and life struck a pulse of leeriness through her.
“As soon as we find their food-replicator and replenish our food we get out beyond the city’s wall,” she said while pulsing her wings and lifting just above them.
“It is in the city’s center,” Ivanus said. “I sense it there.”
“Then that is where we head,” Riad said.
Julieth flew low as the company weaved around stone and clay buildings that were barely taller than Riad’s height. As they exited the thoroughfares, the streets opened up to a massive slab of mountain rock. The stone area was pocked, like hard, dried skin that peeled off of scorched flesh. And then in places it appeared smooth, perfectly flat in form.
“Beware of the flat places,” Julieth spoke to them all. “I saw them from above the city. They mark portions of this whole city.”
“Bizarre. I have never seen anything like this.” Riad leaned down, touching his cybernetic hand to the pocked surface of the rock slab below them. A humming noise came from where his hand touched it. “Its structure is weakened with time. We must make our way to the replicator.”
They moved quickly toward the structure where Ivanus sensed the replicator. Then, just as they reached the center of the area, Ivanus startled them.
“It is going to give way!” He called out, first directing his voice toward Riad and then quickly looking up to Julieth.
“What?” she called back down. She dove, landing beside him and the boys so that she could hear him better.
“The earth below us is ripping apart.”
A sudden rumble came from nearby. Then the ground sank beneath her, not as sinking soil, but as scales of dried earth cracking off from their surrounding pieces and tumbling into a vast cavern below.
Julieth instinctively pulsed her wings as the ground she stood on dropped away, pulling the rest of the platform with it in shattered pieces of earth. Riad, Ivanus, Bayne and Andral were consumed by blackness below; the boys’ shouts piercing her hearing.
Her heart beat rapidly, not knowing why the earth had caved or what was below them, but without thought she angled her wings and dove down after them, curving out of the sunlight and into the black unknown below.
Wind beat over her, ramming her chest and curling around her as she dove. Julieth could barely make out the shadowy forms of her companions falling beneath her. Then a series of splashing sounds echoed in her ears, sounds she hadn’t heard before. It would sound different if they collided with earth, she thought, adjusting her wings to hover down instead of quickly descending. What has happened to them?
Julieth halted in the blackness, hovering and watching below as torches lit a chamber. A liquid substance was directly beneath her. Her companions bobbed at the top of it. It could not be lava, she realized. Could it be water? She had not seen a pool of water for years.
Beasts held the torches, their rippling, furred muscles illuminated in the firelight. They had long noses and pointed ears.
“Can we eat them?” a rasped voice echoed over the chamber and came to her ears.
Julieth felt a surge of energy rushing through her, the same as when Bayne had rendered all in Kaskal unconscious, and then darkness came.
Wings stopped. She hurtled down, barely able to register the punch of her body hitting the water.
Chapter 10
In the darkness of her mind she heard voices, an alien tongue she could not discern. Rock was hard below her. Her wings were restrained. With an involuntary suck of air Julieth awoke, violently startling and writhing on the floor of a prison cell before realizing where she was and stopping the struggle. A faint red hue illuminated the cell from somewhere beyond it. Her hands and feet were bound in rope.
She thrust her legs against the black rock floor, pushing herself like a serpent toward the rusted steel bars that caged her in. With a roll and a look above her she realized the cell was only half her height if
“As soon as we find their food-replicator and replenish our food we get out beyond the city’s wall,” she said while pulsing her wings and lifting just above them.
“It is in the city’s center,” Ivanus said. “I sense it there.”
“Then that is where we head,” Riad said.
Julieth flew low as the company weaved around stone and clay buildings that were barely taller than Riad’s height. As they exited the thoroughfares, the streets opened up to a massive slab of mountain rock. The stone area was pocked, like hard, dried skin that peeled off of scorched flesh. And then in places it appeared smooth, perfectly flat in form.
“Beware of the flat places,” Julieth spoke to them all. “I saw them from above the city. They mark portions of this whole city.”
“Bizarre. I have never seen anything like this.” Riad leaned down, touching his cybernetic hand to the pocked surface of the rock slab below them. A humming noise came from where his hand touched it. “Its structure is weakened with time. We must make our way to the replicator.”
They moved quickly toward the structure where Ivanus sensed the replicator. Then, just as they reached the center of the area, Ivanus startled them.
“It is going to give way!” He called out, first directing his voice toward Riad and then quickly looking up to Julieth.
“What?” she called back down. She dove, landing beside him and the boys so that she could hear him better.
“The earth below us is ripping apart.”
A sudden rumble came from nearby. Then the ground sank beneath her, not as sinking soil, but as scales of dried earth cracking off from their surrounding pieces and tumbling into a vast cavern below.
Julieth instinctively pulsed her wings as the ground she stood on dropped away, pulling the rest of the platform with it in shattered pieces of earth. Riad, Ivanus, Bayne and Andral were consumed by blackness below; the boys’ shouts piercing her hearing.
Her heart beat rapidly, not knowing why the earth had caved or what was below them, but without thought she angled her wings and dove down after them, curving out of the sunlight and into the black unknown below.
Wind beat over her, ramming her chest and curling around her as she dove. Julieth could barely make out the shadowy forms of her companions falling beneath her. Then a series of splashing sounds echoed in her ears, sounds she hadn’t heard before. It would sound different if they collided with earth, she thought, adjusting her wings to hover down instead of quickly descending. What has happened to them?
Julieth halted in the blackness, hovering and watching below as torches lit a chamber. A liquid substance was directly beneath her. Her companions bobbed at the top of it. It could not be lava, she realized. Could it be water? She had not seen a pool of water for years.
Beasts held the torches, their rippling, furred muscles illuminated in the firelight. They had long noses and pointed ears.
“Can we eat them?” a rasped voice echoed over the chamber and came to her ears.
Julieth felt a surge of energy rushing through her, the same as when Bayne had rendered all in Kaskal unconscious, and then darkness came.
Wings stopped. She hurtled down, barely able to register the punch of her body hitting the water.
Chapter 10
In the darkness of her mind she heard voices, an alien tongue she could not discern. Rock was hard below her. Her wings were restrained. With an involuntary suck of air Julieth awoke, violently startling and writhing on the floor of a prison cell before realizing where she was and stopping the struggle. A faint red hue illuminated the cell from somewhere beyond it. Her hands and feet were bound in rope.
She thrust her legs against the black rock floor, pushing herself like a serpent toward the rusted steel bars that caged her in. With a roll and a look above her she realized the cell was only half her height if
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