Instinct: A Chess Team Adventure - By Jeremy Robinson Page 0,133

raced alongside the river yelling, “Father! Father!” as they attempted to free Weston from the river’s grasp. One of them leaned from a stone overpass and pulled Weston up by his arm. The Chess Team flowed quickly past. He didn’t want to be rescued. He wanted vengeance. “Put me back in!” Weston shouted.

The hybrid looked confused. “Father?”

Weston yanked himself free and fell back in. He was swept away, in pursuit of his enemies, the destroyers of Meru, the killers of his family. Of Lucy.

The Chess Team quickly passed through Meru’s third and second gates in thirty seconds. As they approached the first and final gate, Knight waved to them from atop a statue, then leaped into the water. He’d seen the destruction from below, witnessed the city falling apart, and had a clear view of the hybrid horde fleeing over the rooftops. Diving into the raging water, even with an injured ankle, was far preferable to staying any longer. After passing through the final and smallest of the gates, they were free of the city. The flow spread wide and slowed as they entered the stone clearing between city . . . and river. Sara swam to King, who struggled to stay above water with his wounded shoulder.

“Do you need he—!” Sara’s words were cut off as King shoved her underwater.

Weston took aim from twenty feet back and fired twice. King ducked down as the water around them absorbed the bullets. When he came up he saw Weston again, but then the water fell out from under them and they were tumbling through the air.

They landed in the twisting moat that flowed around the city and were pushed down deep by the river falling from above. King fought the current with his good arm, to no avail. He tried using his injured arm, but the blinding pain that came with the movement almost sapped his consciousness. Then he was pulled up. Sara again. She took him by the shirt and pulled him away from the newly formed waterfall.

The normally calm river flowing around the city raged with white water, fueled by the monsoon outside and the fresh addition of the temple’s fishpond. As they were swept away and around the city, Queen, Bishop, Rook, and Knight pounded through the water and rejoined them.

“We have to get out of here,” Knight said, looking toward the river exit, which was now full to the ceiling. There would be no surfacing in the underwater river. But the smooth vertical walls of the river offered no purchase or chance of escape. They’d been designed to sweep enemies away.

“Stay close and stay down!” King shouted as they neared the river exit. “Deep breath and curl up!”

The team began taking very fast breaths, saturating their bodies with oxygen. Sara mimicked them as best she could. Ten feet from the exit, three shots pinged off the stone around them. Weston, still behind, still enraged, shook the gun at them and swam closer. He shouted to the hybrids still running along the river’s banks. “Get them outside! Go. Now!”

The hybrids obeyed, breaking off the chase and heading for the city’s other, more secretive exits.

King looked back at Meru and saw more of the giant crystals falling from above. The whole mountain was coming down. Groups of hybrids and a few of the old mothers fled, funneling out through small tunnels he hadn’t seen before. He turned back toward the tunnel exit. It loomed above them like jaws of the underworld.

“Go under!” King shouted.

The Chess Team pushed under the water and curled into fetal positions. The orange glow of the fire-fueled crystal light disappeared moments later as they were plunged into the pitch-dark underground river.

SIXTY-FOUR

COLD, WET DARKNESS surrounded Sara. She felt herself pushed and pulled as the water encasing her flowed like a roller coaster through the interior of the mountain. Her back slammed into the stone roof. As she screamed out in pain, the air in her lungs escaped. The benefit was that her body became more naturally buoyant and sank down to the center of the flow. The downside was that she now needed to take a breath.

Her lungs and battered back burned. Nausea pulsed through her body, generated from the impact, the fear of death, and the rapid undulations of the river. She opened her eyes and saw only darkness. The others might have been feet away, but it was like they no longer existed. She’d entered some kind of torturous limbo where there was no