“Ye tellin’ me the truth…Wendel?”
Wendel pressed his boney cheeks right up to the bars and stared at Hagus. “All Wendel has left of humanity is his eyes. Only truth Wendel has left.”
Hagus saw sincerity in those large, bloodshot, watery blue eyes.
Without thinking, he drew his skinning knife and began sawing away at the elven rope holding the door closed in a tight knot. The knife had no effect. Hagus looked at it and shook his head. “Damned elves.” He put the knife away and grabbed two of the bars. Wendel leapt to the back of the cage fearfully.
Hagus grunted and pulled hard in opposite directions. Chorded muscles and veins bulged in his thick forearms, and the bars began to bend. Hagus gave a grunt and a groan and replanted his feet, and PULLED.
The bars bent with a grating, whining protest.
Hagus stepped back, smiling at the awestruck skeleton.
“Ye told me the truth, or so I believe. Ye be free, Wendel.”
“Free?” said Wendel, more to himself than the dwarf. “Wendel is free?”
He crawled to the widened bars and stuck his head out, grinning. But then fear and uncertainty haunted his eyes, and he slunk back into the security of his cage.
“What ye doin’? I said ye be free,” Hagus told him.
Wendel shook his head violently. “But…but where will Wendel go? Wendel will be hunted. Wendel will be caught…”
Hagus considered that and looked to the west. “I be headed to the Wide Wall,” he said, pointing. “Beyond that lies the Forest o’ the Dead. Sounds like a good place for a cursed horse trainer skeleton to retire.”
Wendel gave a sudden, boisterous laugh in a voice that Hagus thought must have been his as a living man, and the dwarf couldn’t help but laugh as well.
“Hells, ye could probably become the king!” said Hagus with a chuckle.
“HAH!” Wendel fell back in a fit of laughter.
They shared a good laugh, and when they settled down, Hagus looked seriously to Wendel. “So, what’ll it be?”
The skeleton looked to the bars, teeth chattering and eyes bulging, and put his head out once again. He looked around, and then maneuvered a shoulder bone through. He waited expectantly, then moved the other shoulder past the bent bars. His skull jerked from side to side, ready for a trap, and with a push he fell out of the crow’s nest and landed on the ground with a sound like wooden chimes. Wendel came to all fours and glanced from Hagus to the cage, from the cage to Hagus, and then all around as he backed into the center of the crossing.
“Ye be free, Wendel,” said Hagus. “Ain’t nobody here to hurt ye.”
“Free? Free?” said Wendel, looking at his boney hands and spinning a circle. “Wendel is freeee!” he cheered, pumping his fists to the heavens.
Just then a blue streak zipped through the air and stopped between Hagus and Wendel.
“Either of you two weirdos seen a fat green ogre go this way?” asked a blue sprite.
“Who be askin’?” said Hagus.
“Dingleberry, that’s who!”
Chapter 28
Mystic Magix
Murland gave a sigh of relief when the first rays of sunlight shot across the eastern sky, and his joy was two-fold, for not only had the night finally ended, but the rising sun proved that indeed, he had been leading them north.
“Soon we will be back on the road,” he told the others happily.
Willow grunted, upset as she was that the food had been strapped to the mounts. Gibrig trudged on, lead-footed and head down, sniffling every now and again. Brannon too seemed not to have heard Murland at all. He just continued in his shuffle, eyes down, head drooping.
The mists glowed in the morning light, and though he felt bad for the loss of the mounts, he was happy to be getting back to the road. Soon enough they would be out of the Blight. And good riddance. The night had been filled with dread and the strange, eerie singing that always seemed faraway but also right beside you. He trudged on through the long dead brush that broke like candy brittle beneath his feet and kept his eyes on the northern hillside. The rocky land rose here, which convinced Murland further that they were on the right track.“Ye thinkin’ we’ll ever be seein’ ‘em again?” Gibrig asked sullenly.
“I don’t know, Gib,” said Murland. “Maybe they headed north back to the road like we are. Sometimes animals are smart like that.
