“What did you do?” Zera cried as she shoved Kreya back behind her. She pressed a talisman into Kreya’s hand, and Kreya glanced at the markings—speed.
“Give it a minute.”
“Oh? Is that how long it’ll take to crush us?”
The crawler careened closer to them, as if drawn by their voices. It tipped, unbalanced, as it strained to walk on only two of its legs, then the other legs seemed to remember what their purpose was. It scuttled backward toward the cliff.
Zera squeaked and clutched Kreya’s arm.
Kreya shook her off. “It’ll be fine.”
It tottered back even closer to the cliff.
“Probably,” Kreya added.
Then it lurched forward again, before settling in a squat, motionless except for a purring kind of vibration. The hatch popped open.
Kreya started for it. “All right, let’s go.”
“Are you mad? Didn’t you just see that?”
“It was just getting its bearings. Think how discombobulated you’d be if you were asleep for twenty-five years.” Crossing the clearing, Kreya climbed into the carriage. It gave a shake as it absorbed her weight. Looking over her shoulder, she beckoned Zera. “Perfectly safe! Until it breaks, and we plummet to our deaths.”
She sat back in one of the benchlike seats. The windows were slits, making the view of the opposite mountain look like a framed painting. A few seconds later, Zera climbed in with her and shut the hatch. “I hate this, and I hate you.”
“Beats walking, doesn’t it?”
“Doesn’t beat flying,” she snapped.
Then the crawler lurched, and Zera clutched the walls, arms spread wide.
Leaning her head back, Kreya closed her eyes.
“You’re going to nap?” Zera’s voice crept up an octave.
Eyes still shut, Kreya smiled as the crawler began to climb across the mountain.
Chapter Six
The crawler clung to the side of the cliff.
“Kreya? Sweetheart?”
Her eyes closed, Kreya contemplated pretending she was still asleep. Or dead. It had been blessedly lovely not having to listen to Zera prattle on for the last few hours.
She felt a tickle on her cheek.
Then a shake.
“Dearest, the crawler isn’t moving.”
She knew that.
Okay, no, she hadn’t noticed.Maybe I really did fall asleep,she thought. Kreya opened her eyes to see Zera’s concerned face two inches from hers. She scrambled back, hit her head against one of the supply packs, and glared at Zera. “How long have we been stopped?”
“A few minutes. It let out a pathetic whimper, and that was it. Good news is it hasn’t lost its grip, so hooray for that. Bad news is—”
Kreya stuck her head out the hatch and saw the bad news. They’d been traversing the near-vertical cliff face of Mount Dorian and were about halfway across. She looked up andsquinted into the sun. It was a thousand feet to the top of the cliff. And down . . . down were the deadly monster-ridden mists.
