“We had better move on,” he said. “Soon the sun will set. And the skimmers …”
“Skimmers!” Sonia made an impatient sound. “Are skimmers all you can think of? You are as obsessed with them as everyone else in Weld!”
“Of course I am!” snapped Rye. “Because of the skimmers, I have lost my home and everyone I love! As you have yourself, Sonia! Or have you been so long in the safety of the Keep that you have forgotten?”
Sonia paused. An expression that might have been shame crossed her face. Then, without another word, she stepped from the path to move around the slimy net and its hideous burden.
And instantly the tree on that side seemed to come alive. What looked like a thick section of mottled bark peeled away, revealing itself to Rye’s horrified eyes as a huge, lizardlike beast, foul-smelling slime dripping from its snarling jaws.
The monster reared up on its hind legs and lunged at Sonia, its mottled tail lashing, a fan of spines and skin rising on the back of its neck. Sonia screamed and ducked, avoiding the snapping jaws by a hair, and ran for her life. The beast dropped to all fours and leaped after her, frighteningly fast.
Yelling in shock, Rye shrugged off his bundle, snatched up the dead man’s hatchet, and gave chase.
Ahead he could see flashes of red as Sonia wove frantically between the trees below him. The gigantic lizard was hurtling after her, gaining on her every moment. At first, it looked weirdly like a huge piece of tree bark careering down the slope, but in moments, its knobbly, scaly skin had begun to change, quickly taking on the nutty brown color of the dead leaves. Soon it was visible only because it was moving.
Rye pounded after it, slipping and sliding, keeping his feet by a miracle. His heart felt as if it were bursting in his chest. The hatchet was in his hand. If only he could get a clear line of sight, he could throw it. His aim was usually good — not as good as Dirk’s, but good enough. Surely, even running, he could hit a target as large as this huge lizard. Injure it, at least. Delay it.
And then what? Then his only weapon would be the bell tree stick.
He could not think of that. He just had to keep running, waiting for the moment when …
He lost sight of Sonia behind a tangle of bushes. He could hear her sobbing gasps, but he could not see her. He could only see the beast, a surging, hissing mass of brown. For an instant, it was directly below him, but before he could hurl the hatchet, the creature had wheeled around the bushes and disappeared. Then, suddenly, Sonia burst into view again. She was glancing over her shoulder, her face twisted in terror.
The beast was right behind her. It was almost upon her. And ahead of her …
Rye went cold. “Sonia!” he bellowed. “In front of you! Beware!”
He saw Sonia’s head jerk as she heard him. She looked blindly ahead but did not see what Rye could see so clearly — the slimy strands of another crude net stretched across her path.
In horror, Rye saw the red figure run straight into the net. In horror, he saw her fixed by the sticky, gleaming strings, struggling like a fly in a spiderweb. In terror, he saw a second monstrous, drooling lizard peel itself from the tree to which it had been clinging and lumber forward to claim its captured prize.
But the monster chasing Sonia was not willing to surrender its prey to a rival. Seeing the second lizard, it gave a harsh bellow and rose onto its hind legs, the fan of skin on the back of its neck deepening to bloodred.
The second lizard snarled and sprang. The next moment, the two beasts were locked in combat, biting, slashing, and hissing.
And so intent were they on destroying each other that Rye, reaching the place at last, was able to dart past them to the web in which Sonia was struggling.
Without the hatchet, he would never have been able to free her. The slimy, foul-smelling cords of the net stretched as he tore at them, sticking wherever they touched and threatening to trap him, too. But the hatchet, once he stopped panicking and thought to use it, sliced through the slimy strands like a knife cutting greasy string.
Pulling the girl free at last, he caught her around the waist and hurled himself sideways, tipping them both over a leafy bank that rose beside the tatters of the net. Together they tumbled down a steep ferny slope. There was nothing to stop them. Nothing they snatched at was firm enough to hold them. Yelling, they rolled and slid, down and down, until at last they lay, panting and shuddering, on the soft, damp earth of the valley floor.
The light was dim and green. The thrashing, hissing sounds of the monster battle floated down to Rye’s ears. They mingled with other, closer, sounds. Sonia’s sobbing breaths. The gurgling of running water. Birdcalls, clear and pure, chiming like tiny bells. A soft, breathy murmuring that might have been ferns stirring in a breeze, or something more sinister.
Rye closed his eyes and held himself very still, concentrating on the murmuring noise, trying to make out what it was. Something slithering beneath a blanket of leaves? Skimmers waking, stretching their leathery wings somewhere near? Or … could it be — could it possibly be — whispering voices?
The murmuring gradually separated itself into words.
He is the one.
The signs are not perfect.
The third test remains. We shall see….
“Rye, wake up!” Sonia’s anxious voice cut through the whispers, which vanished abruptly.
Rye opened his eyes. Sonia was crouched beside him, shaking his shoulder. He blinked at her blearily.
“We should get away from here.” Sonia glanced nervously up toward the sound of the lizard battle. “The one that wins may come after us.”
Rye nodded and scrambled painfully to his feet. He found that his ears had not been deceiving him in one way at least. He had been lying on the sandy bank of a fast-running stream. He stared, fascinated, at the clear, bubbling water. It was so strange to see water flowing freely, with no gutters to guide it.
The stream rippled and sang over a bed of small, round blue pebbles that seemed to wink at him like bright eyes.
On the other side of the stream, fern-choked land rose as steeply as the ground behind him did. It was as if he and Sonia had fallen into a deep fold in the earth. Rye’s head swam as he looked up. Every bone in his body ached. His knees felt as if they were made of butter left too long out of the cool room. He knew he could not climb just yet.
Fortunately, Sonia appeared to feel the same. “I think we should go this way,” she said, pointing along the stream to the left.
“I, too,” said Rye, and wondered why he was so sure. Perhaps it was because the stream was running in that direction. It seemed right to follow the stream.
He looked around for the hatchet but was not surprised when he could not see it. He had lost his grip on it in that sliding tumble down the hill with Sonia, and it had stayed where it had fallen. Now it lay buried in ferns somewhere on that steep slope above him. He would never find it. Perhaps no one would ever find it again.
He had lost his bundle, too. It still lay by the first net, and he was certainly not going back for it. He would just have to do without spare clothes and the box of supplies.
But the stick, the bell tree stick, was at his feet. It, at least, had not deserted him. He picked it up, feeling its smooth, familiar weight in his hand.
Sonia was kneeling by the stream, reaching down into the water. When she scrambled up, her arm wet to the elbow, Rye saw that she had scooped up a handful of the blue pebbles.
She saw him watching her and raised her chin defiantly, as if he had questioned her. “I like them,” she mumbled, pushing the wet pebbles into the pocket of her tunic. “And they might be useful.”