“Tasty?” Gelbus echoed, breathless.
The man nodded. A forked tongue escaped his mouth and swiped his charred lips, making a sound like pieces of deadwood rubbing together.
“Yes, tasty. I wonder if you’ll be the same; though I’ve never had Gnome before.”
That was it. That was the last straw. Gelbus turned and ran through the gate. He got, much to his surprise, five short steps away, before the stranger’s rough hands grappled him around the shoulder and threw him to the ground.
The sky broke open, and the rain came down, stinging his eyes and flesh.
“No, no, my friend, you cannot run. Not anymore.”
The stranger fell on top of Gelbus.
Gelbus moaned as the wind was knocked out of him.
“Ooh, let’s see how tasty you are. Let’s see—”
“Hunter!” another voice bellowed, cutting him off.
Gelbus couldn’t see who it belonged to, but he heard heavy footsteps over the sound of the rain and the distant rumble of the thunder.
“What do you think you’re doing?” the voice prodded.
“I…uh…was…”
“You were breaking the rules, that’s what,” the other man supplied. “The locals aren’t meant for you.”
“But—”
“No buts about it. We follow the rules. Do you want to give up your eternity?”
The man-thing known as ‘Hunter’ got off of Gelbus. The Gnome sucked in a breath; sweet relief. Then the same rough hands yanked Gelbus up off the ground.
Gelbus saw the other man; the man who’d saved his life…for now. He had a serious face—none of the playfulness that was present on Hunter’s—and there was a sigil burned into his forehead. It looked to Gelbus like a dragon. Where have I seen that sigil before?
He couldn’t remember.
“Lock him up with the others,” the man ordered.
Disappointed, Hunter murmured, “Okay. No fun. No fun at all.”
“Please!” Gelbus shouted. “Please! This is all a big mistake!” But the other man ignored him and looked past the open gate, to where the black lake shimmered in the distance.
“Not much longer now,” the man estimated. “Not much longer at all.”
Gelbus was dragged through the streets. He bucked and kicked without much success. A Gnome’s physical prowess was not much compared to a man’s—a crazy man, at that.
“Where are you taking me? I demand you tell me!”
“Aw, don’t get your britches in a bunch, Gnome. I’m just following orders. Lucky Chrom came and saved yeh. I’m quite hungry. Like I said, never had Gnome before. Bet your reaaaal tasty.”
Fear changed to bewilderment. Humans eating Gnomes? Two moons, what has the world outside of the library come to?!
“Aw, it shan’t be long now,” the man known as Hunter continued. “The Dark One should be waking, as we speak. Then, my friend, all Hell is gonna break loose!” The man leaned back and cackled.
Gelbus tried his best to break free again, but was whacked across the back of the head. After that, much of the fight went out of him, and Hunter dragged him down the road as the storm pelted them and the thunder rolled.
Not far away, in the black depths of the lake, a great beast opened its eyes.
They were the same shade of fiery orange as the men who had taken the town of Ashbourne as their own.
Chapter Two
Maria Apple hit the ground hard, landing on her knees.
Sherlock, her Bloodhound, was much too close for comfort.
“Ouch! Fuck, that hurt,” she yelled. Then she opened her eyes and saw just how close she was to Sherlock’s backside. “Ew, gross!”
Geesh, the least you can do is buy me a drink first, Sherlock said, the words telepathically beamed right into Maria’s head.
“Didn’t you just use that joke?”
I dunno. Doesn’t matter. It’s just as funny the twentieth time as it was the first!
Maria pulled herself up and dusted the dirt away from her jeans.
Ignatius Apple, formerly Ignatius Mangood, laughed. He was helping Claire up from the ground. Tabby, Maria’s other best friend, was already up, looking around the vast world they’d just portaled into, her eyes wide, her mouth hanging open.
“Yes, the first time going through a portal is often rough on the traveler,” Ignatius informed the girls. He looked Claire up and down with concern on his face. “Are you all right, my dear?”
“Besides, my broken coccyx, yeah, I guess, I am,” Claire answered.
Did she just say— Sherlock began, but Maria cut him off.
“Coccyx, Sherlock. It’s her tailbone. Get your mind out of the gutter.”
“Yes, we must all get our minds out of this proverbial gutter,” Ignatius declared. “For we are in dangerous territory.”
For the first time, Maria looked beyond her group, and the reality—or perhaps, unreality—of the situation hit her hard.
She was on another planet. She had just gone through a portal to another planet. A place where wizards and witches and so many other magical creatures and races existed, creatures and races she had always thought were make-believe, or just another part of her grandfather’s wild imagination.
But it wasn’t.
All of it was true.
If she’d had any doubt after slaying a humanoid spider, wielding a magical sword, or blowing up more than a few things with her magic, she didn’t any more, as she looked out among the vast expanse of strange land surrounding her and the rest of her tribe.
They had landed in a clearing of a dense forest. The trees towered over them, taller than any trees Maria had seen in Ohio; over these trees, looming and somewhat ominous in the night sky, were the peaks of mountains.
“Where are we?” Maria asked.
“We are home,” Ignatius said. He swept his hand out behind him toward the other end of the clearing.
“Home? I thought we were here to find a Gnome to tell us more about the world in between.”
Claire, awestruck, said, “Wow."
Sherlock, meanwhile, was having a blast sniffing around the edges of the clearing. Maria witnessed him lift his leg three times to mark his territory. She was surprised the dog had any urine left. He must have a reserve tank specifically meant for the
