Author: M G Kizzia

Avalon 4.9: part 5 of 6, Typhoon

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Elder Stow stepped to the front entrance of the cavern.  Lockhart and Decker went with him.  Elder Stow played with his scanner, and the sound of the storm stopped all at once.  “I set the screen to block the storm, but I suppose I should stay here for a while in case others are trying to reach the caves.”

“I’ll stay with him,” Decker volunteered.  He had his rifle.  Who knew what he thought might try to get into the cave.

po rain 6Lockhart went back to tell the others, and found them building a huge bonfire in the center of the cavern.  “Elder Stow set his screens across the entrance,” he said.  “There isn’t going to be any air circulation.”

“There are plenty of cracks in the cave wall,” Mingus said.  “I imagine some will start leaking water when the storm really hits.”

“You mean the storm hasn’t hit yet?” Katie asked.

“We don’t let the smoke go where it wants,” Boston explained.  “You can’t trust the natural air currents and circulation.”  Lockhart nodded, even if he had no idea how that might work.  All he really figured was Boston had finally gone fully elf.

“I’m just worried some of those cracks might be hiding a goblin lair, or something worse,” Lincoln said.  Lockhart nodded again.  Now that was a normal comment from Lincoln, so he figured at least there was nothing wrong with his hearing.

A couple of men tried to keep them from lighting the bonfire for fear they would suffocate everyone or fill the cavern with smoke and force them all out into the storm.  Alexis and Kinitap stood in their way.  “Eniwah.  Spirits,” Alexis said and pointed to Mingus and Boston.  “Trust us.”

The men really had no choice, and soon realized they were not all going to die from smoke inhalation.  After that, everyone shared around what food they had and settled in to wait for the storm to pass.

Around one in the morning, the rain stopped.  The sky cleared enough to see the moon and a few stars.  “Is it over?” Elder Stow asked.  “That was bad.”

Decker shook his head.  “The eye of the storm.  Part two will be here in a minute.”

Boston 4b Around five it finally stopped pouring.  Boston and Katie did not exactly have the best seats to watch the sun come up, but they noticed that it did come up about five-thirty.

“I want to see,” Boston said, and got up by the entrance.  Katie held out one of the discs Elder Stow left with them that would allow people to move through the screens.

“Not needed,” Boston said with a grin.  She put her hand through the screens and pulled it back.

“I forgot,” Katie admitted.  The screens were not spirit proof, even for the little spirits.  “Don’t wander far,” Katie suggested as she went back to the center to build up the fire for whatever they had left to cook.

Boston stepped out into the fresh morning air and looked down the path from the cave to the jungle below.  The birds sang to her.  The soggy ground smelled fresh and new.  For all the ferocity of the typhoon, it renewed the land in so many ways.

Boston thought she might find some plantains or other edibles for breakfast.  The people had to be waking up with the sun, even if they did not sleep so well among the rocks, knowing what the storm did to their homes.  She walked the path with her eyes open for good things to eat.  Her eyes passed over the vine twice before she realized the vine was moving.

“Blob,” Boston yelled and raced up the nearest tree.  She stopped about half-way to the top and looked down on the floor of the rainforest.  The blob rolled into view.  It was bigger than Boston remembered from Rebecca’s day. It appeared to have more tentacles as well, but no one got a really good view of the one that pushed between the door of the house and the door of its ship in that time zone.  It was only a fleeting glance.

Boston let out a small “Peep” when the blob stopped at the base of her tree.  Boston did not see any sensory organs on the outside of the thing, just the yellow-green Jell-O-like body and plenty of tentacles.  All the same, she tried to scrunch down behind the leaves.  The blob was not fooled.  It wrapped around the tree and began to climb, holding on by some unknown force, tentacles out front, searching.

Boston let out a full shriek and scrambled to the end of the branch where she leapt like a squirrel to a branch on the next tree over.  She saw a second blob beneath that tree and shrieked again.  She panicked.  She did not think of her fire magic or that she might turn invisible, except for the passing thought that the blob did not appear to have any eyes.  She did think of her Beretta and panicked again when she realized she was not wearing her belt.  In fact, she was not sure where her belt with her knife and handgun had gone.  All she thought at that point was to get away, and maybe get back to the path to the cave.

The branch Boston landed on cracked and she scrambled for safety.  All three blobs were below her, tracking her moves, and moving much faster than she thought they could move.  Boston had one coherent thought when she heard something thumping in the distance.  She thought she might make it to safety if she could just get to the path to the cave.  She listened to the thumping.  It sounded like someone had a club and was banging the distant trees.  The ground appeared to shake.  Two of the blobs moved off in the direction of the sound.  Boston mapped her route in her mind.  She would leap three trees before she dropped to the path.

po runThe one blob that remained below her committed to climbing the tree.  She had noticed once they started to climb, it took time for them to climb back down.  She waited as long as she could.  Then she ran.

The first tree was easy, the second tree had a big branch to run down, but the third tree was wobbly.  She did not jump as far as she intended.  The branch she landed on broke.  She fell and screamed, even as a man, swinging on a vine, caught her.  They landed on the path and the man yelled.

“Run,” and he added, “I always wanted to play Tarzan.”

Boston ran to the cave entrance, and with a burst of elf speed.  She easily outran the man.  She phased through Elder Stow’s screen in the cave entrance and turned.  The man was doing his best, but the blob was nearly on him, and much faster than Boston believed.  The man was yelling something, though the words were blocked by Elder Stow’s screen.  All at once, he vanished.

Boston swallowed as Katie and Lockhart ran up.  Decker was only a step behind.

“Where did the man go?” Boston asked.

po rain 8The travelers looked around, wondering what she was talking about, as a man, a beautiful young woman, and Kinitap came from inside the cave.  Inside the entrance, Lincoln pointed as Alexis hollered.

“Look out.”

The blob came right up to the entrance, and it shot several tentacles toward the people standing there.

Avalon 4.9 part 4 of 6 Picnic in the Rain

M G Kizzia 4 Comments

In the morning, Katie and Boston shared the watch while everyone else slept.  As was their tradition, they found a place where they could watch the sun rise.  Of course, all they could see was a general lightening of the horizon behind the clouds.

“Darn,” Boston complained.  “I was looking forward to a good sunrise, full of pinks and golds against all those clouds.”

“Too many clouds, I guess,” Katie responded, before she added, “Look out.”po fish 1

A big fish was flying right at them.  It did not occur to them that Elder Stow’s screen should have stopped it in mid-air.  Indeed, it came right through the screen and appeared to land gently at their feet.  They watched as the blue, green and yellow fish turned golden.  It wiggled a bit so they knew it could not be fresher, but it very quickly turned from golden to a yellow color and finally became a kind of muted yellow-gray as it stopped moving.

“I think you just got all the colors of the sunrise,” Katie said.  “I even saw a dot or two of red in there.”

“But what is it?”

“I think it is called a dolphin fish.”

“A dolphin?” Boston felt like objecting.  “Father Mingus.”  She woke him to clean the thing for cooking and smoking.  Mingus assured her it was a fish, not a mammal like a real dolphin, and actually it was called a mahi-mahi.

“Good eating,” he added as he worked.

Boston had another thought and shouted.  “Thank you Shamoak or Caroline or whoever.  Thank you for thinking of us.”

“Yes, thanks,” Katie said at human volume as she got out the frying pan and built up the fire for breakfast.  Boston set about waking everyone up.

pohnpei 8The rain had temporarily stopped, though the day remained overcast.  The travelers gave the horses some extra time off while they smoked as much fish as they could.  They would get all day and maybe tomorrow’s breakfast out of the mahi-mahi if they stretched it with locally grown plants.

When they finally moved out of the camp, they found the high country was once again pushing down into the mangrove swamps, so they had to climb a bit and cut through in a few places.  There was one spot where the modern road showed a real climb, and a pass of sorts between peaks.  Going that way cut off another big peninsula, but the rainforest that covered the slopes had dangers.  They needed to move carefully.

Lincoln and Boston kept their eyes and ears open for any sign of blobs.  Katie kept her senses flared, and Decker kept his rifle handy.  Elder Stow was not much help in blazing the trail, but no one complained because he kept his eyes glued to his scanner.  The scanner was the best early warning system they had.

Just before noon, they found a village on a hillside by the sea.  Lincoln took the name Kitialap off the modern map.  These were different people.  They were not Tadek.  They dressed different and they looked wary, but not necessarily hostile.  Lockhart thought he might ask when a group of elders approached the travelers.

“Feilo?” he said, and the elders spoke among themselves for a minute.

One younger one finally turned to the travelers and said, “Wait here.”  They watched him hustle to several huts before he returned with a stone tipped spear and a side pack that looked to be woven from vines and covered in rat skins.po mangrove man 1

“You wish to find Feilo?  I can take you to him,” the man said, and without another word, he started walking.

Decker paused to comment.  “Looks more like a camp than a village.  Probably to keep an eye on their head-hunting neighbors.”

Alexis paused to thank the elders.  At least one of them returned her smile.

The travelers got down to follow, walking their horses as they had mostly done since reaching the island.  The sky that had been overcast all morning began to drizzle, a light, annoying rain.

After a short way, they crossed one of the hundreds of rivers that tumbled down from the high country and emptied into the swamps and sea.  After another short while, or about one o’clock, they came to a second village which was more of a village.  It had a beach and plenty of fishing boats that the people were busy tying to the trees, with strong vines.

“Storm coming,” their guide said, as he escorted them to a place where they could lunch, or as Boston said, picnic overlooking the sea.  The guide was called Kinitap.  He was maybe thirty-something in modern eyes, and more likely twenty-something in actual Neolithic, islander years.  He stared at Boston as she lit the fire despite the drizzling rain, before he went to the people and gathered some roots to cook.  He stared again at Alexis as she got a pot to boil the taro roots.  The pot looked to him like a magical device.  He let out a small peep when Mingus broke open three coconuts with his bare hands.  He knew then that magic had to be involved, because otherwise the man had to have the strength of a giant.

