“Who is?”
“Them.” I flung a hand toward the rocks, though I had no idea where Jakatra and Eleriss were in relation to us.
“They’re not even human,” Simon said. “How much can they really care?”
“We don’t know that. We don’t know what they are.”
“Exactly, and we don’t ultimately know why they’re here, no matter what they say. We have to make sure that monster gets killed one way or another. And if it’s following them and trying to get that sword, then that’s where we need to be.”
“With our crafty cunning,” I said.
“Exactly.”
Temi was looking back and forth between us, probably trying to decide how serious our arguing was. I had assumed Simon’s ulterior motive in stalking the riders had been to get more pictures of the monster; I hadn’t thought he’d been dreaming of killing it. Sure, he’d said something about killing it and saving the town, but that had been a joke, hadn’t it? Like I’d told Temi, I knew his entrepreneurial streak had been born out of wanting to help his people-or prove himself to his people anyway-but I’d never taken him for some knight-errant in geeky armor. I sure hoped this wasn’t about impressing Temi.
“I don’t suppose you’ve got some kind of clever trap in your pack then?” I asked.
“I did have the idea of setting a trap for it with that sword,” Simon said, “if we can get a hold of it, but I think we need to see what else those guys are going to pull out of this cave first. And it’s a foregone conclusion that they’re not going to tell us what it is; we have to be there when they get it.”
I sighed and looked at Temi. She shrugged back at me. And here I’d wanted a third person so I could have the deciding vote.
A breeze whispered through, again hinting of cooler weather. It also hinted of… I sniffed a few times. “That’s that acid chemical smell from the cavates.”
“They’re burning holes again,” Simon said. “We must be close.”
“All right.” Afraid I’d regret it, I whispered, “We might as well take a peek.”
“Famous last words?” Temi asked, though she followed us when we continued through the little dell.
The rock walls grew narrower, and we had to walk single-file. I watched the route ahead but also the tops of the boulders on either side, all too aware that something up there could jump down and land on us before we knew what was happening.
I stepped around prickly pear cactus and shrubs that were only slightly less prickly. I’d lost track of where the hiking trails were, but this area definitely wasn’t traveled often. We rounded a jumble of boulders and walked into a tiny box canyon, the ground flat and dusty and dotted with more cactus patches.
Simon gripped my arm and pointed at a big clawed and webbed print. A fresh one. The scent of the sea hung in the air, utterly out of place in the desert clime. If someone killed that monster, at least it could be thoroughly examined and we could figure out what exactly it was.
“There’s your hole.” Temi, taller than Simon and I, pointed at something behind a manzanita shrub growing out of a narrow crevice. The tracks led straight to it.
“If it charges out,” Simon whispered, “we can try climbing up those boulders to get away from it. I bet something that big isn’t that agile at scaling walls.”
I wasn’t going to take that bet. I hoped it’d gone down after the others and that we wouldn’t see it until they’d dealt with it.
I slipped an arrow out of my quiver and crept forward. Several of the manzanita’s ropy red branches had been snapped. A dark hole gaped behind it. Like the one in the cavate, it was perfectly round and not nearly as wide and inviting as I’d like. It sloped downward and toward the lake, the angle not so steep that one would have to slide down on one’s butt-or use a rope and grapple to climb out. That was something, I supposed.
Simon squeezed in beside me. He touched one of the tunnel’s walls. “It’s cool. We’re farther behind than we were last time.”
“I think… maybe we should stay even farther behind. Like how about we climb up on the rocks where we can watch down here and wait for them to come out? We’ll see whatever they carry out, and if we’re curious, we can go back into the tunnel after they-and the monster-are gone. Plenty of time to explore then, right?”
Simon frowned, but Temi was nodding. “That sounds wiser than crawling down there into the middle of trouble.”
Rocks shifted and clunked somewhere outside the canyon. I whipped my head in that direction so quickly that I almost fell in the hole. I couldn’t see anything, but a soft scraping came after the rocks settled. The rasp of claws on stone again? The noise sounded like it came from higher than ground level.
Temi and Simon were staring toward the mouth of our narrow canyon too. Without moving, I lowered my gaze to the footprints again. The tracks led to the hole, and I’d assumed the creature had gone in, but what if it’d turned around, planning to wait for Eleriss and Jakatra to come out, just as we’d thought to do? Ugh, yes, there was a print pointing in the other direction. It’d come up to the hole, then turned back.
A shadow fell across the canyon floor.
I gulped and looked up. The dark figure crouching above us was all muscle beneath its sleek, black hide. Though its weight rested on four legs instead of two, its head seemed more human than animal, mounted on a thick corded neck. Its ears were close to its head, and the face seemed simian rather than canine or feline. Its stout muscular arms and legs gripped the edge of the rock, long dagger-like claws biting into the stone. Tiny shards fell away, the dust trickling down the granite wall. If those claws could cut into rock, they’d have no trouble tearing off a man’s head…
“Down the hole,” Simon whispered. “We have to go down the hole.”
The creature’s eerie iridescent eyes stared down at us, utterly soulless and without mercy. It shifted its weight, the muscular haunches bunching, preparing to spring.
My instincts cried out against the idea of throwing myself into a tight space, but trying to flee out here would be even more suicidal. We wouldn’t be able to outrun it, wouldn’t be able to-
“Go!” This time Simon shoved me toward the hole.
The predator leaped from the ledge, claws glinting in the afternoon sun.
I dove headfirst into the tunnel. My bow caught, and I lost it. I didn’t care. I scrambled into the passage on hands and knees, heedless of the inky blackness ahead. All I knew was that I had to keep going so there’d be space behind me for the others to fit inside. I fumbled at my belt, unhooking a flashlight. I thumbed it on, and the beam brightened smooth, uniformly curved gray walls.
Somewhere behind me, Simon cursed only to have the words cut off in a startled cry of pain. I slowed to glance back, but in the tight passage I stumbled over my own feet and fell. My hip struck the unyielding rock, and the flashlight flew from my hands. Either it broke or the switch was bumped off. Blackness descended on the passage again, and I couldn’t see or hear a thing.
CHAPTER 23
For a long moment, the only sound in the tunnel was that of my own breathing-fast and ragged in my ears. I twisted about, wincing at the new lump on my hip, and tried to see the exit. I hadn’t scrambled that far, had I? The opening and the daylight beyond it ought to be in view. Unless that opening was blocked…
“Temi?” I whispered. “Simon?”
They’d been right behind me. Surely they’d had time to dive into the hole too.
“Ssh,” Temi breathed so softly I almost missed it. It sounded like she was about twenty feet behind me and higher up. The passage was sloping at a thirty, maybe forty percent grade. Climbing back out would be like crawling up a slide at a water park.
Scrapes and grunts drifted to my ears. The predator. It was farther back than Temi-it must still be outside, otherwise she’d be shoving at me and yelling for me to hurry. I hoped it was too large to crawl inside, then realized that must be the case. Otherwise it would have followed Eleriss and Jakatra, and it’d be following us now. Maybe they’d designed their hole to these narrow proportions, knowing that the creature would give chase.