It was Hesseth who took the girl by the shoulder and shook her—gently at first, then with greater and greater vigor as she failed to respond. “Kasa!” she hissed. But the girl was unresponsive. Hesseth tried to pull her upright, but the girl’s body wouldn’t move that far. The rakh-woman looked at him, terrified. Damien grabbed the girl by the shoulders and pulled her toward him, but though she was limp enough and light enough, there was a point beyond which she would not move.
His heart cold with a sudden certainty of what he would find, he held her against him as he leaned down over her body, peering into the shadowed recess between flesh and blankets, a mere four inches of space. And yes, there it was. It had grown through the blankets and then into her flesh, rooting her to the ground. Feeding on her vitality, no doubt. Little wonder she hadn’t woken up, despite all their efforts. If he didn’t free her from the tree’s embrace, she might never awaken again.
“Damien?”
He didn’t answer. It was still hard to think clearly, and he needed all his strength to focus on the girl. Still holding her, he fashioned a Knowing, focusing it on the tangle of roots before him. His vision was augmented by the fae so that he could see it alclass="underline" a network of roots that had insinuated itself throughout the lava, so fine that in places they were no more than threads. A network that waited, somnolent, until it sensed prey on the ground above. He traced it with his Sight as it passed through the earth, above the earth, into her flesh, saw it growing even as he watched-
And he cut it. Pulled forth his knife and severed the fine white threads, so that they no longer bound her to the earth. She cried out as he did so, and he had no doubt that it hurt like hell—but it would have hurt her even more had he delayed, he was sure of that. Quickly he rose, noting with horror that the fine white roots had pierced the blanket in more than one place; the whole ground beneath them must be coming alive even as they stood there.
“We have to get out of here,” he told Hesseth. Cradling the girl’s limp body in his arms. Was that stuff still growing inside her, still feeding? Had it gotten inside him? “Fast.”
She nodded her understanding. Her eyes were fixed upon the blanket’s surface, and her expression was one of horror; she had figured it out, then. Good. She would know to watch for the roots while she gathered up their supplies, to leave behind anything that had been contaminated. God alone knew what these things required in order to reproduce, but he was willing to bet that a small clump of fibers, even one detached from its main body, could become a tree in time. Would become a tree in time, if it was rooted in something that would nourish it.
Like the fibers inside the girl?
He tried not to think about that. Tried not to think about the fact that the fibers might be inside him as well, and inside his rakhene companion. They didn’t dare stop to check. It was too important that they get away from this area before the trees’ influence grew stronger, before the unnatural exhaustion that still dogged their steps overcame their will and their survival instinct and turned them into sleeping foodstuffs for the hungry plants.
Hurriedly they gathered up their things, packing them hastily into bundles wrapped in spare clothing, bound in belts and scarves. Hesseth had to do most of the work herself; Damien was afraid to put the girl down for even a minute, afraid that once she made contact with the earth it would claim her again, maybe this time for good. If it hasn’t already, he thought grimly, shouldering the dead weight of her unconscious form. Maybe it was his imagination, but it seemed to him that there were more and more white filaments rising up through the ground each moment that they delayed. He could feel the power of the trees beating against his brain, and once he nearly fell as a result of it. But the sheer horror of touching that ground, of lying down upon it again, was enough to keep him upright. He was acutely aware that if his nightmares had not awakened him when they did, they might all be plant food by now.
At last Hesseth was finished, and without a word he began walking quickly south. He was still too dazed to think about direction, and for now it didn’t matter; the most important thing was to get away from this tree cluster, fast. Dimly he was aware of all the items they were leaving behind, blankets and clothing and some of their foodstuffs. Organic matter, all of it. No doubt it would serve as food for the hungry plants, allowing them to grow and spawn and spread . . . and hunt.
They walked. In the heat of the morning sun, which blazed livid orange to the east of them. Dry, exhausted, afraid to stop for either water or rest, they continued onward, struggling to make every footfall steady enough to bear their weight. Within minutes their camp and the trees that surrounded it were left behind, but the dark malaise that gripped their limbs refused to relinquish its hold on them; once or twice when they stopped to catch their breath, or when Damien paused to shift the weight of the girl on his shoulder so that he might bear her more easily, he felt that deadly sleepiness stir within him again, and he knew that if he stopped to rest for more than a minute he would drift away into sleep, long enough and deep enough for the local plant life to sense his presence and respond to it.
“Where?” Hesseth hissed. She looked out toward the horizon, where endless miles of basalt faded into the hot morning sky without visible juncture, a mirage of brilliance. “Should we turn back?”
He thought of all the miles behind them, of how much ground they had covered the night before. “Can’t,” he whispered hoarsely. They would never make it, not in their current state. And if they did, what then? Their only chance of long-term survival lay in reaching the rakhene lands and making their case with that people. If they went back to the human lands—assuming they got there at all—they would spend their last days waiting for the Prince to find them. That land would not shelter them forever, nor would it support their mission.
“We go on,” he told her, and though fear flashed deep in her eyes she nodded, understanding. We go on—because there is no other choice.
Mile after mile the black desert stretched out before them; hour after hour they forced themselves to keep moving, keep moving, keep moving at any cost. Once when they stopped for a moment, to drink from their precious stores, Damien dared to sit down on a jagged outcropping of rock—and almost immediately he felt the trees’ mind-numbing power engulf him, so suddenly and so forcefully that the cup he was drinking from dropped from his hand and the precious water spilled out upon the earth. It was a wonder he didn’t drop Jenseny as he struggled to his feet, or when he turned to look back at the rock he had been sitting on. No white strands there, not yet. But he had no doubt that they were present, buried deep within the porous rock, wanting only the prolonged heat of his flesh or the spark of his life to start growing toward the surface.
Water. Walking. Food without taste, hurriedly swallowed. More walking. The child was a hot weight on his shoulder, and his whole body ached from supporting her. Once or twice he shifted position, trying to find a more comfortable means of carrying her. Once Hesseth moved toward him as if she meant to take the child, but he waved her away. He gave himself reasons for that, like the fact that he was stronger and taller and more capable of bearing her for long periods of time . . . but he didn’t really know the limits of either rakhene strength or rakhene endurance, and was aware that the two might well surpass his own. The truth was that as he walked he imagined he could sense the roots within her, still growing, and while he trusted himself to put up a good fight if they came through the surface of her flesh and tried to link up with his, he didn’t know if Hesseth could handle it. And so he carried the girl through the endless miles, until his back and his legs and his feet burned with the pain of it, and tried not to think about what it would feel like when the slender roots invaded his flesh, tried not to think about how peaceful it would be when their power wrapped itself around his brain and cushioned him down in deep, numbing sleep . . .