“Hey, let go,” he screamed.
When two more clasped Mayberry’s shoulders, she began kicking, swearing, and trying to wrest herself free. Resistance was futile, though, so she finally went limp, forcing them to carry her.
As the Sleviccs hauled them across the camp, Mayberry spotted a large round cage made from fiber ropes and wooden slats. As they got closer, she noted two pinkish piglike creatures huddled in the corner. The animals stared at the approaching group with fearful light green eyes set over protruding snouts, but the similarity to Earth pigs ended there. The creatures stood upright on thin legs that ended in small hooves and wore rough loincloths around their waists. Their front . . . arms, yes, arms, she decided . . . ended in clawed three-fingered paws. One of them had a metal ring piercing its nose, and the other wore three metal ear studs. The animals squealed in terror as they passed the cage. One covered its face with its paws, while the other scooted backward until its body pressed hard into the wooden bars. They were clearly terrified of the Sleviccs.
Marshall and Mayberry were brought to a nicely appointed thatch hut that had numerous eye-level ventilation holes cut into the walls. One Slevicc pulled the door open, while the others ushered them in and closed the door behind them. Marshall stumbled and fell onto his knees in the soft dirt. His outstretched legs tripped Mayberry, too, and she slammed into his back so hard they both landed in a jumbled pile. She sat up, covered with dirt, and scraped a hunk of hair out of her face.
“This is not how you treat a goddess,” she said, idly tracing her name in the dust with a finger. “This is my fault. I was the one who pressured you to come into the Mystery Forest with me, even though I knew it might be dangerous. I just . . . didn’t really believe it.”
Marshall sat next to her and smoothed her name out of the dust. “You didn’t make me go with you, and Nostradamus himself couldn’t have predicted that we’d end up in this ungodly mess.”
Mayberry smiled at him gratefully, blew out a puff of air, and relaxed her shoulders. Then she laid her head on Marshall’s lap, while he leaned his back against the wall of the hut and closed his eyes. In seconds, the two of them were dozing.
Her eyelids fluttered open when she smelled smoke wafting in, carrying with it the sweet scent of roasting ham. Mayberry wasn’t ordinarily a meat eater, but she was starving, and a hefty slab of grilled pork ribs sounded better than beet salad or a soy burger. Her mouth began to water. She peered out of one of the ventilation holes, looking for the source of the appetizing smell.
The sun had almost set, and the sky was turning deep blue, edging into purple. On the far side of the grassy circle that marked the center of the village, she spotted a small stone-ringed campfire whose bright red flames were licking a long hunk of spitted meat.
Her jaw dropped.
She turned back to Marshall and shook him awake. Clutching his arm, she dragged him over to one of the ventilation holes and pointed.
His eyes followed the line of her index finger to the spit. “I am sooo hungry,” he said through parched lips. “I could eat that whole porker.”
“That is not a pig roasting. Look at the earrings. It’s one of those beasties from the cage. No wonder they were so scared.”
“Oh my God,” Marshall said, sitting down heavily. “That is so messed up.”
Mayberry sat, too, and soon her tears were making dark spots on her dusty jeans. “Th-they—” Her voice folded and cracked. She swallowed, trying again. “The Sleviccs are going to eat us. Those relics we saw are probably hunting trophies.”
Before now she hadn’t thought it was possible for her day to get any worse, but now they were trapped at the wrong end of this planet’s food chain. It seemed that they were destined to become human barbecue.
CHAPTER 21
MARSHALL WAS NEAR his own breaking point, too. He reached out and drew Mayberry into his arms, cradling her like a newborn. She burrowed her head into his chest and started to bawl. He couldn’t explain why, and it didn’t make sense, but his spirits lifted. As long as he had breath left, he wasn’t going to give up, fall apart, or stop fighting to save her. Failure wasn’t an option.
“Look,” he said softly. “We don’t actually know what the Sleviccs have planned for us. They’ve treated us like friends, not food. Let’s find Kellain and try to figure out what’s going on.”
