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

Tinspar quickly twisted his head around to thefront of the raft. The giant centipede was descending ata high rate of speed!

“Quick!” Tinspar shouted towards Will. “Grabhold of one of the wooden planks! We are going down,and fast!”

Tabitha and the boys could be heard screamingand shouting, bundled beneath the tarp. They weresliding forward, colliding into Tinspar and Will.

Tinspar quickly unsheathed his iron-bladed polefrom off his back, flinging it forward. It hooked into ahole in the wooden planks. Holding on for dear life, hewatched as Will slid past him towards the front of theraft.

The centipede’s howls were echoing all aroundthem.

“Will!” Tinspar hollored. “Reach out and grabmy legs!”

Will was scrambling, clawing for anything thathis hands would connect with, when suddenly he wasplucked off the raft and lifted into the air.

Anvil! Will thought excitedly, hearing the robot’swhistling, and feeling metallic claws dig into hisshoulder blades.

Anvil was keeping him airborne a few feet abovethe descent of the raft. Will’s heart raced with fear ashe watched the enormous centipede going over amassive wall of ice. The river’s passage had somehowturned into some kind of frozen waterfall, and noweveryone was going down with it!

All three teens were tucked into the bottom of thetarp, which was now hanging down the entire length ofthe raft like a big water balloon—they were screamingout in terror.

Tinspar, who continued to hang on to the raftwith the bladed pole, rotated one of his bulbous eyesover his shoulder; he was relieved to see Will and Anvilhovering in the air a few feet from the raft.

“Hold on tight, Tinspar!” Will shouted to him.“From the looks of it, it’s going to be a long waysdown!”

Tinspar nodded and squeezed his eyes shut as thecentipede continued to plunge; it was vanishing into theunknown depths of a mysterious darkness.

~ CHAPTER IX

~

IRON WOODLANDS of the UNDEAD

The apparition floated downwards like a featherfalling from the dismal and foggy sky. Her bluish formpulsated brightly as her dark red hair swirled about,glimmering through the icy haze.

Aleeria? Tabitha thought, rubbing at her eyes asshe stared at the ghost slowly descending to where shewas lying. She started to raise herself up, but stopped;realizing that the surface underneath her felt rather odd.

Oh no, not another web! she thought fearfully.She strained her eyes to see what was underneathher. From what she could tell from the shaded light ofher surroundings, she was lying upon some kind ofmoist and pulpy surface.

That sure is strange, she thought.

And then she froze. It’s the centipede creature!suddenly remembering that she and the others had takena great fall. That centipede must have saved me fromthe fall!

Looking around, she saw that there were towering, leafless trees that rose out of the snow-coveredground like giant iron spikes. She looked back up andsaw Aleeria drifting a few feet above her. The sorceresswas smiling, her eyes sparkling.

“Aleeria!” Tabitha said as she jumped to her feet,wishing she could give the spirit sorceress a big, warmhug.

“I’m so happy to see that you’re okay, my dear!”Aleeria said. “I must say, you all took quite the longtumble!”

Tabitha looked about, searching for the others.“Where are the others?” she said anxiously. “Where isJonathon and Haley?”

Aleeria motioned Tabitha’s gaze down the lengthof the centipede’s body, towards the pitch-dark wherethe end of its tail would be.

“Follow me, honey; the others are safe. You’reall very lucky after a fall that steep!”

Stepping along the creature’s body, Tabitha feltas if she were walking on big, puffy clouds that hadbeen filled with syrup: her feet felt slightly heavy, yetthey had a bit of a bounce every time she took a step.

“Where are we, Aleeria?” Tabitha whispered.“And this creature—is it still alive?”

“I’ll explain everything to you, once we reach theothers,” Aleeria replied, floating alongside Tabitha.

“As for this gentle creature, it is very much alive.It has passed on to its own ancient realm, far beyondthis one.”

“Wow,” Tabitha said with wonder. “It saved ourlives then?”

“Well…yes,” Aleeria said hesitantly, thinkingabout the question in regards to her own belief of lifeand death. “I guess you could say that…”

“What a miracle!” Tabitha responded.

“This lovely creature served a great purpose forus all, Tabitha.” Aleeria paused, gazing into Tabitha’seyes. “But we must hurry! We have to get ourselvesready for the rest of our journey, and I’ve much to tell!”

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When Aleeria and Tabitha had reached the end ofthe centipede’s body, everyone rejoiced at seeing eachother together, and in one piece!

Will had been truly overwhelmed with joy thathis robot had saved him from a certain death; whileTinspar had been relieved that his tree-like legs had notsnapped apart from such a far fall! Although most ofthe crates had either been lost or smashed, the one withthe spider’s body had remained secure.

As they sat around a fire shivering from the bittercold and eating what little they had left, Aleeria haddescribed what she had seen from her viewpoint in thesky before they had fallen.

It seemed that the river they had been travelingupon for almost two weeks had, at some point in itsdistant past, driven itself deep into the very heart of theglacier that they had been searching for. As thesorceress explained: they had actually been floatingthrough the glacier itself on the last half of their travel!

This explained the mystery as to why they hadcontinued on the river without the glacier having everappeared—they had been within it!

And so when the glacier had ended, the river thatcut through it had ended, too.It had become a steepdrop-off that took the party far over the frozen glacier,and into a vast woodland of ice and snow.

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Before they resumed their journey, Aleeria hadoffered a solemn prayer to the centipede creature. Thenwith their strength renewed and their sparse belongingsassembled—including the dead spider that Tinspar hadwillingly offered to carry in a burlap sack, slung overhis back—they headed out for the Land of Darkness.

Aleeria had cautioned them that the darkest partsof the wilds they would now be traveling through werethe coldest and most mysterious parts of the realm.

“We are now in