I hadn’t considered that point straightaway the way Sully did. But he’s right. The Uganna resemble Lurkers in their attack style but the similarities end there. They are far more cunning, smarter. Deadlier.
In my periphery, I notice that our conversation, and more specifically, Sully’s tone, has caught the attention of Oliver and Lark. They’d been talking, their bodies close and their tones intimate, but now they’ve joined us and listen intently.
Oliver scratches his chin. His brow is furrowed, his expression matching the intensity of the moment. He turns his head and huffs, the notion of a vulnerable city coming under attack—his city—too fresh in his mind to imagine another suffering the same fate. “Damn monsters!” he spits and kicks a low-growing bush. Lark reaches out and gently wraps her hand around the prominent bulge of his bicep, the act familiar, tender. Immediately, Oliver turns, his features softening when he looks at her. He sighs and reluctantly returns his attention to us. “We need to get moving now, pick up the pace and get to Cassowary as fast as we can. Maybe we’re not too late.”
Larks chest heaves, her eyes never leaving him. “I agree. We need to leave right now, run if we have to.” Her family is there, her life. It’s her city every bit as much as it is mine. She opens her mouth to add to her comment, but the rustle of dried leaves just behind us silences her, silences all of us.
Whirling, I turn in the direction of the sound. I stand perfectly still, not even breathing as I listen. Deafening silence rings in my ears. I exchange glances with Sully, with Peter and Oliver, with Lark. Bringing my index finger to my lips, I signal for them to be quiet, though I know the act is unnecessary. They are frozen in place, all of us like animals sensing a predator, edgy and alert. Somewhere nearby, a twig snaps and my heart stumbles like a clumsy runner. A faint breeze stirs, carrying on it the scent of damp earth, the musky smell of molded leaves, and something else. An acrid smell mingles with the scents of the forest. A stench that’s akin to wild onions, urine and sweat swells in small surges, raising the fine hairs at the back of my neck. I realize we aren’t alone, the presence of others as certain as the blood pumping in our veins.
Another breeze stirs the leaves and thin branches around us. Then utter stillness follows. I take a cursory glance in the distance and swear I see oily shadows streak by. I glance at Sully to see whether he saw the shadows slink in the darkness. He stares hard in the direction of them, seems to notice what I observed. Goose bumps prickle my arms as waves of apprehension sweep over me. The stillness all around us is unnatural. Something is not right.
Muscles twitching, I hear another twig snap before chaos erupts all around me. From out of the pitch-black brush, a creature explodes, loping with speed that contradicts its massiveness. For a split-second I wonder whether Peter lied about eradicating the Lurkers, whether we’re being ambushed by them right now. But that thought is dispelled immediately when I catch sight of powerful arms hitting the ground knuckles-first, propelling the upper body of a different monster ahead of its legs in a smooth, fluid motion. Moonlight reflects off its creased forehead, a broad feature that projects out over small, murderous eyes, and I recognize it immediately: Uganna. Its mouth is partially open, long, pointed teeth bared as it emits a growl that’s more beast than Urthman.
I unsheathe my blade, slicing the air and slashing its throat as it lunges at me, grazing my shoulder as it plows past me and nearly knocks me to the ground. A gush of warmth sprays my hands as blood and gore spurts from the open wound as it passes. Losing my footing as it clips me, I tumble backward but regain my balance immediately. The beast moans in agony before its cries are replaced by a wet gurgling sound, but I do not look at him. I don’t have a moment to spare. The thump of its body hitting the forest floor is proof enough that the wound I inflicted was fatal.
