The Devoured Earth by Sean Williams Read Free Book Online Page A

changed at all. Feeling slightly foolish, he suggested a quick stop to settle their nerves.

    Sal would have none of it. ‘No,’ he said, ‘we’ve delayed enough already today.’

    Kail didn’t argue, although the tightness across his chest urged him to. Warden Rosevear’s Change-rich salves were doing a good job of repairing the wound inflicted on him by the Swarm, but the endless climbing and the heavy pack he wore were taking their toll. He would never admit it to Sal — who, he was sure, had a pretty good idea of how much the wound still bothered him, since nothing much escaped those blue-flecked eyes — but the thought of sitting down for an hour sounded like a pretty good approximation of paradise.

    They hiked on, following the trail of the man’kin and keeping their ears open for any secondary rockfalls that the first might have triggered. The journey was uneventful until they rounded a knife-like spur surmountable only by leaping from one smaller boulder to another. There, as Kail lifted the brim of his hat to take in the way ahead, he saw just how simply and thoroughly Sal’s plans had been thwarted.

    The source of the avalanche lay far above them. Whatever caused it had sent a vast shelf of ice and snow crashing hundreds of metres down the relatively bare mountainside below. The dirty white scar left in its wake stretched right across the man’kin’s path, fanning out as it hit less precipitous terrain below. For a worryingly large distance, the trail was buried under metres of unstable debris.

    ‘This isn’t good,’ said Highson.

    ‘That’s stating the obvious,’ Kail muttered. Mindful of any sudden loud noises, he trotted to the nearest edge of the avalanche’s wake. Sure enough, the trail vanished under it and showed no signs of emerging. Even the shape of the terrain beneath was difficult to make out.

    ‘I don’t believe it,’ said Sal, tugging back his hood to expose his horrified face. ‘This can’t be happening.’

    Kail watched him closely. The young man was perpetually poised on the brink of violence, to himself and those around him, and that only worsened when he became upset. Ever since Shilly’s disappearance, he had been bottling his emotions under incredible pressure. The Change boiled around him like a stormy sea.

    Now he had turned pale and stood without moving, eyes fixed on the devastation before them. His hands shook only slightly, but revealingly.

    ‘Nothing’s going right. Maybe we should turn back.’

    ‘Hey,’ said Highson, looking at him in surprise. ‘You don’t really mean that.’

    ‘Don’t I? If we hadn’t been held up this morning, we’d be under that pile right now.’

    That was a sobering thought. ‘We always knew this climb was going to be dangerous,’ Kail said.

    ‘Maybe I didn’t. How could I have? I’ve never been on a mountain before. I’ve never tracked man’kin moving at speed. I’ve never had to worry about freezing in my sleep, or being eaten by a bear.’ Sal rounded on him. ‘Can you tell me it’s going to be any easier from here? That we’ve survived this long by skill, not luck?’

    ‘I think we should take that rest stop we talked about earlier,’ said Kail, not wanting to agree with Sal under these circumstances. He too shared the certainty that all hope of finding Shilly was now lost — unless they could shift several thousand tonnes of debris in a matter of hours, and he doubted if even Sal in a bad mood was capable of such a feat.

    Highson agreed immediately. ‘That’s a good idea. My nerves could definitely use some settling.’

    ‘It won’t make any difference,’ said Sal woodenly. ‘At least if we turn back, it’s downhill all the way.’

    Kail untied the water from his hip and took a deep swig. He needed to think. There might be a way around this situation. The man’kin’s tracks would resume on the far side of the avalanche’s trail of debris. All they had to do was find them and they