Longfellow, Upside-Down #5
When dozens of strong firm roots were in place around the rift pool, Mud sent tendrils toward the surface of the ground, twining and coiling.
As the greenbriers reached a fraction of an inch from the surface, she felt the vibrations of the people above, the pulsations of the drum, beating, beating.
She also felt the presence of others on the cliff faces all around her.
Eli, Sarah, Alex, the Consort. From farther away, others were landing at the LZ, a second helicopter, bringing reinforcements.
She counted six landing on the ground, but they were all human, and human slow.
She was pretty sure they wouldn’t be here in time to help.
The queen screamed again.
Mud opened her eyes.
Longfellow was hanging beside her, its reddish eyes an inch from her own.
She gasped and leaned away to focus on it.
The flying lizard’s body was inverted, its claws gripping the small cracks and fissures in the stone face.
Its long tail snaked back along the rock wall, wings folded. “Meep?” it asked.
Mud turned to see the witches below her. The queen was on her knees. Blood was everywhere. Shock, like lightening, zigzagged through Mud.
The queen was going to die.
Now, Nell thought at her.
Leaves burst from the ground, first coiling and twirling, then whipping and reaching, growing with the magic of the earth.
There were seven bunches of roots, more than Mud had realized or planned on.
She concentrated on just three and pushed vines into the air.
Those vines wrapped around the feet of three witches.
Fast. Faster than she could follow with her eyes.
Up a man’s legs. Beneath two women’s skirts.
The man screamed as if he’d sat on tacks. Women shouted.
The drumbeat faltered.
A vine-wrapped woman tripped and fell across the trough marking the circle.
The magic fell.
Mud reached out with one hand and gripped the air as if gripping the vines. She yanked. The other two witches caught by her vines, stumbled. A weird gun sounded, impossibly loud. Once, twice. The sounds echoed against the rock walls. Another woman fell. A second man.
Red beanbags landed beside them.
A beanbag gun? Mud shook her head at the absurdity.
She tightened the vines, hooking the thorns into the flesh of her three victims. Sent tendrils of vines after two more.
The consort leapt from a high place on the cliff.
He landed in the center of the circle, two swords drawn, one long and one short.
He spun his body as he landed, like a lethal ballet dancer, and cut three witches.
They scattered, all but a man who bent and picked up a something from outside the trough that had marked the circle.
Longfellow screeched and launched from the stone wall. The flying lizard barreled into the man witch’s arm. A gun went flying.
More of Mud’s vines trapped witches, drawing blood. Some splattered into the trench of the witch circle.
Power blasted straight up into the air like fireworks, bright red and green and blue. The circle was set again, empowered by the blood. Oops, Mud thought.
The consort picked up his queen and leaped again. Out of the circle. Breaking it.
The circle’s power exploded as they crossed the boundary. Lightening shot into the sky.
Mud closed her eyes against the blinding glare. Turning her head.
Longfellow landed on her, claws again digging into her thighs. Mud yelped. When Longfellow withdrew his claws, she looked down.
Five of the witches were trapped by Mud’s vines. Four were on the ground, bleeding. Sarah and Alex moved among them, tying their wrists behind their backs and dropping healing amulets into their wounds. The fight was over.
But.
Mud counted again. One . . . was missing. The drummer.
“Hey, Eli,” she called out, her voice sounding odd, high-pitched. “The drummer’s gone.”
Eli’s cold greenish eyes took in the entire rift area. His expression tensed and tightened. He moved out from the center of the circle, his footsteps taking him around the small clearing, looking for . . . something. Tracks? Blood?
Mud pushed the lizard to the side and scooted her hiney off the mat, to the edge of the mossy ledge. Wet instantly seeped through her pants to her butt, cold and disgusting.
Eli looked up the cliff wall. Mud’s gaze followed his. She saw the witch about twenty feet above her, on the other cliff wall, the climbing harness Eli had used around her body, her skirt bunched up in it, her bare legs climbing.
Eli spoke into his comms headset then turned to me. “Can you stop her at the top?”
Mud laughed and it was not her normal laugh. It was shaky and scared, but she said, “Sure.”
Nell spoke into her head. You can do it. And, Muddy girl, I am so proud of you.
She ducked her head and flushed with pride, glad that no one noticed.
Mud closed her eyes and thought about the vines still growing at the top of the crevasse and all along the vertical rock walls.
Her breathing settled. Longfellow curled deeper into her lap and tucked its head under her arm.
Poor thing was cold. Absently, paying attention to the witch climbing up and not much else, Mud stroked its body, scaly and smooth and feathery.
Their backup was on the way. She could feel help coming toward the rift but the people were still too far to get there in time, even running all out.
From below, the others were helping Alex with injuries and tying up the witches who had kidnapped and cut the queen. Mud figured the witches were in a lot of trouble.
The climbing witch reached the top.
Mud concentrated. The vines lunged at the witch and wrapped around her arms, twirled down the wall, around her body, and sank thorns into her legs.
The woman made this odd note, like a yodel of pain.
Mud didn’t laugh but she wanted to. She made the yanking motion again and sank the thorns like sinking hooks in the mouth of a fish.
Someone sat down on the mat behind her.
She opened her eyes, meeting Eli’s. His were greenish in a medium brown face. He’s pretty, Mud thought surprised. Old men were usually not pretty, and Eli had to be like, twenty-five or thirty.
“Thank you,” Eli said simply.
Mud didn’t know what to say, so, she shrugged and looked at the winged lizard in her lap, embarrassed. “Anytime,” she finally managed.
Eli laughed. “Anytime? Hell. I hope we don’t have to do this again, ever.”
“Me neither,” Mud said. “My butt is wet.”
Eli laughed harder and leaned his back against the rock wall. His laughter filled the space, bouncing off the rock walls. “We need to put you on payroll.”
“I’m expensive,” Mud said instantly. “Speaking of which, do I get paid anything for saving the queen?”
“Oh yeah,” Eli said. “I’d guess you just earned your entire college education.”
“Okay. That’s seems about right.” She stuck out a hand to Eli. “Like I said. Anytime.”
THE END