That Frigid Fargin Witch (The Legend of Vanx Malic) (16 page)

Thorn jabbed relentlessly at the minotaur’s lower leg, but the heavy monster refused to lift his boot. The elven general saw his death blow coming then, and said a quick prayer to Babd, the fairy god of battle and war.

Even in defeat, Thorn appreciated the chance to die valiantly fighting against evil. As his eyes clenched shut and the minotaur’s sword came arcing toward his neck, he heard Babd laugh back at his death prayer.

A savage growl and a heavy crash of snapping teeth and clanging armor caused Thorn to open an eye. The blade that should have cleaved his skull from his body made a shower of sparks as it impacted just a hand’s breadth beyond him. The weight lifted from his chest when the minotaur was knocked forward into a stumbling sprawl.

It took Thorn a moment to realize his savior was Sir Poopsalot Maximus. Vanx’s magical orb was losing its power, but when Thorn heard the minotaur’s anguished roar and turned, he could clearly see that the dog had done more than just save his skin. He’d saved Vanx’s skin as well.

The stinger should have punched right through Vanx’s chest, but its point hit directly on the gleaming charm he wore on his necklace. The creature pushed harder, trying to break through it, but only managed to keep him from gasping in a breath. His strength ebbed and his magical light started to fade away.

As soon as Vanx stopped struggling, it brought up its tail spike and sent it stabbing down a bit lower.

The minotaur stumbled. The weight of his heavy armor and great horned head carried him into a headlong sprawl. He landed hard on Vanx’s body, nearly crushing his rib cage under all the substantial weight. It was then, in the near darkness Vanx’s fading orb was leaving behind, that he saw the terrible stinger come down again. It must have punched right into the struggling minotaur because the huge, horn-headed thing suddenly arched back and rolled away.

The minotaur’s roar was horrendous, but the other creature didn’t pull its stinger away. It was far too late for that. It unhooked its tentacles from Vanx’s legs and wrapped them around the minotaur. Then as quickly as it had come, it scurried back up into the heights of the web, hauling its struggling new food supply with it.

As soon as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Thorn found Vanx’s side. Poops was already there, licking his familiar’s face with frantic urgency.

“What?”

Vanx heaved in a huge breath, and then another. His head slowly began to clear. “What happened?” he finally asked.

A glance down at the charm his Goddess had given him told him half the story. It was dented in the middle as if someone had slammed a dirk into it with extreme force, but it was otherwise intact. Thorn filled him in on the rest as he helped him to his feet and got them all moving into the rough-hewn passageway from which the minotaur had come. Vanx cursed himself for being stupid. He assumed the medallion on his neck would somehow create some magical force field or transform into a shield to protect him, or maybe even give him extra strength, or inject some insight into his brain at the right moment, but it hadn’t.

His Goddess had said, “It will protect you in your time of greatest need.”

He’d discounted its value when the glow had subsided earlier and now he felt a fool for it. It had truly saved him at a time when he had imagined no need greater than a barrier between his guts and that venom-dripping spike. The white gold-dipped leaf, or silva tree cutting, or whatever it was, had saved him, plain and simple. Vanx vowed to give thanks to the Goddess and beg for her forgiveness for his doubt just as soon as he had the chance.

The passage began ramping upward and arced into a crudely carved stairway that turned a slow radius as it corkscrewed upward. They passed several barred gates that opened away from the passage. But the huffing, chittering, grunting, and in one case, the unnatural silence, behind the cell doors dissuaded them from trying to unlock them. Farther up, the glow of wavering torchlight filtered down to dance and flare along the cold, lichen-covered walls.

As they crept as silently as possible up into the light, a shadow, or maybe two, eclipsed the torchlight. Then came the creak of unoiled hinges and the sound of shuffling feet.

“Come on, Vanx,” a kindly old woman’s voice said.

“Come to Grandmamma and let’s have a look-see at you.”

Vanx gave Thorn the finger-across-his-lips signal for silence and motioned for the elf to hold on to Poops. He then eased up around the curve of the stair. There was a small landing in front of an iron-banded wooden door with a hissing torch burning in a sconce beside it. The door was half open and a wrinkly, old, wart-faced, gray-maned witch peeked her head out and gave him a creepy, gap-toothed grin.

“Come in, Vanxy,” she chuckled kindly. “Come see what’s become of Chelda Flar and the persistent little changeling girl we all thought had fallen to her death.”

The loud bang of the iron-bound door slamming shut told Thorn that Vanx had entered the chamber. He rushed to the latch, Poops growling and prancing frantically at his shoulder. The slide mechanism was higher than the little elf’s head, but he could reach it. Try as he might, though, it wouldn’t budge.

