by T. C. Edge
And as the woods loom closer, and the tall mountains to the west gradually dominate the sky, the first drops of rain begin to fall.
And what begins as a gentle patter quickly turns more furious.
The heavens have opened.
The sky has darkened.
And through the crowd, I feel a growing bustle of fear.
24
We reach the woods as the sky cracks open.
A flashing burst of lightning fires down from the darkness above, causing a few cries of panic to rumble through the throng. Only a split second later, the booming roar of thunder joins in, shaking the earth and causing all the Bats among the party to grimace in discomfort.
The first trees ahead invite us in under the heavy canopy. We rush onwards towards the tangled forest as more strikes of electricity cut across the skies, each one bringing another terrible boom from the heavens.
Entering the woods, Rhoth navigates us quickly on the most appropriate route, working a little towards the base of the mountains. We have no choice in the matter, despite what dwells here. Only on certain paths will a group as large as ours be able to travel without splitting up, the narrow lanes between the thickets causing us to bunch up and work our way northwards in a long stream of vulnerable bodies.
In such an environment, it becomes more difficult for our protective cordon to stay on the flanks. Squeezed tight, our hunters and hybrids and soldiers are forced to walk right amid the horde, staying as much as they can on the outskirts as Rhoth searches for the widest paths through the jungle.
It’s not easy. Left and right, the trees close in, their twisted branches hanging above us like creeping wooden fingers, ready to snatch up anyone who might wander off course and into their snares.
They give some protection from the rain, but serve to cast away the light, slowing the step of the vast majority who are unable to see in the dark. Up front with Rhoth, whose own eyes are accustomed to such things and almost akin to that of a Hawk, I walk side by side with the towering tribesman and continually search the paths ahead.
A sense of foreboding captures us. It’s as though the world is conspiring to make our journey as difficult as possible, as if Cromwell has made some deal with the devil to force us through these dark places, shutting out the sparse light above and drowning our powers under the force of the rain.
And drowned they are. I’m hardly an expert given the recent manifestation of my powers, but even now I’m having trouble seeing through the torrent, and the swirling mist that hovers around the forest floor and clings to whatever tree or bush or little collection of rocks it can find.
Pearson, too, has gone quiet, needing to concentrate fully as raindrops thunder against leaves and wood, his ears working hard to pick up anything else amid the din. And behind, the few Sniffers we have with us will be doing the same, their nostrils opening wide as they hunt for the smells of beasts and man, for the foes that lurk so close now, ready to reach out and pick off the weakest in the herd.
Rhoth’s words of warning start to come to pass. Way back, right towards the rear of the band, a commotion ripples towards us. I turn and search back through the darkness, trying to look over the long river of bodies as a panic starts to spread.
I look up at Rhoth and see, through his dark eyes, a knowing look that says: It’s beginning.
Rushing away, I work my way to the rear. The entire troop has stopped, an inadvisable state to be in out here. As I go, I hear Rhoth blaring out just that.
“No stopping,” he roars. “We must continue.”
He doesn’t know yet what’s happened at the back, but he can probably guess. And as I reach the source of the commotion is becomes clear: someone has been snatched away.
A woman is disconsolate. She’s screaming a name and being held back by a couple of soldiers as she stares into the trees and the dark shadows beyond.
I quickly work it out through the mumbling madness of it all. Her child, her son, has been taken.
“What happened?” I ask quickly, looking for anyone who might have an answer.
It’s granted by the nearest of Rhoth’s men, standing with an old rifle in hand, and a wooden spear on his back. His slit-like eyes watch the trees where the frantic woman looks.
“A Shadow,” he mumbles. “The boy stepped off the path. The Shadow took him.”
“A Shadow,” I whisper. “Not a tribesman?”
“Shadow,” breathes the man. “More will fall. The weakest will fall.”
I look around at the frightened faces. Ahead, Rhoth’s voice filters towards us, calling for the troop to get moving.
I know we have to. We have no choice. But this woman, this poor woman…how can she leave her child?
And the answer comes quick: she can’t.
Bursting away from the arms of those who hold her back, imbued by some primal strength to protect her boy, she surges away into the blackness, disappearing into the trees.
As a couple of men start to go after her, others rush out to hold them back. From their posts protecting other parts of the horde, they come to help, to see what’s happening.
And beside me, the hunter utters: “The boy is dead. And now so is the mother. The weak fall out here…”
He drifts off, back to his post nearby. And as he does, with others doing the opposite and leaving those they should protect, a new rustle of activity comes from the right. All eyes turn as more screams pour, blood curdling shrieks that cut right into my ears.
I rush over, battling through the people as they tighten and squeeze together, and once more see wild faces of agony and desperation as men and women cry out for their loved ones.
More have been taken by the forest.
But we must go on.
It’s Rhoth’s hunters who force the issue. Orders are spread through their ranks from ahead, and they begin calling for us to move. As desperate friends and relatives frantically beg for search parties to be sent out, their calls are quickly, and curtly, denied.
