Page 34 of Blightfall

“The city survived, though,” I said. “It has a stone wall around it, which might be good for ground defense, but it wouldn’t stand up to destructor fire for long.”

“She makes a good point,” Gilaf said.

A gust of wind blew overhead, though we were mostly sheltered from it. The moan of the shifting trees rose and fell, then off to our right, a scratching sound echoed through the forest, followed by a louder drawn-out creak.

Alanik turned toward the sound. “What was that?”

“I don’t know,” I said. The sound came again, accompanied this time by the rustling of leaves and underbrush.

And then one of the branches began to move—about thirty meters away and thick as my waist, it bent and shifted, climbing upward.

Oh scud. That wasn’t the wind. The branch groaned as it rose, coming to rest on a thicker branch, as if the tree had reached out a hand and laid it there for support.

“What the scud is that?” Nedd asked.

Stars, I’d assumed the trees had grown tangled up this way. They could just…reposition themselves? “Alanik?” I said. “Do the trees on your planet move their branches around?”

“Definitely not,” Alanik said, her eyes glued to the branch.

Closer to us, another branch lifted into the air, and then a whole section of the forest followed after it, like the tree had stepped forward and then shifted the rest of its body accordingly. Most of the trees remained still, but this patch appeared to be connected and—

“It’s alive,” Arturo said.

“All trees are alive,” Alanik said.

“Okay,” Arturo said. “But not like a tree is alive. Like an animal is alive.”

“Or a monster,” Gilaf said, his pin translating his words. Apparently their culture also had a concept of monsters. It seemed like a pretty universal idea.

The first branch lifted again, and this time it swayed toward us, setting down no more than five meters away. We edged closer together instinctively, and Nedd and Arturo drew their destructor pistols. Would a pistol shot even hurt a tree? I wasn’t sure it was threatening us, or that it even knew we were here.

“Everyone back slowly away,” Arturo said. “No sudden movements.”

We followed his instructions, though moving backward wasn’t easy through the thick underbrush, and I didn’t want to take my eyes off the branch to look behind me.

It shifted again, and this time, a mound of leaves and decaying bark lifted from the forest floor. Desiccated vegetation flaked off a gnarled hunk of purple-brown wood nearly as big as a starship. The knotted, burled wood contorted as two slits opened in the front of it, the outer layer of wood rolling back to reveal two black orbs with a shiny film across the surface, like…eyes.

Two low branches extended toward us—stars, were those legs?

“Oh, no,” Arturo said. “This is not happening.”

The tree leaned closer, and a musty draft wafted over us, hot and thick, like the thing’s breath.

“Spread out,” Arturo said, and we all scurried away from each other.

The tree focused on Arturo, lifting its branches one by one with its trunk suspended between them like the body of a spider. Its eyes—big as dinner plates—blinked steadily. They were glossy and pure black, which made them look kind of evil, but that didn’t mean they were evil.

Did it?

One of the branches—I couldn’t tell quite how many there were, tangled as they were with the rest of the trees—reached forward, approaching Arturo. As he stumbled back, the tip of it made contact with his shoulder, pushing him into a bush.

Arturo lost his footing and rolled off the bush onto his feet again. The tree crouched over him, emitting a rush of wind that blew his hair back.

“Run,” Arturo ordered.

And we did. Loath as I was to tear my eyes from the thing, I couldn’t guarantee that its next strike wouldn’t impale me, so I leaped over the nearest log and ran in the opposite direction. The others darted away as well, with Gilaf out in front and Arturo lagging behind. The sounds of groaning wood followed, joined by rattling leaves and cracking twigs as the thing paced after us.

I threw myself over another log and allowed a glance over my shoulder. We were putting distance between ourselves and it, possibly because it had to maneuver its branches around many living and dead trees to pursue us.