My eyes sweep the area from which he burst. The sound of rustling leaves persists, barely audible over the roar in my ears, the drumming of my heart and the tide of lifeblood thundering through my veins. My thoughts race, but my concern for June and Sully is paramount. I glimpse Sully in the seconds before a blur races by in my periphery. Following the phantom image, my attention is diverted from my sister and Sully. I follow it with my eyes until an explosion of pain sends a scattering of black dots crowding my field of vision. I’m slammed from behind by what feels like a steal beam. Wind knocked from my lungs, I lurch forward, clinging tightly to the hilt of my sword. Oversized fists pin my shoulder to the ground and the weight of a large, muscled beast holds me there. Writhing, I try to free myself. But it’s no use. The Uganna monster weighs too much. Pounds that easily double my weight at the very least—and muscled pounds at that—keep me there. Still wriggling, I squeeze my eyes shut as I feel its head lowering, closing the distance between its mouth and the back of my head. Is this how I’ll spend my final seconds on earth, with the drool of a Uganna moistening the back of my neck and hair? The answer to that question is given within seconds when a guttural war cry rips through the atmosphere like thunder. The beast is pulled off of me and tossed to the ground. I spring to my feet and expect to see Sully but see Peter instead. He dives atop the Uganna, wrestling it and holding it down. “Finish him!” he urges as soon as the beast’s underbelly is exposed. Heeding his instructions, I drive my sword into its chest, into the space just above its heart, until the blade is buried so deep I cannot jiggle it. It yelps and convulses before going still. Eyes riveted to the bleeding Uganna, Peter’s chest rises and falls in time with his labored breaths.
“Thank you,” I say to him before spinning around. My eyes fall on Sully finishing off a beast while Oliver is atop another, stabbing it again and again in the throes of fury. Lark places a hand on his shoulder. Blade hoisted high and about to be plunged into its torso again, he whirls on her, a feral glint in his eyes.
“It’s me,” Lark says softly. “It’s okay. It’s me.”
Gulping air greedily, he notches his chin, his expression softening only slightly. “These animals killed off my entire city, everyone I lived with. My people.” His voice trembles with pure rage.
In a voice tempered with gentleness, with tenderness, Lark replies, “I didn’t live there but they were my people too.”
Oliver holds her gaze for several seconds, the beast beneath him dead for sure. But it may not be the only one. Neck swiveling from side to side, I search the surrounding forest, reaching out with all my senses, waiting for more to attack and wondering at the same time why they haven’t swarmed as they did earlier. “Where are the rest?” I call out.
On his feet and surveying the dark woods, Peter says, “That was probably just a scout team.”
A scout team. The small group we killed was sent to report on our whereabouts while the rest of the pack are elsewhere, headed to Cassowary in all likelihood.
Frost crystallizes within my blood, sharpened like shards of glass. Cassowary is my city. It is Arnost’s. It is Sully’s. It is June’s. It is our home. With June at the forefront of my thoughts, I look for her. Sully, Oliver, Lark and Peter surround me, but not June. And not Arnost. I twist and look behind me. All I see is the mangled shapes of Uganna, the two I killed. “June!” I call out. Pulse jolted so that it hammers at the base of my throat, anxiety strikes through me like a bullet. “June!” I try louder when she doesn’t respond.
Racing to Sully, I tell him, “Where’s June? She was with Arnost and now she’s gone. They’re both gone!”
Sully’s head whipsaws between me and the woods then back to me. As soon as his eyes return to me, however, his expression transforms, and though his features are lit only by moonlight, I see something in them, something that sends the weight of my heart and all that’s contained within my chest plummeting to my feet. Turning from him, I dash back in the direction we traveled. We hadn’t been walking long at all, hadn’t covered much ground. She can’t be far. At least that’s what the tiny sliver of rationality that remains in my brain argues. But my heart tells a far different narrative. It says she’s go
ne.
“June!” My voice is high-pitched and strident as it rips through the ether, as razor sharp as the lance impaling my hope. Staunch silence answers, deepening the wound. I’m only partially aware of the crunch and swish of leaves beneath the feet of those around me. Everyone is searching for June and Arnost. “June!” I scream from a place that’s raw and deep within me, a place that aches more painfully that any injury I’ve ever incurred.
I spin and look all around me, vertigo coming out victorious in the elaborate game of tug it plays with the anxiety-riddled dread that’s laid claim to me. Reaching out for a nearby tree, I take a step and the toe of my boot kicks something firm but pliable. Rough bark scrapes my hand as I shift my weight and nearly trip over what’s beneath my feet. Head down, my eyes widen when, through the trees, shafts of stony moonlight illuminate familiar features. Arnost. Arnost is lying on the forest floor unmoving. “Oh my gosh! No!” I scream as a black, bottomless pit of raw and awful fear wells inside me. My stomach dips and I’m wrapped in silence that’s interrupted only when the shuffle of leaves crackles through the night, signifying that everyone is headed my way. Not waiting for them, I drop to my knees and place my ear to Arnost’s chest. The gentle whir of air entering and exiting coincides with the rise and fall of his chest. He’s alive thankfully.
