The Battle of Iron Gulch Read online

  The Battle of Iron Gulch

  By R. G. Thomas

  The Town of Superstition: Book Three

  Thaddeus Cane and his garden gnome boyfriend, Teofil, travel with Teofil’s mother and sister, Thaddeus’s father, and a new elf ally to Wraith Mountain, armed with the water from the Well of Tears. Thaddeus hopes to use the water to free his mother, cursed to take dragon form by the witch Isadora, and reunite her with her family. But their quest is far from over, and the party is forced to stop in the small village of Iron Gulch while they procure supplies for their trip up the mountain.

  There, Thaddeus continues to gain strength in magic, and he will need it, because something is rotten beneath the idyllic facade of Iron Gulch. A new and dangerous adversary is bent on the destruction of not only Thaddeus and his friends, but everyone living in the town—unless their group can put a stop to it. The fight will be one of the hardest they’ve faced, but if they can prevail, it should prepare them to make their final stand against Isadora and put an end to her cruelty.

  Table of Contents

  Blurb

  Dedication

  Chapter ONE

  Chapter TWO

  Chapter THREE

  Chapter FOUR

  Chapter FIVE

  Chapter SIX

  Chapter SEVEN

  Chapter EIGHT

  Chapter NINE

  Chapter TEN

  Chapter ELEVEN

  Chapter TWELVE

  Chapter THIRTEEN

  Chapter FOURTEEN

  Chapter FIFTEEN

  Chapter SIXTEEN

  Chapter SEVENTEEN

  Chapter EIGHTEEN

  Chapter NINETEEN

  Chapter TWENTY

  Chapter TWENTY-ONE

  Chapter TWENTY-TWO

  Chapter TWENTY-THREE

  Chapter TWENTY-FOUR

  Chapter TWENTY-FIVE

  More from R. G. Thomas

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  About the Author

  By R. G. Thomas

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  Copyright

  For my sisters, Cindy and Sherry, who love and torment me to this day.

  Chapter ONE

  “NEVER AGAIN,” Astrid said with a groan. “I’m never again listening to Thaddeus when he estimates distance.”

  Thaddeus shook his head, keeping his gaze fixed on the fire he was trying to start. “I said it looked like it was another day’s travel. Looked. Looked!”

  “All right, you two,” Miriam scolded gently as she dropped an armload of small sticks beside Thaddeus. “You know good and well, young lady, that judging distances takes quite a lot of skill. Do you recall those five days you hiked around Spectrum Cascades with your father and brother?”

  Thaddeus glanced at Astrid in time to watch her amused expression darken. He looked at Miriam and found that her smile had vanished as well, and his stomach tightened as a hot lump formed in his throat. Turning his attention back to the fire, he poked at the smoking pile of dead leaves with a stick, wishing he was someplace—any place—else.

  The brother Miriam mentioned had most likely been Fetter, who was no longer traveling with their group. Fetter, as it turned out, had actually been Isadora, the witch who started a war within the magic community fifteen years ago and turned Thaddeus’s mother into a dragon. For all the years since that battle, Isadora had been disguised as Fetter and living among Teofil’s family, sharing a room with Astrid, who was closest in age. After such a long time together sharing secrets and dreams, quiet and happy times, arguments and misunderstandings, Astrid’s sense of betrayal had to be running pretty deep.

  And they had no idea what had become of Fetter, which made it all just so much worse.

  Risking a glance at them, Thaddeus was heartened, at least, to see them share sad, supportive smiles.

  “Well, there’s that again, then,” Miriam said with an awful, heartbreaking sigh. “Fetter, the ghost among us.”

  “Yes, there it is,” Astrid agreed. “I just wish I knew whether he’s….”

  “He is still alive,” Miriam said with a firm nod.

  “How can you be sure?” Astrid asked, her voice quiet and heavy with grief.

  Miriam got on her knees before Astrid and took her face between her hands, looking deep into her daughter’s eyes. “I am his mother. I would know if he… if something bad had happened to him.”

  Astrid sniffled between Miriam’s palms. “Even though you thought she was him all along?”