“Do not be afraid,” Alexis said, being sensitive to the man’s reactions.  “Boston and Father Mingus are not the simple man and woman they appear.”

“I already figure that out,” Kinitap confessed.  “I think none of you are the ordinary people you pretend.”

“I am,” Lincoln said as he sat beside the fire and turned up his collar against the rain, though Elder Stow had set his screen up when Kinitap returned with his roots.  He kept it small, so it did not even enclose the horses, but he was able to keep the rain off the cooking.

po rain 4“I see the rain falling all around,” Kinitap said.  “But it is not falling in this place.  I think I should not ask.  You have black and white giants.  You have red and yellow hair.  I think your elders are older than anyone I have ever heard of.  I am not asking, but I think I understand why Feilo tell his woman, Reef not to show herself.  I dare not ask who Reef is to hide herself, since I have met her and seen her and she is a very fine woman.  So I figure what she is hiding must be something extraordinary… I am talking too much.”

“Not at all,” Boston said.

“You know he is right,” Lincoln spoke up. “Out of this whole group, I am the only ordinary person here.”

“I have no gifts or power of any kind,” Lockhart said.

“No,” Decker interrupted. “You and I are the black and white giants, though I liked it better in that other time zone when they thought I was the god of war.”

“No.  I am the only ordinary one,” Lincoln said.

“Not true,” Mingus interrupted.  “You have the skills that have helped us survive, almost more than anyone else.”

Alexis dropped her jaw and had to sit down.  It sounded like her father gave her husband a compliment.mingus 1

“Look,” Mingus continued.  “I was the head of the Avalon history department for three hundred years.  If anyone could squeeze information out of the database, you would think it would be me.  But there is a reason I haven’t asked for it.  I would get lost in pages and pages of reading through the historical record and might never get to the critical information.  You, somehow, cut through all that, and time and again you have found what we need to survive.”

“I take good notes,” Lincoln said, with his own jaw hanging a bit.

“There.  You see?”

“Not to diminish what Father Mingus has said.”  Katie spoke to Kinitap.  “But part of what he is saying is everyone has skills and talents of one kind or another.  Some gifts are flashy and some are harder to see, but everyone has something.”

Kinitap nodded.  “All the same, you people are special.  I can sense it, though maybe that is my gift.”

Alexis pulled her shock together long enough to mash up the taro root.  She dumped the water and added the coconut milk, a few other ingredients and heated the whole thing together.  They got bowls of something between fish soup and fish stew, and everyone said it was good.  Kinitap said he never tasted anything so good, but after cleaning up, they had to hit the road.

pohnpei 6The rain strengthened a little in the afternoon, but the lunch warmed and sustained them the whole time.  After a couple of hours of moving downhill, they came out on to a rainforest covered, broad flatland.  They were moving inland as they moved south, and the modern map with the road showed that same sort of movement.  There was a large bay cut into the island.  It had a relatively narrow sort of opening between the mainland and the island the modern map called Temwen.  Temwen was close enough to the mainland in the south to almost be a peninsula.  But in the north, at the gap between the bay and the Pacific, it was much too far to cross.

Kinitap admitted that there was a place where men could take a boat across the gap to the island.  “But we would need several boats and I don’t think there is any boat big enough for the horses.  Besides, it would take almost as long as going around on foot, so I don’t think it would save us any time.”

By the time they came to the village the modern map called Kitamw, the rain started to pound them.  Kinitap had to yell.  “Some of the people have already moved up into the hills.  There are caves up there where we can hide and dry off.”

po rain 5Lockhart did not have to nod.  They just followed their guide along a path that paralleled a river.  It turned from the river at one point and they really began to climb.  At last they came to a cave, or rather a series of caves that cut deep into the mountain.  The caves were nature made, but had obviously been worked by human hands.  Someone had started a fire at the entrance to the main cavern, and Mingus thought maybe they could do better than that.

The thunder and lightning started, and the horses got as jittery as the people.  They led the horses to the back of the cavern and spent a little time tending them before they decided they had to do something, whether the people objected or not.  All that the people were doing was staring at them anyway.

Avalon 4.9: part 3 of 6, Some Big Help

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“Strangers.  Where have you come from? Where are you going?” one big warrior stepped out from the crowd to address the travelers.  Lockhart and Katie got down to answer.  The others stayed in the saddle, but Mingus had a suggestion.

“Time to take off the glamours.”

Stow 4Mingus and Boston let their elf nature free, and after a moment of thought, Elder Stow dropped his glamour of humanity.  The Gott-Druk still looked more or less human, but as a Neanderthal, the emphasis was on less.

“We are just passing through,” Lockhart said, and he tried to not look threatening, though to the people he may have looked like a giant.  The big man of the locals was a good three or four inches shorter.  “We came to your land through a door in the sea, and we are going to a door on the other side of this island.  Let us pass and wish us luck and we will leave you in peace.”

An old man dressed in leaves stepped to the front.  He held a stick with a human skull upside-down on the end.  He shook it and it rattled like a baby rattle, suggesting the skull had some pebbles inside.  He spoke in a sharp and loud voice.

“You have disturbed the Eniwahs.  The land rejects your intrusion.  You must give gifts to make amends.  We will take two of your beasts and sacrifice them to the spirits of the land.”

“The shaman,” Katie whispered.  “Possibly the chief.”

Mingus got down with a sharp word for Boston.  “Stay here.”  He walked himself and his horse up to stand beside Katie and Lockhart.  “We are the spirits,” he said.  “The spirits of your land are hiding because you are so cruel and make too much war and killing.  You must learn to be good to travelers and kind to the strangers among you.”po shaman 2

“You insult our ancestors,” the shaman yelled.  “Now you must give us all of your beasts to satisfy the old ones.

“My turn,” Elder Stow said, with another word for Boston.  “Stay here.”  He stepped up to the others.  “I am the old one.  Your ancestors are ashamed of you because you treat outsiders badly.  You must learn to treat outsiders like family, no matter how strange they may appear to you.”

“You don’t do the telling,” the old man screamed, and looked like he was going to give himself a coronary.  “I have the power.  You must do as I say.  We will sacrifice all of your lives, you and your beasts, to satisfy Dienak and Shamoak.”

Alexis had stepped up by then, but she said nothing.  She had her wand and gathered a pocket of air around her hand.  She pointed at the man and the air hit him like a punch, knocking him over.  The rattle flew out of his hand, and his leaf skirt became shredded.  The warrior who spoke stared, first at the shaman, and then at Alexis.  The crowd of warriors behind him that had been mumbling, now spoke up, loud and afraid.

Lincoln stepped up beside his wife and Decker came up alongside Elder Stow.  Decker shared his thought.  “For the first time, I might feel bad if I have to kill them all.”Boston 9

Boston shouted from behind.  “Can I move now?”

The earth began to shake.  People feared an earthquake.  Some locals looked to the mountains, afraid one of the volcanic peaks popped its top.  Two men-like people, roughly twelve feet tall, stepped out from the woods, one from the jungle and one from the mangrove.

The shaman got his rattle.  He ignored everything in his anger.  Apparently he had some magic, because Alexis saw the magic come from the man like a counter-attack.  It was pink, the color of a fine tropical sunset, but it stopped after a short way, and the man himself froze in place.  Men ran screaming for the village.  Some fell to the ground, covered their eyes, and trembled.  The big warrior in front also looked petrified, and did not move.

po deniakThe man from the jungle looked very tree-like, covered in soft bark for skin and with leaves for hair.  “I am Dienak,” he said.

“I am Shamoak,” the other said.  He also had a tree-like look, but his limbs appeared to be gnarled and he came draped with seaweed.po shamoak

“You called?” Dienak asked, and smiled.

“Thank you in advance,” Lockhart said, quickly.

“I really did not want to kill all of these people,” Decker mumbled.

“But, that would not have been a terrible thing,” Shamoak said.

“The little one is right.  The little spirits hide because these people are cruel and like to eat everything that is not them,” Dienak explained.

“Extreme Daleks,” Boston said as she finally joined the others.

“Come,” Shamoak said.  “I will take you out of the territory of the Tadek.”

“I will keep the people here so they do not follow you,” Dienak volunteered.

“Thanks,” Boston shouted up at the tree-man.  He smiled.

“Quite all right, little one.  My pleasure.”

###

po rain 1They hardly began to follow Shamoak when the rain came.  It poured, drizzled and stopped on and off all night.

“Tadek?” Katie asked right away.

“The small island off the coast.  That is where this tribe came when they first arrived, and they have their main village there. But the island is too exposed to the ocean and the Typhoons, so they have come to settle in three places on this main island, and let the smaller island of Tadek act as a barrier to the wind and wave.”

“They settled peacefully?” Lockhart asked.

“No,” Shamoak said.  “They drove away or ate the people who welcomed them ashore.”

“What?” Lincoln was listening in.

“There are still many alive,” Shamoak said.  “I believe the main island is home to a half-dozen tribes.  Fortunately, the mountains on the big island make contact between tribes rare enough, and the island is big enough to avoid competing for resources.”

“You sound well informed,” Alexis said.

“Yes.  Feilo is a fine and bright fellow.  He knows many things that I would not otherwise know.”

“Man or woman,” Lockhart agreed.  “I have always found him to be honest and giving.”

po rain 2Shamoak made the trees stand aside so the horses could come through safely.  There was not anything he could do about the rain, and soon enough the journey became soggy and miserable.  The horses moved, but with their heads lowered, and at best they shuffled forward.  The people did not blame them.  Shamoak did not seem to mind the weather

After three hours, they were well out of the area and not likely to be followed.  Shamoak said goodbye, with a warning.  “This rain is the leading edge of something.  I would guess in two or three days and we will have a real blow. I think I will go and fasten down my roots.”

