Marbles: The Hawk Who Refused to Die a Virgin

Chapter 25. A Brutal Interlude

The storm giant had done his darndest to tear down Hawk Mountain during the winter. He had started by attacking the top of the mountain, but all his lightning bolts had been absorbed by an obsidian disk intricately engraved with the most sacred of mole magic. Desperate, sweating hailstones, and fiending for that goddamn lamp, the giant had spun up a huge, green-purple bruise colored cyclone around the mountain and watched as the wind sent stone after stone cascading down its sides.

Turns out it's kind of difficult to tear down a mountain, and the giant had almost died of exhaustion by the time the cave shrimp had made his wish. By then the giant had become a stricken, see-through sylph. Sensing the loss of his magic stash, the giant stopped spinning his storm and collapsed back up into the aether, to be blown God knows where.

The wizard could sense that his marbles were down in that mountain, but even he wouldn't brave the lightning-riddled nightmare that the giant had erected around it. The wizard, Clementine, and Brutus had been able to see the storm from the gnome warren throughout the winter, but as soon as the storm had dissipated, the wizard had insisted that Brutus be stationed atop Hawk Mountain and alert the wizard to any signs of Marbles or Opal.

"Can't you use one of your magic machines to monitor the mountain, like, remotely?" asked Brutus. They were eating toadstool toast with truffle butter in one of Clementine's suites.

"Of course I can!" shouted the wizard, slamming his fist down on the tea service, and causing a dirty knife to land onto the carpet. He glared at Brutus and breathed deeply, trying to collect himself. "Of course I can," gritted the wizard. Clementine took another nibble of her toast, set it down, and resumed playing her Nintendo® Switch.

"Magically manifesting these technological devices can get very taxing," continued the wizard. "Cameras? TV Monitors? Satellites?! It's much simpler to have a humanoid camp at the top of the mountain and scan around it every day. I'll give you a walkie-talkie, and you will alert me if you spot any sign of Opal or my hawk."

"God will this wizard ever stop talking down to me?" thought Brutus. "Walkie-talkie? I get it. It's a long-range communication device."

"Clementine do you agree with this course of action?" asked Brutus, staring at Clementine.

"I think that Aloe has a great head on his shoulders and that whatever he thinks is best, is best," said Clementine.

"You heard her," said the wizard, smiling. "Pack your bags."

* * *

The next dawn, Aloe Vera sat astride Destroyer, waiting outside the warren. Clementine sat crosslegged on the ground next to Destroyer's back left hoof, weaving some dandelions into his fetlocks. Brutus had woken up, in Clementine's bed, in the dark, alone. He gathered his pack and walked out of the warren.

"You all set, buddy?" grinned the Wizard.

"Yeah buddy I'm good," said Brutus, shaking his head in frustration. He glanced down at Clementine, who was still diligently plaiting yellow flowers in the bleached, silken, orgasmic, strands trailing over the horse's hooves. He bent down and gently shook her shoulder. "Clem? I'm leaving now. I'll keep in contact with you," he added lamely.

Clementine looked up at him, smiling. "OK Brutus have a good time," she said.

"I don't know how long I'll be up there," said Brutus, trying to keep emotion out of his voice. Clementine was never this...docile? She was like a teething child whose gums had been dabbed with brandy. And then had been given a thimbleful of brandy. And then had been chloroformed just a little.

"You'll be just fine, Brutus," said Clementine. "Al's not going to let anything happen to you." 

"Al?" thought Brutus.

"You heard the girl," said the wizard, winking at Clementine as he reached down and grabbed the top of Brutus's pack. He heaved Brutus tummy first onto Destroyer's rump and dug his heels into the horse so that it jumped forward, causing Brutus to madly scramble to grip the cantle of the saddle in order to hold on.

Brutus had to use all his strength to right himself on Destroyer's rump while the horse was moving. He pulled himself onto the back of the saddle and wrapped his arms around the wizard just in time to feel the wizard laugh at him as well as hear it.

"Ya gotta hold on there little buddy!" yelled the wizard as he kicked his heels into Destroyer's sides again. He leaned to yell into Destroyer's right ear. "Full speed, to the top of Hawk Mountain!"

Destroyer obliged, gliding over the earth with a ferocity that uprooted and flung flowers high into the air behind him. They began to travel faster than Brutus had thought possible, outstripping every animal that they surprised as they ran. Destroyer flushed and flashed past rabbits, he hit a pheasant exploding from the grass in front of him with his chest. He was galloping down a riverbed and a young buck heard him coming and took off, only to be splashed a few seconds later by the hooves of the barely breathing horse.

Aside from the abrupt start, the rest of the ride was amazingly smooth. Brutus tried to talk to the wizard. He wanted to broach the subject of why things were so tense between them.

"Hey Aloe," said Brutus to the wizard's back. There was no response. Had Brutus been able to see the Wizard's ears he would have noticed the Airpods. Instead, the gnome sighed and rested his face against the wizard's back. His beard had begun to bead with the wizard's back sweat, as dew does on moss, when Hawk Mountain loomed into view.

Destroyer galloped straight at the mountain, then, without stopping, began to leap and scrabble up its side, never stopping, leaping like a one ton goat, his shoes throwing sparks as they clipped against the cliffside.

When they reached the top of the mountain, an ashen faced Brutus barfed up his breakfast of sautéed pears and fell off Destroyer and onto a pile of desiccated mole people corpses, which, admittedly, is one of the softest things you can fall into.

Mole fur is notoriously soft, because it doesn't possess a "nap," or a right way or wrong way to lie against the body. It would be weird if you petted a dog from its tail to its head--this is why they call it "rubbing someone the wrong way"-- but mole fur suffers from no such compunction. You can rub mole fur every which way, because moles need to go into and back

out of tunnels without dirt getting trapped inside their fur. Usually, moles are so tiny that it's prohibitively expensive to slaughter enough of them to make a waistcoat, but a mole person is another matter. They are four feet tall, barrel chested, and coated in soft, iridescent fur that shines invitingly even as it stretches over a bloated, distended belly of pustulant mole innards just waiting to burst into the beard of a flailing gnome.

"Whew! It smells like shit up here!" said the wizard as he drew back on Destroyer's reins. He pulled a walkie-talkie from one of his saddlebags and tossed it onto Brutus's back as the gnome spluttered and did slick, slimy pushups in a moon bounce of mole corpses. "Hold down the button to talk to me," said the Wizard. He threw a heavy black pair of binoculars onto Brutus's hat, which knocked the hat from the gnome's head and caused it to sink deeper into the pile of dead mole people. "Use this to scan around the mountain every hour." The wizard gagged a little and spit right into the center of the black sky burial hatch at the top of the mountain.

When he finally saw Brutus's bewildered, gut-stained face turn over and start to catch his breath, the wizard couldn't help but laugh at him again. "Smell ya later!" said the wizard as he kicked into Destroyer's side and the horse galloped back down the mountain.