Skye is the Limit by Phenomenal Pen (best time to read books txt) 📕

“Is that it?” Man-At-Arms asked, feeling a bit underwhelmed.   

“The timeframe for the desired results may vary,” Mage announced in a late disclaimer.

With a resounding boing, the Möbius strip stretched like a giant doughnut encompassing all eight of the Orc Mother’s legs. Then, as the Dreamwalkers gaped, the mystical band tightened, gathering all the feet and then cinching itself tight.

The giant teetered. She flailed her massive arms but her physique was inherently imbalanced. She whipped around and started to fall backwards. 

“TIMBEEEEEER!” Bear Tooth screamed. He plucked his shield and his force barrier disappeared immediately. He turned around and started running.

The Count, Mage and Man-At-Arms needed no second warning and ran pell-mell, not daring to look back.

Just as the multifaceted head was about to squash him, Bear Tooth launched himself on top of his shield. Unconsciously, he was mimicking sandboarding, which had been one of his favorite sports back on the surface world.

The Orc Mother crashed with a ground-shaking thud, raising a cloud of dust that swallowed all of the Dreamwalkers except Nethril.

“Guys! Guys! Are you OK?” Nethril shouted on the radio.

There was no response. Only static.

“I’m still alive,” the Count announced after a fit of coughing.

“Mage and I are here,” Man-At-Arms groaned.

“That was awr-some!” Bear Tooth purred happily, pumping his fists in the air. “I wanna gowr again.”

Like a general in the battlefield, Mage rose and rallied the Dreamwalkers back towards the thick dust cloud and, behind it, the Orc Mother trying helplessly to raise herself, her eight spindly legs stabbing in the air. 

****

Mage jumped right onto the Orc Mother’s chest and released an energy blast from his fist. The blast broke a link in the anchor chain. He grabbed the chunk of ice, i.e. Fairy’s prison, and leapt back down to the ground.

He ran with efficient, springy steps but then stopped in his tracks. His usually impassive face betrayed just a hint of confusion. Then, his brain registered that the Orc Mother had grabbed onto the other end of the chain with her closer right hand. She tugged and Mage’s booted feet scraped through the ice like fork tines in butter.  

“A hand, please?” Mage asked politely, looking back over his shoulder at the others.

Bear Tooth was the first to his side. He dropped his shield and axe, grabbed the chain and started hauling. The Orc Mother felt the sudden increase in counterpull. The frozen Fairy lurched sideways towards the Dreamwalkers, very like a tug-of-war banner.

Man-At-Arms also lent a hand but the Count stood rooted where he was, unable to will his muscles towards the giant with the entomo-mechanical legs.

The Orc Mother pulled harder with her one hand and the chain links creaked, bulged and threatened to burst.

“All right! That’s it!” Bear Tooth growled and dropped his share of the chain. His sudden withdrawal surprised Mage and Man-At-Arms and they zipped closer to the fallen Orc Mother.  

Bear Tooth picked up his axe from the ground and swung it over his head, turning to face their giant opponent.

With a guttural scream, he delivered an all-out chop into the ice in front of him. The blade made a deep furrow, buckling the ground and creating a tremor so great it rivaled the Orc Mother’s crash. The furrow stretched in the shape of a thunderbolt flashing under the Orc Mother and, via shock waves, appeared to cause her intense pain.

The rifts continued beyond the Orc Mother and climbed up the Ice Throne and the cavern columns, rattling the stalactites overhead. Plumes of steam thrust between these rifts in the floor as though the cave system was the balloon of a zeppelin that had started leaking air everywhere. The Fiery Caverns was finally about to live up to its name.

Every Dreamwalker had been knocked off their feet, including Mage and Man-At-Arms who kept up the tug-of-war even as they were being dragged on the ground. Everywhere around them the place was erupting in deafening hisses and scalding flashes.

Bear Tooth rested his massive axe on his shoulder like a triumphant Paul Bunyan and by his ankles a 3-D revolving LED news ticker announced: ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: GROUND THUNDER.

The Count, who had fallen on his backside, looked up at him as though star-struck. Indeed, the glow of magma seeping through the cracks bathed Bear Tooth’s sweaty, muscular arms like liquid metal from a crucible.

The Orc Mother grew panicked at the impending fall of her kingdom and, turning over onto her stomach, swung her farther left hand to swat the tank, Bear Tooth, like a fly. The berserker caught the blow as it dropped and looked Atlantean as he grappled with the gigantic fingers. 

It was a dangerous move that greatly compromised the Orc Mother’s ground. She was now balancing, literally, on thin ice because her action had broken off the surface she was on. She floated like a turkey above an oven of boiling magma.