by Martha Carr
They were about to pass the judges at the far end of the field when the crowd got to their feet, cheering and stomping in the stands. Raven saw the stands shake in a rippling wave as people grabbed something to catch themselves. The shaking passed from left to right down a section of the bleachers, and even from afar, she could see looks of fear pass among the spectators. She resisted the urge to stand up in the saddle or tell Leander anything. She closed her eyes, pressing her heels against his side.
Fly, Leander. Give it everything you have.
She felt the scales moving beneath her arms and his muscles flexing as he pushed himself to the limit, flying faster and faster. Her knuckles grazed the ruby and silver pin on her lapel and she smiled, her eyes shut.
We can do this together.
They crossed the finish line. They gradually slowed in the air and circled back, coming to a soft landing by the exit gate. Raven turned in the saddle, looking back at the spectators. They were still trying to make their way off one section of bleachers, which was tilted at an odd angle. No one looked panicked and the shaking had stopped, but Raven couldn’t shake off the feeling something was wrong.
She sat back in the saddle as the gate opened to let them out. The last rider readied to take the course.
Raven waited, tapping her hands on the saddle until they were clear of the stall, then she swung her legs around and slid off the saddle to the ground. She grabbed the leads and made her way toward William, who was smiling and waving his arms. “I think you did it! It’s between you and Zeke unless this last dragon does better than he ever has in his life. We have to wait for your final time, but you might have done it!”
Raven let out a loud whoop, shaking her fist in the air. She patted Leander on his neck. The dragon reared his head and roared, stomping the ground. Nearby trainers rolled their eyes as someone murmured, “Newbies.”
Raven laughed and said, “I don’t care.”
She handed the leads to William and hugged him. “Did you see what happened to the stands? I have to go check on my grandfather and Deacon. I’ll be right back.”
“Go, go! I’ll wait for you here with the winning dragon.”
Raven took off at a run, pushing and dodging her way through the dense crowd until she made it to the edge of the almost-empty section of bleachers. Her grandfather and Deacon still sat and watched the last rider.
“Yes!” shouted Deacon as the pair shook the rings.
Raven climbed the uneven stands and threw herself into her grandfather’s arms, hugging him. “I knew you could do it!” he said, squeezing her. “You looked just like Sarah out there.”
Raven pushed back from him and stood up on the stands, balancing on the uneven floorboards. “What happened here?”
“The conspiracy theories have already started, saying someone was trying to sabotage your run.”
“I pointed out that it would have been smarter to blow up the ring and not the spectators if that was what they wanted,” said Deacon, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Kind of supportive,” said Raven, smiling as she ran her hands over the black saddle, searching for her satchel strapped to the side. She found it, unfolded the top, and slid her hand in, digging around for the orb, which was lost in the bottom. At last, her hand wrapped around it. She pulled it out into the sunshine.
“Oh!” Her mouth stayed in a perfect O as her eyes widened. Her grandfather stared at the orb, the color draining from his face. It was a deep burgundy red.
“Pretty red ball you got there, kid,” said Deacon. “Why do you two look so strange?”
Raven got up and clambered down the back of the bleachers without saying a word, the orb clutched in her hand. She went to the side that was leaning the most and looked down at the ground. There was a long line of overturned earth that stretched far off the horizon. She stared into the distance as her grandfather caught up with her and looked down at the ground.
“Holy shit,” he whispered.
“AND THE WINNING TIME GOES TO RAVEN ALBY, RIDING THE RED DRAGON LEANDER.” The announcer, who was standing by the pens, was using a large cone-shaped megaphone.
“We won,” said Raven, breathing harder. “We did it. Leander is safe!”
“But are we?” asked her grandfather. “What if that damned menace is back?”
Raven held up the red orb again. “That’s what we’ll have to find out.” She looked at her grandfather. “No matter what happens, we’ll do this together. We can face anything together.”
The End
Raven and Leander have passed the first tests. New ones await them. The threat is real and it's gotten inside the city walls. Can Raven and Leander use their new bond to fight off the Swarm? Who will join her in the battle? What can Fowler Academy teach her to help in whatever comes next? Find out in War Mage: Unrestrained.
The Story Continues with War Mage: Unrestrained
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Author Notes - Martha Carr
February 6, 2020
This weekend I’m heading to the Offspring, Louie and Jackie Venson’s engagement party. About time! In honor of that here’s a few memories from raising such a creative, funny kid who was amazingly fast on his feet.
"He looks like one of the Blue Men, you know, from the Revolution."
Leave it to my late father to come up with an historical reference.
