Page 111 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

I can’t believe my luck.

I pull myself out of the hole and scramble back to my feet. I bolt away, flinching against every aching muscle and bone in my body. The worm snaps its pincers once, probably realizing its mistake before it gives chase.

I don’t look, I just run. Faster than ever.

My lungs are breathing fire, every muscle in my body protesting. A plan! I need a godsdamn plan!

There’s a tiny hill of solid rock in the distance. I need to make it there. The monster might not be able to chew its way through solid stone. It’s an idle bet. But all I have. The city is too far away. I’ll never make it there.

The soil under me shakes and rumbles all over when the worm disappears once again.

I dash on, stumbling over rocks before catching myself, stopping despite every instinct. Sweat streams down my body, my whole being is trembling with stress and exhaustion while I wait out the already familiar, treacherous silence.

The wind carries laughter from the city, a cruel mockery to my ears. But I’ve got no time for tears or self-pity, no time for panic.One. Two.I wait one more second before I sprint off to the left.

I’m sent flying one more time, sprawling on the dirt. But as soon as I hit the ground, I hurtle to my feet. The short flight brought me closer to that rock, just as I planned. A few yards. A few more yards and I’ll be safe.

I run harder than I’ve ever run, sobbing through my clenched teeth. The desert rushes by in a blur of red and brown. The worm chases me underground until there’s silence again. I don’t stop this time, knowing every one of my steps is telling that sinister creature my precise location.

I reach the rock. I jump, stretching out my arms, my fingers touching the solid stone as I try to find hold, try to pull my body up. I slip off.No! No! Fuck no!

I claw and kick at it, scrambling for purchase, grabbing onto it, pulling and trashing, fighting. My foot finally finds hold, and I manage to drag myself up.

I collapse onto a kind of flat plateau, gasping for air.

I made it. I fucking made it.

The worm shoots up from behind me, and I whirl onto my back. This time it’s coming farther out of the ground than ever, exposing a rump that seems like it never ends, its terrible mouth shooting at least twenty yards into the air.

It’s bigger than I thought.Much, muchbigger.

I get up and watch with growing horror how the thing bends its impossibly long body, the mouth now like a black hole directly over me. Ready. Ready to devour and slice me into tiny parts, rock and all.

My ribs seize my heart, making it stutter into an uneven beat.

There’s no more fighting. No more running. There’s nowhere to hide. Nothing to make a weapon from.

I stare at the hole with its thousand rows of nightmarish teeth over me, hissing and churning, closing in; those horrifying pincers snapping and clicking.

I will die right here. All I hope is that it’ll be quick.

I force myself to look away. To look at the sunset instead, at the last, breathtakingly beautiful crimson that seems to burn the sky. At the glittering stars and the two moons. I’d never see more of this world, nor of mine.

The worm’s putrid breath slams into me, invading every part of me, but I still refuse to spend the last moments of my life staring down a nightmare.

Then, for a second, something erupts in silvery light all around me.

I roll into a ball, shielding my face with my hands. Through my fingers I glimpse the worm’s massive body reeling back andflinching, as if blinded by something a creature without eyes shouldn’t be able to see.

I blink once, twice, and the silvery light is gone.

Instead, there’s something like blue and silver lightning dividing the sky. Then everything happens in slow motion: the worm’s back-end collapses, leaving the other, now-severed endstrangely suspended in the air. Its deadly teeth are still hissing and turning as if the worm hasn’t yet realized that its other half has just been extinguished.

It hovers for a split second before it comes crashing down on me, faster than before. It would have squashed me, but something swipes me up and drops me yards away, only to shoot back into the air and slice the worm into more pieces… and then some more.

It all happens so fast, I only see a blur of movement from afar before, suddenly, Caryan’s standing next to me. His gaze is trained on the shredded pieces of the worm raining down from the sky.

Caryan lifts a hand, then closes his fist. The ground rumbles again, but differently than before. When he opens his hand again, the earth opens up in answer. Not to devour the worm but rather to push the other, still unharmed part of its body out. To my shock, this part is still moving, still very much alive.

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