Firefly | Shelha Series 5 | ✔

Chapter Eighty-Six: Negrilaw

The image of the monster from the water breaking to the surface paralyzed her. Around her, her friends didn't dare move as the sound came again, then was answered by a smaller crack. The first returned. For a few heartbeats everything went silent, then the first began a steady beat. It was not natural rock breaking. This was someone hitting rocks together. The higher tone overlaid itself on the first in a mesmerizing rhythm. The rock beneath the renegades shuddered.

A Coppertail's screech sent ice through Sethral's body. It was followed by the creak of many bows. It snarled, then fell silent with a whimper. The sound carried so far on the still air, they might as well have been tail-lengths from the dark parade that had materialized in front of the behemoth vine-tree. A wide ring of creatures flickered with the glint of moonlight off glossed bowstrings. At their center was a smaller clump. Sethral grabbed Loki's arm. One of the creatures was glowing.

The rock-sounds had not moved. They were at the edge of the river, on a spit jutting from the canyon's edge. Creatures there looked out into the canyon, and the rocks tied to the bottoms of the staves they carried maintained the steady clattering at their feet. One stepped past them and gave a shout that echoed up and down the canyon.

"Negrilaw!"

The rock under Sethral's claws shuddered again. A deep scrape vibrated the air from the cave beneath them, and the monster butted the rock again. Why didn't it turn around and return to the water and the creatures that were calling it? Had it gotten trapped?

Already the procession had reached the base of the spit. The rock-drumming intensified.

"They can't jump!" squeaked Silversand. "It'll kill Phoenix!"

There was no time to think. Sethral seized Loki's arm and sprinted back into the cave, up to the ledge where Ryatzi had warned of a rockslide. The biggest boulder was on unsteady footing. She hurled her weight against it. Loki caught on as it rocked, and though he must have thought her crazy, he doubled her impact when the boulder swung towards the incline again. This time pebbles skittered and the buildup gave way. The boulder thundered down the cave, and though Sethral and Loki were halfway to the surface when it connected with the back wall, the boom shook them off their paws. Loki dragged Sethral up again. Rocks tinkled and crackled. Something slammed against the other side of the wall, and the entire back of the cave crumbled.

"Run!" screamed Sethral.

Ryatzi and Silversand were with them as they fled the cave. Ryatzi took them straight to the forest. Sethral could not look back until they had plunged among trunks and found one rough enough for all but Ryatzi to climb.

"I can outrun it," he said when they hesitated. They scrambled up the trunk.

Out on the field, the hummock with the cave entrance was silent and still. Sethral nearly lost her grip, her claws were shaking so hard. She sank them into the bark beneath her. A narrow wedge of shadow poked from the cave in the field. Across the grass, the creatures on the spit had halted, and half their bows now pointed this way. The Coppertails were still hemmed in. The drumming had stopped.

The wedge elongated and began to grow. Bigger and bigger it got, until it leveled out to precede a snakelike body as thick as Ryatzi was tall out of the cave. It had sensed the creatures across the field. The grass parted in a vee as it began to stalk them, its motion half a slither, half a crawl. From above, it looked for all the world like a rivulet of dark blood through the moonlit grass. A piercing whistle sounded from the vine-tree. At once, every bow was trained in the direction of the monster they could not see. Could the guard not tell what it was? Bows would be useless against this thing.

"Run," whispered Loki. "Shelha, why aren't they running?"

"They'll still be shot." One of Sethral's claw-tips broke. She tried to relax her grip, but it was like prying hardened metal. The eel paused and readjusted its course. It was headed for the center of the parade. On a quiet or unspoken signal, the white Watermice bundled together and forced the Coppertails and Whipper—Sethral could see a dark blob on Taz's back—out in front of them.