My small son, Louie, was three years old and standing at the front door clad in only his underwear, completely covered in an aqua blue coating. He had figured out his big, fat sticks of chalk dissolved in puddles. I was impressed with his attention to detail; even his eyelids and the backs of his ears were blue.
I wasn't surprised he was up to something. That was life as a single mother with Louie. Thank goodness I knew he was smarter than I was. That's what made it possible to look out a window and see him on his small tricycle, legs out to the sides, whizzing down our very steep driveway, his curly hair straightened by the wind blowing past him, and not worry. Or watch him attempt to pet every living creature, sometimes getting nipped by the geese down by the lake in the process, and not worry. Eventually the geese gave in and let him pet them, and he gently stroked their heads and chatted with them. They would turn their heads slightly and look at him till he was done talking.
There was that time he got nipped by a garden snake. He didn’t take that one so easily. His three-year-old self whipped the snake into a half-knot, which he immediately regretted and he came to me to get help untying the snake.
"What?" I asked, in the middle of vacuuming. "You did what?"
"I tied a snake in a knot, and I need you to help me untie it," he said, calmly.
I turned off the vacuum, still looking at his calm expression, wondering if maybe this all meant something else and I would find something else tied in a knot.
But there on the front step was a long black garden snake slowly untying itself from a very tight half-knot.
"Help it," Louie said.
"Why did you do it?" I asked.
"It bit me," he said, offering up his hand with just a small red mark. "Untie it," he repeated, looking back down at the snake. Fortunately, it was making progress on its own.
"No, it's getting somewhere. We'll let the snake handle this one."
Louie wasn't completely satisfied and stayed to make sure before depositing the snake back in the grass. It didn't try to bite him again.
I let Louie play in the front yard of our small neighborhood without me right next to him since he was three. We lived in a red brick rancher, on a quiet cul-de-sac surrounded on one side by a small lake, and off of two other fairly quiet streets. Louie had been trying t
o break out of the house since he was two, sometimes successfully. I was worn out by the time he was three.
I didn't think his little hands at two years old could get the door open, but one day some elderly neighbors were showing me pictures they had recently taken and in one of them was Louie smiling broadly, still in his pajamas, obviously outside without my knowledge. That's when I started dead bolting the doors.
"We can't get out, she locked the doors," he said glumly to my oldest sister, who smiled in return. That clued Louie in.
"You know where the key is,” he said with certainty. She refused to tell him, so he went back to scheming. For months Louie would ask every guest who ventured into the house, and was then locked in, if they were ready to go, could he walk them to their car. I constantly had to explain that Louie was trying to sneak outside. "It's not you, I promise.”
Life with Louie meant he decided, at five, to climb yet another tree, the very tall pine that was right outside our old front door. He didn't stop until he was above the roof line. Wisely, he decided to sit on a comfortable branch and wait patiently for me to come looking for him. In the meantime, he would yell hello to any neighbors he saw who would turn round and round looking for him, before giving up and just yelling hello back in the general direction of his voice.
Everyone knew Louie and knew he must be up to something but in the end, he would also be okay. That was life with Louie. Scary, potentially dangerous, weird, funny, sad, touching, and always turning out okay.
Standing underneath the tall pine, directing him down as I tried to gauge where to stand so I could act as a human mattress if necessary, I would repeat to myself for the umpteenth time, "He will grow up in spite of me. He will grow up in spite of me." When he got to the ground, he gave himself one good shake, looked up at me with a grin and said, "You should see the view from up there!" He quickly turned and took off running to look for something else to discover.
Louie's adventures were always an odd compliment to my own adventures as an undiscovered writer, and a good reminder on the days I wanted to give up and do something sensible. Sure, that would look like the reasonable thing to do and would have made a lot of my relatives feel more comfortable but would have drained all of the fun out of life for me and taken away the possibilities that risk can often bring.
As you all know, the story wasn’t done yet anyway. You should see the view from here. More adventures to follow.
Author Notes - Michael Anderle
February 21, 2020
THANK YOU for reading our story! We have a few of these planned, but we don’t know if we should continue writing and publishing without your input. Options include leaving a review, reaching out on Facebook to let us know, and smoke signals.
Frankly, smoke signals might get misconstrued as low hanging clouds, so you might want to nix that idea.
I don’t have stories to regale you with about our three (3) boys, but I can tell you our twins Jacob and Joseph perpetually made me scratch my head.
When they were young, we lived in a single-story house in Katy, TX. The house had a kitchen in the middle, and you could come in the front door, walk straight ahead (past a right turn that would lead you to the kitchen from another direction) and turn into the kitchen. From there, you could proceed straight, then right to go down the aforementioned hall and end up back in the front of the house.
