Age of Druids Read Free Page A

had taken a toll. Lisle was just as determined as before and worked hard every day, but the sparkle in her eye had dimmed.
     
    The two men watched as she left the cavern that would someday be the central transport hub for the Otherworld. She moved slowly, as though lost in thought. When she’d begun the descent to the city below, Aaron asked, “Do you really believe Munro can find them?”
     
    The question rang across the high, stone ceilings. “Of course I do,” Douglas said, knowing Lisle could still hear him. “He’ll never give up.” That part, at least, he felt certain was true. Munro was like a dog with a bone sometimes. Once he had his mind made up, he wasn’t likely to change it.
     
    Aaron nodded. “Come on. Let’s find Rory and see if we can’t get him to work on the Stone today.”
     
    He and Douglas made their way to a smaller stair that wound up the mountainside toward the Druid Hall. Their responsibilities weighed on them both. Too much needed to be done, and the druids were weary and overworked.
     

Chapter 2
     
    Huck held Demi and ran his hand over her hair, comforting her as he had so many days before. Or nights. In this dark, cold place, he had no way to tell the difference between the two. She tried to be strong. She was, in many ways, braver than him. But when she let herself think about Jago, her heart ached and the tears would come. “I’m sorry,” she said, drying her eyes.
     
    “You have nothing to be sorry about.” He liked those moments, holding her, that when she grew sad and vulnerable, she trusted him.
     
    “I just don’t understand what they want,” she said. “I miss my baby. Do you think they’ll ever let us go?”
     
    Huck didn’t know how to answer these questions they’d asked so many times. They’d been round and round already. The creatures that captured them were hardly rational. Their strange nightmare began when they were taken at dusk after spending a day hiking on the Colorado Plateau. The creatures appeared to want something, as though they were waiting for one or both of the druids to give them something . If only either of them could figure out what.
     
    “How long have we been here?” Demi asked, leaning her head on his shoulder. Another question they’d asked before. Huck tried to stop thinking about it.
     
    “A couple of months, I think. Maybe two?” With no light to tell the time or regular schedule of sleeping or eating, it was getting difficult to keep track. Sometimes the creatures brought the druids raw meat every couple of hours, and other times their stomachs would ache and rumble. They learned to put some aside in case they were forgotten, cooked with the little fire magic Huck managed in their prison.
     
    “Jago’s birthday is coming soon. Or maybe the day has already passed.” In the darkness, Huck saw a silvery tear slip down her cheek, and he brushed the drop aside.
     
    “We’ll celebrate with him when we get home,” he said. As best he could tell, they were deep underground. Fortunately, a small stream of cool water flowed through the back of this cave, trickling through impossibly narrow openings. It meant they always had water, something they’d learned to be grateful for. Huck believed they were not too far from where they were taken. Their captors weren’t very communicative, so information was hard to come by. The worst part was not understanding why.
     
    Their cave had only one entrance, and outside was a warren of tunnels. They didn’t have a guard posted outside, but they never got far before they were seen and carried back. He tried to work out their location, but the efforts had been a failure. Every intersection led to five ways out and identical intersections with just as many exits. They never managed to travel more than fifty metres away and never saw anything that would help them find an exit. Everything looked the same.
     
    Their captors were rough and unpredictable. After the last time Huck tried to