Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound 10

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  Queen Una had spent most of her life inside the caverns of the palace which were hidden deep within the mountain, and she was unaccustomed to hiking trails along the cliff face of the mountain. After the mysterious stranger dissipated into the air, she looked down over the narrow ledge and felt butterflies in her stomach as she saw how far above the floor of the forest she was. She then closed her eyes to block out the imagery and placed one hand on the wall of rock to steady herself, and when the fear had subsided, she began to hike up the narrow trail to the Old Men of the Mountain. The ledges were narrow and appeared to be carved into the stone, and they wound upwards in a zigzag fashion as they went several hundred yards in one direction and then turned back several hundred yards in the other direction.

  At the end of the first turn, Queen Una experimented to see how high she really was above the ground, and she kicked a loose stone with an armored boot to send the stone flying out over the ledge into the forest below. When the stone passed through the foliage of the trees, she heard it hit the leaves and then make a thud on something in the forest. A bellow of excitement issued forth from beneath the foliage, and Queen Una realized that she may have made a mistake. One of the trees near the stone began to shake as if something very large were climbing it, and she bowed down to hide in the crack behind a boulder. She found herself suddenly wishing that she had not worn this red and black armor on the hike. The colors which she had worn stood out too prominently for her taste against the gray stone backdrop. She really did look like an ant from a distance when she considered it now, and though she could do nothing about it, she frowned with displeasure at her choice in armor.

  The head of a giant popped out of the treetop below, and he rubbed his forehead where the stone had made a small mark on his skin. He looked around the ledges of the mountainside for a few moments, and when he was satisfied that no humans were climbing along the trail and that a loose rock must have fallen off the cliff, he grunted once and climbed back down to the ground below. Queen Una could not see from her hiding place what was taking place below, though she guessed that at least one giant had climbed a tree to look for the source of the fallen rock. Since she could not see the giant’s movements, she could not tell whether the giant had climbed back down the tree or whether another giant had climbed up yet another tree to join the first. To be cautious, she waited impatiently for a few minutes after the climbing noises had ceased before she peeked around the boulder. The treetops were clear, and if she listened carefully, she could hear the giant’s footsteps wandering off into the woods. When she was younger, her father had told her that the giants posted guards around the base of the mountain, but she had not expected it to be true. Now she knew to be extra careful not to kick stones from the mountainside when she was curious. She determined that she would find some other object to take out her aggressions on instead.

  Going upward, Una started back out across the ledge, and she moved a little quicker as she went. Her mind raced while she moved quickly across the ledge, and when she had reached the far side of the shelf, a thought popped into her head.

  “The stranger flew me up here to this . . . ledge . . .” she said as she gritted her teeth. She struggled for the next complaint, but it would not find its way to her lips. Finally, she shook her head and flicked her hair back in a nervous gesture. “How am I going to get back down?” she asked herself, and then her anger got the best of her as she found a nearby boulder to slam down her fist. When she drew back the dented armor, she cried in silent pain, and she cursed under her breath as she examined the dimple in the side of the glove. Shaking off the dull ache, movement and feeling came back into her fist, and she decided from that point on that hitting immovable objects was not a good stress reliever. She was cross with the stranger, and she would take it up with him at the first opportunity. He was a movable object.

  Una turned her attention back on the matter at hand, and she gazed out across the next ledge to find that it was excessively narrow as it wound around the next bend. She would have to relax her mind and body if she was going to make it across this one without falling. Facing outward from the cliff wall, she leaned her back against the wall, eased her left foot out, and placed her hands against the wall to grip the crevices for balance. Then she crept slowly along the tapered ledge, moving one foot step at a time up the hill. It was no easy task to lean on one side of the sole of her boot to get traction, and more than once, she slid back down the hill where there was a thick layer of dust that had settled on the surface of the rock. If it had not been for the extra balance that she gained from her gloves, she would have easily slid off the face of the cliff. As it was, she adapted and learned to take extra care with every step, and when she noticed a layer of dust, she would steadily bend down and wipe the excess silt from the stone. If the giants below were alerted by the dust that she swept off, then she would take that chance. They certainly would be alerted to her if she fell to her death instead.

  Una reached the far side of the ledge, and she found an overhanging stone which created an awning on the cliff face. She scooted inside of the crack that lay beneath to rest for a few moments from the stress of risking her life on the lonely mountainside. Anxious thoughts rolled through her mind, and she made a concerted effort to control her fear and anger at her current circumstances. She clinched her fists tightly, and she swore to herself that she would defeat the giants at any cost. She knew very little of the Old Men of the Mountain, but she was determined to gain their aid in rescuing her father and in protecting her realm from further destruction. She closed her eyes and fell asleep for a few moments there in the safety of the mountain, and she dreamed of the child of stone, the Soul of the Mountain, that she craved so heartily. If she had the Soul, the mountain would be hers to control always, and she would live forever in her palace deep within the mines.