“What happened?” Sully’s words come out in a jumbled rush before his gaze lands on Arnost, on me hovering over him. “Is he alive?” His rich, brown eyes are twin pools of misery and confusion.
“Yes,” I answer. “But where’s June?” Terror wedges tight in my throat, constricting it.
“She’s got to be—” Sully starts but his voice catches, silencing him. He doesn’t finish his sentence.
Lark’s hands fly to her mouth, covering it, and Oliver’s lips tighten over his teeth. Peter scrubs his fist down his face. Everyone’s expression is forlorn, and a smothering quiet blankets us as each person assumes the worst.
“June!” I cry, shattering the silence, as an unbearable heaviness fills me, crushing me, pulling me down to the darkest, deepest reaches of human suffering. My sister is missing, the promise that’s she’s met a torturous fate all but guaranteed. Tears sting my eyes and I cannot catch my breath. “Nooooooooo!” I gasp as I sink to my knees once again. Without June, my will to live ceases to exist.
Chapter 14
On my knees and with my head in my hands, I glimpse movement from Arnost. Though the movement is slight, almost imperceptible, it catches my attention and reminds me that right now, Arnost is my only lifeline to June, the only person who may know what happened to her or where she went. Wiping the tears from my cheeks, a glimmer of hope ripples through me faintly. I reach out with a trembling hand and tap his cheek. He doesn’t move so I tap a little harder. His eyes roll behind his eyelids and his lashes flutter. “Arnost! Arnost!” I call out. His eyes open and close quickly and he turns his head. “Arnost!” I shout at him. My voice draws the attention of the rest of the group. Within seconds, Sully, Oliver, Lark and Peter are at my side. Arnost’s eyes open. A bleary haze shrouds his gaze, but as soon as it clears and his eyes focus, he lifts his head off the ground slightly then jumps at the sight of everyone staring down at him. Raising up onto his heels and palms, he scuttles backward a few paces only to drop down flat on his back once again. He winces when his head ricochets off the ground, hard.
“What’s going on? What happened?” Arnost’s voice is rough and gravelly.
Shoving my face inches from his, I demand, “Where’s June?”
Arnost lifts up onto his elbow. “What? What’re you talking about?” His hand immediately touches the back of his head and he groans. When he looks down, his hand has a crimson smear on it.
I grip his shoulders and force him to look at my face. “Arnost, what happened here? Where’s June?”
His eyes dart from side to side for a moment. “I was hit in the back of the head. Something hit me.” His gaze meets mine, remorse shining in it. “That’s the last thing I remember.” His hand returns to the base of his skull.
I know he’s injured, that he was blindsided, but a part of me is still angry. He promised me. He promised me he’d keep her safe. And now she’s gone. I allow my hands to fall away from Arnost’s shoulders and simply stare at him. He sits upright. Leaves and burrs stick to his clothing, and dried blood and dirt is caked at his nape. I rise to my feet and turn in the direction of Sully’s voice when it rumbles from his chest.
“Did you see who did it?” Sully asks.
In the pale light of the moon, I see the shame coloring Arnost’s cheeks. “No, I didn’t see anything.” He licks his lips and looks from Sully to me then back to Sully. “I felt something hit me and then everything went black.”
Rage replaces anger, diffusing from my gut until it wraps barbed tentacles around my throat. “Brom. Brom did this,” I say through tightly clenched teeth, as certain that he’s behind this as I am that I’m standing in the forest with Sully and Arnost.
“You really think it was him?” Sully asks.
“Hurting her is the surest way to hurt me.” The agony of my words leaches the air from my lungs. Gasping, physical pain at the thought of his hands on her, harming her in any way shape or form, chokes me.
“Yes,” I barely manage through the trembling veins of terror, of rage, pulsing through my body.
Clearing his throat, Peter interjects. “Um, if I may say so, the Uganna wouldn’t have left him in one piece, much less alive.”
