Jake touched her arm, silencing her. If there was any hope to avoid a massacre in Calypsos, Jake would have to give himself up to the Skull King.
But a hoarse voiced interrupted, fierce and uncompromising. “No.” Jake turned to find the Elder pointing at him. The ancient’s voice lowered into a deep warning. “A great storm builds across time. Sweeping up from the past and down from the years yet to come. It swirls around this boy. This we have suspected from our reading of the stars. It is why we set Bach’uuk to watch over him.”
Jake stiffened in surprise.
“The newcomer must not be tossed into the darkness,” the Elder finished.
“But Calypsos…” Jake said.
The ancient Elder pointed his staff at the frozen pond. “With this you have proven who you are. You are indeed of the long time. Like the temple.” He stamped his staff once on the stone floor. “To preserve both, the Ur will rise up against the shadow that has fallen over the valley.”
“Then you’ll fight?” Pindor asked.
Marika’s eyes brightened with hope.
“To follow the way, we have no choice.” Jake felt naked under the ancient’s gaze. “The great storm is upon us all.”
27
SERPENT PASS
The full moon silhouetted the eastern gateway. Unlike the Broken Gate on the western side of the valley, this gateway had not fallen. A stone sculpture arched over the pass, black and foreboding. It formed the looping curls of a snake with two heads, one pointing south, the other north. Jake had seen the same shape drawn on the map in Magister Balam’s library, and he’d seen it sculpted in gold at the British Museum.
Jake hurried up the trail, following the Roman scout and the massive Ur warrior named Kopat. Marika trailed Jake, along with Pindor and Bach’uuk. Behind them stretched a long line of Ur tribesmen, all carrying weapons: pole spears, stone axes, crude bolas made of stones threaded on leather ropes.
Jake moved around a shoulder of rock that blocked the trail. Down a gully in the path ahead, a dozen saddled fleetbacks clustered, clearly nervous. The riders huddled near their mounts. The Saddlebacks were all young men and women, just a little older than Jake. And fear made them look even younger.
Kopat headed off to the side, gathering the Ur tribesmen together. The Roman scout led Jake and the others over to her group of fleetbacks.
“Where’s Centurion Portius?” one of the riders asked.
The scout answered, matter-of-fact, “His leg is broken. He will not be able to ride. The Ur will care for him.”
“Then who will lead us?” another asked. He seemed to find little hope in Kopat’s forces with their crude weapons. Like most of Calypsos, he must not hold much stock in the Ur’s abilities, beyond menial tasks.
The Roman woman turned to Pindor. “With Centurion Portius down, we have an empty saddle.”
Mumbles passed through the riders.
“It’s Tiberius’s son…”
“No, not Heron—the other one….”
“We are cursed….”
Pindor pretended not to hear them.
The woman crossed to a fearsome-looking fleetback with a ragged scar that blinded one eye. It stood off from the others and kicked a clod of rock and mud.
Jake backed away. If this was the centurion’s mount, no wonder his leg got broken. The sick expression on Pindor’s face was easy to read, even in the dark.
Before he could move—either toward the abandoned mount or away from it—a horn sounded behind them all. The low moan of its call set Jake’s teeth on edge.
Turning, Jake saw all the Ur had gathered on the lower trail. There were over fifty men. It was a large number, but only a fraction of the Ur village.
Where are the others?
Kopat stood atop a boulder with his legs widely spaced and some type of curled shell lifted to his lips. He blew again, and the long sustained note sailed toward the moon with a plaintive call.
And it was answered.
Out in the jungle, another horn blew. From the dark canopy, a large snaking head rose from the trees and pushed up into the moonlight. It climbed at least ten stories into the air. Jake recognized that long neck and blunt head. It was a brontosaurus, one of the giants in a land of giants. It began to lumber toward them.
Behind it, out in the forest, another head rose up…and another…and still another. Like a lawn growing dandelions, a herd of brontosauruses rose into sight. Seven of them! And they all began shifting forward. The first and closest climbed out of the lower forest and began to plod up the trail toward the pass.
Ur warriors rode atop its long body and hung from its flanks in rope harnesses. Like fleas on a dog. One brave warrior sat in a high saddle behind the beast’s head, swaying with the brontosaurus’s strides. The other brontosauruses followed, equally draped with warriors.
The Roman woman shouted to the Saddleback riders. “Mount up!”
A few responded to the sharpness of her voice, but the others looked unsure—fearful of venturing back into the valley.
Marika pulled Pindor and Jake off to the side.
“Can you believe what we’re seeing?” Pindor gasped out, still staring at the lumbering brontosauruses.
Marika drew them another step off. “The surprise of the attack will surely shake the grakyl horde, but for how long? The Skull King has more fearsome demons at his call. Worse than grakyls.”
“But what else can we do?” Pindor asked.
Marika stared at Jake. “Our only chance for a true victory is to raise the temple’s shield. Without that, we’re doomed.”
Jake pictured the darkened emerald stone, poisoned by shifting shadows at its core. “But how?”
“Can your sy-enz help us to cure the stone? To cast out the shadows at its heart? Can you not summon the power of your elektra-city?”
Jake shook his head. “I have no more batteries. No way to generate electricity. And even if I could, I’m not sure it would heal the emerald stone.”
Still, Jake refused to give up. He ran through all the possible ways to produce electricity: wind, steam, coal, geothermal, solar. All were beyond his abilities and certainly beyond the level of technology here.
There had to be an answer. His hand drifted to his pocket and touched the watch. If his father were here, he’d know what to do. But he wasn’t.
Jake’s fingers tightened over the gold case. Could his parents still be alive? Jake had no way of knowing, but he knew that he first had to survive to ever hope for an answer.
“There must be a way to cast the shadows out of the stone,” Marika repeated.