  Thaddeus winced, but Miriam seemed ready for it, and she just smiled.

  “Even though she fooled me,” Miriam said. “I still know.”

  Astrid nodded. “Okay. I believe you.”

  “Good.” Miriam placed a gentle kiss on Astrid’s forehead, then pushed back up to her feet with a groan.

  Astrid wiped away tears and looked over at Thaddeus. “Sorry, Thaddeus. I know you did your best with the estimates.”

  He nodded to her, then looked down at the pile of sticks, still without a flame, and said, “We should reach Wraith Mountain tomorrow.”

  Astrid snorted a laugh, and even Miriam chuckled before settling onto a spot a few feet away, where she picked up her knitting. Thaddeus sighed and sat back from the fire pit, annoyed at himself for underestimating the distance they still needed to travel, as well as his inability to get a fire started. He’d been in seven different scout troops in the many towns and cities he and his father had lived—thirty-three at Thaddeus’s last count—and not once had he been taught how to start a campfire. Maybe they’d always moved just prior to the fire-starting lesson, or he’d joined right after?

  “I think we’ve gathered all the sticks for at least a mile,” Teofil declared as he walked up out of the quickly falling darkness. It seemed to Thaddeus that the closer they got to the mountain, the faster night fell. Teofil dumped a great armful on the pile Miriam had delivered, then stretched his back.

  Thaddeus took the opportunity to admire Teofil. He was handsome in a country boy kind of way, with high cheekbones, a rather large nose, and a thick beard around his jaw that was of the same blond shade as his messy thatch of hair. Though Teofil was a garden gnome, he stood as tall as Thaddeus and had strong shoulders and arms.

  Thaddeus pulled his gaze from Teofil to glare at his lame attempt at a fire. “Fat lot of good it’ll do us since I can’t get the stupid fire to take.”

  Teofil sat beside Thaddeus and leaned in to peer at the fire pit. Thin wisps of smoke curled up from the pile.

  “It does look a bit….”

  “Weak?” Astrid offered.

  “Manners, Astrid,” Miriam said without lifting her gaze from her knitting.

  Teofil stuck out his tongue at his sister, and she returned the gesture.

  “Is that a greeting?” Dulindir dropped an armload of sticks on the pile that was larger even than the one Teofil had deposited. His hair glowed where it fell halfway down his back, reflecting the light of the stars just starting to shine in the darkening sky.

  “Elves,” Teofil grumbled. “Always showing off.”

  “Dulindir,” Thaddeus said, “do you know how to start a fire?”

  The elf gave a single nod, then approached them and knelt on the other side of their stick pile. Thaddeus watched Dulindir wave his hands slowly back and forth over it, his long, thin fingers breaking through the delicate wisps of smoke. The insects humming around them stilled, and it seemed to Thaddeus that even the gentle breeze—a constant across the open plain they were crossing—had paused. Thaddeus leaned in closer, his eyes widening as he watched Dulindir’s actions. Teofil leaned in as well, his attention just as riveted.

  “There’s very littl
e heat,” Dulindir stated. “You need a true flame.”

  He reached into a small pouch he carried tied at his waist and produced a box from which he drew a matchstick. A quick strike on the side of the box produced a tiny flame, which he held to the sticks, and a moment later the kindling caught.

  Thaddeus sat back and narrowed his eyes. “Nice trick. I could have done that.”

  “Yet you did not,” Dulindir said. He stood up and stared out over the grasses that stood tall and still in the deepening twilight and looked toward the darker outline of the mountain.

  “Smart-aleck elf,” Thaddeus muttered.

  “You might as well get used to it,” Teofil said. “Seems like he’s with us for the long haul.”

  The tone of Teofil’s voice conveyed perfectly his annoyance with Dulindir. Thaddeus figured it had a little to do with the elf’s personality, and a whole lot more to do with feeling protective of his older sister.

