Jake & The Gingerbread Wars (A Gryphon Chronicles Christmas Novella) (The Gryphon Chronicles) (9 page)

Jake shut his eyes as he took a face full of
the thick snow coating the branches, then he was falling, sharp needles scratching at his cheeks…

C
haos and darkness, blindly falling, slipping, scrabbling to catch himself; the sound of cracking wood all around him, groaning branches, sticky sap, piney smell. A pair of snowy owls flew out of the branches with scandalized squawks, and the yeti roared below.

At last, Jake stopped falling. He opened his eyes and found himself still stuck in the tree, high above the grou
nd. But at least he was out of the monster’s reach for the moment.

He shook his head to clear it and tried to get his bearings, still holding on
to the harness strap for dear life.

Fortunately, there was a sturdy branch just beneath his feet, so he was able to step down and brace himself on it, though his legs were shaking. “Red?” he called anxiously.

The Gryphon dangled by his harness a yard or so above him, like some sort of giant Christmas tree ornament. “Becaw!”

Jake glanced down, wondering if yetis could climb trees. Probably so, he thought,
ape-like as they were. But the yeti on the ground was not the only source of danger.

Peril
came from above them, as well. The wreckage of the sleigh was precariously lodged in the branches over his head.

That thing’s com
ing down,
Jake thought, realizing they had to get away from that spot. More importantly, Red was still attached to the ruined sleigh. He had to cut him free.

They didn’t have much time.
But he’d left his knife below.

Findi
ng a secure foothold in the massive pine tree’s branches, Jake let go of the harness strap and climbed out of the sleigh’s path, then reached out his hand. “Risker, come to me!”

From
far below, a glint of silver on the snow was his runic dagger rising from the ground in answer to his call.

Jake’s
heart pounded as it floated slowly toward him.

It was cer
tainly taking its time.

“Hurry up, you stupid knife!” he yelled as the yeti started shaking the tree. “Hold on, Red!”

The brute seemed to think it would be easier to shake them down rather than bothering to climb up after them.

The yeti proceeded to
rock the massive pine tree at its base, trying to knock them off the branches like a couple of large, juicy pieces of fruit that it intended to eat as soon as they hit the ground.

As their furry tormentor put his shoulder into the task, the smell of wet, stinky yeti rose through the branches and filled Jake’s nostrils.

The tree shook like it was caught in the gales of a hurricane.

Red swung back and forth
from the harness strap, until he finally bared his lion claws and sank them deep into the wood of the branches around him, anchoring himself.

Meanwhile, the broken sleigh
above them started inching out of its position.

“R
isker, quickly!” Jake pleaded. As the tree swayed, the magic knife wound its way through the dense pine boughs.

Jake let go of his death grip on the trunk,
reaching out to grasp the dagger’s hilt.
There!
Now he had it last. “Hold on, Red, I’m coming!”

Putting the knife bet
ween his teeth, pirate-like, he climbed up the violently swaying tree, desperate to reach the Gryphon and cut him loose before the sleigh fell back down to earth and took Red with it. This time, the Gryphon might not survive.

At last, Jake
crawled into position near Red’s side. Ignoring sharp needles poking him everywhere, he hooked his knee around one branch and braced himself with the other leg, as well. He had no choice but to let go with his hands in order to complete the task.

The
n there came a rasping sound above him as the sleigh started to slide out of the shaking tree’s branches. Jake gasped.

Pulse pounding, h
e grasped the harness strap in his left hand, took his knife in his right, and severed the strap at last with an awkward chop just as the sleigh plunged out of the branches overhead with a groan of creaking wood.

H
e ducked, cursing under his breath as the sleigh ripped past them, plummeting toward the ground.

The yeti stepped back
to see what sort of progress he was making. Jake saw the beast’s red eyes widen as the sleigh came crashing down on top of him.

It knocked the yeti flat on his back—and impaled him on the sleigh’s broken run
ner.

Jake grimaced as the yeti’s final, ferocious roar was cut short.

Then, silence.

What a relief.

C
hest heaving, Jake looked over at the Gryphon.

“Becaw?” Red asked weakly.

“It’s all right, boy,” he panted in exhaustion. “He’s dead.”

No more yeti.

CHAPTER TEN

Stranded

T
he others came running while Jake climbed down the massive tree.

“Are you all right
up there?” Dani yelled.

“More or less
. Not sure about Red, though.” He jumped off a lower branch onto the ground, his legs still a bit shaky after that ordeal.

Dani steadied him, then they both looked up in concern and watched the bruised and battered Gryphon circle down to join them with a few weary flaps of his scarlet wings.

When Red landed on the snow, Jake was finally able to inspect him. “How are you, boy? Anything broken?”

“Becaw.” Red shook his head.

Jake gave him a pat. “Well, at least I got to rescue you for once, instead of the other way around, eh?”

Red nuzzled him like an oversized housecat to show his ap
preciation, nearly knocking him over. Jake chuckled.

Meanwhile, Archie and Isabelle were staring at the dead yeti with their mouths hanging open.

“Hideous!” the boy genius finally exclaimed.

