Free The Shadowlands by Emily Rodda

The mound was a mass of bodies in grey uniforms, piled one on top of the other.
    Sagging, misshapen heads nudged upward. Feet spilling from split boots jerked helplessly. Sprawled, flabby limbs twitched. Dissolving hands flapped and scrabbled. And slurred voices rose in a hideous, mumbling chorus. ‘Kill the ticks! Get them and please the master! Show the master we are not…’
    The vraal’s head twisted towards the sound, the movement. Its burning eyes seemed to flash. Its mouth split like a red, gaping wound studded with white teeth.
    As it leaped forward, Lief, Jasmine, Barda and Emlis sprang up, tearing themselves free of the feebly grasping hands which were trying to hold them back. Kree swooped, stabbing with his powerful beak at a Guardreaching blindly for Jasmine’s ankle.
    ‘Black bird! Report—black bird and girl!’ rasped the Guard. The cry was taken up by his neighbours and whispered over the mounds, echoing horribly from hundreds of dry throats.
Black bird, black bird and girl
…
report to the master, the master
…
    Breath rasping in their chests, sick with fear and horror, the companions stumbled down to the road and began to run.
    Glancing over his shoulder, Lief saw that the vraal had reached the mound from which they had just escaped. The mound was still heaving with the movement of the dying Guards. The vraal was standing at the top, its tail lashing, its claws extended.
    Lief knew that the beast was relishing the moment, looking forward to the chase, the kill, the certain victory. In seconds it would be upon them. In seconds…
    ‘Lief!’ Jasmine shrieked.
    Lief looked ahead. Jasmine was standing in front of a metal door in the Factory wall. She was holding it open. Barda and Emlis were already hurrying inside.
    With a roar the vraal sprang. Before it had hit the ground Lief was pounding towards the door. He reached it, shoved Jasmine inside, leaped after her and swung the door shut just as the vraal crashed against it.
    The companions stood panting, their backs to the door, as the beast threw itself against the metal, hissing and roaring. They were in a square room with closed doors on all sides. One of the doors, the one to their right,bore a large, black-painted symbol.

    Jasmine ran to the door, pressed her ear against it and listened intently.
    Lief looked around him. There was nowhere to hide. The room was completely empty. The walls were hard, smooth, gleaming white. The ceiling shone with cold light that seemed to have no source.
    Like Fallow’s chamber in the palace, Lief thought. Instantly he cursed himself, and tried to block his mind.
    Too late. Already memories of that other gleaming white room were flashing through his mind, bringing with them weakness and terror. He felt cold sweat break out on his forehead. He fought the memories back.
    It was no use. His brain was seething with pictures, with sounds.
    Alone and in secret, trusting in the protection of the Belt of Deltora, he had tried with all his might to destroy the dangerous, evil thing Fallow’s chamber contained.
    It had been a desperate, agonising battle. He had fought it alone, as he knew he had to do, and he had lost. In the end, exhausted, weak and sickened, he had had to be content with having the room bricked up and setting guards to prevent anyone entering its hallway. Then he had tried to wipe it from his mind, forget it existed.
    But he could not forget. The knowledge of the coreof darkness that lay hidden in the palace’s heart continued to torment him.
    He never spoke of it. Only one person knew what he had been through in that sealed room, and that was Marilen, for there could be no secrets between them.
    Marilen… Into Lief’s mind swam an image of the girl as he had last seen her—shivering, wrapped tightly in her cloak, her fearful face raised to his as she bade him farewell.
    He clung to the image. Clung to it like a lifeline, using it to pull himself free of the swirling mass of fears and memories that