  Thaddeus looked off toward the black outline of the mountain and pulled his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around his shins. His butt felt numb from sitting on the ground, and his feet ached from the distance they’d walked. Add to those pains the ache in his shoulders from having dug down a few feet into the hard dirt to create a fire pit, and Thaddeus truly missed his comfortable bed back home. He looked forward to the time they would all stretch out around the fire to get a few hours’ sleep before striking out at first light for, hopefully, the last day’s walk to the base of Wraith Mountain.

  The fire crackled, and tiny sparks and embers spiraled up toward the velvety purple sky that stretched overhead. More stars had appeared, and Thaddeus smiled. Teofil and Astrid had told him the story of Faux Flora, a fairy princess who had lived among the treetops. To fool the Plains Dwellers who wanted her to live with them instead, she built a replica of herself that was swept up into the night sky, where it now resided as a constellation Thaddeus knew as the Big Dipper. The story had been the nugget of the idea for the gliders that brought them all back to Miriam and his father from the abandoned town of Bower’s Grotto and the legendary Well of Tears, and just in time to save Nathan’s life.

  Something rustled in the grass a dozen or more feet away. Thaddeus got to his feet and Teofil stood alongside him.

  “Did you hear that?” Thaddeus whispered.

  “I did,” Teofil replied.

  “Where’s your father?” Miriam asked, and when Thaddeus looked around, he found her and Astrid standing and looking off into the darkness as well.

  A chill of fear went through him, leaving him as cold as if he’d swallowed water from the Wretched River. He was in motion before he realized it, sprinting out into the darkness that surrounded their small campfire. The grasses parted around him, the sounds of the tall blades like conspiratorial whispers.

  “Dad?” Thaddeus called. Nathan did not answer, and so he tried again, a little louder, squinting into the dark.

  A warm glow suddenly appeared, revealing Teofil standing a few feet behind him, shoulders and expression tense. Then Thaddeus realized that Dulindir had followed him as well, his hair glowing with starlight and illuminating the immediate area.

  “He was walking off in this direction the last I saw him,” Dulindir said and pointed.

  A shout that sounded like his father prompted Thaddeus to break into a run.

  “Dad!” Thaddeus shouted. “Where are you?”

  “Thaddeus, wait!” Teofil called, and Thaddeus could hear him coming up behind. But Thaddeus could not wait. His father had been gravely ill just days before, grazed by a troll’s poison dart, and Thaddeus worried that Nathan might not be strong enough to fight off another threat.

  In his panicked rush to find him, Thaddeus very nearly passed his father by. A rustling off to his left brought him to a stop, and then Dulindir stood beside him, illuminating the area. Nathan lay on his back, struggling with a small creature he was trying to pull off his chest.

  The creature was small and dark in color. It had short but powerful-looking limbs, each of which appeared to end in hands tipped with claws. Spikes ran from the crown of its slightly flattened head and along its spine to a stubby tail.

  “Dad!” Thaddeus exclaimed as Nathan struggled to keep the thing from biting his neck.

  “Stay back!” Nathan shouted without looking at him.

  “Goblin,” Dulindir said and looked over his shoulder as he pulled out his sword. “They are rarely alone.”

  Frustration, fear, and anger seemed to collide within Thaddeus as he stood helplessly by, watching his father fight for his life. He clenched his fists and bit his lip as a warm tingle started within his chest. It traveled down his arms and seemed to pool in the palms of his hands, stinging slightly as it instilled within him the need to act, to move, to do something, anything.

  Thaddeus thrust out his arms, fingers curled into claws as he released a shout of rage. The heat in his palms seemed to leap from his hands, directed right at the goblin. With a jolt the creature stopped struggling with Nathan and looked over its scaly shoulder to fix Thaddeus with a hostile look. It felt to Thaddeus as if he now held the goblin in his hands, even though he stood at least a dozen feet away. And the goblin seemed to be feeling Thaddeus’s touch as well, because it pulled out of Nathan’s grasp and turned to face him, still standing on his father and holding him in place.

  When the goblin moved, it seemed to move within Thaddeus’s grip, and the sensation was so startling, and the feel of the creature so disgusting, Thaddeus reacted without thinking. He flung his arms to the side as if throwing it far away from him. To his astonishment the goblin was hurled off his father’s chest and sent spinning high into the air, an annoyed and surprised yelp fading away into the night.

