“Hey! I’m not in PETA,” I protested.
Samuel leaned over to Melaine. “What is PETA?” She shrugged.
“Hold on!” Calvin shouted.
“What for?” I snapped.
“I hear something.”
We fell dead silent. There was nothing to hear but the sound of our breathing reflected on the walls, floor and ceiling.
“I don’t hear—” Blade began.
Skrtch, skrtch.
“There!” I hissed.
It was a scratching sound, like footsteps. And it was coming from the wall.
“It’s the wall,” I murmured, going to it. “The wall is making noise.”
“I think it’s something on the other side of the wall,” Calvin said. “But yeah.”
I pressed my ear to the stone. Now I could hear much better. There it was—a steady scratching noise.
“What is that?” I asked.
“Sounds like footsteps,” said Calvin, his ear also to the rock.
“More goblins?” said Melaine.
“Most likely,” said Samuel.
“Then we’re turning around,” said Blade. “I told you guys, I’m not going back to the colony.”
“No, dude, think!” I said, excited. “It’s just a few footsteps at a time. That’s not the colony. It’s gotta be another tunnel, one of the ones that led out!”
Blade’s face lit up. “Oh, sweet!”
“It is probably still full of goblins,” Samuel pointed out.
“Yeah, but we can handle a tunnel,” I said. “They can’t swarm us effectively in a tunnel. We can hold off a bunch of them with just the few of us.”
“Straight up 300 style, man,” said Calvin enthusiastically. “This. Is. Midreaaalm!”
Cara clapped her hand over his mouth. “If we can hear them, my Lord,” she said quietly, “then perhaps it would be best not to make too much noise and let them hear us.”
Calvin nodded and muttered something through her hand that sounded like an agreement. She let him go.
“Okay, maybe I can fireball this thing down,” said Blade. “Give me a sec.”
“No need, bro,” I said, waving him off. “I learned this when Chaos was at the walls of the Runehold.”
I held forth my hand and summoned a column of water in midair. I pushed the water into the wall, spreading it across the surface and letting it sink into all of the cracks. When I was ready, I looked to the others.
“You all ready?”
They nodded.
I chilled the water down to below zero, turning it to ice in an instant. The sudden expansion of the ice shattered the stone, creating a hole about twice the size of a door.
Blade and Calvin leapt forward, Blade with fireballs in each hand and Calvin swirling tornadoes of air before him. The Runegard stepped forward, swords at the ready.
But on the other side of the wall, there were no goblins. Instead, scurrying on the walls, floor and ceiling of the tunnel beyond were ants. Huge, four-foot long ants with pincers as long as daggers. They froze as the wall crumbled down. Then they turned their buggy eyes on us, and the antennae atop their heads began wiggling in our direction.
“Oh, Chaos take us!” cried Melaine. She turned and grabbed my shoulder, shoving me back down the tunnel. “It’s time to run again.”
DROWNING
MILES
WE FLED DOWN THE TUNNEL as the ants skittered along behind us.
“Why are we always running?” I shouted.
“I don’t know, but somehow I think it’s Calvin’s fault,” said Blade.
“Hey!”
“If my Lords would concentrate, perhaps they could deter the ants that are going to try to eat us?” said Cara.
“Oh, right!” said Calvin. He waved his hand and a blast of wind rocketed down the tube behind us, firing ants down it like bullets down the barrel of a gun. But in no time they were back, swarming over both walls, the ceiling and floor as they chased us.
“I don’t have enough time to pull water from the air,” I said. “But if we reach the lake, I can do some damage.”
“I got it!” said Blade. He stopped for half a second, whirled, and filled the tunnel behind us with flame. I felt the heat of it singe the hair on the back of my head. The ants screamed, a high, shrieking noise that was a thousand times worse than fingers on a chalkboard.
“Ow,” I said, rubbing my ears.
Melaine looked back regretfully. “It’s too bad. Giant ants taste excellent when roasted.”
“Are you telling me you eat bugs?” I said.