Poops suddenly whirled, his hackles springing to life along his back. The tone of his aggression went from frantic to savage. Thorn turned as well and saw a man-sized, leathery-winged, trollish beast. Its fanged ivory teeth and the bright pink of its flickering tongue contrasted wildly with its pitch-dark scales. The long shadow it cast on the curving wall, thrown from the next torch up the stairway, lent the feral creature a substantial amount of menace, but Thorn found he wasn’t afraid. Babd had already graced him once this night. It was clear he was meant to fight.

With little regard for his ruined arm, he stepped up besides Poops and drew forth the Glaive of Gladiolus.

The thing stepped down toward them, lowering its body into an anticipatory crouch. Casually it reached out one of its hands and dragged it along the stone wall. It licked its lips and flickered its tongue and made what might have been a smirking grin, or possibly a snarl. Then it dove at them.

“Babd be with us,” Thorn said under his breath as he stepped forward.

Poops took two powerful lunges up the stairs, then leapt to meet the monster mid-dive. His teeth missed the thing’s neck, but clamped down on a well-muscled shoulder. Filthy claws raked his fur deeply as the two half-spun and began tumbling down toward the elf. Thorn judged the roll, sidestepped to avoid gigging Poops by mistake, then sank his blade into the first scale-covered flesh he saw. There was a marrow-jarring jolt as the blade struck bone. When the momentum of the falling combatants threatened to tear the weapon from Thorn’s grip, he refused to let go and was yanked into the flailing tangle. The trio crashed violently into the wooden door, across the landing, and continued down the stairs in a limb-shattering cartwheel. When the knot of fur, skin and scales finally came to a halt, not one of the three was moving.

Chapter
Nineteen
Chapter
Nineteen

My Molly said she loved me.

She said her heart was mine.

But I went I tried to go again,

she made me get back in line.

– Parydon Cobbles

“H
ave a look, Vanxy,” the Hoar Witch indicated the surface of the raised pool that dominated the cluttered chamber. The air was oily and had a moldy musk scent that was undercut by the faint stench of decay. Two torches added to the acrid mixture while throwing harsh yellow light in wavering pulses. The scene showing on the surface of the liquid was cloudy, but immediately recognizable. It stole Vanx’s attention.

Several of the Hoar Witch’s wolfen beasts were surrounding Chelda, who was on her back writhing and crying. Her neck and shoulder were covered in some dark, sticky-looking goo. A foot-tall bearded woman and a slightly taller gnomish girl looked to be tending the injury. The presence of the toothy beasts seemed to have unnerved them. They were now crouched and trembling against the fallen gargan woman’s side.

“Here,” the Hoar Witch dipped a finger in her drawstring bag and tossed it to Vanx. “Just a taste on your tongue and you’ll see it all so much more clearly.”

“What is it?” His contempt for her roiled his stomach. Only his worry for Chelda kept him from running her through with the sword he still held in his hand.

“Eyes and guts,” she cackled, probably at his distress. “Frog eyes, hawk eyes, fox livers, maybe even parts and pieces of a fairy or two. The taste is bad, but it does the trick.”

Vanx didn’t want to find out how the stuff tasted, but she had just dipped her own finger in and licked it, so he doubted it was poison.

Reluctantly he dipped his finger in the bag and touched it to his tongue.

She was right. The taste was so horrid that he gagged once from it. But also, as she said, the scene in her reflecting pool took on a surreal clarity. It was as if he was sitting in the trees himself watching Chelda from just a few dozen paces away.

The sound became clearer as well. What he’d thought was Chelda crying was actually her snarling and cursing. Vanx was glad to see that her spirit was still strong, and that her old sword was lying beside her on the gore-soaked turf. Its blade wasn’t alight, for the hilt wasn’t in her hand, but it was close enough that she could reach it if the attackers got any closer.

“Watch,” the Hoar Witch said, and as if she and Vanx had leapt into flight, the scene in the pool shimmered and drew closer to them. Vanx noticed that she was grasping tightly to the crystal dangling at her throat. He remembered the Zythian hawkers of his homeland had mounted crystals in their finger rings to help them control the birds. He figured that she had just commanded whatever winged creature, whose eyes they were seeing through, to leap from its perch and glide closer to Chelda.

Beyond where his gargan friend lay, he saw battle raging. Tiny arrows streaked by and the clashing and clanking of heated aggression sounded plainly. The squeaking calls of embattled fae, and gibbering, snarling animal calls came to his ears.

It was hard to say if it was day or night in the Shadowmane. The creature whose eyes they were seeing through took it all in as if it were dusk or dawn. Vanx could see the world in a similar fashion, in full darkness, so he could tell that it wasn’t broad daylight, for no distinct shadows were cast. Since he’d been underground so long, he had no idea.