Nerida Quickwave's Arc

Chapter 9 of 12

Nerida pushed out from under the dome the moment the beast's arm vanished down the lower cut. She had minutes. The false trail would break soon, and her knife had already failed once on the metal creature's joint. She needed something that could pierce. She swam hard toward the broken spire of black stone that marked the platform's edge. At its base sprawled a heap of chrome wreckage — torn pipes, leaking conduits, jagged plates glowing sick yellow. She tore through it, slicing her palm on a shard, searching for anything sharp enough and long enough to drive between those panels. Her hand closed on a shaft jammed under a coil. She pulled. An old trident came free, three prongs still sharp under tangled vines. She braced it against the obsidian and tested the points on a chrome plate. It bit deep. She had her weapon. Then the water shifted behind her. The false trail was done. The beast was coming back — and now she was out in the open, between the spire and the wreck, with a trident in her hand and nowhere left to hide.