Shadowfall: Shadows Book One
Page 17
She spoke as the thoughts formed in her mind, choosing her words with deliberation. “Keelin, we don’t know what’s happened to Tris and Brice. We do know they were on their way back, and if they’re lost out there, we have a better chance of finding them with a Proteus.” Yes, that made good sense. Keelin swallowed but dipped her head a couple of times. “And no, we can’t head out the front. So we need to leave via the emergency hatch. All three of us.”
She looked over to the blanket, so motionless that it was hard to imagine Cathal still breathed under there. While he had breath, he had life. But even if he didn’t, he was her commander. He was a part of her crew. She could not leave Cathal behind.
He was her responsibility now.
“I’ll carry him,” she said. And that, finally, felt like the right decision.
Brice walked on, because the only other option was to stop, and if he did that his legs would not want to move ever again.
The cold and the rain didn’t register now. The burning of his muscles was a dull throb, constant and insistent. Sharp heat rose when branches scratched his arms and face, but the pain cooled as quickly as it rose.
The mud river was no more. Whether it sunk into the ground or turned off somewhere, Brice didn’t know. He hadn’t been watching. All he knew was that he was moving downhill, and that he was following some kind of path, little more than a trail of downtrodden ferns. He refused to think about what he was following.
His boot slipped on a root, and he gave a sharp cry as his ankle twisted. But that was more in surprise than anything else, and although it felt tender, it still held his weight. And he walked on.
He hadn’t seen the root because he refused to use the torch. He told himself he’d save it for emergencies, conserving its power. Yet he knew he was fooling himself. The moment he heard or saw one of those things, it would be on him. He’d never have a hope of thumbing the control before those claws sliced through him.
If he had to die, he’d prefer it to be quick.
In the darkness, patterns shifted, and he chose to ignore them. A gap opened in the branches overhead, revealing bulbous, heavy clouds, and the forest around him became a shade lighter. Everything was black and grey. He walked through a forest of shadows, alive with whispers and roars from the storm.
But that hiss, close to his ear, was not the wind or the rain. Brice was certain of that.
He stopped, his feet suddenly heavy. Hairs on his neck pushed against the congealed mud as they fought to stand erect. His skin tingled.
The hiss was close enough that he felt sickly warm air brush his face.
Brice turned, peering into the void.
Two orbs hovered at head height, dark shapes swirling within. Something glistened underneath them as lips parted to reveal dull fangs, grey against the black, and a blast of foetid breath washed over Brice.
The torch slipped from his hand, pulling at his wrist.
The creature hissed again, its head moving from side to side. Dark holes above its mouth twitched, like it was sniffing him out. It moved, unfolding from the branches. It stretched out with an arm, and claws dragged against the trunk of a tree. Brice saw water run along the scars they left. The creature’s stink rolled over him.
He closed his eyes. The hiss swung left then right, and leaves moved. There was a snap from the ground as the creature stepped closer.
Brice swallowed, waiting for the end.
But the pain never came.
He opened his eyes, and already the shadow was moving away, along the track. It walked slowly, parting ferns with its hands, like it had all the time it cared to take. But it moved away from Brice. He watched its broad shoulders, and saw the ridge at the top of its spine, just at the base of its neck.
His own hand came up to his neck, fingers rubbing the grit against his skin. He missed the warmth of his lattice. He missed knowing what was going on with his body.
The creature was searching—that must be why it constantly moved its head from side to side—but it had missed Brice. He didn’t understand how it could be so blind, but it gave him hope. Or maybe he was becoming delusional.
The creature was searching for food, maybe. The monsters had followed the crew from the cliff to the hold-out. They had followed Brice and Tris.
This beast was making for the hold-out.
Brice followed, on the verge of laughter. It was like a sheep following a wolf. Terrifying, but beyond ridiculous.
The creature increased its pace, forcing Brice to break into a run. He wondered if it knew Brice was following, and if it was trying to shake him off. But the monster never once looked back. It showed no signs of knowing Brice was there.
Soon, he could no longer see the beast, nor hear its movements. But he could still follow the path it took. And as he did so, he let his mind run free, because it was beginning to understand.
The creature had been close enough to kill Brice with one swipe of its claws, but it had ignored him. And back in the tunnels, the creature that attacked Cathal had then run straight into Brice. Almost like it didn’t see him.
They existed in the dark, so they couldn’t rely on sight. Hadn’t Ryann suggested this? They’d use smell or—maybe because their own stench was too strong—sound. Or electrical impulses. He didn’t understand science, but he knew these things would use something other than their eyes to ‘see’.
And they didn’t ‘see’ Brice.
As unlikely as that sounded, it explained so much. When the creatures had been swarming round Tris, they hadn’t turned on Brice. And they infected the forest, yet Brice was able to walk with no protection.
He pushed against a branch, and it snapped, the crack echoing through the trees. He stopped, but nothing came for him. Maybe they couldn’t hear, either.
