Avery had to agree with Janx. The armor may have fit Avery better than it did the whaler, but it pinched and stifled regardless. Breathing into the helmet, tasting his own breath with every inhalation, he was reminded of the environment suits worn on the Atomic Sea, but at least those were of fabric, not metal.
Once ready, the group trooped through a narrow corridor in the jungle, alien plants crowding them on all sides. The stench of ammonia and exotic poisons filled Avery’s nose more than before, burning his eyes and sinuses; the armor was not airtight and the respirators were only for emergencies. Only about half of the vegetation seemed to have been contaminated by the infection spreading from the local waterways, if that’s what had done it, but the infected trees and vines and undergrowth blended so thoroughly with the green, healthy plants that the alien presence was omnipresent, and Avery began to feel a panicky feeling, made worse by the armor. Strange noises sounded through the jungle, hoots and chitters, ticks and warbles.
Some of the trees moved. Some grasped. Some swayed in winds that weren’t there. Some had become translucent and glistened eerily; Avery could see the vegetation on the other side of them through their glassy substances.
Many animals hid from the party of men, but others showed no fear, idly watching the humans from tree limbs and holes in the ground. Avery saw a massive, poisonous lion-fish creature jutting from a tree, saw a mutated, scale-covered batkin hanging upside down from another knotty limb that was almost invisible. Once he heard a great crashing, rending noise off to his left, and all the soldiers jerked to a halt and stared in that direction. They’d taken turns carrying Xarris, but now the ones who bore him set him down and took hold of their weapons, aiming toward the noise. For a long time they all just stood there, staring, but at last the crashing and thrashing moved off, and they took deep breaths and resumed their march.
The vegetation constantly dripped, and Avery heard plinking on his armor all the time, and the accompanying steam of acid or venom, so much so that it seemed to him as if a constant steady rain fell. Plink plink plink. Plink plink plink. It almost grew to be reassuring ... until it wasn’t.
Two hours into the march, one of the men screamed. He’d been walking under a certain branch, and a fluid that had dripped on him was more potent than the others. Smoke rose from the contact of the droplets. As Avery rushed over, the man was ripping at his armor, trying to get it off. Avery helped, then gasped when he saw the damage the droplets had done. Not only had the acid eaten through the metal of his armor, it had also taken a good chunk out of the man’s shoulder. Thankfully the armor had taken most of the damage and the substance had only blackened his skin and eaten out a small circle. After the application of a salve from Avery’s medical kit, the soldier was able to press on, though he would be scarred for the rest of his life, assuming he survived the jungle to live it.
The band kept a very close watch on what trees they walked under from that point on. They reached the village before night fell, and Avery felt a great sense of relief that they wouldn’t have to travel through the jungle after dark. Gods knew what terrors night would unleash. A wide swath of burned ground created a perimeter around the village, and a cry went up from the wall as soon as the party entered the clearing. Avery felt his back hunch to be so exposed and wondered what he and the rest looked like to the natives: black-armored, strangely-weaponed, almost alien figures appearing out of the jungle.
“Are we safe?” he asked, as the shouts of villagers echoed in his ears.
Mailos started to answer, then seemed to realize he didn’t know. Before anyone else could speak, the village gate swung open and a group of natives spilled out. Two carried rifles and covered the rest, armed with spears and knives, as they approached Avery’s party. The leader—short and broad, with a circle of red feathers (almost certainly trophies taken from slain Nisaar) on a string around his neck—jabbered at them in some language Avery didn’t know, and Lt. Mailos responded in kind, having to pause here and there, obviously not fluent. The conversation continued haltingly, and there was much animation among the gathered villagers at something Mailos said.
Avery marveled at the appearance of the villagers. All were infected, of course, as they lived deep in this alien hell, but what was most striking about them was that they had acquired mutations derived from the flora and fauna of the area. Instead of the usual fish-men and the like, Avery saw a man with spotted leopard-fur, another hunched over and using his knuckles to propel himself, and another with the bristly hair of a boar. Others did show more traditional mutations—fish scales along one arm, a partial carapace, protruding eyes, the vanishing of a nose—but Avery suspected this was more because the local fauna was just as strange as the environment would indicate.
