[Danny]

here's the next two chapters.

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CHAPTER 23

Not for the first time, Rettick cursed himself for leaving the others. He’d been angry at Greeb’s cowardice, but Greeb had been partially right: they shouldn’t run off individually to look for Lork. What they should’ve done was to stick together and look for him. He cursed Tillyn as well. That idiot was always acting on impulse, without thinking. If he’d waited for the others to sort themselves out, they could have all looked for Lork together.

He looked around. He couldn’t see any of the others. He’d lost sight of Tillyn and Gormanul a while ago, so he’d doubled back to try and find Greeb and the others, but this forest was a maze. Most of the trees looked the same, and there weren’t many landmarks to choose from. He wasn’t even sure he was on the same level as he’d stared on. He looked at the branches below and above, but if they were there, they weren’t in sight.

Movement. He was sure that bush had moved. [There were bushes bigger than the biggest tree he’d ever seen, just growing on the branches of the huge trees out here.] He’d been lucky not to have any close encounters with the wildlife up to this point, but he’d seen plenty from a distance. There were creatures with teeth longer than his leg, but even these creatures couldn’t deal with the really big animals. On the lower branches, Rettick had once seen a herbivore the height of a small house and the length of a train. And yet he saw the creature killed by something almost too small to see at that distance, which Rettick assumed to be very poisonous. All in all, Rettick wasn’t keen on meeting any of these creatures. He backed away from the greenery. Whatever the thing in the leaves was, it was about twice the height of a slig, but probably ten times as deadly.

He caught a metallic gleam, and relaxed slightly. Nothing in the forest was made of metal. Nothing he’d heard of, anyway. “Hello?”

Lork walked guardedly out of the bush. “What do you want?”

“Lork! You stupid bastard! You’ve split up the group!”

Lork looked down at Rettick. “None of you had to follow me. I only want to find my own way back, without you nutters.”

Rettick put on a concerned tone of voice. “Lork, you’re not in your right mind, you’re coming down off the Bigbro steroids. You’re acting irrationally. If you just try to act normal for a day or so, you’ll be fine.”

Lork flared up. “No! I’m thinking more clear now than I ever have before.”

“It just seems that way, because you’ve been a Bigbro for so long.”

“I don’t care. I’m going back to the Cartel. Are you going to try and stop me?”

“I’m not going to let you kill yourself like –”

Lork’s fist slammed into Rettick’s head, knocking him off balance. He grabbed Rettick by the neck, and lifted him off the ground. “You should leave me alone!” He threw Rettick at an upshooting branch. As Rettick slid to the ground, he strode up to him. “Now, are you going to –”

Lork stopped out of surprise. This surprise was due to the claw that was now protruding from his chest. His corpse slipped off the claw, and Rettick saw the creature. It was over three times Rettick’s height, and had three legs and pink skin. As he looked up, he saw that it had four arms, but it was the head that he recognised, just before he passed out.

It was the head of a Vykker.

CHAPTER 24

Nad opened his eyes, and wasn’t sure if he had. Shit, it’s dark, he thought, I must be on the forest floor. I wonder how I survived the fall. That question was answered by the soft fungus-like abject he appeared to have landed on. He couldn’t feel his legs, but it felt like at least one of them was wedged behind his back. Probably broken.

Now that his eyes had gotten accustomed to the dark, it wasn’t totally dark. There were natural lights in the form of glowing fungi, and he could make out the vague shapes of the objects around him.

One of them moved.

Nad froze. He focused on the thing that had moved. He could make out the rough height. It looked about twice his height, and its head was silhouetted against a bright patch of fungus behind it. The head looked vaguely scrab-like.

So that’s what it looks like, he thought, I’m glad it can’t see me.

His back was really starting to hurt. He knew he should keep still and quiet until the Crossbreed had gone, but he had to bend his leg out from under his back. He felt behind himself. The shape didn’t feel leg-shaped. It was squarer. He pulled it out, and recognised the flashing light of the homing beacon.

Oh, shit. He glanced up at the creature. Its head was facing him, and looked closer. He thought quickly. If he got rid of the beacon, the creature should follow it instead of him. If Frag had been right, the creature couldn’t see, hear, or smell him. He threw the beacon over the crossbreed’s head.

Without waiting to see if it followed the beacon, Nad stood and ran. His legs seemed to work fine, and he ran as fast as he could. He didn’t know what the creature was doing, until he felt a sharp pain in his back. He saw its leg sticking out of his chest. Or maybe it was an arm. Whatever it was, it hurt. He fell to the ground, and heard a metallic clang. The creature must be trying to eat my leg, he thought detachedly, With any luck it’ll choke. Then he felt a painful sensation on both sides of his head. The creature had his head in its mouth. As the pain increased, Nad offered up a prayer, to anyone who was listening, that it would all be over soon.