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All the while, Ixa continues running, paws eating up the distance between the columns and us. One of the vale wraiths lunges at him, but he swiftly dodges, sliding sideways until he’s out of reach of that snapping chest-mouth. This isn’t the first time he’s had to ferry a group through a deadly situation. It isn’t even the first time this week. The next vale wraith that snaps at him is the one the Idugu spoke through, but Keita blasts its neck with fire before it can reach us.
“My thanks, Keita!” I shout, not that he can hear me.
He’s concentrating on the battle now, all his thoughts focused and precise. All my friends are.
“Do not let them get away!” The Idugu’s command ripples from vale wraith to vale wraith, but my friends are more than an even match for them.
Nevertheless, I can see the strain on Britta’s body as she and Li struggle to take down a snapping vale wraith. The two may be formidable fighters, but they’re starving and sleep deprived. Even the greatest champions could falter under such conditions.
“Just a few minutes more,” I promise, turning to the columns.
They’re just a short distance away now, but the stars are dimming ever more quickly around them. Now that the Idugu know that the vale wraiths won’t defeat my friends, they’re intent on awakening reinforcements: I can hear those flapping sounds growing louder in the distance.
I gesture for Nevra, the girl who seems older than the rest, to dismount the moment we stop. “The door is on that column,” I say, pointing. “Take the oldest girls and find it!” Even as I tell her this, I hear a warning crack in one of the mountains and the loud flapping getting closer. “Hurry!” I shout. “There are more monstrosities on the horizon. Worse ones!”
“For Infinity’s sake!” I don’t know who’s more shocked, me or Nevra, when she curses, then motions for the others to hurry.
Within moments, the girls have sprinted to the columns, and then a victorious shout rings out. One girl is waving her hand next to one of the columns, and it’s disappearing and reappearing. Thank Infinity for human children’s sharper nighttime eyesight. “The gate!” she says excitedly. “I found it!”
I immediately gesture to the other girls still on Ixa. “Go!” I tell them. To my friends, I shout, “OVER HERE! WE’VE FOUND THE GATE!”
“COMIN’!” shouts Britta.
She and Li disengage from their vale wraith, as do the others, then they all ride toward me as fast as they can.
Once I’m sure they’re near enough, I urge Ixa onward. Let’s go, I say.
Deka, Ixa replies, relieved. He doesn’t like it here any more than I do.
Forward he goes, headed toward the girl, who has her hand stuck through the gate to mark its position. Suddenly a distant scream reaches me. I whirl, horrified to find Belcalis jumping from her gryph, which one of the vale wraiths has caught in its maw. Lamin effortlessly snatches her midair, and then his gryph flies toward us, as do the others.
Belcalis’s gryph disappears down the vale wraith’s throat, then moments later, an enraged roar sounds. Only creatures capable of worship, like humans, equus, alaki, and other such beings, can provide the sustenance the Idugu need to materialize. All others are merely meat. The vale wraith roars again, but I pay no attention to it as I turn back to the gate, through which most of the children have already fled. Only Nevra, Palitz, and the girl who found the gate remain. I motion for them to hurry just as Ixa and I near the shimmering circle of air.
“For Infinity’s sake, move! We all have to get through!”
Nodding, Nevra runs through the gate, the others following her.
I turn to my friends, but Britta is already charging over on her gryph, waving me onward. “Go, Deka!” she shouts. “We’re right behind ye!”
A glance confirms this before I slide through the gate with Ixa, the shimmering air adjusting effortlessly to absorb his bulk. But as the darkness wraps around us, surrounding us in muffled silence and extreme heat, Ixa turns toward me, his eyes suddenly panicked.
Deka, he says, last girl! She didn’t come through!
I turn back, horrified, but the darkness has already swallowed me so completely, I have no visibility remaining. What girl, Ixa? I ask, terror piercing me. What girl?
Ixa doesn’t reply, only lets out a long, miserable growl as the darkness spins us once more. And then I’m lost to the pain.
When I open my eyes again, I’m falling toward a grassy plain at the very edge of a cliff, a jungle stretched out below us. Ixa barely has time to grow wings before we’re tumbling onto it, bodies slamming roughly against ankle-length grasses that slice my tender skin.
Nevra and the other children are scattered behind us in a wild tumble. Some are so close to the cliff that if they had landed just a few lengths to the right, they would have tumbled over the ledge.
“MOVE OUT OF THE WAY!”
I barely have time to urge Ixa aside before Britta and the others come falling through as well, the wings of their gryphs slowing their descent. The moment they land, I rush toward the children, dread rising as I swiftly count. All are accounted for. All except for one.
Groaning, Keita dismounts from his gryph and walks over to me. “It was the mouthy one,” he says tiredly, shaking his head.
“The mouthy one?” Nevra glances around, panic settling into her eyes as she searches for her friend. “Palitz,” she calls. “Palitz!”
