Rise of the Retics by T J Lantz Read Free Book Online

fighting who? Should anyone really be fighting? Is that really the kind of thing we want to teach the children?”
    Both the older men completely ignored the agitated prisoner, each waiting for the other to give in to the opposing argument. Jaxon felt a little bit of shame at his fear, he was a powerful demon after all, but fighting Captain Alastar Bushytail was suicide! He was the most skilled duelist in all of Rosehaven and had an attitude to match. Legend had it that Bushytail had once killed two unicorns for talking during a play he was watching. And to make it worse, he did it with their own horns with one hand tied behind his back! [13]   Fighting him wasn’t brave at all, it was complete stupidity! 
    “For once, you are right, Sheriff. It would not be fair of me to be the champion of the Forest Folk in this case. We have chosen another, far more suitable, opponent for the half-blood. She will be more than happy to teach him the manners that Hoofstomp couldn’t instill.”
    “She, you say?” asked Quicktrigger inquisitively. “Who is this warrior of whom you speak?” Quicktrigger cocked his head slightly. Jaxon figured the sheriff was doing the same thing he was—trying to come up with a list of female warriors from the Forest Folk. The Acorn Guard had always been all male, and the dryads wouldn’t know a sword if it slapped them in the face. Perhaps one of the faeries? Jaxon wracked his brain trying to remember the different groups that belonged to the Forest Folk, a confederation of species that lived in the most wooded parts of Rosehaven and shared all that belonged to them equally.   
    “Samantha will be the one representing us,” Bushytail replied after a moment’s hesitation.
    “Your daughter?” the sheriff exclaimed in an excited voice. “She’s nothing but a child herself!”
    Jaxon nearly fell over laughing when he heard the captain’s words. He would be fighting a girl! This was some of the best luck Jaxon had ever had. Not only did he get to avoid becoming a demon kebab on the captain’s blade, but now he had the chance to entertain the crowd a little bit by beating on a little rodent girl!  He did his best to stifle his amusement so as not to make the captain change his mind and fight him personally.
    “I’m well aware, Sheriff. However, she is eager to avenge this crime against her people. We are hoping that a child can succeed at teaching this boy a lesson. It was obviously a task far beyond the capabilities of his adult caretakers.”
    Jaxon cringed as the humorous images of a crying little squirrel-kin girl faded from his mind. If it was one thing he hated, it was when someone else insulted his foster parents. They may have been smelly goats, but that didn’t mean anyone had the right to say unkind things about them.
    As if on cue the door swung open and another, much larger, retic walked into the room. Jaxon didn’t need to look—he knew that scent anywhere. It was a cross between wet dog and three week old tuna filet. His foster father was here to pick him up, and Jaxon was pretty sure that he was not going to like what he was about to hear.
     

 
    Chapter 5
    Breakfast In Bed
    Tyranna
    Near the Baltic Sea
    October 26, 1503
     
     
     
     
     
    Tyranna groggily peeled open her eyes as a few stray beams of light poured through the tree canopy above her head. She had been sleeping in the sitting position with her back against a thick tree, wrapped tightly in her warm fur cloak. As she stretched her legs out, she wondered how so many muscles could hurt at one time.
    What happened to me , she pondered, as she tried desperately to make sense of the memories in her head. Everything felt so foggy, like a dark mist had decided to invade through her ear canal and lay siege to her brain.
    As Tyranna took in her surroundings, she noticed that even though a campfire roared in front of her, the ground remained damp and muddy and her cloak had changed from soft white fur to a matted