Foxwise - A Legend of Vanx Malic Short Story Read online

The Legend of Vanx Malic 3.5

  The Legend of Foxwise Posy - Thorn

  © Copyright 2013 by Michael Robb Mathias Jr.

  Author’s note about the timeline of this story:

  This tale starts at about the same time

  The Legend of Vanx Malic Book Two - Dragon Isle does.

  It can be read at any time during the series, but will serve readers best

  if they read it before they read book four, which is due for release Jan. 9th 2014.

  This story is not part of the main Vanx Malic tale, but the character Foxwise Posy-Thorn is destined to become relevant, if he can survive this ordeal.

  Thank you and enjoy, M. R. Mathias

  One

 

  General Foxwise Posy-Thorn, “Thorn” to his friends, had never been as nervous as he was now standing before Queen Corydalis, and her council of elders, in the Nexus. She was beautiful and her huge, lavender eyes sparkled with the same fractal sheen as her glassine wings. The cherry blossom scent of her breath and the vibrating tingle of the Heart Tree’s magic had him shivering.

  Thorn was the elven delegate of the Pixie Queen’s court, as well as the leader of her Honor Guard, and General of Defenses. He was around the queen often and somewhat used to all the pomp and ceremony, but the way this evening unfolded, he knew he was about to be given a task of great importance. The glorious pixie queen had called him and two other elves into the field generated by the root clusters of the Heart Tree. Inside the shimmering energy of the Nexus they could speak without the scores of sprites, brownies, gnomes, and skorks milling around in the great central cavern hearing. Thorn was trying to read her expression, but he found his nervousness wouldn’t allow him the concentration he needed. Then she started speaking, her musical voice full of great sadness and dire warning.

  “Thorn, Bristle, and Barb, of all my ranks, you are my most loyal, my fiercest, and my sharpest of wit.” She nodded at strawberry haired Thorn, his lieutenant, stubble-headed Bristle and the girlish, blue-haired spellcaster, Barb, who could tell you something about everything.

  “You need not know why, other than this. The Heart Tree and the future of the Lurr Forest Fae is at stake. The three of you must cross the Ice Falls and travel to a lake near where men dwell. There you will find Three Tower Island.”

  Thorn tried to concentrate, but the silky metallic flow of the Pixie Queen’s hair threatened his ability to listen. Apparently she noticed this, for she placed her hand on his shoulder and squeezed him so hard that it hurt.

  “Under the towers there is a series of hidden tunnels and rooms. You must find them and follow them to Falriggin’s hidey-hole. There should be a small chest there with an assortment of valuable coins, gems, and artifacts.”

  “What do we need with those?” Bristle asked.

  Thorn made to command the insubordinate elf, but the Pixie Queen smiled at the ornery oaf and dispelled the tension.

  “We don’t want those things, Bristle,” she said as she looked deep into Thorn’s eyes. “We want Falriggin’s shard. It is a milky crystal about the size and shape of a carrot. Dire times are coming and there is naught we can do but cast forth a beckoning, and hope that a champion answers the call.”

  “I will be your champion,” Thorn said proudly.

  Barb chuckled and earned a sneer from Thorn, but he didn’t say a word. She was of the same rank as he, but of a different order. He would speak with her in private though, that was certain.

  “You are my champion Thorn. That is why you will take this, and lead these two to Three Tower Island to retrieve the shard.”

  She handed him a cloth—wrapped bundle that he understood to be a sword the minute he was holding it. It was the Glaive of Gladiolus, also know as Witch Bane, he saw when he let the wrapping fall away. He quickly buckled it around his waist and stood that much taller when he was done.

  “Pardon, my queen, but why are you sending three and the Glaive?” Barb asked with deep intelligence twinkling in her bright blue eyes. Thorn only sensed the slightest bit of jealousy from her. “Sounds like a simple task. Are there wards, or guardians, watching over our prize?”

