Bastial Explosion (The Rhythm of Rivalry: Book 3) (36 page)

The shaking worsened. Grayol pushed himself against the low wall beside her. Zeti contemplated trying to get to her feet to make her way to the ladder, but the shaking soon became too violent for that to be possible. She would be more likely to fall down the gap than to climb down. Why wouldn’t the earthquake end?

“What’s happening?” Grayol sounded even more panicked than Zeti was.

She wanted to tell him it would be over soon, that it was just an earthquake and that everything would be fine. But if it was just an earthquake, then it was the worst she’d ever felt.

Over the sounds of screaming, Zeti could hear the ground ripping apart. Chunks of soil—and what appeared to be stone—jumped into the air. A slab of rock came toward them, spiraling. It sailed over their heads, bouncing off the opposite wall and falling onto another part of the castle. The sky became covered in rocks, each larger than the last.

Zeti decided it might be worth the risk to try to get down the ladder. But on her way up to her feet, she realized she couldn’t let go of the wall without falling. She was stuck, staring at the chaos below. The ground had opened wider and flames as red as blood begun to roar out, violently dancing higher and higher. Although they still were nowhere near Zeti and Grayol, she could feel the heat from them. Even worse, she could see the Humans near the walls of flames collapsing and screaming in agony, their clothes catching fire.

She watched cracks expanding along the dirt. One soon had all of her focus, for it sped underneath a corner of the castle. A noise came first—the creek of stone tilting. Fire escaped from the crack, leaping up the corner of the castle, singeing its edges.

Whole houses were being swallowed. Everyone tried to escape the widening gaps and the red flames that burst through, but most Humans she saw weren’t making it to safety. Many were burned. Others were crushed by boulders. Some pieces of rock were round enough to start rolling down the hill once they landed.

Zeti watched one massive piece pick up speed and begin to bounce. It took out at least ten houses before reaching the base of the slope, where it crashed into the stone wall so hard that Zeti could hear the impact miles away.

Amazed, Zeti watched the wall stand, giving off an explosion of stone-colored dust. A crack quickly spread in each direction along the wall.

But Zeti didn’t see the second slab of rock spiraling toward it until the last moment. This one was rectangular, chopping through the air right before it struck the wall. This second explosion of stone was twice as large as the first.

When the dust cleared, pieces of stone were everywhere, and a chunk of the wall had collapsed.

Zeti tried to balance herself so she could make it to the ladder, but as soon as she let go of the short wall in front of her, she nearly fell forward. Grayol grabbed her by the waist and tugged her backward.

Giving up trying to stand, they started crawling toward the ladder, Zeti wondering how they would get down it. A shadow overcame them. Zeti flipped on her back to look up and saw that a rock the size of her torso was going to land somewhere near them.

“Back the other way!” Zeti shouted as she scrambled. It looked as if it was going to strike the opening where the ladder was.

She turned and watched the small boulder crash into the opening, bouncing its way down. To Zeti’s dismay, she heard the sound of cracking wood—the rungs of the ladder.

With the shaking still making it too difficult to stand, she and Grayol crawled over to investigate. There were a few rungs left, two here and two there, three farther down.

Just as Zeti was trying to figure out the best way to maneuver down, there was a crack behind her so loud she knew it must’ve been a massive boulder striking their tower.

Her heart tried to leap out of her body when she felt the ground starting to tilt. Their tower was beginning to lean. She got up and ran toward the opening where the ladder was, planning to jump and hope for the best. But she didn’t make it there before the incline became too steep and she started to fall backward, her claws reaching desperately for something solid as she screamed.

Zeti saw that Grayol had grabbed onto the opening, but she couldn’t watch long enough to see what happened. She turned to see where she was sliding—the low edge of their tower came at her fast. She braced her knees and hit the edge hard, but at least she was balanced. Pieces of stone were still soaring through the air, and one must’ve hit their tower somewhere above her, for it shook from the impact and she almost fell over the side.

She heard Grayol scream and watched in horror as his body tumbled past her. His legs had caught the edge where Zeti stood, and now he was spiraling down toward the next level of the castle. She couldn’t look away as his body bounced again off the slanted roof and his screaming stopped.

Still tumbling, he continued to fall. Silently, his body cracked against a walkway and came to rest.

The only thing Zeti could think was that she would be next.

She stood with her back against what used to be the stone floor, with her feet on top of what used to be a wall, completely terrified that her tower would lean just a little bit farther.

But it seemed to hold.

When her thoughts returned, she realized it had fallen against a wall. But she would be stupid to believe she was safe there. Most of the rocks in the air were small by then. Still, she assumed any one of them could set her tower off balance.

Then she saw it—a way down. Quickly, she swung her legs over the edge, turned her body, and grabbed on, letting herself hang as low as she could before letting go to drop down to the walkway below. The whole castle seemed to be tilted.

No floor was level. In fact, the wall she thought she’d climbed down turned out to be the edge of a slanted rooftop. For a moment, she felt so disoriented that she became dizzy and needed to stop. It was then that she realized the shaking had ended.

There was no more red fire, no more rocks circling through the sky. Screams were still everywhere, though. But they’d faded to a dull hum when she found Grayol’s body.

She jumped onto a ledge and ran over a rooftop to reach him. Several of his limbs looked to be broken. But upon getting closer, she could see that it was the injury to his head that had killed him. There was blood puddled around a crack in his skull, his yellow eyes still open.

Zeti cried harder than she ever had before in her life. She felt more strength drain out of her with each tear. Falling to her knees, her hands seemed to want to touch Grayol, though she didn’t know what to do with them. Hopelessly, they ran down his arm, touched his cheek, tried his hand, then his leg. It was no use, and soon they were resting on her lap.

