Eye of the Wizard: A Fantasy Adventure (31 page)

"Uhm... I just remembered," Romy said, heart hammering. "I forgot something in Queenpool. I'm going to go back and get it."

The Bullies all frowned at her, and Neev would not release her. "What did you forget, Romy?" he said, eyes narrowed.

Romy twiddled her thumbs. "My, uhm... my lucky seashell. Yeah, that's the ticket. I can't go anywhere without me lucky seashell."

Neev raised an eyebrow. "Romy, you spent two hundred years in Hell, and then a couple months on earth far from any sea. You don't have a lucky seashell." He patted her hand. "Come on, Romy. Let's keep going. We'll be all right."

Romy covered her eyes, her knees knocking. "You saw that thing. We can't kill a beast that big and deadly."

Cobweb approached them, bottom lip trembling. "Womy might be wight," she said meekly. "Dis cweatuwe m-might be beyond our p-p-powew. We saw aww dose hewoes fweeing fwom it. I d-d-don't want us to d-die."

Romy nodded vehemently.
That bird is death!
Cobweb's words seemed to have more affect than her own, Romy noticed. Neev and Scruff were both scrunching their lips, scanning the sky for Vanderbeak's return.
They know I'm right,
Romy thought. Vanderbeak's wake of smoke and fire still flowed across the sky, and Romy began to suck her thumb, trembling.

"Maybe you girls are right," Scruff said, looking pale, and even Neev tapped his cheek as if reconsidering.

Then Jamie stomped up.

The slight girl drew her sword with a hiss, thrust out her chest, and raised her chin. "Come on, guys!" she said, cheeks flushing. "I can't believe this. We can take him!" She swiped her sword; the steel whistled and gleamed. "Now I know why I spent years training with this blade. It was for this day. To kill this roc and earn a wheelbarrow-full of money!"

Romy tapped her foot and sucked her thumb. The others seemed just as unconvinced, chewing their lips.

"But J-Jamie," Cobweb said, twisting her fingers, "did you see how b-b-big dat woc is?"

Jamie raised her blade, and it glinted in the sunlight. "I saw the roc, but I also saw your arrows fly in battle, Cobweb." Jamie's eyes were moist. "And I saw your mace, Scruff, and your spells, Neev, and your pitchfork, Romy." A tear flowed down her cheek. "But most of all, I saw your hearts, I saw your courage. You are my family, you are my friends. I love all of you. I know that together we can do anything, we can defeat any enemy together." Her tears streamed down her cheeks and her voice trembled. "We can do this. We will do it together."

Romy was crying, lip trembling, tears in her eyes. Cobweb sobbed, and Scruff blew his nose into a handkerchief. Even Neev's eyes were moist.

"We're going to do it," Romy said, sniffing and inspired. "And I don't care if that roc was big enough to carry an elephant."

Jamie dropped her sword, eyes widening. She gaped at Romy. "That was an
elephant
?" Jamie grabbed her head. "Oh crap. I thought that was a rabbit or something."

For a moment the Bullies just stared in silence, and Romy wasn't sure if Jamie was joking. But Jamie stared back, bewildered.
God, she's serious.

Neev grabbed his sister's shoulders and shook her, shouting. "How the hell do you confuse an elephant with a rabbit!"

Jamie shook herself free, face red. "I don't know, I just did! I'd never seen an elephant before! To hell with this, I'm not fighting that roc now."

Everybody groaned.

Romy took a deep breath. She put her hand on Jamie's shoulder and gazed into the shorter girl's eyes. "No, Jamie, you were right. We can do this together. Pick up your sword." She pursed her lips and nodded. "We have a roc to kill."

* * * * *

Vanderbeak's wake of fire still hung in the sky, a smoking serpent. Scruff gazed at it, palm shielding his eyes, and shivered. The creature that left that wake had destroyed miles of farmland, terrorized peasants, even battered a group of armored knights. Did the Bullies really stand a chance?

Scruff looked at Cobweb. She walked beside him, an arrow nocked in her bow, her eyes clouded with worry. Scruff remembered how Dry Bones had hurt her, how her elders had banished her. He tightened his lips. She deserved better.
I'm going to kill Vanderbeak so that I can buy her a house, a better life.
He remembered kissing her, the best moment in his life, and wished he could kiss her again, a million times, wished he could sleep every night with her in his arms.

