Little Orphan Anvil: The Complete Trilogy by Joseph Beekman (good beach reads .txt) 📗

morning, Tabitha was up andmoving about on the raft; she was helping Will as hefixed Anvil’s broken metal limbs. The sunlight hadarrived offering only a mist-haunted glow to their icycold surroundings. Everyone had wrapped themselvesup tightly with layers of blankets around their hoodedcloaks, shivering like mad from the bone-chilling air.

“Jeez! Why does it have to be so cold?” Tabitharemarked, cupping her hands over her mouth to warmthem. “Burr!”

Will hammered a small piece of iron back intoone of Anvil’s broken limbs; the robot sputtered andbleeped.

“I know, ol’ fella; just hang in there,” Will said,squinting through his old pair of round-rimmed glasses.“I’m almost done fixin’ you up!”

He paused, looking around at the massive, frozenwaterfalls on either side of them. “Yep—with it beingthis cold, it only means that those volcano clouds aregrowing thicker; coverin’ up some of the sunlight andmaking it colder than normal around these parts.”

“Well I just hope we get moving faster!” Tabithasaid. “Isn’t there some sort of shortcut to the narrowsthat we can take?”

Just as Will was about to speak, Aleeria floatedover to the raft. She was returning from where she hadbeen upriver.

“I think I found us a way to the narrows thatshould lead us there much, much faster,” she whisperedin her ghostly voice.

Will and Tabitha looked at each other with agleam of hope in their eyes and a slight smile on theirfaces.

“Well, sorceres—pray tell!” Will said hurriedly.“The sooner, the better!”

Tinspar, who was at the rear of the raft tying a bitof the tarp back down that the chilly gusts of wind keptlifting up, overheard Aleeria and moved over to thefront of the raft where they all were.

Aleeria looked at each of them; then she spokedirectly to Will:

“I was scouting up ahead when I came upon anancient iron grate of some sort; it may be from somelong forgotten age. I peered into it and saw it to be anoffshoot from this great rivera wide, but very dark,river passage that may possibly lead to the one riverthat would take us into the canyon narrows.”

Will scratched his head in thought. “Well I saywe make haste and take it!”

“Yes, we must!” Tinspar echoed, his bug-eyesflashing a bright green. “We have been gone far toolong now; we have stretched our chances quite thin, Ihave to say!”

Tabitha nodded her head in agreement, her eyesglistening with tears. “I have to see my mom and dadagain,” she whispered, her voice quivering. “Aleeria,”—she peered into the sorceress’s eyes—“show us thispassage…please.”

Aleeria smiled at Tabitha. “Of course, dearchild—I shall.”

~ CHAPTER XIII

~ FORGING FORWARD

By the time they had reached the grate and itsdark passageway that Aleeria had found earlier, a lightning storm had lit up the evening sky above them.

Will and Tinspar had banked the raft at the edgeof the rusted, and very old, iron grate that had beenhammered into the canyon wall, possibly hundreds ofmoons ago. A mammoth-sized, frozen waterfall overshadowed the motley group, where they had sparked upa quick fire and cooked up some dried fish and berrystew. They had eaten all they could for the daringtravel through the unknown river’s offshoot. Every sooften lightning would flash in the southern regions ofthe sky, illuminating the shadowed outlines of thevolcanic clouds. Will and the others were then able tosee how the spell-swollen clouds had grown in strengthand mass, and how they were inching closer across thelands.

Anvil, with his metallic limbs, had helped pull,and then remove, a few of the iron bars that held theancient grate in place. They then took the raft and set itback upon the river current. With the robot’s eye-lights,as well as two iron lanterns posted on the raft, they hadembarked through the darkness of the canyon wall andthe river passage.

An eerie silence had engulfed the river passagefor what seemed like many days, and the air was chilledand had a strange odor to it; they had to cover theirnoses and mouths from the foul smell. The passageitself was very long and very spooky. The light fromthe lanterns gave off a rusty-orange glow, and hadrevealed a very low, crystallized, rock ceiling.



At one point in their travel through the passageway, as Tinspar was pushing the raft further along thegentle moving current, a mob of oil slicks had appearedout of nowhere.

The oil slicks, which had been feasting on someodd looking, centipede-like bugs, had been surprised bythe abrupt appearance of the raft and its travelers—tiny,greenish eyes had blinked about everywhere off to oneside of the river as the floating party approached.

Letting out high-pitched noises, the oil slicks hadplunged into the frigid water, heading straight towardsthe raft.

Tabitha had shrieked in fear, and Stella hadcowered back—hissing madly towards the dark, oilycreatures. The sorceress, having swooped over thewater, had cast a much needed bluish glow over theoily-moving creatures, shedding a dark-light upon thefast-moving predators.

Will had quickly flipped a switch on Anvil’sdome-top: the little robot immediately had lowered ametal limb into the water, causing an electric surgearound the oil slicks. And within seconds of Willhaving then tossed an iron lantern into the river, thewater over the oil slicks had ignited into flames.

Anvil had, unfortunately, fried some of his innercircuits, and he had collapsed upon the raft bleepingwildly.

When it had ended, Tinspar had raised his voiceloudly in high praise of Will’s heroic actions—he sangout a finely, self-crafted song. He had then moved theraft faster, pushing with great might on the raft’s pole.The raft and the party had soon escaped out of the harmof the fire and any other straggling oil slicks.



Finally having made it to the end of the river’soffshoot, all aboard were utterly spent from the darkand cold, suffocating passage. Leaving behind the fearand the ill-odor that had accompanied them within thetightly-narrowed passageway had been a sweet relief.But Anvil was in need of a reboot: his iron body wasfrazzled from the electric burst he had ignited into theoil slick area.

However, they had to first leave the raft behind:the river passage, having coursed its way out of thedarkness of the passage, had ended when it reached theedge of the stone-walled canyon—it now flowed in adownward spiral through the