Free The Lake of Souls by Darren Shan

… like that to yourself?” he snapped.
    “I’m serious,” I insisted. I got down on my hands and knees and peered into the still waters of the swamp, but it was too cloudy to see anything.
    “I think piranha only attack when … they scent blood,” Harkat said. “If there are piranha, we should … be OK as long as we don’t cut ourselves.”
    “It’s times like these that I really hate Mr. Tiny,” I groaned. But since there was nothing else for it, I stepped into the swamp. I paused, ready to leap out at the first hint of a bite, then waded ahead cautiously, Harkat following close behind.
    A few hours later, as dusk was lengthening, we found an uninhabited island. Harkat and I hauled ourselves out of the swampy water and collapsed with exhaustion. We then slept, me sheltered beneath the deer blanket I’d been using these last few weeks, Harkat beneath the fleshy map we’d stripped from the black panther’s stomach. But we didn’t sleep deeply. The swamp was alive with noises — insects, frogs, and the occasional unidentifiable splash. We were bleary-eyed and shivering when we rose the following morning.
    One good thing about the filthy swamp was that the water level remained fairly low. Every so often we’d hit a dip and one or both of us would slip and disappear under the murky water, only to bob up spluttering and cursing moments later. But most of the time the water didn’t reach higher than our thighs. Another bonus was that although the swamp was teeming with insects and leeches, they didn’t bother us — our skin was obviously too tough and our blood off-putting.
    We avoided the alligators, circling far around them whenever we saw one. Although we were attacked several times by snakes, we were too quick and strong for them. But we had to remain on constant alert — one slip could be the end of us.
    “No piranha so far,” Harkat noted as we rested. We’d been working our way through a long swath of tall reeds, full of irritating sticky seeds that had stuck to my hair and clothes.
    “In cases like this, I’m delighted to be proved wrong,” I said.
    “We could spend months … searching for this toad,” Harkat commented.
    “I don’t think it’ll take that long,” I said. “By the law of averages, it should take ages to locate anything specific in a swamp this size. But Mr. Tiny has a way of fiddling with laws. He wants us to find the toad, so I’m sure we will.”
    “If that’s the case,” Harkat mused, “maybe we should just … do nothing and wait for the toad to … come to us.”
    “It doesn’t work that way,” I said. “Mr. Tiny’s set this up, but we have to sweat to make it happen. If we sat on the edge of the swamp — or if we hadn’t marched west when he said — we’d lose touch with the game and would no longer be under his influence — meaning he couldn’t stack the odds in our favor.”
    Harkat studied me curiously. “You’ve been thinking about this … a lot,” he remarked.
    “Not much else to do in this godforsaken world,” I laughed.
    Flicking off the last of the seeds, we rested a few more minutes, then set off, silent and grim-faced, wading through the murky waters, our eyes peeled for predators as we moved ever further into the heart of the swamp.
    As the sun was setting, a deep-throated croaking noise drifted to us from the middle of an island covered by thick bushes and gnarly trees. We knew at once that it was our toad, just as we’d instantly recognized the panther by its roar. Wading up to the rim of the island, we paused to consider our options.
    “The sun will be gone in a few … minutes,” Harkat said. “Perhaps we should wait for … morning.”
    “But the moon will be almost full tonight,” I pointed out. “This might be as good a time as any to act — bright enough for us to see, but dark enough for us to hide.”
    Harkat looked at me quizzically. “You sound as though you … fear this toad.”
    “Remember Evanna’s