Page 41 of Warrior of the Wild
Meanwhile, the gunda is wriggling. It has no voice with which to scream, but it’s clearly in pain. Flap open wide, tongue swishing aimlessly on the ground, blood trailing after the severed end.
I rush straight at it.
“What is she doing?” Iric asks, but I don’t spare either boy a glance. I put my focus on the gunda. On that open flap and exposed skin. That soft skin.
Let’s see if that’s impervious.
I let the spike come free of my ax and ram it into the gunda at a full sprint. Flesh gives way, spike and ax points embedding deeply, and brown blood spurts right into my face. Blinking rapidly, I pull my ax free and swing again, this time from the side, letting one of the ax blades sink in even deeper.
That does it.
The gunda is swaying side to side on its two legs, ambling around like a bird with its head cut off. I leap over the flopping tongue.
The gunda backs up toward the cliff edge.
I ram it again with the point of my ax, pushing it the rest of the way.
The body falls first, the impossibly long tongue sliding after it along the ground.
A yell.
I turn.
Soren and Iric must have been coming to help me, because they’re both much closer than I realized.
And the gunda’s wriggling tongue end had found another target while it was sinking.
Iric’s waist.
At a speed much too fast for me to do anything, he’s dragged right past me and over the edge, joining the gunda in the depths of the lake.
CHAPTER
9
Soren and I both dash to the cliff’s edge, watching the water settle into place. Whatever creature resides in the water dives down, its dark shadow fully receding below the surface after Iric and the gunda.
Soren shucks off his armor, and I realize that we’ve no hope of swimming while weighed down so heavily.
“He can’t swim,” Soren says.
“What?” I say incredulously, pulling off my second boot.
Soren doesn’t answer; he drops the last of his armor to the ground and dives in after his friend.
When I finally get the rest of the metal off my body, I join him.
I can’t manage a graceful dive like Soren did, so I leap feetfirst,taking a large gulp of air. A cool wind rushes past me before cold water engulfs me. It’s not unbearable—we’re in the summer months, and after a few seconds, my body adjusts.
The water is murky. I think it might be clearer if there weren’t a disturbance on the bottom of the lake, churning up mud and plants. It’s impossible to see much, but I swim down, because I know the solid body of the gunda would have sunk.
I see dark shapes mostly. The large solid figure that looks like a log must be the gunda, and something much bigger swims around it, as though waiting to pounce. I see a flash of white. Teeth.
That has me kicking backward until, there—
Two figures that look like they’re wrestling in the water.
I swim for them, arcing my body down, fighting against the air in my lungs that tries to drag me up toward the surface. Bubbles float out of my mouth as I try to make myself less buoyant.
