
The Emerald Rider - Now Available
Rise of the Dragon King – Now Available
The Legend of Vanx Malic
Book One – Through the Wildwood
Book Two – Dragon Isle
Book Three – Saint Elm’s Deep
Book Four – That Frigid Fargin’ Witch
And don't miss the huge International Bestselling epic:
The Wardstone Trilogy
Book One - The Sword and the Dragon
Book Two - Kings, Queens, Heroes, & Fools
Book Three - The Wizard & the Warlord
Rise Of The Dragon King (Book 5) Page 17