Sully simply stares, waiting for him to continue.
“If the Uganna were responsible for, uh,” he looks at me sympathetically, swallows hard then proceeds in a soft, almost frightened voice, “June’s disappearance, there’d be, uh evidence. Arnost would be dead, mangled, and June—” His voice trails off, his sentence left unfinished. It’s a good thing. Frankly, I couldn’t handle hearing him say that if any of June’s body remained it would be partially devoured.
Sully nods.
“He’s right,” Lark says to just Oliver. Then to Peter, she says, “You’re right. It couldn’t have been the Uganna.”
Oliver turns his head toward her and nods before he faces us and adds, “It’s got to be Brom.” He practically spits the name, his demeanor filled with such loathing.
“We need to split up and find him now.” The words are ground from me in a growl. “Each of us takes a different direction.”
“He can’t be far.” Sully’s voice is tight, and in the wan moonlight, I see the small muscles around his jaw working as he gnashes his molars.
“What if we encounter more Uganna?” Lark speaks but looks as though she immediately regrets the words she’s spoken. Her gaze falls to her feet and guilt carves her features.
“If there is, there is. I will find my sister. You do what you like.” The words snap from me like volts of electricity, biting and charged, but tact is the least of my concerns.
Larks features collapse, the corners of her mouth tugging downward in one of the largest frowns I’ve ever seen. “I-I didn’t mean it like that.” Her voice trembles with the threat of tears. I have neither the time nor the patience for tears now. My sister is out in the dark forest, Brom her likely captor, and Uganna prowling.
Waving my hand I say to her, “I know.” Then to everyone else, I say, “We have to move. If you see anything, anything at all, call out.”
Sully and I exchange knowing glances. His pain is as palpable as my own. He’s come to see June as family, as his sister. And now she’s missing.
Missing. The word resounds in my brain as I set off deeper into the forest, echoing in haunting wisps as it stretches cold fingers through the dark void of my being. I left June in Arnost’s charge. And for what? So I could watch over Peter.
Guilt, like a living entity, rips me apart from the inside out. Why? Why did I do it when only I am capable of defending my sister with the ferocity of wrath incarnate? The love that exists in a family—whether it’s the family you’re born to or
chose—is the strongest of all, the fiercest of all loves. I would give my dying breath, and do it with a smile on my face, for my sister.
Retracing the steps that were just taken when we left the shore of the river, thorny vines lash my arms and tug the coiled locks of my hair. The voices of those who remained only to disburse shortly after me have long since faded. I’m left alone with the sounds of the woods, with my thoughts. Jumping at every snapping branch or scurry at my feet, my senses are heightened. The damp, muskiness of the earth and leaves fills my nostrils and the darkness is easier to navigate. Focusing on my surroundings, I swear I hear a faint murmur, the vague thread of human sound. Pausing for a moment, I listen intently, concentrating hard on ignoring the drumming of my heart. And when I do, I hear a cry. Stifled immediately, it is reed thin and female. But I heard it.
Awareness slinks up the length of my spine. The cry belonged to June. I feel it in my blood.
Studying the ground before me, I quicken my pace trying desperately to recall the direction from which it came. It’s tough though, especially since the sound was so ephemeral. Nevertheless, I hope against hope that my undying love for my sister will act as an invisible thread and pull me to her, guide me. When I see overturned weeds and rocks and, drag marks in the dirt path, I realize an invisible thread is not needed. A trail has been left, a channel carved by an unwilling captive.
Heart battering against my ribs painfully, I ball my fists so tightly my fingernails bite into the tender flesh of my palms. I follow the drag marks, eyes never wavering from the path and senses keen. They veer off in a direction our group hadn’t been, to where the brush grows denser and the tree trunks a bit taller.
“Shut your damn mouth.” I hear a warning hissed, a familiar voice. Brom.
That he addresses June fills me with a sense of relief. However, that relief is tempered by white-hot anger. He kidnapped my sister and knocked Arnost unconscious. I jog, eyes vacillating between the path and what lies ahead of me, until Brom’s burly form comes into view.
Planet Urth: The Fate of Urth (Book 5) Page 12