Witch Clan: Warriors! by John Stormm (good book club books txt) 📕

little preparation and what say we both take a little foray to look and see for ourselves. If you’re right, we can always come back later to pick up a few things, but a little reconnaissance never hurt anyone. I’ve got a stinger here to use on you if you disappoint me. After all, none of us needs to die. We can all get along nicely, you’ll see. Now, is there something you have to do to prepare?”

Johnny moved to the center of the room and closed his eyes and began reaching outside of himself to find the dark plane of Annwn as he had been there before. More accurately, he was looking for the point they had left from, as Elvyra’s gateway no longer existed to take them both over. The rune charms around the gate, he knew by heart as his grandma had taught him to read runes before he could read the alphabet. He worked their arcane formula in his head over and over to ensure that when they crossed, the universe would accept them as its own. Only one of them would be allowed to cross back over again. If he lived through this.

“You need to put your hands on my shoulders while I concentrate” he said, finding the image and feel of the plane he was seeking.

Mordred crossed the room and placed both hands on the boy’s shoulders as the room grew unnaturally dark. A faint, cool breeze wafted gently in from somewhere, carrying scents he couldn’t begin to identify. It became too dark for them to see. The floor disappeared, to be replaced by soil and rock. Dimly luminescent images began to take form in the darkness around them.

“We’re here,” Johnny said. “You brought something for light. We’re going to need it to find our way up the trail through the woods to the Black Tower.”

Mordred switched on his flashlight and surveyed the area they stood. Slabs of sandstone littered the area and a few scrub pines. The luminescent images he saw, were the products of various lichens and fungi in this dark world. A trail disappeared in a series of switchbacks down a fog filled gorge to what sounded like a river behind them, and in the area Johnny had indicated was a clear trail cutting through the blackness of a forest. The sky was clear but the air was damp and cool. A low lying fog hugged the ground below their knees, making the walking treacherous. Finding a couple branches to use as walking sticks, Johnny handed one to Mordred to help him pick his way through the fog.

“Don’t think to overload me with extra things to carry,” Mordred hissed. “I’ll have my hands free to wield this flashlight and keep this stinger pointed at you every step of the way. One false move out of you and I’ll blink you where you stand. I’m told you can take a jolt from one of these, but I’ll bet it still hurts plenty.”

“Yeah, it does,” Johnny said, “but suit yourself. I was only trying to prevent you from crippling yourself on the stones or roots you can’t see through the fog.”

“No worries. I’ll just have to pick up my feet when I walk, won‘t I?” Mordred replied.

They walked on in the direction he remembered the abyss to be. He could feel eyes watching them from everywhere as tortured, twisted tree limbs beseeched in their silent, frozen agonies. The walk was uneventful except for the occasional outburst of strange cries and roars off in the distance and Mordred stumbling and twisting his ankle on an uneven patch of ground. Johnny ignored the man’s pain as if he hadn’t noticed and continued towards the glade, trying to figure how he might lead him off the edge or lock him in the central cell in the Black Tower. That is, if the mechanism still worked. Time passed much differently here than at home. He spent days locked in that cell and only hours passed for his grandfather at home. There was no telling how much time here had passed since the five years in Abred since he was here last.

A full moon was slowly rising into the night sky, and by its light, Johnny could make out the Tower off a bit to his left by the moon light gleaming of its polished obsidian surface. The fog carried out over the abyss so that the glade looked like it continued on over to the rock formations on the distant side. Adjusting his Weight Belt to null, he slowed down and made his way closer to the edge of where he remembered the abyss to be. He flexed his knees a bit as he didn’t want to give away his weightlessness by bobbing or drifting with each step. He felt for the ledge constantly and probed with his stick a little in his right hand to feel for it. Mordred followed along, noting the Tower in the moonlight.

“Did your people build this here?” Mordred asked.

