The Last Guardian

Opal scowled. How many times must she bear humiliation from a flatulent dwarf? It was intolerable.

 

Sent to retrieve weapons from the ship, no doubt.

 

Opal raised her gaze fifteen degrees to the shuttle. Crushed though the Cupid was, her sixth sense could see an aura of magic winding around the fuselage like a fat snake. This particular wavelength would not help to open the second lock, but it could certainly provide enough juice for an extremely visible demonstration of her power.

 

Opal withdrew a hand from the sluggishly heaving rock and formed the fingers into a claw, arranging the molecules to attract any energy inside the Cupid. The power left the vehicle in a glowing morass, shrinking the Cupid to a wizened wreck and hovering in the air over the awed Berserkers.

 

“See what your queen can accomplish!” she cried, eyes bright. Her tiny fingers twirled, manipulating the energy into a sharp wedge, which she sent crashing through the earth to where the dwarf labored. There was a solid thump, and a spume of dirt and rocks jetted skyward, leaving a scorched crater in their wake.

 

Opal returned her attention to the second lock.

 

“Can you see the dwarf?” she asked Oro, who stood peering into the hole.

 

“I see one foot and some blood. The foot is jittering about, so he’s still alive. I’ll go and bring him up.”

 

“No,” said Opal. “You do not leave Mommy’s sight. Send the earth creatures to kill him.”

 

If the fairy bonds had not had Oro’s free will in such a tight bind, he would have taken Opal to task for repeatedly disrespecting her elders; but as it was, even the thought of reprimanding his queen cost him a severe stomach cramp.

 

When the pain passed, he raised two fingers to his lips to whistle for his diggers. He found out that it was not an easy thing to whistle with strange fingers, and all that emerged from his mouth was a watery slobbering noise.

 

“Don’t know that signal, chief,” said Yezhwi Khan, who had once been a pretty handy ax gnome. “Is that lunch break?”

 

“No!” shouted Oro. “I need my diggers. Gather ’round.”

 

A dozen rabbits hopped quickly to bunch at his feet. Their little whiskers quivered with anticipation of finally seeing some action.

 

“Get the dwarf,” Oro ordered. “I would say bring him back alive, but you do not really have the skills for parlay.”

 

The rabbits thumped their hind legs in agreement.

 

“So the order is simple,” said Oro, with a touch of regret. “Kill him.”

 

The rabbits piled en masse into the hole, eagerly scrabbling toward the injured dwarf.

 

Death by bunny, thought Oro. Not a nice way to go.

 

Oro did not wish to look. Dwarfs were part of the fairy world, and in other circumstances they could have been allies. From behind him he heard the crunch of bone and the rattled whoosh of earth collapsing.

 

Oro shuddered. He would face a troll any day before a bunch of carnivorous rabbits.

 

On the dais, Opal felt a load lift from her heart as another enemy suffered.

 

Soon it will be your turn to suffer, Foaly, she thought. But death would be too easy for you. Perhaps you are already suffering. Perhaps your lovely wife has already opened the gift my little gnomes sent to her.

 

Opal sang a little ditty as she worked on the second lock.

 

“Hey, hey, hey,

 

This is the day,

 

Things are gonna go my way.”

 

Opal was not consciously aware of it, but this was a popular song from the Pip and Kip show.

 

 

 

 

 

Haven City, the Lower Elements

 

 

Things were as grim as they had ever been in Haven City. Even the groups of empath elves, who could clearly perceive residual images from bygone millennia, and who liked to lecture school fairies on how life was a bucket of sweet chilies compared to how it used to be in the prospecting days, had to admit that this was the darkest day in Haven’s history.

 

The citizens of Haven were weathering their darkest night, made darker still by the absence of main power, which meant the only lights were the emergency lamps powered by the old geothermal generators. Dwarf spit had suddenly become a very valuable commodity, and many of Mulch’s relatives could be seen roving the refugee camp that had sprung up around the statue of Frond, selling jars of luminous spit for an ingot or two.