“I would trip you, but that would be a most severe violation of my oaths.”
I was keeping myself at a moderate running speed to keep pace with the others, but every fiber of my being wanted to kick into high gear and outdistance them. I thought briefly that fleeing for your life from giant ants and goblins was an excellent incentive for running. Maybe my track coach could use that somehow.
“I’m going to go ahead to be ready!” I shouted. “See you at the cave!”
I put on a burst of speed, quickly leaving the others behind. Blade gave a half-hearted shout of protest, but he was too concerned with roasting the ants behind him to complain very hard.
In a few minutes, I sprang into the open expanse of the cave. To my surprise, Melaine was right behind me.
“You’re a good runner,” I said, panting.
“Almost as good as you,” she said. “I’m impressed.”
“I need a second. Just make sure they don’t come through the tunnel and surprise me.”
She nodded and turned to the tube’s open mouth. I went to the edge of the water and raised my hands, sending massive coils of water into the air and spinning toward the tunnel’s open mouth. The water coalesced into a solid curtain in front of the tunnel’s opening. I poured more and more water into it, thickening it until it was a good three feet in depth.
Blade and Calvin burst through first. “It’s really not a good time for a shower,” Blade sputtered as he wiped water frantically from his eyes.
“Oh, hush,” I said. Cara and Samuel leapt through the water wall. I clenched my fist as the water turned to ice immediately, blocking the tunnel.
“Nice!” said Calvin.
The ice shuddered as dozens—perhaps hundreds—of tiny bodies slammed into it from the other side. Thunk, thunk, thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk. More and more of them hit it as the ants from behind crashed into the ones they were following.
“It’s holding!” I said.
Crack.
The ice cracked, a huge spiderweb appearing on our side.
“You spoke too soon,” said Calvin.
“Quickly! To the tunnel on the other side!” said Cara.
“No!” I said. “That’ll just put us back in the goblin colony. Then we’ll be caught between them and the ants.”
“Maybe they’ll fight each other,” said Melaine.
“Maybe after they finish eating us,” I said. “We’ve got to hold them here, or we’re toast.” I poured more water into the ice wall, reinforcing it.
“And then what?” said Blade. “Back to the goblin colony?”
“Yeah, or something,” I said. “Don’t bug me. I’m trying to concentrate.”
The wall grew thicker and thicker. I pushed the other side of it outward, expanding it down the tunnel toward them. Slowly the thuds of ants hitting the other side grew quieter. The crack disappeared as I made the wall thicker, stronger, healing every spot they attacked.
“Okay,” I said. “I think I’ve got them—”
KROOM
The ceiling above us seemed to erupt. Shards of black lava rock fell all around us like a rain of death, shattering on the hard stone under our feet. At the same time, a huge chunk of wall fell in from a few yards away. From the hole in the wall and the hole in the ceiling poured hundreds of ants.
“What is it with you and speaking too soon?” Calvin shrieked.
My stomach did flip-flops in my c
hest. The ants coming from the wall were blocking our path to the tunnel on the other side. Now we couldn’t flee to the goblin colony even if we wanted to. There was only the shore and…
“The lake!” I shouted. “Hold them off for one second!”
They were already doing it. Blade summoned three-foot walls of fire that made the ants hesitate, hissing at him as they sought to find a way around the flames. Calvin plucked ants from the air as they dropped from the ceiling, flinging them into walls and crushing them against the floor.
I turned to the lake, wrapping the surface of it in my mind. I froze it, creating a thick, heavy platform about twelve feet wide in a circle. It was hard. The water around it was cold, but nowhere near freezing. I had to keep putting the bottom of the platform back together as it slowly melted.
“Onto the platform!” I said. “Come on!”
“What plat—oh,” said Calvin. Suddenly I felt a gust of air lift me up. It didn’t place me so much as fling me on to the platform. I nearly slipped off the other side, but I threw up a little ledge at the platform’s edge that kept me from spilling into the deep. The others landed next to me, groaning.