“No,” Johnny replied. “The Tower had a former occupant many years ago and we’ve made use of it since. As you can see, it‘s not near any roads and the terrain isn’t very nice. Nobody comes here, so it‘s perfect.” He wasn’t really lying.

It was then a couple of things happened all at once. His staff found the edge and slipped through his fingers into the abyss, and a couple furred somethings came growling out from the forest edge towards them, mostly obscured by the low lying fog. Mordred backed away from the approaching critters to get off a shot at them and promptly fell out of sight over the edge, wailing a moment that was silenced with the clattering of loose rocks. He must have hit the side a few times on the way down. It was a very long way to fall and Johnny was not about to hang around that long to listen for more.

As the furry menaces closed in on him, he simply pushed off with his toes to make a long slow leap over their heads and away from the edge. They never had time to slow down. He could hear them squealing in fright for some moments before they fell too far through the fog to hear anymore. He thought about inspecting the Black Tower and waiting out the night, but Grandma and Little Fox would be worried and he had no idea what kind of time passed between these planes. He had read tales where humans spent an evening in some fairyland and when they got home in the morning, everyone they knew were long dead. That wouldn’t do at all. He would have to trust his night vision take the trail back to the rock outcropping without any weapons. It was the nearest rift point he knew of in this world. Besides, his Mohawk mentor had taught him that he was the weapon.

Somewhere in all the relief he was feeling, was the nagging guilt that he had just caused the death of yet another person. How many did that make thus far? Why must it always boil down to trading life for life? Had he managed to lock Mordred in the Black Tower, he would die slowly there as time passed differently here than at home. A few hours and days would pass here. It was probably a mercy that he got rid of the threat quickly. It was just a bit of an ordeal to his young mind that a quicker death could be considered a merciful ending. It was not lost on him that his mentor was keeping track of his increasing body count with no little alarm.

The moon was high making a silvery arch of the trees leaving the forest as he approached the outcropping that marked his Grandma’s and Leona’s former campsite, back when they searched this world to bring him home. He remembered there was a bowl carved into one of the slabs that his grandmother had used to catch rainwater. With any luck, there would be some in it now. He was thirsty and hungry and not at all sure he could rift back into the Ivory Tower back in Logres, or if he should. Perhaps he should just get back home to Gramps and Leona and have the Sidhe cross Grams and Little Fox back over. The job was done. The Rift Wand destroyed by his martial arts master. Mordred was certainly not coming back from that fall even if the Annwn gateway spell didn’t work. Without their leader and the news starting to get out that the Logrens were being used, they were heading for a more propitious change of leadership. Besides, he might end up popping into more trouble than he left, whisking off that way, with their Grand Wizard. He’d have to rest a bit and think about it more.

Even with his enhanced night vision, Johnny could not clearly make out the winged creatures flitting past him on the trail. The general shape and configuration of their formations as they flew, made him think they were a squadron of piskies. The Annwn version of pixies were about twice the size at four to five inches tall looking like miniature angels with sparrows wings, except there was nothing angelic about piskies or this plane. If anything, the hellish plane leaned heavily in the other direction of the spectrum.

He and his cousin, with the help of an outcast piskie friend named, Gregory had fought against such a war party along with the mad Vough the last time he was here. He had the Vough’s scepter as a weapon before. He had no weapons at all now. These creatures could cut him to ribbons now, if they wanted to. They just didn’t seem to want to at the moment.

Coming out of the woods to the sandstone outcropping, he noticed a small smokeless fire of heaped twigs burning merrily in front of the old stone shelter where he had formerly left the Vough’s wand and staff nearly five years ago. Nothing ever faded in Johnny’s memories. It seemed like only yesterday, he was saying goodbye to his piskie friend who was bathing in the bowl his Grandma had scooped out of the stone with her witch blade. It was like he could see him standing there now, holding that sword he had made pounding a nail flat in his cell and sharpened on a stone. In fact, he could see him standing there, because there he was, and with a few of his