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

opposite byway, blocking their path. Hap caught a glimpse of a monstrous head. The reptilian hide kept sliding by, propelled by endless pairs of lizard legs.
    “How long is this thing?” shouted Oates.
    Umber shook his head, amazed. “Hundreds of feet. Look—I think it’s circling us, cutting us off in every direction! Brilliant! I’ll bet it comes from behind next. Ha! I was right!”
    The head of the worm emerged from an alley just a few strides to their rear and poised there. The strange face was covered by scaly armor. Spiny whiskers, each longer than a man’s arm, bristled from both sides of the head. There was a thin line where its mouth was clamped tight, topped by a row of holes that might have been nostrils or ears. There were no eyes that Hap could see, only an odd domed structure like a beetle’s shell on its forehead. The two legs nearest the head were thick and powerful, with five wicked claws at the end of its fingers.
    There was a moment of shocked silence, until Sophie gasped aloud. The thin horizontal line on the worm’s face cracked apart, the whiskers folded flat against the head, and the mouth opened with a roar. Row upon row of jagged teeth lined its jaws. The cavernous throat could swallow any of them in a single gulp. The tongue was slick and pale with plum-colored veins.
    The legs of the worm churned like the oars on a galley, propelling it forward. The mouth snapped with terrible speed, and the teeth clashed so hard, Hap thought they would crack into pieces. Oates seized Sophie and Umber by the shoulders and pushed them through the nearest doorway before plunging in behind them. Hap bent his legs and sprang after them in a broad leap that carried him into the room, just ahead of the gnashing jaws.
    “You’re a nimble one, aren’t you?” said Umber as Hap straightened out of the froglike stance in which he’d landed. Oates and Sophie shook with fear from the narrow escape, but Umber grinned wider than ever. As the raging creature hammered its head against the door, he looked at it like a beloved pet. The heavy blocks of stone on either side of the threshold shook but did not budge, even when the worm turned sideways and tried to squeeze inside. Hap was glad to see that the head was too bulky to slip through.
    “It can’t get in, so we’re perfectly safe. We’ll just wait it out here,” Umber said.
    “Wait it out like that fellow did?” grumbled Oates. He jabbed his thumb toward the corner of the room. Hap saw the slumping remains of some earlier fortune-seeker, now just a skeleton in a moldy tunic, with a rusted sword and shield at his side. The skull grinned from inside a battered helmet.
    “Not necessarily,” said Umber. “It’s called optimism, people. Try it, I beg. Here’s the secret: Everyone, stop talking and don’t move. It’s said that the worm hunts by sound, not sight. In time it should lose interest and go. If not, I have the means to knock it out, remember?” He patted a bulging pocket in his vest. “But let’s try the silent treatment first.”
    “Should I douse the lamp, Lord Umber?” Sophie whispered. Umber shook his head and tapped his lip. They stood perfectly still, scarcely breathing aloud. Hap looked around the room, which wasn’t so different from the one where he’d been found. Aside from the ancient corpse it was barren, stripped of valuables long ago. There was another doorway at the other end, thankfully just as narrow as the one that held the tyrant worm at bay.
    Hap felt a tap at his shoulder. Umber pointed at the worm’s head, where something odd was happening. The shell on the creature’s forehead opened in the middle like shutters, and something emerged from the dark hole inside. It was a moist, twitching, globular thing, drooping at the end of a long stalk. As Hap watched, a black disc appeared within the globe and spread like oil on water. He heard Umber draw a quick excited breath.
    Hap’s blood turned cold as the globe swiveled