Well, thanks for staying with it folks!
Here’s the last part of Sweetangel!
Uhoh, better start thinking of new stuff to blog about.
Have a good weekend!
“Just Longthorn, Poulter and Elsewise,”
“Though Elsewise doesn’t like to do fieldwork,”
“So young Turtle will stand in his stead.”
Before Dhrudj could ask what he meant,
One, then one more, of the kidnappers fell,
And Poulter stood behind them, blade red.
Dhrudj screamed for his men to attack,
And so Longthorn seized his chance to escape,
Rolling away from sword-point with speed.
Though Dhrudj’s men attacked Poulter,
Suddenly they were outnumbered three times,
By urchins and the adults they freed.
The skirmish was bloody and swift,
And not all of the weakened slaves survived,
But Turtle and Frog fought tooth and nail.
Together the urchin girls leapt,
Savaging a captor with kicks and bites,
Quickly dragging him down to the shale.
Longthorn dragged himself to his feet,
And though bloodied and beaten he faced Dhrudj,
And said: “Stand down- we came for the girl.”
“Never!” spat Dhrudj and raised his sword,
But Longthorn had taken a souvenir,
From the workshop of Everys Pearl.
He reached behind, into his belt,
And drew out the little blunderkiss gun,
With its single buckshot blast of lead.
Dhrudj was not one for surrender,
So he swung his scimitar all the same,
But it did him no good, with no head.
Some of the men asked for mercy,
While others tried to flee up the mineshaft,
But the slaves were in no mood for grace.
After the bloodshed was done with,
Longthorn and Poulter were glad to see Frog,
With a smile of relief on her face.
“Thank you, thank you!” shouted Turtle,
Though Frog was too weak to get excited,
Underfed and fighting for each breath.
Poulter offered to carry her,
His heart restored by finding her alive,
Healing the wound of his poor wife’s death.
Poulter and Longthorn led them up,
Taking the lostlings to sky and freedom,
A haul of some thirty people found.
“We were only hired to find one,”
Joked Poulter, so Longthorn replied to him:
“They went not to the sea, but the ground!”
Turtle said: “I must repay you,”
“Me and Frog will work for your firm for free,”
“We’ll be your eyes and ears on the streets.”
Longthorn replied: “You have a deal,”
“And I believe we have room for some bunks,”
“If you think you’d like pillows and sheets.”
Poulter made no form of protest,
Knowing that he’d live if his heart could heal,
And that Longthorn needed some joy too.
Instead they led the slaves away,
To a flophouse where they could recover,
And then back to the fog they withdrew.
Dirtlings still talked of Sweetangel,
Though the nature of the myth slowly changed,
Due to what Turtle and Frog would say.
They would correct other urchins:
“Villains, not innocents, should be afraid,”
“Sweetangel takes bad people away.”
[sociable]
