Victims of Nimbo Read Online Free PDF Page A

sat down beside a brook. The girls washed their faces, and both drank from the small, clear stream, but their guide was watching the woods.
    “That was good,” Sarah said, drying her face with a handkerchief. “I’d like to take a swim. I’m so hot and sweaty and dirty.”
    Abbey was pulling at her hair. She said, “Yuck! My hair is filthy!”
    “If you’d cut it off as our females do,” Teanor said, “it wouldn’t be so much trouble.”
    “Cut my hair off!” Abbey was indignant. “I’ll not do any such thing.”
    But Sarah was thinking of more important things than a shampoo for Abbey’s hair. “Do you think theboys will be able to follow your map?” she asked Teanor. “This is a twisted sort of trail.”
    “I don’t know,” he said wearily. “It would have been far better if they had been back from their hunt and I could have led them. But then
you
insisted on coming.”
    Sarah knew that the young man was upset with her. As a matter of fact, she was upset with herself, but it was too late now to do anything about what they had done. “They are good woodsmen,” she said brightly. “I’m sure they’ll find us.”
    Teanor started to get up. “We’d better get going,” he said. “We don’t have—” He broke off suddenly, then yelled, “Look out! It’s a scorpion!”
    “A scorpion?” Sarah had in mind one of the small NuWorld scorpions that she had seen before. They were no more than a few inches across, and she said, “Don’t worry. I’m not afraid of scorpions.”
    At that moment Abbey screamed and scrambled to her feet.
“Sarah!”
she cried and began fumbling for her sword.
    Sarah looked up to see one of the most frightening sights she had ever seen. It was a scorpion all right, but it was a monstrous one, the size of a young horse.
    “Get out of here!” Teanor cried. He grabbed for his staff to defend them, but Sarah saw that such a fight would be hopeless.
    “Run! I’ll stop him!” she cried. She seized her bow and quickly notched an arrow. She drew back the string, aware that she would have only one shot, and she was not certain that one arrow would stop this beast.
    The scorpion was much like the smaller ones that she had seen, except that it had a spotted body and a snakelike head. It scrambled along on six legs. A segmentedtail curved over the creature’s body, and at the tip of it a long stinger was poised. The poison from such a monster would be tremendous.
    Sarah breathed a cry to Goél for his help and drew back the bow. As the terrible creature scuttled toward her with its stinger ready, she loosed the arrow.
    It struck the scorpion exactly in the center of its open mouth.
    The momentum of the beast carried it forward a few steps until it was only a few feet away from Sarah. She had no time to move. She knew if the creature fell on her, she would be crushed. With a burst of desperation she threw herself to one side, and the scorpion’s stinger descended right where she had stood.
    “Sarah, are you all right?” Abbey cried.
    “Y-yes, I’m all right,” Sarah said, and she scrambled to her feet. The beast had fallen to one side, and its beady eyes had already lost their fierce red light.
    Teanor walked up and looked silently at the scorpion. He did not speak for a moment, but then he looked at Sarah seemingly with new respect. “So even a girl can fight,” he muttered.
    But Abbey cried, “That was a wonderful shot, Sarah! If you hadn’t gotten him right in the head, he would have killed you.”
    “I think I had a little help with that one. Thank you, Goél,” Sarah said. She found that her hands were shaking, but she concealed that from the other two. “I hope there are no more like this around.”
    “There are a lot more of them,” Teanor said worriedly. “And the quicker we get out of here the better. Now let us go.”
    He led the way again, along a path that twisted like a snake. The attack of the scorpion had driven away allthoughts of rest, and they