But that alone was not a good enough plan. Vrell needed to learn to protect herself, and she needed a weapon. Her persona’s age was fourteen — almost a man. She could not rely on others to save her for long. It would brand her a coward. She wanted to grow a fine reputation as a young man. Who knew how long she would have to live as Vrell Sparrow.
Hopefully not long enough to rouse suspicion about her lack of height — or whiskers.
Thankfully, Khai did not speak to her again until he passed on figs and bread for lunch. Vrell thanked Arman for her meal and munched on the bread slowly, glad to have something to pass the time.
Mid-bite, a great force thumped under the boat, knocking it against the tunnel wall. The frame scraped along the rock face. Vrell dropped her lunch and pressed her hands against the sides of the bow. Had they hit the roots of a tree?
Jax was crouched on his feet, axes drawn, when another impact struck the hull, lifting the boat off the water for a brief moment. Jax fell and the boat slapped back to the surface.
The combination sent a wave of hot water splashing up over the bow, soaking Vrell. She gasped and held back a scream as the boat spun around to the side. “What is happening?”
Jax’s face tensed. He sheathed his axes, grabbed the oar, and paddled fiercely to straighten the craft. Khai’s right hand clutched one side of the boat, his oar nowhere to be seen.
A third strike lifted the boat again, bringing another wave of hot water over Vrell when it splashed back into the current. The boat spun out of control, Jax’s paddling useless to right it.
Vrell peered over the boat’s edge. She could not be certain, but she thought she saw a large, dark body vanish into the waves like a giant fish.
She rolled back and sunk into the bow in time to see Jax duck. Vrell cringed, wondering what could possibly cause a giant to cower. Seconds later, the staff holding the lantern struck a low, fat stalactite. Glass shattered overhead and everything went black.
Vrell plastered herself against the side of the boat, choking in gasps of steamy air.
A piercing howl echoed in the darkness, the volume so terribly extreme it seemed to come from the walls themselves.
Vrell froze. “Wh-What was that?”
Jax’s voice was soft in comparison. “A reekat.”
Vrell thought back to Po’s fur boots. “What is a reekat?”
“A problem,” Khai said as if this were a routine chore he would rather assign to someone else.
Something rustled near Vrell’s feet, then grazed her foot. She screamed and scrambled up into a squatting position, pressing back into the bow as far possible.
“Keep it down, you coward!” Khai hissed. “I’m only looking for my pack.”
The reekat bumped the boat again. Then the ear-splitting howl came, beside her head this time, vibrating her cheek against the thick sheet of animal skin that formed the hull of the boat. Vrell held her breath, trembling in perilous silence. Were the Kingsguards going to do anything? Both had weapons, but could they use them in the dark?
Her dizzy head confirmed the boat was still spinning. It had been several seconds since the reekat’s last scream. “Wh-What are you going to do?”
“Shhh!” Khai hissed. “Jax is seeking its mind.”
Vrell frowned. What did that mean? Could Jax hear the thoughts of the creature? Could bloodvoicing be used on animals? Even if it could, what good would it do?
“There are two,” Jax said.
Vrell prayed Arman would protect them and keep them safe. If she could live, she would be more obliging to her mother when she returned home — less stubborn, even giving up Bran if her mother wished it. She could learn to love another, could she not? She vowed to try if Arman would only deliver her from this ordeal. She breathed the words under her breath. “If it is your will, Arman, I give him up.” Tears ran down her face at the sacrifice she had made.
Or maybe that was only the dripstones.
Two wailing howls shattered the silence, a lower-pitched one starting first, followed by a higher one, like a song sung in a round. Jax’s words haunted her to the point of nausea.
There are two.
A force knocked the bow, slapping the boat against the stone wall with a loud crack. Vrell’s head smacked the bone frame, shooting pain through her ear. Another force hit the stern, lifting the boat from the water. Before it could reconnect to the surface, something butted the hull, tipping the boat onto its side. Vrell tumbled into the steaming hot springs.
She gasped, hands gripping at the slimy textured wall, but found no hold. The current pulled her along, banging her body against the wall again and again. She was going to die!
Her life would end here, alone in pitch-blackness, drowned or perhaps eaten by a reekat, whatever that was. She would never see her mother or her sisters or her home again. Never grow her hair back out long enough to braid, ride Kopay, or snuggle with her cats. Never marry Bran or anyone at all. Her body would likely float out to sea and be netted by fishermen or drift into the canals of Mahanaim and be picked at by fish and birds.
The beasts’ screeches came from behind, followed by the clash of steel on rock, a series of grunts from Jax, and a horrific ripping.
Vrell focused on her own situation and struggled to stay near the wall, but it suddenly vanished from beneath her fingertips. She surged forward and groped for the deformed stone, wanting to call out to Jax, afraid the reekat had eaten him and would eat her if she made a sound. There was only water where she felt the wall should have been.
Had she turned a sharp corner? Perhaps the tunnel had only grown wider? Her body whipped around in a small whirlpool. As she spun, she thought she saw light. Her stomach roiled from the tiny circles, and in a huge burst of effort, she swam free.
She bobbed in place, no longer caught in the current. She blinked as the darkness around her slowly took shape. She had drifted into some pond-like appendage of the underground river. A golden light glowed in the distance. She swam toward it as silently as possible, not wanting to alert any water beasts.
As she drew closer, the cavern around her came into focus. Stalactites covered the ceiling and dripped over the water’s surface in a tribal rhythm. The dull, yellow glow illuminated the entrance to a cave, the opening as wide as two doors from Walden’s Watch. On the bank, in front of the cave’s entrance, several large stalactites had twisted together until they reached the ground, forming a tree of sorts. A massive cluster of thin, craggy dripstones on the ceiling above looked like icicle leaves.
As Vrell swam near the “tree,” the cave behind it glowed fiery orange. Her feet found loose soil. She stood on shaky legs, waded toward the riverbank, and stepped onto a sandy shore.
A swarm of mosquitoes attacked, and she swung her arms around to ward them off. The steam carried a putrid stench that choked her. As she neared the cave’s entrance, the light grew enough to see the ground. It wasn’t sand she walked on, but some sort of pellet-like excrement…and a few shiny black beetles. She shuddered, quickened her pace, and stepped through the doorway into a long narrow cavern.
The light turned out to be from a flickering torch stuck in a crevice in the wall on one end. The space was no bigger than two servant’s quarters end to end. Too small for a giant. And a reekat, whatever that was, could not light a torch. There had to be a human around somewhere.
“Hello?” she called.
A well-walked trail through the droppings stretched to the opposite end of the cavern, away from the torch. Vrell crept along it with soggy steps, dodging beetles. She found a gaping hole in the wall, waist high. It led to a narrow tunnel that burrowed up through the rock.