When he tried to push the door open, he discovered that it had been locked from the outside. This wasn’t good news.
“Uh, Mayberry, we’re locked in,” Marshall said, waving a hand at the door.
Mayberry rolled her eyes, all cried out. “Doesn’t surprise me. They obviously don't like their food free range.”
From the ventilation holes, they could see that the Sleviccs had removed their roasted meat from the spits and were laboring in well-coordinated units to toss logs onto a bonfire, which threw plumes of flame up into the dark sky. The thick gray tendrils of smoke spitting from the bonfire created a smoggy haze that quickly blanketed the whole village. Observing the Sleviccs’ frenzied action, Marshall realized far more Sleviccs than he had first imagined lived here. As the moon crept over the stockade, Marshall was able to count more than a hundred individuals coming and going.
Mayberry gasped as she peered through her ventilation hole.
“What is it?” Marshall asked, stepping quickly to her side.
“If that’s the moon rising . . . then what is that?” Her finger shifted, identifying a second orb that sat next to the first one, at approximately the same height above the horizon.
“That’s . . . the other moon,” Marshall said, shaking his head.
“And what about that one?”
A small asteroid, hard to discern in the fading light, sat captured between the gravity fields of the moons. Marshall and Mayberry looked at each other and nodded. Anything was possible now.
The Sleviccs gathered around the bonfire, arranging themselves on the ground a few feet apart in neat concentric circles. With legs crossed and eyes closed, they swayed together and began a deep rhythmic humming. Together, as one, they levitated, their bodies bobbing gently at various heights in the air. It looked to Marshall from their posture like they were meditating.
Suddenly it occurred to Marshall that they didn’t have to stay in the hut. They might be the Sleviccs’ postmeditation entrée, or they might not, but it was stupid to wait around to find out. He dug into his beat-up backpack, pulled out his Swiss Army knife, and held it up for Mayberry to see. He pointed at the thatch wall and made a scissor motion with his fingers. Mayberry jumped to her feet and went to a ventilation hole to keep an eye on the Sleviccs. Marshall stepped over to the wall farthest from the bonfire, unfolded the knife’s serrated blade, and went to work.
“How’s it going, Marshall?” Mayberry asked a few minutes later.
“It’s going. The fiber is tougher than it looks—it’s like cutting through tin.”
He continued to cut until he had an opening about three feet high and two feet wide, just big enough for them to squeeze through. From there it was just a few dozen steps to the gate, where freedom beckoned.
“Okay,” he grunted. “Time to get the hell out of here.”
CHAPTER 22
MARSHALL HELPED Mayberry squeeze out of the hole, then led the way, trying to run while crouching low at the same time.
They unlatched and crept through the gate, the three moons lighting the landscape well enough for them to distinguish the shapes ahead. Below the plateau, the sounds of a primal jungle night echoed: croaking, hoots, whistles, and deep grunts.
The duo briskly backtracked along the trail they’d come in on. When they reached the small chalk cliff, they carefully circled and climbed down the gently sloping hill that faced its right side. After an hour or so, they emerged onto the flat section where the trail intersected the dank forest.
Marshall waved her to a halt. M
ayberry bent over with her hands on her knees and looked up at him quizzically.
“I want us to be able to see where we’re walking before we go in that forest.” He pawed around his backpack, finally pulling out a small LED flashlight.
“Ooh, a flashlight,” Mayberry said admiringly. “That’s nearly as good as food. But I’d trade it for half a PB-and-J sandwich.”
“Too bad we ate our snacks this morning,” Marshall said as he clicked the power button a couple of times. Nothing. He slapped the flashlight against his palm. That usually did the trick. Not this time.
“It’s not working.”
“Maybe Earth technology doesn’t work here, period.”
“I thought it was worth trying . . .” It was getting harder for him to stay positive. It was darker outside now, and their plight seemed hopeless.
“Anything else you need from there?” Mayberry asked, looking over Marshall’s shoulder into the backpack. “We’ve got to get going. Once we find the river, we can follow it upstream to the forest.”
