Jake & The Gingerbread Wars (A Gryphon Chronicles Christmas Novella) (The Gryphon Chronicles) (8 page)

CHAPTER NINE

Oh, Christmas Tree!

Yetis?

After all the
giants, ghosts, and gargoyles Jake had dealt with in the past, he did not know how anything could shock him anymore. But he screamed right along with his friends at the terrifying sight of three huge abominable snowmen racing toward them.

“Quick! Get back in
the sleigh!” He shoved the girls ahead of him toward the vehicle.

“What about Humbug?” Dani exclaimed.

“Never mind him! Red, get us out of here!” he hollered.

Their quarrels from the Spiteful Spice forgotten, t
hey ran as best they could through the deep snow, sinking with every step, pulling each other along. In the next moment, they were all scrambling into the sleigh.

Red let out a warning roar, as if to say,
Hurry up! They’re coming!

The angry yetis were bearing down on them, their long, powerful arms swinging, plumes of snow kicking up behind them as they bounded
and loped along.

“Ew, they smell,” Dani muttered, covering her nose.

But the creatures’ sharp stink was the least of their worries.

Jake was more concerned about getting his arms ripped off. His hands shook a little as he freed the reins from the
ir brass holder. “Take us up, Red, now!”

“We’re not
going to make it!” Archie shouted.

Jake feared he was right. Red had to get a running start to pull the sleigh up into the sky; with its sled-like runners instead of wheels, the vehicle wasn’t made for sharp turns. That meant that Red had to run straight for several yards—much too close to the charging yetis.

His heart thudding, Jake saw the nearest one change course slightly, cutting off their path.

Before the sleigh could
lift off the ground, the beast ran into position a few yards straight ahead of them, blocking their escape.

It pounded its chest with a roar,
waiting for them, while the other two surged closer.

Red tried to veer off in another direction
, but was mindful of the fact that if he turned too suddenly, the whole sleigh could tip over. Jake saw the situation.

“Just keep going straight, boy! I’ll ge
t this brute out of the way!” He brought up his hand, cleared his mind with a will, and then used his telekinesis to fling the beast aside.

The yeti let out a startled yelp as it flew out of their way. Red thundered on
like a racehorse, and the kids held on tight as the sleigh floated up a few feet off the ground.

The four of them
started to cheer, but it was too soon to declare victory—a fact they realized in the next moment, to their horror.

The sleigh had only just started to clear the beasts’ height, rising eight or nine,
maybe ten feet off the ground—when, suddenly, the largest yeti, a huge silverback with a chipped fang, ducked low on his next loping stride.

He pushed off
with his knuckles and used the extra heave of force to jump high into the air, reaching for the sleigh.

Jake shot a bolt of tel
ekinesis at the yeti, but at his awkward angle, with the beast coming up underneath, he missed.

The yeti grabbed hold of the sleigh’s runner and pulled the whole thing down out of the air.

Red let out a vengeful eagle scream, yanked out of the sky, while the kids shrieked, tumbling out of the vehicle into the deep snow.

They each crashed through the frozen top layer and disappeared into the freezing cold drifts of white powder.

At least while they were buried the yetis could not find them for a moment.

Dazed by the fall, Jake heard a terrible crack of breaking wood as the angry silverback smashed the sleigh.

Red yelped, still attached to the ruined vehicle by the harness.

Oh
no!
The Gryphon would be a sitting duck out there, Jake thought. The realization brought him back from his daze, then a piercing scream sounded nearby.

He knew that voice at once.

Blast it, one of the beasts had reached down into the snow and caught the carrot-head.

Jake climbed to his feet
, reaching for Risker, his magical runic dagger, sheathed at his side. Dani O’Dell might be the bane of his existence, but nobody messed with her.

“Put her down!”
he bellowed at the towering beast.

Her
fists were swinging and her legs were kicking furiously, but she could not reach the yeti with any of her blows. The yeti held the small girl up at arm’s length, looking confused about what sort of ferocious little prey that he had captured.

Jake clenched his jaw and brandished his knife, while Archie and Isabelle’s heads popped up out of the snow nearby. He heard his cousins gasp to find Dani captured.

“Hold still, carrot, I don’t want to hit you,” Jake warned through gritted teeth.

She did.

Jake drew back and hurled his dagger at the yeti.

The runic blade bit deep into the beast’s upp
er arm. The creature dropped Dani with a howl of pain.

Landing in the snow, she instantly
scrambled toward them.

“Good aim, Jake,” she said in a shaky voice.

“Thanks.” He glared in the monster’s direction as he pushed her behind him with the others. Meanwhile, Risker dislodged itself from the beast’s arm and floated back toward its master.

As a gift from the Norse god, Odin—
a reward to Jake for his deeds in Giant Land—the runic dagger had been forged by the same legendary smith of Asgard who had fashioned Thor’s hammer. Like the sky god’s famous weapon, the knife was made to fly back into the hand of its owner.

Jake caught it out of the air and wiped the yeti’s blood off
it on the snow. “Isabelle, are you sensing anything useful from these beasts?”

She shook her head with a dire look. “Nothing that would surprise you. We landed in their territory. They just want to kill us—and, er, probably eat us.”

“Blimey,” Archie muttered.

Jake nodded. “You lot, go
take shelter under that big tree,” he ordered, shoving both girls none too gently in the direction of the largest pine tree in a grove a few yards away. Its dense, needled branches went all the way down to the ground. “Get as close to the trunk as you can. The branches should make it harder for them to reach you.”

