Marbles: The Hawk Who Refused to Die a Virgin

Chapter 41. Avalanche and Epilogue

They had just managed to load Lucy onto a makeshift sled of lashed together spruce branches when they saw the lava golem walk around the left corner of the Fox God temple.

No wizard sat astride it. The golem didn't even notice the party. The glowing golem and his duller brothers were merely standing in a circle around the temple, guarding whatever fucked up, highly ritualized, thoroughly weird magic battle was about to go down inside of it.

"Mush!" shouted Lucy, laughing. She was delirious. Feverish. The questing cat had envenomed her somehow. Opal and Marbles had bandaged up Lucy's leg like she had taught them, but they felt like they had made a hash out of it.

Jezebel was lying face down against Lucy's chest in the sled, her hastily splinted wings spread wide. Opal knew he had made a hash out of that. The owl's bones had been shattered. She would probably never be able to fly again.

Jezebel was delirious as well, both with questing cat venom and also with happiness. Lucy was still alive. They were back together. She could die like this, preferred to die like this, if it came to that.

Opal and Marbles dragged the sled together as a team. Lucy slept, facing away from them. Remember when we talked about a gnome's enviable strength to weight ratio? Well that was nothing next to a hawk, even a fat one. They made great time across the snow.

As they passed the copse of spruce trees by the lake, Opal and Marbles looked at each other guiltily. Even though the cat had attacked everyone in the entire party with unbelievable, unremitting cruelty, it had still been sapient, and it at least deserved the most basic respect that thinking beings can give to one another.

Opal and Marbles set down the sled and spent a good half hour burying the cat beneath the scorched spruce, piling smooth river rocks over the grave to protect the body from scavenging animals.

No they didn't.

Fuck that guy.

On their second day of dragging the sled, Opal remembered that Marbles could fly.

"Hey buddy do you mind flying around and scouting a little?" asked Opal. "Maybe find a town? We need a doctor or some medicine for Lucy. And maybe some food?"

"Oh yeah of course," said Marbles. "Duh, I can fly. Shouldn't be worrying about where we are and stuff." Marbles took off. He returned to Opal, who was dragging the sled by himself, three hours later.

"OK so there's a town about another day's walk from here," said Marbles. "They have a doctor and everything."

"That's great Marbles," said Opal, reaching down and massaging his sore quadriceps with both hands. "Did you find any medicine? Or food?"

"I asked for medicine, but they wanted money," said Marbles. "Well?" asked Opal.

"I left our party purse back in Sycamore City," said Marbles, sounding like the opening verse of a new bluegrass classic. "We're totally broke dude. I'm sorry. I did steal this from a store front though," said Marbles. He dumped a taloned footful of pumpkin pie into Opal's outstretched hands.

"Jesus OK," said Opal, trying to feed some to Lucy, who squinched up her face and refused the pie like a picky infant. Opal sighed and ate the pie out of his own hands. Typical Marbles bullshit.

"Also I got this bottle!" said Marbles, holding out a green glass bottle with his other foot. Opal took the bottle, pulled the cork and recoiled. Vinegar. Opal was actually glad. If things had been going right, it would mean that Opal had actually succumbed to the cold and was now dreaming himself to death in the snow. The fact that everything was hopelessly fucked up at least meant that he was still alive and awake.

"OK buddy. Thank you," said Opal. Opal would have yelled at Marbles if he had even a whit of extra energy. Regardless of having been traumatized by the cat's attack, and even though he was exhausted from dragging a sled all day, Opal was even more irritable and sad than normal. He didn't know why.

"I'm sorry dude I'm not good with humanoid bottles," said Marbles. Marbles was angry and hungry too. This fucking sucked.

"Ooohhh," said Lucy, pointing back towards the Fox Temple. She had seen the light before the party heard the sound, a sudden pillar of torrid, purple, arcane energy tearing the top off Fox Mountain and pouring up into the clouds. Then came a hundred thunderclaps, all at once, which made creation wince.

"That's going to cause a huge avalanche," said Opal, calmly and productively reacting to a bad situation for the first time in his life. "Marbles, let's get over to those trees."

Marbles and Opal pulled the sled next to the base of the thickest tree they could find. They propped Lucy's sled against the tree's trunk. Opal took off his hat and slid it, point up, over Lucy's mouth and nose, with the hat's chin strap behind her head. If they were engulfed in snow, this would leave some space for her to breathe.

"Go ahead and take off, Marbles," said Opal. "Keep eyes on us and dig us out if you can." Marbles nodded and flew off. Opal crouched against the tree and covered his own nose and mouth with his cupped hands. He breathed slowly, and deeply, and turned to wink at Lucy, who winked back at him.

Wow.

Opal was really good at preparing for avalanches. He had actually listened to Languin's survival monologues. I had forgotten about that.

The avalanche flowed harmlessly past the party. It had indeed been huge, but by the time it got to Opal it wasn't going to bury trees or anything. The avalanche petered out, leaving a lifeless lava golem lying next to the party, a cherry red raft steaming in an ocean of snow.

Opal removed his hat from Lucy's face and gave her a thumbs up. He put his hat back on and dragged the sled over to the golem so that they could warm themselves.

Lucy and Jezebel sighed contentedly as they baked against the golem's washboard belly. Opal sat back on the little cavity between the golem's nose and upper lip.

"You know what they say!" said Opal. "The bigger they are, the easier it is to warm your butt up against their philtrum." He was joking of course. Nobody had ever said that, until just now. Opal and Lucy stared back at the crater formally known as the top of Fox Mountain.

"We are getting really good at bringing down mountains," said Lucy, the combination of avalanche adrenaline and the dead golem's warmth granting her a rare moment of lucidity.

"I guess the lich won," said Opal. He sighed and leaned back against the golem. Marbles landed next to him, and the hawk leaned his head against the golem too. It would be the best anyone in the party would feel for a long, long time to come. And they didn't even feel that great.

A fifty pound chunk of melting ice slid down from the golem's shoulder and bounced harmlessly off of Marbles's head, startling Opal.

"Aloe Vera's still alive," sighed Marbles. "Otherwise that ice would have killed me."

"Oh well," said Opal. "Let's think of it this way, bud. You're four marbles down out of twelve. If this were a trilogy, you'd already be at the end of the first book. You're well on your way to getting laid by the third one."

"Book two," said Marbles. "Book two or I walk."

THE END