“Whatever happened, happened fast,” she said, all business. “Yorn never got to his weapons.”
Kasha held her spear to the side, low, and walked her zenzen forward slowly. “Stay beside me,” she ordered.
I did what I was told and brought my zenzen alongside her, also holding my spear ready. We walked together through the trees, headed in the direction that Yorn’s zenzen had come from. I was a raw nerve. Every little thing I heard sounded like a tang charging through the trees to attack us. A cracking twig, rustling branches, even the distant roar from the waterfalls. Everything made me jump. But nothing attacked us. Yet.
We reached the end of the stand of trees and walked into the open to discover we were on the shore of the lake. That meant we were at the very bottom of the crater. The waterfalls loomed over us. We were so close I could feel their cool mist. Stars were starting to appear in the sky. Their light reflected in the smooth, clear lake. I would have thought it was beautiful, if I weren’t so freakin’ nervous. “That way,” Kasha pointed.
I looked to see a break in the trees farther along the lake that must have led to the dark waterfall. Black Water. If Yorn made it this far, that’s the way he would have gone. We walked our zenzens along the shore, toward the opening. We took a few steps, then I heard something that nearly made my heart stop. I shot a quick look to Kasha. She had heard it too. After all, she was a cat. The two of us whipped around to look out on the lake and saw…
The once still water was churning. Something down below was rising up. It looked like several things, actually. There must have been twenty dark shadows that broke the surface of the water and moved quickly toward shore, headed for us. Attacking.
“Go!” Kasha commanded.
We kicked our zenzens and bolted forward toward the opening in the trees. I charged into the woods first, not sure of where I was headed. All I knew was I wanted to get away from whatever monsters had been lurking underwater, waiting for us. The woods were totally dark. All I could do was follow the sound of the waterfall. I thought for sure I’d hit something. A few seconds later, I did. One second I was galloping on my zenzen, the next second I was falling through the air. My first thought was that I had hit a branch sticking out onto the trail. I slammed into the ground hard, still clutching the spear in a death grip. The shaft dug into my side. Ouch. I thought for sure I’d broken a rib, but that was the least of my problems. I stayed focused and looked up at what I had run into. It wasn’t a branch.
Dangling over me, hanging from a tree, was a net. Or should I say, it was a trap, and it had been sprung. Caught in the swaying net was Yorn.
“Stop Kasha!” he yelled. “It’s a trap!”
Kasha came charging up from the lake. I couldn’t think fast enough to stop her as she pushed her zenzen on. A second later another trap was sprung. A net came flying down from the trees, catching Kasha. Her zenzen kept running, but Kasha was now caught and dangling, only a few feet from Yorn.
“Pendragon,” Yorn cried. “Run!”
I looked back to the lake to see dozens of the dark shadows running toward us. The lake monsters were on the attack. “Go!” Kasha screamed.
I went. There was nothing else to do, not that I was thinking clearly anyway. I staggered to my feet and ran toward the waterfall. I had some strange idea that if I made it to the waterfall, I’d be safe. The gars called Black Water “home.” Maybe this was like playing tag. When you were home, you were safe. I know, dumb thought, but I wasn’t exactly in my right mind. It was so dark I could only go by the sound of the waterfall. I took a few steps, expecting to run into a tree, when my feet suddenly got pulled out from under me. Something had grabbed me and swept me up into the air, feet first. I quickly realized that my last-ditch escape attempt landed me right in another trap. I hung there, upside down, swinging in the air, helpless. Now the three of us were caught, powerless against the marauding beasts.
I watched, upside down, as the dark forms ran toward me. They didn’t look like tangs. They were more like formless shadows. Dark ghosts. They ran right past Yorn and Kasha, headed for me. Lucky me. They stopped about five feet away, making a circle around me. They didn’t attack, they just stood there. It gave me hope that maybe they weren’t mindless beasts looking for their evening meal. I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe. I figured maybe if I played dead, they’d go away. Yeah, right.
The circle opened up and a much larger shadow stepped in. It was bigger than the others at least a foot. It was hard to make out exactly what it looked like because it was so dark and, well, I was upside down. The shadow walked up and stood there, looking at me. At least I thought it was looking at me. I couldn’t see its eyes. The others crowded behind it. As they got closer, I saw that the reason they looked shapeless was because they were all wearing long, dark cloaks from head to toe. These weren’t wild animals. They weren’t ghostly shadows, either. They were wearing clothes. But what were they? Or who were they?
The leader reached for my face. I winced, expecting something painful to happen. But instead, it reached out with a strange-looking arm that was rounded on the end and wrapped with a rag. This guy was too big to be a klee. And definitely not a tang. But I couldn’t imagine what kind of animal had long arms that were rounded on the end. My heart pounded. I wanted to say something, but the words choked in my throat. I stared at this strange, rounded arm as it poked me to see if I was conscious. That’s when I realized it wasn’t a rounded, alien arm at all. It was a regular old human arm. We had been attacked by a cloaked gang of gars, and this was a normal human poking me. And his hand was missing. He spoke with a deep, soft voice that was something out of a dream-maybe the most incredible dream I’d ever had.
“What’re you doin’, shorty?” the voice said with the hint of a chuckle. “Just hangin’ around?”
He pulled the cape from over his head to reveal the most welcome sight I could have imagined. He smiled warmly and added, “I thought you’d never get here, Bobby.”
I reached around my neck and pulled out the necklace with the Traveler rings. I held the largest ring out to him and said, “Just dropped by to return your ring, Gunny.”
JOURNAL #18
(CONTINUED)
EELONG
“Youlook like you’ve been through the war, shorty,” Gunny said as he held me by the shoulders so the other gars could cut me down.
“Me?” I said. “What about your hand?”
“Ahh, just a minor inconvenience,” he said casually, though I didn’t believe him for a second. “Where did you find my ring?”
“You don’t want to know.”
I was lowered to my feet and stood facing my friend, the tall African-American guy who was the Traveler from First Earth, Vincent “Gunny” Van Dyke. He looked good for a guy in his sixties. But he also looked tired, with a bit more gray in his hair. No big surprise. Eelong did that to people. He put his ring on the finger of his right hand, then looked to me and shook his head. “You look older than when I saw you last.”
“I am,” I said. “Man, it’s good to see you.” I threw my arms around him and hugged him tight. A huge waveofrelief washed over me. Gunny was alive and I was no longer alone. I didn’t want to let him go, but an angry snarl brought me back to reality. I looked to see a few gars poking at Kasha and Yorn as they dangled in their net traps.
A gar ran up to Gunny and said, “We will kill them now, while they’re trapped.”
I don’t know what was more of a shock, knowing that Yorn and Kasha were about to be killed, or hearing a gar speak fluently.
“No!” I shouted quickly. “They’re friends.”
“Klees are not friends,” the gar said. “They will die now.” The gar pulled a weapon from beneath his cloak. It looked like a long arrow, almost a spear, that was loaded in a simple contraption with a band pulled taut, like a spear gun. He raised the tip, and I saw it was very large and very pointy. He headed for the dangling klees, ready