  Like a ghost, Pound observed the journey of the young, beautiful, and wicked Una, and he believed that if she did indeed find the Soul of the Mountain, there was little to worry about her leaving the mountain and coming to earth. She was so engrossed with her perverse lust for control of the mountain that she would scarcely take the opportunity to look outside of her own world.

  Then Pound watched as Una awoke from her short nap. She peeked out of the hole to look down at the forest below. There were no giants to be found, so she stepped out into the light and sized up the next ledge. Fortunately, this shelf was wider than the last, and the path would be easier as she would be able to hike with both feet facing forward. She started up the hill, and she began to look at the cliff wall in search of the Old Men of the Mountain. It was a mystery to her exactly what she was looking for, but she suspected that she would come upon a cave simply loaded from wall to wall with crotchety, smelly old coots. They would lust for her, and she would have to fight them off with her sword. Una winced at the images that played in her mind, and she wondered whether she should complete the quest. When she remembered that the stranger had abandoned her again, she cursed him and gently slammed her fist into the wall this time so as not to hurt herself. Unless she could suddenly grow wings and fly back to her palace, she would have to keep going no matter the outcome.

  When she reached the turnaround at the end of the ledge, she turned back to face the next ledge on her trek, and she found that this ledge had no gradient to it. It was wide enough for her to walk, and it simply stretched out flat around the curvature of the cliff face. She walked ahead a few paces, and the mountain itself began to grumble as if there were a quake. Yet the ground beneath her feet did not shake, and she was perplexed by the groaning of the cliff side. Una placed her hands on the wall of stone that rose before her, and to her astonishment, a crack opened within the rock beneath her hand. Quickly, she withdrew her hand and almost stumbled off of the ledge when she stepped back to appreciate the changing landscape of the cliff wall. Four more cracks opened within the face of the cliff, and she turned
in a panic to make her way back down the ledges when a deep, coarse voice halted her retreat.

  “You there. Red ant that you are, why is it that you have climbed up here, hmm?” the voice questioned her. Una stopped in her tracks and looked questioningly into one of the cracks to see if a person was inside. When the crack slowly closed shut, she removed her fingers just in time to save them from the crushing gesture, and her jaw dropped open in wonder as she discovered exactly what it was that she was looking upon. The crack opened up and stood agape as she traced the outline of a gigantic mouth with her fingers.

  “Are you the Old Men of the Mountain?” she asked, and she removed her fingers from the outline of the lips.

  “I am an Old Man of the Mountain, yes,” the great stone mouth replied. “The others are here as well,” the voice continued as the other mouths remained silent.

  “Good, good. Then I have not made this journey for no reason then, men of stone. I am Queen Una of the mountain,” she announced, and then clarified. “I am the Queen of the other side of the mountain, to be more exact, and I require your aid.” The dusty lips of the mouth stood still, but the cracks for eyelids appeared to look toward the other Old Men for a moment as she waited. After another moment of rumbling, the eyelids whirl back around as if to look down at her.

  “Good afternoon, Queen Una of the ants,” the voice proclaimed, and a scowl spread across Una’s face. “What aid is it that you seek from the Old Men of the Mountain?”

  “First of all, I am not the Queen of the ants,” she declared in an indignant voice. “I am the Queen of the people of the mountain. This mountain,” she said with an irate stomp of her foot upon the ledge. “And as your Queen, I am demanding that you rescue my father from the giants this instant!” Then all of the mouths on the mountainside began to grumble and open and shut and grind with rumblings of secret discussions. She stood indignantly with her arms crossed and her foot tapping, waiting for their reply. After much quaking in debate, the Old Man of the Mountain spoke to her again.

  “Dear Queen,” the stones addressed her with great formality. “We have decided that your father is in dire need of deliverance from the hands of the giants. You misunderstand our place in the mountain though. We are only men of stone, and we have no desire to take sides in some temporal argument regarding men and giants,” the voice reasoned. Una was furious at the rejection of her request, but recalling her recent experience with hitting immovable objects, she chose to appeal with diplomacy rather than brute force.

  “The giants seek to overthrow the realm and to claim the Soul of the Mountain for their own. Once they have recovered the child of stone, they will remove it from the mountain forever,” she declared, and there was an audible gasp from one of the faces. “If you do not help me and stand with me against the giants, your own fate at their hands cannot be guaranteed.” The rumblings began again, and this time the cliff sides shook with more fervor. Una grabbed the nearest crack in the stone with both hands, and she held on tight during the minor quake. After what must have been a grueling debate, the Old Men of the Mountain groaned their reconciliation.

