It didn’t.
It surged forward with another ear-blistering shriek.
“RUN!” Luc roared as he hurled the torch into the Cryptic’s eye.
Rolan burst forward, charging directly at the monster while every instinct in his body screamed at him to run the other way. The Cryptic roared in pain and swished its tail, claws raking down the walls.
Without slowing, Rolan threw himself into a slide, skimming over the rock under the monster’s belly. He looked up at the scales whizzing overhead, his eyes seizing on the dark swirl of the aleth at the creature’s center. His hand went to his knife, but before he could even draw it, the Cryptic turned, and the opportunity was lost.
Gritting his teeth, Rolan stumbled back to his feet and pelted for the cave’s exit.
“We’re almost there!” he yelled. “Luc!”
He looked back, then faltered, tripping over a rock and crashing to the hard ground.
Luc wasn’t behind him.
“Truth!”Rolan swore.
Of course Luc wasn’t behind him. He’d never intended to be. He was just buying time for Rolan to escape, and like a fool, Rolan had fallen for it.
“LUC!”
He could see nothing of the Arcanist in the dark. The Cryptic must have stomped on the torch, extinguishing its light. It thrashed its tail and bellowed its fury in the black of the cave, and Rolan had no idea if his master was still alive in there or not.
He was debating going back when the Cryptic snapped at him.
“Agh!” Rolan threw himself to the side, barely saving his head from being bitten off his shoulders. A spray of saliva splashed over his face as the monster’s jaws clacked shut in the air where he’d been standing.
It had turned itself around—and was chasing him.
Did that mean it had finished Luc off?
A sob of despair knotting in his throat, Rolan turned and sprinted out of the cave, falling twice to his knees and scraping them bloody. When he reached the forest, he tripped over a root and went sprawling again, this time feeling a burst of pain in his knee.
Flipping over, he backed away on all fours, scrabbling over the mud.
The Cryptic burst from the cave with a mighty roar, its jaw open wide enough to crush a building between its teeth. Rolan cried out, raising a hand in pitiful defense. The Cryptic raised one massive claw, preparing to crush Rolan to pieces—
Then Luc’s sword came swinging out of the dark, wheeling tip over hilt, to impale the monster through the back and slide out the other side—directly through the Cryptic’s core.
With a grunt, the monster toppled backward, crashing into the rock face of the hill. It gave a long, low groan… and then it was gone.
The huge body crumbled into smoke, its final roar still rippling through the trees, outliving its maker.
Rolan gasped and collapsed onto the forest floor, sucking down buckets of damp, mossy air. His chest rose and fell like a bellows, every breath a ragged wheeze.
Then, after several minutes of being startled at his own aliveness, he began to laugh.
“We made it,” he whispered. Then louder, “We made it!”
When no reply came, he pushed himself up onto his elbows.
“Luc?”
Then he saw it—the cave’s mouth.
Or rather, the heap of rock that hadbeenthe cave’s mouth.
