by RyFT Brand
was to give the muscle bound wood dweller a moment to think. Looking like he had a particularly sour lemon slice in his mouth, he sheathed the sword and crossed his formidable arms. His warriors stepped away then set their spear butts on the ground.
“Good boy,” I said garnering a growl from the tall, tall for an elf anyway, warrior. “Now I suppose this is where I say—”
“Oh, I know this one.” One of his warriors, this one very young looking, said, “Take me to your leader,” doing his best to imitate my Mirthin accent. The yelp looked really pleased with himself until he caught the glare he was receiving from his leader.
“You’re a real piece of excrement, you know that?” Truvinn said.
“I know,” I said and didn’t even try to conceal the pride I was feeling.
“Come on, then,” Truvinn said, then started walking away.
I hopped out and followed. Ship was saying something, but I couldn’t hear what through all the broken speaker distortion. Truvinn’s warriors fell in behind me. I did my best to look like I felt in control of the situation. I had a long history of ill-conceived and even more poorly executed battle schemes. But that one, well, that one was downright reckless—stupid, even by my standards. Truth was that situation felt more out of control then any in my out of control life ever had, and that’s saying something. And then I felt something else, a sudden wave of nausea. “Whoa.” I stopped and wobbled on my feet. The next wave had me covering my mouth and came accompanied by vertigo. I dropped to my knees, keeping the one hand pressed to my mouth and the other to my aching gut.
Truvinn whirled around, drew his sword, and aimed it at my throat. His warriors all assumed fighting stances, but I was too occupied with gut-wrenching pain to pay them any attention.
“Oui! What manner of trickery is this, girlie?” Truvinn asked.
I held my palms up in a mute, ‘wait, wait,’ gesture and sat back on my rump. Sweat was running down my face. My skin felt like it was burning and I was having trouble catching my breath.
Truvinn knelt down. He grabbed my chin, pulled my head upright and stared into my eyes. His umber gaze held me for a full minute, but I couldn’t get my eyes to focus. The Not-Now-Stone was wreaking havoc inside me. The magic rock I’d swallowed had the power to heal anything that ailed you. Scrud, I now knew that it could even re-grow a limb and heal a long dead dragon. But within twenty-four hours of use the stone had to be cleansed in a jar of soulution or said user would suffer every injury the magic rock had ever healed. Only my office had been blown up, the old pickle jar along with it. In just over six hours the stone would backlash. I’d been close before, even closer than this, but it had never felt this bad. It hurt like the dammed thing was trying to bore a hole though my abdomen. I cried out and fell onto my back. I curled up on the thick carpet of dried pine needles, holding my stomach, and holding my breath in an attempt to keep the stone down. Allowing it to come up without the soulution meant instant backlash.
I was vaguely aware that Truvinn stood and called to someone, “Fenrisis.”
Another elf, this one lithe and lean even for a forest elf, and older looking, hard to tell with a species that lived so long, came over and knelt beside me. I cried out and writhed on the forest floor as the stone felt like it was blending my organs into puree. This was it, the moment so many had warned me about, the stone was backlashing, but it was hours too soon. Maybe I’d overtaxed it. It had re-grown my severed hand and reconstituted an entire dragon. Whatever the cause, it was the end, the end for me and far too soon for me to save DJ.
“What is it, Fenrisis?” I heard Truvinn ask through the throb in my ears.
Tears had blurred my vision but I saw Fenrisis shake his head. “Beats all get out to me. Don’t know much about primitive physiology. Hold on.”
Fenrisis dug though a pouch made of two large leaves stitched together. As he did the pain subsided a little. I sprawled out, letting my arms flop out to my sides. The earth felt cool and comforting. Sweat and tears were running down my face. Panting, I was finally catching my breath. My shaking ceased and my body went from burning to cold in a few heartbeats.
Fenrisis took a feather from his pouch, balanced it on a finger, and moved it slowly above my body.
“I saw…” I said, my voice was week and dry. I swallowed and cleared my throat. “I saw a Cherokee woman do that once.”
“No way you could have, girly,” Truvinn said. “They went extinct before you were born.”
Fenrisis held the feather over my heart and it turned clockwise circles. “Actually, I think she may be telling the truth.”
“What?” Truvinn exclaimed. “How is that possible?”