The travelers said good-bye and decided to camp where they were.  It was dark from the rain clouds and the sun was setting, even if they could not see it.  Shamoak had led them to a broad, elevated field where there was plenty of room for their tents and the horses.  There was not anything handy to eat, but for one wet night, it was about as good as they were going to find.

Elder Stow put up his screens against intrusion, in case the blobs or people showed up, and he set the particle screen to block the rain without blocking the air.  He could not do anything about the soggy ground, but the fairy weave tents could be built with waterproof floors, so it was not so bad.  The horses would dry and there was plenty of grass for them to chew on, soggy though it might have been.

Boston LF1It took some effort for Boston to get a fire started with the wet wood.  Mingus helped, but he reminded her that while he had fire at his fingertips, it was really his secondary strength.  His main magic was mind magic.  Boston was the fire girl.  The Amazons called her Little Fire.  So she started the fire, but Mingus helped.  Then they did not have much to cook.

Alexis 6Alexis had some plantains to fry and a couple of those early avocados to share, but otherwise they had to make do with the last of their smoked tuna.  Mingus thanked Alexis for her good cooking, and everyone, Alexis especially, wondered if he felt all right.  Little spirits rarely got sick, but fevers were not unknown.  Lincoln and Boston were the first to think that maybe, after all this time, just maybe Mingus was coming around.

po r fireEveryone huddled around the fire for most of the night.  Everyone got some sleep, since now the rain was not falling on their heads.  They all took their fairy weave blankets and rubbed the horses.  Horses could get sick, so they gave them extra attention and covered them in the night.  They hardly needed the blankets in a land where even with a cold night rain the temperature never got below seventy.  In the daytime, the temperature would creep up to eighty-five or more, no matter how hard it might rain.po rain 3

Lockhart and Katie flattened two fairy weave tents so they could lay their saddles out and keep them dry.  Elder Stow kindly snored inside his tent, and Major Decker chose to sleep in his tent as well, but the rest laid out with their saddles, under the sky full of clouds and rain.  Elder Stows screens not only kept out the rain and the blobs, it also kept out the rats, bats, lizards, birds, and innumerable insects, some of which could be pretty nasty.

Avalon 4.9: part 2 of 6, Going Around

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The interior was deemed too difficult and dangerous, so the travelers moved along the coastline, just in from the mangrove swamps.  The trees and bushes that made up the mangroves fed off the tides and sea.  Plenty of roots stuck out in the air, a tangled snake-like mess that only got submerged at high tide.  Plenty of fish, crabs and other crustaceans, loved the environment, but for horses, it would mean broken legs for sure.

po mangrove 1Inland, the rainforest posed a different problem.  The undergrowth was so thick; the horses could hardly move.  Hacking and chopping their way through would have ruined their sabers.  Pushing through would have posed a different danger.  They might push through to the edge of a cliff and tumble off without ever seeing it.

Fortunately, between the mangrove and the rain forest, a grassy area between several yards and a hundred yards wide gave relatively easy passage.  Katie suggested it was a transition place that might flood when the high tides coincided with bad storms.  The air smelled salty and underfoot it was squishy in most places.

“Too much salt for the rainforest, but not enough wet for the mangroves,” she said.  “But I am just guessing.”

“Well, whatever,” Lockhart responded.  “The main thing is we have something like a road in most places.  I was afraid if we had to cut our way through the woods it would take us a month to get to Feilo’s village.”

“Kolonia,” Lincoln reported over supper.  “That’s the city in our day, I think where the village we avoided was.”  They had avoided several small villages built where the shore and sand poked through the mangrove to reach the sea, but no one asked which one he was talking about.  “We moved down and around a great inlet of the sea where several rivers come down from the mountains and join together.  See; the database has a twenty-first century map that shows the contours of land and a road in modern times that goes around the edge of the island.  There is also an ancient map that gives topography, but it doesn’t detail much.  I think we can follow the line where they will build the road one day.  We can keep an eye on the ancient map to see where we need to move further pohnpei mapinland.  The mangrove swamps seem much more extensive in the ancient times.”  He showed the maps and toggled between the two so they could all see.

“Looks like tomorrow we will have to really hug the coast all day to go around the high country.  The contours suggest steep rises, maybe cliffs, but certainly too difficult to climb with horses,” Decker knew how those maps worked.

“Yes,” Alexis agreed.

“Looks like at least three villages in that area that we probably won’t be able to avoid,” Katie added.

“I wonder if they are friendly,” Boston said.  Lincoln shrugged.

“No, Gilligan,” Lockhart responded with a grin.  “They are probably head hunters.”

Boston returned the grin, having watched plenty of reruns when she was young, but Katie asked, “Gilligan who?”

Alexis and Lincoln gave her a curious look.  Lockhart explained, as he slipped his arm around Katie’s shoulder.  “We are still working on generational issues.”

###

po mangrove 2The morning was a struggle as the hill pushed the jungle down to the mangrove swamps.  They had to cut their way through several places.

“I imagine it will be a good road when it gets built four thousand years from now,” Elder Stow said.  That was as positive as they could be in the face of a very frustrating day.

They followed the modern road to cut off a peninsula that looked like nothing but mangrove with a steep, rocky hill jutting out of the middle.  It was not as easy as it looked on the screen, but eventually they came down on a river delta and the first village they could not avoid.

“Everyone smile,” Lockhart said.  They had discussed it.  They did not plan to stop if they did not have to.  The people in the village stared, as Lincoln named it.

“Alamoar on the modern map,” he said.  “Of course, I might not be pronouncing it correctly.”

The entire village turned out, mostly naked men, women and children.  They stared, some shouted, but they made no move to get in front of those people—beast—creatures, or whatever they were.  Boston waved as she and Mingus brought up the rear; and then they had a relatively clear path to where a second, smaller river came down from the heights.

“Cross the river,” Lockhart said, but there they stopped for lunch.

pohnpei 2While Boston was lighting the fire, she raised her head.  Katie looked over from where she was unpacking her horse.  Decker grabbed his rifle when Mingus spoke.  “Humans,” he said, and pointed back across the river toward the trees.

“I don’t sense hostility,” Katie said.  “Just curiosity.”

“I don’t know,” Boston looked up.  “I felt the hair go up on the back of my neck.”

“They appear to be headed upriver, into the heights,” Decker reported.

“It’s their island,” Alexis said as she found some ripe coconuts on the ground.  “They must know where they are going.”  Alexis looked up and found some bananas, or plantains, or whatever they should be called.

After lunch, they hugged the coast as the mountain almost pushed them into the swamps and sea.  After they turned south, the narrow way eased, and by two-thirty they came to the second village.  Lincoln called it Nanpei, or Lukopoas, or Keimwin Kiti; “if that is how you pronounce it.”

“Kiti,” Boston liked that name.

pohnpei 7Cultivated fields sat back from the village where it appeared the villagers grew yams, certain root crops and fruit trees, citrus, plantains and what looked like avocados.  The travelers tried to avoid stepping on the crops, but they were not interested in getting too close to the people, either.  These men fetched their spears, and put on their grimmest looks as the travelers passed by.

“Skipper,” Boston yelled from the back of the line.  She spurred her horse to catch up, and Mingus went with her, which was a good thing because someone threw a spear.  It landed in the dirt behind them.  Mingus looked back and let loose a fireball.  It engulfed the spear in flames and the people scattered for their homes.

“Skipper,” Boston got everyone’s attention.  “They are head hunters.  I saw skulls hanging from some of the houses.”

“Probably enemies, like war prizes,” Katie said.  “I am sure humans are not a regular part of their diet.”  She wanted to assure everyone, but she thought she might have phrased it better.

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Alexis mumbled, and was shocked when Mingus supported her.

“On an island where there are no pigs or deer, meat is hard to come by,” he said.  “They can live on fish and maybe some foul or lizards, but meat would be a real treat.”

No one said anything more until Boston said, “Hey, you made a rhyme.”

The flat land grew wider after Kiti, and the ground appeared firm enough to ride a bit.  The mangrove widened and pushed them inland, but they figured between the protection of the mangrove and the small island they saw off the coast of Kiti, the worst of the storms and seas got blunted. Even so, they let the horses trot, but stayed reluctant to let them run.  There was no telling when the ground might return to its soggy form.po warriors

In a little over an hour, they came to the third village in that corner of the island; the biggest they had seen thus far.  Lincoln named it Maramosok.  The village men turned out with their spears, and this time they blocked the way.  Lockhart and Katie stopped, so everyone stopped and gathered around them.

Avalon 4.9: Tropical Paradise, part 1 of 6

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After 1937 BC, The South Seas, Kairos 55: Feilo Broken.

Recording …

They should have guessed when the time gate was in the middle of the river.  They had to tie everything down, wrap up all their equipment in fairy weave to make it waterproof, and then they had to nudge their horses to swim out while they hung on as well as they could.

dragon 4Nuwa dragon said good-bye and good luck, which was far less noise than Pluckman and his crowd, even when Nuwa was in her dragon form.  To be honest, the dragon kind of hurried them along.  They finished the three-day journey in two-and-a-half days, and Nuwa begged them to not wait until morning. No one complained.  They knew Nuwa was anxious to get back to Thalia so Thalia did not have to face the sorcerer alone.

“Good-bye,” Boston yelled from the back of the group where she straggled with Mingus.

“I smell salt,” Mingus said, and that was it.

They went through the gate and found themselves swimming in the Pacific Ocean.

“Hera’s butt.  Mitra’s fires in the hole,” Boston practiced her hob-goblin swearing and Mingus scolded her.  “Criminy,” Boston held her tongue.  The horse was swimming for its life and she had to hang on.

