“I said shut up.”
Roughly she sawed into the web, having to cut several of the largest strands before the others broke and Avery’s armored weight brought him down to the ground with a crash. He rocked side to side, trying to get up in as dignified a manner as possible, but in the end she had to lend him a hand.
In the other she still held the knife. The god-killing knife.
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” she said, when she saw him looking at it, and stuffed the blade away.
Now was his chance. He could punch her, jump on her, try to wrestle one of her weapons away. She was tired, perhaps wounded in some manner that would slow her down.
“I need a breather,” he said.
“No time. I came on a group of animals about an hour ago—gorillas, or they use to be. Now they’re all fish scales and barracuda mouths. They caught my scent and they’ve been dogging my steps. The gunfire may have drawn them. We have to move.”
He blinked. “You risked your life to save me? I don’t—”
She grabbed his arm and pulled him along, into the undergrowth of the jungle. “Hurry,” she said, flicking on a flashlight and shining it before them.
“Where are your goons?”
She hunkered against a tree, listening, and he crouched beside her. When she judged the coast was clear, she rose and shuffled forward again, moving from tree to tree, keeping her head low. Quietly, she answered, “Superstitious bastards. Afraid to go in this direction. Something about it being haunted or something.”
“The villagers felt the same way. I wonder if any are still alive.”
“I doubt it. The Nisaar were bent on destroying them. Every one.”
Avery tried not to imagine the children he’d seen playing dead, killed horribly and burnt, but it was too late. Angrily, he snapped, “And you don’t feel badly about enabling genocide?”
“You’re enabling genocide. The whole human race. The whole planet! What’s one village if it will stop that?”
She pressed forward, and they didn’t speak for some time.
“What about the relic Davic gave you?” he said at last. “The one taken from the old Ysstral monastery in the Atosh Islands?” When she didn’t answer, he said, “Did you deliver it to the Collossum in Hissig? What’s its purpose?”
Still she didn’t answer, and when she did speak it was about something entirely different. “Where will your goddess go?” she asked, as they huddled in some bushes, this time waiting for a herd of dangerous-looking creatures (massive snails, fifteen feet high, with electricity crackling between the points of their spiky shells and making the foliage all around glow with blue-white light) to, very slowly, pass.
“I won’t help you kill her,” Avery said in a low voice. “Is that why you saved me?”
Sheridan didn’t answer. Lightning reflected off her face, then faded. When the great snails had gone, she pushed forward, and he followed. He supposed he could make a break for it. She would just pursue him, though, and he was no match for her physically—perhaps not mentally, either. Perhaps there was a way to allow her to doom herself, though. She wanted Layanna? Well, Layanna would have eaten by now. The whole jungle was full of infected things she could consume and grow strong from. By now she would be able to protect herself from Sheridan, even act against her. Avery need only make sure that Sheridan found her. With a start, he realized that by the end of the night, one of the two women might very well be dead. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
“Where will your friends go?” Sheridan asked again.
Avery could not tell her without her growing suspicious of why he was betraying Layanna. He would have to wait for Sheridan to beat it out of him before he could lay his trap. He said nothing.
She turned to him, pulling out the god-killing knife. Was this it? Would she carve into him until he gave her what she wanted?
“Go on,” he said. “Do it.”
She pressed the knife into his hands. “There. Now I can’t harm her. Where is she?”
He could stick it in her throat, if he was fast enough. He could kill her and rejoin the others, and he would have a weapon to use against any Collossum they came against in the future.
With a sigh, he shoved the weapon away, tucking it inside his armor, where Sheridan would have a hard time stealing it back from him.
“Why would you have any interest in finding her if not to kill her?” he said.
“Not every answer lies in violence.”
“Ha.”
“Perhaps there’s another way. Some deal we can work out.”
“I don’t believe you.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Do you have a choice?”
He paused, then started removing pieces of his armor. He would have to take the knife with him.
“What are you doing?”
He indicated the nearest tall tree. “I have to climb.”
Twenty minutes later he came down, bruised and chafed, sweaty and sore. His arms and legs ached so much he thought his muscles might just liquefy and slither away. He slumped against the base of the tree and wheezed for breath.
“Well?” Sheridan said. “What did you find?”
“I ... saw ...” He took a few breaths. “... flowers. The ghost flowers. A line of them, one of the shoots. Going ... that way.” He gestured.
“Luckily those things glow in the dark.”
