That Frigid Fargin Witch (The Legend of Vanx Malic) by M. R. Mathias Read Free Book Online Page B

silver coat, and then fastened them around his neck. His coat had become a cloak that he could keep swept behind him as he continued on. The Underland air also took on a quality of which both Vanx and Poops grew particularly aware. It wasn’t horrible, but it was no pleasant smell either. It reminded Vanx of the Kanga barns of his youth, or the haulkatten stables in Dyntalla. It was an earthy, animal stink: the smell of livestock.
    There was a sweeter quality to the smell as they went farther in, and Poops was growing anxious to explore the source of this odd combination of scents. Vanx had the feeling that they would soon come upon some long-rotted carcass or another equally gruesome sight.
    The smell grew stronger as they continued and Chelda’s gargan nose finally picked it up. At the time she was crouched over and following Thorn closely.
    “Bah, elf.” She made a scrunched up face and exhaled loudly as if she were trying to blow the smell away from her nose with her puckered mouth. “Did you fart? It smells like ass and cookies. What did you eat?”
    Vanx couldn’t help but laugh.
    Thorn, however, spun around and made a face that registered somewhere between offended shock and disbelief. “’Tis no flatulence you smell,” he said with very little fire behind his words. “Nor is it cookies.”
    His face was ashen, and tears were rolling down his cheeks. His normally bright yellow eyes were dim and red-rimmed. A string of clear snot was smeared from his little nose across his cheek. He looked like a heartbroken child.
    He was a pitiful sight, and seeing him leached the mirth right out of Vanx’s laugh. He was taking the pixie queen’s death badly.
    Chelda pulled the sorrow-stricken elf into a fierce, motherly hug.
    “What is it, then?” Vanx asked. He needed to distract his own grief, lest it sneak up and overwhelm him. Up until now he’d forced thoughts of Gallarael from his heart and mind, but Thorn’s grief was proving to be contagious.
    “It’s Edric-Outs, the brownie village,” Thorn sobbed and sniffled from Chelda’s bosom. The elf took a deep breath and tried to gather himself before continuing.
    “There is a mold and mushroom plantation terraced out there. That’s what you smell. The sprites help tend it. There is a trickle stream, too.” He took another deep breath and wiped his nose on his coattail. “We’re not too far.”
    A short while later, the passage narrowed and shrank. Vanx and Chelda had to take off their packs and push them ahead of themselves as they crawled on their hands and knees. Thorn assured them that it was only for a short distance. He called it a bear stop, and then went on to tell them how an old bear once wandered around the fairy mound five times and accidentally found his way in. The great bear had caused quite a stir and had to be put down with poison, but not before it destroyed Edric-Outs and a nearby honey hive, and settled into a cave home, displacing an entire clan of Fauchan.
    “Fauchan are real, then?” Vanx grunted the question from behind Chelda and Poops as he crawled along. “I thought it impossible.”
    “They are real, I assure you,” replied Thorn, who was still standing upright, and not having to stoop his head. “And it’s as ugly of a thing as you ever saw, what with only one arm, one leg, and one eye.”
    “How much farther?” Chelda grumbled the question.
    “We are here,” Thorn reassured her. “Just ahead now, can’t you smell the psilocybin sweet lichen?”
    Vanx smelled it and felt a slight breeze working around Chelda and Poops. There was a faint blue-green glow coming from up ahead.
    “Chelda, would you get hold of Sir Poopsalot as soon as you emerge?” Vanx asked. “I don’t want them thinking a bear cub has gotten in.”
    “I’ll get him,” she said. “Taking off his shrew fur was a good idea, or he’d look just like one.”
    From up ahead the sound of chirping birds and tinkling water filtered back to Vanx, but as