When last we met: “You can’t keep a good worblatt down, huh, Clancy?” said Bub. “Got that right,” said the third worblatt, who looked as grumpy as if Dorothy had been stealing his apples. The three of them stepped back into stances that suggested they were preparing to dive into battle. “Are you ready to rumble?” asked Bellzy. “Because we are.”
Grenn put his thumb and forefinger into his mouth and emitted a sharp whistle that seemed to have a melody.
All of a sudden, as if from out of nowhere, the little elf was joined by two or three dozen other elfin beings, some of them armed with what looked like bows and arrows, a few of them in blue robes decorated with stars and sparkles as if they were sorcerer’s apprentices, and most of them dressed in animal skins like Grenn himself.
The head eagle emitted a loud cry, and within moments the convocation of a dozen or so eagles doubled in size, and I could see more eagles approaching in the sky.
The great buck didn’t say a thing that I could hear, but a half-dozen huge bucks walked out of the woods and joined their colleague standing on the mound.
Seth the Dragon leaned his head back and set a pillar of flame shooting high into the sky, and in a blink of an eye there were four more dragons hovering in positions surrounding the three worblatts.
Summer, noticing that I had left the patio door open, lunged into the house. Dejah stood next to me but began to inch toward the door herself.
“I don’t suppose you folks could take this a little farther away from my house?” I asked plaintively.
The three worblatts seemed to falter and reconsider whether they were ready to rumble.
“Come on, guys,” Clancy said. “Shall we go down swinging?”
“No, this is good,” Bellzy said. “Now we know who they can muster, how many and how fast.”
They stepped back into the inter-dimensional portal, which zipped up and vanished as if it had never been there.
“Huh. That was easy,” said one of the elves.
“Almost — TOO easy,” said Grenn. “We played our hand, and they sneered at our steenkin’ hand.”
“What are you talking about?” Seth said. “They took one look at all of us and stepped back into whatever dimension they came from.”
“— while making comments about our ability to rally the troops,” said Grenn. “I don’t know. I have a bad feeling about this.”
“Next thing you know, the green guy will be coming back to torment you,” someone said.
“I don’t think so,” the big dragon said. “I torched him pretty good.”
“Um, Seth?” Dejah said.
“Yeah, doggie, what’s up?” said Seth the Dragon.
“It’s the green guy.”
Everyone was looking at the newcomer with the elongated head, T-shirt and jeans leaning up against the fence.
“What? Impossible!”
The little green monster grinned an enormous grin and waved his hand in greeting. There came an enormously bright flash.
