AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I nodded and shook out my legs as soon as I stood on my own two feet. Two of the fey went up first, followed by Steve then Katie. We moved fast, but I could tell by the way the fey kept watching the darkness that they were impatient with the progress.
Rather than try to spot an infected, I ran my hand over the deep furrows scoring the wall. Hound claw marks. If they’d been down here for lifetimes, how had they not clawed their way through?
I looked at the line of light cast from the orb above and then the shadow in which we stood. It was the perfect dark pocket for the hounds to hide from the wall’s light.
Molev nudged me, and I hurried toward the rope, climbing until I pulled myself onto the top of the wall.
What I saw beyond robbed me of thought for a moment. The bleak landscape outside the wall had misled me into thinking inside the wall would be the same. But it wasn’t.
Neatly planted fields spread out in front of me. The thick flowering vegetation in the fields was lit by countless crystal lanterns suspended at the top of long poles. In the distance beyond the fields to the right, I saw a grove filled with vast, towering trees.
“Welcome to Ernisi,” Molev said beside me. Then he picked me up and jumped down. Instead of running again, he released me.
I looked around in wonder.
“What is all of this?”
“Our fields. It was safer to grow what we needed within these walls once the hounds hunted us than it was to forage for what we needed. And the caves provided everything.”
He reached out and ran his hand over a thick green leaf.
“Medicines. Food. It’s all here.” He held out his hand to me. “Come. Everything we need is in our stores.”
We moved through the field, meeting up with a dirt trail that wound its way toward the grove. I could see Katie’s wide-eyed amazement as she looked at everything. Steve and Brandon too, although they were more subtle about it. Roni didn’t look too impressed, and I was pretty sure Sid and Roland saw this place through the same lens I did.
It was something out of another world…and we were going to destroy it to save ourselves.
That didn’t sit well with me.
“Something doesn’t make sense to me,” I said softly. “Why would the hounds try to kill you down here but not care about you on the surface?”
Molev’s fingers tightened around mine, and he drew me a little closer to his side. When I glanced at him, I saw movement in the fields just beyond.
“I know,” he said softly. “There are more ahead.”
I faced forward. Katie and Ben led the way. She was still making soft sounds and reaching out to touch the flowers we passed. The only one of us still relaxed. The decoy.
Leaves of the taller plants in the next field swayed gently even though there was no breeze. So much movement. So many infected hiding. Waiting to pounce.
Molev had said that infected were drawn to humans and essentially ignored the fey. Then why would the infected hide where no humans lived? I couldn’t think of any reason other than they were somehow waiting for us. But could they have known we were coming? Even if the doctor’s speculations were right that the hounds and infected could communicate, I hadn’t known we would be here until the night before we left.
Step by step, we drew closer, and I understood why the fey weren’t picking us up and bolting. If we moved now, the infected would know that they were spotted and swarm before we reached them, forcing us to retreat. And based on the movement I saw to the side, there were more waiting in that direction too.
In front of us, beyond the hiding infected was the grove. Molev obviously thought the trees were our safest option now.
“It’s pretty here,” I said softly. “Was that crystal always there?” I pointed up.
We were almost to the infected-filled field.
Molev glanced at the crystal above. “Yes. This cave is one of the largest. We had seeds with us that we had no memory of. But something told me they needed room to grow. So we planted them here.” He nodded toward the grove as Katie reached the field. “Those are the trees from seeds we carried with us.”
“They remind me of our redwoods. I’ll need to take you there someday.”
He grunted.
The leaves to our right rustled notably.
An infected moaned, and hell opened its front door.
