The Shifting Sands by Emily Rodda

Author:Emily Rodda
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: Fantasy, Childrens, Adventure
ISBN: 9780439253260
Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks
Published: 2000-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Taken by surprise, Doom took a stumbling step forward. She whirled around and kicked, whirled and kicked once more. She leaped away from him as he snatched at her, leaving him clutching the empty air. She jumped and attacked again and again.

With savage pleasure she heard his grunts of pain and anger, heard the crowd begin to cheer. Their excitement was mounting and so was hers. The game went on and on. Doom could not touch her.

The arena was a blur. She felt nothing but her own desire to punish and hurt. It was as though her blood was bubbling, as though her anger had turned into energy, surging around her body, making her feet and hands tingle. Laughing, she danced backwards as Doom came at her again, tall and glowering. The crowd howled. The roar was deafening. So loud … why was it so loud …?

She stepped back — and her heel hit solid wood.

She glanced behind her in shock and saw a wall, and above it, a mass of red, shouting faces. Only then did she realize how she had been tricked, how foolish her anger had made her. Little by little, Doom had pushed her to the edge of the arena. She had her back to the low wall that surrounded it. And he was closing in on her.

She sprang up, up and back, landing surefooted on the top of the wall as so many times she had landed on tree branches in the Forests of Silence. Behind her the crowd was screaming. But Doom was close, very close, leaning forward, and his hands were reaching for her ankles. Hands like giant spiders. Arms like thick, hungry vines …

Pure instinct drove her to jump, to spring up and out towards him. For a split second his bent shoulders were her tree branch. Then she had thrust backward with her feet, launching herself into the air once more, sending him toppling forward. She heard him cry out, heard him fall crashing against the wall as she turned in the air and landed lightly on the sand far behind him.

She landed poised to run. Her only thought had been to escape. But her leap for freedom had done far more than that.

Doom lay crumpled by the wall, unmoving. The crowd was on its feet, shrieking her name. Slowly, in wonderment, Jasmine realized that the fight was over. She had won.

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