Dragonspell - Donita K. Paul [133]
Librettowit and the wizard had their heads together, arguing about the fireball spell.
“Necessary,” shouted Fenworth.
“Unreliable,” the librarian countered in a voice twice as loud.
Kale ducked into the tunnel and ran. Five yards ahead, the sun gleamed on new-fallen snow. She looked back over her shoulder and saw Brunstetter’s legs with the back of Leetu on one side and Dar on the other. The howls of the frenzied schoergs followed Kale, sounding like a steady roar in the tunnel.
Her toe caught on an almost covered rod in the flooring, and she pitched sideways, slamming against the wall and a vertical metal bar. She fell flat on her face. Scrambling to her knees, she looked behind her at the floor.
The lever! I knocked the lever down. She looked at the walls around her. Nothing’s happening. It doesn’t work anymore.
Then the floor shuddered. The walls shivered. A shrill scraping noise filled the air around her.
She sprang to her feet and bumped her head on the ceiling as it lowered and twisted. Her legs buckled under her as the ground also moved, rising and twisting.
Running, crouching, falling, crawling, Kale made it out and fell into a snowbank. She flipped around and stared down the tunnel to a six-inch opening in the middle. The lever lay across the small hole on this side of the gate.
They’re trapped!
Kale started back into the tunnel to lift the lever. The meech egg on her back hit the top of the shrunken tunnel. She backed up, ducked out of the cape sling, and left the egg and dragons in a bundle beside the entrance. She crawled into the tunnel. In a matter of a few feet, she had to lie on her stomach and wiggle closer to the lever. Through the small opening, she heard the clamor of battle.
She came to a place too narrow for her shoulders, and she still couldn’t reach the lever. She stretched one arm out ahead of her and wiggled just one inch closer. Her fingertips were two inches away from her goal.
She pushed with her feet, her knees. She squirmed and gained an inch.
“I’ve got to reach it. They can’t get out.”
She strained, scraping her shoulders against the rock.
“I have to move it. I have to—”
The lever jumped toward her. She clamped her fingers around it and pulled. It didn’t give. She pushed. Nothing. She shook it back and forth, and the bar slid an inch to her right. She tried again and it slid further into the wall. The ground rumbled under her. The floor shifted to the side. Kale rolled. The gate began to open.
As the circle widened, Kale saw the furious fight for survival playing out at the cavern end of the tunnel. Flashes of light attested to the kimens’ activity. Or was the wizard using the fireball spell? Kale heard swords cutting through the air with a whoosh and then thudding against tough schoerg bodies.
“Leetu! Dar! The gate is open. Hurry!” Her scream barely rose above a second rumbling of the rocks surrounding her. The stone wall next to her shattered and came down in a thick mass of gravel, sand, and fist-sized rocks. The floor beneath her heaved upward. She slid back toward the outside of the mountain.
“Dar! Fenworth!”
A boulder crashed next to her and pinned her pant leg. Kale tugged frantically, tore the material, and clambered out of the tunnel. She tried to stand, but the rolling ground threw her back down on her hands and knees. With the dirt-encrusted sleeve of her blouse, she attempted to wipe dust from around her eyes. She turned and saw a fissure opening up behind her. The white snow tumbled into the expanding rocky breach.
The cape bundle slipped away from Kale and toward the crevice.
“No!” Kale dove for the moonbeam cape and missed.
Gymn! Metta! Fly to me! The eggs!
Kale struggled through the snow, trying to catch up to the cape as it skidded toward the black gap. The mountain continued to stretch and break its boundaries. The ground underneath Kale gave way. She fell downward with snow cascading on top of her, burying her. As soon as her feet touched something solid, she fought her way upward.