Creation Mage 6 by Dante King (red scrolls of magic .TXT) 📗

Aunt Ruth laughed. “I’m glad that we’re able to entertain you.”

“Yeah, there’s an element of entertainment, I guess,” I said, “but I’ll admit, I’m out to be the one that gets to carve that Yuletide Log.”

Aunt Ruth leaned forward. “Do you have a competitive nature?”

“I guess that all War Mages probably do, don’t they?”

“A fair point,” the older woman said, pushing a stray curl out of her face with one finger and tucking it behind her ear. “You strike me as a distinctly hot-blooded man, though.”

I shrugged and smiled. Took another bite from the chunk of delicious wholemeal bread I was holding and a swig from the port bottle. I handed the tasty, sweet wine back to Aunt Ruth.

“I have been known to get a bit carried away in the heat of combat,” I said to her after I had swallowed.

The older woman leaned further in. She placed a hand on my thigh, perhaps a little higher up my leg than might be considered acceptable in polite company.

“Just in the heat of combat?” she asked in a slightly husky voice.

I looked up, a little startled. “There are other times too,” I said, careful to keep my tone neutral. I cast an eye at Great Granddaddy Gorlbadock, who was sitting on a tree stump ten yards away and discussing something with Mort, Idman, and Barry.

“I bet there are,” Aunt Ruth said, a smirk playing across her lips. “I know exactly what you’re talking about, young man.”

She got to her feet and took a deep breath. Even through the shapelessness of the orange robe, I could detect the outlines of those great, full breasts of hers.

“Perhaps,” she said, “one day soon, we might get a chance to sit quietly together and compare notes.”

I didn’t have the chance to say anything smart. By the time I realized I’d just been propositioned, the sexy older aunt had sashayed away.

I puffed out my cheeks and got to my feet as Great Granddaddy Gorlbadock called the party to order once more.

What a holiday this was turning out to be.

Our next port of call on our hunting trip was a glade which was open to the sky. Within this wide, open scar in the forest were a smattering of mighty oaks.

“Right,” Great Granddaddy Gorlbadock instructed us, “this, as my kin well know, is somewhat of a hotspot for those pestilential gnomes. All of you spread out around this clearing. When you’re all set, I’ll let sound the horn and you can get to blasting!”

Full of vim and port, those of us who were shooting—everyone bar Barry and Great Granddaddy Gorlbadock—spread ourselves around the area as directed.

Our venerable, white-haired host, whose on-again-off-again geniality kept everybody on high alert, blew on the Hoodwinking Horn.

The Eggnog Gnomes descended in a swarming flurry the likes of which we had not yet seen. The grapefruit-sized humanoids zipped to and fro, nattering excitedly to one another in their awful language. Thundercuss shots ripped through the still forest air once more, sending birds cawing indignantly skyward. Gnomes fell, limp and out cold, to the deck. We all had our eyes in now. Had all become quick and adept at reloading the thundercusses from our powder sacks.

I spun in a crouch, drawing a bead on an athletic gnome that shot through the glade like a miniature F-15 Eagle. I pulled the trigger a millisecond ahead of the flying figure so that my shot caught it square on and the gnome tumbled from the air. I was reloading fresh powder into my weapon before the downed Eggnog Gnome had even hit the ground, then it was up on my shoulder once more as I tracked a new target. The next gnome swept in closer to me. When I nailed it, it was propelled through a tangle of branches that cracked and splintered. The gnome came to a halt, dangling upside down and snoring in one of the bare oak trees.

It was beautiful mayhem. The booming echo of the thundercusses, the purple smoke misting the area, and the whoops and yells of my friends as they blasted away at the plethora of targets. I was having a whale of a time, right up until the point that Igor shot me.

In the heat of the hunt, I was tracking a speedy little gnome that was more aware than the rest of the scatterbrained creatures. I got the impression that this Eggnog Gnome was taunting me; zooming from tree to tree just fast enough to thwart me from getting a clean shot.

“I’ve got you now, you little shit,” I muttered to myself, following the gnome around one of the oaks, my thundercuss pressed to my shoulder.

The Eggnog Gnome paused, peering down at me and jabbering from where it had come to rest on the trunk of a pine. My finger tightened on the trigger.

Another gnome chose that moment to drop down from a tree on my right. It opened its little wings with a soft snap and whizzed around behind me. Igor bumbled around another oak and caught sight of the diving gnome. He fired from the hip before he realized I was standing in his line of fire.

His shot of blasting powder hit me dead in the ass and blew me forward off my feet a second after I had squeezed the trigger of my own weapon and plugged the gnome I had been chasing.

I ended up face down in the dirt and leaves, the seat of my pants feeling like it had just been set on fire. The disbelief that Igor had fucking shot me dissipated in about the same time as the pain took to set in.

“Son of a bitch!” I hissed through gritted teeth.

A halt was soon called to the shooting, and