And then a black shape flew through the air, and Brice crashed to one side, his boots sliding from under him. His head jerked back, and he hit the ground.
Everything slowed. But Brice couldn’t move.
Tris’ cries grew more intense, losing any semblance of words, and the yells were mixed with sobs now. The shadows swarmed round him, consuming the dim light. And then they fell on him.
Brice heard something shatter as the light disappeared. The shadows merged, but the blackness undulated. There was a sharp crack, and an animalistic scream that burst through Brice’s head. And then Tris’ cry stopped.
There was a rusting, rubbing sound that told Brice the creatures were moving against one another, but he caught another noise beneath this. A slurping, or maybe a sucking. It stopped for a moment, then continued.
The shapes moved. Brice couldn’t see them clearly, but they pulled away from Tris. The sucking sound stopped, and then they moved away, fading into the trees. Their hisses dissolved into the rain, and then only their stench remained.
Brice rose to his feet, one hand grabbing a tree for balance. What little vision he had swam violently, and he was forced to close his eyes for a moment. He breathed, through his nose but he could still taste the creatures. And something else. Something coppery and sharp.
The forest and the path were nothing but dark shadows.
Brice gripped his one remaining torch in his hand, and he thought of the pale light coming from Tris. He remembered how the mud had coated his torch’s lenses.
Brice cleaned his own torch as best he could. He spat, using the mucus to clean more of the mud off. The glass still felt gritty, and he knew it wasn’t perfect, but it was the best he could do.
And then he thumbed the controls.
The light was weak, but the comforting yellow glow was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
Brice shone it around the path. The undergrowth had been flattened, and something glinted in the light. One of Tris’ torches, smashed and useless. The other torch lay a little further off, and that too was broken.
But there was no sign of Tris.
Brice played his light through the trees, following the path of trampled foliage. He didn’t understand why the creatures would take Tris, but that was what had happened. They had attacked him, then abducted him. And Brice was on his own.
He thumbed the torch controls, extinguishing the light. Darkness surrounded him. He breathed deep, letting his thoughts settle. He needed to concentrate. He needed to look at things objectively. Like Ryann or Cathal would. He needed to recall, then analyse.
The creatures had taken Tris, and he could see the path they had taken. He could follow.
That was an absurd idea. Brice would never get through the creatures. He’d already tried, and he’d failed. The creatures had flung him to one side like they were swatting a fly. They’d focused solely on Tris. Brice was nothing more than an annoyance.
He couldn’t go after Tris. But he couldn’t stay here either. Brice put his hands on his hips and imagined how Cathal might think, the situation running through his head.
Tris was gone, and Brice was alone. But the others were at the hold-out, and with the relay and boosters they must have contacted Haven.
Help was on its way. All Brice had to do was walk back to the hold-out.
Trees surrounded him. There was no map in his head, and they were far from the path they’d taken earlier. But they had walked uphill to reach the landing pad. That meant the hold-out was lower down. And water—and the mud it carried—always flowed downstream.
Grabbing branches for support, Brice returned to the mud-filled trench and started to walk.
“They’re on their way,” Keelin said.
Ryann covered Cathal with the blanket again, and flicked the lantern back to sol. Cathal’s condition was deteriorating.
“A Proteus,” Keelin continued, moving into Ryann’s line of sight. “Should be here in about ten minutes.”
“That’s fast.” Almost impossible, Ryann thought, especially with the storm. Maybe she should have monitored communications rather than leaving that up to Keelin. But the girl needed something to take her out of the hold-out. She needed a focus.
“It’s not coming from Haven. You remember Nyle and Osker?”
Ryann did, although she hadn’t given them a thought. They were in a hold-out not too far away—ten minutes flying time, apparently—on some reduced-crew training mission. But that meant they were in the forest.
“Any of these creatures near them?” Ryann asked.
“Didn’t ask, but I don’t think so.”
So it was only her crew that were being targeted. She didn’t know if that was good or bad.
“They know about sol, though?”
“Haven told them. I reiterated. Think Nyle was a bit annoyed at being told twice. I told him it was important.”
Keelin’s tone was conversational, with none of the fearful shaking it had held earlier. But she shuffled about as she spoke, and used her hands to emphasise her words—not something she normally did. Ryann pushed gently, reaching for the girl’s lattice.
As she expected, Keelin’s heart beat fast, and her breathing was fast and shallow. She was still terrified. The relaxed manner was a front—no, a way of coping. Help was on its way, but it would be a long ten minutes. A lot could happen in that time.
“You speak to Osker?”
“Just Nyle. Osker was checking supplies or something.” She shrugged. “Guess he was leaving temp-command to Nyle anyway.”
Temp-command. Ryann hadn’t even considered that term, but it was what she was doing. But theirs was planned. They hadn’t lost a commander—no, had a commander incapacitated. Cathal was still with them. She was only in charge temporarily.
And that meant she should be the one to communicate with Nyle. But protocol would dictate she referred to him as Patera, and he would call her Harris. They would need to be formal, and stifled.
Better to let Keelin talk to
