Wings of Deceit

Chapter Twelve*

Nobody dared to move or breathe, the threat of the shadow creature more terrifying and daunting than anything we had ever seen. Even our encounter with the other beast couldn't compare to the unnerving way it prowled towards us. Last time we had an escape, this time we weren't so lucky.

The ears of the beast twitched as it came closer, the small things laid flat against its head. Its sharpened claws dug into the crack between the stone tiles as it walked, making my heart pound in my chest. There was nothing we could do but watch and wait.

Haera silently stepped closer to a crate and gave it a strong shove towards the hole we had fallen through. The sound of its movement felt so much louder now that silence was our saviour. She wasn't just going to stand and wait to die to the clutches of the darkness. My sister was going to fight for her life.

As soon as the wood scraped along the stone, the creature increased its pace. It growled in the direction of the noise it had heard and sniffed the ground. We all took long yet quiet steps away from it, praying it wouldn't catch our scent. Though, if it had gotten this close and hadn't discovered us, its sense of smell must have been poor too.

We weren't going to be able to get out. A nauseating feeling twisted in my stomach at the thought. There was no way we could escape unless it was distracted somehow. What could cause a great enough distraction that would allow us to stack the crates and limb out? They were heavy too, we would need a long distraction to be able to even make any progress.

Larc snuck closer to the creature and crouched down, collecting pieces of broken stone and other debris that had fallen down with us into his arms. I furrowed my brows at him, an unspoken question as to what he was doing, but I received no indication of what he was up to. Did he have the same realisation that I did?

When the Draogn-born stood again, making sure to do so slowly, I noticed that besides the stone, he had also collected what appeared to be shards of glass. What was he going to do with them?

He crept backwards into another passageway — one we had yet to explore — and kept his eyes trained on the shadow beast. A sensation of dread coiled deep within me and I hoped there wasn't another creature behind him. All it would take was one misstep to alert it.

Haera and I circled around the beast, giving us a better view of what Larc was doing. Once he had no further to go and he tucked himself into the corner of a tunnel before it turned into another, he threw a shard of glass as far as he could down the passageway to lure the creature away

The nostrils of the creature flared and the shadows surrounding it stood up tall, as if they were hairs along an arm, before it darted down the tunnel towards Larc. I had to clasp my hand over my mouth to stop the cry of horror that attempted to escape.

One moment, the creature ran towards him, jaws open wide with drool spraying out. The next, it turned around the corner to investigate where the glass had shattered. Larc stood as still as he could, his throat bobbing each time he glanced between us and the beast. He was creating time for us to escape — a distraction from the death that loomed around us.

After a nod in the Dragon-born's direction, Haera wasted no time and began moving the crates. She pushed another beside the one she had already put in place and began to move over to the next. This one she would need to lift to stack on top of the others.

I sprung into action too, quickly rushing to her side to help lift the crate. It was much heavier than I had anticipated, causing us to nearly drop it, but we managed to place it correctly to form the beginnings of a staircase.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the shadow creature slowly returning to us, stalking past Larc who held his breath. Pulling my sister away from the crates and further into one of the other passageways, I waited for him to throw another shard.