KINGDOM OF THE STONE -- a Wattpad featured novel

Chapter Twenty Eight

A moment later, he heard a distant rumbling.  It seemed to rise up from the very heart of the world, growing in strength until the stone beneath his feet vibrated.  Amantis wanted to turn and run to safety, to get out from under the tons of rock quivering overhead and casting down thin showers of dust, but then the dust began to move on its own.  It fell into twisting spirals, forming something like a dust devil in the breathless air, growing tighter and denser until other spirals split and branched away like arms and legs.

In one horrible moment of revelation, Amantis sensed a powerful presence.  He was not alone.  The flying dust shaped itself into something like a man which approached him before collapsing into the water with a whispering hiss. 

The seer stone fell into his hand, unexpectedly heavy, and as cold as ice.

The hiss seemed to say, "Bring me a body."

-=====|==

At the end of autumn near the new moon and the start of fall, Haydonae rose, scratching her head and watching the glorious sunrise.  She walked out into the common area and suppressed a shiver from the receding cool air.  The nights were definitely getting colder and winter would soon come.  Still rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she strolled over to the golden stone, her favorite drinking bowl in hand.  Her scream woke the entire village.  In moments a hundred people stood wide-eyed and disheveled, staring at the stone.

The flow of milk had stopped.

As the villagers all stood opened-mouthed and unable to speak, Haydonae leaped at the still-full barrel, scooped her bowl in and guzzled the milk greedily.  With an inarticulate roar, the villagers leaped behind her, each shoving their bowls into the barrel, splashing the milk on each other and grunting in pain as they pushed and elbowed their way forward.  Haydonae found herself shoved backward and she fell, watching in uncomprehending horror as the villagers scrabbled at the barrel until their bowls scraped its bottom.  Then the villagers all stopped and stared bleakly into the empty barrel.

A trickling sound drew Haydonae's attention back to the gold-covered rock.  Fresh white milk trickled from the stone into the tilted bowl which poured into the barrel.  No one moved or spoke until the milk had filled the barrel, then the flow stopped.  Methus caught her attention with one swollen and blackened eye.  He didn't have to say anything, she could read the fear on his face, but she had no idea what any of it meant.

-=====|==

"I tell you there is no more room to put anything," Kapalos said in an unusual fit of exasperation.

"And there's not even enough room for us to lie down," Cora complained.  She was a large middle-aged woman who needed her space and was used to getting it with both fists planted firmly on wide hips and sharp-tongue wagging.  Behind her stood a half-dozen sullen men and women whom she had corralled with the force of her complaints and dragged with her to the elders to demand more room in the stoma of Har-Tor.

With a helpless expression, Hasamo looked to Gerron who merely shrugged.  The second harvest is only now starting to come in, and with young Karux's help, it appears to be much larger than the first," Gerron said.

"There is an opening to another stoma down below," Jomel observed.  "Perhaps we can store something down there."

Hasamo shook his head.  "That stoma is not large enough to make much of a difference and I haven't explored it further to see if there are more chambers further down.  In truth, I fear where these underground passages may lead and what they may lead to."

"So where are we supposed to sleep?" Cora demanded after the circle of elders lapsed into silence.

"We could build warehouses in N'shia-Potoma," Sidaro suggested.  "That should free up some space and we wouldn't have to haul all this food up the mountain's steep sides."