Monster Planet(63)

The Tsarevich was a monster, a demon out of hell. Yet if he was the only one who could save people like this, the only one who could help them...

They left the tribe standing by the side of the road. The liches piled back into the truck and headed on their way, with a promise that another truck would be along soon.

Through the back window Ayaan watched the little family dwindle behind them. She saw no hope in their slitted eyes. Their heads were lowered. They did not speak to each other about the wonders to come.

'Just a little further,' Erasmus told her, looking strangely subdued. Wasn't he excited about the prospect of saving souls? 'One of them had a tip for us,' the werewolf told her. 'We're definitely on the right track.'

Ayaan scowled. 'Those people'we didn't lie to them, did we? There will be another truck, yes?'

'Yes,' Erasmus said, biting into the word. 'There will. Only... there are some people so far gone that you can't recruit them. They're too weak, too diseased to be any use. I don't know if it'll happen to this bunch, that decision's not up to me.'

His eyes said he did know, that he was certain of it. 'What then?' she demanded.

'They get used for something else.'

He wouldn't say anymore. He only ignored her when she demanded an answer. She knew there were only two possibilities, though. They could become new, handless soldiers for the Tsarevich. Or they could be made into food.

In the rear-view mirror the sacrificial boy still stood just where he had, waiting to see, waiting for whatever came next.





Monster Planet





Chapter Fourteen


Leaving the highway for a more rural route they slowed down dramatically until they were barely crawling along, much slower than a human could walk. They stopped at a sign nearly obscured by wrist-thick tree trunks:

Now Entering REXROTH STATE FOREST

Ayaan was uncertain how one could be expected to differentiate this new forest from the jungle behind them.

A few miles farther in they came to a place where the trees grew so close to the road that the green phantom had to come down into the cab with them. He smelled like something stale and wet. They listened to the tree branches drumming on the roof of the truck for a while and drove in silence. Eventually they came to a place so narrow the truck couldn't fit through. The green phantom and Erasmus jumped down from the cab and started to press on. The handless ghouls from the cargo bed streamed down after them, their eyes narrow slits, their tongues licking at their dry lips as if they'd only awoken from sleep, though she knew they had been dead, truly dead moments before. Ayaan called out to them to wait a moment.

'What's this, the famous Ayaan? Scared of a few trees?' the green phantom chortled at her.

'No,' she told him. She waved at where their vehicle stood nearly wedged in by vegetation. 'I just wanted to turn the truck around. If we need to get out of here in a hurry it will save us time later.'

Even the skull-faced lich had to admit she had a point.

'I've been doing this my whole life,' she told him. 'I only stayed alive as long as I did by knowing all the little tricks.'

It took a long fifteen minutes to move the truck, backing and filling over and over again on the narrow road surface. When it was done they moved into the dark space between the trees and Ayaan realized she was, in fact, a little afraid. The shadowy forest pressed in on them instantly, the waxy leaves of the trees brushing against their clothes, their hair, the branches underneath scraping at them like limp and bony fingers. Cobwebs draped across the path every few feet and had to be swept away. Insects plagued Erasmus, live insects that he would pick from his fur and absently stuff into his mouth to suck out their golden energy.

Though it was only mid-afternoon the darkness swam in around them like a fog. They tried to follow the road but the forest had its own paths to offer. One of these lead to a wide clearing and the green phantom hurried inward, digging his femur staff into the ground for traction on the moss-slick trail.

Ayaan followed him in and emerged into a brightly-lit place where the underbrush grew wild but the trees had all been pruned back. Piles of gray deadfall ringed the open space, a few dead leaves still fluttering on the fallen branches. Ayaan had grown up in a desert land but even she could tell that trees didn't form such a clearing naturally.

Then there was the goat. He lay in the middle of the clearing, staked to a low hillock. He was dying, his fur littered with bits of decaying leaves, his eyes milky and lost, the long sideways pupils very much dilated even in the bright sun. He had kicked over his water dish and Ayaan could count the ribs sticking out of his side. Only his horns, which rose from his head in a thick, curlingV looked healthy.