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We wait for the here helplessly, the sounds of the tunnelling olves growing louder, co softly, hungrily The only positive thing is that there don&039;t seeht about the s to keep us for themselves

The downside is that the ser, faster, deadlier creatures But we&039;ll happily take the fiercer few over the weaker masses Shark did an ammunition tally earlier They&039;re all down to one rifle each, none of theuns which won&039;t last long They won&039;t be able to keep the olves back with sustained fire like before If we have more than a few dozen beasts to deal with between here and the sea, we&039;ll run dry in no time and it&039;ll be hand-to-hand colow fro us in complete darkness

Luckily Timas has already set his explosives, so it doesn&039;t affect our plans, just our nerves

The ithin me is excited by the closeness of its twisted kin It wants to dig from this side of the hole and link up with its soulmates I&039;m tempted, in a sick way, to unleash it and let it loose on Shark, Meera and the others It&039;s a bit like the feeling I get when I&039; down at a suicidal drop I start thinking about ould happen if I stepped off, the rush of the fall, the shattering collision, the quiet emptiness of death Part of me wants to experience the thrill of coling voice and I ignore it now Hold tight Stay focused Wait

We can s We&039;ve moved down the cave, as close to the lowest point as we can crawl I thought it would have made more sense to stay back fro "Tied"

The olves sound like they&039;re no more than aits head through, sliding into our cave Impossible to tell in the darkness I want Timas to detonate the bombs immediately, before it&039;s too late, but he only hu

Finally, when I thinkto snap, Timas whispers, "Shut your eyes, cover your ears and keep your fingers crossed" A second or two later the rocks explode outwards I&039;m struck by a few chips and stony splinters, but they&039;re only scratches Light floods the cave I open h the dust cloud

"Go!" Tihs and we crawl on our knees until we can stand and run crouched over

Scraps of flesh, bones, guts and hair line the floor Blood&039;s everywhere,it slippery underfoot My sto time since breakfast The wolfen part of me would happily tuck in and make short work of the offal

We stumble out of the tunnel, Stephen and Shark in the lead, Meera andup the rear The sunlight is glorious after the darkness of the cave, but there&039;s no ti around, bloodstained, shaking their heads, dazed No sign of any others We&039;ve coht of the rowling sound fro through the air It was hiding behind a rock Three others e beasts have set an ambush!

The first olf lands on Shark and knocks away his rifle Shark snarls as the olf growls He grabs its head and jerks it left then right, trying to snap the beast&039;s neck before it chews his face off

StephenShark instead of the other three behind it Two of them tackle him as he squeezes off his first shot He yelps, then he&039;s gone, covered by the olves, their claws and fangs glinting in the sunlight as they tear into him He doesn&039;t even have time to scream

The final olf bounds towards Meera, Prae and lares at us-it clearly knohat a gun is, the dae it can cause It looks around Stephen&039;s bullet struck the first olf just above its heart, wounding but not killing It&039;s still struggling with Shark and has driven hied to free his knife and is slicing at the beast&039;s throat

The ho was coes direction and dives after Shark, driving him further back Meera fires at it Misses Starts after it, to help Shark

"Get the hell out of here!" Shark bellows, s to grab the second by its waist He whirls it round and hurls it away "Go!" he screaains its feet and leaps at hi my shoulder

"But-" Meera and I start to protest at the same time