Page 195 of Hunters and Prey

Running

IRAN, BRANCHES SCRATCHING my arms and legs, batting my face, whipping against my cheeks, throat and jaw.

My breath burned in my lungs.

Some of that was exertion, but not all of it.

There was something strange about the air here.

It was too wet, too heavy, too filled with particulates. It smelled strange, like burning plastic and decaying plant matter, mixed with other, less-familiar chemicals that seemed to coat my throat with every breath I sucked into my mouth and lungs.

I could barely see from the mugginess of the water-filled air.

I was trying to get to the top of the hill.

I wanted to be able to see, and to get out of the swamp of the lowlands.

Reaching the bottom of the steep slope, I began vaulting up the wet, plant-covered rise, sliding on leaves, fighting my way up using tree trunks and pieces of rock and metal to keep my balance. I dug my bare feet into the mulchy earth to keep from sliding where I could, trying not to think about what might be rotting under my bare soles and toes.

It seemed to take forever to get to the top.

By the time I made it, I was winded.

I also finally got the view I’d been looking for.

Reaching the first of several flat, terrace-like steppes, I climbed up the last bit of peak, which was overgrown with the same odd trees that seemed to cover the land here. With their skin-like bark, I didn’t even like touching them; it felt like putting my hand on the belly of a lizard or a toad.

When I reached the very top, I could finally see at a real distance.

The forest stretched down below me, all the way over a series of rolling hills to reach the water on three sides. On the fourth side, the forest rose up in another ridge of hills. I could see rudimentary buildings there, most of them on stilts.

Across the water, a larger city rose in the distance, filled with silver and black towers.

It was too far away to see clearly, but the shape and height of those towers suggested an urban center of some kind, one that had to be modern in some sense, even if it looked more like a dystopian alien apocalypse city than it did any city I knew from home.

The smoke over those obelisk-like towers was even thicker than what I smelled in the air here. It bled across the sky in unnatural-looking ripples and clumps, a blood-red color that made me think less of fire and more some kind of gas weapon.

Combined with that humid air, just looking at those distant clouds made me feel light-headed, like I wasn’t getting enough oxygen into my lungs.

I stopped up there long enough to catch my breath, trying to use the vantage point strategically, in addition to trying to get the lay of the land.

I needed to know if I was still being followed.

I couldn’t hear anything, but I strained to listen anyway. My eyes scanned the horizon, even as my seer’s light stretched out cautiously, looking for signs of life. I fought to think through options as I walked the edges of the round top of the hill.

Something nagged at the back of my head.

I was here for a reason.

I was here to find something.

The problem was, I had no idea what.

Shoving the thought from my mind, I focused on the present, on my immediate problem.

I needed to figure out a way to stay alive.

I knew coming up here had been a risk. I might be making myself more visible, being so high up, but enough trees surrounded me, even at the summit, I had to hope I didn’t stand out too much from the valley or the opposite ridge of hills.

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