Happenstance Found (Books of Umber #1) Read Free Page A

years, something else made its home here.”
    “The worm?” asked Hap.
    Umber nodded. “The tyrant worm , to be precise. Alzumar is a perfect lair for a creature that can’t stand the light of day. Quite a few fortune-seekers have met their doom in the tyrant worm’s jaws. It’s a legendary man-eater.”
    Hap stared. “So why do you want to see it?”
    Oates snorted. “Because he’s crazy, that’s why. He’ll go to the end of the world to get a peek at a monster.”
    “Everyone needs a hobby,” Umber said. “I’ve heard the tyrant worm described as a cross between a dragon and a centipede. I’m beside myself with curiosity, Hap. How long is it? I’ve heard a hundred feet or more. And is it true that it’s blind, and finds its prey by sound alone?” Umber’s face was radiant, and he waved his hands in the air as he spoke. He would have gone on, but Sophie cut him off.
    “Listen!” she cried.
    They stopped walking. Umber put a hand to his ear. His mouth was reduced to a tiny, puckered circle. From somewhere in the distance, meager sounds wandered down the tunnel: soft thumps, like fingers drumming on stone.
    Hap squinted so his keen sight better pierced the gloom, and he saw the worm—part of its long body, at least. Hundreds of paces away, well beyond the flickering yellow light that the lamp cast, the creature was crossing the main tunnel, going from alley to alley. It was immense, with a round body that nearly touched the stone roof, propped up on pair after pair of short, churning legs.
    “It’s there,” he said.
    “You can see it?” Umber whispered, tugging at Hap’s sleeve.
    Hap nodded. At first he’d felt relieved that the worm wasn’t coming directly at them—perhaps it didn’t know they were there. But the hairs on his arms stood when he remembered how, when he heard it pass before, it sounded as if the creature was dragging its body while its clawed feet raked the stone. Not this time, though. Now it moved in stealth, with its body raised on its multitude of legs. The claws were retracted, so that only the leathery pads of each foot touched the stone and every step was muffled.
    Umber tugged again. “What does it look like? What is it doing?”
    “I don’t see the head. Just the body. It’s like a … serpent with a thousand legs,” Hap said. “And I think it’s hunting us.” He heard movement behind him, and when he’d turned around, the lamp was on the ground and Sophie had strung an arrow in her bow. The weapon had been cleverly designed so that the metal prongs at the end of her wrist slid into holes drilled in the bow. She aimed the arrow down the main passage.
    “It’s not coming right at us,” Hap said. He pointed. “It’s crossing over, that way. I think it will come at us from the side, to surprise us.” The creature was still sliding across the intersection. Hap thought it would never end. But finally the body tapered. Every pair of legs grew smaller until he finally saw a slender tail with a barbed and lethal point.
    “How can you see that, boy? I can’t see a thing!” said Oates.
    “We’re being stalked! Isn’t it exciting?” cried Umber.
    “Should we run?” asked Sophie.
    “Oh, let’s move toward the exit, by all means,” Umber replied, grinning. “If it pounces, we’ll just dodge into one of those narrow doorways, easy as pie!”
    Oates looked at Hap and shook his head gravely. “Umber’s out of his mind. Get used to it.”
    Oates led the way with his spear pointing right, where the worm might lunge out. Hap glimpsed down the dark alleys and byways that they passed, where more hints of lost buildings were revealed. At the far end of the corridor he saw a tiny rectangle of bright light. The sun, his growing knowledge informed him.
    Umber tugged Oates’s arm from behind. “Slow down—I need to get a look at it!”
    The rectangle of light was blotted from sight as the worm shot out from another crossroad ahead of them. It plunged down the