  “Queen Una of the mountain, our ally. You have spoken well, and we have heard your appeal for aid,” the spokesman of the Old Men said and then cleared the dust from his throat. A puff of dirt flew out into the air, and he continued as if nothing was out of the ordinary. “We shall present you with our favorite creature of all life on this planet, and he shall provide you with the aid which you require.” Una imagined a long-haired spotted hound that, when confronted by a giant, had the supernatural ability to pee on his leg. Uninspired by their offer, she glowered at the faces one by one, and she wondered whether this mountain was indeed worth protecting. Her thoughts turned to her father, and she sighed her accord.

  “Where is this pet of yours?” she asked restlessly. The cracks that formed the mouths on the mountainside began to expand toward one another, and one by one, the mouths coupled with each other to form a larger fracture in the mountainside. When the cracks had all combined together into one, the resultant crack opened into the mouth of an enormous cave, and a light began to burn on the inside. The cave was high up and well out of reach of Una, and she could not see what lay down inside the hole. With a roar, a flame burst out of the mouth of the cave, and even from below, she could feel the heat as it rose up along the mountainside like a chimney. A grin spread from ear to ear across her face, and she marveled at the power that she was seeing.

  Even as a secure and invisible spectator, Pound experienced fear and trepidation while he watched the story of the Queenmother unfold before his eyes. He could hardly believe his eyes when he saw the source of the flames that billowed out of the cavern. A gigantic head like the head of a lizard came out into the light, and flames licked out of its nostrils as its jaws were snapped together tight. The mouth opened and bared its teeth in a monstrous roar that echoed over the treetops of the forest, and Pound understood the potency of the promise that the mysterious stranger had made to Queen Una. The stranger had meant to give to her a dragon.

  Queen Una clapped her hands in resolute joy as she stared up at the underside of the beast’s mouth. Acidic drool leached down the side of the mountain, and she jumped to the side to avoid a face full of bubbling spit which landed on the ledge. Hearing the commotion that the Queen was making, the dragon stretched its neck out over the canyon and brought its head down level with her own in order to train its eyes on her. Rocky scales covered its head, and she boldly placed her gloved hand upon its snout. With a lick of its tongue, the dragon lowered its head even further so that she could walk out onto its neck where the lumpy scales formed a saddle. Una carefully stepped out over the ledge onto the dragon’s head and sat down on the makeshift saddle. Snatching the spines of nearby scales with each of her hands, she held on tight as the dragon then raised its head and neck above the mouth of the cave where she could see the dragon’s body stretched out within the shadows of the passage. The dragon howled like thunder into the air, and she almost fell off the saddle when the dragon leaned its head and neck backward. With a spring, the dragon leaped off the cliff and plummeted toward the forest below. Uncontrollably, Una screamed in horrific fright as her stomach came up into her throat, and she cursed the Old Men of the Mountain as she fell to her doom on the dragon’s back. The scaly wings spread out behind her, and the dragon arched its head back as it gained momentum. The body of the dragon veered from perpendicular to the ground to horizontal with the ground, and Una soon found herself soaring above the treetops of the woodland. The dragon flapped its wings, and the forest passed by with ever-increasing speed as the dragon clipped the treetops below with the tips of its wings. Together they flew across the sky in search of the giant’s castle.

  For many hours they searched from lower heights for the castle, but they found no success. As they approached the river, the dragon landed on the rocky beach next to the water, and the great beast ingested several gulps of the fluid to satisfy its long-awaited thirst. Queen Una knelt down at the water to take a drink, and cupping her hands, she brought up a handful of the liquid to sip when she noticed her reflection. In it she saw what the stranger had called her. She saw a velvet ant with a red and black exoskeleton, mandibles that formed a vise, antennae that protruded from the head, and two front legs which held a droplet of water. She was startled at the sight of her reflection, and she jumped in surprise to look all around her for the insect. To her dismay, there was no one nearby, save the dragon who was several hundred feet downstream. Curious, she looked back down into the ripples of the flowing water, and once again, she saw the red and black ant cupping the water with its front legs. When her hands parted to spill the water, the ant’s legs parted and also spilled the water in unison, sending a splash across the river’s surface and muddying the waters beneath. Queen Una fled from the vision that was held in the flowing stream, and she chose to let her thirst continue rather than
drink from the river.