He tossed the dead flashlight inside his backpack and rummaged around to remind himself what other supplies he’d brought. “Okay. I have weatherproof matches, duct tape, a flint, a signal mirror, an emergency foil blanket, fishhooks, and string. And I have the repository of all necessary outdoor knowledge: The Boy Scout Handbook.”
He suddenly had an idea. “Let’s get back to caveman basics,” he exclaimed, pointing at a bunch of fallen tree limbs. “We’ll make torches.
“There’s plenty of wood. Find some dry, broom-size sticks,” he instructed.
Mayberry searched the forest floor and found two fairly straight pieces of wood that were slightly thicker than a broomstick and about four feet long. Marshall bunched dried branches onto one end of the wood and duct-taped them on. Then he shredded some of the Handbook’s pages for tinder and wove them into the branches sprouting out. He held a match to the paper, which glowed bright red and lit up the branches. Beaming, he fired up Mayberry’s torch too.
With the torchlight to guide them, the sort of familiar trail underneath their feet, and the Sleviccs far behind, their mood lifted. An hour ago they’d been prisoners and maybe entrées. Now they were free and headed back toward the Tree that could take them home.
After an hour of fast-paced walking, Mayberry slowed and held up a hand for Marshall to stop. Breathing hard, she bent over and squeezed her aching calves. Marshall was happy to take a break, too; his lungs were on fire and his legs were shaky. Mayberry turned in small circles, one hand on her waist, catching her breath. In the torchlight Marshall saw her face was red and splotchy from exertion.
“You okay?”
“Fine, just . . . a bit . . . winded . . . is all.”
He was about to tell her that he felt the same when he heard Something Very Big crashing through the forest behind them.
“Run,” he hollered. “Now!”
CHAPTER 23
MAYBERRY RACED down the trail, her aches and pains forgotten. It sounded like a Hummer was bulldozing through brick walls behind them. She sprinted down the trail for what seemed like at least half a mile, with low branches whipping her face and body mercilessly the whole time. Finally, the noise quieted, and she and Marshall went from running, to jogging, then stopped. Her legs were jelly, and her chest ached. Dizzy, she stumbled into Marshall, grabbing his shoulder for support.
“Is it gone?” she mumbled, gasping hard for air.
“I don’t hear it,” Marshall said, leaning on his torch. “But I can’t hear much of anything except my head exploding.”
“That’s good,” she grunted, her lips quirking into a thin smile. “I’m tired of running.” As her heartbeat slowed, she heard the splashing and tumbling of water. “You hear that, Marshall? We must have found the river. Let’s go.”
Just a few steps in, she caught sight of a shaggy brown head thrusting out of the bushes, watching her. A long red tongue flicked rapidly in and out of its slavering jaws, which were lined by pointed teeth. She screamed and stepped backward.
Apparently this was the same creature they’d heard bashing through the woods behind them. It had circled around to cut them off, which meant it was capable of stealth and strategy. The prodigious monster’s body was as bulky as two elephants, and had a number of powerfully muscled legs sprouting from a long, hairy torso. Its maw stretched open wide enough to swallow Mayberry whole. Six red eyes—two the size of coffee mugs—stared malevolently at her as it flowed forward, smooth as a centipede, to block her passage.
As Marshall stepped up beside her, Mayberry knew she was about to die. A glowing red light crackled out of her right palm, and the torch burned brighter, then shot out of her hand and sank into the matted fur behind the creature’s neck.
Whoosh.
As if its body had been soaked in kerosene, the monster exploded in a blazing inferno. Howling in pain, it threw itself down and rolled through the brush, crushing everything in its path as it tried to extinguish the red-hot flames that engulfed it.
Marshall grabbed Mayberry’s hand and pulled her away from the blaze.
“Run,” he yelled for the second time in minutes.
