The Shadowlands by Emily Rodda Read Free Book Online

around the writhing figures on the ground. Other tongues flicked upward, reaching for the creatures still teetering on the edge of the outcrop. The tongues snatched the nearest off their feet to drag them, screaming, to their doom.
    The companions had nearly reached the end of the outcrop. Now was the moment of decision. Should they run out onto the plain and risk whatever new horror might be lurking there? Or should they make for the second outcrop, which meant crossing the perilous space in which the beast still spun and hissed?
    Lief looked back, and his stomach seemed to turn over. The beast’s body—its torn, rippling body—was coming apart! The heads around its sides were tearing themselves away from the billowing mass, dragging great chunks of flesh with them.
    Staring wild-eyed, Lief heard Barda give a choking cry, and Jasmine gasp in understanding. Then, suddenly, he, too, saw the truth. The extra heads ringing the monster’s body did not belong to the monster at all. They belonged to its young—smaller versions of itself which the beast carried in pouches around its vast body.
    The young were crawling away from their injured parent now, leaving gaping cavities behind them. Each one was as tall as a man, and four times as broad. Each was eager to drag in the prey it had captured with its curling tongue, and to feast.
    Their ears ringing with the howls and screams of the captives as the monsters engulfed them, the companions sprinted across the gap. They reached the second outcrop, swung around it, and pelted towards the scattered boulders that marked the edge of the plain.
    Panting and trembling, they took refuge behind the largest stone they could see. Emlis was moaning in pain. Barda put him down and together the companions cleaned and dressed his wounds as best they could, using ointment and bandages given to them by the Kerons.
    For a long time none of them spoke of what they had just escaped. The memory of it was too raw. But at last, when Emlis lay quiet, Barda found his voice.
    ‘I am sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘It is no thanks to me that we are safe. I thought we were finished. I could not think—could do nothing but despair. And still I feel numb. I do not know what has happened to me.’
    Lief glanced at Jasmine. Her face was pale and shadowed. Filli was hiding beneath her jacket, only his nose visible. Kree, his feathers ruffled, hunched on her shoulder.
    ‘You feel it too, Jasmine,’ Lief said quietly.
    She nodded shortly. ‘I have been trying to fight it, but it is impossible,’ she muttered. ‘It is as if…’ She swallowed painfully. ‘… as if I take in fear with every breath. As if the very air of this place is poisoned.’
    With a start, Lief remembered the strange, bitter smell he had noticed on the wind when first they reached the Shadowlands. He had grown accustomed to it, and had not thought about it for a long time. But now he realised that Jasmine had hit upon the truth. The wind was the Shadow Lord’s way of sapping the will of those who entered his realm. The bitter scent it carried was the stink of despair.
    ‘You are right!’ he exclaimed. ‘But we
can
fight it.’ He pulled out the red cloth bag. Carefully he slid the Pipe from its casing and held it out to Barda and Jasmine. As they clasped it, he could see their faces change. The strange, hopeless expressions disappeared, their eyes brightened, their mouths grew firm.
    ‘Why—it is miraculous!’ breathed Barda.
    ‘See if it will help Emlis too!’ Jasmine urged.
    They placed the Pipe between Emlis’s pale fingers. And, sure enough, after only a few moments the young Keron’s eyes flickered open. He stared up at the companions in bewilderment, then gave a start and struggled to sit up. The Pipe began to slip to the ground. Lief grabbed it before it fell, and put it back into the red cloth bag.
    ‘Where are we?’ Emlis was gabbling. ‘What happened? The creatures… they seized me, carried me, and then—’ His