“Calvin!” I said.
“Sorry,” he winced. “I was trying to help.”
I sighed and pushed the platform out from the shore, letting it float out into the middle of the lake. The shore receded, the gap between it and the platform widening rapidly.
“There,” I said. “This will buy us some time. The ants can’t swim, so—”
The ants promptly leapt into the water and began swimming out toward us.
“Seriously?” I shouted.
Cara gave me a look. “Of course giant ants can swim. Can they not on True Earth?”
“We don’t have giant ants on True Earth!” I shouted. “I hate this place sometimes!”
Blade resumed pouring flame into the ants as they swarmed through the water toward us. Soon I saw that my efforts weren’t completely wasted. Yes, the ants could swim, but they were clumsy and slow. It was a lot better having them come at us in the water than it was on land. Calvin pushed them beneath the lake with Air until they drowned, and I used any spare attention I had to sweep them back out of the lake with huge waves. Any time an ant managed to get through the gauntlet and approach the platform, the Runegard leapt upon it. Their swords sank easily into the ants’ hides, sending them back into the lake.
“Okay, this is working,” said Blade. “But how long do we keep this up? I can’t go forever.”
“Me neither,” I said through gritted teeth. “If anyone has another idea, I’m up for it.” The amount of water I was moving, not to mention holding our iceberg together, meant that I was losing energy fast. It took mental focus to keep everything going, and I was swiftly running out.
I saw the waterfall coming out of the wall and pouring into the lake and had an idea. I turned its small stream into a torrent, firing it into the mass of ants in the lake like shrapnel. Ants were speared with massive icicles and sank beneath the lake with shrieks.
“Maybe I can fly us all out,” said Calvin, who was still panting.
“No way, man,” I said. “You’re barely in control of it, and you’re still tired from the run.”
“I might have an idea,” said Blade. “I can heat up the rock at the mouth of their tunnels. I can melt it down and then cool it. Block them off.”
I nodded. I’d stopped all attacks on the ants. It was all I could do to hold the platform together. “Sounds good. Quick as you can. I’m about to pass out here.”
Blade stopped sending fireballs into the ants, instead creating a ring of fire around the hole at the end of each of the ants’ tunnels. The fire grew brighter and brighter until it hurt my eyes, even far out on the lake like we were.
But the ants in the water, no longer under attack, pushed forward anew, their numbers seeming to double. Blade cursed and dropped the rings of fire, sending fireballs into the swimming ants again.
“I can’t let up!” he said. I heard a note of desperation in his voice. “There’s too many in the water!”
“You’ve got to block them off,” I said. “If they keep coming through—”
KROOM
I heard another boom right above us, and the ceiling fell inward. I barely glanced up in time to see massive chunks of stone falling down as a new tunnel opened up. My concentration shattered, and the ice below us broke up. I balanced on a tiny shard of ice for half a second before I plunged into the water’s cold, black depths. I sank into it, fighting to regain my orientation and find the surface again. Just as I thought I spotted it, one of the huge chunks of rock sank through the water right on top of me. It sank with sickening speed, pushing me down toward the bottom of the lake.
No! I screamed in my mind.
My world dissolved into pain as I hit the bottom, the rock pressing down upon me. It must have weighed a ton. Maybe more. I pushed and pushed, but it wouldn’t budge.
Come on, you idiot, I thought. You’re a Realm Keeper.
I used Water, pushing it under the stone and trying to lift up. But it was too heavy. I couldn’t summon enough water to lift it.
I was going to drown. Water, my own element, was going to be what killed me.
I heard a muffled yell and looked up. There, halfway between the surface and where I lay on the lake’s bottom, was Melaine. She was swimming down, reaching for me with an outstretched hand. But she was yards away. There was no way for her to reach me, and no way to move the rock even if she could. If she kept trying, she’d die. Cara was behind her, trying to grab her legs and pull her back up.
My lungs were burning. I couldn’t hold my breath any longer. But there was no reason that both of us had to die.
