Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 83281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
At first I thought the approaching monster was an enormous snake because it had a long, scaly neck. But then I saw its huge body coming through the woods, breaking trees like they were matchsticks as it pushed its way towards us.
Was it a dinosaur? A dragon? It had a face like a dragon, I decided, and a body like a T-Rex. It was bizarre looking because the long, scaly neck bobbed and slithered through the air, ducking and weaving through the broken tree branches high above its enormous body as it lumbered forward, the short front arms clawing the air.
“All right, you fucker,” I heard Rath growl. “Come on—you want to dance? Let’s dance.”
The searching eyes—which were blood red, by the way—fastened on the big Orc and the thing let out a screaming roar that drilled right through my head like an ice pick.
I gasped and put my hands to my ears as the long, snaky neck dived down through the trees with its mouth open. It had curving fangs as long as my arm and I could see green venom dripping from their tips.
Rath didn’t move or try to get away. Instead, he took aim with his enormous hammer and slammed it into the side of the angry dragon head the minute it came close enough.
I saw the side of the head cave in and the light go out of the red, glowing eyes. The neck slumped, going limp so that the ruined head dragged on the ground. The enormous body sagged and for a moment, I thought it would topple over and that would be the end of this “challenge” as Rath had called it.
But it wasn’t even close to the end. Even as the head and neck crumbled to black ashes and blew away, something very strange happened. I saw a twitching at the base of the thing’s neck—it looked like a swelling. Almost like an enormous blister was forming where the neck and head and once been.
Then, with no warning, the blister burst and out came not one, but two fierce dragon heads attached to long snaky necks. They shot out of the stump and grew to full size in seconds. The huge T-Rex body righted itself and the heads began diving and hissing at Rath, who was roaring and swinging at them with his war hammer.
“Oh, no!” I breathed. I hadn’t read many fairy tales as a kid—my Mom had actively discouraged it, probably because she wanted to keep me away from the magical world in every way possible. But I had been an avid reader of mythology. So I knew what the thing that Rath was battling was.
“A Hydra!” I exclaimed, just as he bashed in another head. “Oh my God—it’s a freaking Hydra!”
Even as I spoke, the head Rath had just bashed crumbled…and two more rose to take its place. They grew a lot faster than the first two, I noted, watching in sick fascination. The ashes of the ruined head barely had time to blow away before two more long, snaky necks and red-eyed, fanged dragon heads took their place.
Rath was fighting a losing battle. I could see that now. There was no way he could kill the creature completely because every time he bashed in one of its heads, two more grew. Even as I thought this, he dealt a death blow to head number two—or was it number three?—and immediately, two more popped up to take its place.
Now he was fighting a four headed monster that was half dragon/half dinosaur and it couldn’t die. He couldn’t go on forever—eventually there would be too many heads to fight. What was he going to do?
No, the question is, what are you going to do? whispered a little voice in my head. You have magic—you brewed that potion even though you didn’t mean to. That has to count for something—use what you’ve got!
But how?
Though I could barely stand to take my eyes off the action, I forced myself to close them as I took a deep breath. I concentrated on what I knew—both Goody Albright and Madam Healer had said I had magic and that the spell on me was fraying around the edges. What else frayed like that? A sweater…a sweater was made of threads. What if I tugged at one of those threads? What if I tried to use it in some way?
Closing my eyes even tighter, I pictured myself holding a glowing golden thread—a thread made of magic. The image was so strong in my head, I could practically feel it in my hand—like a hot wire across my palms.
“Grow!” I muttered to the magic golden thread. “Expand, get longer—get thicker too! And stronger!”
And here’s the thing—I could feel it happening. I watched in my mind’s eye as the golden thread that had become a wire suddenly grew into a rope. No, not a rope—a cable—like the heavy-duty ones that hold up suspension bridges, I decided.