Page 30 of Silver Slayer

Vala led the way, moving like someone born to hunt, each step deliberate, his gaze sweeping the path ahead in constant, restless motion. Behind him, Quin had her bio-analyzer out, brow furrowed, fingers working the screen as she quietly rerouted us around threats the rest of us couldn't yet see.

I fell into step directly behind her with my blade remaining in its sheath, but my hand never strayed far from the hilt. Behind me, Tyrk brought up the rear, his massive frame filling what remained of the narrow trail, his weapon held ready at his side.

No one spoke. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath, the massive leaves around us utterly still despite the open sky above the canopy. My ears swiveled and cupped, straining to pull sound from the silence, reaching for the distant shift of something heavy through undergrowth, the subsonic tremor of a root network responding to weight, anything that would tell me what the valley was hiding. Nothing came back but the sound of our own breathing.

After nearly a hur of careful travel, the battered hull of the Troken freighter finally emerged above the vegetation ahead. The massive vessel had crashed nose-first into the valley floor, its stern rising above the canopy like a broken monument to some forgotten battle. Relief had barely begun to settle over me when Tyrk stopped abruptly.

"Go," he said quietly. The single word cut through the silence like a blade. We turned to find a cracked spore sac trembling beside his leg. A luminous mist leaked from the fracture, curling upward in delicate tendrils that caught the light of the twin suns. The sac pulsed once, twice, the crack widening with each beat.

"Go on ahead and get to the ship," Tyrk repeated, his voice tight with urgency.

The sac burst.

"Hold your breath!" Quin's voice cut through the chaos before the cloud had even finished blooming.

Spores billowed into the air, spreading outward with terrifying speed, swirling around us in a beautiful, deadly dance. All around us, carnivorous plants began unfurling from the undergrowth, their massive leaves snapping open to reveal rows of serrated teeth that glistened with viscous fluid. The ground beneath my feet trembled as activity rippled through the root network, the interconnected system responding to the spore release with predatory hunger.

"Vala, get Quin to the freighter!" I roared, then sealed my lips shut, lungs locked as the spore-mist curled at the edges of my vision.

Quin started to protest, her eyes wide with determination even as the spores swirled around her. "No! I can?—"

But Vala simply hoisted her over his shoulder and sprinted toward the wreck, his long legs eating up the distance with preternatural speed. Quin's protests faded into the distance as Vala carried her to safety, her voice swallowed by the growing chaos around us.

I moved to Tyrk's side and drew my blade. The Nomadican had already holstered his blaster in favor of a massive dagger he unsheathed from his boot. He swung it in a wide arc, severing a carnivorous vine that had lunged for his throat.

The plants were everywhere, unfurling from the undergrowth with horrifying speed. Massive leaves snapped shut where we had stood moments before, their serrated edges closing withenough force to sever bone. Vines whipped through the air, barbed and hungry, seeking flesh with mindless determination.

I cut through a vine that curled around my leg, Valosian steel slicing through it with ease. The severed end thrashed on the ground, leaking phosphorescent fluid that sizzled against the soil. Another vine lashed out from my left, and I pivoted, bringing my blade down in a savage swing that split it from stem to tip.

Tyrk fought beside me, his massive blade a blur of deadly efficiency. His black horns gleamed in the spore-light, his expression set in grim determination as the plants kept coming, not just vines now but broad-leafed stalks with snapping mouths, bulbous root-feeders erupting from the soil, and low crawling tangles of barbed runners that wound around our ankles and had to be kicked free before they could drag us down.

"We need to move!" I shouted before I thought better of it.

The breath I'd stolen to yell pulled spores straight down my throat. A sharp tingle lit up the back of my nose, and my vision swam at the edges, the carnivorous forest tilting slightly off its axis.

Tyrk was already running. I followed, blade flashing, cutting down anything that reached for us as we sprinted for the freighter. The spores swirled thick around us. Shapes twisted at the edges of my vision, real, not real, impossible to tell, and I stopped trying to sort them out and just ran.

The freighter loomed ahead, its massive hull rising above the canopy. Vala stood just inside the open hatch, one hand braced against the frame, his eyes locked on the path behind us. Quin was at his shoulder, her bio-analyzer clutched in her hand.

I reached the freighter a heartbeat behind Tyrk. The tingle from the spores crawled up the back of my throat with slow, patient certainty. The writhing mass of flora surged after us, barbed tips snapping at our heels. At the edges of my vision, shapes moved that I could not account for, shadows that shifted when I turned to look at them directly.

The hatch sealed behind me with a heavy thud. The vines continued to hammer the hull, but the sound was distant now, muffled, reduced to dull impacts against thick metalloid. Tyrk dropped to his knees, head bowed, shoulders heaving as he gulped back air in long, desperate pulls.

For a moment, no one spoke. The only sounds were our breathing and the rhythmic assault against the hull. The portable light disc Vala had set on the floor cast its pale, steady glow across the interior, throwing the crash damage into sharp relief: buckled wall panels, a collapsed storage rack, and tubing hanging loose from the ceiling like severed tendons.

"Everyone okay?" Vala asked, his voice cutting through the tension.

I opened my mouth to answer, but the words dissolved before they reached my tongue. Something shifted in the shadows behind him, and a familiar shape emerged from the wreckage.

Queen Uri.

Her reptilian pupils locked onto Quin, and terror unlike anything I had ever known ripped through me. I had killed her. I remembered the feel of my blade punching through her flesh, remembered her shrieks, remembered watching the life leave her body. Yet there she was, gliding toward my female.

"Stay away from her." The words tore out of me like a battle cry as I lunged forward, putting my body between Quin and the queen, blade raised.

My sword passed through Uri again without leaving so much as a wound. Around me, voices erupted into frantic shouts, but they sounded distant and distorted, buried beneath the thunder of my ancillary heart. Adrenalyne surged through my veins, sharpening every sense, yet with each swing my arm grew heavier. Uri continued to advance, untouched.

"I will die before I let you harm my spirit mate!" I roared, forcing my failing muscles to obey. My sword felt impossibly heavy. The floor tilted beneath me, and my boots found no purchase on the ground that kept sliding away. The walls twisted. Still, I fought to keep myself between the Gorken queen and Quin.