<Thanks.>
<Anything for a friend. We’ll chat when you’re back.>
Ryann felt the slight hesitation in that last sentence, and the urgency behind it. Yes, they would talk, but it couldn’t be a friendly chat. They would talk of creatures and lattices, and of the horrors Kaiahive had unleashed.
The mud wrapped around Brice, like slow hands dragging him down. He shut his eyes, and clamped his lips tight, but the cloying smell still hit the back of his throat. He felt the ooze under his jacket, against his flesh.
He pushed his hands out, and when one broke the surface he forced his body round, pushing with his legs. The mud provided enough resistance, and when he felt rain pummelling the top of his head, he tilted his neck back and opened his mouth, gulping in air.
Brice coughed as he swallowed mud, and his stomach convulsed. He pushed with his arms and legs, forcing his head higher. The mud pulled him down, but he fought it. He kicked and grabbed, and then he found a branch, or a root. Something that remained firm in his hand, anyway.
Slowly he dragged himself from the mud. Slime crawled from his ears, and the mud sucked at the hole his body had left.
He found a tree trunk and turned himself around, bringing his knees up to his chest. His body convulsed. The mud slithering down his body was warm, but it left a coldness in its wake.
His back pressed firmly against the tree, and that told him something important. The two torches were no longer there. The torch on his chest hung to one side, the tape flapping uselessly, and it wouldn’t stick when he tried to push it back in place. And only then did he realise that the glass was broken, and that it gave off no light. He thumbed the controls uselessly.
One torch still hung from his right wrist. He could feel its weight, but he could see no light. He didn’t try the controls, because he didn’t want to know if it was broken.
His left wrist was bare.
Brice sat in the dark, his chest rising and falling. He pulled air into his lungs until he felt light-headed. He concentrated on his body, and the numbness slowly gave way to patches of throbbing pain. His shoulder felt twice the size it should have been, and it resisted when he tried to roll it forward. His head burnt with a sharp pain, over an eye but spreading wide.
The rest of his body wasn’t much better, but he knew he couldn’t stay like this. He had to move.
Brice sat in the dark, listening to the sounds of the forest.
Rain fell and wind blew. The storm continued. The mud gurgled past his feet, and branches shuddered all around.
Brice stood, using the tree for support. His eyes must have become accustomed to the dark now, because he could make out the undulating ground that was the river of mud. Everything else was trees and branches and leaves.
Brice grabbed a branch and pulled himself round, away from the mud. Then he moved to the next tree, then the one just past that. Slowly, carefully, Brice worked his way through the forest. As far as he could tell, back the way he’d come. Back to where he’d fallen into the mud.
Where they’d both fallen.
Brice forced himself onwards. Rain fell and wind blew. He could hear the mud gurgling, just to his left. Branches rubbed and shuddered all around. And something cried out.
Brice stopped, unsure if he’d heard that last sound. Or what it was. Then it came again, a yell, sharp and angry. It came from ahead. Brice stared, and thought he saw a light flickering.
He didn’t run, because his legs wouldn’t move that fast, but he grabbed branch after branch and thrust his boots through the undergrowth. Tris shouted again, and the light jerked about in the shadows.
“Hold on!” Brice yelled, but the words fell at his feet with a cough, and he stumbled. His legs gave way. Sharp thorns ripped into his hand. But he gripped the branch, the pain clearing his mind. He grunted as he kicked forward, keeping his balance. And now he did run.
The light was up ahead, dancing in the trees, and Tris screamed and yelled. Through the shadows, Brice saw shapes moving.
“I’m coming,” he managed to shout, and maybe Tris answered. A crash of thunder echoed through the trees, and the flash of lightning illuminated Tris.
And the creatures.
Tris stood in a wide path, his arms outstretched, a torch in each hand. But all around him were the dark, leathery creatures. They leaned in, and through the rain Brice could hear their guttural hisses. Their arms were wide, and their claws flashed in the light from Tris.
But the light was wrong. It was dim, and instead of yellow the glow was green, or maybe brown. And the creatures were not afraid of it.
Brice could smell them now, their rancid stench cutting through the stink of the mud. He felt it pushing into his mouth, and he wanted to vomit, his chest heaving. But he forced himself forward.
One of the creatures lunged towards Tris, and claws slashed down. Tris staggered, his cry sharp and high-pitched, and his right arm dropped. Something red sprayed from his shoulder.
Brice pushed forward, his fist clenched and his arm pumped. He aimed for the back of the closest creature, and his knuckles drove into the thing’s head. There was a crack, and he didn’t know if that was his bones or not, but the burst of pain drove him on.
He spun, swinging for another creature. He caught this one with his other