Now, the house was about 2,100 square feet, and the boys weren’t more than three feet tall max.
So, how did they accomplish running all over the house, only to smash into each other coming from opposite directions at the SAME MOMENT in time around the corners in that hallway?
Not once, no. They did this multiple times. Of course, after the two-kid pileup in the middle of the carpet, the crying would commence. We would have to figure out if either needed emergency parental medical services (EPMS) or they just needed to be picked up and given a pat on the back towards the toys, and off they would go.
I can’t say I miss those days. I much prefer the moments they didn’t crash into each other.
I still have a nervous tic from when the boys were that age.
Diary Sunday, Feb 23rd to Sat Feb 29th.
Well, this is a little early (I’m not quite into the week yet), but I can admit I’m going to be out of the office for a couple of days.
Where are you going, you ask? Why, to the White Label World Expo. I know, it clearly gives you goosebumps up and down your arms just thinking about it, right?
No?
Well, color me surprised. (In case you are super-curious, here is the link: https://www.whitelabelexpo.com)
I’ve now reviewed the list of those exhibiting, and I’m not sure if I’ll last beyond a couple of hours. I’m pretty sure this should be renamed the CBD Conference for those not yet involved.
I did notice there is a class on leveraging Amazon’s algorithm for growth. That looks interesting.
On to other topics!
We have plenty of cool books coming out next week, including Scions of Magic Book 05, Huntress Clan Saga Book 03 (this series has been extended to 06!) We have a brand-new series WAR MAGE Book 01 (3 in 1) on Wednesday. We finish the week with Goth Drow (3 in 1) on Friday and Steel Dragon Book 03 (3 in 1) on Saturday.
All in, that is about eleven (11) books’ worth of reading. So, I hope you don’t treasure your sleep!
#Sleep Is Overrated.
#Read all Night, Sleep all day.
#Don’t Be A Quitter – Finish the book!
#Your boss will NOT understand, I guarantee it.
I will be editing OpusX Book 06 this week, so if you are in Vegas, you might find me at the Aria Five-50 bar typing into the night, trying to pound their iced tea (I swear that stuff has 3x the caffeine of any other tea) and finish just one more chapter or three of editing.
Today, I visited the Aria barber (in the Spa) for the first time. The barber (a Russian lady, Luba(?)) talked me into a true barber shave.
Dammit, that hurt!
I only ever do a dry electric shave, and my beard was NOT pleased with the experience. It wasn’t too bad (yes, it was.), until the last towel.
Those who have done this are probably chuckling.
You see, the first towel in a barber shave is hot, or at least nice and warm to open the pores. She flicked the first towel back and forth a few times to cool it, then settled it on my chin area (this was going well), then wrapped it all the way around my face leaving an opening for my nose.
HOLY D@#%R that was a bit warm!
But really nice after the shock. The towel was infused with something that smelled spa-ish and very outdoorsy.
The actual shave was a bit harsh (ripping hairs out at the roots it felt like) at times, but I expected that to happen.
It was the last towel, the one to close the pores, that made me bounce out of the chair.
It wasn’t just “a little cold.” No, it felt like she laid ice water in a nice circle on top of my face. As if I were in the sea off of Iceland, with only my nose sticking out above the frigid water.
In short, it sucked.
I’ll do it again, but probably once a quarter. There is very little that can provide such a close shave as a razor blade. Besides, the thought of only one small jerk of the hand to end your life gets the blood flowing, #AmIRight?
Yeah, even I could have done without that last thought. See you next book!
Ad Aeternitatem,
Michael Anderle
Books By Martha Carr
Series in the Oriceran Universe:
SCHOOL OF NECESSARY MAGIC
SCHOOL OF NECESSARY MAGIC: RAINE CAMPBELL
ALISON BROWNSTONE
THE DANIEL CODEX SERIES
THE LEIRA CHRONICLES
I FEAR NO EVIL
FEDERAL AGENTS OF MAGIC
SCIONS OF MAGIC
THE UNBELIEVABLE MR. BROWNSTONE
REWRITING JUSTICE
THE KACY CHRONICLES
MIDWEST MAGIC CHRONICLES
SOUL STONE MAGE
THE FAIRHAVEN CHRONICLES
Series in The Terranavis Universe:
The Adventures of Maggie Parker Series
The Adventures of Finnegan Dragonbender
The Witches of Pressler Street
OTHER BOOKS BY JUDITH BERENS
OTHER BOOKS BY MARTHA CARR
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