Crisanta Knight: To Death & Back by Geanna Culbertson

Author:Geanna Culbertson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Boutique of Quality Books Publishing
Published: 2019-02-08T16:00:00+00:00

The tips Gwenivere and Morgan had given us to get through the Passage Perelous had a lot to do with plants and colors. No matter how the forest’s tectonic plates shifted, moss always grew facing north, providing us with reliable navigation. If we came upon trees with a reddish tint, we were close to monster-dense areas. Mushroom circles meant we were near pixie or fairy habitats. And the leaves on the trees turned blue if a person had passed by recently.

Despite the perilous nature of the Passage Perelous, sometimes people did try to traverse it because it connected many kingdoms in Camelot. Cutting through it was much faster than going around, although your odds of dying were significantly higher. It was sort of a win-lose.

I was on my toes throughout the journey. On more than one occasion I instinctively reached for my wand when a deer or squirrel startled me.

These little surprises were nothing, however, in comparison to the jarring occurrences of the forest’s actual shifting. Sections of land—trees, rock, and all—would periodically move like we’d seen from the mountain. It would begin with a rumble. The dirt beneath our feet would tremor like an earthquake. Then, all of a sudden, the ground would shift in different directions. We’d stagger until we caught our balance, then stand still and ride it out until the episode ended.

Jagged cracks in the earth showed some of the boundaries of the countless tectonic plates in the forest. If any number of these tectonic plates moved at once, each shift had the potential to dramatically rewrite our route. Accordingly, every time the forest experienced a shift (which could last up to a few minutes) we had to reevaluate our position and reset our course. We’d gone through three shifts thus far and while we were getting used to them, that didn’t make them any more fun.

You know what else wasn’t fun? The monsters we ran into.

By late afternoon we were exhausted. I definitely understood better why no one had claimed Excalibur in all the years Arthur had been gone. We’d been in this forest for an hour and had nearly been killed a half dozen times, despite having a detailed map and the helpful advice of Camelot royalty.

First, we ran into a tribe of ogres twice our height and five times our weight. Next came an onslaught of green spiders the size of watermelons. They spun webs that froze anything they latched onto, making a high-pitched hissing noise that echoed through the forest when they attacked. After that there were the mega toads—toads the size of small cottages that shot their long tongues at anything that moved. (We witnessed one latch onto the waist of a full-size Griffin that’d been taking a drink from a pond, and then swallow it whole.) After that, a swarm of possum bats arrived. Then, wrapping up the hour, a monster emerged from a pool of quicksand. That monster—you guessed it—was made of quicksand.

Avalon was still far away, and at this rate I didn’t how we were going to get there in one piece.

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