Quest for the Holy Rabbit: Book Six of the Waldo Rabbit Series by Chereta Nelson

Author:Chereta, Nelson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-06-29T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

An Empty Village

“This was all such a massive waste of time.”

“Yes, darling.”

“I completely wasted five whole days.”

“Yes, darling.”

“Instead of wasting all this time I could have been working on Luna and growing closer to my goal.”

“Yes, darling.”

“I really am an idiot sometimes,” Waldo muttered beneath his breath.

“Yes, darling.”

His head snapped around to glare at Alice. She had the most innocent expression on her face.

“You’re not fooling me you know.”

“What do you mean, darling? Isn’t a wife supposed to agree with her husband?”

“It would be nice if you would agree with me on important matters.”

“Darling, I thought we were stopping a war. I had no idea we were stepping into such a puddle of mud. Please forgive me for thinking that innocent lives are more important than your time.”

“Fine, I forgive you,” Waldo tried his best to sound gracious. “Just remember in the future.”

“I’ll do my best,” she groaned. “On top of everything else, the full moon was yesterday. We missed the big event Oberon invited us to.”

Waldo waved that away. “There’s a full moon every month.”

“It’s not so bad,” Gronk chimed in. “We’re what? Six? Seven miles away now? We’ll be back before too long.”

The horrible ball of fire was just dipping below the eastern peaks and would soon be gone from the sky soon. They were approaching the last village on the road to Lunatown. At their pace, they’d be home within two hours.

“Which means Luna will be asleep and it will be too late for me to heal her today.”

“Just trying to look on the bright side, master.”

“There is no bright side, Gronk! There is only darkness as far as the eye can see!”

“Darling, please don’t turn a pebble into a boulder. I’m sorry to have wasted your oh-so-precious time, but we’ll be back soon. Is it that bad?”

“Don’t you understand, Alice? I could have healed Luna well enough to fly five entire days sooner! Which means I could potentially have returned home five days sooner. Which also means I could have received my mother’s praise and approval five days sooner. How could you possibly ask me to diminish such a loss?”

“You’re right, darling,” she moaned. “It’s a huge tragedy.”

Waldo nodded.

XXX

Willow Grove was a tiny hamlet with no more than a couple dozen homes. It was the last settlement on the way back to Lunatown and the main road ran through it. They had passed through on the way to Iarba without incident. The residents were used to elves, dwarves, and other races. And had seen Waldo and his companions on previous expeditions. That meant they hadn’t panicked at the sight of an ogre and their reaction had been about as calm as could be hoped for.

Entering Willow Grove Waldo hadn’t expected anything different and just wanted to pass through while there was still light. He was focused on keeping up the pace and didn’t pay much mind to his surroundings. So, it was Alice who noticed.

“Ah, darling? Where is everyone?”

“What?”

“It’s still daytime, where are all the people?”

Waldo stopped and looked about.

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