CHAPTER 32“Run!” Sam yelled, pushing Ping’s back up the sloping bridge.
Staring past his pumping athletic shoes, Sam watched larger V-shaped gaps open in the span of the flooring which otherwise kept them from falling into the membrane-bound muck that surrounded them. The vines were unwinding from behind, as if affixed to a single point ahead, thus creating the delta-shaped openings. Over his shoulder, he yelled to his counterpart in the body of Phineas the acolyte guard, “Cut the bridge behind us!”
“What?” the other Sam asked.
“It’s unwinding from behind us! Cut the vines before they can pull the whole bridge apart—like you did with the ones that grabbed me. Hurry!”
The other Sam gripped the loose handrail with his left hand and swung back the way they’d come. Holding up his right han
