Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Clearly, Clan Nuan was soft like a cushion.
I humored him. “Kiar not phah?”
Jovo pulled his knives out and spun through the tunnel in front of us, slashing left and right. “Kiar!”
Bear barked.
“He is exciting, isn’t he?”
Bear was the smartest girl ever, because any other dog would’ve chased him by now.
Jovo paused, posing on one foot.
I nodded solemnly, acknowledging the warrior badassery of Clan Kiar.
Jovo flipped backwards, slicing with his weapons, pirouetted to the end of the tunnel, and stopped, dropping into a crouch.
Uh oh.
Bear and I closed in. The tunnel opened into a large space, about a hundred and fifty feet wide and seventy-five feet deep. Multiple openings gaped on the sides, probably leading back to the Sponge. Straight ahead a thick wall rose, with a rectangular doorway dead center.
Jovo hissed.
I flexed on the doorway. Beyond it lay a large room. I glimpsed an identical doorway at the other end. Between them a short pillar rose from the floor. It was rectangular and cut from a single block of black stone that seemed to swallow the light around it. White glyphs shone on its sides, carved into the cosmic blackness, and then painted over with an even glow. My eyes told me that the pillar was only three and a half feet tall, but in my mind it loomed, an enormous obelisk, a towering monolith brimming with malevolent power.
We had found the anchor.
The vision of the giant anchor filled my brain. The urge to dash across the open space and into that room gripped me. The anchor was an abomination. I had to crush it.
The pillar throbbed, sending pulses of concentrated power through me. I gritted my teeth.
Get out of my head.
Bear licked my hand.
The connection broke. I reeled, suddenly free. That destructive urge hadn’t come from the gem. No, that was something born of my humanity.
I petted Bear’s head and forced myself to focus. Something hung above the anchor. Something foreign that didn’t belong in that room.
I risked another flex and scanned the object. A knapsack, suspended by a familiar metal-plastic cord. I glanced at Jovo. He was laser-locked on it, his body rigid, compressed like a tightly coiled spring.
This was a trap. The Sponge was a labyrinth. Our hunter didn’t want to chase us through it. He wanted us in that room. That was where the last fight would be.
There might have been a way to go around the anchor chamber, but it would take a long time to find it and I didn’t want to look for it. I wanted answers. And I wanted this to be over. Every instinct I had assured me that the way to the gate lay through that room.
A faint whisper of a movement made me spin. A dark form appeared behind us, at the entrance of the tunnel. Darkness pulsed and the form fluttered away like a piece of fabric jerked out of sight, leaving a bone barrier dial hanging in its place. The gress had blocked our escape. It was trying to trap us in the tunnel.
I dashed forward, to the opening that led to the anchor room, pulling my stolen dial out of the pack. Jovo tried to rush past me, and I shoved him back, thrust the dial where the passageway met the wider chamber, and activated it. My barrier pulsed with darkness and settled at the mouth of the tunnel, blocking the exit to the anchor room.
Even if the gress showed up now, he wouldn’t be able to place another barrier on top of this one. The forcefield had a twenty-six-foot limit, and it had to reach something solid to activate. Since I blocked the tunnel, the gress’ only option would be to set his barrier in the outer chamber, but that space was too wide.
Either the gress wanted to trap us in this small tunnel so he could wait until we ran out of water or food and died, or he wanted to panic us and force us to the anchor. Impulsively charging into the anchor chamber, with Jovo keyed up so high he was practically bouncing off the walls, would be suicide. We needed to be calm and calculating if we had any chance of winning. My barrier bought us temporary safety and time.
Jovo thrust himself in front of me, his face furious, and stabbed his finger at the anchor.
“I know,” I told him. “We will go.”
He pointed at the anchor again. I pointed at him and waved my arms frantically, then moved my hands down slowly, spreading them. “Calm down.”
Jovo trembled.
“It’s a trap.” I clamped my hands together, imitating a bear trap closing.
Jovo bounced up and down, slashing with his knives.
“Kiar Jovo!” I went straight to mom voice. “Calm down.”
He blinked, stunned for a second, spun around, and started pacing from one side of the tunnel to the other. Score one for the universal parent voice.