The leader, who had dark fur on his chest and one arm that might have been derived from a sloth, and short tusks sticking up from his lower jaw that were probably boar-ish, called out toward the village, and a woman who must be a shaman of sorts materialized. Tall, bone-thin and covered in intricate tattoos (all of them glowing in the shadow of the wall, hinting at the presence of the ghost flower), the ancient crone emerged shaking a rattle and mumbling some benediction or curse. One of her legs was bent backward and cloven-hoofed, causing her to walk with a springy limp.
She approached Xarris, who had been stretched out on the ground, and poked and prodded him, leaping back every time one of the maggots popped from his skin but not seeming surprised at their appearance. Indeed, a strange smile lit her face and she chattered excitedly with the man who led them. Not so excited, but suitably awed, he said something back to her, then spoke to another man, who ran into the village. Moments later a group of women emerged with a stretcher made of reeds and fronds; each covered in glowing tattoos, but none as much as the head woman, the women wore thick gloves made of some local fabric. They carefully, even expertly, moved Xarris onto the stretcher, then picked him up and started to carry him inside the walls of the village.
“Wait,” Avery said. “Where are you taking him? I’m his doctor.”
Mailos shot him a sour look but translated, and when the crone responded, he told Avery, “She says they’re taking the Chosen Man—put capital letters there; they’re serious about this—to a healing place.”
“I don’t understand,” Avery said. “Are there others like this?”
Mailos spoke with the crone, who answered impatiently, then led her women and their patient inside.
“She’s says there’s more,” Mailos told Avery.
“How many?”
“She didn’t say.”
“So it is some local ailment,” Layanna said. “Good. Then they’ll know how to deal with it, and perhaps they can show us how to treat it in case any of the rest of us become infested.”
“Chosen,” Janx repeated. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
Avery didn’t either, but he was distracted by Mailos talking with the leader of the village men, then turning to them. “The headman says this is indeed Sevu and that we can stay here for the night. He asked if we are the ones who helped his people earlier, and when I said yes, he grew very grateful. They’re giving us their nicest accommodations, and will feast and entertain us accordingly.”
“What about the ghost flower?” Avery said. “Do they know how to harvest its nectar?”
Mailos turned again to the headman and asked him a question. The headman spoke, this time to Avery, although of course Avery couldn’t understand a word.
“He says his people have harvested the ghost flower nectar for centuries. It’s their principal source of trade with the outside world,” Mailos said. “They only deal with a certain merchant, however.”
“Tell them we have a contract with his seal.” Avery provided the paperwork, and the lieutenant scanned it, then passed it over. The villagers examined it, then spoke again.
“They say they’ll help us harvest the nectar,” Mailos said.
Avery smiled, feeling another wave of relief.
“It’s almost over,” he told Layanna, Hildra and Janx. “We’re almost there.”
They stared at him, and it was a moment before Avery realized what he’d said.
It was too late to take back.
Chapter 7
“So this is the best accommodations, huh?” Hildra said, glancing around at the dilapidated, earthen-floored shack. “Gods help me, but I’ve become soft, cause I wouldn’t want to see their worst accommodations.”
“It ain’t so bad,” Janx said.
Avery didn’t want to say so, but he agreed with Hildra. A turquoise spider scuttled up into the shadows of a corner and vanished into a hole, leaving a fishy-smelling web behind. The whole place leaned to one side and stank of mildew, and in the flickering light of the lantern stains showed on every lichen-covered wall.
“It’ll do for the night,” he said.
Layanna said nothing, but she seemed tired. Avery wondered if he was supposed to sleep next to her or not. He supposed not.
“One thing, Doc,” Janx said, and Avery glanced up to see the big man looking pensive. “What Mailos said back there, it wasn’t quite right.”
