Keepers of the Labyrinth by Erin E. Moulton

Author:Erin E. Moulton [Moulton, Erin E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: k'12
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2015-08-24T16:00:00+00:00

24

Lil ran harder than she had ever run before. Headlong they ascended into a snake-shaped passageway, nothing but breath and footsteps between them. Lil watched doors slip past on either side. She swung her torch to the right and the left, searching for the next labrys, the next clue. Finding nothing.

“Does anyone see the battle-ax?” she whispered as she tried to still the disk that swung at her side.

“I don’t see one,” Charlie said from right behind her.

“We’re going to have to go somewhere,” Kat said from the back of the line. “I can see their flashlight.”

As if on cue, the flashlight flickered like a stark strobe, casting their shadows in front of them.

“We have to go faster,” Lil said as they rounded another corner.

“We have to hide,” Sydney said.

The flashlight beam turned the corner and licked at their heels.

“Right there!” a voice behind them shouted, and the chamber echoed with a blast. Lil covered her head as rock ricocheted from the wall and sprayed on them like shrapnel. She searched the shadows, hoping beyond hope that there was an archway, a tunnel, maybe an invisible door like in her dorm room—anything that could free them from certain death. She heard a footfall falter. Now was not the time for unsteady steps, she thought as she grasped Sydney’s arm.

A door loomed on their right, and Lil could make out a cast-iron handle at the center of it. She jammed to a halt, and the others slid to a stop behind her. Lil tried the latch. The door easily gave way. She held her hand to her lips, gesturing for quiet, and prayed as she pushed the door. It slid open as though the hinges had been recently greased. They ducked inside. She grabbed the bolt and slid it into place. A click echoed through the chamber. Lil took a deep breath and let it out as silently as possible as she squatted down, leaning hard against the door.

Footsteps stomped and voices echoed past.

“Do you see them, Fe?” the man hissed.

“They must be up ahead,” the other voice said.

Lil clutched the end of the torch, her knuckles white as the footsteps faded into the distance. She swallowed, trying to catch her breath, her vision wavering in the torchlight. She told her racing pulse to still, and in doing so felt a second pulse against her skin. She looked down at her arm. How long, she wondered, had Sydney been gripping it? She looked up into Sydney’s face and then shifted her position to follow Sydney’s gaze into the interior of the chamber.

A shockwave of fear buckled Lil’s muscles, sending her knees onto the floor. She stifled a scream. Three doors led out of the chamber. Against the one on their left, three corpses were pinned as if they had met their fate while trying to exit. Three arrows pierced their backs. Lil stared at the one closest to her. A strange-looking necklace had come unclasped and lay on the stone floor. It looked to be a circle with a lightning rod through it.

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