“Yeah,” said Gibrig with sudden hope. “Snorts sure be a smart one.”
“Nah, if that storm didn’t get that hog of yours, then my raptor did,” said Willow, and Brannon offered her a big-eyed glare.
Gibrig stared up at her, wide-eyed. “Why would ye say that?”
“Because it is true.”
Gibrig stopped, and the others followed suit. “Ye take that back,” he told Willow, staring up at her angrily.
“What’s gotten into you?”
“Take it back!”
“Fine, fine, I take it back. Whatever good that’ll do.”
Murland waved Willow and Brannon on and waited back with Gibrig.
“You alright?” he asked the red-faced dwarf.
“Why’s everybody gotta be so mean to everybody all the time?”
“Ah, she didn’t mean nothing by it. Willow’s just got a loose tongue is all.”
“I know,” said Gibrig, suddenly breaking down.
Murland put his arm around Gibrig’s shoulder and gave him a friendly squeeze. “Sorry about Snorts. But you know there is a chance that they all survived.”
“I be sorry. Tell Willow I be sorry. That wasn’t nice o’ me yellin’ at her like that.”
“You know,” said Murland, trying to think of how to word it. “Sometimes it is alright, er, well…justified to be mean. Sometimes that is the only option. Look at Drak’Noir. We’ve got to be mean to scare her away.”
Gibrig was shaking his head before Murland had even finished. “Meanness never be the way.”
“I know that your father says that, but he must have told you that there are exceptions.”
“It ain’t all about me father. I, I had a…”
“Had a what?” Murland asked, hanging on Gibrig’s every word.
But the dwarf just shook his head and trudged on. Murland called to him, but Gibrig kept on going.
For six hours, Murland led them up the stony incline, avoiding the ravines as Sir Eldrick had, and sticking to the long ridges that ran like fingers from the highlands, down through the valley, and up again into greener pastures.
“Look!’ he yelled jubilantly.
The others raised their heads, and one after another they smiled, for the road was there, on the other side of a field of clover.
“The road!” Brannon cried and shrugged out of his furs to run to it.
Murland picked up his friend’s cloak and ran after him with Gibrig and Willow following closely behind.
Brannon reached the road and fell to his knees, kissing the hard-packed dirt and saying, “Thank you, thank you,” repeatedly.
“We did it,” said Murland, stopping to catch his breath. “I think we’ve had enough travel for one day. Let’s find a good place to make camp.”
The others had no objections, and fifteen minutes down the western road, they found a suitable grassy area where they might take their rest.
Murland, Brannon, Gibrig, and Willow all plopped down on the soft grass and lay there, staring at the light-blue sky. The weather north beyond the Blight was warm and full of spring. Birds chirruped happily in the trees near the glen, and a warm breeze slowly lulled them all to sleep.
Murland awoke sometime later, and with a hand to his forehead and through squinting eyes, he glimpsed the sun sitting in the western sky. It was perhaps two hours until sunset. He sat up and saw Gibrig coming out of the woods with a pile of dead branches.
“Good morning, er, evening, Gib,” said Murland.
“Evenin’,” Gibrig said with a quick nod as he dropped the wood on a pile that already reached to his
hips. He turned around as if to venture back into the woods.
“Hey, wait, Gib.” Murland got up with a stretch and walked over to the dwarf, whose eyes were red and puffy, and whose dirty cheeks held streaks from long-dried tears. “What’s wrong?”
Gibrig kicked a stone, and his bottom lip quivered. “I can’t help but keep on thinkin’ ‘bout Snorts all alone out there in that storm…and with that hungry raptor.”
“Awe, Gib, I’m sorry. He’s a smart hog though, and fierce. Besides, I think that he and Tor were getting along pretty good there toward the end.”
Gibrig broke down then and, shuddering, buried his head in Murland’s shoulder.
“There, there,” said Murland, patting Gibrig on the back and not quite knowing what else to say. But Murland soon discovered that he need not say anything. Gibrig cried and cried into his shoulder, clinging to him as a child might to a parent or an older sibling.
