Douglas Niles - The Coral Kingdom

But the beast sprang away before she could close. For a fierce, triumphant moment, she thought that it feared her, but then she saw the awful truth.

The monster's leap carried it full into the side of Colleen's gelding. One of the huge legs kicked outward, shockingly nimble, crushing the horse's shoulder with the force of a single blow. With an exclamation of fear, or maybe anger, the scout flew from the saddle, tumbling heavily to the ground. Immediately a lashing tendril whipped over her tumbling body to constrict about her legs. The knight finally stopped rolling, knocked senseless, and the monster tightened its grip.

Slowly the tentacle grew taut, dragging Colleen feetfirst through the grass toward the gigantic beast. The gaping maw narrowed, becoming an extending proboscis with a small, circular opening in its blunt tip. The aperture resembled a giant sucker as it pulsed open and closed, as if tantalized by the approaching morsel.

Brigit had rushed in closer when the monster attacked Colleen, but her blade-of the sharpest, hardest elven steel, and enchanted more than a thousand years earlier by a great Llewyrr wizard-merely bounced from the thing's bony carapace. Talloth fairly flew around the thing, and then Brigit saw the awful doom her comrade faced.

Colleen regained her senses, but the monster ignored her desperate kicks. She grasped despairingly at the grass, but it tore loose in her hands. The moist sucker that was the beast's mouth reached closer, almost touching her leather boot.

The captain of the sister knights sprang from her saddle, landed on her feet between the scout and the creature's mouth, and drove her longsword downward with killing force. The razor-sharp edge bit into the tentacle, scoring a deep groove but failing to sever the tough limb.

Still, the wound distracted the monster enough for Colleen to kick against the tendril and squirm free. Brigit jumped backward, grasping her companion's shoulder and jerking the trembling scout roughly to her feet.

"Onto my mare! Quickly!" she barked as the faithful Talloth circled back to the two Llewyrr. The elves stumbled away from the looming horror, not daring to look backward. Colleen steadied herself and reached for the mare's bridle as the steed galloped closer. Suddenly the animal's eyes widened in fright and it reared back.

Without thinking, Brigit pushed Colleen to the side, diving behind her companion as the ground behind them-the place where they had just stood-shook to the impact of a monstrous body. Looking upward in horror, the captain of the knights saw two tentacles reach toward the panicked mare. They seized Talloth's forelegs and pulled, dragging the steed to the ground. One of the tentacles, heavier than the rest, bashed against the mare's neck.

Brigit saw blood spurt and heard the gurgling death of her loyal war-horse, but she forced the pain and grief from her mind. They had to move!

"Run-for all you're worth!" she ordered, bouncing to her feet with the fleet scout at her side. The two elves dashed across the field toward the dark line of the stream, which here flowed between steep banks that were slightly higher than an elf.

They heard a thudding noise behind them again, and then they reached the streambed, flinging themselves from the bank to land in the shallow, gravel-bedded stream.

"This way!" Brigit darted to the left, hearing Colleen behind her. The water barely rose to their ankles, and they sprinted nearly as quickly as they had before.

But not quickly enough. A shadow loomed over them, blocking out the bright sun, the fiery orb that was so yellow, so cheerful that it certainly must be mocking them, Brigit thought in despair. The huge, rounded beast towered above them, reaching forward with tentacles too numerous to count.

Colleen collapsed with a groan of despair, sobbing. Brigit shook her head angrily, ignoring the thunderous voice of hopelessness. Instead, she raised her sword in both hands and prepared to meet the monster squarely.

The High Queen told none of her companions of the goddess's omen, the proud wolf who had spoken to her in the darkest hours of the night. Hanrald mentioned, in the morning, that he had seen the queen sitting beside the dying fire, but that was all. The vision had been for her alone.

Now she pondered the meaning privately as they progressed farther up the valley that, to the best of her memory, would lead them somewhere near Synnoria.

"Are you sure the terrain was this rough?" asked Alicia as, afoot, the companions led their horses higher up the steep, twisting draw. The formerly wide vale had compressed into this ravine in a remarkably short period of time.

"To tell you the truth, it seemed that we rode our horses the whole way," Robyn admitted. "I can't imagine we could have come out this way."

"And look how quickly this stream has dwindled away," observed Hanrald, who had been leading the party up the narrow gully. "There was a lot more water in it a mile back, and yet I haven't seen any tributaries entering the stream since then. How do you explain it being a mere trickle here without the addition of more water?"

"This whole range responds to a detect magic spell," said Keane disgustedly, after examining their surroundings with yet another magical inspection. "I can't tell where any specific effect exists."

The mage disliked walking even more than he loathed riding, and the rugged terrain of this morning's march had done little for his morale. Now he slumped to sit on a boulder, holding the reins of his swaybacked gelding.

"And look." Brandon pointed at the sky, where the sun lay off their right shoulders. "We no longer go east. We've curved to the north somewhere along the way."

"That's funny. The valley seemed pretty straight to me, even though it was a little steep," Alicia noted with surprise. The hair at the back of her neck prickled upward as she realized that they had been deceived by sorcery.

"No doubt we'll be turned into frogs or something equally hideous if we take a few more steps," grumbled Pawldo, looking around nervously. He paused, as if waiting for someone to urge him forward.

"It seems pointless to continue up this gully," agreed Robyn, with an appraising look at the steep climb before them. "We must have passed the trail somewhere below."

"That's the smartest suggestion I've heard in days!" agreed the halfling heartily.

"Nothing like a bit of climbing to get the blood flowing, though. Don't you agree?" said Hanrald, with a hearty clap on the back for Keane.

The mage scowled but climbed stiffly to his feet. "This means we go down for a while, right?" he checked.

"Due south," Brandon noted. "Until we figure out where the valley curved from east and west."

The descent passed quickly, though they moved with careful attention to their surroundings. Keane constantly checked the magical emanations from the surrounding ridge, particularly the steep faces toward the east and north, reporting that the intensity of the enchantment remained steady. Robyn studied her surroundings each step of the way, seeking some feature that would trigger a memory. Brandon kept an eye on the sun, carefully watching their direction of travel.

All of them noticed the gradual change in the terrain as the narrow draw slowly widened, and the cliff walls rolled back to rounded ridges on either side. The ground leveled, and the stream beside them grew placid, losing the urgency that had formerly carried it frothing from the heights. Now it meandered, deep and murky, between earthen banks and grassy meadows.

"Look! We're going west now!" Brandon's voice carried the excitement of discovery, and the significance of the news could not be underplayed.

"The valley appears to run straight-but here it goes east and west, and a mile back it flows north to south!" Alicia realized.