“We move. If you want to stay and search, then do,” says one older tribesman, more grizzled than most. “But if you do, you will only join them in death.”
The mention of death only causes further despair and grief. But all is overridden by fear, and as the band continues to move on again, and those tasked with protecting them repost themselves to the flanks, the people fall back into line.
I rush up through the middle of the party to the front, passing Sophie on the way. She gives a little nod of support, but the terror in her eyes is obvious. Drum, his hulking frame more visible than most, appears defiant and undaunted. With such a group, littered with the old, young; the weak, Drum will appear a less enticing prospect for the creatures that lurk here.
Yet as I move ahead of him, and scan the look on his face, I see the terror there too, hidden within those big brown eyes I know so well. But he’s trying to stay strong, trying to keep others calm. A good soldier. A good man.
I reach the front and find no such worry in Rhoth’s eyes. He’s seen all this before, and he knew it would happen.
“How many?” he asks.
“What?”
“How many dead?”
“I…I don’t know. A few are missing.”
“The Shadows like the rain and the darkness,” he says. “They like to pick off the weak.”
‘Yeah, I’ve heard that,” I bite. “But isn’t that why you’re here? Protecting the weak? Isn’t that your job?!”
“Fifty of us cannot protect over a thousand of you. Some of my men may die. I accept that if I must. That is what happens here. It is life. But you must accept the same. We move as fast as we can, and do not stop again.”
I defer to his place here, to his knowledge of life beyond the city walls, life here in the outerlands. People will be picked off, tendrils snaring them from the trees and murky swamps. That is unavoidable. But if we stop and delay for each person we lose, then that will only lead to more casualties.
The storm continues above
, and the wind howls as it swirls down through the mountains, bringing a chill to my bones. We press on through the dark afternoon, the onset of night only likely to blot out any of the remaining light that filters through the clouds and the thick covering of leaves above us.
Screams become a common feature, joined occasionally by bursts of gunfire. The Shadows lurk, never more than glimpsed as they search for an opening, for a vulnerable body amid the masses.
Some lie in wait, hidden in the dirt or submerged in the pools of poison that dot the place, filling to spilling point as the burning rain cascades down from overhead. Others linger in the trees, still as branches and only reaching down to scoop up those they know they can catch, before scurrying off with unearthly speed into the murk.
Rarely are they seen for long enough for anyone to engage. Even the hunters of the Fangs, dispersed around the edges of the troop, are unable to see them coming, so smart are they in waiting for the right opportunity to strike.
They do so at the right time, waiting for the right chance when no soldier or hybrid or hunter is within sight or range to react. And when they are, the Shadows merge back into the growing darkness, melting into the background as if they were never there.
A fear engulfs us all. So much so that the burning rain, dripping through the trees, is largely ignored as it searches for exposed areas of skin on whomever it falls upon. When it finds its target, it sizzles and scalds, turning skin red and raw and creating pockets of blisters on hands and cheeks and the backs of necks.
Covered in their rugged cloaks and hoods, and breathing the toxic air through shoddy masks, most people draw little attention to the acid rain as it assaults us. But for some, the pain is more than they can bear, their howls so great they pull away their masks as they panic and suck in great swathes of green-tinged fog.
It only leads to further mayhem amid the masses. People stumble and fall behind. The troop begins to spread apart and disperse, gaps appearing in the trail that the Shadows begin to exploit.
And others, too, start to make their assaults. Beasts I’ve only ever heard about appear, creeping and crawling and slithering towards us, snapping jaws emerging from the darkness and pulling people away into the shroud.
Snakes hang from trees, large and muscular and sniping from the low branches, pulling full sized men up into their thick coils. Big cats, panthers and jaguars adapted to this world, pounce from nowhere, their jaws snapping around necks and heaving people away to be feasted upon at leisure.
I hear the snarls of the wolves too, and see those red eyes I remember so vividly glowing in the dark. They work as a team, coming as one, picking someone off, and retreating before they can be shot at or pierced through by one of the many spears of the Fangs.
As the hours pass by, the count of the dead and missing rises. A dozen fall, and then another, and as the gaps grow within the line, the communication between us all begins to suffer.
I beg for Rhoth to slow at the front, but he tells me those who are falling behind are just becoming a liability. Yet he agrees to stop for a few minutes, and calls back his orders to his men to reform the chain. They rush around, along with our own hybrids who have been given similar orders from Pearson, and work to ensure that the entire horde re-gathers once more into a single, unbroken line.
The beasts here are smart, and the Shadows too. A few fall to our guns and weapons, but not many. As I work my way back to continue my duties, and to try my best to help where I can, I hear a smattering of gunfire at the rear and rush towards the source.
There, lying in the dirt on the side of the track, I see the full form of a Shadow for the first time, his grotesque figure cut through by bullets. He lies, facing upwards, his limbs placed awkwardly after clattering down from the branches of a tree where he skulked. I stare forward through the darkness and the rain and feel my skin crawl at the odd adaptations of his body.
