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VERDANT SCALES

Instantly fatal in most cases of direct contact, the licht can also have indirect effects on humans, causing a merge between multiple dominant animal species in any one tract.

This area of the sciences requires far more research.

~ The Blessings of the Licht, Professor Hladen Kamen

* * *

The familiar bootprints vanished into the trees.

Esterra stood in the lee of the hollow, a wall of darkest green shimmering before her in the heat.

The air was dense.

Breathing was difficult, the humidity threatening to choke her airway.

Sweat already beaded her forehead.

Vines slung from the gigantic trees.

Smaller plants with iridescent flowers clung to the twisting trunks towering into the mist high above.

The tops of the trees were hidden in this cloud of grey, blurred watercolour shapes like the paintings sold in the Circle.

The roots of the trees rose higher than her head, great undulating things, snakelike and confusing.

Strange insects with crooked wings buzzed among the glistening leaves. Water dripped from above. Somewhere in the dark shadows of the rainforest, a whooping call of some giant creature echoed.

Esterra took a few steps forward, a pensive creature emerging from the safety of the hollow, eyes scanning the jungle before her, nose raised to catch the scent of any offal or scat.

Her hard-soled boots left deep prints in the soil.

The dense moisture of the air made everything sticky, and soon her boots were caked well past her ankle with clods of red-orange mud.

They had borne worse muck before.

She was simply thankful that she had waterproofed them with tallow only a few tracts ago.

Nothing killed a tractwalker as quickly as foot-rot.

There was no path or even an opening where the limping bootprints vanished, nothing but giant ferns.

Sweat rolled down Esterra’s nose.

She wiped it away with a gruff curse.

The tracks were fresh, more so than ever before.

She was close.

She sat in the shade of a gigantic palm, and set her bag down.

She packed away her patched cloak, and removed her tunic, stripping down to a single layer of ragged clothing.

Her blood was still thick from the comparative chill of the last tract.

Already drenched, she sighed and packed her clothing away.

Hand resting on the curved brass knife on her belt, she regarded the jungle under the blazing light of the red sun filtering through the clouds of mist.

In her youth, she had hated the warmer tracts.

Everything was chaos.

Plants everywhere, growing over eachother in a frenzied, murderous rage.

Some strangled the ones beside them, others crowded out the sickly glow from the dying sun.

There were cannibalistic mosses that consumed everything around them, fungi which poisoned the very foliage on which it grew, parasitic things that sucked all the water out of their hosts, manic and mad like all things become when the heat was too much.

Yet other plants simply swallowed the smaller ones, engulfing them in a slow but relentlessly thorough growth.

All was death, humidity, and tangled chaos.

But with age, that hatred had cooled.

The physical world was much less of a horror to her now.

What she had once perceived as severe suffering was now mild inconvenience.

As with many who mature through trials, she had shifted her views.

Pain was not evil.

It held no malevolent intent, no hateful will, no innate purpose to create misery.

Humanity could be evil.

Perhaps magic could be evil.

But pain was merely an element of this world, and a necessary one at that.

Pain, an element of suffering, told her of dangers to her survival. It gave her challenges to overcome, to grow and endure. Without these, what was perseverance, what were virtues? The pleasurable moments of eating hot, fresh kill at a campfire or sipping a mug of the ever-more-rare tea in a cold waste were all the sweeter, the victories all the stronger, for the pain. And to relinquish it, to dampen with the drugged leaves of certain tracts or the sleeping-water of the Silent Tract, was a weakness to be despised. To fear it was wilful blindness to its practicality. To avoid it was wisdom, but to cower before it when it finally reared its head was cowardice. Cowardice to face reality would only make that reality hit all the harder when it eventually tried to eat you.

And so now, despite the wild heat, she could analyse with cool precision, pushing the distraction of discomfort and annoyance well away.

Not that this brought any great use in the present case.

The man who wore the boots had vanished into the jungle without a trace.

After years of tracking them, starting sometime in her late youth, and somehow never losing them even after long stints of their vanishing, in this tract where they seemed so close, they went through the ferns and then simply ended.

Was the man aware of her? Was he resting when she rested? What about the weeks spent with Tarr and Freya? Who was he?

But beyond all these questions lay graver concerns.

She knew nothing about his motives.

The old woman in the Forest of Bones had called him a tractwalker.

A tractwalker with a limp.

Esterra had met very few people, such as Tarr, who had survived more than a dozen tracts.

Most humans settled down in larger groups, huddling together in desperation and fear.

Yet this man avoided that, avoided any companions at all.

Always alone, trekking on, tract after tract, with no other sign than…

“These damned bootprints!”

Esterra smudged the last of them, the copper-coloured mud smearing her boot like dried blood.

She shook her head.

Whatever the case, no tract this man had walked was empty of something important, something of value.

Some clue, some person, some knowledge would be waiting here for her.