  In the meantime, the dragon had noticed her curious behavior, and he was drawn into watching her silly conduct. The dragon’s eyes were trained on her every move, and when she was repulsed by the manifestation in the waters, a laugh reverberated in his belly.

  “I don’t see anything to laugh about, creature,” she snipped as she wiped her wet hands onto her armor and slid the gloves back onto her hands. Though she had a very nasty temper, she was hesitant to train her full anger on the mythical animal.

  “Perhaps that is because you are not standing where I am standing and watching what I am watching,” he remarked with what the Queen could only regard as a lizard’s smile. The dragon sniffed the air as if he caught a scent of something special or magical over the wind, and his nose led him back to her. “Woman, you stink of evil. I saw your vision in the river. Though you have tricked my fathers into believing your lies, nothing good can come of what you have planned,” he said as turned his head and searched the shore for giant tracks.

  “It does not matter what I saw or what you think you saw, beast. The mountain will be under siege from the giants, and you know this to be true. We are thrust together in this venture, and there is no turning back now. Together we will find my father, and we will defeat the giants as your fathers have deemed necessary,” she scolded the dragon. He listened to her barking, and he lowered a wing to the ground for her to climb up onto his back.

  “Come then, if we are fated to do this thing together, then let us get it done,” he answered. “But I do smell evil in you, and this will not go well for either of us if you are dishonorable in your dealings.” Queen Una climbed the wing, balanced her way along his neck to the saddle scales behind his head, and she secured herself tight for another long flight in search of the castle of the giants.

  Without the advantage of free falling from a cliff to begin his flight, the dragon was forced to break out into a run along the rocks of the shore, and when he had gathered adequate speed, he sprung into the air and spread his wings. The first few flaps of his wings struck the ground on the down swing until he had gained some height, and Queen Una was jarred in her seat by the shockwaves that reverberated through his body.

  “What’s the matter, beast? Can’t you fly?!” she yelled over the wind, and the dragon grunted something unintelligible in reply. She was proud of her slanderous insult until the giant beast flew over the river and turned upside down as he sailed through the air. Though she had been tightly secured for side-to-side movements, the strapping that actually kept her from falling or bouncing out was inadequate. Her legs slipped out from between the scales in this position, and she quickly snatched the sides of the saddle with her hands before she fell from the dragon’s neck. The wind blew her hanging body backward and stretched her wrists and fingertips with the strain as she held on for her life by her gloved hands.

  “What’s the matter, Queen? Can’t you fly?!” the dragon roared as the saddle slipped from between the gloves, and she plummeted toward the rushing river below. The dragon circled around and narrowly caught her in his mouth by the chainmail on her back. Then he lightly flicked his head back and tossed her into the air just above his head. Desperate to live, she snatched onto the saddle scales again, and she managed to return to her seat as he leaned his head forward and horizontal with the ground. Una boiled over with rage, and if she could have kicked him in the scales at that moment, she would have, even if it meant breaking her foot. She chose to hold her temper in check instead as they flew back over the shoreline, and she decided that she would have to deal with the creature under his terms, for now.

  Many long hours they flew over the trees, and still they had not spotted the location of the giants’ castle. Instead of rushing off with the mysterious stranger, Una found herself now wishing that she had taken a few minutes of her own time to look over her father’s maps of the mountain and the lands that surrounded it. It was her own fault for her ignorance, and since the dragon had only just been released from the mountain, she certainly could not expect the beast to guide her properly in her own world. “Who knows how long the beast has been locked away,” she thought to herself as she began to use her intuition to reason out a strategy. Seeing the edges of the mountain in the distance made her think about the advantages and disadvantages of height, and she reasoned that if they were much higher in the air then they would have a better chance of scanning larger swaths of land at one time. This would speed up their search and increase their chances of rescuing her father from the giants. To get his attention, she patted the dragon on the back of his head with her glove as if she were knocking on a door, and at first there was no answer.

  “Dragon!!” she screamed over the wind, and she felt a grumble roll up from his belly through the length of his neck.

  “What is it? Do you see the castle that you were looking for?” he asked as a puff of smoke issue from his nostrils.

  “No, I don’t!!” she answered with a yell. “And that’s what’s wrong, but I have an idea!!” The grumbling came back again, and she could not tell whether he was perturbed at her again or whether he had simply swallowed a bug. “Fly to the mountaintop, and I will explain!!” The dragon must have heard her remarks because the dragon changed the direction of his flight toward the mountain in the distance. Within another hour, the dragon tilted his head upward as his body went beneath him, and he slowed his momentum with his wings. With a great crash of thunder, the dragon’s feet and tail landed upon the top surface of the mountain near the edge of the cliff. Loose rocks tumbled over the precipice as he lowered his head for her to dismount. Queen Una did not bother to get off the dragon’s head just yet. She wanted to find the castle before the day ended, and she felt that the action of dismounting and remounting again would only waste more precious time.

