Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 83281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
I heard a roar from Rath and my eyes popped open. I saw that he was now fighting a beast with eight heads. His hammer was moving so fast it was nothing but a blur but the heads just kept on coming! Already I could see wounds on his back and shoulders, crimson blood was dripping from the gashes the long fangs had dug in his skin. He was in trouble and I had to help him.
Looking down, I saw that the magic cable I had been imagining was real. It was solid in my hands—I could touch it and feel the metal fibers that had been twisted together to form it. It was just as I had envisioned it.
Great—so I had a magic rope. Now what was I going to do with it?
I thought about using it to try and lasso the heads and tie them down—to a tree trunk perhaps? But no, I didn’t think there were enough trees that were big enough and strong enough in the area to keep all those heads contained.
What I need to do is incapacitate them somehow, I thought as I watched yet another one strike at Rath. It doesn’t do any good to kill them—I have to immobilize them without actually cutting them off or killing them completely.
Rath roared again and I knew I couldn’t wait any longer. Forming the cable in my hands into a large circle, I threw it into the air, aiming for one of the heads.
“Go—encircle the neck!” I ordered it.
To my surprise, even though the head I had aimed at was ducking and dodging, the magic cable circlet dodged with it and slipped over the angry dragon head.
“Good! Now tighten!” I told it. “Cut off the air but don’t cut off the head. Just keep it from breathing.”
As I watched, the glowing golden cable did as I asked. I saw it tighten around the scaly neck and then the head it was attached to began to thrash in apparent agony. I could see its jaws gaping wide as it gasped for breath, but the magical cable wouldn’t let it get in any air at all. It kept on tightening until the eyes rolled up and the neck went limp as the head fainted for lack of oxygen.
That was one head down, but in the meantime, even more had grown. Hastily, I fashioned another glowing circle of magic cable and threw it at another head.
“Rath, get out of the way!” I shouted at the big Orc. He was stumbling with weariness by this time, but still fighting. He was trying to get in reach of the body—I could see that. But in order to do that, he had to keep bashing heads out of the way, which only made more heads. It was, as I said, a losing battle.
But now I could help him. And the magic was flowing faster and faster—I felt like I had when my Mom first taught me how to crochet. At first I had been so hesitant, but once I got the hang of it, I could go as fast as lighting, making row after row of stitches.
Now I made circlet after magic circlet and threw them faster and faster. I aimed with my mind and my will much more than with my hands which seemed to work fine. Thank goodness because, as I said before, I have shitty aim—at least when only my hands are involved. But I was telling the magic glowing circlets where to go and what to do and they were obeying me.
“Go—get that head!” I shouted, pointing at one of the Hydra’s heads, whipping around on its snaky neck, and then throwing the glowing circlet at it. The circlet went without fail, slipping neatly over the thrashing head and then tightening until the eyes rolled up and the neck went limp and dragged on the ground.
Rath fell back to stand by me. He was breathing hard, his big body covered in wounds and blood.
“How… the fuck…are you doing that?” he panted.
“Magic, I think.” I threw another circlet and strangled another head until its neck went limp.
“Fucking amazing,” he growled. “Smart too—you don’t have to kill them—just choke them out.”
“That’s what I thought,” I said, distractedly. I only had two heads to go and I quickly took care of them.
When I was finished, the enormous T-Rex body wobbled and then fell with a resounding crash to the forest floor. It shook the ground and I stumbled and would have fallen if Rath hadn’t caught me by the arm.
“Watch out, baby,” he growled hoarsely. “Stand your ground—I’m going to finish the damn thing.”
He pulled the curving knife I had noticed on his belt earlier from its sheath and held it up. Then he said a word that hurt my ears—it was spoken in a low, guttural language I didn’t understand but somehow I felt the magic in it.