“I see an island.  The others are already moving in that direction,” Mingus encouraged her.  He gave his horse the reigns and bent forward, both to hold on and to speak soothing words to keep his horse from panic.

“That’s a long way,” Boston complained, and turned her head to see if she could glimpse the time gate.  She wondered if they could go back and build rafts.  She saw something else and swore.  “Crap.”

Mingus turned his head.  “Young lady,” he said before he agreed.  “Crap.”

tsunamiThe oncoming wave was at least two stories tall.  The sky was cloudless.  It was not wind driven.  All they could imagine was an earthquake or volcanic eruption somewhere far away.  Then they were in it.

It caught up Boston and Mingus, scooped up Lincoln and Alexis.  Decker and Elder Stow were next, and Lockhart and Katie were the last to be picked up by the rushing wave.  People grabbed on to their saddles, gripped with their legs, and prayed, but it turned out to not be so bad.  They got to the island shore in almost no time.  The water did not churn at all, so they had no trouble holding on.  The wave slowly died as it came to shallower water, and it deposited their horses on their feet and them in the saddle like nothing happened.

Lockhart and Katie quickly rode to the back of the beach and turned.  The others followed.  There was a woman, fifteen feet tall, made of water, staring at them, hard.  She did not appear to be scowling, but it was near enough.

“This is one of the only clear beaches on the island.  Most are mangrove beaches.”  The woman spoke in a voice that hinted of the roar of the sea.  “You are protected by a hedge of the gods.  I would rather you had not come here, but I suppose it was inevitable.  I was not going to let you die on my watch, but what you do on land is your business.  Perhaps the creatures from the stars will eat you.  If by chance you see my daughter, you might mention she could visit her mother once in a while.”  The woman threw her arms out and the water that made up her body broke apart and fell to the sand to blend back into the surf.  The travelers stared in silence for a moment.

“What creatures from the stars?” Lincoln asked, though there was no one to answer.  He got out the database to see if he could find some information on the subject.  Boston and Katie got out their amulets to check direction.  Lockhart called for them to set up camp.

“We better not move inland until we explore a bit.  The jungle looks dangerous,” he said.  Elder Stow and Alexis agreed.pohnpei 1

“We appear to be in a lagoon,” Alexis said, with a good look back the way they came.  “No telling, though, how much it might protect us from the tides and weather.”  Elder Stow engaged his anti-gravity device and floated up to take a good look.

Decker spoke up.  “Normally, I would recommend avoiding the interior rainforest filled with who knows what.  I would say travel around the shoreline, but if most of the shore is filled with mangrove swamps, we don’t want to go there.  The horses probably can’t go there.”

“Can you…” Lockhart did not spell it out.

Decker nodded and found a place to sit and meditate.  He would rise up in his spirit, carried by his eagle totem, and he would try to map out the area, not that he could see much under the rainforest canopy.

Katie found a fresh water stream that came out of the jungle and soaked into the sand on its way to the sea.  She and Lockhart explored up the water for a short way, and found a ten-foot waterfall where a small pool formed.  The immediate area there was full of boulders, like the rocky hill collapsed when the waterfall was made.  A large grassy area, appeared like a small meadow around the water with only a few trees, surrounded the pool.

pohnpei 3“Couldn’t have found a nicer hideaway,” Katie remarked.

“If the water is drinkable,” Lockhart crushed the moment as Elder Stow floated down from overhead.  He had his scanner in his hand but kept shaking his head.

“There is too much biodiversity on the island.  I cannot make out what our creatures from the stars may be, or where they might be.”  He spoke as he landed.  “Lots of birds, but not much else.  Not many mammals.  Some lizards, but I am not sure about snakes.  Mostly insects.”  He looked up.

Lockhart nodded.  “We have to check the water and move everyone to this place.  Your shield is stronger the less you stretch it?” he asked.

“It is a personal shield, designed to surround my person, but I can make it cover an area.  It can keep the horses in and the creatures out, but I will have to work it to not interrupt the flow of water if we include the stream and waterfall.  I also need to check the charging equipment I got back in Yadinel’s day.  It is now a hundred years old and probably wet, hopefully not ruined from our swim.”

They waited while Elder Stow took a water sample and ran it through his equipment.  He pronounced it clean, so they returned to collect the others.

Alexis met them on the beach.  “We have fish,” Alexis announced with glee.  “No need to hunt for deer, thank god.  The sea goddess brought the fish and said she didn’t want us to starve on her account.  Wasn’t that nice?”

“Very nice,” Lockhart agreed, but as he pulled his knife he added, “I’m not very good at butchering fish, much less such a big… tuna?… what is this?”

“Tuna.  Yellow fin,” Mingus interrupted.  “I tried to get in touch with whatever spirits might inhabit po tunathis island.  I thought we could use a guide.  There are plenty of spirits around.  You can tell by the lush vegetation.  But they appear to be in hiding and not interested.”  Mingus shrugged.

“I don’t know,” Boston said.  “I never cut up anything bigger than a rainbow trout.”

“Let me,” Mingus stepped up to the tuna.  He looked at the others and confessed.  “Where do you think Roland learned?”  The others appreciated him taking the job.

It took a couple of hours to get inland, and a couple more to smoke as much of the fish as they could.  They would have fresh tuna steaks that evening, but after that, they had no way of catching any more.  Elder Stow finally concluded that the island had rats and bats, so there was nothing to hunt, even if they wanted to.

“Of course, some of the lizards might be tasty,” he said.  “Or maybe the birds.”

“Maybe birds,” Lockhart agreed.  He did not want to think about eating lizard.

“Pohnpei,” Lincoln announced as he and Boston came back to the fire after seeing the horses settled.  Alexis and Katie were just coming in from scouring the area for anything that might suffice for fruits and vegetables.  “Ponape,” Lincoln repeated.  He read a bit to himself, and everyone waited patiently for his report.

lincoln readingKatie sat beside Lockhart as Alexis sat by Lincoln.  Boston went to sit beside Mingus. Decker ignored everyone while Elder Stow fiddled with his scanner, checking on the shield he placed around the camp and looking for signs of life, particularly star creatures that might eat them.

“Okay,” Lincoln started.  “The Kairos is named Feilo, a male.  Blah, blah blah…a south pacific love story, romance novel kind of thing.  Her name was Lelani, heavenly flower or something.  She died in a typhoon.  She got swept out to sea, and he spent the rest of his life building her a memorial, the first structure at Nan Madol, two thousand years before the Shemsu showed up to build a bunch more.   Blah, blah, blah…some of the Shemsu escape when the war-like Deleur arrived about 1100 AD.  They went on to colonize Easter island…well; we know what happened there.”

“All those statues of the Agdaline,” Katie nodded.

“Mass insanity,” Mingus added.  “Too much in-breeding.”

“What about the aliens?” Decker asked.

“What?”  Lincoln looked up before he returned to the database.  “Oh, crap.”

“Benjamin,” Alexis scolded him, but Mingus interjected.Alexis 7

“Quite all right.  That appears to be the word for this time zone.”

“Jell-O blobs,” Lincoln said.  “At least three.”

“Crap,” Alexis agreed.

“But what happened to Felio?” Boston wanted to know.

“Feilo,” Lincoln corrected her.  “It says he took up with Soun Nan-Leng, the reef of heaven, the naiad daughter of Caroline, the sea goddess.”

“My guess would be our savior on the beach was Caroline,” Katie said, and looked at Lockhart to see what he thought.

“More than likely,” Mingus responded.

“Soun Nan-Leng?”  Boston spoke carefully. She wanted to get it right.

Lincoln nodded.  “There is a note.  It says see The Little Mermaid.”

“I liked that movie.” Boston perked up.

“I don’t know,” Alexis said.  “Hans Christian Anderson’s original story did not have a happy ending.”

Stow 2“Elder Stow?” Lockhart did not spell out his question.

Elder Stow shook his head.  “I scanned the blob in Rebecca’s time zone, but did not get a good reading.  It was all too brief.  Here, it is impossible to pick out one life in the midst of so many.  I can only guess that they are some distance away so I am not picking up their signature.  But it is only a guess.”

Lockhart nodded.  “Standard watch, even with Elder Stow’s force field activated.  We don’t wat to be surprised in the middle of the night.”

Avalon 4.8: part 6 of 6, A Dragon’s Work is Never Done

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At the moment the sun cracked the horizon, Nuwa dragon finished her exhale.  She had risen high in the sky with no wings for support, and it looked for a second like she might fall, but all eyes were fastened on the darkness that appeared the instant the flame stopped.  No one, who did not know, could guess what it was, but they saw it immediately sparkle in the sunlight and then vanish in one small burst of light.dragon 6

Nuwa dragon caught her fall and curled herself a half-dozen times around the dragon on the ground.  “Hush baby,” Nuwa dragon said in the right language.

“Mama.  Hurting,” the dragon responded.  Now that the sorcerer’s control was gone, the dead wolves returned to being dead, and the dragon recognized that it had been shot several times.

Thalia stepped out from the trees, and she did not even stop when people and horses came out from the great worm hole a short distance away.  Nevah felt afraid for Thalia in the face of that enormous dragon.  Bezos made sure his hammer was at hand.  Phadon put away his sword, willing to trust Thalia’s judgment, but he watched carefully.  Anwanna hugged and quieted his donkey.

“Nuwa,” Thala said, knowing right away who it was.

“Thalia,” Nuwa responded.  “I brought your friends.”

Katie 8“I thank you most kindly, Thalia said.  “Excuse me one minute.”  Thalia turned around and yelled, “Boston.”  She opened her arms to give the girl a hug.

Katie paused on seeing her.  Her mouth breathed, “Elect?”

“Yes, I know,” Thalia answered Katie’s thoughts.  “I get strange some times, but I figure as long as I don’t join or start an Amazon tribe, I should be all right.”

“Me too,” Katie agreed.

