Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound 9

Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound 9

  by Christopher D. Carter, © 2014

  Text and Illustration Copyright © 2014 Christopher D. Carter

  All Rights Reserved

  Also by Christopher D. Carter available at ebook retailers:

  Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound 1

  Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound 2

  Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound 3

  Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound 4

  Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound 5

  Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound 6

  Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound 7

  Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound 8

  Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound Annual 1

  Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound Annual 2

  Discover other titles by Christopher D. Carter at

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Next Issue

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  *

  To the Queenmother

  *

  Trapped alone at the bottom of the pit of the ant lion, Pound was being buried in sand along the rounded wall as the tree that he commanded watched and wavered above at the lip with Shad. He was accustomed to being the underdog in many situations, but Pound was not about to be overcome by a hungry, mindless insect. The tree listened to Pound’s mental commands and dumped layers of sand onto the ant lion along the opposite side of the pit, and the spiny creature’s huge mandibles were getting buried as he tried to entomb Pound in silicon. The subterranean creature was engrossed in burying Pound in sand, but the tree had covered its abdomen in dirt during the process. Annoyed, the ant lion turned to flick the mounting sand back up at the tree, and Pound seized the opportunity to act. With gymnast precision, Pound lunged at the spiny mandibles of the ant lion as it lowered its head to flick sand, and when the insect snapped its jaws upward, he catapulted upward out of the pit and over the top of the tree. He was moving so fast that he almost missed the outer limbs as he reached out in desperation to snatch the tree. With a jolt, his shoulder nearly popped out of socket when he snatched one of the thicker outer limbs and twirled down into the barbed and flexible edges of the crown of the tree. The tree itself stumbled with the added weight of his sudden impact and nearly tumbled into the pit where Pound had just escaped. The tree rebalanced though and continued trekking across the narrow trail between pits to the base of the mountain.

  Pound was exhausted from the encounter, but he held on tight and rested patiently in the arms of the tree. No words passed between Pound and Shad as they rode atop the tree that day, and Pound slept for a solid three hours as the woody plant ambled along the sandy trail. When he finally awoke, the tree had stopped, and from Pound’s viewpoint, he could see that they had crossed a great distance during his rest. Leaning his head backward, he was surprised to find that the mountain rose upward into the clouds behind him.

  “We’re here,” Pound said as he stretched his arms and legs to get the blood flowing again. Though he had found a good spot to relax in the tree, it was never a good thing to sit on a branch for too long. He reached down to his backside and felt the soreness where the pressure of his own weight had bruised the skin tissue where he sat. “That’s going to hurt for a while,” he mumbled as he stood up on the limbs and then climbed toward the base of the tree. Shad had already dismounted from the tree and was waiting impatiently for him at the bottom.

  “About time, fellow,” the green dwarf said as he stood with his hands behind his back. “I have been waiting for quite some time,” he added with an air of irritability.

  “That’s nice of you,” Pound replied back with a bit of his own temper stinging the air. “But I’m paying for the cab.”

  “No need to be touchy. I could not have made it this far on my own,” Shad said and then corrected himself. “We could not, I mean to say.”

  “Thanks,” Pound accepted the meager attempt at a half-apology from the cranky dwarf. “Now, how do we go from here.”

  “Up, of course,” Shad said, and he pointed straight up into the clouds that misted and masked the peak of the mountain. “The entrance is located on this side of the mountain, just above the cloud line. Of course, once you start climbing, you can’t really tell when you reach the cloud line. It all just sort of fades together in the fog, but I’ll know it when I see it.”

  “I don’t follow you, Shad. You’ll know what when you see it?” he asked.

  “The Queenmother’s lair,” Shad replied. “Does that answer all of your questions, then?” the green skinned dwarf retorted with the same snippy attitude. Pound was not so sure that he liked any of the many faces that this fellow wore, and the concealing of the map along with the arrogant stance on the dwarf’s hidden agenda were throwing up red flags. And if he had learned anything from his experiences in life, it was to trust the red flags.

  “I’m sorry for delaying you, sir,” Pound apologized as if to play along with whatever game the dwarf was playing. “After you,” he added and bowed to give Shad the lead up the mountain. If he was in such a hurry to get there, then he would have to lead the way. Shad started off by stepping up onto one rock and then another, and soon he was ten feet up from the base as Pound watched him deftly climb the shelves of rock that led up the side of the mountain. “You’ve got some goat in you, Shad,” Pound commented as he followed behind up the steps. The climb was rather difficult as hiking goes, but after they had ascended twenty feet or more vertically, the tree that stood silently at the base began to move from its resting spot. Pound smiled to himself as he stared upward and made an effort to ignore the tree’s movements below. Shad, however, became quite agitated when he saw that the tree was scaling the side of the mountain along with them.

  “I didn’t say that the tree could come to! What’s the meaning of this!” Shad turned around and shouted down to Pound below. “There’s no room for the tree where we’re going!” Pound returned the unwarranted bellyaching from the dwarf with a glare that could turn a man to stone. Then he turned around on the narrow step and started making his way back down the trail to the tree below. “Where are you off to?!” Shad yelled.

  “I’ve had my fill of you and your moaning about one thing or another,” Pound contended as he kept moving. “I’ll find some other way of freeing my friend. Maybe the more direct approach, like through the front door, but I’ll be hanged if I have to put up with more of your sour attitude. And I’d be the better for it!” Shad said nothing in reply for the moment, but afterward he seemed to realize that Pound meant exactly what he said, he panicked and started down after him. He needed him whether he wanted to admit it or not.

  “Wait, wait there, young fellow,” Shad said contritely. “You are right. I have been a cantankerous fool, and I am sorry for it. Bring the tree with you then, and we will climb together,” he explained in such a sham that Pound practically fell off the rocks with humor to hear such inventive language coming from the dwarf. Shad had been false from the beginning, yet Pound felt that he could hardly resist such an overexertion in duplicity. After all, he really did have no other hope of freeing Crush and the slaves in the mountain without some additional help. Perhaps this Queenmother that Shad kept talking about was the person that could set all things right.

  “No,” he thought to himself as he reasoned it through. “When it comes down to it, I can only depend on myself.” Then Pound stopped in his tracks and turned back to Shad and said, “All right. We’ve come this far, but the tree goes with us all the way to the top. No more complaining about it half-way up.” Pound stood his groun
d, and Shad gave way on the issue.

  “Come along, then,” the dwarf said politely. “Just let me know if we go too fast. I don’t want to lose you,” he added further before returning to the climbing the stones into the sky. This time his words had that sickly sweet tone to them that a teacher takes when the students need to be corralled, and it made Pound’s skin crawl. He would follow the dwarf, and although he was tired from the lack of sleep, he was determined to be guarded in his dealings with the little green fellow.