Balsa flipped in midair and swung her spear with lightning speed, pinning the end of a tentacle to the ground. A voiceless shriek resounded, shaking the earth. She stepped on the tentacle and pulled out her spear before the next one could reach her. But in that brief moment, claws ripped up through the ground beneath, aiming straight for them. There was no time to escape. Balsa jumped onto a claw, clamping its hard shell sides between her feet, and used its upward momentum to propel herself into the air. Somersaulting, she whirled Chagum by his belt and let him go just before she landed, throwing him clear of Rarunga’s claws. All of this she did without thinking, her body reacting instinctively.
The instant she let go, she regretted it: If he hit a rock, it would kill him. But the training that Balsa had given him saved Chagum’s life. As he landed on the roots of a tree, he rolled his body into a ball, protecting his head and absorbing the shock of impact with his shoulder and hips. Balsa ran toward him, dodging the tentacles that came snaking through the air like whips and knocking them aside with her spear.
Suddenly, a tentacle snagged her foot and slammed her hard against the ground, then with a vicelike grip, it raised her dangling into the air. A shining claw, keen as a sword, raced toward her. The tentacle swung her high, clearly intending to smash her against the claw, and she could do nothing to stop it.
She gritted her teeth, waiting for the blow, when suddenly the tentacle jerked violently. The point of the claw passed beneath her shoulder, and she felt a burning pain cross her back. Twisting around, she caught sight of someone wielding a torch — Jin! He pressed the blazing brand against the tentacle, billowing dense black smoke in every direction. Tanda and Zen stood behind him, guarding his back.
A horrible stench enveloped Balsa, and with a shriek that rent the air, Rarunga threw her into space. She tucked her knees up and curled herself into a ball, somersaulting twice in the air. Hitting the ground in a spray of gravel, she rolled sideways and flipped herself upright immediately. Her clothes had been slashed open and a deep gash ran down her back, yet the wound barely bled, and she felt no pain. Battle fever seized her, stronger than anything she had ever experienced before.
Behind her, Tanda and the others swung their torches, pressing the flames against Rarunga’s claws and tentacles. But they knew it was next to impossible to destroy the monster with torches alone; whenever it felt the sizzling heat, it vanished into Nayugu, only to reappear in Sagu and attack from a different direction. Still Tanda and Jin and Zen fought on. Drenched in sweat, the three torchbearers looked like they were dancing, but it was a dance on which their very lives depended; one slip, and they would die.
And all the while, the tentacles, which were highly sensitive to smell, kept searching for the egg of Nyunga Ro Im. Dodging the flames, they groped along the ground, sniffing out the scent that drove Rarunga, whetting its appetite. At last, they found Chagum, curled up at the base of a tree.
Although Chagum had not hit his head when he slammed into the tree, the shock had left him stunned. His mind only cleared when Balsa reached his side, slipped her arm around him, and picked him up. He had been afraid that he had squashed the egg, but it was unharmed, glowing with a bluish light in his right palm. It was as hard and smooth as a stone, and he could feel its faint warmth: It felt alive.
Balsa saw the egg. “Chagum! Get rid of that thing! Throw it away! Hurry!”
He looked up at her wide-eyed. If I throw it away, I’ll be saved, he thought. So will Tanda and the others. What’s the point in protecting it if we give up our lives? But many other thoughts flashed through his mind as well: the egg’s warmth, its helplessness. It no longer had any power over him; it could not even communicate its urgent desire to live. It could only sit there silently, gently warming his palm. Yet, to him, that desire was still painfully clear. It had chosen him, believed in him, entrusted its life to him, just because it so desperately wanted to live.
His thoughts were interrupted by rage — a murderous rage that came from outside him, spilling from the ground and numbing his entire being. As Balsa made to escape with him in her arms, Chagum pushed his feet against the tree roots and slipped from her grasp. “Chagum!” she screamed. The ground split open like a ripe pomegranate, and Rarunga’s claws appeared.