Go back up, Melaine, I thought. I tried to wave her off. But she kept coming, kept desperately trying to reach me.
There was only one thing I could do. I closed my eyes. I opened my mouth and let the water flood into my lungs.
WATERFALL
MILES
I’D STUDIED A LOT ABOUT biology in high school. That’s what I wanted to be when I grew up—a biologist. So I thought I had some idea about what drowning would be like. First, your lungs fill up with water. It’s like when you accidentally swallow water down the wrong tube. When that happens above water, you cough. That’s your body’s desperate attempt to get air back in your lungs, replacing the water. But if you’re in the water, you just suck more of it down. So your body coughs, hacks, coughs, hacks, over and over, trying to get more air that it will never be able to reach. Without oxygen, your head starts to hurt. More than hurt. It’s like someone’s driving an ice pick into your brain. Your organs start shutting down. Your limbs grow cold as the body rushes all of the blood—and the oxygen—to your head and torso, trying desperately to keep them all running. It’s not enough. Your blood fills with carbon dioxide, and everywhere it goes it burns your tissue. Your skin feels like it’s on fire. Your head feels like it’s swelling, even though it’s not. Finally, the oxygen deprivation starts to get to you. You feel lightheaded, dizzy. The pain finally starts to dissipate, because your brain can’t process it any more. Eventually the whole thing shuts down. You die from oxygen deprivation to your brain.
But it wasn’t like that at all. For the first few seconds it just felt like breathing. Water rushed into my lungs. I coughed once, my throat spasming at the unusual sensation. But then it just felt like air. I waited for my head to start hurting. It didn’t.
Wait…what? I thought.
I sucked in more water. Then I breathed it back out. It felt like taking in a big, deep gulp of air. I did it again. And again. Nothing happened. No pain. No dizziness.
Oh, Miles, you great big idiot.
I could breathe. I could breathe the water. We’d learned forever ago that we were immune to our own element. Blade couldn’t be burned. Calvin couldn’t suffocate. And I couldn’t drown.
I laughed, but the sound was muted by the water. Just because I could breathe
it, didn’t mean I could talk in it.
Panic fled from me, and I experienced overwhelming joy. I wasn’t going to die. And with the water inside of me, I felt…better. Stronger somehow. It was like the water rejuvenated me, bringing back all of the energy I’d lost in the fight. Or maybe that was just the relief. Either way, I’d take it.
But I was still trapped by the boulder that had sunk down on top of me. Time to do something about that.
The boulder was submerged. Water had pressed into it, into every fissure and fault. Maybe I wasn’t strong enough to lift it, but I could break it. I felt for the water in the boulder, gripped it in my mind. Then I froze it. The ice shattered the rock, and the boulder fell away in pieces.
I pushed off from the bottom of the lake and swam upward toward the surface. Then I realized how stupid I was being. Swimming? For the Keeper of Water?
I swept water up and under me, using it like a jet stream to push myself up. Then I bumped into something. I glanced at it and saw it was Melaine’s body. She was floating listlessly, her eyes closed. I wrapped an arm around her waist and used the water jets to fling us both up.
We burst from the water in a spray of drops, and I hastily put another platform of ice beneath us. I dropped Melaine on it and expanded the ice, making it big enough for the others. They swam to it through the water, pulling themselves up with relief. Blade turned back to the ants, who were everywhere in the water around us. He’d started putting walls of fire in the water itself. They steamed, and the heat discouraged the ants almost as much as the fire itself did.
“Melaine!” I cried. I dropped to my knees beside her. I shook her shoulders. Her eyes didn’t open. I slapped her, and her head lolled to the side, lifeless.
“Come on,” I said. “Come on back.”
I put my palm on her chest, feeling within her body. There it was. The water. It had filled her lungs. I wrapped my mind around it delicately, sending it sliding gently up her esophagus and into her mouth. I used my fingers to part her lips, and the water shot out to land on the ice beneath her head.
Wyrmspire (Realm Keepers Book 2) Page 32