Skye is the Limit by Phenomenal Pen (best ebook reader ubuntu .TXT) 📖

Thwack! came the sound of the axe slicing the air and burying its blade into the wood. 

****

“Run, Blacksmith! Run!”

Blacksmith opened his eyes at the sound of Fairy’s tiny voice. She was flying circles around the executioner.

Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion because of the adrenalin surging in his body. He looked down his arm stretched out on the tree stump to make sure it was still whole and, to his horror, he found that it was already gone! In fact, he could feel neither of his arms!

What is going on?

He did the only thing left to do. He flopped about like the double arm amputee he was and smashed against the knight on his right. Through the reflective surface of the goblin’s armor, Blacksmith glimpsed that he had transformed into his familiar animal: a real live bottlenose dolphin right there in the middle of the forest. He wriggled as the other knight on his left tried clumsily to lock his slippery body in a bear hug.

<What are you waiting for?> the chancellor screamed. <Blow the horn!>

The mounted knights advanced slowly towards them, lowering their lances almost simultaneously. The grooms and the foot slaves cowered farther away at the sound of the chancellor’s scream and the scuffle, except for one groom who took out a sounding horn that was similar to what the dragon-riding Orc had used. He blew on it and produced the same long and bellowing sound.

From the forest canopy above, a deafening roar was heard, followed by a crash.

The Dreamwalkers and everyone else looked up to see their old enemy, the ice-breathing dragon, thrust its head through, breaking braches and raining down leaves. Fairy also looked up in fear. Big mistake. The executioner whom she had been distracting finally found an opening and swatted her with the back of one massive Orc hand.     

“FAIRRRYYYY!!!!!” Warrior, who was still being held down, let out a bearish roar that was heard in the entire forest.

Freakishly, Blacksmith bent his dolphin head 90 degrees to the side. He saw Fairy hurtling away like a baseball. He could only imagine the pain the delicate creature was in. 

The dragon locked in on its vexing tiny prey. It puffed and then expelled its breath like sputum. Bullseye! The discharge hit Fairy even as she fell, encasing her in a spiky chunk of ice. She landed on the grass with a thud.     

Blacksmith followed her descent with horrified dolphin eyes and the dolphin equivalent of a distress signal: very high-pitched whistles. He was privy to a vast repertoire of ways to communicate underwater at countless frequencies, but not in the air like this where he was feeling utterly exposed. He wasn’t about to get dehydrated anytime soon but he could literally feel his skin getting drier and drier every second.

As soon as this last panicked thought entered his brain, his body shifted back to its human form with one significant difference: his Anima bracelet now stretched from his forearm and into his hand, transforming from a decorative dolphin to a sword made of light. When he finally looked down at his hand because of a soft electric hum, he was dazzled by the brightness of the sword.

The weapon still retained the wire sculpture appearance and golden color of the Anima, but this time the wires were thicker, neater, and more evenly spaced. They elaborated the underlying design structure of a digital wire-frame model. Blacksmith swung the golden light sword to the lone knight that had been restraining him.

Surprisingly, the sword had a physical effect and cleaved the knight’s hand – gauntlet, skin, bones and all – with laser-sharpness. The sword cut right through and the hand fell to the ground like some highly realistic, yellow-blood-squirting prosthesis. A thin, raspy shriek emitted from the knight’s visor as he fell to his knees, holding the stump that used to be his arm.

“Use your Anima, guys!” Blacksmith screamed. “It can turn into a sword!”

<What are you talking about?> Ranger communicated back with panic in his voice. He and Elf were standing back to back because a couple of mounted knights had joined Sir Delamere in encircling them. <Tell us exactly how you did it!>

“Just think about it hard! Concentrate!”

Using his walking staff, Mage knocked down the knights that had been manhandling him and Warrior. A group of reinforcements rushed the two but they were blown away by something that looked like a ball of energy.

“Eu sou brasileiro, com muito orgulho, com muito amor!” Warrior was chanting happily.

His Anima bracelet dripped cricket ball-sized drops of golden energy that would coalesce in front of him. Warrior sent the resulting wireframe soccer ball hurtling with a mighty kick, and a new one was ready in the spot where the previous one had been.

“What are you singing?” Blacksmith asked as he swung his light sword in wide arcs hoping to frighten away his new attackers. All he managed to do was keep them at bay.

“Not sure,” Warrior replied with a shrug. “But it’s very catchy.”