Chapter 313 (2/2)

Then I received another shock as I heard the sound of wood rattling against stone:down the hole

My head burst with pain and the stars seemed to explode all aroundbludgeoned byaway, clattering to rest several feet farther up the tunnel

I took a deep, sucking breath and was finally able to get soThe stars winked out, one by one, leaving me in darkness

Finally, when I felt like I had the air for it, I yelled croakily for uy, I’ of claws on stone stopped and a pitiful moan resounded from the tunnel above

“You’ll never make it down that fissure, Boo,” I said, but then I had to stop to take several hto have to find another way”

Boo grunted nervously

Rolling over, I pushedarht ankle and into ive out

Reaching up with one arm, I felt around in the air aboves with mana and leapt upward, but I could just barely scrape the ceiling with the tips of ers

“There’s no way I can cliYou do the sameTry to findruht hob could be anywhere…”

I shi+vered as I realized the truth ofthat, without Boo’s protection, it was too risky to walk blindly through the dark, I dug around in ht artifact, which i the tunnel

It was nearly identical to the rest of the tunnels I’d seen down here: a rough tube about seven or eight feet wide and highTessia thought that soiant woro, leaving the tunnels in its wake, but Mo roundA moan of pain escaped me as I bent over to pick up hed at h my back, neck, and sides

I had been nervous the boould be ruined by the fall—or by being used as a lifeline to save ed beyond a few scrapes and dingsI pulled the string back and held it, just to make sure the shaft wouldn’t snap in half under pressureIt was stable

“Well,” I said quietly, “that could have been worse”

Then so rammed me from behind

I threw ainst the hard groundUsingit around behind me as I came back up to my feet and felt it strike my attacker

In the saers on the bow string, preparing to draw and fire, but instead I had to jerk it up, holding it in front of rabbed the bow and shoved

With hbackThe blight hob continued to press forward, snapping its sliled to push back

Infusingto throw the blight hob away fro noise in its throat that reful of air

It’s going to use its breath attack!

Desperate, I conjured an arrow onto the bowstring so that it appeared between the blight hob and ross ht hob, its claws still wrapped around the shaft of e in momentum, andcry burst out of it, interrupting its attack, and the blight hob scurried backwards and away fro at the round, I drew the bow and suht hob’s deformed, ratlike head and fizzled out when it hit the wallA second shot ht hob leapt onto the wall and skittered, spider-like, onto the ceiling

It jerked to a halt as a third arrow struck the stone just in front of it, then dropped froth away

It’s too fast!

On the verge of panic, I fired another explosive arrowThe rippling bolt of ht hob’s head, then exploded a couple of feet behindus both away

I was flattened by the force of it, tu backwards in a sort of reverse soht hob bounced across the stone floor, stopping soht

A voice insidefor me to Get up!

So on top of it, face down against the rough floor of the tunnelI tried to push th left in my armsInstead, I rolled painfully onto my side and levered myself up onto one elbow, then twisted to look around behind ey, skeletalfaster than I was, already dragging itself aardly along the ground toward me, its beady little eyes alive with hatred

I heaved onit up for one ed underto pull it free, but it wasn’t enoughI screaain, and the bow finally slid freeI rolled up into a half-sitting position to better draw back the bowstring, but a scraggly hand with black talons for claws grabbed at the bow and tried to rip it out ofme to tip back onto my side

I hit the cold, daht hob’s weight pressed down on h my arms as I wrenched s buried into the wooden shaft instead of my exposed throat

I watched with horror as the blight hob ripped and tore at my beautiful bow: the same bow that Emily Watsken had ether

The horrible hted by the fact it was destroying so precious…so much so that it was entirely distracted from me for just a second

The wood around the arrow shelf began to splinter and crackThe blight hob’s front hands or paith their long, clawed toes, were still wrapped around the bow, but its back claere digging and scratching wildlyWhen one caughtain

The beast’s beady, dark eyes shi+fted, focusing back on ue lolled fro me

My heart hammered in , all that ti down blocks of stone and fla without properly apologizing toher alone…

If only I could control the stone like Arthur, or shoot ht had barely formed in my head when I realized what I needed to doBut I’d never tried to recreate the o

I don’t have tith I had, I pushedit deep into its gross mouthThe uneven teeth bore down into the wood until, with a single, final crunch, rabbed one half of the shattered boith both claws and began to gnaw at the end, chewing it like a ith a broken bone

Without even the time to mourn for my treasured bow, I raisedpure ifted atpurein ave me the confidence to conjure a thin, broad-headed dart in my palm with little effortThe next part was harder

Seeing the blazing white arrow begin to for the ruins of ed, rattling breath as it prepared to breathe deadly fu offroy, stored in me, and I shaped the ainstto be let free

I held it, waiting for et one shotTime see for the other to make a h the tunnel, causing the blight hob to spin around, its deadly breath billowing out around it in a cloud instead of being directed at ut, I felt the world aroundartifact, which was half-hidden in a dip in the floor somewhere behindwas suddenly as clear as if a bright, ht-silver moon shone down on e as wellI could not only sas, but sense where and how fast its attack was spreadingI could s my own skin, the dust of the tunnel floor, and even Boo’s subtle h I couldn’t even see him yet

As e overtook ot my fear of death and failureMy hand was steady as I took ai the how and why of my sudden transformation to the back of my mind as I focused on my newly-sharpened senses

I let the bundle of force I’d gathered burst, flinging the ht hob as if it’d been shot fro bolt hu it just behind its shoulder and piercing deep into its chest

The blight hob fell screeching to the ground, then tried to stand up, but fell down againHazy green mist seeped fro and tongue lolling grotesquely

As it went through its death throes, I scrareen cloud that was filling the hallway around itThe feeling of that gas burning s was still very fresh…

The sound of huffing and grunting, and of heavy, clawed feet sprinting across stone, caas cloudBoo slid to a halt once he was close enough to see the blight hob’s corpse and the deadly cloud that surrounded it

“Hey big guy,” I said tiredly, giving s, stalking back and forth across the tunnel and huffing anxiously as he waited for the gas to disperse“We did it, Boo”

He aze, snorted, then settled down on his haunches

The incredible clarity of my senses faded, and exhaustion crept intoaway the weird, unnatural courage I had briefly felt in the processIt was like I’d suddenly discovered soone back to sleepSo back, I rested nue of rock was sticking into ainst my ribs with the exciteh the moment was bittersweet

The loss of ned just for ue

It better be worth it