Page 119 of The Bone Season

Three guttural clicks stopped me.

Every muscle in my body tensed. My lips clamped together, and I froze in place, eyes wide. I took a deep breath and reached for the æther.

Something was very wrong. For the first time, I noticed the complete lack of animals. Not even an earthworm crawled in this area.

The æther should always feel lighter than air. Now it was clotting, as if the cold had spread from the corporeal world and started to freeze it. Within that terrible heaviness, I sensed the inverse of a dreamscape, more absence than presence. A black hole in the æther.

Fear stilled my limbs and tightened my throat. I couldn’t get moving until I distracted it. Distantly, I remembered the acid darts. Instinct told me to seek the safety of higher ground, but climbing would make too much noise. I felt along the soil, searching for something I could throw.

Every move I made seemed deafening – every breath, every rustle of my jacket. My fingers closed around a stone. I hurled it towards the black hole.

It hit a tree, then the ground. As the creature loped towards it, I thought I heard a buzzing, like a swarm of flies. It could have been outside or inside my head.

Nausea surged in my gut. Even after the oration, even after what David had told me, I had almost started to believe I would never see a Buzzer.

It was all I could do to keep myself standing. My hands and lips shook; my breathing shallowed. Could it hear my pulse, or smell my fear?

Was it aware of me?

The Buzzer rattled. I needed to leave, but I was light-headed, drained by the thickening in the æther. I slid off my backpack and reached inside, finding the gun with the acid dart. Only when I had it in my hand did I begin to run.

The Buzzer let out a deafening scream, but not a scream like any I had ever heard. It came as if from many throats – like hundreds of people howling in a ballroom, their voices overlapping, all roaring in a deranged cacophony. It set my hair on end and soaked my face in icy sweat.

I aimed into the black hole and fired.

The dart sizzled like hot fat in a pan. This time, the whole forest echoed the scream.

My spirit guide fled. I bolted as well, heading straight for the city.

A weight struck me square between the shoulders. The shock of it pitched me to the ground. Instinctively, I flung out a hand to stop my fall. My wrist bent too far back and broke. I strangled my scream a moment too late.

The Buzzer had just thrown a rock at me. It had enough intelligence to know how to extend its reach. My back ached from the impact.

My torch lay nearby. I grabbed it, shone it on the thing. In the heartbeat I had to look, I glimpsed two white pinpricks of eyes. A body that looked almost human, but somehow both withered and stretched. Had it stood up on two legs, it would have been taller than a Reph.

No sooner was I on my feet than it was on my tail. A rush of air went overhead – its elongated arm, grasping for me. I wove between the pines, hearing its claws scrape against bark, long and sharp as scythes. A dance of death with a grim reaper, seeking its harvest of bone.

My boots pounded. In the jolts of torchlight, I could have sworn I glimpsed dark shapes between the trees, but none of them had dreamscapes. Either I was seeing things, or those were more Buzzers.

Did they hunt in packs?

The flare gun was not an option. I would not fail this test. The memory of my cousin filled me, and hot rage flooded in, crushing the fear.

If I could survive the Dublin Incursion, I could survive Gallows Wood.

One good sprint would get me to the city, but my body was about to give out. The Buzzer moved in great lunges – its limbs cleared far more ground than mine. My agility was all that had kept me away from its claws.

I slewed down an incline, plastering myself in mud. At the bottom, I spotted a fallen tree and crawled inside, buying myself a few precious moments. Shaking with cold and exertion, I loaded another acid dart. Just as the Buzzer found my tree, I took out the syringe and punched the needle through my trousers, straight into my thigh.

A spring-loaded jolt of adrenalin shot into the muscle. Scion military adrenalin was designed to improve performance – not just to help the body function, but to wipe out pain, make you stronger. It would give me the last boost I needed.

I checked my watch, blotting my face. It was almost quarter to five.

Shit.

The Buzzer tore at the trunk. I scrambled out and hit it with the acid dart. This time, I stopped for long enough to see its grey flesh splitting open, steaming. Before it could recover, I launched into a dead run, my heart racing. The adrenalin had no effect on my sixth sense, but it made it easier to focus on the æther, so I could keep tabs on my pursuer.

Sweat drenched my clothes. I passed a rusted sign:USE OF DEADLY FORCE IS AUTHORISED. Good – for once, I was in desperate need of deadly force.

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