Riddle in Stone (The Riddle in Stone Series - Book One) by Robert Evert Read Free Book Online Page B

. . . up . . . this . . . slope . . . and . . . around . . . this . . . damned . . . hill—”
    A deafening explosion shook the ground. Thorax cowered against Edmund’s legs.
    “Oh!” Edmund cried, lifting his sweat-covered arms to the sky. “Oh, thank the gods! Rain. Oh, blessed cold, wet, wonderful . . . rain.”
    Thunder pounded the forest-covered hills surrounding them.
    They stumbled into a small clearing. Overhead, ash grey clouds were flying past. In the western sky, darkness tumbled toward them. Flashes of lightning stabbed at the hills below. More rumbling shook the ground.
    Edmund groaned. “That . . . that looks bad. I can’t predict the weather like my father could, but I bet you, I bet you anything that, that is going to be one nasty storm.”
    Now you’ll wish you were home. Just a bunch of walking, eh? Easy as pie?
    “We have to find some kind of shelter.” His gaze flitted across the rocky ledges lofting above them. “It has to be high up or we’re done for.”
    Thorax’s ears perked, her head cocked to one side.
    Edmund broke into a jog, his stomach and backpack bouncing as he hurried northward.
    He pointed to the white-capped mountains looming to their right.
    “When those clouds hit those peaks, they will drop their moisture . . . all of it at once.”
    Thorax examined the mountain peaks, puzzled.
    “Flash floods,” Edmund said, pushing northward with renewed vigor.
    Thorax trotted after him.
    “You, you see those clouds contain a great deal of water, which is going to come down in all directions for at least fifty miles. These hills are mostly stone, granite actually, with little topsoil. They’ll channel all that water to the lowest place possible.” He nodded at the churning current a few feet away. “Which is where we are. In an hour, this river is going to swell to t-t-ten, maybe twenty, times its normal size, and it will rip away anything in its path. Trees, rocks—everything.”
    A fat raindrop hit the brim of his sweat-soaked hat.
    They quickened their pace.
    Another rumbling shook the ground.
    More raindrops pelted them.
    The tops of trees crowning the hills swayed in the mounting wind, their branches creaking and cracking. Blackness engulfed the valley.
    Edmund and Thorax continued to hasten further into the foothills of the mountains, the sheer cliffs rising even higher as they pressed closer to the river. The wind whined as it whipped through the jagged stone formations, and then built to a scream. Rain came at them horizontally now, stinging their skin.
    Shielding his face from the onslaught, Edmund pointed up the hill to their left.
    “What’s . . . what’s that?” he shouted through the gale. “Is that, is that a shadow or an, an opening? Up there, through the trees. See it?”
    Thorax’s gaze shot to where Edmund pointed.
    A blanket of rain battered down on top of them.
    Lightning exploded, turning the wall of water an eerie shade of blue.
    The ground shuddered.
    “We have to get out of here,” Edmund hollered, bracing himself against the deluge. “I’m, I’m going to see if it’s a cave.” Grabbing a tree root, he started scrambling up the nearly perpendicular slope. “Stay here!”
    Sopping fur plastered against her body, Thorax shook herself and crawled underneath a buckthorn bush.
    Black clouds swarmed above them.
    Trees reeled and lashed at the rain.
    Upriver, a branch as thick as a man’s neck snapped and careened into the white-capped current. Where it hit, a fountain of water heaved up like a searching hand and was swept away in the gusting wind.
    Seizing another stone outcropping, Edmund hauled himself higher up the incline, his muscles straining under the weight of his waterlogged backpack. Red lightning blasted overhead, wrenching apart the darkness. Blinded, Edmund flailed, his feet slipping off their perch. He cried out. The wind and rain beat at him, tearing him away from the ledge. He clawed at the stone. Rocks, loosened by his kicking,