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.
<Keep using the torches!> Ryann rolled to one side, as far as Cathal would let her, and saw a dark shape moving. <Behind you,> she yelled at Keelin.
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.
<Can you stand?>
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.
<You need a hand out there?> Nyle called. He was aiming for nonchalant, but the fear and uncertainty were clear in his voice.
<Keep where you are. Just open the hatch when we get close.>
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.
<Osker, you ready with the door?> Keelin sussed.
<Opening it now.>
<Grab a couple of torches. Aim them at anything that moves. Sol, maximum intensity.>
<On it.>
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.
The arc lights—and for them to burn through the trees so powerfully, that must be what they were—cast shadows all around, swirling in the storm, the bark and the leaves glistening with the rain.
And Brice stopped. Because the shadows were alive.
The creatures moved, hiding from