Brannon woke then, simply opening his eyes and watching the two, and his half-hearted smile showed his sympathy. Willow’s eyes were open as well, and she too was watching them.
“I be sorry,” said Gibrig.
“What are friends for?” Murland asked with a smile.
“I ain’t never had any friends but me brother.”
Murland waited, sensing that Gibrig had more to say about his mysterious brother.
“His name was Gillrog. We was twins. Not the identical kind. He was a head taller than I was.”
“He had humanism too?”
Gibrig nodded, and Murland guided him to sit beside the fire. A long sigh escaped the dwarf when he sat, and his eyes found the fire, but they seemed to see a day long ago.
“Gillrog got the worst of the teasing from the other dwarf boys. They was so mean. They dug at him day after day. I knew that it bothered me brother, just like it bothered me. But our pap, he didn’t raise us to be no softies. Ye know? So we got through it together. Until…well, finally poor Gill finally had enough. He jumped off Ruger’s Ridge…”
Murland felt a lump forming in his throat, but he tried to be strong for his friend. “I’m sorry, Gibrig.”
“I be sorry too. I shoulda done somethin’. I shoulda said somethin’ different.”
“You can’t blame yourself for it.”
“Me pap says the same thing. But I ain’t for knowin’ how to let it go. The sorrow just sits in me stomach, day after day. I try to help make the world a better place. I try not to treat no one badly like me brother was treated. But there be so much meanness in the world. Sometimes…sometimes I wish I woulda jumped off that ledge too.”
“You don’t mean that,” said Murland.
“Ye don’t know what it be like.”
“I have known my share of teasing. Hells, I’m a wizard apprentice who can’t do magic. Trust me, I understand.”
“I know what it’s like too, Gib,” said Brannon, rising from his bedroll and coming to sit with them. “All my life I’ve felt different. And when Val and I came out…well, it was terrible. My subjects call me princess behind my back. They laugh and scoff, whispering to themselves when I walk by. My own father hates me.”
“I’m sorry, Brannon,” said Gibrig, sniffling.
“Thanks. But listen, you can’t go through life getting pushed around just because you’re afraid to be mean. Sometimes you have to stand up and push back.”
Willow sat up with a yawn and a stretch and a long, drawn out fart that left Gibrig laughing and crying at the same time. Brannon’s steely façade shattered then, and he burst out with laughter that Murland had never heard. Murland soon found himself chuckling so giddily that he was leaning on Gibrig for support.
“Bout time the lot of you lightened up,” said Willow. She scrunched up her face and let out another musical toot that brought Gibrig and Murland to the ground in a fit of laughter.
With a great stretch and a thorough itching of her backside, Willow rose to meet the world. She moved her tongue around her mouth with a grimace and looked to the forest, scratching one long tusk. “I’m going into the woods and I ain’t coming out until I get us some dinner. Give a holler if there is trouble, or if Kazimir shows up.” And with that she disappeared into the thick forest.
“See now, I wish I were strong like Willow. Nothin’ bothers her,” said Gibrig.
An hour later, Murland and Gibrig returned with full water skins. They were delighted to find Brannon and Willow sitting by the fire in the waning daylight with two rabbits on the spit along with nearly a dozen ears of corn roasting on coals. Brannon was carefully turning the stick, and Willow was staring trance-like at the juicy meat. There was also a large bushel of corn lying beside the elf, which Murland guessed Brannon had grown while he and Gibrig were away.
“Ah, just in time!” said Willow, pushing Brannon aside and pulling the two hares off the steaming stick.
She tore one in half and popped it into her mouth, crunching the bones. Brannon took his share and handed the other hare to Murland and Gibrig. They were still pulling off the too-hot meat and shoving it in their mouths when Willow swallowed the last wad of chewed up bone and began eating the stick that they had cooked the food on.
“Those corns done yet?” she asked Brannon, licking her lips.
“Everyone gets two each,” he said warily.
She nodded happily, grabbed two of the steaming ears, and bit one in half, husk and all.
