closest copse, Ata running ahead and helping us up the nearest tree. One by one we clambered up as high on the boughs as we could go. Ata came last, letting Mar pull him up just as the creatures closed in from all sides.
Then the branch they were on gave way.
Mar and Ata crashed to the ground, their bones cracking from the impact. Their twin cries of surprise and pain were buried under a swarm of heaving, groaning bodies.
I grabbed Sil by the neck before he could jump down to his brother's aid. We knew what came next. It took all our discipline to look away from the churning darkness and leap to the closest tree. Even as we moved, we heard them...eating. That noise still haunts my dreams. I think I will carry it to my grave.
The explosion came as soon as we made it across. We clung onto the boughs as the tree we’d abandoned crashed to the ground. As charred bits of flesh pelted our skins, I cursed the stars that I wouldn’t even be able to take an unsullied handful of my kinsmen’s ash.
The mines had killed most of the feral humans and left the others too mutilated to pursue us. We were free to slink back to the ground, hiding in the grass. None of us said a word. My crew all had wild open stares, the last horrific moments playing over and over in their eyes. Sil’s jaw gleamed with spittle and the veins stood out on his arms.
I crept towards Eire, who was feeding Rien a balm for the pain. “What happened to the humans, my sister? Are they sick?”
“I believe so, Master.” Eire passed her a microbe scanner over Rien's foot. “There are well over three hundred kinds of Earthian bacteria in his wound; it’ll take days to analyze them. If Lyaren were here, perhaps she could—”
Her voice fell, her eyes glimmering in the light of the screen. “Master Gan,” she said, “please wait here.”
“What are you doing?!” I hissed as she plunged back into the copse. I could not see her in the dark, but I heard her scurrying among the trees, searching for something.
At last she returned—thankfully alone. She carried an Earthian’s severed forearm. I could not hide my disgust; Eire’s own nostrils shrank against the stench. She held her microbe scanner against the arm. The rest of my House gathered around us, craning their necks to get a look.
“Well, sister?” I asked. “What is this disease? Will Rien be all right?”
“He will be,” she replied. “It is not rabies, nor any sickness caused by a terrestrial microbe.” She gazed around at us. “The germ is from Yaneth. It’s Moa-Gil.”
For a long moment we all stared back at her, dumbstruck. “You’re mistaken!” Sil said. “Moa-Gil’s harmless! It helps our blood absorb oxygen. Every child knows this!”
“It’s harmless...to us.” Eire tossed the limb away. “We have done everything to study Earthian microorganisms, vaccinating ourselves against the harmful ones. But we did not take into account the effect our microbes would have on them. The Marak caused this plague.”
My mind reeled. Why hadn’t we anticipated this? I wondered if it was not too late for the humans to contain this outbreak, and at how immense an undertaking that would be.
And I wondered too—how could Lyaren’s four-member scout team cause such a massive infection in such a short time? This was something not even Eire could answer. I resolved to question Lyaren—if she was still alive.
So we set off east again, this time avoiding all roads and open areas, moving like rodents in the grass. Though he limped badly, Rien never once cried out in pain. We had neither the time nor the numbers for combat; whenever we encountered the infected humans, we laid down like stones, waiting until they stumbled past.
Just before sunrise, we crossed a stream and came upon an open grassland dotted by a few low hills. At the center of this open area, about a hundred paces away, stood a green mound: the scout ship in disguise. Here our luck finally ran out.
A mob of those beasts, more than we could count, wandered around in the pre-dawn light. Every one was missing pieces of their flesh, even a limb or a lower jaw. Some shambled about; others sat and stared at nothing. One squatted and chewed at a severed limb, only to have it ripped from its jaws by an equally ravenous neighbor. Another scrabbled at the ground, probably chasing a beast in its burrow.
“Why are they here?” Rien whispered. “Does it have to do with the ship?”
We pondered this new obstacle as we crouched at the banks. The grass was too short to conceal us if we ran and too long to navigate through if we crawled. We needed a distraction.
“I’ll go,” said Sil, in a voice that brooked no argument. “I’ll set fire to the grass.”
I gripped my hands before my chest in salute, a gesture he returned. “Master,” he said, “I only ask that my brother's Name be added to yours.”
