Of Mice & Magic: Book 1 Ravenspell

Chapter 13: The Swamp Witch

Arriving in the nick of time is good enough—and makes life far more entertaining than arriving early.

—Lady Blackpool

Lady Blackpool rode her flying tortoise through the storm. They had been traveling all day at an altitude of nearly three hundred feet, and so the tortoise had to climb each time that it reached a hill or cliff, then dip into each valley, thus making for a bumpy ride. Half a dozen times, Sea Foam had retracted his head as he braced for impact with low-flying ducks and geese, and each time that he did so, Lady Blackpool nearly got squished to death.

But she endured it. Rufus Flycatcher was depending on her to save Amber from the enemy—and Lady Blackpool was up to the task.

Still, she was tired. They crossed the snow-covered Cascade Mountain range, diving under the clouds, where the night was as dark as a witch's brew. Suddenly, the hail began to fall.

Ahead, Lady Blackpool sensed powerful magics. There were flashes, purple mushroom clouds rising up, clouds that only a powerful mage could see. Lady Balckpool imagined that a battle was going on.

Balls of hail were battering poor Sea Foam's head and flippers, bouncing off him like marbles, and he retracted them as best he could.

"Maybe we should call a halt," Sea Foam said after getting bashed on the noggin by a particularly large hailstone. "I feel like someone has been using my head as a conga drum."

"No," Lady Blackpool urged. "Keep going. We've only got a few more minutes." And it was true. Traveling at two hundred miles per hour, they were nearly to their destination. She pointed down to some lights. "In fact, we only need to get there—to that human village."

"Okay," Sea Foam said with a groan.

It was just then that a horrible blinding light sizzled across the sky. Lady Blackpool felt each of her hairs stand on end, just before the lightning bolt struck.

Sea Foam lighted up, and then his eyes rolled back in his head. The next thing that Lady Blackpool knew, the tortoise was spinning wildly out of control.

"Sea Foam!" she shouted, trying to wake him, but he was as limp as a dead minnow, and the ground was coming up fast.

Lady Blackpool thrust her paw forward, trying to create something of a force-field, in order to protect them during the crash, just as they dove over the Willamette River and went careening into a pile of blackberry bushes.

The force-field softened the blow as the three-hundred pound tortoise ripped through the bushes, and plowed into the wet muddy ground, and skidded into some farmer's wire fence.

Lady Blackpool stood for a moment, under the lip of the tortoise's shell, and breathed a sigh of relief.

Poor Sea Foam was trying to raise his head, but each time that he did, his eyes rolled back, and he'd drop it again.

"Are you going to be okay?" Lady Blackpool asked.

"I couldn't feel more cooked if I was turtle soup," Sea Foam said.

The hail pounded Sea Foam's back. Lady Blackpool didn't dare go out. There was nothing to do for it but sit in the shelter, and wait out the storm.

No sooner had she reached that conclusion, than Sea Foam fainted. Up ahead, the magic fireballs had stopped.

"I only hope that I'm not too late," Lady Blackpool whispered.