Read A Stone's Throw (The Gryphonpike Chronicles Book 3) for Free Online Page A

were seriously injured. He outweighed his opponent by half again as much, all of it muscle and bone, and his jaws could crack a mastodon’s femur. The warakin screamed like a dying rabbit as Fade’s jaws finally found purchase on its throat. Blood spurted, dark in the moonlight, and the battle was over.
    Fade stood, legs spread, over his kill and roared with the deep coughing sound of a true hunting cat. The other warakin answered with high-pitched yips and then one by one turned and faded into the grasslands, their shadows blending into other shadows until we were alone again.
    “Good kitty,” Drake said as he sheathed his sword. “I thought we were puppy dinner for sure.”
    I smiled as Fade stalked toward me, his short, fluffy tail standing straight up and his tufted ears pricked forward. He licked blood from his jaws and then bumped my hand. I swallowed more nausea as I risked a quick scratch behind one of his ears.
    Battle fever from the almost-fight still sang in my veins by the time we reached the sinkhole and I nearly flew down the links of Drake’s chain ring, the climb seeming easier than before even in the textured shadows of my night vision. We left the chain dangling into the hole since there was no way to bring it down. I could read in Drake’s worried glance that he hoped it would still be there when we emerged.
    The squeeze through the passage into the first cavern was easier this time as well, I think because I knew how deep the passage went and that the corridor wouldn’t narrow to the point I’d be stuck. I blinked against the brightness of the glimmer moss as my eyes adjusted from the darkness in the passage. The bodies of the angler imps had started to decompose through the afternoon and evening and the cavern smelled less like earthy damp and more like old meat and rotting fruit as we traversed the stalagmite forest.
    “Now’s the tricky part,” whispered Drake as we neared the passage leading into the cavern where the whipmaw lurked. “Maybe we can sneak past it? I’ll go first.”
    That surprised me. Usually he was an “elf ladies first” kind of man, always happy to let me take the lead and then let Makha’s well-shielded and armored bulk go in front of him. I stepped in front of him anyway. The whipmaw’s roots extended all over that cavern from what I could remember and I doubted we could move silently enough not to cause vibrations that would alert it. I had a different idea.
    Sliding my booted feet carefully along the stones so as to cause as little vibration and noise as possible, I crept down the passage. I reached the opening to the whipmaw’s cavern without seeing any signs of life from it and dragged my bowstring slowly back, taking aim at one of the shiny black bulbs along its root system. I held my shot, picking out three other bulbs and committing their locations to my memory, mapping a pattern in my mind.
    Even as my first arrow sank into the bulb I had my second drawn back to my lips. I sent that one into the next bulb and drew my third in a smooth motion. The whipmaw, two of its root bulbs now spurting inky liquid, thrashed to life. My third arrow was smashed into the floor, missing its target, but I had the next one already in the air and the whipmaw wasn’t quick enough. That arrow sliced deep into the fourth bulb I’d picked out and more inky fluid spurted. My fifth arrow nicked its mark, the tentacle that whipped to intercept it not quite getting in the way in time. Two uninjured bulbs remained that I could see from where I stood. Three arrows later, they, too, were reduced to empty, oozing sacks.
    “Great,” Drake said, coming up behind me. “You certainly pissed it off.”
    The whipmaw continued thrashing, its tentacle branches unfurled and the undersides open, sharp rows of backward leaning teeth revealed. Dust and debris from where its stony arms impacted the walls and ceiling clouded the air, and I took a few steps back into the passage, coughing. For a