The Heart of the Phoenix Read Free Page B

barked. “I’d rather not lose what’s left of my mind today.”
    Erasmus closed his eyes and wrestled the dark goggles back over them, tightened the strap that held them in place, then faced Ronan again with his wide, manic grin.
    Ronan stood nearly ten feet tall with a muscular humanoid frame covered in sleek red fur. He wore a loose and tattered poncho and loose fitting short pants, the garb of a desert dweller, though his home was far west of the heat-blasted desert sand-scape where they stood. His vulpine features were partly obscured by the hood of a sand-crusted cloak, but his snout was open in the familiar foxy grin, and his yellow eyes seemed to glow in the darkness under his hood.
    Erasmus fought the urge to rush his old friend and embrace him, remembering that he was still annoyed with the medaling old fox, but couldn’t quite kill the grin on his face.
    “What are you doing out here?”
    “I’ve been close,” Ronan confessed. “And a little birdie told me you were in some distress.”
    The miniature Plumed King darted out from beneath Ronan’s hood and perched on the tip of his snout, glaring down at the monk.
    “You’re welcome,” it snapped, then flew back inside the upended top hat resting in the rubble of the disintegrated north wall.
    Erasmus grimaced down at the Cardinal’s prone form and gave it an irritable kick. “I’m running out of places to hide, old friend.”
    “You know what the solution is, old friend .” Ronan looked at the doorknob in Erasmus’s hand, then the horizontal door currently serving as a table. There was a hole in the wood near the locking tongue, but no knob.
    “I was desperate… it’s not an idea I embrace.” The monk regarded the scattered unconscious bodies lying around them, then the tattooed man standing docilely behind him, wand in hand and waiting for orders. “Why don’t you be a good fellow and run along. Make sure no one bothers us.”
    The tattooed man nodded and left them alone.
    “How long will he be working for you?”
    Erasmus took a moment to consider. “A few seconds of eye contact is usually good for a few minutes, but that one is so dumb he’s barely sentient. Could last for hours.”
    “Then may I suggest a hasty escape before the Cardinal’s lackeys regroup and make another attempt?”
    Erasmus shrugged, resigned, and fitted the spike at back of the doorknob into the hole in his horizontal door. “So where are we going then?”
    Ronan chuckled. “I’m heading west again. You’re going somewhere a little more… distant.”
    “I’d guessed that much,” Erasmus snapped.
    “Remember the avian that captured you and stole your collection of relics?”
    “How could I forget?” Erasmus hugged himself, as if trying to massage a sorely bruised ego.
    “You’re going to meet the girls who defeated him and took all those dangerous toys away.”
    “The Phoenix Girls?” Erasmus sounded almost curious.
    Ronan nodded.
    “I haven’t been to Dogwood in years.” The smile returned, but wilted quickly. “What new trouble are you about to get me into?”
    Ronan only smiled and gestured toward the door.
    Beneath them, the Cardinal began to groan.
    “I suppose we should kill this one,” Erasmus said, but without any real enthusiasm.
    “We should, but we won’t,” Ronan said. “The King might do it for us when he fails to bring you back.”
    “The King?” Erasmus had not expected that. “I thought the avians were looking for me.”
    “They are,” Ronan said. “But King Tynan is the one who hired the Vulture to find you.”
    The Vulture was the name of a large gang of outlaw nomads that called this desert home, though if there was an actual Vulture no one outside of the gang had ever seen him. The fat red avian currently snoozing on the ground behind them seemed to be the one in charge.
    “Help me drag them outside. If I’m leaving I’ll need to cover my exit, and it will look better if these fools survive.”
    Ronan was