“What are you
going to do?” Archie countered.

“I’ve got to free Red from that harness b
efore he breaks his wings.” Jake nodded grimly toward their ruined vehicle.

The big silverback was fixated on it, slamming the broken sleigh back and forth. As a result, poor Red kept getting
banged around violently. He could not escape, because he was strapped to the vehicle by the harness.

“Be careful,” Isabelle said.

Jake nodded. “Go!”

They did, racing toward the shelter of the great pine tree. Jake knew they’d need a little time to climb through the tight lattice of sharp-needled branches.

But they hadn’t even reached the tree yet when the first yeti—the one Jake had thrown aside with his telekinesis—homed in on the kids running toward the pine tree.

I
t let out a roar and started chasing them.

Jake scanned the landscape for any way to buy them a few precious seconds to reach safety. A dead spruce tree nearby caught his eye.

He concentrated hard, summoned up his powers, then used his telekinesis to knock the dead tree over. With a mighty creak, it crashed to earth, landing on the yeti.

Jake couldn’t tell if the murderous beast was dead or just unconscious, but with it safely pinned under the trunk, he ran to save Red.

On the way, from the corner of his eye, he noticed a crimson trail of blood on the snow leading back toward the forest. It seemed the yeti he had cut with Risker had turned tail and run away.

That left only the big silverback to deal with, but Jak
e was not eager to confront the colossal, hairy beast. His main objective was merely to cut Red free of the leather harness that had trapped and entangled him.

Guilt filled him as he approached the Gryphon who had saved him so many times. The poor creature would be lucky if he didn’t break his neck, getting thrown around like that. Jake wished he had never put Red in that harness or made him pull the sleigh.

All of this was his fault. Dani had been right about what she had said in the sleigh. He should have done this alone. Once again, he had dragged everybody into danger, all because he could not resist the thrill of a new adventure.

Selfish as ever.
I hope you’re happy now,
he thought bitterly.

Then h
e put aside his self-recrimination, moving stealthily toward his battered pet lying in the snow.

Red’s magical c
rimson feathers were strewn across the ground; his lion fur was caked with snow. Jake was terrified at the sight of the noble beast hurt and barely conscious.

He could not tell how badly the Gryphon
was injured or if anything was broken—but it was plain the sleigh could not be used again.

It was only g
ood for firewood at this point.

Which meant
they were stranded out here.

H
e shook off a shudder of dread at the thought.

H
e could not let himself think about that right now, or he’d be paralyzed with fear. He had to act quickly.

The yeti was
slamming the broken frame of the sleigh over his head, fixated on banging it against the snow-covered ground. Most of the chassis was caved in. The sled-like runners on the bottom were splintered.

One ski was ripped off entirely, the other broken into a sharp, spear-like point.

The yeti paused, looking over at Jake as he crouched down by Red’s side. The huge creature’s red eyes gleamed with a malevolent light, homing in on him.

“You stay back!” Jake swallowed hard, resting his hand on the Gryphon’s furry shoulder. “Get up, boy. C’mon, Red. I’ll cut you free. We got to get away from that thing. Can you stand up?”

A pitiful sound escaped his feathered friend, something like,
“Tweek.”

The yeti threw down the sleigh and stood up to its full, terrifying height. It let out a roar that made its intentions clear—and ga
ve Jake a good look at its long ivory fangs.

Looming against the starlight, the reeking, matted beast stood well over seven feet tall, probably f
our feet wide at the shoulders.

It took a step toward him.

“Get back!” Jake yelled instinctively, even though he knew the brute animal could not understand him. He had no choice but to summon up his powers even though he was aware that using them again would weaken him. In this frozen landscape, he would need every ounce of his strength, but Red’s life was at stake.

The yeti bent its hairy knees, gathering
itself to spring. At the same time, Jake brought up his hands with the full force of his telekinesis and pushed the air toward the animal with all his might.

The gia
nt yeti went flying backward.

It landed maybe thirty yards awa
y in a snow drift, but in a heartbeat, Jake saw that he had only made it angry.

At once, he unsheathed Risker with a soft metallic zing. He reached for the first strap of the harness that held the Gryphon captive and sliced it in two.

The yeti exploded out of the snowdrift.

Jake could hear his friends screaming warnings from the direction of the pine tree
, where they were concealed.

His hands were shaking as he
stumbled a few steps away to cut the second strap of Red’s harness.

The Gryphon was struggling to stand up when the yeti leaped at them, covering a shocking span of ground.

Jake gripped the second strap in one hand and fumbled with his knife—partly out of fear, partly because his hands were half frozen. He hesitated for half a heartbeat, wondering if he should wallop the yeti again with his telekinesis. His fleeting uncertainty cost him a sliver of a second that he could not afford.

The yeti
’s huge leap landed him next to the ruined sleigh; he picked it up again at once. Refusing to be separated from the helpless Gryphon, Jake had no time to do anything but hold on.

He dropped his dagger in the snow and, with both hands, grasped the harness strap still holding Red captive.

The enraged yeti lifted the sleigh over his head, then hurled it with a thunderous roar toward a grove of the large, snowy pine trees.

They went whipping through the air, Jake holding on to the long leather rein of the harness, shouting as
he flew.

Red flapped hi
s wings a few times frantically, trying to backpedal, but it was useless. In the next moment, both of them crashed into the boughs of the nearest pine tree.