Tanda saw Chagum racing toward him, the claws suddenly rearing up behind. Yet his mind was distracted by a shrill cry — a flock of birds flying toward them. “Kaw-oh! Kaw-oh!” A light flashed on in his brain. Nahji … The nahji! The warding charm made of nahji bones at the edge of the village; the midsummer festival song; the nahji that flew faster than the devil…. Suddenly he knew exactly what they must do. “Chagum!” he yelled, running toward him. “The nahji! The nahji! Throw the egg up into the air!”
Tentacles sped whining toward Chagum. One almost touched him, but Balsa, behind him, grabbed it and wrestled it to the ground. Yet another whipped toward him. Jin and Zen ran to his aid, but they could not stop it from latching onto Chagum’s right arm, yanking it with sudden and dreadful force. With a sickening sound, a sharp pain shot through his right shoulder; it had been dislocated.
The tentacle arched backward, pulling Chagum up into the air, and its tip slithered toward the egg in his hand. The fine hairs of the tip fanned open to reveal a sucker. Screaming, Chagum tried desperately to grasp the egg with his left hand, but with his right arm held high by the tentacle, he could only dangle limply from his injured shoulder. Just as he was about to give up, a large hand reached up beside him and snatched the egg from him. Looking at its owner, Chagum forgot his pain and his face brightened. “Tanda!”
Tanda threw the egg into the heavens as if loosing an arrow from its bow. One bird separated from the flock of nahji flying south across the Misty Blue Mountains. Through a blur of tears, Chagum watched it dart downward, glide smoothly toward the egg, and grasp it, still glowing, in its beak. Swiftly it sped across the sky and vanished from sight. The egg had finally escaped Rarunga’s clutches.
It had disappeared so quickly, however, that Rarunga could not follow its scent, and its attention focused on Chagum, who still smelled strongly of the egg. Tanda grabbed him with his right arm and pressed the flaming torch in his left hand against the tentacle that gripped him. With a bloodcurdling scream, the monster released its hold, but instantly, other tentacles swarmed toward Chagum, clinging to him like leeches to their prey. The torch flew out of Tanda’s grasp, and he and Chagum were swept up into the air.
“Chagum! Tanda!” Balsa stabbed at the four tentacles that held them. Her spear moved with such ferocious speed that it was almost invisible. Jin and Zen jumped inside the ring of claws, using their torches to protect her as the circle tightened. Fluid oozed from the holes Balsa had gouged in the tentacles, and Rarunga writhed in agony: Fire was anathema to a creature accustomed to living in the cold, dark mud.
Balsa felt the ground buck and heave beneath her. Suddenly, the enormous, slimy body of the monster emerged from the earth, spraying clods of dirt. Balsa, Jin, and Zen were thrown back off their feet. The creature’s giant mouth gaped inside the circle of claws crowning the body, and the tentacles shoved their captives relentlessly toward it.
Yelling, Jin and Zen threw their torches at its mouth, but the tentacles surrounding the opening knocked them aside. Tanda’s leg was already inside Rarunga’s mouth. Balsa ran over and picked up the torch he had dropped. With the torch in her right hand and her spear in her left, she leapt into the air and threw her spear with all her might. Using the momentum of that swing, she immediately sent the torch flying after it.
The torch followed the path of the spear perfectly. The tentacles knocked the spear aside, leaving a brief opening for the torch. It sailed past Tanda’s leg and with a horrible, sizzling sound lodged itself firmly in the monster’s mouth. With a wordless scream, Rarunga threw its captives high into the air and vanished. Chagum and Tanda slammed into the ground with a sickening thud, and then there was silence.
With a sound like a sigh, the stream resumed its quiet burbling. Balsa ran to Chagum where he lay on the riverbank and lifted him up. His face was deathly pale and covered in a sheen of sweat. His eyelids fluttered. Dazed, he opened them and looked up at her, his eyes unfocused. “My … arm … hurts.”
Balsa breathed a deep sigh of relief and cradled his head in her arms.