Read Online Malice in Wonderland Prequel by Lotus Rose - Free Book Online Page B

he’d left his helmet at the hut, but it was too late to go back. Alice giggled about that.
    Soon they approached the “tea party” tree, beneath which was a table, where sat the three characters who sat there drinking tea all day. They were there as usual—the Mad Hatter, the Dormouse, and the March Hare.
    “Ah,” said the Knight. “There is the village that is to be attacked.”
    “Why that’s no village. That’s just the March Hare’s tea table!”
    “You should learn to complain less! I thought you wanted a village that was closer!”
    “Yes. I apologize.”
    “Remember, seen and not heard.”
    The Knight clanked his way forward and Alice dragged the clanking sack/sheet of supplies upon the ground. She feared it would split again at any moment.
    The Mad Hatter giggled and pointed. “Why it’s the White Knight and Alice! Where’s your horse, White Knight!?” The March Hare watched on quietly. Meanwhile the Dormouse had lain the side of his head upon the table, apparently taking a nap.
    “Hello Mad Hatter, March Hare, Dormouse.” He raised his sword dramatically into the air. “I have come—”
    “Fancy a spot of tea?” interrupted the Mad Hatter.
    “Perhaps in a bit,” said the Knight. He wobbled the sword. “I hear his sepulchral wings beating upon the heavens. Hark, for here he comes!”
    “Alice?” said the Mad Hatter. “Tea?”
    “No thank you. I’m on a bit of a quest at the moment. Apologies.”
    “Quite all right,” said the Hatter with a wave of his hand and a giggle. “Perhaps later.”
    The Knight shouted to be heard. “I have come to encounter the dragon that has been terrorizing this village, and then to track it back to its lair and slay it!”
    The Hatter and March Hare looked around. Alice looked too.
    “Dragon?” said the March Hare.
    The Hatter said, “Village?”
    “Yes!” said the Knight as he walked heroically up to the table with Alice following. “The horrible dragon that has been terrorizing this village. Do try to keep up shall you?”
    Alice giggled at the puzzled expressions upon the Hare and Hatter’s face. The Dormouse snored.
    The Hatter said, “I say, my man, I thought I was the only mad one here.”
    The Knight proclaimed, “Oh, but I am the only one with the ears keen enough to hear the beating of the dragon’s wings! Harken! He approaches! Soon he shall be here. Hand me my bag, won’t you dear?” After she did so, he rummaged through it.
    The March Hare began trembling. “Is a dragon truly coming to our village? To eat us?!”
    The Hatter said, “As I said before, we are not a village. And a dragon has never attacked our village before. Why here? Why now?”
    The Knight was adjusting the clear goggles upon his head now. He’d taken out the small pouch. “Ah, these goggles let me see into far distances.” He shielded his eyes with his hand. “Ahah! There, off in the distance. I see it. Don’t you?”
    They all looked, except the Dormouse, who was still sleeping, but no longer snoring.
    After they’d told him they saw nothing, the Knight sighed. “Very well, I see I shall have to point the vile bloodthirsty creature out. Soon he’ll be close enough for all to see. Come, come everyone. Gather round. Come Alice, stand next to the Hare. There’s a girl.”
    Alice didn’t understand why they had to all huddle together in such a particular manner, but she went along with it. The Knight stood behind the three huddled voyeurs, then said, “Now look, just a little to the right of the sun.”
    They did so, but of course, the sun temporarily blinded them. The fierce brightness of it tinged all of Alice’s vision with yellow. She heard the Hatter and Hare grunt and yelp as they too, apparently were similarly accosted by blinding light.
    She heard a sifting sound behind her, like sand shifting through the air, then felt a pinging on her eyes, like irritating particles of dust. Then the bright blinding light in her vision suddenly shifted into