Page 71 of The Lands Defying
“Yes,” he tells me. “The language of wolves.”
“My mom told me all she knew about our line, about our Gods. The people have forgotten them even as they change into their wolves that they received from the Gods and run under the moon.”
Kruten nods before he continues. “We may be trolls, but we have always been under the Gods’s protection. They created the lands, ran around the earth, and played and danced. Creatingrivers and caves and mountains and hills. Life. Without them, there is no us. No sun, no moon, no sky, land, or the below.”
“Then why did they abandon us,” Leo asks, and I look sharply at him. I know many feel that way, even I have at times when I have felt so low. But I just can’t fully believe they would leave us. If I do, I lose all hope.
From what my mom told me, they loved the lands and its people. So why haven’t they been around in so many years that they are now called the old Gods, and they are not prayed for anymore?
“They did not,” Kruten says sadly, and my head flies back to him. “They were—”
“Leader,” a troll rushes into the room, sweat beading his brow. “Something is happening to the land.”
Kruten rushes to his feet. “What do you mean?” he demands, and we all stand at the nerves in his voice, Darius holding me close with a hand at the small of my back.
“It’s splitting.
Twenty One
Rhea
We rush outside, following Kruten and the other troll. A thunderous sound pierces through the air, and we look to the mountain side and see cracks forming in the rock. Stones fall down the mountain, tumbling and gaining speed until they crash onto the dry ground, smashing into pieces.
What the…
Another loud cracking sound draws my attention behind me to another mountain, seeing it split down the center so fast my eyes can’t follow it. The ground rumbles beneath us, shaking like it’s angry, and we waver on our feet, Dar’s hand going to my arm to steady me. Another crack and shouts from around us spill into the air as trolls run out of their homes and come towards Kruten, their faces full of shock and fear.
Another crack, like roots splitting and my heart painfully beats in my chest.
“What is happening?” I shout over the crashing stones and splitting mountains. The ground starts to split in front of us, spider web cracks spreading and a gasp escapes me.
“We need to leave,” Leo shouts, looking at the mountains in horror as one completely separates, and then starts to crumble.
“Move, now!” Darius orders us, and we do.
Kruten shouts for his tribe as we turn and run to the opposite end of this area, where it will be free of mountains and the threat of being crushed to death.
“Keep moving!” Darius pushes me in front of him, a hand constantly on my back to urge me forward as I ask Runa for her strength.
She gives it, a whine coming from her as she can feel my panic.
Rubble crashes down on us at all sides, producing clouds of dusty smoke. I cough, rubbing my eyes as they water. A mountain to our right gives way next, and an almighty roar splits the air.
I almost trip over my feet, unable to believe what I’m seeing as I look to the skies. A large mouth, teeth bared, and then, a stream of fire follows it—spewing out like lava.
“Oh my Gods,” I whisper to myself, my eyes wide as I take in another large ball of fire as it erupts out of its mouth and into the sky.
Its leathery wings the color of a coming storm in the sky spreading wide, gliding through the air with ease and I think… I think there is someone on its back.
“Is that a fucking dragon?!” I shriek, blinking the dust out of my eyes, wondering if I imagined it.
But there is no way I imagined that fire.
“Yes, now keep going,” Darius growls, looking up at the fading dragon and ushering me forward. There was a dragon… a dragon! “Rhea,” Darius snaps. “Focus!”
Right, yeah.
More stone gives way, tumbling around us, and I pick up the pace, Darius constantly at my back.
