Cole realized he was in way over his head. His best chance of survival was probably to follow Merva’s instructions. She seemed to think there was a chance of keeping the monster calm. After a brief hesitation at his first sight of the colossal scorpipede, he stayed close to her, carefully matching her pace and posture. She no longer hurried. He tried to breathe quietly.

She led him to a wall where she retrieved a large iron crowbar. Cole reached for one as well, but she waved him off, pointing at hers. Apparently she wanted them to share.

Merva walked along the huge body of the scorpipede. Each segment was several paces long and more than three times taller than Cole. She stopped where the casing of one segment overlapped the next, and started chiseling at the gap between them. With her eyes, Merva told Cole to help. Placing his hands on the crowbar, he assisted as they chipped away material from the slick surface of the shell.

A ripple ran along the body of the scorpipede, making some of the chains squeal. The nearest pincers scissored opened and closed a few times, prompting some of the women to momentarily back away.

Merva wedged the crowbar deeper between the segments and scraped harder. Cole helped her push, lever, and pull.

The scorpipede shuddered. Cole felt the sharp vibrations through the crowbar. Then came a screeching roar that was high and low at the same time. The penetrating noise thrummed in his bones and teeth.

The room went still. In unison, all the women besides Merva dropped their tools. Brushes, gaffs, crowbars, poles, mops, and brooms clattered to the floor. As one, the women turned to stare at Merva.

All color draining from her face, Merva brushed Cole’s hands from the crowbar. “It knows,” she murmured.

Merva glanced down at the shawl he wore and then around at the women. Cole suddenly realized that the attention was on her because she lacked her shawl. Her expression became blank, her voice monotone. “It knows I tried to conceal you. You might as well try to run.”

As Cole took his first step away from the scorpipede, the creature reared up, mighty chains snapping like threads and whipping around violently. More than one woman went flying, but the others didn’t scatter. They held still, watching Merva.

Glancing back, Cole saw the tail lash down, spearing Merva with the stinger. He skidded to a halt. The stinger withdrew and stabbed another woman with merciless precision. Merva stayed on her feet for a moment, eyes distant, then collapsed.

Cole felt horrified, but there was nothing he could do to help her. If he didn’t get away soon, he would be next. As the segmented body bucked and squirmed, giant claws clamped other women. None cried out or tried to escape.

Focusing on the stairway, Cole yanked out his sword. The floor trembled with the thrashing of the scorpipede. The castle walls groaned. The whole place might come down on him any second, if the stinger didn’t pierce him first. Pointing his sword at the base of the stairs, Cole yelled, “Away!”

The sword pulled his body from the floor. Holding tightly, he sped forward at a low trajectory, never more than a few feet high. As his destination approached, Cole realized he would be crushed against the stone steps. But the sword decelerated enough at the last moment that instead of impacting with backbreaking force, he almost stayed on his feet, and tumbled into the steps jarringly instead of fatally.

The scorpipede screech-roared again. Driven by terror, Cole rose and dashed up the steps. He had hurt one hand trying to catch himself, and a shoulder and knee had taken harsh blows, but there was no time to really recognize the pain.

The stairway seemed longer going up than coming down. His thighs burned with exertion. The stairway rumbled and then quaked. Cole could hear stones falling.

He considered using his sword to climb faster, but since the stairway spiraled, he could never point it very far ahead, and little leaps didn’t seem worth the risk of falling. Beyond the top of the stairs, Cole tried to retrace the route to the courtyard. The dim corridors all looked alike, and soon he knew he had lost his way. He stayed at a full sprint, hoping that he wasn’t going in circles. The castle continued to shake in response to an ominous rumble in the foundation.

Finally Cole saw a promising door at the end of a hall up ahead. It was not where he had entered, but it opened onto the courtyard. The lifeboat was in the air at the far side, ladder still dangling.

“I need out!” Cole screamed, rushing forward. The lifeboat banked and came his way.

Cole considered using the sword, but he would have to leap across almost the whole courtyard. He wasn’t sure if it would pull him that far and wasn’t sure he could catch hold of the ladder if it did. Instead he held the Jumping Sword ready and ran hard.

As the lifeboat came closer, the enormous scorpipede erupted from the ground between them, its shiny black body stretching skyward like a fairy-tale beanstalk, multiple sets of pincers grasping toward the little skycraft. Huge blocks of stone fountained like confetti and crashed down in all directions. Cole dodged a large one before the quaking ground dropped him to his knees.

For a moment the bulk of the creature completely obscured the lifeboat. Gritty dust hung in the air. A screeching roar saturated Cole’s eardrums. By the time Cole saw the lifeboat again, it was curving up and away from the castle, passing beyond the wall, well out of jumping range.

He had missed his ride.

A lonely sense of doom smothered him.

His fate was sealed.

The towering scorpipede swiveled, then started to curl back on itself in Cole’s direction. Relatively small mouthparts clicked open and closed, eager little mandibles. The body continued to emerge from the hole it had created. Last would come the tail and the evil stinger.

From high above, an arrow the size of a javelin lanced down. It hit the glossy carapace and rebounded harmlessly. The attack did no damage, but the scorpipede reared back in that direction to investigate.

The oversized arrow must have come from the ballista aboard the Domingo. They were still trying to help him!

Cole scrambled to his feet. Maybe the lifeboat would come back around. He had to buy himself time. Nobody would be able to save him if he let fifty tons of ugly mash him into paste.

His only hope was the Jumping Sword. He scanned the courtyard, then noticed the balconies jutting from a pair of the castle’s tallest towers.

With another ear-rending screech, the scorpipede swung back his way. Cole pointed his sword toward some bushes at the base of one of the towers and shouted, “Away!”

He was attempting to jump farther than his previous leap. As the sword pulled him forward, the acceleration took his breath away. He skimmed over the ground at a speed that should have led to death by road rash, but again the sword slowed somewhat at the end. His feet hit the ground an instant before his momentum heaved him into a bush.