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Greetings adventure seeker, from thetreacherous, frozen north.
It’s your independent, underdogauthor here, Jeremy Mathiesen, hoping that you’ve enjoyed Cyrus LongBones and the Curse ofthe Sea Zombie.
Reviews are how I get the word out andkeep this old, dusty typewriter tapping. If you could click hereand leave just a couple of words, I would be mightily grateful.
Cyrus LongBones and the YetiKingdom
ByJeremy Mathiesen
Text copyright © 2017 Jeremy Mathiesen All Rights Reserved
Reproduction in whole or part of this publication without expresswritten consent is strictly prohibited.
To my lovely wife, Olivia
for without your great sacrifices, myworld could never be complete
Chapter 1
THE ANGEL QUEEN
RORROH LAY IN THREE BLOODYPIECES onthe floor of her torture chamber. Her nose filled with the reek of her own rot.
The alveling had cut off her right hand weeks earlier. Now shefound herself decapitated with her left hand newly severed at the forearm. Wasthat wretched LongBones child truly the one? Was thelegend true?
Rorroh’s wounds felt somehow outside her senses as if she had slepton a limb for far too long. Through the eyes of her lopped off head, she couldjust make out the foot of her right leg kicking along the floor. Must savethe Angel Queen!
Concentrating,Rorroh maneuvered her headless body to the left. Herbony right leg shifted out of view. Realizing she had crawled the wrong way, Rorroh turned herself right. Her body began to scuttle backinto sight. With a great deal of awkwardness, Rorrohremotely forced her body to gather her head up under her handless right arm.With her view elevated, she spotted her left hand. She stumbled over to theblood-stained table, crouched down and used her torn mouth to collect thesevered appendage from the tabletop.
Rorroh peered about the darkened room. Water seeped from the crumbling ceiling.Putrid blood dripped from racks, vices and jangling hooks. Rusted manaclesscraped against stone walls.
Rorroh’s servant, Aghamore, lay crumpledagainst a fractured pillar. Was the water klops dead?Rorroh would worry about that later. First, sheneeded to gather her armies. She needed her orb.
She made herway out of the chamber, past several of her tall klappensoldiers. The gaunt creatures had become cowering wretches in the wake of theboy’s assault on the castle. He had simply caught her off guard. It would nothappen again.
She stumbleddown the long winding stairway, to the docking bay far below. She sensed hership, still moored in the secluded cove, but something was wrong…
She shambledout of the narrow tunnel and entered the seaside cavern. The gray sea rolledthrough the cave, lapping at the jetty and curling around the stone walls. Rorroh looked beyond the cavern, out into the bay. The AngelQueen! It was gone, and yet, her senses told her otherwise.
A coolunderstanding came over the Sea Zombie. Her hand, clenched between her teeth,balled into a fist. She walked to the end of the jetty, head in arms, andstepped off the edge. She plunged deep into the oily black sea. The frigid watersbarely registered with her decaying system.
She wouldraise her sunken ship from the deep and gather her armies. Then, she would makeCyrus LongBones pay for what he had done, ripping hisgasping lungs from his still breathing chest.
Last of all,for casting her from the heavens, and making her diseased and wretched, shewould exact her revenge on the Angel King. She would destroy his precious hune and its alvelings, takingtheir souls for her own. Then the sea would be forever hers.
Chapter 2
NORTH
ONE MONTH LATER
THE EVENING SKY WAS DARKAND BROODING; the sea chalky and gray. Sixteen-year-old Cyrus LongBones drove a large, twin-mast ship north on a snowy wind.The salty chop churned and rolled, resembling snow-capped mountains.
Cyrus and hiscrew were in search of the Yeti Kingdom. Cyrus prayed the yeti would haveknowledge of a long lost hune. Would the hune really rescue his stranded people?
Cyrus’ stomachgrumbled with hunger, and his tattered clothes hung loosely on his witheringframe. He tightened the hemp rope securing his sagging denim trousers. Then hepulled a wool blanket snug around his shivering body.
Cyrus stood,manning the ship’s tiller. The wheel was cold and grimy in his calloused hands.He looked over at Fibian. The froskmansat with his back to the cabin wall, his own wool blanket wrapped around hisshaking shoulders.
Fibian had found the blankets in the ship’s cabin, shortly after they haddefeated Rorroh and stolen the vessel from the klappen fortress.
Fibian too had grown uncomfortably lean. The froskmanpeered into his remaining left hand. Edward lay within, thrashing and kickinghis seven long legs in a feverish dream.
The tiny whitespider had yet to recover from their clash with Rorroh.He would wake at times, enough for Cyrus or Fibian tofeed him, but he never spoke. He would only stare blank-faced off in thedistance for a time, before falling back asleep.
“How’s he doing?”Cyrus asked.
“I do notknow,” Fibian replied.
The froskman stroked Edward’s fur with the stump of his rightarm.
Cyrus thoughtabout the path that had led them to this desolate sea. They had bargained witha dragon for safe passage beyond Rorroh’s grasp, butthe beast had betrayed them. For his treachery, Edward had bitten and killed theserpent.
They had thenbeen forced to battle Rorroh and her klappen minions, barely escaping with their lives. Edwardhad bitten and poisoned the witch, but in doing so, had swallowed much of herrancid blood. His black fur had turned white, and the yellow mark on his backfaded to blue. There was no telling what the toxic fluid might have done to histiny system.
Cyrus studied Fibian’s glowing blue eyes. Fibiantoo had thrown himself between Cyrus and the witch. That is when he hadgruesomely lost his right hand.
As usual, Fibian’s wounds had healed at an uncanny rate, but noamount of mending would return his lost limb. He had sacrificed so much to helpdefeat the Sea Zombie.
Cyrus sensedthe mended bones of his own wrist and ankle. He felt the crook of
