Page 120 of Wind Rider

“According to Antreas the island isn’t more than a big rock that’s flat on the top. Nothing grows there, and it’s literally a rock, so Monkeys can’t build dens at the waterline,” Nik said.

“And no Monkeys means no Mouths, either,” Wilkes said.

“Exactly.”

“The girls are done! They’re helping Mason with the last of the potato digging,” Wilkes said.

“Good, I’m ready to get away from this stench,” Nik said.

“Okay, they just waved and they’re strapping the baskets over their shoulders,” Wilkes reported.

He and Nik kept eyeing their respective targets, but they also arranged their arrows within easy reach. Just touching the barbed tips calmed Nik. He’d been the best bowman in the Tribe for years, and he had no doubt about his ability to take out any Monkeys or Mouths that threatened them.

“On their way back—heads up! The Monkeys are also on the move,” Wilkes warned.

He hadn’t needed to. The Monkeys weren’t subtle. Chattering to one another, they waddled from the trees and dove into the water, morphing into expert swimmers before disappearing beneath the frothing waves.

Jenna, Spencer, and Mason returned smelling of sweat and earth, and making Nik long for the end of their journey.

Mason was the first into the boat. He stood, balancing, as Jenna and Spencer handed him their laden baskets. The dark shape that had been lurking under the dock moved, and Nik caught sight of something that looked like a snake. He aimed his crossbow and spoke quickly.

“Get in the boat. I see a Mouth. It’s there—under the dock.”

“Last basket in!” Mason said. Then he lifted each of the girls and practically tossed them into the cramped little boat. “Okay, we’re loaded. Let’s go! Let’s go!”

The paddling was left to Mason, Jenna, and Spencer. Wilkes and Nik sat at opposite ends of the boat, crossbows raised, sighting into the water.

They were only a few yards from the dock when Spencer shrieked and said, “I just hit something with my paddle!”

Wilkes turned in time to see a Monkey diving beneath the boat. “Monkey—under us.”

And then from the opposite side of the boat came a shriek that perfectly echoed Spencer’s—sounding exactly like one of the girls had fallen overboard.

“Don’t let it shake you,” Nik said, sighting down into the water.

“Oh, no you don’t!” Jenna shouted as a furry webbed hand glided silently up out of the water, grabbing one of the straps of a basket filled with blackberries. She lifted her paddle over her head and brought it down on the creature’s wrist sharply. The Monkey cried out and the water writhed as it tried to swim away, but it didn’t let loose of the strap. Jenna bent a little out of the boat so that she could swing at the thing again, this time rapping it on the knuckles of its webbed hand. It squealed, dropped the strap, and dove under the surface.

At that moment a tentacle slithered up out of the water in the exact place the Monkey had been, reaching for Jenna.

“Nik!” Spencer screamed.

“Get back!” Nik swiveled, trying to get a clean shot of the huge fish. He could see it clearly now. It had to have been twenty feet long—almost bigger than their boat. Its body was black and wide, and its enormous oval-shaped maw was open. Rows of teeth glistened wet. They weren’t sharp, like a canine’s incisors. Instead the teeth looked like rough-tipped bumps that were barbed so that once the Mouths bit something it was almost impossible for the prey to escape. Tentacles, like massive white-bellied snakes, grew from either side of its mouth. It seemed they moved with sentience of their own—and they were all reaching for Jenna.

Spencer lunged for Jenna, wrapping her arms around her friend’s waist and pulling her backwards as one of the tentacles missed the girl’s arm, instead wrapping around her paddle and jerking it out of Jenna’s hand to pull it into its mouth.

“I got it!” Wilkes said, firing his bow into the water, but the arrow skittered off the creature’s wide head.

In one movement Nik stood, aimed, fired—and the arrow embedded itself in the feathers in the creature’s eye. The behemoth under the water exploded in an agony of movement, its thick black tail striking the canoe and causing it to tip precariously. Blood and gore poured from thecreature’s eye, staining the water—calling to the Monkeys. They came like a school of deadly fish, slithering through the water slick and silent, closing on the dying Mouth and the boat.

Nik aimed and shot a Monkey through the forehead, causing the group to falter as they shrieked and chattered at one another—and then several stopped their projectile-like swim toward the fish and began tearing apart their fallen comrade.

“Paddle! Paddle! Get us out of here!” Nik shouted.

Mason, Jenna, Spencer, and even Wilkes grabbed paddles and bent their backs to stroking against the seething water. The little boat shot away from the convulsing body of the Mouth as the pack of Monkeys reached it.

Nik could only watch for a moment. Like they were a swarm that formed on water, they covered the fish and began reaching into its wounded eye with greedy, webbed fingers, pulling out great hunks of bloody goo. Gagging, Nik looked away. He put down his crossbow, picked up a paddle, and got the hell out of there.

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