Unbroken (Rise of the Masks Book 2) by Kaplan EM

Author:Kaplan, EM [Kaplan, EM]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Black Crow Books
Published: 2015-10-31T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 31

At the river, Mel hauled Charl’s inert form onto the cycle using extra strength she pushed into her arms and back. Jaine pitched in a bit of assistance, then she sped them toward the riverbank of the once-rapidly flowing Uptdon River. Looking at the river now, Mel’s jaw loosened in shock. Instead of the vast expanse of cold, brown-green water she’d been expecting, the riverbed was a sludgy mud pit, devoid of water. Formerly green and lush rushes now hung limp and dying, dragging their tips in the mud. Without the cool air drifting off the water, the banks had become a swampy, heated mess.

Where were the fish? The remains of their river boat? The water, for heaven’s sake?

Mel looked up and down the river, but couldn’t detect a reason for the drainage. Had the maelstrom gulped all the water down and then swallowed itself out of existence?

“No wonder there hasn’t been more outrage at the lack of ferries,” Jaine exclaimed, pointing.

A footpath through the mud marked the roughly one-mile walk from the travel depot to Navio. However, though the footprints remained, the path was abandoned now. Perhaps it was the mid-day sun that discouraged people from crossing. Or maybe word of the Tooran fire had already spread across the river and stopped the flow? Though Mel didn’t think that was possible. As able-tongued gossipers as the Tooranans were known to be, none could have beaten Jaine and her to the river since the fire had started.

“Can this cycle get us across the mud?” Mel asked. She needed to get Charl to her friends, to Ott, and she didn’t think she could carry him all the way by herself. Not with the riverbed sucking her every step with its viscous grip like muddy lips.

Jaine looked at the wooden wheels and then at the muck, “Dunno, but it’ll be fun trying. Get your goggles on. It’s going to get messy.” With a grin, she snapped her goggles down tight, hiding her bright eyes, and grabbed the cycle’s steering handles. Mel lowered her goggle’s rounded lenses over own her eyes and tightened the leather strap that ran around the back of her head. Gripping the backseat with both hands, she gave Jaine a terse nod.

The girl maneuvered the cycle toward a section of the bank that sloped more gradually than the rest. Then, rather than mince forward with caution, Jaine drove full bore straight into the mud with a loud holler that only Mel, with her enhanced hearing, could discern over the roar of the agamite engine. Embracing the chaos of the moment, Jaine was in her element. A greenish cloud of agamite steam rose behind them along with a rhythmic splatter of foul riverbed mud as they made their way across the Uptdon.

Mel marveled at the cycle’s speed. In just a few minutes, they approached the mid-point of the riverbed, the wheels of the cycle throwing mud up behind them in grayish-brown gushes. If they’d gone on foot, it would have taken hours.

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