Even if it was a mere coincidence, it was a reliable surmise.

There was no way around the jungle.

The trees and vines climbed up the base of the tract wall, leaving only this small clearing before the hollow’s entrance.

Usually hollows lay at opposite points from one another, more or less.

The shortest distance would be straight through.

And the questions scratched her curiosity, pushing her forward.

She slashed through the vines and plants with her curved blade, following the prints.

The heat hit her with fever-like intensity.

It enveloped her, and she gasped.

It was almost pitch-black inside.

The dripping roots of the great trees arched overhead, creating tunnels in combination with the endless foliage.

Wan red light filtered through the sodden leaves and steamy mist down into the dungeon-like spaces below.

A snake slithered away into the undergrowth, the vibrant red vanishing instantly in the greens and yellows of the jungle.

Esterra muttered under her breath.

She slashed her way through the lighter sections of foliage.

The bootprints were all but gone now.

The only trace of the traveller’s passage was crushed saplings and ferns underfoot, and the occasional cut vine.

Large mosquitos buzzed around her eyes and ears, the sound maddening.

Esterra swatted at them, but they cared little for her attempts.

Fresh human blood was likely a rarity in this tract, Esterra assumed.

Rightly so too.

Who in their right mind would come here?

The leaves and undergrowth finally opened up a little.

Her boots clacked on cracked flagstones beneath the moss and fallen leaves.

Ruins emerged from the jungle, overgrown by all manner of plant life and fungi.

The architecture was curved and extravagant.

Remnants of ancient statues lined the crumbling rooftops, red and blue paint peeling from them like a snake shedding its scales.

The ornate windows of the ruins were choked with leafy vines, and the doorways still held great doors, though the wood was hidden beneath layer after layer of green and purple mosses.

Yellow and black flowers poured out of each crevice in the broken walls.

Colours of danger.

Esterra acknowledged their warning and kept a clear distance.

The flowers had completely filled the ruins, and flooded over the topmost stones and through gaps in the tiles of the roof. They seemed to move, even in the absence of any wind. The large petals seemed to draw in breaths, slow and silent, then exhale just as slowly. Esterra covered her mouth and nose with her hand and moved on.

Another snake zipped past her boot as she walked.

She twisted her knife in her left hand, sweat slicking the wooden grip, forearm tense.

But it paid her no heed.

She crouched down under a massive arching root, and her back groaned in answer.

Her back ached.

Her legs ached.

Everything ached and burned and seeped sweat.

She drew herself upright again and sipped at her flask, wondering how quickly this would be exuded as fresh sweat.

Stars-damned minutes, most likely , she thought.

A sound in the undergrowth drew her attention, and she frowned as a large yellow snake twisted past, in the same direction as the first.

Again, it ignored the trespasser.

She swore, unsettled.

Sweat dripped from the tip of her nose, disappearing into the soaked rot of undergrowth beneath her feet.

The mosquitoes whined in close, landing now and then to suck away at the little gashes they had made in her neck.

She tried slapping, but they weaved and dodged so quickly, and before she had even drawn another breath they were back to feeding on her.

Esterra yelled a string of foul words and threw her bag down.

She pulled out a torch and lit the end, swinging the burning wood in a wide arc.

Her language was as colourful as the deadly flowers that had swallowed the ruins behind her.

The mosquitoes vanished as the flame and smoke filled the air.

“An interesting assortment of curses, Stake.”

She spun around.

A man leaned against a tree nearby.

He had only one leg, the other gone from the knee down.

A heavily reinforced crutch supported him, a wooden foot fashioned at the bottom.

The top of the crutch formed twin prongs, reinforced with brass.

A pitchfork.

An old boot lay beside it.

Bandages which had once been white covered all of his skin, including his face.

Now they draped it like a second skin, yellowing strands stained by rain and bleached by the sun, the dirt of a hundred tracts embedded within the fibres.

His hat looked like someone had stitched holes together, as threadbare as his tattered trousers. The long, threadbare tunic he wore threaded in and out of the bandages that wrapped his torso.

The dark-eyed man smoked a long pipe, a dull red smoke rising from his crooked mouth with each puff.

His left hand was missing the thumb and index finger, scarred and mangled as if a wild dog had chewed them off long ago.

The skin was pale and puckered.

The pipe was balanced carefully in the remaining digits.

His pack lay at his feet, packed tight, with minimal space wasted.

An experienced traveller.

“A wooden foot,”

Esterra said.

“Explains the tracks.”

The man sucked at the stem of the pipe, ruby vapour sliding slick across his bandaged face.

He studied her with ice in his eyes, cerulean irises housing pinpoint pupils.

She met their frigid glare without issue.

Uglier monsters than he had looked at her with worse intent before.

Most no longer drew breath.

“Lost my foot to the licht. Rather, I cut it off once it set in, before it could take more of me.”