“You have friends?” Lockhart said, and Thalia took the time to bring everyone out from the woods and introduce them.  She explained to Nevah that Boston used to be human and Alexis used to be an elf.

“You can do that?” Nevah asked, excited.  “I can be made whole?”

“Whole what?” Thalia asked in return.  “You have a mother and father who love you, and that seems pretty whole to me.”

“Thalia lost her family to Amorites rampaging through the Levant.  She has been alone ever since,” Mingus whispered to Lincoln and Alexis, knowing that Boston would hear with her good elf ears.  Thalia may have heard, but she offered no thoughts, turning to Nuwa instead.

“Where is Fuxi, I need him too,” she said.

“Sleeping would be my guess,” Nuwa said.

“Fuxi,” both Thalia and Nuwa called.  The travelers imagined Nuwa’s call would travel a good bit further.Thalia 1

“Might as well see what’s for breakfast,” Thalia said.  “And probably lunch and maybe supper too as long as we are waiting for Fuxi.”

“Can I keep this little one?” Nuwa asked.

Thalia shook her head.  “You can help him heal, but he needs to go where he won’t get into any trouble.”

“It is a shame not to heal this magnificent creature, and for my friends, let me say I do not blame you for defending yourselves.  I hold the sorcerer entirely responsible.”

“Good to know,” Lockhart said, having just realized why the dragon was injured.

“Sorcerer?” Lincoln asked.

“You can’t help,” Thalia insisted.

“I imagine that isn’t what he was asking,” Mingus said.

“Father!” Alexis scolded him.

“Can I come this time?” Nuwa interrupted the family drama.

“No,” Thalia said.  “You cannot come with us.  We have three days to journey up the mountain, and I figure it will take three days for you to lead our friends to the next time gate.  I need you to protect them, please.  The sorcerer will dare not interfere if you are with them.”

“I understand,” Nuwa dragon said, but she did sound a bit disappointed.

volcano 1Thalia’s gang and the travelers helped the dwarfs put out the fire in the great hall.  They ended up missing breakfast but had a fine lunch.  Thalia showed the travelers the distant tower on the smoking mountain, and said over and over, “No.  You can’t go with me.  The last thing we need is for the sorcerer to get his hands on weapons of mass destruction.”

Lockhart was the only one who really said anything.  “You know, since starting on this journey, I have come to realize that getting home alive is the second most important thing.  Helping you keep history on track is first, and all you have to do is ask.”

“I know.  I appreciate that,” Thalia said.  “But not this time.  And for the record, Katie is an elect, and she will do things that you would rather she not.  She will take risks, and you just need to deal with that.  What it really comes down to is do you trust her judgment or not?”

“I do,” Lockhart said.  “but sometimes I might not want to watch.”

Katie and Thalia shared a grin and Katie took Lockhart’s arm, just because.

Nevah and Boston spent the day together, talking about everything.  Nevah, though she was only half-hobgoblin, had less couth than the elf.  She trapped Mingus and Elder Stow, and let them have it.th nevah 5

“I like my companions.  We have come a long way, though not nearly as far as you have to go, but I don’t think we would have gotten this far if we did not like each other and if we were not nice and good to each other.  Whatever your personal feelings, you should keep them to yourself.  You need to be good and nice and supportive and encouraging to all of your team or you will never get where you are going in one piece.  I don’t care if you are a wise elder elf and from the elder race.  You are acting like boobies, and spoiled ones at that.”

Nevah huffed and puffed as she walked away and Boston asked, “Boobies?”

“That is what my mother called me.  I used to chew on her boobies when I was first born.”

Fuxi dragon showed up mid-afternoon.  Thalia had instructions for him and could only hope he would remember it all.  “Take this dragon to the Khyber and seek out Lord Varuna.  Tell him that I am asking the dragon be taken to the land in the sky and given to the oread Parvatayas.  The dragon has four or five-hundred-years of life yet.  Tell him, please don’t let him feed on people.”

Fuxi looked at her.

“Take the dragon to the Khyber and Lord Varuna to give the dragon to Parvatayas.”

Fuxi nodded, sort of.  Nuwa intervened.

“If you do a good job, you can come up to lake Bosten for a time and fish.”

“I’ll do it,” Fuxi said, and somehow, he got the dragon up on his back where he made the dragon hang on, and he took off for the south and vanished in the clouds.

Nuwa 2The following morning, Nuwa and the travelers said good-bye and headed toward the next time gate.  Katie had a thought.

“I suppose Mingus knows how these stories basically work out.  I assume she finds a way of overcoming the sorcerer in the end.”

“No telling,” Lockhart responded.  “At the beginning, I remember Pan saying that our presence put everything in flux.  Things might still be changed if we are not careful.  We may read about her story someday if the Storyteller ever makes it back from the void and then lives up to his name.”

“Change, as in our future might change?  History might be changed?”  Lockhart shrugged, and Katie considered their position.  “I see why you said helping the Kairos keep history on track is the number one priority.”

Lockhart nodded.  “Not that there is much we can do about it.”

Meanwhile, back at the dwarf camp, Thalia got suspicious.  She found Boston’s belt with the Beretta and big knife among Nevah’s things.  She yelled, and it was the kind of yell that made Nevah give everything back.  She had Phadon’s whetstone that he thought he lost, Bezos’ bag of gold nuggets, that he did not care one whit about, and Anwanna’s ring, for which he got excited and praised Ishtar and the divine Mithras for its return, and Lord Visnu for its preservation.  She also had a beautiful bronze cup, dwarf size, and Chief Zed looked flabbergasted.

“Forget it,” Thalia said.  “The copper and tin these good dwarfs dig out of this place is hard to come by.”

“True enough,” Chief Zed said.  “We keep running into tar and lakes of oil.”

Thalia nodded and looked at the weapon.  “No,” she decided at last.  “Too risky.”  It disappeared and everyone gasped, so she explained.  “I set it to Avalon.  I’ll have to remember to give it back to her in my next life.  So, are we ready to go?”th phaedon 2

“In the morning,” everyone decided, and Phadon had a question.

“I heard your friends talk about a volcano. Is that what is making all that smoke on the mountain?”

Thalia nodded.  “Let us hope it remains quiet until we finish there.”  She nudged Nevah.  “And you better pray Boston doesn’t need her weapon before I can give it back to her.”

“What’s for lunch?” Bezos asked.

************************

Monday, the travelers arrive in the south seas, but a few years before people start building all those relaxing beach resorts.  In fact, there is a rumor that inland, there are space creatures that might want to eat them.  Check it out.  Monday begins the six part adventure of Avalon Episode 4.9, Tropical Paradise.

Meanwhile, there is a cure for the hot summertime blues.  It is called Happy Reading…

a happy read 3

Avalon 4.8: part 5 of 6, Into the Fire

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The goblin king paced and shook his head.  “You have come at a bad time.”  He repeated the phrase over and over before he explained.  “The sorcerer in the tower demanded that we serve him.  That is not our way.  You travelers have been around long enough to know.  Our work is in the night.  Sure, people fear us in the dark, but we avoid them when we can.  Our god has made clear to us.  We are not to mingle.”  He sat on something like a throne, worried his hands and furrowed his brows.dwarf underground 1

“Elder elf,” one of the dozen dwarfs caught in the hall interrupted.  “We have made a space along the wall for you and your horses.”

“Thank you,” Mingus responded.  He got people to gather the horses.  They noticed a few imps among the dwarfs, and several gnomes who had no business being underground, but got caught in the trap all the same.  Lockhart, Katie and Nuwa stayed to face the goblin king, and the king continued his thoughts when he could.

“We had some volunteer to serve the sorcerer.  Brave fellows.  We had hope he would leave us alone after that, but he is greedy beyond words.  I think he wants everyone to serve him, and he has uncanny power.  He called up the shadow from the shadow realm, and we have no defense against such a creature.”

“A shadow is a lesser spirit,” Nuwa explained.  “These little spirits have no such power, even when they combine their magic.”

“And who are you?” the goblin king spoke like he just noticed her presence.

“I am Nuwa,” she said, with a slight bow to the king.  “Do you not know me?”

The goblin king looked at her for a long minute before he spoke.  “I saw Nuwa when I was in Tibet and she came to send those space creatures home.  I was very young, not yet mature, less than a hundred, and though that was eight-hundred-years ago, I still remember.  You look like her, but not exactly, and she died long ago.  You are not my goddess.  Thalia is a mere human in this life.  Who are you, exactly?”

Nuwa 1Nuwa smiled.  “I take Nuwa’s form from time to time to let you know that you are not forgotten.  Your goddess is even now headed for the dark tower on the fire mountain, and though I do not know how it may turn out, I know your goddess will not leave you in bondage.”

“And you can do something about this situation?” the king asked.

Nuwa bowed again, and let out a small smile.  “And the first thing I will do is give these good people a time of rest.”  She bowed a third time and took Katie and Lockhart to the others.

Boston got the dwarfs to dig a hole and set up her tent on top of it.  She made a hole in the fairy weave floor of the tent so people could go to the bathroom in some privacy.  Katie was the second to use it, after Boston herself.

Alexis and Lincoln got out the bread crackers.  Most in the hall did not go for elf bread, but it was better than nothing.  Decker had a portion of deer left over, but that did not last long.

Mingus and Elder Stow spent some time trying to plot a way out of their dilemma.  Elder Stow brought up a three-dimensional map of the tunnels and chambers in the goblin underground and they went over it, and over it.  In a way, it was pointless since they had no way of pinpointing where the shadow might be in any given moment.

No one slept well that night, but when Alexis and Lincoln settled in, and Lockhart got up for his turn on watch with Mingus, he told Elder Stow to get some rest.  He said who knew how hard they might have to run in the morning.

