The Shadowlands by Emily Rodda

Author:Emily Rodda [Rodda, Emily]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Tags: Fantasy, Childrens, Adventure
ISBN: 9780439394932
Goodreads: 573918
Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks
Published: 2002-11-01T00:00:00+00:00

10 – The Mounds

The vraal’s terrible curved, knife-like claws were spread. Its tail lashed and broken clay sprayed up behind its cloven hoofs as it sprang forward. In seconds it would be upon them.

‘Run, girl!’ roared Gers to Jasmine. ‘Do not try to fight it!’

Jasmine did not need the warning, any more than Lief and Barda did. They had tried to fight a vraal once, and once was enough. This beast gloried in battle. It cared nothing for pain, did not know the meaning of fear or retreat.

Jasmine turned and ran, making for the garbage heaps. Grabbing Emlis between them, Lief and Barda pounded after her.

Hissing with fury because its opponents would not stand and fight, the vraal gave chase. The rusty broken chain that still swung from its iron collar rattled and clinked, but the vraal did not mind that. It was used to the sound. It had lived with it ever since it had escaped from captivity.

To the vraal, the sound of the broken chain represented freedom.

Freedom to kill and feed where and when it liked, instead of at the bidding of its masters.

Freedom to prowl the plain, so open, so different from the narrow confines of its cell beneath the Shadow Arena.

Freedom to prey on the man-beasts who ate scuttling beetles, the ragged slaves who dug in the holes in the earth and the grey masters who tasted bad, but who gave reasonable sport before they sank screaming under claws and teeth.

These enemies were different. The vraal could tell by their scent as well as their actions that they were not the same as the enemies it had been forced to fight of late. Fresh, rich blood still ran through their veins. Fire still burned in their hearts.

These were enemies worth killing. They were like the enemies in the old days of the Shadow Arena, strong and alive, brought in fresh every day to fight and die.

But these enemies were not fighting. They were running. Running into the hills that stank like the long-dead meat the vraal ate only when it was starving.

The vraal’s nose was keen and delicate. It disliked vile smells as much as any human. It also knew that its hoofs, well fitted for almost every other surface, would not serve it well on the loose, crumbling mounds. But it hesitated only for a split second before bounding forward into the muck.

Its enemies could only hide for so long. In the end, it would find them. Soon it would be light, and the building that hunched beside the vile hills—the building that belched fire—offered no refuge. The vraal knew from experience that humans would rather die than enter it.

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