The creature’s face was frozen in a snarl, fangs b
ared. Jake winced at the sight of the stake driven through the dead yeti where the sleigh had landed on him.

But
Dani marched over and give the lifeless monster a vengeful kick in the side. “Serves you right! Why don’t you pick on someone your own size next time?”

Archie raised his eyebrow
s at her, then pointed at the other unmoving yeti, still pinned under the fallen tree. “I’m not sure if that one’s dead or unconscious, but either way, I don’t think we should spend any more time here than absolutely necessary. There could be more of these abominables waiting in the woods for us.”

“Agreed,” Jake said. “We should be on our way.”

“But how? What are we going to do?” Dani gestured at their smashed vehicle. “The sleigh’s ruined. Red can’t carry us all, especially in his condition.”

The Gryphon took a couple of limping steps. “Caw!” he offered, as if to say,
I’ll try.

“No, Red, you can’t. Look at you, poor thing! You
were so brave.” Dani hugged their feathered friend.

“Why don’t you go take a rest under those trees where we were hiding, Red?” Isabelle suggested. “The low branches make it nice and sheltered from the wind. Lie down for a few minutes while we work out what we’re going to do next.”

“Good idea,” Jake agreed, nodding. “We’ll let you know as soon as we’re ready to go.”

The noble
beast hesitated.

“Ah, go on, boy,” Jake insisted. “We’ll be fine here. That yeti could’ve killed you. You need to rest up and save your strength.
There’s no telling what we might have to face next.”

“Caw.” Red seemed to see the
wisdom of this warning and accepted their suggestion. He flew off toward the stand of trees the others had left a few moments ago and crawled into their abandoned hiding place.

“All right, so what are we going to do?” Isabelle asked, propping her hands on her waist.

“Excellent question, sis. Hate to be a killjoy,” Archie said, “but if we don’t get to some sort of real shelter soon, we’ll probably die of hypothermia within, oh, three hours at best, by my estimation.”

“Three hours to live?” Dani cried.

“If it’s any consolation, it’s not a bad way to go,” Archie said apologetically. “You’ll get very cold and very tired, and then you just…fall asleep.”

“Oh, t
hat makes me feel so much better!” Dani said. “The yetis might as well have killed us, then! We’re already doomed.”

“No, we’re not. Don’t say that,” Jake ordered.

“But it’s true, isn’t it?” Anger and fear gleamed in her green eyes. “Archie knows about such things. And look at us! We’re stranded in the middle of nowhere. The sleigh’s in splinters. We have no idea where we are and we’re already half frozen.”

All of that was true, and Jake already felt horrible about
dragging them into this. Guilt, however, was not a helpful emotion when one had to rack one’s brain for solutions.

Raking his hair out of his eyes, he turned away and strove to focus on the problem right in front of them. “Look,” he said sternly after a moment. “Our only hope now is to catch that stupid elf again. He’s the only one who knows his way around this snowy waste
land. At this point, I’m happy to forget about taking him back to Santa’s for the reward, if he’ll just show us how to get to the North Pole.”

And let’s hope Santa’s compound isn’t
more than three hours away,
he thought, though he did not say that part aloud. Everyone was already scared enough.

“Well, at least he won’t be hard to follow.” Archie pointed across the snowfield.

Jake and the girls looked, then they all smiled ruefully. At last, one thing had come out in their favor. The fleeing elf had left an obvious trail behind him—not footsteps in the snow, but something just as easy to follow. Humbug’s escape tunnel had bumped up the snow above it, like when a mole digs under a nice, green stretch of summer lawn.

As a result, his escape route was plain.

Of course, there was no telling how far ahead of them the little miscreant had already traveled. Fast as he was, Humbug might be a mile or more ahead by now.

But at least this gave them a chance of finding him.

“Right!” Archie declared in as cheerful a tone as he could muster under the circumstances. He clapped his gloved hands together and rubbed them back and forth to keep them warm. “Well, then, let’s get on with it.”

Isabelle sighed and shook her head. None of them were eage
r for this trek. “It’ll be slow going in this deep snow.”

“Too bad we don’t have
any snowshoes,” Dani said.

“Hey, maybe I can make some,
” Archie said all of a sudden. “Quick, help me find my tool-bag. It was in the sleigh.”

“You brought your tool-
bag?” Dani asked.

“Don’t you know by now he doesn’t leave the house without i
t?” Jake jested, then he clapped his cousin on the back. “Good man! You always come through, Arch.”

“Always be prepare
d,” he answered with a modest grin.

Then they
all started searched through the wreckage of the sleigh strewn about the area, until, at last, shivering, teeth chattering, they found Archie’s tool-bag sinking in the snow.

The ever-resourceful boy genius got to work immediately fashioning snowshoes for them. He bent thin, flex
ible pine boughs into a tennis-racket shape, then strung them with long, tough hairs off the dead yeti.

Their luck further improved when Jake discovered a box of matches in the bottom of
Archie’s tool-bag. The sleigh was unusable for transportation, but they could always burn it for firewood.

Jake started tearing it apart and piling up the wood.

