Free Web NovelChapter 52: Chapter 52: The Snatched Cub
The old serpent skull cracked open behind them.
Swanly did not look back at first.
She ran because Kael had one hand locked around her wrist, the second cub was clutched against his chest, Soren was coughing black blood behind them, and Thalara had said run in a voice that did not sound gentle anymore.
Then the ground shook. freewebnovёl.ƈom
Not like something heavy had stepped.
Like something buried under the entire Rot Nest had finally decided to move.
Black water leaped out of the old serpent’s mouth and poured down the bones in a rotten wave. Roots snapped out of the mud. Half-sunk skulls rolled. The rib bones of the dead serpent trembled above the water as if something below them was pushing upward with its back.
Raku turned first.
The crocodile beastman’s huge body went rigid.
"It was following us," he said, his voice rough.
Swanly’s blood chilled.
"What?"
Raku’s eyes stayed on the black water.
"The whole path. Under us. Behind us. Waiting."
Swanly finally looked back.
For one second her mind refused to understand.
The water beneath the serpent skull rose.
A gigantic head pushed out of the flood, too large to be any normal beastman and too rotten to be alive. It looked as if the Rot Nest had gathered drowned bodies, dead roots, beast bones and black river mud into one huge creature and forced it to wake.
Its skull was long and broken like some ancient swamp beast. Antlers of black root curved from its head. Its mouth opened from jaw to throat in a wet split lined with broken teeth. Bones grew through its skin like pale thorns. Dead fish, hair, roots and strips of old flesh hung from its sides.
Its eyes were not eyes.
They were hollows full of black water.
When it breathed, the whole swamp bubbled.
Swanly’s fingers tightened around the Cleanbirth Seed until her knuckles hurt.
The creature’s head lifted higher.
Behind it, the mud began to move.
Hundreds of infected turned toward them.
No.
More than hundreds.
Bodies peeled from trees. Half-sunk corpses rose from the water. Crooked beastmen crawled out of roots. Long-limbed infected dropped from branches with clicking throats. Some ran on two legs. Some ran on four. Some jumped from tree to tree. Some dragged broken bodies behind them and still moved too fast.
They did not attack yet.
They waited.
Like rabid dogs waiting for a command.
The giant thing opened its mouth.
Its voice rolled through the Rot Nest like mud filling a grave.
"Bring me the living female."
Swanly’s stomach dropped.
Every infected moved at once.
Thalara shot forward before anyone else did.
"This way," she said, her soft voice suddenly sharp with urgency.
Kael did not trust her.
Swanly did not trust her.
No one trusted her.
But she had warned them before the roots closed, and right now that was more than the Rot Nest had ever given them.
"Follow her," Swanly snapped.
Kael shifted without another word.
His body broke into black fur, muscle and claws, and his huge panther form dropped low in the mud. He looked at Swanly once, golden eyes blazing, and she understood before he made a sound.
"Get on."
Swanly did not argue.
She climbed onto his back with the Cleanbirth Seed shoved inside the fur bundle against her chest. The second cub was pushed tightly between her body and Kael’s neck, and Swanly wrapped one arm around him so hard he whimpered.
"Hold Mama," she said.
The cub sobbed into her sleeve.
"Mama hold."
"I have you."
Raku shifted behind them.
The crocodile beastman’s body grew larger, heavier and darker. Scales rose along his back like stone plates. His jaws lengthened, his tail slammed into the mud, and when he moved, the water split around him.
Soren’s full snake form burst through the black water with a hiss.
White scales flashed in the gray light. His enormous tail coiled once, then launched him forward. His upper body remained pale and bloody, his mouth still stained black, but his silver eyes were cold and awake.
Thalara ran ahead of them.
She did not move like a beast.
She moved like a nightmare that remembered every root in the forest. Her black claws struck bark and mud without slipping. Her long white hair streamed behind her. Her branch horns cut through hanging vines, and purple flowers shook loose from them as she leaped from root to root with terrifying grace.
"Do not follow the clear path," she called. "The Nest leaves clear paths when it wants you eaten."
Swanly’s heart hammered.
Behind them the infected screamed.
The sound crashed over the flooded forest like a living storm.
Kael ran.
His paws hit roots, mud and stone so fast Swanly could barely breathe. The second cub buried his face against her chest. Swanly bent over him, one hand locked in Kael’s fur, the other pressed over the bundle holding the Seed.
For a while she thought they might make it.
Then she looked back.
The infected were catching up.
They were not stumbling like normal corpses.
They were fast.
Too fast.
A leopard beastman with half its jaw gone bounded across roots with full hunting speed. A deer beastwoman with broken antlers leaped over a flooded trench. A long-armed thing dropped from a tree and ran along the side of a trunk like a spider.
Swanly’s breath caught.
"These are not normal infected."
Kael snarled without slowing.
The giant creature behind them moved slower, but each time its body pushed through the flood, the trees around it shook. The infected around it surged faster, as if its command poured strength into their rotten bodies.
Swanly understood.
It was not chasing them alone.
It was sending the whole Rot Nest.
"We are not going to outrun all of them."
Soren hissed from the side.
"We do not stop."
"They are catching us."
Thalara twisted midair and landed on a root ahead.
Her purple eye widened.
"She is right."
Kael dug his claws into the mud and skidded to a stop. freewebnσvel.cøm
Swanly almost flew forward, but his body dipped to catch her balance.
Raku slid beside them with a heavy splash.
Soren coiled around the side with his eyes on the horde.
The infected were coming through the trees.
Hundreds.
Thousands.
Too many for claws.
Too many for teeth.
Too many for arrows.
Swanly looked down at the black bow in her hand, then at the moving wall of infected.
"No."
Her heart pounded once.
The bow vanished into her space.
