Troll or Derby

Author:Red Tash
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 1477583726
Published: 2012-06-13T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

Freebird

Deb

My skin sizzled a little bit. I wanted to watch it reacting—it was completely spellbinding.

“Tainted!” The natives were restless, indeed. I could sense the fear and anger in them, but they weren’t attacking. Not yet.

I dropped the mace, and some of my skin went with it. That part burned.

Harlow was on his feet. “You can’t touch iron—don’t ever touch it with your bare hands.” He breathed a little on my palm, and the pain subsided, but it still throbbed. “I don’t know if I can fix this. We gotta get back to the mansa,” he said.

Dave lay immobile on the floor. The crowd pressed toward us, swallowing poor Derek in its wake.

One blue-skinned fairy with enormous solid black eyes screamed into my face in a voice that sound like a cat walking across a piano. “Tainted!” The iridescent butterfly wings whispered as she snarled at me in pain from the air.

I definitely wasn’t making any friends here.

And then there were iron fillings flying everywhere. The crowd was shrieking and running away from the stall. A very small man wiped iron shavings from his hands, cursing. Mace, himself, I took it.

“Get him out of here!” he bellowed, gesturing at Dave. “And you’re going to owe me big for this one, Harlow! A dwarf never forgets.”

“How much to make you forget?” Harlow asked. The dwarf shrugged, before he turned away. The mace and flail went back onto the wall, and I instantly felt their loss. Those were great weapons, even if they were poison. Mace stepped over Dave and continued working as if he were invisible.

Harlow panted, but seemed to be regaining some strength.

Dave was impossibly still. What had I done? “Is he dead?” I asked.

“Dave?” Harlow asked. “Probably not. Iron’s a lot harder on fairy folk than it is on trolls.We still have trouble taking a direct hit from it—don’t get me wrong—but I imagine he’ll bounce back in a few hours.”

He took my hand, then immediately let it go. For a moment, he stared into my eyes, searching—then, he shook his head, like shaking off a bad thought.

“You’re wounded. C’mon,” he said. “Let’s get out of here before we get into even more trouble.”

“Derek,” I said. The kid was frozen solid, staring at Dave’s crumpled form. The tide of magical folk had gone out, and he remained transfixed in that same spot. Mace threw a drop cloth over Dave, like a blanket—a shock blanket, I thought.

Was Derek also in shock?

“Derek,” I said again, approaching him. He met my eyes, but he didn’t say a word.

“Leave him be,” Harlow said. “He can’t come with us.”

“He—what? You just want me to leave him here? Harlow, when Dave was looking for me, Derek saved my ass. I can’t just leave him behind.”

“You don’t have a choice, Deb.” Harlow leaned down and whispered in my ear. “He’s under a spell. And if we force him, Dave will follow him straight to my place. If Derek’s in the mansa, Dave can come in at any time—maybe while I’m sleeping—take you both away.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.