The Devoured Earth by Sean Williams Read Free Book Online

so we’re already running behind.’

    ‘Yes.’ The passage of time worried Sal almost as much as the violation of their security. Not only were they already late to set out, but now they had to repack everything. He set about the task with dismal determination. His fear of falling further and further behind Shilly was now compounded by this new fear: that someone was following them. A distinct feeling that he was being watched only made matters worse, and it kept him looking back the way they had come or up at the mountainside ahead, although not once did he see anything out of the ordinary.

    Hardly reassured, he shouldered his burden when the others were ready and they continued on their way.

    * * * *

    Habryn Kail walked furiously in the footsteps of the man’kin, conscientiously noting the comings and goings of familiar tracks. The broad round feet that left deep indentations or crushed pebbles probably belonged to the Angel, the large man’kin Sal and Shilly had met in the forests. Others were smaller: clawed stone feet with three toes; flat pads that seemed to have no toes at all; at least one set of Panic prints visible in patches of soft earth; and human tracks that didn’t all belong to Shilly. It proved, as always, a challenging study, and was occasionally sufficient to distract him from the issue weighing most on his mind.

    Not an hour went by in which Kail didn’t berate himself for falling asleep on his watch that morning. His lack of care profoundly unsettled him, charm or no charm. But for dumb luck, he and his companions should have been dead and cold hours ago. There was no getting around that.

    Sal and Highson knew it too. That was the worst part. He had let them down in the worst possible fashion. For a while, he considered suggesting that he should turn back — beaten by age, frailty, incompetence — before convincing himself of the ridiculousness of that plan. He had only made one mistake, and they would need him in the coming days. Neither Sal nor Highson possessed the skills of tracking and foraging that he did, and they would rely on those, and more, as the path became steeper and more rugged in the days ahead. There was no getting around that .

    Before the day was halfway done, with the sun peering over the crest of the mountains and scattering the last wisps of cloud that had dogged them all morning, the ground kicked beneath them, as it had on several occasions during their tortuous ascent. Kail froze, listening carefully. A sustained rumble that might have been thunder echoed along a nearby canyon. It grew louder instead of fading away. The ground beneath him began to shake again, and his palms broke out into a sweat.

    Avalanche.

    He had no memory of the landslide that had almost killed him ten days earlier, but he knew enough to be afraid. He turned to face the others. The looks on their faces told him that they had realised too. Sal looked up, seeking the source of the noise, but echoes made it hard to find. Instead, Kail looked for shelter, and found some in the form of a narrow crack between a canted slab of rock and the cliff it leaned against. Pointing, he urged Highson and Sal ahead of him, noting distractedly how similar they looked when they ran. They weren’t good sprinters but they possessed incredible stamina, as the uphill trek readily proved.

    The rumble grew louder. Kail slipped into the crack after his two companions and held his breath with them. The landslide didn’t have to hit them to end their lives. Burying them in the crack would be enough, unless Sal could find a way out. The thought of being entombed again held no appeal at all.

    The roar of falling stone peaked and began to ebb. They saw no sign of it from their cramped hiding place. Still, Kail waited until only echoes remained before even considering stepping outside.

    He had half-expected the landscape to have completely rearranged itself — the noise had been so loud — but nothing appeared