“Do you want some light?” Dani suddenly asked Archie. He was squinting to thread the snowshoes by nothing but moonlight. “We could get the carriage lanterns burning.”

“A fine idea, Miss O’Dell,
” Jake interjected, tossing aside an armload of broken carriage planks. “They should still have oil in them. C’mon, carrot. Give me a hand.”

While Archie hurried to finish his makeshift snowshoes, Isabelle trudged off
to check on Red. Jake and Dani salvaged the carriage lanterns off the ruined sleigh. They lit one with a match and cheered as the feeble circle of light spread around them and began to glow, warding off the darkness of the arctic night. They agreed to save the second lamp for later, knowing the first would eventually run out of oil.

Perhaps we’ll all be dead by then,
Jake mused. Then he scolded himself for allowing such thoughts. Despair was an emotion unbefitting a future Lightrider.

Before long, they all had on their snowshoes and were ready to go. Jake gave th
e lantern to Isabelle and made torches for everyone else, lighting pieces of wood from the broken sleigh. Red seemed a bit better after a short rest. Now all that remained was to follow Humbug’s tunnel trail until they caught up with the elf.

“Before we set out, uh, there’s just one quick thing
I wanted to say,” Jake said.

They were standing around in a circle, making their final checks
. Everyone glanced at him. The flickering torchlight revealed the uncertainty on all their faces, but so far, their courage held.

“What is it, Jake?” Isabelle prompted, although as an empath, no doubt
, she already knew what he was feeling.

He looked around at them with a
guilty pang, then lowered his head. “I’m just…really sorry I got you into this. I just wanted to have, you know, a Christmassy adventure. I never intended for anything like this to happen. I didn’t even know yetis exist!” He shook his head in awkward frustration. “I-I just wanted to say that I’ll do all in my power to make sure we get back safe. And, er, alive.”

They gazed fondly at him, then laughed a bit and shook their heads, glancing around at one another.

“What?” he asked, a trifle defensively.

“No worries, old chap.” Now it was Archie’s turn to give him a jovial slap on the back. “I think I spe
ak for all of us when I say we expected nothing less.”

The girls nodded, chuckling as they walked away.

“We all know you love nearly getting us killed,” Dani shot back over her shoulder, laughing.

Jake scowled after them, then followed.

#

Humbug’s little tunnel seemed to stretch out ahead of them forever into the vast, white, arctic
unknown.

Jake began to wonder if Archie’s estimate of three hours before hypothermia set in had been overly optimistic.

They encouraged each other for as long as they could, but eventually, even words took too much effort as their faces went numb. The cold was as cruel and ruthless as a Dark Druid’s obsidian blade. The snow kept coming, and as it blew in the wind, it threatened to hide the bump of Humbug’s tunnel leading them on.

They gave up trying to hurry, as every step took more effort. It was awkward enough to walk in the makeshift snowshoes. Jake didn’t care to wonder how much slower their progress would have been without them.

They kept their heads down, each silently praying for a miracle, while the frigid gusts snuffed out their torches one by one, until only the lantern burned.

Strangely enough, the weaker they got, the stron
ger Red seemed to become—though perhaps it was nothing more than fear that renewed his energy.

He was worried about the children, seeing them inch across the snow without talking at all, shuffling like half-frozen sleepwalkers. Their hair was coated in ice; snow caked their coats and clung to their eyebrows. Tiny ice crystals formed on their lashes, and he feared that at any moment now, Dani O’Dell in particular, the littlest of them, was going to fall down into the snow, unconscious.

How much farther?

They didn’t have much time. The blowing winds sculpted the snow in shifting dunes. If it covered Humbug’s tunnel, disguising the bump in the snow, then soon, they’d have nothing left to follow
. They’d be well and truly lost.

Thinking ahead (for he was an unusually clever beast), the Gryphon gave a low caw to l
et his charges know he was flying aloft. To be honest, his wings were going numb. He did not know how much longer they would work in this cold.

He flapped up into the sky to see where the path led, how much farther the elf’s tunnel went. The wind tossed him about, but he fought to stay on course, circling to see if he could spy any possible shelter for his children. If he had to, he would put them on his back on
e by one and fly them to safety—if any safe place could be found.

But then, he saw it in the distance—a light! A structure of some kind. Santa’s compound? He couldn’t be sure, but the elf’s tunnel le
d straight to it.

With a loud, eager caw, Red
flew back down and nudged Isabelle awake from where she had paused, just standing there with her eyes closed.
Wake up!

“Becaw!”

“Huh?” She blinked herself back to awareness. “Oh…I must have drifted off. That’s not good…” Then she noticed the others had done the same.

Jake was on his feet, though motionless, his eyes closed,
in much the same state as she had been a moment ago. But, glancing around, she gasped in dread to find Dani and her little brother curled up on the ground, sleeping. Already the snow was blowing over them, starting to cover them forever. She rushed to get them on their feet. “Wake up! Jake, help me!”

She reached out and shook him by his shoulder
, then pointed at the younger pair when he turned around with a groggy look of question.

He, too, gasped with horror when he saw them and instantly dropped to his knees to
help her wake them up. “Hey!”