Read Online Hellworld (Deathstalker Prelude) by Simon R. Green - Free Book Online

too dark, and the quiet had the texture of something only rarely disturbed. Corbie glared about him and licked his dry lips compulsively. Something felt wrong. He couldn’t see or hear anything specific that he could blame for his unease, but his instincts were yelling so loudly his stomach was cramping in sympathy. At first he’d dismissed it as just more of his nerves at work, but he was still too much the professional to believe that for long. The esper was right. The Squad was being watched. A shadow moved at the corner of his vision, and Corbie had to use all his self-control to stop his head from turning to follow it. He stared straight ahead, but kept a careful watch. The movement came again.
    “Captain,” he said quietly. “Movement. Four o’clock.”
    Hunter looked casually in that direction, and then away again. “I don’t see anything, Corbie.”
    “I did. Twice. I think it’s moving along with us.”
    “Damn.” Hunter stopped and lifted his hand. The others came to a halt. “All right, people, form a circle. Stay close, but leave yourselves enough room to use your swords. Don’t use your guns unless you have to. Remember; a lot can happen in the two minutes it takes your disrupter to recharge between shots.”
    The Squad started to move, and the forest fell apart. A tree directly before them slumped forward like a melting candle. Leaves dripped from its branches and splashed on the ground. The gnarled trunk lost its definition and collapsed into a pool of frothing liquid that spilled sluggishly across the trail. There was a swift rasp of steel on leather as the Squad drew their swords. DeChance cried out in disgust as something soft and clinging fell onto her shoulders from above. It only took her a few seconds to realise it was just a fallen branch, and she’d just started to relax when it whipped around her throat and tightened. She clawed at it with her free hand and the branch collapsed under the pressure of her hold. It oozed between her fingers as she pulled it free and threw it away.
    “Back to back!” yelled Lindholm. “Everyone back to back. And watch your neighbours as well as yourself!”
    All around them the forest was melting and deforming. Shapes could not hold, and tree trunks stretched and oozed into each other. Leaves fell like rain, lying on the ground in heaps, curling and uncurling like dying moths. Branches enlongated like boiling taffy, flailing at the Squad from all sides with blind ferocity. They defended themselves with their swords, the cold steel slicing through the waving branches with hardly any effort. Claws and barbed spikes erupted suddenly from the branches, and fanged mouths yawned in the ground. Unblinking eyes stared from bubbling tree trunks. They weren’t human eyes.
    Corbie raised his gun and fired at the nearest tree. It exploded, sending hundreds of writhing particles flying through the forest, but even as they landed they were still pulsing, still moving, still alive. The ground began to shake underfoot. Deep in the forest, something howled wordlessly.
    “Head back down the trail!” yelled Hunter. “Force shields on! Make for the boundary!”
    The Squad’s hands went to their bracelets, and force shields blinked into existence on their arms. The glowing oblongs of pure energy shimmered brightly in the gloom, proof against any weapon known to man. The Squad moved quickly back down the trail. Barbed roots thrust up out of the earth and stabbed at them. A tree spotted with dark, cancerous growths leaned out over the trail. Hunter raised his gun, and the tree suddenly lost all shape and form and surged towards him like a wave of dark, boiling water. He raised his shield before him, and his arm shook as the full weight of the melting tree slammed against the glowing shield and fell past its edges in bubbling streams. Corbie and Lindholm moved quickly in beside him and took some of the weight on their shields.
    All around the Squad the forest was collapsing