“It is done.”
Sil bowed, and then was just a whisper in the grass.
We did not wait long. Just before dawn, the hum of a pulse bow shot cut through the morning air. We flattened ourselves against the ground and watched the newborn blaze erupt south of the plain. Sil was there, calling out a rindo in his lilting Imalat dialect. I understood only one line: “Life is a dance in fire...joy is for those who willingly burn.”
A wave of moans drowned out Sil’s words. Every feral on the plain dropped what they were doing and lurched towards him. Sil fired a few bolts at the gathering crowd and several more into the surrounding grass. We saluted him, and then ran towards the craft.
I brought up our rear, no longer caring for stealth. Burning bits of grass stirred before my eyes and the heat wafted over my skin in a hungry caress. The moaning horde dampened every other sound, and the stench of blood was overpowering.
The hill loomed directly ahead; I could make out the vague contour of the ship from the outline of its slope. I was so focused on it that I nearly missed the bulge on the ground that was a shade darker than the grass.
I leaped over it, then landed on something soft and went sprawling. A horrendous groan came from behind me. I rolled, stabbing blindly with my finger knife as the thing that tripped me grabbed my legs. The blade pierced the Earthian's throat just under the jaw. Its teeth had been inches from my thigh.
To my shame, I froze. The creature was missing its body from the waist down, torn off in some previous struggle. Its moans roared in my head, the skull face glaring at me with pale, cheated eyes. But what sickened me most was the carcass behind it. The Marak lay in a yellow carpet of his own dried blood gazing at me with empty sockets, mouth wrenched open in a quiet scream. His fingers had dug furrows into the soil. His middle gaped like burst fruit, the insides boiling with maggots.
I thought I knew what fear was. But seeing that fleshless face lunging at me, mouth full of yellow ichor, undigested flesh dripping from its entrails, I felt a terror as black and bottomless as the void between the stars. I wanted to kick free but my legs had turned to cold gel. My guts roiled and my skin crawled within the human’s grasp. The stench of blood was smothering.
Then Sil was wrestling the creature away from me. Through the haze in my head, I realized he was burning, his green skin blackening as he grappled and stabbed the human with his blade. The creature loosened its grip. Strong hands hoisted me to my feet and Eire was screaming in my ear, “They’ve spotted us! Run!”
I turned and fled. The grassland had become a burning sea, ash swirling around me like glowflies. The ship seemed to recede with every step; it was like chasing a mirage. And all around were the rustle of a hundred feet, moans filled with naked hunger. I coughed and stumbled and fell twice. But I did not stop. Not until I could see the half-hidden porthole that marked the ship’s hatch.
Near the entrance, the bodies of two Marak lay among a pile of dead humans. At first I thought I was too late, but the ship’s hatch slid open with a hiss of air and Lyaren stood there, beckoning me to hurry. The thought of sanctuary galvanized my senses. I turned to order my crew inside, and realized I was alone.
Then came a blinding flash, a great roar of fire, and I was flung onto my back. I
saw a great cloud of ash rising into the dawn sky, the dead scattered in all directions.
I do not know exactly what happened. I do not know if Sil had managed to slay my attacker. I do not know if Rien and Eire had tried to help him, and if the horde cut off their escape or if, as loyal vassals, they discharged their mines to cover my retreat. I will never be able to describe their bravery. I can only ask that you remember their Names for me, once I am gone.
I found my feet and lurched towards the ship. In my shock everything seemed to leap out at me. The red bones of the dead I stepped over; the bleached skull of a Marak scout, his blue environment suit torn to shreds and his outstretched hand pointing toward the hatch. But those things paled in my vision when I saw the blood yellow handprint left beneath the porthole.
Lyaren caught my arm and helped me inside as the hatch clanged shut behind us. “You are Kusa?” she asked.
I took a long moment to answer—the change in environment carried a shock of its own. The pale lights above filled the interior with an antiseptic glare, like the lens of a powerful microscope. The air was cool and soothing, the metal floor cold beneath my feet.
I said, in a voice hoarse and unfamiliar to my ears, “I am Gan, Housemaster of Kiva. The Monitors have sent me to retrieve you.”
“I am in your debt,” she said. “Those creatures came from nowhere. They attacked