Chasing Evil by Adam Blade

Author:Adam Blade
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2010-06-13T16:00:00+00:00

What are we waiting for?” said Castor.

He climbed onto Nera’s back, settling himself amid her gold fur. Now that they were no longer fighting, Tanner could see that Castor’s Beast had intricate markings in her fur. Her face was patterned with darker streaks, and patches of gold and chestnut rippled across her body. Nera batted at Castor playfully with her paw, claws gleaming as she pushed him up her side so that he was able to scramble onto her neck. He pressed his hand to the top of her head, and the Beast seemed to calm down.

“What will you do when you find your brother again?” he asked.

Gwen climbed onto Gulkien. The wolf shook himself and snapped at the air, as if he was stretching his jaws. “I don’t know,” she said quietly, staring straight ahead and refusing to look at either of them.

“We’ve all lost something or someone,” said Tanner. “But Derthsin’s going to pay.”

As they were about to take off, Gwen cried, “Wait! Castor, won’t you be missed here? Isn’t there anyone you need to say good-bye to?”

Tanner saw him tense. “No. No one.”

Gulkien and Firepos beat their wings and soared into the air, their shadows rippling over the village square. Firepos’s feathers shone like bronze as they ruffled in the breeze, and Gulkien’s fur flattened over his long snout. Nera raced ahead, across the land, leaping from hillock to valley, her tail flying out behind her. Tanner had never seen a Beast move so fast across land.

Castor and Nera led the way. From up above, the two other Beasts banked around until they were heading toward the Northern Mountains where the Hidden Mines must be. Low, ugly gray clouds hung over the mountainside. Ahead, the ground was dark.

They passed through chilly clouds, toward the steep, iron gray faces of the Northern Mountains. The two winged Beasts flew single file up a pass threaded with a silver stream, and the vegetation petered out below. Nera leaped from rock to rock, her claws sending out sparks. Nothing seemed to slow her down, not even the barren land and thin air.

Sharp-edged shadows were cast by the mountain rocks and jagged peaks. Boulders and crumbling drifts of black-slate rock wound like dry rivers up the mountains. Castor whistled, and Nera raced up a riverbed, only to loop back — all in the time it had taken Gulkien and Firepos to fly the same distance. Castor called up: “I bet your Beasts can’t fly that fast!”

“Of course they can,” Tanner said, not wanting to admit the truth. Nera was faster.

Nera shot back and forth in maddening bursts. Firepos’s feathers shook in the air with her steady wing beats, and Gulkien’s wings creaked and stretched on the wind gusts. Nera was toying with them.

“Prove it,” Castor yelled. “Let’s see if you can keep up!”

“You’re on!” Tanner called down. “Oh, and Castor? If I beat you to the next mountain, you have to be quiet for the rest of the trip.”

Castor smiled and sat back, his hands behind his head, so he was holding on to Nera with only his thighs.

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