Lockhart sat and watched the goblins put logs on the fires, and he wondered how long it might be before they ran out of firewood.  Mingus talked quietly with a dwarf who finally admitted they had a small, secret connection from their mines to the goblin lair.bonfire

“And you suppose the dark elves do not know where that is,” Mingus said.

“They haven’t said anything,” the dwarf responded, and looked toward the tunnel they would have to navigate if they planned to go that way.  “But you would never get your horses through that narrow gate.”

Mingus nodded and glanced at Nuwa dragon who appeared to be sitting, eyes open, never blinking.  It was unnerving to look at her for too long.

Decker got up early and sat beside Lockhart.  “Hard to deal with a creature impervious to bullets,” he said.

Lockhart nodded.  “Nuwa said even Elder Stow’s force field would be ineffective.  Mingus, Roland and now Boston could walk right through the thing with little effort.  This shadow, she says, might not even know it was there.”

“Not much I can suggest other than make a run for it.”

Lockhart agreed.  “We might lure it to the tunnel farthest from the way we want to go, and run for daylight, once there is daylight.”

“I’ll be bait,” Decker said.

Lockhart shook his head.  “Probably me.  I can’t ask or let anyone else do it.”

dwarf underground 2Decker said no more.

Mingus, meanwhile, brought the dwarf to view Elder Stow’s schematic of the underground.  “Here, this way, and through here,” the dwarf said.  “But believe me, you won’t get your horses through.  Your big men might be a problem.”

Mingus nodded, thought, one problem at a time, and went to bed, leaving Elder Stow to puzzle out the passages.  With help in direction, Elder Stow managed an outline of the dwarf mines, almost to the surface.

When Boston and Katie got up, Nuwa said the only thing she said all night.  “Saddle up.”  They took their time, but did that thing, quietly, not daring to ask why.  They hoped it meant Nuwa thought of a way out, but “saddle up” did not give them much to go on.

Nuwa gently woke the travelers.  “Follow me,” she said.  “You too,” she told the dwarfs.  “You too,” she said to the gnomes.  While the travelers woke and got ready, Nuwa exhaled.  She inhaled for a whole minute as they heard shouting and screaming from down, what Mingus was calling, the dwarf tunnel.  Three dwarfs had gone to explore the route home.  Two came back, screaming.

Nuwa began a slow exhale that was pure white fire.  She began to transform back into the dragon form even as she moved into the tunnel.  People had to wait while her enormous bulk made the tunnel plenty big for the horses, but at last her tail whipped out into what was now a dark passage, and the people, elves, dwarfs, gnomes and several others poured into the tunnel.

Nuwa dragon turned this way and that, all the while with a slowly exhaled fire in front of her.  dragon 1When she slithered through a big chamber, she did not make her flame any larger.  Alexis figured out that Nuwa dragon had the shadow trapped in a ball of flame and was forcing it to move ahead of her.  Katie heard and repeated the theory for the others.  Still, Nuwa moved forward.

She crashed through a wall at one point, and made a narrow, hidden opening into a big one.  Those who knew or paid attention understood they had moved into the dwarf mines.  Dwarfs scattered in every direction, but Nuwa had thought ahead to give warning.  Any who were too slow or too hard-headed to listen got crisped.  There were a couple.

Nuwa, with everyone else following her zoomed through the cavernous dwarf halls, one after another.

###

On the surface, Thalia woke when the wolves arrived, about an hour before dawn.  Chief Zed and his three guardsmen yelled about it being unfair.

“We already killed these wolves.  They should stay dead.”

th nevah 1Everyone climbed up on the roof of the great hall, and Nevah yelled, “Skeleton formation.”  She grabbed Bezos’ axe while Bezos pulled his hammer.  Anwanna sat in the middle of the roof, unable to think of anything he might do.  Phadon and Thalia had their swords out, but Thalia was ripping up chunks of the roof and getting Nevah to set them on fire.  Thalia used the fire to whip the wolves and dropped it on their heads, while the wolves tried to find a way they could reach the roof, and Chief Zed complained.

“You’re going to set the whole house on fire, and then we’ll be in it.”

Nevah heard and stopped flaming the wood.  Of course, she began to fire flame balls at the wolves directly, so evidentially she heard but did not exactly understand.  Nevah stopped when it became apparent that as long as they remained on the roof, the dead wolves would not be able to reach them.  That was when Chief Zed shouted.

“It’s the damn dragon.”  He pointed, and Thalia saw the winged serpent, a middle-aged dragon bleeding from the bullet holes put in it the day before.  A couple of places appeared to be festering.  The beast looked to be in pain, but it came in, meaning business, and Thalia had little time to act.

Thalia grabbed all four dwarfs and made them yell with their words and their minds.  She gave them the words to say and prayed they would get through to the dragon.  She also prayed the dragon would obey the commands.  When dragons matured, the command language was not always effective.

“No fire.  Do no harm,” the dwarfs shouted in the right way.  All the same, the dragon came in and let out a great burst of flame.  People dropped to the roof and covered their heads, but there was nowhere to hide.  To get down from the roof was suicide, but the dwarfs were not for giving up.  dragon 7“Fire the wolves,” Thalia shouted in the command language.  “Flame the wolves.”  The dwarfs picked up the new words, even as Thalia realized it was a long shot.  She had to assume the dragon knew what wolves were.  Then again, dragons were not exactly dumb beasts.  Given its age, it probably knew what people were, and if it did not know wolves exactly, it could figure it out.

“Flame the wolves,” the dwarfs yelled, and after landing, the dragon did exactly that.  Of course, the great hall of the dwarfs caught fire, and Thalia imagined it would burn quickly.  Anwanna was actually the first to leap down.  He ran inside the building to get his donkey.  The wolves had no interest in the donkey because, being dead, they were not there for a feast.

The others jumped down, and Thalia had to slice off one wolf’s head, but otherwise, the dragon was at least concentrating on the other side of the hall.

“To the trees,” Chief Zed shouted, and it was just before the dragon decided to see if all that flame made anything edible.

Thalia 5Thalia got behind a tree and watched.  She figured fried, dead wolf was no treat.  She recognized that the dawn was up and the sun was about to break above the horizon, when the earth began to shake beneath their feet.  People fell and rolled.  Several yelled to watch out for limbs and trees.  The donkey brayed, and the dragon yelped, unable to lift into the sky since it was half-way through swallowing a wolf.

The earthquake grew to dangerous levels before a much bigger dragon burst out of the ground like a giant worm reaching for the sun.

Avalon 4.8 part 4 of 6 The Dark Underground

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“No, not again,” Lockhart breathed at the entrance to the cave.

“Going over the mountain would take too long,” Nuwa spoke as she got down from behind Katie.  Boston rode to the front as Decker and Elder Stow came in from the sides.

“Why do we always have to go underground?” Lockhart complained, but he took it well, even when Lincoln voiced his objection.cave entrance

“All the goblins and trolls, and who know what nasty things live underground.”

“Maybe there are pixies to keep the bat population under control,” Boston said as she got down.

“Goblins eat rats,” Katie suggested.

“But there are deeper, darker things the dwarfs and goblins sometimes dig up,” Nuwa admitted.  “As a dragon, I appreciate a deep cave filled with gold, but I make highways through the wilderness.  Endless dark tunnels do not thrill me either.”

“You stay up front with us,” Larkhart suggested, having temporarily forgotten that Nuwa Dragon was a greater spirit, a power just shy of being a lesser goddess, and her natural form was a tremendous fire breathing, sharp clawed dragon.  What would dare disturb them?

The travelers entered the cave in their pre-determined order.  They had been in the underground enough in the past to have worked things out.  Boston went up front with Lockhart and Katie watching.  Boston put a fairy light overhead to light the way.  It was not too difficult, if it was not all day, and they all had the lanterns for back-up.  Lincoln and Alexis came in the middle where Alexis, being more experienced with magic, kept a center fairy light burning, even when the tunnel became narrow and the roof pressed in on them.  Elder stow came behind them, scanner in hand.  He kept track of their progress, could point to the larger, more navigable tunnels up ahead while he kept an eye on what might be following them—hopefully nothing.  Mingus and Decker brought up the rear, where Mingus trailed them with a fireball light, and Decker held on to his rifle.

cave“These are goblin tunnels.  We can travel troll ways for a while,” Nuwa said.  Like the elves, she had the ability to direct her speech to the ones she was talking to so it did not echo up and down the whole tunnel.

“Troll roads,” Lockhart quietly corrected her, but he saw Katie put a hand to her ear so he refrained from asking what they charged.  Nuwa dragon snickered, having caught the thought without his having to say it; and Lockhart thought the human sounding snicker was much easier on his nerves than the full throated dragon laugh he once heard.

Nuwa continued.  “There is one narrow place where the goblin lair gives way to dwarf tunnels, but I can make it temporarily bigger for the horses.”

Lockhart nodded rather than talk out loud.  Too bad there was nothing he could do about the horses clip-clop against the rocky floor.  The horses all had new shoes.  Somehow, Lady Alice managed to send them back from the future to Yadinel’s time, and Pluckman and his merry men managed to build a fire hot enough to shape them a little, as needed.

Lockhart looked back to where Lincoln was looking all around at the dark, wide eyed and quiet.  Lincoln, with Katie helping, had taken on the job of keeping the horses hooves trimmed and the horses properly shoed.  They all knew how to do it, having received the knowledge directly from the Kairos, Wlvn, all those centuries ago.  But this was one of those things that needed to be practiced to be good.  Lincoln, and Katie got plenty of practice.

After a short time, they came to a cavern.  Boston reminded them that dark elves always had an entrance hall.  This one had seven tunnels leading off in various directions.  Most of them would go to goblin homes.  At least one would go to the great hall, and one would lead to a back door of some kind. This particular hall also had a pile of bones in the center, and as they came into the cavern, they noticed bones scattered around.cave of bones 1

“What happened here?” Alexis asked as Lincoln bent down to see how old the bones might be.  Nuwa dragon and Lockhart, with his police training, were right there with him.

