The Duelist 4 by Eric Vall

Author:Eric Vall [Vall, Eric]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Published: 2021-04-09T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

The hair stood up on the back of my neck, and I felt a pair of unseen eyes watching us from somewhere.

“Are you sure it’s a spy?” I asked as we carefully detangled ourselves and took out our weapons so we could scan the area.

“I can hear a heartbeat,” she said but then frowned. “But it sounds too fast to be human.”

Before I could respond to that or ask any further questions, the unassuming floor vase “melted,” and in its place, a creature with wings and a spade-like head appeared and hissed at Zoie and me before it scrambled up the nearest bookcase and launched itself in the air.

“Catch it!” I yelled, and the two of us sprinted out of the library on the tail of the creature.

“Meep!” it screeched when Zoie flung a knife at it and missed.

“Come back here!” the cat-warrior roared and threw another two blades at it.

The creature screamed again and scurried around the next corner like Mario Andretti and even left long claw marks into the wall.

“It’s just going deeper and deeper into the Manor,” I panted as I picked up steam. “We need to corral it and force it out of the Western Wing at least.”

“Agreed,” Zoie said.

“I’m going to try and head it off, keep chasing it,” I instructed, and at the next set of intersecting corridors, I veered left as Zoie and the creature continued straight. Then I pushed myself to sprint even harder to try to make it to the next corridor.

Sure enough, the creature attempted to escape deeper into the Manor by trying to bank left at the next intersection.

Directly into my path.

“Meeeep!” The creature screeched to a halt, and it flared a set of indigo feathers from either side of its head before it hissed again and turned back the way it came where Zoie fought to steer it toward the grand foyer.

Zoie and I worked in tandem like that until the flustered creature had no choice but to flee through a window.

“It’s out!” Zoie said as we both flew through the front doors.

“We have to get it before it gets loose in the city!” I returned my short blade back to its holster so I could concentrate on keeping up with the thing, but even though it had wings, it didn’t appear to have the ability to do more than glide a few feet off the ground. “Do you have any knives left?”

“No,” Zoie panted through her winded breaths as we pounded over the ground.

“Rocks it is, then,” I said and scooped up a softball-sized stone while she did the same, and we alternated throwing the rocks in order to try to maim it at the very least.

“Me-ee-eeep!” the creature chattered and then did a back-flip-barrel-roll thing that had it zipping over our heads and gliding toward--

“The stables!” Zoie gasped as we lost sight of the lizard thing around the bend.

“Come on!” I shouted, and I pulled her through the trees in front of us instead of taking the extra minute to traverse the winding path.

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