Yggdrisal
Chapter 14: Mesa - CHARGE!
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“Oh look...look at the cute man!”
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said Kara a bit earlier “I want to see. I’m getting closer” she flew her Griffin level with Lamar.
The “cute man’ had looked to the right at the unlikely girl riding an impossible creature from legend. Just about the time his mount had lunged to the left. The results were predictable. Seconds later the cute man was running among the herd, on foot. He was big and fast but not fast enough.
“KRAKI!! “ screamed Kara over the neural interface organic radio that they called ‘BattleTalk’ “The big pretty man is going to get Sqooshed! What can we dooooooo! I don’t want him to get sqooshed.”
Kara was almost crying. Kraki didn’t like THAT a bit. He absolutely hated it when Kara was crying. He’d do almost anything to make her stop. He was making a beeline for the big man from behind, Damn! but he was a big one.
Kraki’s bear was flipping huge. It stood six foot at the shoulder when on all fours and weighed two and a half TONS. It could run fifty miles an hour and was having exactly zero trouble overtaking the running man. As the bear got closer it lowered it’s head close to the ground......
....Kara’s Griffin swooped down and grasped the running man with his foreclaws, then struggled into the air. The man was so large and the Griffin was so much smaller that it didn’t get very high.
It got high enough. Suddenly Lamar had a bear slide it’s head and neck under him and between his legs. Being the natural rider that he was Lamar clamped on with his legs , hung on and grabbed the bear by the ears with his hands. The Griffin released him and flew off. Lamar was riding a bear . He heard a voice laughing behind him. With fear and trepidation lamar turned to see what was so funny.
A small boy was literally rolling in the saddle. He was in the throes of mirth, laughing uncontrollably. The little feller was laughing so hard he almost fell out of the saddle. He would have had it not been for his prehensile tail.
Tail?
Tail or not he was heavily armed . The lance, the crossbow and the various sharp pointy things holstered to the bears harness were not lost on Lamar.
Lamar had been a rider since before he could walk. He'd tried to ride everything that he could straddle when he was a youngster. Mostly he’d been successful. He was a natural. This was the first bear that he'd ever ridden though. This bear was different from normal bears. It was huge, hadn’t killed him as other bears would have, and it already had a rider. The laughing, giggling, hiccuping slender bear vaquero finally got himself under control. On closer look Lamar saw that it wasn’t exactly a boy. The long prehensile tail, the overlarge eyes, the fur and the pointed ears dispelled that notion right quick. Yet it spoke.
Lamar had no clue as to what it said and replied, "Fraid I don't understand a word you just said there partner'. I do want to thank you for saving my life. I'd have been stomped to jelly by now if you hadn't picked me up."
The diminutive bear rider listened as if he understood what Lamar was saying. He then launched into a long winded speech. He stayed in the saddle effortlessly while Lamar was hanging on for dear life and their mount was bounding along, among and between the stampeding herd of cattle.
The huge herbivores seemed to be terrified of the bear. They gave it plenty of room. The bear-rider finished his speech, motioned Lamar to get behind him. Lamar did that. Then the rider pointed at a chariot barely visible in the dust, shouted something.
And charged.
To be Continued
If you missed the start of this book
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21