  “Falriggin was as tricky as they come. He sent us missives dozens of years ago, when he was still alive.” Elva Toyon the eldest member of the Troika Sven answered. The other six members of the council were cringing along the inner edge of the Nexus, for they’d seen the Pixie Queen’s look as she was spoken over.

  The Pixie Queen forced a smile over her scowl and touched her chin. “His last message said that only my most loyal, my fiercest, and my most intelligent warriors could retrieve it, and only after he passed on. He knew we would need it, and he didn’t want it to fall into the wrong hands, and now I wish I’d acted sooner, for there is no time to waste. If you’ll place your hands in mine, I will see you off from the Shadowmane at once.”

  Thorn held his breath. He hated it when the queen escorted them up to the Overland. Afterward his skin always felt flaky and crawly. There was a stair and door with an active portal that worked just fine. As it was, he took Barb’s hand and then the Pixie Queen’s. Bristle joined the circle, and there was a brief but intense feeling of being swarmed over by buzzing bees. They appeared in an oval clearing surrounded by a ten-foot-tall bramble shrub that was so prickly and dense that even the smallest birds avoided it for fear of impaling themselves on the thorns.

  As he expected, his skin felt as if it were peeling, but he kept his face solemn. Barb didn’t seem to be affected at all, yet Bristle was scratching at his neck as if there was a red ant crawling on him.

  At one end of the turf-covered oval was the towering Heart Tree. It’s lowest branches were ten feet higher than the top of the wall. It was lush and thick with green, heart-shaped leaves, save for one branch that was dead. Fluttering sprite Medikas zipped about and tended the branch, but it was clear to all that it would have to be cut.

  The tree was sick, Thorn understood. The hoar witch had poisoned it or some such madness, he wasn’t sure, but it was done. Only the fabled emerald eyed champion of lore could take her power from her and save it. Queen Corydalis needed Falriggin’s shard to cast a beckoning to him.

  “We won’t fail you my Queen,” Thorn told her as they neared the passage that would take them through the bramble wall to true Overland.

  “I know you won’t, General Posy-Thorn.” She smiled a smile that threatened to turn his knees to water. “Be careful, but make haste. Barb, Bristle, I expect you to follow his orders. Now go and bring us back the shard.”

  Two

  Three days and a few hundred miles had passed since they’d left the Shadowmane. Now the group was skirting well around the gargan city of Great Vale.

  “...I’d bet I’m waist high to a man at least,” said Bristle as they tramped along through the snow. “How tall can they be?”

  “Not as tall as a gargan, but almost.” This came from Barb, who always spoke knowingly. She was tiny, with a shapely form, and her voice was thick and husky. Though Thorn would have never said it aloud, he thought quite highly of her and her lineage.

  “Not quite to the waist of a man, I tell ya. You could run ‘tween a gargan’s legs and not touch his dangles, I say.”

  She turned to Thorn as they moved along the edge of a line of cedar and spruce. She brushed her long blue bangs back. “What ‘bout ya Thorn, you ever seen a human up close?”

  “I seen a dead one once.” Thorn gave them both a hard look. “We killed him when he started pissin’ in the mushroom grove.”

  “Killed him good,” Bristle nodded. “I remember.”

  “Killed him for pissing?” Barb asked incred
ulous. “Really?”

  Thorn was saved from answering when they came around a bend and the land fell away from them in a slow, sloping roll of snow-covered, rock-pocked, magnificence. The lake was out there too, a blue glassine sheen at the bottom of the massive valley. There was an Island in the lake and on the island there were the remains of three old towers. One was mostly crumbled and one was leaning and missing part of its top. The other stood straight, but Thorn thought he could see gaps in the mortar from where they were.

  “Humans.” Barb pointed at a thin trail of smoke rising from a group of buildings on the far side of the lake.

  “How do we get to the island?” asked Bristle. “I don’t see any boats on this side.”

  “First we have to get to the lake,” Thorn said. Bristle had brought up a good question, but they needed rest before they crossed over, and they were still half a day from the lakeshore. “We can row a log over if it comes to that, but if we get down to the