Leviathan (Lost Civilizations: 2) by Vaughn Heppner Page A

creature. Adah, her face twisted with rage, her small feet planted wide, seemed incapable of stopping.
    At last, Joash put a hand on her bow.
    Adah glared with fierce hatred and fear.
    Joash recoiled, but that seemed to snap Adah out of her rage. She dropped her bow, as her shoulders slumped.
    “You don’t understand,” she whispered.
    Joash took her hands in his.
    “Ah,” Lord Uriah said softly, looking up anew. “Yorgash of Poseidonis has joined hands with his brethren. This is worse than I’d feared.”
    Adah tore her hands free, and said to Lord Uriah, “The slith will report what it sees to Tarag.”
    Lord Uriah nodded.
    “We’re being hunted.” Adah shuddered, and then she picked up her bow.
    Joash stared at the so-called slith. It soared high above, circling as an eagle does, or a vulture. He recalled Balak, pterodactyls and egg stealing. The slith was an overgrown pterodactyl, a giant among its kind. Joash had a scar on his back from those horrible days with Balak. He loathed pterodactyls. They had killed his friends, although he could never fault the beasts for protecting their nests.
    Could the giant pterodactyl, the slith, truly track them wherever they went? Could it speak as a man speaks? For how otherwise did it communicate with the First Born, and tell them what it saw?
    “What are we going to do?” Adah asked grimly.
    Joash wondered what terrors Adah had endured in far-off Poseidonis. Maybe it had been worse for her than it had been for him with Balak.
    “Yorgash used the slith to find our hiding places,” she quietly told Joash. “...There are things you don’t know about me. Maybe if you knew more you’d—”
    “No!” Joash said, hugging her. “I love you,” he whispered in her ear. “I’ll always love you.” He squeezed, released her and stepped back.
    She stared at him in shock.
    Lord Uriah cleared his throat.
    Adah blinked several times, then glanced at Lord Uriah, and said, “I’m sorry I lost control.”
    “You’ve braved more than anyone else I know,” Lord Uriah said. “That you’re still able to fight against the corrupted ones is a tribute to your courage, to your inner reserves. Do not be sorry because you’re human and can still be terrified.”
    She nodded and gave Joash a strange look. A tiny smile curved her lips.
    “I meant what I said,” Joash whispered, so only she could hear.
    She took hold of his hands, but said to Lord Uriah, “During my last days in Poseidonis we knew Yorgash by a new name: The High Slith Sorcerer.” She paled but forced herself to speak. “Yorgash’s pets roved the skies as he practiced his abominable spells. We’re doomed, my lord, if Yorgash has personally joined with Tarag.”
    “No, not yet,” Lord Uriah said.
    ***
    Joash had finished stitching his shirt, and mending his sandals. Now, he alternated between studying the high-flying slith, and watching Gens transform an ordinary piece of driftwood into a work of art. Adah spoke with Zillith. On the Captain’s Deck, Maharbal gave swift orders. Sails were hoisted, and the heavily laden ship headed out to sea.
    The Tiras overflowed with people. Below deck swung hammocks. Above deck lay mats, and in the cabin, the highest-ranked slept. Joash had been amazed how the tents, kettles and chariots, broken apart into axles, wheels and leather portions of cab, had all been stowed into each crevice and cranny of the ship. At first, it hadn’t looked like it could all fit, but the sailors were wizards at their craft. Above deck were now many leather-covered piles, giving shade from a blazing sun.
    The slith still soared in a circle, using the Tiras as its locus.
    Herrek walked away from where he watched the steppes, and sat down beside Joash. With a sigh, the warrior leaned against a leather-covered pile.
    Gens whittled away.
    “On to Gandvik Rock,” Herrek said, wistfully.
    Gens didn’t pause. His fingers maneuvered the blade, chipping a thin slice of wood here, carving out another