Flex Ironthews's Arc

Chapter 6 of 6

Flex made it three miles before his leg gave out. He sat hard against a boulder and looked at the wound on his thigh. The mountain had torn it wide. Now the edges were red and hot, and yellow crust ringed the gash. He pressed it and hissed. The scroll shifted under his other arm, twitching, always trying to peel itself open. He needed both hands. He needed a roof, water, and a way to bind this cursed scroll shut for good. He pictured walking into the tavern like this. Limping, gray, sweat on his lip. Gilding Ironhart would look him over once and turn away. She had pushed him aside before and told him she wanted the strong, not the loud. A half-dead gnome bleeding through his trousers proved nothing. He had to arrive whole. He had to arrive standing tall. So he did not walk toward the tavern. He walked away from it, into the trees, until he found the tree he remembered. His treehouse sat wedged in a great trunk, hidden behind rope bridges and hanging moss. He had built it years ago and told no one. He climbed the ladder one rung at a time, dragging his bad leg, the scroll clamped tight. Inside, he dropped onto the floor. He poured his water flask over the wound and gritted his teeth as it stung. He tore a clean shirt into strips and packed the gash with crushed leaves from a jar on his shelf. His mother had taught him the mix. Bitter root and pine sap. Within an hour the throb dulled. He wrapped the leg tight and tested it. It held. Then the scroll. It lay on the table, edges lifting, fighting the belt he had tied. He watched a corner curl. If it opened in the tavern, the many-eyed drake would form and kill everyone in the room, Gilding included. That was no proof of strength. That was a massacre. He needed the ancient scroll shut and quiet, a trophy he could hold up without fear. He searched his shelves. He found a coil of iron wire used for snares. He wound it around the rolled scroll, top and bottom, and twisted the ends hard with pliers. The pages strained. The wire held. He gripped it and shook it. It stayed shut. He grinned for the first time in days. By morning his leg carried his weight without a limp. Flex stood in the treehouse doorway, the bound scroll under his arm, no longer twitching. His color was back. His stride was solid. He could walk into the tavern whole and lay this legend at Gilding's feet. But as he climbed down, a thought stopped him cold. Iron wire could snap. Pliers could slip. If someone grabbed the scroll and pulled it open in that crowded room, he would have no thirty breaths, no fog-line, nowhere to run.