Free The Rise of Nine by Pittacus Lore Page A

frustrated with herself, not the glasses.
    With the small branch in my hand, I bend a large tree over to create shade on the boulders. ‘Well, keep trying.’
    Ella holds the dark glasses up to the light. As she turns them over it’s almost as though I can read her thoughts, thanking me for making her feel like she’s part of the team, doing some good.
    I look over at Six, who has stretched out on the ground. ‘What about you, Six?’ I ask. ‘You want to check out anything in my Chest?’
    She stands, yawns and looks up the path. ‘I’m okay, I think. Maybe later.’
    ‘Sure,’ I say. I walk down to the stream and splash water on my face and on the back of my neck. Just as I’m about to take a drink, Commander Sharma wades out of the stream and says it’s time to go. We all get ready to continue up the mountain. I grab my Chest and balance its weight on my hip.
    Immediately, the trail becomes much steeper. It’s also surprisingly slick and absent of rocks, as if this path had been recently washed clear by a storm. We’re all having difficulty keeping our footing. Crayton tries running to gain some momentum, but he slips and falls in the dirt.
    ‘This is impossible,’ he says, standing up and brushing himself off. ‘We’re going to need to cut through the forest to gain any kind of traction.’
    ‘Out of the question,’ the commander says, his arms out like a tightrope walker. ‘We will not conquer our obstacles by running away from them. Speed does not matter, just that we do not stop.’
    ‘It doesn’t matter how slowly we go? This message brought to you from the guy who says very strange things happen at nightfall,’ Six snorts. ‘I think you need to tell us how much further we have to go, and if it’s longer than three hours on foot, then I say we enter the forest and forgo these obstacles,’ she says, staring him down.
    I look at the small branch in my hand and an idea comes to me. I concentrate on the trees around us, lowering branches in from both sides. Suddenly we have a way to pull ourselves up wards, rope climbing the Lorien way. ‘How about this?’ I ask.
    Six grabs the line of branches and tests their strength, moving up a few feet. Over her shoulder, she yells, ‘Brilliant move, Marina! You rock!’
    I continue to bend the trees as we climb. Still wearing the dark glasses, Ella watches the woods around us, occassionally glancing over her shoulder. Once the path levels out and it’s easier to maintain our footing, Six digs in and starts to run up the trail ahead of us, circling back regularly to report on what she’s seen ahead. Every time it’s the same: ‘It just keeps going.’ Finally, she returns to say there’s a fork up ahead. Hearing this, Commander Sharma looks confused and picks up the pace.
    When we reach the fork in the dirt path, Commander Sharma frowns. ‘This is new.’
    ‘How can it be new?’ Crayton asks. ‘Both paths look exactly the same. Well traveled and equally so.’
    The commander paces in front of the fork. ‘I promise you the path on the left did not exist before. We are very close to Vishnu. We go this way.’ He begins to walk confidently up the path to the right and Crayton follows.
    ‘Wait,’ Ella says, ‘I see nothing up ahead on the right. The glasses are just showing me dark emptiness.’
    ‘That’s all I need to hear,’ Six says.
    ‘No. We go right,’ the commander says to Six. ‘I’ve traveled this many times, my dear.’ Six pauses, then slowly turns to look at him.
    ‘Do not call me dear,’ Six warns.
    As Commander Sharma and Six glare at each other my eyes are drawn to something scratched in the mouth of the path on the left. The figure is shallow and just a few inches long, and I have to look closely, but there is no question. It’s the number eight.
    ‘According to this , Ella’s right. We go left,’ I say, pointing at the number.
    Six walks over to the markings and drags the toe of her shoe under the number eight.