She didn’t even know what had happened. It clearly wasn’t an earthquake.

Zeti told herself one thing, repeating it so many times in her head she even started to say it aloud.

“When I find out who’s responsible for this, I’m going to kill them.”

Chapter 30:

ZETI

Time released its grip on Zeti when she came to understand Grayol wouldn’t be getting up again.

She began to wander.

Unaware what she was looking at or even what she was feeling, she somehow ended up in front of the castle, waiting.

Humans kept stopping in front of her. Some calmly asked a question while others screamed or wept. Every one of them wanted something from Zeti, but even if she’d spoken their language, she doubted she had the strength to help.

It could’ve been half the day that she stood there before she heard her name.

“Zeti.” Keenu was in front of her. “Did you hit your head?”

“No.” Her voice sounded like a whisper.

“We need to leave. Where’s Grayol?”

“Dead.”

“See, you shouldn’t have brought him.”

Her next heartbeat sent a rush of hot fury through her body. She stiffened her hand, ready to strike Keenu with her claws until she realized…that he was right. Her rage exploded out of her in tears. She turned her claw inward, wanting to rip open her own belly.

“Easy, Zeti.” Keenu took her claw off her stomach. “Let’s go. There’s still a long trip back.”

“Why don’t you just leave me here to rot with the Humans?”

“It’s a dangerous path from here to our encampment, and Doe would punish me if I didn’t bring you back with me.”

“Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know, but he told me specifically to bring you back safely. I think he’s grown to value Krepps he can trust.” Keenu’s voice was without its usual edge.

“You don’t have to lie to me just because I’m upset,” she said. “You can leave me here. I don’t care anymore.”

“Zeti, stop sniveling and let’s go.” Keenu grabbed her arm and pulled her after him, carrying the caged birds with the other. “There’s going to be a lot more death before this is over.”

The sun had just begun to set. They could walk far before nightfall.

Keenu let go when Zeti started walking on her own. “I know you’re angry with me,” he said. “You’ve been looking at me as if I was a traitor ever since I offered to kill Paramar.”

Zeti said nothing.

“Fine, don’t admit it.”

“If that’s what you’re looking for, then I’ll gladly give you an admission. I’m furious. How could you do that to your friend?”

“You should’ve just asked instead of holding onto a grudge like a child. I knew Doe was going to make you do it. He told me earlier that if we couldn’t capture Zoke for you to kill, he was going to make you kill the next Krepp who disobeyed him. When Paramar challenged him to a duel, I knew it would end with you taking his life. I wanted to spare you that if I could. It was stupid of me, though. Of course Doe wouldn’t change his mind.”

Zeti felt herself glaring into Keenu’s orange eyes.

“It’s the truth,” he added, stopping his walk to stare right back.

A scream made Zeti lose her focus. Behind her a woman was holding a dead child. The little Human on her knee was so small, he wouldn’t even have come up to Zeti’s waist.

Looking back up, Zeti saw how extensive the damage was. Hundreds of homes had been destroyed from the falling rocks and boulders that rolled down the hill. The worst was around the castle, nearly every home in its vicinity burned or crushed.

The outer layer of the castle itself now stood crooked with one corner sunk into a gaping hole. Many of its inner towers had collapsed, falling onto other parts of the structure.

Then Zeti saw exactly where she and Grayol had been standing. Their square platform was part of a tower that now was cracked in several places. Along the middle of it was a tear that must’ve been what caused the lean and inevitable fall into the surrounding walkways and rooftops.

“Come on.” Keenu put his arm around her shoulder to turn her east, guiding her through the gate before letting go. “I want you to believe me about Paramar, but I suppose I should’ve explained myself earlier. If you don’t want to trust me, that’s your choice. Just work with me on the way back, though. I’ll need your eyes as I sleep.” He spat. “Those cowardly Humans. Do you know that this was Kyrro’s doing?” Keenu gestured behind them.

“How do you know that?”

“I was with the King of Tenred when it happened. Nebre translated most of what they said once it ended. They’re sure it was their enemies—our enemies,” Keenu corrected himself. “But the Humans here in Tenred don’t know how Kyrro did it or if it will happen again. I could tell they were scared. This, I will tell Doe. We shouldn’t be waiting for them to be ready to attack anyway. We can take down Kyrro on our own.”

“Then we should,” Zeti agreed, wanting to join the battle and rip out the throats of those who’d killed Grayol.

But then she remembered that Zoke was there. She cursed her brother silently.

Get out of there, Zoke. I don’t care about your stupid plan to kill Doe and Haemon. It’s not going to work. Just leave the Humans to die on their own.

The days became long as they walked all the way back to the southeastern corner of Kilmar. With just the two of them, there was a void that no conversation could fill. The more Zeti tried to ignore Grayol’s absence, the more painful it became.

Keenu would bring up the birds, reciting some of the information that Nebre had translated. But all Zeti could think about was how excited Grayol had been when he’d emerged from the pigeon master’s quarters with newfound knowledge.

The young Krepp had been fascinated with animals. He probably would’ve done well training the birds if Doe had allowed him to.

As long as the seven days and seven nights stretched on their way back home, they certainly weren’t boring. Every sound and irregularity of the land could mean an ambush.

They were found once during the night. It was Zeti’s turn to sleep when it happened.

Keenu had nudged her with his foot, whispering, “Humans approach.”

She and Keenu picked a direction and ran, prepared to fight anyone who stood before them. Keenu had explained that it was important to move before allowing their enemies to encircle them. They seemed to get lucky in this case, for only one arrow was shot at them before the shouting began. They picked the right direction—all the Humans were behind them, and they were slow.