Marbles: The Hawk Who Refused to Die a Virgin

Chapter 29. The Heart of the Mountain

That's not one who tried to mole-est me is it?" whispered Languin to Lucy. They were

following Tony Mole through an ancient system of mole people tunnels, towards the lava lake and its obsidian bridge, where the Mole God had last been spotted.

"No he's the other one," said Lucy, who squinted ahead at the orangey oveny light glowing from the end of the tunnel in front of them.

"Here we are!" shouted Tony as he jogged ahead into huge cavern. He loved seeing the big black glassy bridge, a real testament to mole ingenuity, stretch across the bright wide lake of bubbling lava. The party did that thing where even though they didn't need to, they broke into a jog as well. They all entered into the chamber together, stopping to share in Tony's awe at this magnificent, forbidding bridge. Jezebel and Marbles perched on one of the bridge's shiny black balustrades and luxuriated in the heat rising up from the lava, which churned and burned hundreds of feet below.

"Just think of the updrafts!" gasped Marbles as he scanned the lake below for signs of the Mole God. You didn't need to be a hawk to spot it though. There it was, twenty-five feet long, its black basalt paws revolving through the lava like the paddles of a Mississippi river steam boat, turning in circles beside the rogue God's head. It seemed to be swimming.

With Marbles now in such close proximity, the Mole God's paws began to churn furiously, flinging globs of lava high into the air. It was counterproductive though, its erratic paddling almost causing the crazed statue to sink farther down into the lake.

"Wallowing in lava," sighed Tony as he watched his god bathe in red hot rock. "You know that's what mole's call depression. Just trying to soak yourself in something that's killing you."

"Cool story, brah," said the wizard as he floated up through the bridge, right behind the party. He slapped a black leather hunting hood over the head of a shocked Marbles, and, being a blue belt in taekwondo, which he had stopped pursuing rank in when he was 28 but still practiced its forms for fun and fitness, side kicked Tony Mole through the balusters and off the bridge.

The mole had the wind knocked out of him by the wizard's kick, so he couldn't even scream as he flailed about for a full six sickening seconds. Plumes of smoke rose from his velvety belly as the lava ate him alive.

Languin let the wizard know how fucked up he thought this was by stepping back and firing one of his black, two foot long arrows straight at the wizard's smug mouth.

The wizard grabbed Marbles by his shoulders and held the hawk in front of his face, and the hawk's force field shattered the arrow into pieces, sending splinters into the wizard's shins. It was the first physical discomfort the wizard had experienced in a hundred years.

The wizard chucked Marbles back over his shoulder and held both his pointer fingers out, like pistols. "Pew! Pew!" shouted the wizard as he hit Lucy and Languin with blue bolts of magic,

causing their unconscious bodies to fly backwards, where they slid for good twenty feet after hitting the bridge. Jezebel shrieked and flew after Lucy.

Opal set his teeth and unsheathed his battle hatchet, and he sprinted at the wizard, who looked up in surprise from where he was pulling out an arrow splinter. He hadn't even noticed the gnome. He stood up and deftly sidestepped Opal, who ran straight past him.

The wizard winched back his right foot and booted Opal right in his butt, and Opal flew face first into the right rock wall of the bridge's tunnel, breaking his nose and sending one of his bottom teeth deep into his top lip. He dropped his hatchet and held both his hands up to his bleeding face, utterly disoriented, in terrible pain, and ashamed.