  “Dragon, I have a plan,” she acknowledged once again in the quiet of the mountaintop.

  “You said that before, Queen,” he replied with a puff of black smoke from his nostrils. The smoke drifted across her face, and she went into a coughing fit with the inhalation of the vapor. “Have a smoke, my lady. It’s on me,” he said with a long laugh at her discomfort coupled with his sad excuse for a pun. When she had caught her breath, she rolled her eyes at his foolishness, and she composed herself for the explanation of her plan.

  “Dragon, we have been flying very low over the trees and are making no progress in locating the castle. We should fly almost to cloud level and look down on the land below. In that manner, we may see the landscape of the entire forest between here and the river. Once we have found the castle, we will fly back here and wait for night fall,” she explained, and the dragon listened quietly with no further groaning to interrupt her. When she had finished, he took the opportunity to point out some problems with her plan.

  “Queen, you would not know this since you are not a flyer, but the farther up into the sky that you fly, the thinner the air gets. I cannot explain the reasons for it, but it is hard to breathe very far up above the ground, and from the way you were coughing a few minutes ago, I don’t think that you can handle it,” he said with a judgmental tone. “Also, that chain mail that you are wearing is metal, and metals transfer heat quickly. The temperature of the air goes down the higher up that you fly, and your armor will not protect your skin from the temperature changes. In fact, it will only make you colder, and therefore you might go up a Queen and come down an icicle. Though, from your chilled personality, you may not change form at all,” he chuckled to himself.

  “When this is all over, I may need a court jester. I would ask you, but I would rather have someone with a good sense of humor,” she said with a straight face. “Do my bidding, dragon, so that we can bring my father back to the mountain,” ordered the queen.

  “All hail the icicle,” he roared and leaped off the mountain without waiting to see if she was ready. Her head jerked backward, and Queen Una grabbed hold of the scales as they s
oared higher than they ever had over the land. She looked down once to see the shrinking world below, and she gulped a mouthful of air as she leaned forward as far as she could in the saddle to keep from falling out. The dragon’s wings beat harder and harder as he pushed himself higher and higher into the sky, and when he perceived that he was high enough above the ground to see a vast area of forestland and yet still resolve the walls of a castle on the ground, he leveled his body with the ground and glided along the currents of the cold wind. The view was a truly amazing sight, but Queen Una had such a fear of heights that she refused to look at the world below as she shivered in the cold wind of the saddle.

  “Are you awake back there, Queen?” the dragon asked but received no reply since the moisture of her tongue had frozen her lips together. The dragon decided that she had either passed out from lack of air, which by the way was beginning to affect him as well, or she had frozen solid just as he had predicted. At any rate, the dragon flew over the forest for half an hour before he finally spotted what he thought was the giant’s castle. The stronghold was enormous in size, and he wondered how he had missed it before when they were flying lower. With a gentle turn of his body, he flew back to the mountain in a straight line that evening to hear the Queen’s plan.

  When they arrived at the mountaintop, he glided to an easy landing on the rocks, and the dragon lowered his head and patiently waited for Una to dismount. It took her several minutes to get enough feeling back into her arms and legs to move, and when she was ready, she started back down the dragon’s neck and then to the wings to dismount. At the last instant before jumping off, she slipped on the ice buildup which covered his scales and landed on her backside on the hard ground. The dragon turned his head to find out what the ruckus was all about, and he chuckled to himself at her misfortune. Queen Una quickly picked herself up, brushed the dirt off her armor, and ignored the pain that was surging down her leg. The dragon then kindly blew a wad of flaming spit onto the ground where she could warm herself up by the fire. After several minutes of uncomfortable silence, she began to speak, and he realized that he preferred the silence more than her lectures. She droned on and on about how wonderful her plan had been to fly so high in the sky and how marvelously events had unfolded and how they had located the castle now and must prepare.

  “Dragon, we must construct a plan for our strike as we wait for nightfall,” she commanded though he knew that it would actually be his strike and his power that accomplished the final goals of defeating the giants and rescuing her father. The dragon chose to stay silent on the matter though, and he let her have her way for a while as he recuperated from the exercises he had performed. During her long speech, the dragon laid his head down on the rocks and closed his eyes. He pretended to listen for a while, but since the long day of flying had worn him down, the Queen’s boring speech became the steady background noise that lulled him into a deep sleep.

  Chapter 3

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  War with the Giants