Ling-Fei was standing next to him, looking outside the cave. She turned to smile at him. ‘It’s sunrise! Time to go! We need to make the most of the daylight,’ she went on. ‘The days are shorter here. I’ll wake the others.’
‘Good idea,’ said Billy, stretching his arms over his head. ‘The sooner we get going, the better.’ His body ached. He felt as if he could sleep for at least another twelve hours. He’d been anxious the entire time he’d kept watch, jumping at every shadow. When he’d been unable to keep his eyes open and kept dozing off, he’d woken Charlotte to take over. But, despite being exhausted, he hadn’t slept well at all. He’d had terrible nightmares. He couldn’t remember exactly what he’d dreamed about, but the feeling of terror remained.
‘I’m up, I’m up,’ said Dylan as Ling-Fei shook his shoulders. ‘We can’t stay in here, our nice safe cave, a little longer?’ he said, yawning.
‘You’d rather we were out at night? In the dark?’ said Charlotte, brows raised. She’d popped up as soon as Ling-Fei had nudged her.
‘All right, all right. Off into the unknown, probably to our deaths, we go,’ said Dylan.
After a breakfast of peaches and pork buns, the four climbed out of the cave. As they did, Ling-Fei patted it again. ‘Thank you for protecting us,’ she said. She looked at everyone else expectantly. ‘Say thank you.’
Feeling silly, but not wanting to upset Ling-Fei, Billy gave the cave a thumbs up. ‘Thanks,’ he said. Charlotte and Billy did the same.
They stood at the edge of the mountain range, heads tipped back to gauge how high the peaks reached. In the daylight they could better see how foreboding the range appeared. The mountains were inky black, like smoke smudges against the red sky.
‘So do we go up and over?’ Dylan asked after a moment. ‘Too bad none of us got flight as our power.’
‘To be fair, we thought we’d be able to fly on our dragons,’ said Charlotte.
‘There has to be a way to go through them,’ Billy said, eyeing the mountains ahead. He too felt daunted by how far they would have to travel on foot. He had a terrible feeling it was going to take them days to reach the red dome. By then, it might be too late. If they made it at all.
Suddenly, Ling-Fei got down on her hands and knees and put her ear to the ground.
‘Er… what are you doing down there?’ asked Dylan, looking alarmed.
‘Shh!’ said Ling-Fei. ‘I’m listening.’
‘To what?’ Dylan said.
Charlotte thwacked Dylan on the arm. ‘Shush! Let her listen.’
After a minute, Ling-Fei looked up and smiled. ‘There’s a river that cuts through the mountains. It flows south, towards the red dome. If we follow it, I bet we’ll get through to the other side.’
‘And you know this how?’ Dylan said incredulously.
‘Because of her power, you pickle-brain,’ snapped Charlotte.
‘I heard the river in the earth,’ said Ling-Fei patiently. ‘I think this is the right way to go.’
Billy was glad that somebody had an idea what to do. ‘Then that’s what we’ll do,’ he said definitively. ‘We have to trust each other. And our powers. It’s the only way we’re ever going to get to the red dome.’
Ling-Fei was right.
The group only had to walk a few hundred metres before they came upon a river that made a natural pass through the mountain range. Its banks were steep and narrow, but it was still better than attempting to climb the towering mountains around them. They hiked in silence along the riverbank for most of the day, walking in single file, with Ling-Fei at the front and Charlotte at the back. As they marched on, Billy started to feel as if they would never get out of the inky mountain range. That he’d spend the rest of his life walking along this river, surviving on nothing but peaches – the peach trees that had disappeared in the dead forest had re-emerged alongside the river. Billy’s earlier confidence in Ling-Fei and her power began to waver. So she’d been right about there being a river, but did she know how far it went? And in what direction? He wanted to believe her one hundred per cent, but as the day went on doubts kept wiggling into his brain. It didn’t help that Ling-Fei kept stopping to examine rocks, speaking to some and collecting others in her pockets as they went.
Twice they saw nox-wings flying overhead and had to duck behind boulders, waiting, breathless, hoping they hadn’t been discovered.
Billy had lost track of how long they’d been walking when they finally stopped underneath a peach tree to rest and have lunch, all sunburned and hungry.
‘I’m exhausted,’ said Dylan, opening his backpack and passing round some pork buns.
‘I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of pork buns,’ said Charlotte as she took a big bite.
‘That’s good,’ said Dylan, ‘because those and peaches are all we have.’
Billy stretched his legs in front of him as he sat and ate a peach. He didn’t think his body had ever felt so sore. ‘Hopefully we’ll get out of these mountains tonight,’ he said. ‘And closer to the red dome.’
‘Hopefully,’ Charlotte echoed.
‘Hey, what’s that?’ asked Dylan, pointing to a grey blob in the river.
The group stood up and took several steps back.
‘It might be another crab,’ said Charlotte, picking up a nearby stick.
But the animal that hopped out of the water looked nothing like a crab. Billy thought it was more of a cross between a small dog and a fish. Its face was scrunched between two big eyes, and it had a squat body with four stubby legs underneath and a small tail that waggled furiously as it hopped up and down on the shore. A big tongue hung out of its open mouth.
‘It’s a little river pup!’ said Ling-Fei, walking towards it.
‘You know what that animal is?’ asked Billy. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it!’
Ling-Fei laughed. ‘Neither have I, but
