Who dumped me onto the side of the street with a breathless snarl.
I just sat there for a minute, clinging to the now stationary bed. We’d passed down the hill and almost made it to the top of another, and the angle plus the bounce seemed to have absorbed our momentum. We weren’t moving.
We weren’t moving!
I stared around, half disbelieving. I was so dizzy that the street still felt like it was undulating beneath me. But it wasn’t, and that was good. And the lack of swords and fire and mayhem was even better.
It looked like the crazies had dispersed while we were gone, either following us back to earth or spreading out around the area. Because all I saw were dark, vaguely modernish buildings, like a back alley in a normal city. Because the Shadowland pulled images from your own mind to cover up whatever the heck it actually looked like.
But the illusion only went so far, because a very unearthly wail suddenly rent the air.
My head jerked around. “What was that?”
Rosier didn’t answer.
I looked up to see him frozen in place, dirty knees on the bed and the sword he’d pulled out of the footboard clutched in both hands. And staring in apparent dumbstruck horror at something down the street. I looked back around, but there was nothing there.
Except for another haunting, skin-ruffling howl that had me clambering back onto the bed really fast.
It came again, and our heads whipped around in unison, looking at nothing some more, because the top of the hill was in the way. And then it came from the left. Or maybe the right. Or maybe—
I couldn’t tell. The buildings were closely packed and tall enough to act as an echo chamber. Which wasn’t fun when the echoes were like these. The horrible sound came again, closer now, and I felt all my skin stand up, preparing to crawl off my body and go find somewhere to hide.
I seconded the motion and grabbed Rosier. “What is that?”
“Hellhounds.”
“And those are?”
“Well, what does it sound like?” he snarled, and finally, finally, he was back with me. White and shaking, but back. Angry and scowling, but back. Chained to the bed, but back.
I shook him some more anyway. “So take us somewhere else!”
“Like where?”
“Like anywhere!”
“I’m not you! Without a portal, I can only take us back to earth—”
“Okay!”
“—and I am chained to a bed, in case you didn’t notice. An iron bed—”
“So?”
“—and we were headed for a river! I will drown.”
Damn it!
“Then give me the sword!” I tried to grab it, but he jerked it away.
“It’s our only weapon—”
“I know that—I just want to get the cuffs off you. Will you listen?”
But Rosier wasn’t listening. Rosier was freaking out again. Maybe because those sounds were suddenly a lot closer, and there were more of them, and they were coming faster now, a baying pack of something that had picked up a scent it liked—
“Give me the damn sword!” I yelled.