They walked through the countryside, staying off the main roads, following Vanderbeak's smoking wake. At noon, they saw a burned town ahead.

Greenford.

From a distance, Greenford looked more black than green, its buildings burned and smoking. When the Bullies entered the town, they saw the extent of Vanderbeak's destruction. The cottages' thatch roofs were burned. Sheep bones lay strewn about, and the silos were smashed. Great marks of talons covered the ground and several buildings. The church's stone tower lay toppled, and giant feathers covered the village square. Atop a grassy hill rose a manor, one of its towers toppled, its gardens torn up.

As the Bullies entered the town square, they saw a group of townsfolk crowded together, muttering. Scruff heard snippets of the conversation: "...the roc will be back..." and "...must flee town..." and "...all the heroes let us down."

It's even worse than I imagined,
Scruff thought.
Vanderbeak destroyed an entire town. How will we kill him?
He sighed. They had to try. If not for the money, then to save these people.

Scruff led the Bullies toward the townsfolk. One girl, a short youth with blond hair, noticed them and pointed. The other townsfolk turned their heads, raised their eyebrows, and soon they were all were walking toward the Bullies. A few had arms in slings. Most had singed clothes, eyebrows, and hair. A dog walked among them, a cone around his neck.

"Hi there," Scruff said and waved.

The townsfolk stared back, silent. In their eyes, even the eyes of the dog, despair covered faint hope, like a slab of ham covering a hint of butter on bread. These people had seen other heroes try to kill Vanderbeak, Scruff guessed, and they doubted anyone could hurt the beast; yet still they dared to hope. They probably had nothing left but hope.

The wounded dog limped up to them, and as Cobweb patted him, Scruff addressed the townsfolk. "We've come to kill the roc. We don't know if we can... but we're going to try."

"You don't stand a chance," said the peasant girl who first spotted them. Scruff noticed that she had a black eye, and that her skirt was burned and tattered.

"Why not?" he asked, bristling, offended that a teenage girl should doubt his strength.

The girl snorted. "You don't even have proper armor, just a cheap, dusty breastplate. Groups of fifty knights tried to kill the roc, but it killed them like a dog bites flees. What chance do
you
stand? You're just another group of ragtag, down-on-your luck muscles-for-hire. We know your type, and we know that you're useless."

Jamie drew her sword and pointed it at the peasant girl. Both girls were about the same age. "Watch your tongue, sweetheart," Jamie said. "See this blade? It's killed beasts before. I'm going to bring back this blade drenched in roc blood, dragging the beast's head behind me."

Scruff pushed down Jamie's sword. "Look," he said to the peasant girl, and to all the other peasants, "we're not promising anything other than that we'll try. We're good at killing things. We've killed monsters before. Granted, none as big as Vanderbeak, but some nasty ones. We might fail, but you have my word: We're going to give it our best shot. Most heroes just use swords, effective against human warriors; we use a combination of sword, mace, arrows, magic, and pitchfork. It might just do the trick."

The peasants seemed mollified, but not much more hopeful. They glanced at each other with wary eyes, sighing. An old man with a cane stepped forward and gave them a toothless smile. "Come stay at my shop," he said, voice crackly. "My name is Old Julian Glassblower. I'll give you bread and butter and pottage."

The young peasant girl rolled her eyes, "Oh, Grandpa, you give our food to every mercenary who wanders through."

The Bullies, however, were too hungry to turn down the offer. Their stomachs grumbling, they followed Old Julian. He led them down a road to a humble glass shop, its thatch roof burned, its walls blackened. At least the yard was spared Vanderbeak's wrath, and Scruff admired that yard with wide eyes. Countless glass figurines—unicorns, dwarves, fairies, and hundreds of other creatures—stood in the overgrown grass, sparkling in the sunlight.

"I devoted my life to this shop," Old Julian explained, wiping away a tear. "Vanderbeak smashed most of my work. I don't know how I'll save the business. If you don't kill that monster, we won't have a town left."

The Bullies sat in the yard amid the glass statuettes, glad to rest their feet. Romy found a statuette of a lion to hug, and Cobweb played with a few glass dancers. Even Neev couldn't resist touching a glass wizard the size of his finger. Scruff found a glass elephant and shook it before Jamie's face, saying, "
This
is an elephant, see? Not a rabbit. An
elephant
."

