The Silver Tower (The Age of Dawn Book 3) by Everet Martins Page A

through the plant’s red vines with ease. She yanked the vine from her neck and pulled the other out of her throat. The tentacles attached to the plant writhed on the ground, slopping with viscous goo, pulling back into the dark hole from where they came. She made two discs slice smoking lines into the verdant walls from top to bottom and then cut across the top. Her eyes glowed with red brilliance and she easily pulled her foot from the entrapping ichor, peeling it apart and stretching with a snap.
    Baylan’s hand reach into one of the blackened cuts and started pulling open the makeshift door she had cut. It pulled apart and he got out of the way as it crashed onto a shrub. She let the Dragon dissipate, leaving her with the weight of its exhaustion.
    “Ny! Are you okay?” he stammered, offering his hand through the rectangular door.
    “I think so. A bit shocked more than anything.” She took his hand and stepped off the hewed section of plant. Baylan looked her up and down and started helping her peel the segmented vines from around her wrists and ankles. She scraped her boots on a sharp rock, working off the sticking liquid. “Never thought I’d end up almost becoming a plant’s dinner.”
    “I had no idea they could get so big,” Baylan said with fascination, sticking his head inside the Sand Buckeye and peering from side to side. “I’ve never heard of them trying to eat humans. An interesting specimen, indeed,” Baylan said, rubbing his hands together, his eyes pulling into a smile. “It must be documented,” he said rifling through his bag and getting out his notebook.
    “How did I miss this?” she asked, her hands on hips and looking up at the bulbous plant. It was almost as big as a room in the Lair, clear liquid oozing in sheets from where Nyset had cut through its sidewall. It twitched from side to side with a slight roll and they both took cautious steps back. It started retreating into a hole in the ground, shrinking down and compressing its body as it slinked away.
    “Incredible!” Baylan said, clapping his hands together.
    “That explains why I didn’t see it,” she said with a nod. She grabbed a glob of ichor from her hair and started ineffectively flicking it onto the tall grass as it stuck to her fingers like honey.
    Nyset thought she would have been as interested in the plant as he was if she hadn’t almost been its dinner. It was surely something she would never forget. It was much older than the babies she had first seen in Midgaard. They were cute, this was nightmarish. She turned back towards the deer as Baylan’s charcoal pencil hissed away, the beginnings of a sketch forming on the page.
    The deer stared up at her, its big black eye open with the surprise. She formed a flaming dagger in her hand and began to quarter the deer, just like dad taught. It was a breeze with such powerful weapons, cutting through tough tendon and ligament with ease. The singeing fur stung her eyes and burned her sinuses as she cut, cooking the flesh.
    They wouldn’t be able to use all the meat before it spoiled, so they would only haul two flanks back and leave the rest to the animals. It seemed like a waste to Nyset. To kill such a big animal that had taken so long to get to that size, only to feed them for a couple days was foolish. Some things in life just weren’t logical and that was alright, she reminded herself.
    There was no sign of Juzo and no trace of his ever being there as far as Nyset could tell. The sun was setting and they had to assume that he had lost them and went back to camp. If she found he’d just up and left them without a word, he would get a piece of her mind. It would be hard to trust someone who can’t even stick around long enough to watch your back during a hunt. Walter always seemed to be eying that sword of his, maybe something to look out for. She didn’t want to acknowledge the likely reason for his disappearance, but it kept bubbling up in her mind. Juzo had