Joshua and the Arrow Realm Read Online Free Page B

dared a peek behind me. Charlie pushed through the water, his eyes bulging.
    The need for air threatened to launch me into full panic. We should be there by now! A yellow light swelled before us. Out of the corner of my eye, something else grew bigger. White chompers gnashed together. A mutant rat! Claws ripped through the water driving the rat toward dinner. Me!
    I swam faster. Could the orb work as a weapon under water? No time to find out! The water crushed me. Myboots clung to me like mud. My chest screamed for air. Lore’s body disappeared into the light. The dog dragged me and Charlie out of the water with his teeth. I cracked my ankle on stone. Pain ripped through me as I scrambled up the steps when a snout exploded through the water. Teeth sliced the air. I screamed, jerking my leg away. Charlie lugged me up the steps, scraping me with every inch. Lore stood and yanked down an iron grate anchored in the ceiling. It bashed into the rat’s head before locking into fitted holes in the ground. The beast squealed and swam away.
    Shuddering, I sprawled across the steps. The light I’d been swimming toward hadn’t come from any torches but from the rock of this watery dungeon entrance. It glowed yellow with sparkly gold flecks.
    Charlie panted next to me, hair plastered in black fingers down his forehead. We both reeked like garbage sitting under a blazing summer sun.
    â€œYour scream was not helpful,” Lore said to me.
    â€œYou didn’t tell us giant rats would be in the moat! We have to go back that way?”
    â€œWhat other monsters can we expect to make friends with, fur ball?” Charlie choked out, as he spit scum from his mouth.
    Lore pulled his lips back in a fierce grin. “No time for that.” He thumped us each with a paw, and we followed him up the fluorescent steps. I grew dizzy, and my ankle ached as we wound up a twisty set of stairs and out into a hallway. Flickering torches lined the walls. Lore made a sign to stop. We pressed ourselves up against cold, cracked stone. A cobweb brushed my face. I ripped it away, shivering in my damp clothes.
    Foul smells of rotten meat and mold overpowered my own stench. My every sense was on alert waiting forguards to come pounding toward us. Ahead, thick bars covered doorways to cells.
    Lore stepped out in the middle of the corridor and padded silently ahead as Charlie and I sneaked behind. I peered into each empty cell we passed, hoping to see my friend Apollo, grating my teeth with each
pling
of water seeping from the ceiling. Something rustled. A chain clinked. Then a moan had me running toward the closest cell. There in the shadows huddled a lump in a bed of straw.
    I clenched the bars. “Sam? I mean … King Apollo?” I whispered, calling him for the first time by his new name as king.
    The lump lifted his head. It was him! His pale face and white hair glowed in the torchlight, eyes wide with surprise. He staggered up, chains rattling from an iron ankle cuff hooked into the wall. His royal purple and gold clothes were torn and streaked with dirt. I hardly recognized him through his filth. He stood as tall as me now, and his once skinny figure was now muscled. Time moved faster here than on Earth.
    â€œJoshua!”
    â€œLeandro sent for me and Charlie to get you out.”
    He strained at his chains and peered at us. “Charlie?”
    â€œ
C’est moi
! This pooch got us in to rescue you,” Charlie whispered, poking his nose through the grates. “Hey! Boy, did you get big.”
    â€œLeandro’s hound got you here?” Apollo said.
    I nodded eagerly.
    â€œBack,” Lore commanded. He muttered a string of words, and the thick iron latch creaked with the spell and slid across the bars. Charlie and I ran in. Lore spoke another rush of words, and the iron cuff fell off Apollo. He gripped my arms, darting his eyes from me to Charlie.“My Earth friends!”
    â€œLet’s get out of