“These are fresh kills,” Lockhart said.

“Some troll bones,” Nuwa pointed out.

“What could do this to a troll?” Lincoln backed off and was glad to see the others were as prepared as they could be.  Decker and Katie held their rifles and were looking around.  Boston had out her wand and sidled up to Mingus for protection.  Alexis had her wand out, but was peeking over Elder Stow’s shoulder.  The Gott-Druk’s eyes were glued to his scanner.

“We need to move on, and quickly,” Nuwa said.  “This way.”

“I’m picking up movement down that tunnel,” Elder Stow said.

“Good,” Nuwa responded.  “I doubt your equipment could register a shadow.”

They walked with the fairy lights as bright as they could make them, and the lanterns on.

“What do you mean shadow?” Lincoln asked.

Nuwa explained.  “I remember the Kairos referring to one as the shadow of death, as ‘in the valley of the shadow of death’.  The goblins may have released one from the darkness.  They hide in the dark because more than anything, sunlight is death to them.  They don’t like any light.  They are shadow 3shapeless, formless masses of darkness, and they are hungry.  They are not swarms of microscopic life, but you might think of them as the vashta nerada.

Katie went pale on hearing that, and Boston up front, hearing with her good elf ears, shouted, “Oh crap.  Hurry.”

“What are vashta nerada?” Lincoln asked.

“I don’t think we want to know,” Alexis answered him.

They ran, and the horses sensed the fear and did not argue.

“Dark elves,” Nuwa said just before Boston shouted the same thing.

“Come on.  Hurry,” one of the goblins echoed Boston.  There were a dozen with torches, and six stepped to the side while the travelers passed.  They intended to take the rear position, but as Mingus, who was in the back, passed them, one of the six screamed.  The other five hurried, but a second and then a third fell even as the travelers broke out of the tunnel into the goblin great hall.

Mingus spun around in the entrance and made a ball of fire that filled the tunnel and pushed part way in.  The goblins built up the fire in that place and people tried to relax.

The travelers held tight to their horse’s reigns as they moved into the sweltering heat of the hall.  A tremendous bonfire shed light everywhere, and fires also burned in front of all eleven passages that let out into the darkness.  Torches burned everywhere, quick to come to hand if needed, and the rest of the room was overcrowded with spirits of all sorts.  Most were goblins, and a few were trolls, but the rest were a variety of spirits that the travelers had never seen and could not name.

“It’s like a red cross shelter during a flood,” Alexis suggested.Alexis t1

“Stay away from the unfamiliar ones,” Lockhart commanded, and looked at Mingus

“Even I cannot name them all,” Mingus admitted.  “But then my dealings with the underground have never been great.”  He looked at Alexis.

“I can name some,” she admitted, and then confessed.  “I dated a dark elf when I was very young and rebellious.”

People smiled.  Mingus frowned at her.  Boston slapped a hand to her mouth and shouted again, “No way.”

“Humans.  Horses.”  A big goblin stepped up and stared hard at the travelers, but they had seen goblins at their worst and were not moved.  Lockhart even complimented the goblin by calling the look a frightening face.  He said it in such a calm voice, though, the goblin hardly knew what to say.

“Red hair. Yellow hair,” a second goblin stepped up and said, “follow me.”

Avalon 4.8: part 3 of 6, A Little Help

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Thalia tromped through the woods and went around the rocks that jutted up here and there in the forest.  She ignored everyone else.  Nevah floated along, hardly making a sound in the forest, but she insisted on climbing over every rock outcropping she could find.  Sometimes she hooted when she reached the top, and Phadon kept telling her to keep quiet.  He tried to move stealthily through the leaves and underbrush, like he did not want to alert the whole neighborhood.  He failed on every crumpled leaf and snapped twig.  It did not matter in any case.  Bezos tried to make extra noise because he would rather not startle a bear or a big cat or something.  He had his hammer in his hand and occasionally rapped it against the trees.  What is more, Anwanna was donkey with pack 1struggling to bring along the donkey, who complained.  For some reason, the donkey thought the stop for lunch should have been the stop for the night.

“We are about to come out of the trees on to the rock ledges that should lead us up to the tower,” Thalia shouted back.  She signaled the others to wait where they were while she jogged up ahead.  She sensed something the others could not imagine.

Anwanna pulled up and raised his voice to answer her.  “I take it we have made it past whatever traps he may have set for unwanted visitors.”

Bezos laughed and Nevah spoke.  “Haven’t faced any traps yet.”

“What about the skeletons and bears and everything?” Anwanna wanted to protest.

“Just testing us, to see if he could scare us off,” Phadon gave the explanation.

“The fun is just beginning.”  Nevah said, happily.  Bezos nodded and grinned.

“You people have a strange sense of fun,” Anwanna suggested, and Phadon nodded again before he hushed everyone.  It took a minute to figure out what he was hearing, but then a howl rang through the trees, and Phadon grabbed the donkey’s reigns.

wp;ves 1“Hurry.  Get to the rocks and out from the trees.  Anwanna and Phadon were glad the donkey did not argue.  Bezos pulled his axe while they ran.  Nevah had the harder time as she tried to get her bow out.  She had to pause at the edge of the woods to bend it and string it, but then she needed a bit of speed—not like elf speed, but faster than human speed, to catch up.

The wolves were right behind, about a dozen of them.  Nevah spun around and put two down with two arrows, but two more reached the group.  Phadon caught on with his spear when it was in mid-leap.  Bezos gutted the other with his axe.

Two wolves circled the group to come up on Anwanna and the donkey.  Anwanna screamed while the donkey let out a great bray and kicked.  The wolves were wary.

“Use your knife,” Phadon yelled as he pulled his sword.  The spear fell with the wolf.

Anwanna pulled his knife after a minute.  He yelled like a madman, or a man afraid, and waved the weapon at the wolves.  The wolves ignored him.  They were concerned about how to bring down the donkey without being kicked.

Nevah shot another one, but it was not a perfect shot and imagined she only wounded the thing.  They appeared to pause at the edge of the trees.

“Have they had enough?” Phadon wondered.

“Probably getting ready to rush us,” Bezos responded.th nevah 2

“Here they come,” Nevah yelled as she fired her arrow.  Phadon raised his sword, and Bezos pulled his hammer to have a weapon in each hand.  Phadon lost his sword in the neck of a wolf.  Bezos lost his axe in a wolf head.  Bezos swung his hammer and maybe busted a wolf shoulder but there was another one.  Phadon and Nevah also faced another, and all they could do was grab their long knives.

They stood as three arrows came from behind them and the wolves went down.  Bezos had the satisfaction of smashing the head of the one with a busted shoulder, but that was it.  When Phadon and Neva turned to see who their benefactor might have been, they saw Thalia standing on a rock some twenty yards behind and above them, and four of the funniest looking, heavily bearded little men jogging to meet them.  Thalia wore a cape that fluttered in the wind, and when she slipped her bow in a pocket of the cape, the cape was in no way restricted.  It continued to flutter as she climbed down the rock.  In fact, she bunched it up to drape it over her arm as she climbed, so Phadon was prompted to ask a question.

“What happened to the bow?  I swear she was just holding a bow and arrows.”

“Ours is not to question,” Nevah told him.

“I’m all right,” Anwanna said, grumpily.  Both wolves that faced him were down with arrows.

“We can see that,” Bezos grinned his grin, but helped Anwanna calm the donkey which was spooked by the wolves and now by the blood, everywhere.

The little men came up arguing about whose arrow hit which wolf closer to the heart.  They retrieved and checked their arrows while the others could only stare.  As they went by, three of them tipped their hats to Nevah and said, “Missy,” “Breedy,” and “Hobby-Gob.”

th dwarf archer“Friends of yours?” Phadon asked.

Nevah shook her head and stared before she said, “but it gives me strange feelings to look at them.  I don’t know why.”

“They’re dwarfs,” Thalia shouted, having heard Nevah’s comment.  “Let me introduce you.”  And she introduced her gang to the dwarfs Poogbara, Gildurien, Metikas, and Zed.  “Chief Zed, I should say.  We have been invited to spend the night.”

“Is it safe?” Anwanna wondered out loud.

“The only place that is safe,” Thalia answered.  “They have a magical shield up against the sorcerer in the tower so he can’t raise up their long dead ancestors.  Chief Zed has said we can get a good night’s sleep, and they will watch the land, the skies and the under-earth.”

“Sounds like an offer we can’t refuse,” Phadon said.

“To refuse would be rude, I think,” Nevah agreed.

“Ready.”  Bezos had gathered his weapons and his pack, and the others hurried to get their things.

The dwarf home was not far.  The trees on the surface shaded the work sheds and a great hall used now and then for feasts and celebrations, but most of the home was underground in the mines that honeycombed the mountain.  The group had to stay on the surface, but that was all right.  It was a chance to rest after the last weeks of struggle.

The sorcerers tower could be seen from the roof of the great hall, and they all climbed up to get a good look.  The tower appeared to be about three days away, jutting into the sky on the edge of a mountain that smoked.  Steam billowed out from the inside of the rocks there and made great clouds to be blown off by the wind.  Presently, the tower and the clouds appeared golden as the sun began to set in the west.volcano 2

“Do not be fooled,” Chief Zed said.  “There is no gold in that mountain, only hot red rivers beneath the surface like the blood in the earth.  Soon enough, you will see the sky and the tower turn red as the sun drops to the horizon.  I think it is the color of the blood that shows before the darkness covers everything.  If you are going there…” he paused to look at Thalia, “and I have no doubt that you are, you will find that even the moon and the stars cannot penetrate the smoke and steam.  The darkness at night is utterly dark, a fitting place for the man and his wicked sorcery.”

