Book Excerpts: Caspian

Caspian: Book 1

He ran down the hill, knowing that they were right behind him. He broke through the tree line, kicking up dust and then suddenly he was sliding toward the camp below. I made it! He said in a false victory. Then he saw a girl practicing with her friend. A familiar girl. She’s alive! But how? He thought and then the flashback started.

The gorgeous girl lay in his arms, nearly dead. The shadow touch was creeping out from her back to the rest of her body.

“Abby.” He managed to croak out. The blackness crept down her arms.

“Caspian.” She said. The shadow was up to her neck now. She touched his cheek, then fell limp in his arms. “Caspian.”

A growl behind him broke Caspian out of his nightmare. He turned to see Dustjerk and his dustwolf acquaintances, Dustface and Dustbutt. Those weren't their real names, but that was what he had figured they should be called when they started attacking him the night that...Abby...Abby… He started to return to his flashback, but then jumped back to attention. Focus.

Dustface and Dustbutt attacked first, and then Dustjerk. Then something weird happened. After Caspian quickly dispersed the first two, Dust Jerk went back over the ledge.

“Wha--” He started to say, but stopped at a brick wall. Caspian tried to talk, but his voice ran away without him. He saw the 10, no, 20, no 30 Dust wolves that waited there.

They all attacked at once.

Caspian was unsure of what to do. Actually, that was an understatement. He was totally freaking out. When his fear overpowered his male instinct to hold his ground and fight, Caspian turned to his next option. Run!

He was almost to the nearby camp when he tripped over a torch laying on the ground. What the freak? He thought to himself as he flew over the edge, only to find that his bruised and bloody hands had caught onto the top of the precipice. Caspian then did the worst thing anyone could ever do in that situation. He looked down.

Thousands of tons of water burst out of the opening, forty feet below him. It rushed and surged, carving tunnels through the earth. Caspian looked up again. The shadow-bred dustwolves were a few seconds away from causing his impending doom. He glanced at the deadly waterfall and river.

"Thanks, guys," He said to the dustwolf pack. "But I'll take my chances." With that final sentence, he fell.