Night fell and the companions sat around the fire, enjoying the peace. Murland took the rolled-up bundle of wizard leaf from his backpack and carefully unrolled it, eager to see if the buds had dried out yet.
“Is this good enough, you think?” he asked Brannon, showing it to him.
Brannon selected one. He rolled it between his palms and smelled it. “I believe so,” he said, handing it back.
Murland could hardly contain his excitement, and he began carving out a hole in one of the ears of corn, hoping to fashion a makeshift pipe.
“Here,” said Gibrig, handing Murland a small bundle wrapped in cloth. “I started working on it after you harvested your leaf.”
“What’s this?” Murland unwrapped the cloth and was delighted to find a small pipe carved out of wood. “Wow, Gib. You made this for me? Thank you.”
“Ye be welcome, Murland.”
“Go on and try it out,” said Willow enthusiastically.
Murland rubbed his hands together nervously and took a deep breath. “Okay,” he said before breaking off a small piece and packing it in the pipe. Brannon handed him a twig burning at the end and nodded.
“Here goes nothing,” said Murland, and he put the pipe to his lips and lit the leaf. He sucked in a lungful of the sweet-smelling smoke and meant to hold it, but suddenly the smoke seemed to expand in his lungs and he went into a coughing fit that left him lying on the ground with teary eyes and snot running from his nose.
He sat up, still coughing now and again, and accepted a drink of water from Brannon.
“So?” said Willow, watching him closely. “Ye feel any magix yet?”
“I-I feel…” Murland began, but then suddenly he floated one, two, three feet off the ground. His head became light, and the tips of his fingers and toes tingled. He felt something like a surge of unbridled energy course through his body, making his heart skip a beat and his spirits soar. He saw in his mind’s eye the coalescing power of magic all around him, flowing through the trees and grass and pouring into him from all around.
“Whoa!” said Willow. “Look how high he is!”
Murland opened his eyes and dreamily noticed that he was now floating high above the camp, at least fifteen feet.
“You should come down from there before you float away,” said Gibrig, sounding terribly concerned.
“I don’t know how,” said Murland. In truth, he didn’t want to. He never wanted to come down, never wanted to let go of this feeling.
Eventually, however, he began to slowly float back down to earth. The tingling left his fingers and toes, and the marvelo
us feeling of oneness with the world went away. He touched down on the grass and was met by the cheers of the companions.
“That was incredible,” he said, panting. “Where’s Packy?”
“Packy?” said Brannon.
“Yeah, that’s the name I gave my backpack.”
“Here it is,” said Gibrig, handing it to him.
“Alright,” said Murland, fishing out the broken wand and spell book. “Now for the real test.”
He opened the spell book carefully, and to his delight, he could read the title page.
The Collected Works of High Wizard Allan Kazam
Foreword by High Wizard Erasmus Farsky
“Well,” said Murland, “this spell book was written by the one and only Allan Kazam. And now, I think I can read it!”
“Who’s that?” Willow asked.
“Who’s that? Just the most famous wizard to ever live.”
“I never heard of him,” she said with a shrug. “Say, can you whoosh us a dinner table like Kazimir did, now that you’re a high wizard and all?”
“High Wizard Allan Kazam is the one who defeated the Dark Lord Zuul a thousand years ago,” said Murland, ignoring her. “He disappeared after he cast the spell that sent Zuul into another dimension. Some think that he might still be alive, but trapped in that faraway place in space and time.”
“That sounds pretty scary,” said Gibrig.
“Wait,” said Brannon, looking confused. “You’re telling me that the high wizards gave you the spell book of the most powerful wizard that ever lived?”
“Yup, and his wand as well.”
Brannon looked dubious. “But, why would they give you such obviously powerful and valuable magical items?”
“Well, I am a Champion of the Dragon. Who better to have these things?”
“Oh,” said Brannon with a nervous laugh. “Right.”
Murland looked to him, wondering what was on his mind, but chalked it up to Brannon’s opinion of him.
“So, you gonna do any magix or what?” Willow asked.
Champions of the Dragon: (Humorous Fantasy) (Epic Fallacy Book 1) Page 20