His skin is thicker, tougher, like the hide of a boar. His head is bald, lost of its hair, his eyes dark and staring as they fill up with rain. On his body, only sparse coverings hide his frame, offering addition protection against the rain and mist, and helping him blend into the bush.
There’s a curled up, creeping quality to his limbs, thinner and longer and more nimble than a normal man, and yet his back is slightly hunched, his neck thickened and chest broad. Adaptations, I assume, that allow him to breathe the toxic air without ill effect, his lungs and throat specially modified to let such creatures live here in these terrible conditions.
I’m repulsed by him, or it, and yet strangely fascinated. Fascinated by the speed with which such humans have developed, digressing to this base form, quick and strong and tailored to thrive in these lands.
I think of all the rumours I’ve heard of such things, rumours I thought were debunked when I met Rhoth and his men. I thought that the stories of the Shadows had been greatly exaggerated after coming face to face with them. Now, however, I know that such things do exist, and they’re just as grotesque as I could ever have conceived.
Standing beside me, one of the older Fangs looks upon the lanky creature with bright, interested eyes. He steps forward, draws a knife from his belt, and starts to conduct some dental surgery. I watch as he cuts through the oozing gums and rips out a sharp tooth.
He turns to me, admiring his prize.
“Biggest I’ve seen on a Shadow.”
I shake my head as he returns to his post. Even now, in such circumstances, he’s looking to add some jewellery to his necklace…
I guess this is a world I may never fully understand.
We battle on, closing up again, working faster through the forest as it begins to thin. I wonder, with all we’ve seen, why we haven’t come across the most dangerous and destructive force that wanders these woods, that calls them home.
I put the question to Rhoth, and his already narrow eyes turn tighter.
“I don’t know,” he says. “The Bear-Skins don’t like trespassers…”
“Then why aren’t there here?”
“Maybe they are,” he says, his eyes moving left, right, away into the murkiness that surrounds us. “Maybe they’re watching us now. They won’t have seen a force like this before. If your hybrid friends have passed this way, they will be wary…”
“We have,” says Pearson, alongside us. “We’ve been back and forward a lot.”
“And have you encountered them?” I ask. “The Bear-Skins?”
“We’ve had the odd run-in. They don’t tend to interfere with us, though. They know what we can do.”
“Maybe they’re staying away then,” I suggest. “They probably think there are too many of us to tackle.”
It seems reasonable. Even Rhoth concurs, to some extent.
“Maybe,” he whispers. “Maybe not. We might have got lucky here…”
“Lucky?” I say, bemused. “We’ve lost dozens. How is that lucky?”
“Lucky, girl, because all this commotion may have put off the Bears-Skins. They are the most dangerous thing you’ll find here. If they came with their full force, they would take many more lives than those you’ve lost.”
“Then we better hope that they haven’t noticed…”
“Oh, they’ve noticed,” says Rhoth. “We just have to hope they’re not in the mood for war.”
25
The rain seems ceaseless, unwilling to abate. The rattle of raindrops against leaves and branches becomes a common soundtrack to my ears. The only other noticeable noises are the heavy slushing of a thousand bodies through the mud, and the occasional bout of gunfire, or terrible, shrieking screams, that spread from somewhere along the line.
It’s grown late now, late enough for the sun to have disappeared from behind the clouds, descending beneath the horizon. Late enough for the moon to have taken its place, invisible for now as the black clouds continue to clot, themselves hidden behind the endless canopy above us.
The roof of the jungle is impenetrable, and only as we venture towards the far edg
e of the forest do a few clearings appear. I search up with my eyes, but only briefly as the burning rain clatters down, and see a rare break in the clouds signal a sight of the heavens, now turned dark and littered with stars.
We’ve gone too slow, and have no choice but to continue. I see shoulders slumped now in fear and grief and exhaustion. Those who have suffered losses drag their limbs onward, barely caring if they should be the next to fall. Others suffer from a different form of pain, their skin badly burned, their lungs similarly throttled by the choking, deadly air that will see to their deaths sooner or later.
Those who have slowed us most – the oldest, the youngest, the weakest of us all – have suffered the most as well. The bottleneck of the woods has equalised our standing, certain points almost navigable by single file only where no one gets the benefit of proper protection.
The tragedy of it, and the great irony, is that those who have been taken, those who have slowed us, have doomed others to their deaths as well. In such a group, you can only move as fast as your slowest man, and such a plodding speed has made us vulnerable.
Rhoth knew it all along. If it were up to him, he’d have set the pace and refused to slow. He’s have made sure that only those capable of keeping up would survive. He’d have let the weakest fall behind and be taken by the woods, letting the natural order of things play out as he considers they should.
In certain respects, it’s a manner of thinking that Cromwell himself would employ. Yet I don’t look at Rhoth with the same animosity. I look at him as a product of his world, commissioned to do a job and doing it in the way he considers best.
He’s a brutal man living in a brutal land. A land where weakness isn’t pandered to if it should bring losses to the strong. Where strength and power are virtues to be extolled and admired, and where generations of such thinking have created legions of warriors and soldiers and hunters who live like this day in, day out.