"This is not bow and arrow work."
Kael turned his head slightly.
Swanly reached into her space and pulled out the gun she almost never used.
It was not the small one.
It was heavy, dark and cold, with a thick body, strange silver grooves and a recoil strong enough to break a careless wrist. She had kept it for the kind of moment when survival stopped being clever and became ugly.
The system popped into view above her shoulder with a sharp golden flash.
{Host finally chooses violence properly.}
"Not now."
{Target scan starting.}
Golden lines appeared across Swanly’s vision.
The system’s small glowing hands moved fast in the air, pulling up invisible screens only Swanly could see. Red marks appeared over the charging infected. Their rot cores glowed through mud, bone and dead flesh.
{Shoot left. Tall one. Core under throat.}
Swanly aimed.
The gun roared.
The sound punched through the Rot Nest.
The tall infected exploded from chest to spine and fell backward into four others.
Swanly’s eyes widened despite herself.
"Okay."
{Shoot right. Leaper. Core behind jaw.}
She fired again.
The leaping creature’s head burst apart before it reached the tree above them.
Black blood rained down.
The second cub screamed into Swanly’s sleeve.
Kael’s entire body shook under her from the force of his rage.
More came.
Too many.
Swanly reached into her space again.
More guns appeared.
She shoved one toward Soren.
"I do not know if you know how to shoot."
Soren stared at the weapon.
Swanly shoved another toward Raku.
"I do not care."
Raku grabbed it with a snarl.
She pushed one toward Kael, who had shifted back halfway because he could not hold a gun with paws. His human upper body rose from black panther muscle, his ears flattened, his golden eyes fixed on the infected nearing them.
"Learn today."
Kael took it.
Swanly did not have time to teach them gently.
"Point the open end away from people you like. Finger here. Do not look inside it. Press and brace."
Raku fired first.
The shot went wild and blew a hole through a dead tree.
The tree screamed because something inside it had still been alive.
Raku stared at the gun.
Then he grinned with all his crocodile teeth.
"I like this."
Swanly did not answer.
Kael fired next.
The recoil slammed his arm back, but he adjusted in the same breath. His second shot struck an infected wolf beast in the chest. The third shot struck the rot core.
The wolf dropped.
Kael’s eyes flashed.
Soren fired last.
His first shot was too low.
His second shot was perfect.
He looked at the gun with cold interest.
Swanly almost wanted to snatch it back just from the expression on his face.
Then the horde reached them.
The world became noise.
"Kapow, Kapow, Kapow, Kapow!"
Gunfire cracked through the flooded forest. Kael stood beside Swanly and fired with savage focus, each shot steadier than the last. Raku laughed once as he blasted an infected bear backward into the water. Soren shot less often, but when he fired, he aimed at the rot cores the system marked near Swanly’s vision and killed cleanly.
Thalara did not use a gun.
She climbed.
One second she was beside Swanly, the next she was on the trunk above them. Her black claws sank into bark. Her long hair whipped behind her. She dropped onto an infected bird beast and tore its head off with both hands, then sprang away before three more could reach her.
Beautiful.
Terrifying.
Wrong.
Swanly had no time to stare.
{Host, left. Too close.}
She turned.
An infected hyena beastman lunged at Kael’s blind side.
Swanly shot it through the eye.
It kept coming.
She shot the rot core.
It fell at Kael’s feet.
Kael looked at her for one heartbeat.
There was gratitude there.
Pride.
Fear.
Love.
Then another infected rushed him and he turned back with a snarl.
The second cub cried against Swanly.
"Mama scared."
"I know."
Swanly fired again.
"Mama is scared too."
A crawling thing with four arms burst from the water and reached for the cub.
Something switched in Swanly’s head.
Not panic.
Something colder.
She stepped forward and fired three times into its chest, then once into its throat when it still crawled. Its body blew backward and sank.
"No."
Her voice was calm.
Too calm.
"No one touches my baby."
The horde thinned.
Then thickened again.
More came from the trees.
More from the water.
More from the mud.
The system’s glow flickered.
{There are too many. The command source is feeding them speed.}
Swanly looked past the infected.
The giant creature was closer now.
Much closer.
Its massive head dragged through the trees, snapping trunks as it moved. Roots crawled from its mouth and hooked into the mud. Black water poured off its body. Each time its empty eye hollows turned toward Swanly, the infected screamed louder.
Swanly’s stomach turned.
"I think we should run again."
"No argument," Raku growled.
Kael shifted fully again and dropped low.
Swanly shoved the gun into her space and climbed onto him with the cub.
Soren flung his gun back at her and shifted fully into his white serpent form. Raku crashed into the water in crocodile shape. Thalara leaped ahead through the trees and pointed toward a narrow gap between root cliffs.
"This way."
They ran again.
The horde ran with them.
The Rot Nest no longer pretended to be a forest.
It became a mouth.
Roots snapped at their ankles. Vines dropped from branches. Bodies in the mud clawed upward as they passed. Kael jumped a gap, landed hard, and kept going even when mud splashed into his wounds.
Swanly clung to him.
The second cub clung to her.
His small body shook so hard she felt every tremor through her chest.
Then he was gone.
It happened in one horrible breath.
A vine shot from the side, wrapped around the cub’s small waist, and ripped him out from under Swanly’s arm.
For one second Swanly’s arms were still curved around where he had been.
Then she saw him swinging above the water.
His little hands reached toward her.
"Mama!"
The world broke.
"No!"
Kael roared so violently the water rippled away from him.
Swanly almost threw herself off his back.
Kael twisted to catch her with his shoulder.
The vine dragged the cub toward a cluster of infected hanging from a tree.
They had learned.
They had realized the cub was her weak point.
The horde screamed.
Swanly’s voice tore out of her.
"Give him back!"