The creature’s path had disappeared, or maybe Brice had taken a wrong turn, because he was surrounded by trees and ferns and all the other plants he knew nothing about. But he could still feel the angle of the ground. He needed to keep moving downhill.
The undergrowth was thick, so Brice unsheathed one of his knives. He swung with an easy motion, left and down then right and up, using momentum and the turns of his body to do much of the work. It helped that he kept the blade sharp. The severed plants sprayed him with water, but they no longer barred his path, and he walked on, stronger than before. The movement in his arm sent warmth through his body, and he started to smile.
This was what he did. He moved. He used his body.
Light filtered through the trees, and that must have been lightning. The rumble of the thunder became more of a growl, like it was angry. And maybe it was—angry that, despite the muddy river and the rain and the cold, Brice still walked on. Angry that he was surviving everything it could throw at him.
Brice was a nothing, to the storm and to the creatures. And that meant he could slip through the cracks. That meant he had the advantage.
Up ahead, off to the left, Brice saw a flickering light through the moving trees. Then the area directly ahead began to glow, and the roar in the night sky changed into an angry whine.
Brice knew that sound. Usually, it was muffled, because he was inside. But when he connected to external sensors, this was the sound he heard—the deep whine of engines as a Proteus descended.
And he knew where the light came from.
With a cry, and a jump—an honest-to-goodness jump—for joy, he sprang forward, slashing his way to salvation.
Ryann pulled her body close to the metal rungs. It made climbing awkward, but she had to leave room for Cathal. The emergency hatch wasn’t designed for more than one person at a time.
Keelin had helped her bind Cathal to her back, just as she had done for Brice. His legs against her thighs felt strangely intimate, almost inappropriate, but they held him in place, and Ryann understood why Brice had wanted Cathal bound so tightly. Even his head at her shoulder—again, an intimacy that unsettled her—was practical.
A
t the top of the ladder, she spun the plate and pushed open the hatch. Water cascaded down, running into the hold-out and over her body. It dripped down her neck, running off Cathal’s covered head. But it did nothing to wash away the stench.
Easing herself through the hatch felt to Ryann like a rebirth, from the concrete tomb to the welcoming embrace of nature, from the dark to the light. And it was light out here. The lantern attached to the relay bathed everything in wonderful sol.
The forest was alive. She could sense it as much as see it. The trees teemed with creatures, on the ground and higher up. They stayed back from the light, but only just. And when she pushed, Ryann sensed a cold desperation of purpose that drew them together.
“It’s good to be out,” Keelin said as she came through the hatch, and Ryann had to agree with her, despite the creatures. Keelin looked up, straining her eyes to see the dark beyond the light, and Ryan followed her gaze, into the wide expanse of storm-clouds that cloaked the night sky.
Rain stung her eyes, and she blinked. But the moisture felt so invigorating.
“There!” Keelin pointed, and Ryann saw the glow in the clouds, and heard the growl of the Proteus’ engines as the craft swung into view. It twisted in the storm, but slowly. Not cutting through the air, but riding it, forcing it into submission. And the air obeyed, buoying the shining object up, brushing the tree-tops and bending them with its down-draft.
Ryann smiled at that.
The Proteus came closer. Ryann pulled up filters to guard against the glare from the four arcs, over the main hatch. Nyle had them angled to cover as wide an area as possible, and Ryann wondered if this was his idea or Keelin’s.
Under the craft, landing lights blazed with the same yellow luminosity. The beams blasted into the trees, and branches thrashed wildly. Shadows run, and Ryann knew not all the movement was from down-draft.
The craft hovered over the landing pad. It spun, bringing the hatch side to face the ramp, and then it lowered. The light sunk beneath the trees.
“Come on,” Ryann said, one hand on Keelin’s shoulder. They jogged to the edge of the roof and strafed the treeline with their torches. Ryann saw movement and sensed…not panic, but uneasiness. Uncertainty.
“I’ll go first,” Keelin said, already lowering herself over the edge. She dropped, grunting as she landed on bended knees. After a glance up and a nod, Keelin stepped forward and aimed her beams at the trees.
Ryann let her torches dangle from her wrists as she sat on the edge as best she could, Cathal’s bulk forcing her body into strange positions. She reached round, hands planted firmly, and then she twisted her body, clenching her arm muscles and pushing her boots into the concrete walls. Her weight spun lazily, and she had time to check the momentum, placing one boot wide to stop herself spinning too far.
She lowered herself until her arms were at full stretch, the toes of her boots flat on the wall, and the weight on her back pulling for the ground. Then she pushed with her feet and lifted her hands.
She hit the ground, and a bolt of pain erupted in her ankle. She threw her hands forward, and they scraped down the wet metal of the door, but they didn’t stop her body tipping forward. They didn’t prevent her crashing to the mud.
“Ryann!”
Torch-light shone in Ryann’s face. “Watch the trees!” she said with a grimace, and Keelin turned the torch away.
