Chapter 12 #3
“The temperature is rising.”
The heat didn’t bother Ransom, but beads of sweat had formed on Scarlett’s forehead. “Is your arm troubling you?”
“It’s itchy.”
“Take off your tunic, and I’ll check it.”
Talon snarled disapproval.
“No, Talon is right. We have to get inside the mound and find the prince. Where do we start?” Scarlett craned her neck. “The biggest stones and statue heads have moved since we first saw them.”
“Let’s work out a grid in the area where most of the biggest stones are and do a systematic search for the entrance.”
“Ooh, goodie. A plan.” She patted her chest. “Be still, my heart.”
“Haw-haw-haw.”
Ransom laughed at Scarlett’s roll of eyes. Wee Talon, as she called him, had a slow-blooming personality.
“Right. Let’s spread out and move in this direction. Stay close enough so we can hear each other shout,” Ransom suggested.
Talon clambered down Scarlett and scuttled to a position on Ransom’s left.
Okay, then. He’d thought it’d be a search zone of two but three would hasten the process.
Ransom waited until Scarlett was in position and wondered about her arm as she shot Talon a glance and gave it a quick scratch.
For some reason, Talon wanted her to treat her arm with care, and not for the first time, Ransom wished his universal translator worked for Talon’s language.
He’d make sure he and his people added the upgrade if he got out of this alive.
“Ready?” Ransom called with a glance at both Scarlett and Talon. “Keep walking until you come to a head or a base stone. Check each one and move on until you reach the far end of the mound.”
The ground shook in another tremor. Small stones clattered and rolled while the larger statue heads vibrated. The rolling shake continued for long seconds, and Ransom fought to stay on his feet.
A rumble came from the volcano, and a loud crashing thump echoed around them. As Ransom turned to the volcano, an entire side of the conical top disintegrated. A wave of red and orange lava bubbled out and over, the force of it no match for the crater rim.
“We need to go faster,” Scarlett shouted.
Ransom gave a curt nod and strode forward. He clambered up an incline, checked on and around the first plinth he came to, and moved on. Phrull, they’d never find the entrance with all this seismic activity.
Worry bled through him, the concern that no matter what they did, they’d die. If the prince didn’t have a tantrum and kill them, the volcano or a quake would do them in. The low-level ache at his temples grew worse as the cycle progressed.
They each finished their grid and started on another one.
The gnawing ache at Ransom’s temples pushed and ground at his nerve endings until he thought he might vomit again from the pain.
As he dragged his tortured body up an incline, his vision went in and out and sweat beaded his brow.
With a groan, he heaved himself down the other side and stopped to search around the base of a head.
He stared at the statue, finding it difficult to focus.
He blinked several times to clear his vision. Phrull, even that hurt.
He doubled over, holding his weight on his knees. His legs trembled, and he fell hard on his knees.
“Ransom!”
He swallowed and turned his head toward her, a sense of dread pressing down on him.
Talon reached him first. The Trolleris let out a startled hiss.
“Have you found it?”
Ransom’s head hurt so much that he was having trouble forming thoughts.
“Didn’t the prince say there was a statue with a pointy hat on top of the entrance stone?” Scarlett pressed her fingers against her temple. “My head has started aching.”
Talon growled and held a paw to his furry head. He hummed.
“You too?” Scarlett asked.
Ransom crawled away from where he’d fallen, and immediately, the pain reduced. He kept crawling on his hands and knees until he could form thoughts without his brain threatening to split into two.
Scarlett and Talon followed, although both wore bemused expressions once they caught up with him.
“That’s the spot, but my headache got so bad I couldn’t form thoughts. How do we enter the chamber with this pain? I don’t… I can’t function that way.”
Scarlett sat beside him and shouldered off her pack. “Between the itching and the ache in my head, I’m finding the going difficult too. What have you got left in your first aid kit? Anything that might help?”
“I have blockers to aid in masking pain, although I don’t know if they’ll help. They haven’t relieved my symptoms much in the past.”
“What else?” Scarlett asked.
Talon wobbled closer, his balance challenged on the uneven ground. He sat beside Scarlett and growled when she swiped at her arm to relieve the discomfort.
“What would you have me do?” she snapped at Talon. “It’s driving me crazy.”
“I have a few medicine vials left that the Elevenoss gave me. Mistress Aelene told me it was stronger and not to use this unless the pain became unbearable.” Ransom gasped, the end of the whoosh of air resembling a groan. He held his head and moaned, his thoughts scattered and in turmoil.
“Where are you? Why aren’t you coming?”
The prince’s whiny splatter-shot words rearranged themselves in Ransom’s beleaguered brain.
“We’re here but having trouble locating the entrance.”
“It’s under the statue with the pointy hat,” Prince Kalim bellowed.
“The earthquake has made the statues topple. The ground keeps shaking. Can you not feel the tremors?”
“Hurry, or you will be sorry.” Prince Kalim yanked free of his mind, taking none of Ransom’s energy.
“The prince?” Scarlett asked.
Ransom lifted his head, stiffening to prepare for more pain. This time, his head remained free from the darting aches. “Yes. I’d say he was panicking.”
“He’ll have noticed the earth tremors.” Scarlett scanned their surroundings. “Where is he going to go? His people will be as hungry as him. There is no one here.”
“The logical answer is he’ll go to the nearest food source. My people,” Ransom said grimly.
“Should we enter the shelter at all?” Scarlett asked.
“We don’t know their powers or how long they can last in this state. Although he’s determined to get out, we can’t trust a word he utters.”
Scarlett sighed. “So what you’re saying is that we need to get in there and find some way of killing him and his remaining people before they kill us and every other living being on this planet.”