Anwanna lowered his head and shed a few tears.  Nevah slipped an arm around the man to comfort him, even as Phadon spoke.

“Nevah.  You are being quiet this evening.  I though you always had something to say.”

Nevah looked at the dwarf and lowered her own eyes.  Thalia thought she better say something before Nevah joined Anwanna in his tears.

“Nevah is a breed, half-hobgoblin and half-human.  The earth spirits do not think good thoughts about half-breeds since their god has made such a fuss about it and told them plainly that they are not permitted to mingle with human mortals in that way.  Then, her spirit half is hobgoblin.  Most earth spirits keep hobgoblins at arm’s length and do not trust them, and rightly so, since most are such terrible, manipulative schemers.  So you see, Nevah has two strikes against her already, even without opening her mouth.  Too bad, because Nevah is really a very nice young woman who tries very hard to be honest and good.”  Nevah did start to weep softly as Chief Zed spoke.

Thalia 6“Since you have accepted her as a friend, my people will not have issue with her, as long as she keeps to her place among the humans.”

“Not a problem,” Thalia said.  “Our path goes overland, but right now I say we go back down.  I can smell the feast the dwarf wives are preparing, and Bezos is hungry.”

Phadon looked up from Nevah’s face, from where his hand reached out to touch her arm and comfort her as much as he could.  “I believe Bezos is always hungry,” he said.  Bezos nodded and grinned.

Avalon 4.8 part 2 of 6 Dragons

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“Ugh,” Boston sounded frustrated.  “We are getting closer, but it is so slow.  It is almost like Talia is moving away from us.”

“Thalia,” Mingus said.

“Thalia-Anath,” Lincoln corrected him, and Alexis smiled for her husband.

“So,” Lockhart interrupted before people started shouting.  “Are we sure these are the Zagros Mountains?”Katie 9

“Oh, yes,” Katie said, meaning to be helpful.  “The north end of the mountains, I would guess.  Not far from the Caspian Sea.”

“Lincoln?”  Lockhart looked at Katie and frowned.  She missed the whole point of his interrupting the others.

“Yes,” Lincoln confirmed.  “This is not Syria.  The mountains are too high.”

“If we have caught her in the middle of her quest for the amulet of peace and prosperity, we may be headed for trouble,” Mingus said.

“The Kairos?  Trouble?”  Lockhart joked and at least Katie laughed.

“But that is the trouble,” Boston shouted.  “We can’t catch her anywhere if she won’t keep still.”

Lincoln had to add something, just to be contrary.  “On the other hand, if we were in Syria, we would probably in the middle of a war.  Take your pick.”

zagros 6Lockhart frowned at everyone as they came to the edge of the woods.  They came to a grassland that appeared to stretch all of the way to the distant hills.  “The way looks good up ahead.  Time to ride.”  At least when the group rode, only the two side by side could talk.  They mounted, even as Decker rode in from the flank, and Elder Stow joined them on the other side.

“Dragon,” Decker said, and Elder Stow pointed.

“Damn,” Lincoln looked all around the sky.

“The rocks?”  Katie suggested.

“Back to the rock outcropping,” Lockhart shouted.  “Tie the horses under the trees as near to the rocks as possible.”  People turned around.

“I see it.”  Lincoln pointed to a dot in the sky.  No one doubted that the dot would get very big, very quickly.

“Decker.  Elder Stow.  Up in the trees.  Protect the horses.”  Lockhart gave instructions as they tied the horses to whatever low hanging branch they could find.  “Lincoln, stay with the horses to cut them loose if things get too hot.  Alexis, Mingus and Boston up on the rocks.  Think of something.  Katie, with me.  We need to protect the magic makers.”dragon 3

The dragon came in high, breathing fire that licked the tree tops.  Everyone heard Elder Stow’s sonic device.  Boston and Mingus covered their ears at the sound, while the air around the dragon waffled.  It lost its stability and had to work hard to keep from crashing to the ground.

Decker and Katie opened up with their rifles, firing three-shot bursts.  The dragon’s natural armor repelled most of the bullets, but there were some softer spots where bullets struck home.  The rest of the bullets spanked and bruised the beast.

Alexis fired two arrows, empowered by both Mingus and Boston.  One exploded by the dragon’s belly, and the other blew up against the wing, no doubt straining the muscles there.  Lockhart stood, close as the dragon was.  He shot buckshot into the dragon’s face and neck, and ducked as the dragon let out a short burst of flame.

The dragon rose up to get out of range.  It circled the travelers once from overhead before it headed off back into the sky.

“I would say it lost interest,” Lockhart decided.  “There must be easier prey out there.”

“They are smart,” Mingus countered.  “They are perfectly capable of setting up an ambush.”

“We need to get out of the trees,” Lincoln said, as they untied their horses and walked them back to the wide open ground at the edge of the woods.

zagros 3Katie was the only one who said something while they walked, and she merely whispered to Lockhart.  “How dare you stand up like that in a dragon face.”

When they got to the edge of the forest, they got ready to ride, but Decker pointed and made them pause.

“We have company up ahead,” Decker reported.

Elder Stow quickly checked his scanner.  “I’m picking up nothing.  There are carbon traces, but I get no life forms.”

“We go look,” Lockhart said.  It was an easy decision as they rode across a flat, open field.  There were no trees, and the next set of rocks for hiding were much further on.

“Not good,” Katie managed to say before they started out.  She was feeling uncomfortable about what might be in the distance, and Lockhart understood her elect instincts were acting up.  Katie, Mingus and Boston actually pulled up first, though the others were not far behind.

“Dead people,” Boston called them, being able to see them clearly with her elf eyes.

Twenty skeletons blocked the way and started toward them when they stopped.  Decker and Elderskeletons 2 Stow came in from the flanks where a dozen more blocked each side.  Lockhart was prepared to tell everyone to turn around, but Boston screamed once because they were behind as well.  They rode into the middle of the trap.

Decker just looked at his rifle.  What good was shooting a skeleton?  Elder Stow tried his sonic device.  The ones out front shook, but did not collapse.  They kept coming, and the ones to their sides began to fire arrows, though they were still out of range.

“Forward,” Lockhart said.  The ones there were closest, even with the temporary shaking.

“Alexis,” Mingus commanded her attention.  Mingus and Boston gave the reigns of their horses to Lockhart and Katie.  Lincoln took Alexis’ horse with his own, while Alexis went to join her family.

Boston put her hand on Mingus’ shoulder as Alexis took her hand.  With three magics combined, Mingus started to throw out fireballs that exploded on contact.  Bones went everywhere, and the group began to move forward at a good walking pace before the ones on the sides and at their back got close enough to make their arrows effective.

“We need to hurry.”  Lincoln judged the tightening circle of skeletons.

Boston LF1“Boston.  We need your flamethrower,” Mingus said, and he touched her shoulder.  Alexis let go of Boston’s hand and touched her other shoulder.  Boston got out her wand.  The skeletons in front appeared to have enough self-awareness to understand it was pointless to get too close to the fire—or maybe it was the one pulling the strings.  The exploding fireballs were devastating, but the flamethrower was unrelenting.  With skeletons burning in front, people quickly mounted and rode the gauntlet.  They made it past the burning bones without an arrow strike and almost celebrated before another two-dozen rose up again to their front.  Some of them still had vestiges of flesh clinging to their bones.

“We must have stumbled into a graveyard,” Katie shouted.  She felt helpless.  For all her strength and fighting skill as an elect, she felt stymied.  Her rifle and sidearm were useless.  She might chop her way through with her Patton saber, but there were so many of them.  She would probably collapse from exhaustion before she got everyone clear.

A strong light came from the edge of the group of travelers.  Elder Stow had his weapon out.  The skeletons in front of the group went to dust under the blast of Elder Stow’s hand weapon.

“I don’t know what I was saving this for,” Elder Stow said as the travelers began to ride to try and get beyond the reach of the fifty or so skeletons now coming up behind them.  They came to a small rise in the field, and halted at the top of that rise.  Down below, there were two or three hundred skeletons rising from their graves.skeletons 1

“Mingus, Boston and Alexis up front,” Lockhart said.  “Elder Stow, let’s try to get the ones at our rear.  Katie, Decker and Lincoln, Patton sabers.”  They stood around the horses like people prepared to face the inevitable.

Something whistled in the wind.

“What is that sound?” Boston asked first, and Mingus looked up and all around.  Something flew overhead, something invisible, though they felt the breeze, and they saw the skeletons behind get swallowed in a ball of flame a hundred times bigger and stronger than Mingus, Boston and Alexis could produce, even with every ounce of their combined magic.

“Dragon,” Katie guessed.

“Invisible dragon,” Lockhart did not disagree, though the thought was frightening.

“They are collapsing again,” Alexis reported from the front, and everyone watched as several hundred dead went back to being dead.  All the same, they saw the dragon flame spray all across the field in front of them before the dragon became visible—the most enormous dragon they had ever seen.  But it was one they had seen before, and they saw it quickly shrink as it came close.  When it was no bigger than a person, it took the shape of a person, and Boston had to shout.

“Nuwa dragon.”

“Boston,” Nuwa responded with a smile, and open arms.

“Thank you for saving us.”  Boston accepted the hug.

Nuwa 8“Yes,” everyone agreed.

“It was nothing, literally.  As soon as I showed up, the sorcerer withdrew in an attempt to hide.  I am sure he has more tricks, but I hope he will keep them to himself as long as I am here.  Shall we go find Thalia?”

“You ride with me,” Kartie said quickly.

“Oh man, speedy girl,” Boston complained.  “I was going to ask her.”

“Which way?” Lockhart took Boston’s attention, and she pulled out her amulet.  Boston pointed and Nuwa shook her head.

“That is a rough road; not one for horses.  I know a shortcut.”

“Shortcut?” Lincoln asked.

“I do make roads for a living.”  Nuwa smiled.