His voice was dry and rasped across the eardrums, rusty steel scraping across dry leather. “You don’t need to hide your arm. I know you, Stake.”

She shrugged her cloak aside, revealing her arm, pale and creased in smooth scar tissue, sheathed in its leather sling. “I considered doing the same myself, many a time. But the licht is a weapon, in more ways than one.”

Esterra stretched her good wrist, torch flicking black smoke around her in a cloud.

“I’m no danger to you, Esterra Stake.”

“For a moment I thought I had run into Pire, the mad tractwalker of the far ghrub .”

“I’m not him, though I know of whom you speak. He has not come this way in many, many years. Likely never will, either.”

He stared at the trees around them.

She did not bother reacting, letting the baited unspoken question hang and die in the humid air.

She spent the time looking him over from the tip of his shabby boot to floppy hat.

His bandages hid everything but his pale eyes. She broke the silence.

“Your name, old man?”

“Leodin, though most call me the Pitchfork. For obvious reasons.”

Esterra grunted. “And you already know my name…”

The trees around them began to whisper, as if a wind rocked the branches.

Esterra saw the boughs twisting like vines, or the vines themselves were moving… It took her a moment to realise that snakes were winding their way up into the branches, hundreds of them.

A crash in the jungle echoed in a dull throb toward them.

Leodin was already up, had lifted his bag onto his shoulders with surprising dexterity, his pipe already extinguished and packed away before Esterra even realised it.

The old man had a speed beyond his years.

His pitchfork was in his hands, his left arm twisted through the intricately designed wood, which provided a handle for him to grip and lean on.

He moved toward her right, covering her weak spot.

She brandished the torch in her left hand, crouching lower, ready for anything.

A gigantic swirling mass burst into the clearing.

The creature was as tall as three men.

A dozen gigantic snake heads writhed at the top.

The lower half seemed to be made of living, twisting roots, the bark scaled like a serpent’s skin.

Wood twisted and writhed in unnatural ways, crushing and loosening in gnarled knots.

The heads hissed with a vicious rage.

The skulls of the snakes had been warped into monstrous shapes.

Some of them had multiple fangs, venom glistening in the light of Esterra’s torch.

Others had multiple eyes protruding grotesquely from their bark-scales.

One of the heads hung dead, weather-worn arrows stuck in its decaying flesh.

The others all turned to focus on the pair of disabled humans standing below. Tongues of different hues flicked in the air, tasting the scent of fresh meat.

The mass lurched forward, heads striking.

Esterra struck out with her torch.

Sparks flew as the charcoal slammed into the wooden neck of the creature.

Leodin thrust with his pitchfork, the prongs hooking under wooden scales before tearing them off.

Cerulean blood flashed out.

The weight of the snakes slammed forward, throwing Esterra off her feet.

She landed on her side, gritting her teeth as hard roots rammed against her ribcage.

As momentum dragged the mass forward, Leodin skipped around behind.

He used his crutch to spin and leap, pitchfork thrusting between the twisting cords in the trunk of the creature.

The prongs bounced off, and the snake heads flipped backwards.

They struck down at the old man, but he had leapt backwards, landing a few paces away.

Esterra’s right arm began to throb with light from the shoulder down to the tips of her fingers.

Leodin caught her eye, shaking his head.

She nodded in assent.

If she let the licht spread to her chest, she’d be weakened and vulnerable in the battle.

But as the snakes turned toward her with unerring accuracy, doubt filled her mind as to her survival in any case.

“Run!”

Leodin shouted.

Esterra spun and ran. The only feasible avenue of escape was the opening the snakes had torn through the jungle wall. A massive thud thrummed through the air, and smoke billowed past her, flames licking her back. The old man was running beside her, a grim smile on his cracked lips. Esterra looked back, and saw a gaping hole in the trunk of the alien creature. Charred wood glowed with embers where the explosion had torn it apart.

But it was coming after them, jaws wide, tongues lashing through the smoke of its burning body.

“Do you have any more of those explosives, Pitchfork?”

Esterra gasped as they ran through the ravaged jungle.

“Only one.”

Regular snakes dropped from the trees all around them.

Esterra kept them at bay with her torch, but it impeded their progress.

The wooden hydra dragged the massive bulk of its body along, blue blood hissing in the fire on its flesh.

Leodin gasped, his left arm working hard to use his pitchfork-crutch across the tricky terrain.

Sweat poured down through his bandages.

Esterra’s clothes stuck to her muscles like a second skin, drenched through.

Her side ached from her fall.

Ahead, red sunlight flared down, unbroken by branches.

An opening in the jungle canopy.

A gully opened before them, with a fetid stream crawling along at the bottom.

Esterra leapt.

The muddy water splashed up all around her, and she used the momentum to keep running.

Close behind, she heard Leodin’s laboured breathing.