The Hidden Fire (Book 2) by James R. Sanford Read Free Book Online Page B

hut, and he became aware of vague shapes
near him.  The man to his right wheezed on every ragged breath, and the woman
to his left was urinating on herself right where she sat.  He heard the sound
of soft, hopeless weeping.  Louder than that was the terrible silence.
    A
dull thump came from the door, a muffled call.  “Are you in there?”  It was Rolirra.
    “Help
me,” said Kyric in a weak scratchy voice.
    “I
cannot open the door.  You must come out.”
    He
tried to crawl towards the light, but there were so many people that they lay
on top of each other, or sat with limbs entwined.  He couldn’t find places for
his hands and knees, so he crawled over them.
    They
didn’t complain.  They made no sound as he gouged a throat with his hand and
dug into someone’s ribs with his knee.  He finally made it to the door and
pushed it open to fall into Rolirra’s arms.  When he turned back to look, they
were all corpses, long dead, broken bones jutting through petrified flesh.
    Rolirra
pulled him away from the hut and led him along a winding jungle trail.  “We
must go quickly,” she said.  “The sun has already started down.”
    They
ran in silence, their bare feet slapping the earth.  “We will not make it in
time,” Rolirra said.  “Not this way.”
    She
slowed and looked into the trees.  She found one canted over, nearly fallen, and
dashed up its trunk, taking hold of a vine at the top and climbing.  Kyric
followed and they climbed easily, horizontal shafts of light piercing the
trees, the vine roughly fibered and resinous.  The tighter he gripped it, the
more it gripped back.  They climbed all the way to the top of the trunk, then
upward again along a thin limb, bursting through a ceiling of leaves to stand
atop the canopy of the rainforest.
    Rolirra
could walk on the canopy like it was solid ground.  She found a giant of a
treetop, and plucked two leaves the size and shape of kite shields.  The roof
of the canopy sloped away towards a long valley.  She tossed one leaf to Kyric
and placed the other at her feet.  Stepping back and taking a running start,
she threw herself down on it and slid away, riding it like a toboggan on a
snowy hill.  He did the same and soon caught up with her, joining hands and
careening along the thick tangle of vines and leaves and branches.
    A
wide crevasse opened in front of them.  At first Kyric thought they would make
the jump, but they fell short and plunged into the jungle, somersaulting and
grabbing at everything for handholds.
    They
came to an abrupt stop, hanging limply on a vine.  They laughed for a moment, and
had begun the long climb back up, when they heard a gentle whirr from all
around, like the rustle of leaves in a high wind.
    “No,”
said Rolirra, panic edging into her voice, “not now.”
    Suddenly
they were in a cloud of insects, flying beetles the size of a child’s fist that
lighted and clung to them, digging into their flesh with sharp pincers, holding
tight so they could insert a stinger at the end of their wasp-like abdomens.
    “Get
to the ground!” shouted Kyric, and they slid down the vine, almost too fast,
and landed hard on the jungle floor.  What he had thought to be stingers were
egg-laying tubes, and lumpy sacs boiled up under their skins where the bugs
pricked them.  They began picking the beetles off themselves, tearing out a
pinch of flesh with each one, but the swarm followed them down, two beetles
taking the place of each one torn away.  They were trying to get into Kyric’s
eyes, and into his mouth.
    “I
cannot see,” Rolirra screamed.  “I’m getting lost.  Take us out.  Take us out
of this now!”
    Kyric
seized her hand and dragged her into the underbrush.  He could heard water
flowing, and he plunged ahead, broadleaf plants slapping him in the face. 
Suddenly the ground canted sharply downward.  He stumbled and fell, pulling Rolirra
with him.  They rolled and tumbled over a muddy ledge, into a river of