And here is the conclusion to Part I of this book. Part II is coming soon!
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Chapter 1: A Fire in the NightTom watched, as long as he could, his friends dwindle in the distance until they were entirely lost from view. Even Jake's enormous bulk was lost in the shadow of the mountain.
We really should come up with a name for our home, something more than Mountain! Tom thought wistfully.
He pondered the riddle for the first couple of days as they trekked along the golden river of sand. No stone or rock provided any break in the monotony of travel, and Tom began to wonder if they were trapped in an endless loop ever repeating, except their home slowly dwindled behind them as they went on.
During one of their many rest breaks along their trek, Tom decided to explore deeper than the surface. He left the others resting in the shade of a cactus and returned to the riverbed.
Shutting his eyes, Tom took a deep breath through his nose and let it out. Again and again he smelt the air, letting the motions sooth and orient him on his task.
Steady now, steady, he told himself.
A trickle of energy, like a
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Chapter 6: New BeginningsThe work on the channel continued all day the next day and the day after. Yet by the fourth day they'd completed the whole length to the spot where Shyla and Asbiorn swore they'd found the secret pipes that led down to the reservoir in the mountain. Jake could see no sign of them, so cleverly had the dwarves fashioned them, but he had no doubt that Shyla and Asbiorn would be proven right in the end.
Once the main channel had been cleared, they started work on some of the smaller ditches that would lead to the fields. Like the main channel, they made the ditches seem natural creeks and outlets, adding bends, twists, falls and such stones as they found to create a bed.
On dawn of the sixteenth of August, everyone stepped outside to see a change in the valley. Storm clouds rolled across the ground, throwing bolts of lightning like an angry toddler with his toys. Sheets of water were clearly visible hammering the desert floor below, while the banks of the river and channel trembled.
Sudden