Glory Alley and the Star Riders (The Glory Alley Series) (65 page)

“The
Elboni
,
Rock Collector.
”

“It’s
...
it’s
...
”
her resolve
thinned
in the face of so much darkness
.

Never take your eyes off the treasure
.
Grandpa’s words looped in her mind.
N
ever
take your eyes off the treasure.
A memory of her family five years ago entered her mind. Mom was alive. The whole family sat around the Father Winter’s Day tree opening presents. They all got along and were happy. That’s
the goal
, she realized.

“Well
, where be the stone
?”

“Um, er
.
”
Ey
es star
ed
longingly at the oval of light
.
“
I’m not gonna tell.”

White Feather’s brow furrowed
.
His
eyes turned to slits
.
“
I t
old them
this would
be
a
wasted trip
.
Don’t blow
the
whistle again until ye
mean it.”

“Please, don’t go,” she pleaded
.

“Sorry,
Rock Collector,
this be yer nightmare, not mine.
”
With that
,
he jumped back in the oval of light
.

“Wait
!
At least leave me a flashlight or a candle or something!”

She tried to follow, but a
gnarly hand came out of the oval and pushed her back.

A second later utter darkness
returned and so did the forgetfulness
.
What am I doing in Queen’s Mesa without any gear? Chin
quivering,
too
a
fraid to walk,
Glory dropped to her knees and opted on crawling instead. She used her hands like
feelers
, scraping her palms on sharp rocks. S
he
sensed
an incline. Progr
ess, if progress at all, was painstaking
ly
slow
.
Despite the chill d
roplets of sweat pooled down the end of her nose, dropping onto
the back of her hands and forearms
.

The sound of sniffing sounded like joyful music
, because s
earch dogs
meant
fellow spelunkers
were here to rescue h
er
.

“
O
ver here!
”
s
h
e called out,
relief spilling out of every po
re
.
“I’m over here!”
She
waited a few minutes, but there was no answer
except her echo coming back to her.
Maybe she had
only
imagined the dogs.

Glory
sat, holding knees,
going
from hot to freezing within a matter of minutes
—
-or was it hours
?
The cold damp penetrated
her muscles, making them shake.
M
alevolent
thoughts filled h
er
mind
.

Come to think of it
Brand
on wasn’t the dependable sort and probably would just as soon
she’d never returned
.
Then again, w
hat if
Brandon did raise the alarm
and
nobody
outside the family cared enough to bother?
She could almost he
ar
D
ad say, one less kid, one less mouth to feed.

I knew
someday this place would claim me,
but the lure of the Queen’s Treasure was simply too hard to resist, now I
’m going to die here, alone and forgotten at the bottom of a cold dark pit.
Will anyone even mourn that I’m gone?

Then
s
he heard it
again
—signs of life
.
Her head jerked to attention at the sound of something shuffling in the darkness.
The
re was that sniffing sound
again
.
A low guttural growl filled the cave
.

Glory
’s
body tensed as h
er
eyes fell upon two circles of red light coming h
er
way
.
The
Hoogula
!
She somehow knew
the red
-
eyed devil had come to life. Su
ddenly,
she was hit from the fr
o
nt. C
rushing weight
sat
on her chest
.
Huge round eyes glowed down at her, casting the tunnel in an eerie red glow.

She
boxed furiously at
its
sinewy
body
above
, but thorny projections tore at her knuckles
.
The
Hoogula
snapped, just missing
her
ear
.
A
massive paw pressed down on
her
chest, but
s
he managed to squirm away, only to be knocked down again
.
In desp
eration,
she held onto one of its front leg, making her body more difficult to access. S
he
chomped down
on the
Hoogula
’s leg with her teeth
,
tearing off a fishy-tasting
wad of flesh.

The
Hoogula
flinched and yelped, giving her a chance to roll free.

Arms
held out in front of h
er
like bumpers, she
made a dash through
utter
darkness, spitting out bits of
Hoogula
, fearing every step might be her last
.
She tripped and fell. She felt skin scrape off her knees. Ignoring the pain, she found her footing.
Run
.
Run
.
She stumbled again. Next
,
she slid in darkness, the sound of thousands of pebbles sliding with her.

The escape was maddening.
Barking sounded all around
.
She
ran faster until there was no more floor
.
Arms and legs flailed.
This exact scenario
was
what had always scared her about Queen’s Mesa.

Screaming
, she fell d
eeper than she though
t
possible.
She prayed to die on impact.
Body clenched, she waited for the inevitable crash of bone against stone.
But she continued to fall
impossibly long
.
She wanted her last thought to be a good one, so she pictured the sunlight glinting off little George’s hair.
W
ho would cherish him after she died
?
Poor George
.
A
ll alone, with nobody who really loved him
.

“
M
agic of the Elboni,
d
on’t let me die!
”

In
stead
of hitting rock, h
er
body landed in a pile of warm,
for
giving sand
.

Wheezing for breath, she sat up
, jarred to the core, shocked to be alive.
Concave white walls surrounded h
er
. Light poured through an oval
shaped opening way at the top
.
“
This isn’t Queen’s Mesa
.”

Mental f
og lifted
.

“
I’m back in the friggin’ Bamboozle
.”

On a positive note, there was
Clash
, sleeping in the sand
curled up in fetal position under the patch of
moon
light
.

Glory whispered h
is
name,
“
Besnik
Gundisalv
,
”
but he didn’
t
wake
.

S
he hungered for
a kind face and
the comfort of a Tullahn voice
.
She
wanted
to talk with h
im to
discuss how she escaped the second door
.
Instead
,
she curled up in the sand beside h
im
,
remembering the horrible feeling of falling through nothingness.