The creature’s nightmarish screams, the roaring flames, and the black soot rising into the air spurred Mayberry’s exhausted body forward. When they finally broke past the edge of the smoke, she saw the fire washing the sky behind them, painting a false red-and-yellow sunrise.
Marshall shouted encouragement over his shoulder. “Keep going,” he said. “Forest fires can travel much faster than you think.”
Before he could whip his head back around, he missed a sharp bend in the trail, tripped, and barreled headfirst into the darkness. His torch sailed in a bright arc, smacking into the earth right behind the spot where he had disappeared. Mayberry scooped it up without missing a step and followed the path his body had leveled through the bushes.
Suddenly screeching to a halt, she threw her arms wildly out sideways to catch her balance. She was teetering precariously on the edge of the riverbank.
Marshall hadn’t been as lucky. He was sliding down the steep, slippery bank, his fingers plowing furrows in the soft brown mud. With his arms and legs spread-eagled, he managed to punch his hands deep enough into the goop to pin his body to the bank, but his red sneakers were dangling dangerously over the edge and splashing in the water. As soon as the powerful current sucked him off his tenuous perch, she would never see him again.
Mayberry drove the torch’s pointed base into the top of the soft mud as deep as she could, then quickly grasped it and shimmied down the bank until one of her shoes bumped into Marshall’s shoulder.
“Grab it,” she screamed.
He fired his right hand out of the mud and snagged one of her ankles, which he used to haul himself up and over her body until he reached her shoulders. His body’s weight pushed hers deeper into the mud. He arched a sneaker onto her left shoulder and, using it for leverage, thrust his other leg up and over the top of the bank, where he squirmed to freedom.
He instantly flipped around onto his stomach and wiggled the toes of his sneakers as deep as he could into the top of the bank. He stretched his arms down, grabbed Mayberry’s wrists, and heaved her back up.
Breathing so hard they were quivering, they held each other tight.
“Thank you. I thought I was dead,” Marshall said, squeezing her even tighter. “And you actually blew up that monster. How did you do that?”
Mayberry shook her head. “I have no idea. Did you see how my hand went red before the torch shot out of it?”
“That was incredible. Your hand glowed,” Marshall replied. “I guess one of us got the magic we wished for,” he said.
“Maybe. It all happened so fast, it’s hard to know for sure,” she said.
She dropped her mud-covered head onto his chest and looked up into his amber-flecked ey
es. She felt a sudden impulse to kiss him, but the smelly mud coating his face and hers held her back, so she settled for a hug instead.
He stroked her muddy head with his muddy hand. “Well, at least we found the river.”
CHAPTER 24
THEY RESTED FOR A WHILE, bathed in the light cast by the torch. Finally, Marshall got up and jerked the torch out of the mud, then reached down and pulled Mayberry up. The two went trudging along the riverbank while a pale band of yellow light started to peek over the horizon.
“The sun’s coming up,” Marshall said. He could see clusters of springy mushrooms stair-stepping up the massive trees near the river. Since they didn’t have machetes to hack through the jungle, the only way they could travel safely was along the riverbank.
“Or a sun,” Mayberry corrected. “I only saw one yesterday, but who knows?”
Marshall didn’t care how many suns rose as long as they found something to eat soon. His stomach was about to start consuming his body from the inside out. Assuming, of course, that he didn’t drop dead from exhaustion first.
As the sun poked over the trees, he scanned the horizon. During their rough ride down the river the day before, they’d dropped down a number of waterfalls, then spurted into a canyon. He had no idea how far they had already traveled back upriver, but they hadn’t reached any waterfalls yet, so they still had a long hike ahead of them. At a small, placid bay, they took a short break to drink, fill Marshall’s canteen, and do their best to clean up. When they set off again, they walked slowly to conserve their scant energy.
“Is that a clearing?” Mayberry asked peering ahead. “Maybe the beginning of a meadow?”
Shafts of light sliced into what appeared to be open ground ahead. Suddenly, a band of familiar-looking silhouettes stepped into the sunlight, which danced on their shoulders and glinted off the long spikes embedded in their war clubs.
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