Okay, I needed this conversation to end. I didn’t know why, but the stone had settled down. “Look guys, I’m feeling fine now. I think it was just gas so can we get moving?”
“No,” both elves said together.
At my stomach the feather took an abrupt dip. Fenrisis moved the feather away and it balanced out straight, but when he brought it back to my stomach it tipped down again. “Something’s inside there, powerful, not natural magic.” Fenrisis pulled his feather away, stood and took a step back. “It’s sorcery, something very dark.”
Truvinn stuck his sword tip in the crook of my neck. “How dare you bring such a thing to this sacred land!”
I wasn’t sure if I’d fully recovered, but that seemed like a good time to find out. Forest elves were fast, faster than any human, so I just had to be smarter. I knocked my left heel against the ground, activating my boot tazer, and tapped the warrior elf in the leg with the toe of my boot. He screamed so loudly that it echoed throughout the forest. The high voltage current locked his muscles up tight. I rolled out from under his sword tip and onto my feet as I drew my macdaddy revolver, putting his trembling body between me and his warriors. Truvinn dropped like the great puppeteer had cut his strings. Three spear points nailed me in the chest. My battle armor kept me alive, but the force tossed me to the ground.
I bounced back up, drawing aim as I did, but a cedar skinned fist contacted me in the face, snapped my head back, and dropped me. Truvinn followed the punch by leaping on top of me as he drew his fist back for another. I jammed the revolver barrel into his throat and we both froze in place.
“Look, dimwit,” I said—granted, not my wittiest insult. “I didn’t come here to share my shady secrets or sneak sorcery into your stupid woods. I have information for your king, and I want to see my friend, then I’m leaving. If you want me to kill you first I can do that.”
Truvinn’s face turned a dark shade of red. His high-arched eyebrows cut down into a sharp V and he showed me his clenched teeth. “You’ll not threaten me, whelp. I fear death not, and if you do kill me, my warriors will insure that you never see your friend again.”
Damn, why’d he have to remind me about DJ? I couldn’t abandon her. Not until I was sure my backup was coming and I was still very unsure about that.
I released the hammer and lowered the gun.
“So, you’re not completely stupid,” Truvinn said and drew his fist back to strike.
“Ahhhh!” I screamed, thrashing around so hard that I bucked Truvinn clear off me.
“Truvinn!” Fenrisis shouted running over. “What did you do? Torture is not our way.”
Truvinn stood and opened his hands. “I did nothing.”
I screamed again, and may have even passed out for a minute. The stone was at it again, but much worse this time. I felt like I was burning from the inside out.
Fenrisis knelt beside me. I saw Truvinn set a hand to Fenrisis’s shoulder. Truvinn was speaking and shaking his head, probably telling him to let me die. I couldn’t hear either of them. My ears were full of my own screams.
Fenrisis set a palm to my head and I felt some of that accursed elven magic seeping into me. No, no, no, no, no! Is what I wanted to shout, but all that came out was, “Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!”
The next thing I knew the sun was high in the sky
. I must have passed out, an hour at least, but the pain was gone. I couldn’t feel the stone in my belly at all. I felt fine except for a terrible taste in my mouth. Truvinn and Fenrisis were standing off to my side, engaged in some debate; probably discussing the best way to kill me.
“So, what did you do me?” I asked.
Fenrisis came over and knelt beside me. He stared into my eyes and I knew it wasn’t love; he was scanning me with magic. So I scanned him back. He snapped to his feet and backed away. “How did you—”
“Childhood accident; partially blinded me. But now I can see into the magical spectrum. Handy sometimes, other times, not so much. Now someone help me up,” I said reaching out a hand. Normally I kept my secrets close, but what the hell, I was dead anyway.
Truvinn glared at Fenrisis and then said, “Get yourself up, Girlie. Make it quick. The king’s expecting you.”
Yeah, I thought he’d say something like that. I got myself standing, expecting to feel week or dizzy or at least a little aggravated, but I felt fine, not great, but fine.
“We move with all haste,” Truvinn ordered and started through the forest.
Fenrisis followed, and I fell in beside him, the rest of the company marched behind.
“So, what did you do to me?” I asked as we walked, and I had to work to keep up, elves have long, sure strides.
He didn’t answer. Normally when the stone was in my stomach, I could feel