  The heat in Thaddeus’s palms cooled immediately, and he stood staring down at his hands. Dulindir, Teofil, and Nathan all stared at him as well, and then Nathan broke the stunned silence by falling flat on his back and laughing long and loud up at the night sky. After a moment, the rest of them followed suit. The laugh felt odd but refreshing to Thaddeus. He approached and reached down to help his father stand.

  Nathan clapped a hand on Thaddeus’s shoulder and squeezed. “Apparently either you or someone you care about needs to be in danger for you to conjure magic.”

  Thaddeus grinned and shrugged. “I guess so. Hopefully I can learn to do it without the danger.”

  “We’ll work on that,” Nathan promised him.

  “We should move back to the fire,” Dulindir said. He had his back to them and stood staring out at the grass, which was shifting quietly in the slight breeze. “Goblins rarely travel alone, especially this far from a mountain, and light hurts their eyes.”

  Thaddeus helped Nathan pick up the wood he had dropped when the goblin attacked him, and they made their way back to the fire. Once they explained what happened, Miriam and Astrid were as concerned as Dulindir about the appearance of a goblin.

  “What do goblins do?” Thaddeus asked.

  “They’re vermin,” Dulindir said with a sneer. He added a few branches to the fire as he moved his gaze all around them. “Scavengers. They eat what other, darker creatures leave behind.”

  Thaddeus made a face and looked at his father. “They’re like vultures?”

  Nathan nodded. “In a way. They’ve been known to attack people if they’re hungry enough or cornered and feel threatened.”

  “Great.” Thaddeus sighed as he pulled his knees in close to his chest and stared into the flames. “There are an awful lot of magical creatures out here that want to kill us. Isn’t there something nice and happy and welcoming?”

  “Fairies,” Teofil offered.

  “If they’re not lying and trying to trick you,” Astrid added.

  “Gnomes,” Miriam said with a smile as she worked on her knitting.

  “Elves,” Dulindir said. When Teofil snorted quietly, Dulindir added, “Well, most elves.”

  “Some elves?” Teofil suggested.

  “Enough,
boys,” Miriam said without looking up.

  “How did it feel?” Nathan asked from beside Thaddeus. “When you did magic. How did it feel to you?”

  Thaddeus grinned and placed a hand over his chest. “It started here with a warm feeling; then it traveled down my arms and into my hands. My palms itched, and I felt… I don’t know, restless? Like I just had to move my arms or else I would go crazy or something.”

  Nathan chuckled as he nodded. “You get used to that feeling, and you’ll learn to control it. It’s good that it started in your chest.”

  “Why’s that?” Thaddeus asked.

  “That means it comes from your heart, so it’s pure.”

  Thaddeus frowned. “Pure?”

  “Magic that stems from the heart, or from the desire to help people, is a pure form of magic,” Miriam explained, then looked at Nathan. “Sorry to jump in, but it’s how Rudyard and I explained it to the children.”

  “That’s a good explanation,” Nathan replied. “No worries.”

  Thaddeus looked between them. “But it seems like I can only manage to use magic when I’m angry or frustrated or scared. Does that mean anything?”

  Nathan shook his head. “As long as the desire is to help yourself or another, then it’s the purest form of magic.”

  “I’m almost afraid to ask, but what’s the opposite of pure magic?” Thaddeus wondered.

  “Dark magic,” Dulindir said. “That kind of magic comes from selfishness and greed. It is petty and jealous and spiteful.”

  Thaddeus nodded and stared into the crackling fire as he thought about what he’d just heard. Finally, keeping his gaze on the fire, he asked, “But what if the person really, truly believes the spell he’s casting is for the good of the situation? What if they believe deep in their heart and soul that what they’re doing is for the good of everyone involved?”

  Silence followed his question, and it went on so long Thaddeus finally looked up to find his father staring into the fire with tears in his eyes.

  “Dad?”

  “Those people are the most lost,” Miriam said, her voice sad and so quiet Thaddeus had trouble hearing the words over the sound of the fire. “And the most dangerous.”