Instinct: A Chess Team Adventure - By Jeremy Robinson Page 0,75
his feet. “Run!”
Rook complied immediately.
The beasts descended the mountainside after them. Rook pictured Knight in this same scenario, running from the creatures. If he hadn’t been too small to make the cut he could have been the fastest running back in the NFL. The man was living lightning. And these things had caught him. Rook began to holler as he ran, keenly aware that the creatures were at his back. He could hear their breathing. He could see the trees moving around him as they gave chase above. For a moment he felt a small sense of respect for the highly effective hunting party. Then he heard a deep and steady roar over the sound of his own shout. Looking ahead he saw the jungle drop away—a cliff lay ahead. The unmistakable sound of flowing water rose up from the widening gorge.
A river. But they couldn’t see it. It could be a one-hundred-foot drop into raging white water. There was no way to tell. It didn’t matter. Anything was preferable to being eaten alive or torn apart. Without a word shared between them, Rook and Bishop leaped from the precipice and soared out into the open air.
The river, fifty feet below, looked deep and fairly placid. They would survive the fall. But would the creatures give chase? Rook turned as he fell and saw the beasts line up along the cliff’s edge. The biggest of the bunch, the one with red-rimmed eyes, pounded her chest with each syllable. “Big man, mine!”
Rook extended his middle finger toward her just before crashing into the river.
Bishop came to the surface, gasping for air. Rook’s limp body surfaced a few feet away, facedown in the water. Bishop swam to him, looped an arm around his chest, and pulled him back. Rook thrashed and then coughed before collecting himself and treading water under his own power.
“Think I hit the bottom,” Rook said, rubbing the back of his head.
Bishop nodded. He had felt the river bottom graze past him, but he’d curved his body upon entering the water feet first. His entry into the river had been controlled. Rook landed nearly headfirst and struck like a mortar round.
Bishop motioned to the boulder-covered shoreline opposite the cliff they’d jumped from. It would make for excellent cover while they rested, and if they were lucky would provide a natural barrier between them and the creatures, who seemed afraid of the water. They might be smart enough to speak, Rook thought, but there was no YMCA around to teach them how to swim. That was for damn sure.
They crawled onto the bank and worked their way deeper into the tall boulders. Hidden from view, they felt safe enough to stop, but not just to catch their breath. That was the least of their concerns. Rook summed up their situation. “Okay, we’ve got a pack of crazed beast-women after us. Somi is a turncoat, and K.I.A. Knight is M.I.A. The VPLA took Pawn. We have no way to contact King and Queen. And to top this all off, I dropped my magnum in the river.”
Bishop took his shirt off, revealing his sculpted body, and laid it on a rock to dry.
“Did I miss anything?” Rook asked.
A woman’s voice hollered in response. Both men tensed. It didn’t sound like one of the creatures chasing them . . . but it didn’t sound quite right, either.
She shouted again.
Crouching, they crept through the rocks toward the sound of the eerie voice.
The next vocal blast made them both jump.
The voice was feminine for sure, but carried an inhuman volume to it—enough to make it clearly audible, even over the roar of the river, which picked up speed as they moved along its shore.
The woman’s high-pitched voice came again, and then became a deep pulsing sound. Was she being tortured? Or giving birth? Either way, she sounded in need of help. Rook prepared to bolt clear of the rocks and rescue the damsel in distress, but Bishop’s strong hand on his shoulder stopped his valiant charge.
Bishop pointed at his eyes with his index and middle fingers, and then pointed to a space in the rocks where a long boulder had long ago come to rest atop two others, forming a small window. As the woman’s shrieks ebbed and flowed over the rocks, they became even louder and more frantic. Rook fought the urge to safeguard those in need and peeked through the small portal.
“What the . . .” Rook watched, mesmerized by the surreal sight.