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Molly knelt down in front of one of the holes and peered inside She leaned close, but the light on the shaded side of the canyon only filtered in a few decimeters Beyond that, it was justa weakpast the darkness for an egg-filled nest, but the thought of sticking her hand that deep sent a shiver up her spine

The wind abated for aeven lower The sound made the deeper parts of the canyon creepier, the se of fear before kicking herself for being such a wi any problems with their hunt, so she needed to soldier up If Drenard youth could do this, so could she In fact, she didn’t want to come out of this with any old Wadi--she needed to er than Cole’s She’d never hear the end of it otherwise

Shean eye out for any e, she sat down in the shade to adjust her boots, a loose lace nearly tripping her up during her last crossing

She pulled her hood back a little and secured a double knot in the laces, then noticed her reflection in the side of her boot, her face sed with sweat and dust, the skin beneath pink and sunburned, even though she hadn’t left the shade She checked her reflection, turning her head side to side--then got an idea

Pulling off her boot, she rested her lance in her lap and began weaving the laces around the hooked end She tied the the angle a little

Molly stood and walked back the way she’d coer than the others She peered into the darkness, her nose almost inside the lip

"Hello?" she called into it, her voice ringing metallic as it reverberated in the cylinder of stone

She heard no response over the wind and the groaning canyon

Stepping back, she wiggled the boot on the lance one more time to ht

The flash nearly blinded her She’d naturally been looking right at the boot as she reached it beyond the shade, and the thing just happened to be angled right at her face She turned her head away fro herself for nother eyes, Molly saw an i in the center of her vision

She tried to blink it away as she dragged the lance back into the shade Leaning against the rock wall, she rubbed her eyes with her thuainst her dry eyes like the click of claw on stone She squinted across the canyon and waited for her vision to return to nor the cloth er across the branching lines She had no idea where she was now--the canyon had split and joined tooout of here, however, should be as siuide, then, she wiped theup the sweat She peeled her hood off the rest of the way and swiped the cloth down her throat, absorbing the athered in the depression at the top of her sternu up as much as she could, she folded the damp cloth several ti sweat cooling the blood that flowed up to her head, the pointed ends of theprecious wetness down her suit Molly tucked the tips inside her collar, letting the water run down her belly and chest, pulling away evenher exposed head, Molly rose to give her iht another try Shetoward the rock hile she adjusted the angle A bright spot of white sunlight splayed out near her knee She experi the lance until she felt soht up the wall, she brought her head level with the large hole and directed the reflection until it shone straight down it, illu an interior accli else was looking out

13

After another kiloh to crawl inside He felt utterly convinced a family of these lizards would make their home in a nice, cool cave like this If not, he wasn’t sure he could wanderfor dozens of kilometers, certainly further than Drenard children could be expected to go

He had explored a few holes with his lance along the way, scraping nothing but rock If he couldn’t find anything in the cave, he’d start heading back, searching the ground he’d already covered

Crawling inside, he felt immediately refreshed in the cooler air The sweat chilled his skin, giving hi just considered giving up He paused in the entrance and enjoyed the echo of the canyon’s h the rock around him

The air felt less dry in there as well, likedeeper into the hole, Cole wished he had soht; he didn’t want to step on these little critters if he could avoid it At this point, he would take the easy way out happily, bringing back a Wadi Thooo egg rather than a juvenile or an adult

Once he felt soan crawling into the darkness After a few ht behind him He was accustomed to the blackness of space, but the absence of illumination ahead was different It pressed in on hiht of solid stone behind it, rather than the vacuu way and collapsing on his back He would be trapped there, unable to breathe He could feel his stomach crawl up his neck in panic; he took a deep breath and hurried the wild thought out of his mind

He concentrated instead on his environment The details Under his hand, he could feel the walls weren’t perfectly sth It didn’t feel like erosion or anything geological A deep part of his brain worked on this problem as he scrambled deeper inside

A noise

Cole whipped the hood off to free his ears What was that sound?

So hiet his lance out fro fro

Another tap on the chest The sound of hisstruck Cole reached doith one hand and felt soht his hand up to his face It didn’t sue, but couldn’t taste anything Another drop hit hi for the source, but his hand kept going up, further than the tunnel ide He tried to sit up--and banged his head on the rock, falling back down

"Damn!"

He rubbed his forehead and another drop ie hole his hand had entered He could feel a ledge encircling the lip and a thin streaathered on it He probed just over his head and noted the hole didn’t extend quite that far, could feel where he had buain and felt certain it must be water Fresh water Just a trickle, as if condensation collecting from somewhere Perhaps the difference in teather on the cool rock and run together through these strange holes?

Cole reached for his map and soaked up as much of the fluid as he could He squeezed the cloth over his tongue, letting soreat

Refreshing

He wiped the cloth over the riathered it up, unappreciative of how natural and universal that tendency would be in other living things

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When Molly saw the two eyes, further apart and larger than she thought they’d be, she jerked her head back in fear