"Kraft!" William felt a wave of relief. From where he stood, Kraft had seemed as good as trapped in a meat grinder. He'd lingered for a moment among the blades forged from shadow, then narrowly escaped before being chopped to pieces.
The sharp, barbed darkness boiled, faces bobbing in and out of view. Vibrations approached from afar, and pebbles trembled and bounced across the ground.
"Fall back!" Though the voice was somewhat muffled, William understood the word over the blare of the horn. The first half of the plan was complete. The enormous Excavator was barreling toward them at high speed, grinding its way through the rocky passage.
Now they needed to put some distance between themselves and that face-and-arthropod hybrid, and make time and space to prepare for Plane Shift.
The danger hadn't passed. It was advancing at an alarming speed, like darkness itself surging upward. Its countless, jumbled limbs hammered against the rock and trampled the torches underfoot, snuffing them out.
William hurled the long stone as hard as he could, then turned and ran for his life.
The ground was rougher than a deck in the middle of a storm. He relied on the balance he'd honed over years to keep running. Perhaps that sword strike really had worked; they soon put some distance between themselves and the creature. When he looked back, he saw only the last visible stretch of its limbs disappear beyond the circle of light.
The familiar sequence repeated. A hand settled on his shoulder. He closed his eyes with practiced ease, waiting for the sensation of falling.
But this time, things changed in a way they hadn't before. The solid ground beneath his feet vanished without warning, and his fall accelerated sharply. The sudden change in speed made his heart skip a