Ahead was the ramp, and above that, on the landing pad, sat the Proteus. Its lights shone bright, but there were still shadows, and in the darkness Ryann saw shapes. They unfolded in the protection the landing pad offered.
“Keelin, we need to keep those things away from the ramp.”
“On it.” Keelin angled her shaking beams, and the creatures ran as their shadows burnt up, leaving an angry hiss in their wake. Then Keelin spun slowly, her feet shuffling and her arms waved wildly, covering as much of the treeline as possible.
Maybe, Ryann thought, the fear helped. Maybe the erratic movement of the lights worked in their favour.
But they needed to get to the Proteus. “Let’s go,” she said, and stepped forward.
White heat shot up from her left ankle, and she crashed to the ground. She heard Keelin yell.
The girl spun as the creature raced from the trees, the height of the landing pad and the surrounding forest giving it a brief moment of protection. But Keelin brought her own beams up, and that protection dissolved. The creature staggered with an angry hiss, and collapsed in a tangle of limbs. But Keelin kept her torches aimed at the creature, the beams now tight and strong. The light grew hazy as steam rose from the creature’s thrashing body.
And then it stopped moving. Its smoldering limbs curled uselessly around its lifeless, charred body.
Ryann waved her own torches in the other direction. The creatures held back, but she wasn’t taking any chances.
Ryann didn’t want to answer. As soon as she’d felt the pain, she’d known what had happened. But she needed to carry Cathal to the Proteus. She couldn’t leave him.
“I’ll be fine.” She pushed off from the ground, her weight on her good leg. She could feel the swelling in the other ankle. Not broken, but sprained.
She could force herself through the pain.
“I can carry him.”
“No!” This was her burden. She was leading the crew. It was her fault anyway—if she’d sensed that third warth, or if she’d told Cathal of the traces in the tunnel, none of this would have happened. She couldn’t pass this on to Keelin.
Ryann brought her own torches round, sending creatures darting back into the trees. They were becoming bolder. All it would take was a lapse of concentration, a brief moment where light did not surround Ryan and Keelin, and a creature could strike.
But Keelin was right—Ryann would never manage Cathal on her own.
“We’ll do it between us,” she said, and unfastened the straps around her chest.
That should have been Ryann, but instead Keelin gave the command.
And it didn’t matter, because they worked as a team.
The webbing came free, and Keelin moved to Ryann’s side. Cathal’s weight shifted as the girl put an arm round his back and, with a grunt, hoisted him up. Her free hand swept the torch round.
“Come on,” she said.
Again, that should have been Ryann’s line. But she couldn’t think about talking. She needed to focus on walking.
Each step was agony. Ryann grimaced, forcing her lattice to stop the pain signals reaching her conscious mind, screaming at her body to ignore the damage and just cope, goddammit! She flashed her torch wildly, and the hisses from the trees washed over her, threatening to floor her with their rotten-meat stink. But she wouldn’t fall. She couldn’t let Cathal down.
They reached the bottom of the ramp. It was steeper than Ryann recalled, the surface slick with mud.
Keelin cried out, swinging her torch to force a creature back into the trees. But Ryann was certain it hesitated for a moment. Even as its hide started to bubble, it held its position.
Fighting the pain. Pushing itself forwards.
“Up!” she said, one word all she could manage before nausea gripped her.
Ryann looked up the ramp, to the brilliance above it. With filters in place, she could make out each of the four arcs, but she also saw two smaller beams that flew left and right. Osker, giving them safe passage.
They could do this. Only a short walk.
“Ready?” Keelin said. Ryann nodded. Flinching, she put pressure through her injured ankle and swung her right foot forward. It squelched into the mud, and she bent her knee and pushed, bringing her left leg round.
But when she placed that boot on the ground, the soil shifted, and her hand came forward, onto the mud, Cathal’s weight rolled round.
“Again,” Keelin said.
And again, they slipped back. Again, Ryann tasted bile at the back of her throat.
And the hiss of the creatures rose into a screech.
She sensed the movement behind her back, and felt a sickening hunger roll off the creatures. She saw Keelin stagger as she spun, bringing her beams round. Some of the screeching turned to cries of pain, and the stink of burning filled the air.
Ryann sunk to the mud until she was sitting. She waved her torches at the approaching shapes. And through the haze of steam and the glow of the light, she saw the creatures stagger as they shrieked. She was how their skin ruptured, and how they jerked in pain. But she also saw how the creatures behind held them steady, using the burning bodies as shields.
And the angry hissing became a victory yell that clawed at the last of her hope, leaving Ryann with nothing to do but wait for the inevitable end.
Brice ran, as fast as the forest would let him. He slashed through the undergrowth, throwing branches aside. He kicked forward, tripping on occasions, but always staggering on. Nothing was going to prevent him reaching that Proteus.
Light flickered through the tree-tops, and the whine of the craft’s engines deepened. Brice knew what that meant—it was about to touch down. And it would have light, and warmth, and food. It would have a shower.