Julian brought them bread and bowls of pottage. Scruff tried to eat politely, but ended up bolting it down. After a day of barely any food, it tasted heavenly.

"If we kill the roc and win the reward," Scruff said to Old Julian, wiping crumbs off his face, "we'll pay you for the food."

Julian nodded sadly. "I wish I could join you. Forty years ago, I'd have gone with you to kill that beast." He shook his head, a tear in his eye.

Scruff ate another bread roll. "Do you know where Vanderbeak lives?"

Old Julian nodded. "Half a day's walk from here. You must take the road north until you reach the mountains. You'll see on the mountainside a face torn in anguish. Vanderbeak will be inside the mouth."

Scruff wanted to ask what Julian meant. A face in anguish upon the mountainside? But the old man seemed distraught, blinking back tears, and hobbled away, mumbling something about cooking more pottage.

Scruff cleared his throat. "Let's spend the night here in Greenford, then head out tomorrow morning. We could use the rest. Romy, are you listening?"

The demon was busy making two glass lions fight, supplying her own sound effects. She looked up, bit her lip, and nodded. "Got it, boss."

Scruff spent the afternoon polishing his armor with a sock (how dare the peasant girl call it dusty?) and thinking about tomorrow, the day he'd face Vanderbeak. He wasn't sure yet how they'd kill the beast, but imagined it would involve swinging Norman harder than ever before.

At night, the Bullies slept in Julian's yard under the stars. Scruff suffered a restless night, tossing and turning.
You'd think I'd be used to sleeping outside by now,
he thought. But still he had trouble sleeping on the ground and missed his old bed in Burrfield. Things had been so much simpler then.

He saw that Romy and Neev cuddled together as they slept, and he looked at Cobweb, aching for her. She slept on her side, head on her hands. Scruff shifted toward her, lay behind her, and tossed an arm around her. In her sleep, she placed her hands around his hand, and he lay with his nose buried in her hair. Her hair smelled like a meadow. Cobweb seemed to wake, kissed his fingertips, and fell asleep again.

Scruff lay, eyes open, thinking again about the love potion. Had Cobweb swallowed some of the potion, then looked at him as he burst into the room? Is that why she seemed to like him now? Or did she like him truly—without the aid of magic? Scruff had still not summoned the courage to ask. Finally he fell asleep with his nose in her hair, his arm tossed over her, his body pressed against her.

In the morning, the Bullies packed their things in silence. Scruff's stomach felt like a knot, and he was unable to swallow any of his breakfast, he was so nervous. As he donned his armor and pulled on his boots, Scruff looked over the other Bullies. How many would die today?
I love all of them,
Scruff realized.
Even Romy.
The death of any one would destroy him.

Neev was reciting some spells, eyes closed. Scruff remembered growing up with his brother. Neev was a year younger, always so much smarter than Scruff, but smaller and weaker. Scruff would protect him from bullies, while Neev helped Scruff learn to read and write and do numbers.
I love you, brother,
Scruff thought.

Next Scruff looked at his sister. Only fifteen, Jamie was still so small, a third of his size. Her black hair was growing out, but was still short. Scruff watched her swinging her sword around the yard, practicing those moves Scruff could never master. She acted so tough, but Scruff knew she was only a child, fragile on the inside.
I love you, Jamie, even if you annoy the Hell out of me sometimes.

He turned his gaze to Romy. The demon stood, twirling a lock of her fiery hair. Her bat wings spread out behind her, and her claws glistened. Tongues of flame ran across her deep red body, and when she saw him looking at her, she smiled and waved. Scruff couldn't help but smile back. Romy, despite looking like a tempting she-devil of fire and sin, was an innocent, childlike and kind-hearted. Scruff couldn't help but love her. And he knew Romy made his brother happy. Neev often scolded her, rolled his eyes at her, and seemed annoyed with Romy to no end, but that couldn't fool Scruff. He could see the love in Neev's eyes when he looked upon the demon girl.
Romy,
Scruff thought,
I love you too.

Finally Scruff turned to look at Cobweb. She was polishing her bow, humming a tune. Her white hair glowed, and her gossamer dress glistened over her slender, purple body. Scruff took a deep breath, walked up to her, and kissed her. She smiled and kissed him back.
Cobweb, I love you like I never loved anyone,
he thought.

He stepped back from her, took a deep breath, and announced, "Let's go kill that roc."