Sasha whimpered beside him before he realized how hard he was panting as well. He risked a glance behind him and saw nothing was behind them. All signs of the beast were gone. He slowed and pulled up short, forcing Sasha to slow with him. They looked around, breathing hard.
“ Where is it?” Sasha finally gasped.
“ Aran drew it away,” Klous said. “Or it got him.”
Sasha’s mouth gaped open, no words coming out. She trembled and fell to her knees, hugging her arms around herself. Klous noticed how the pose boosted her chest up and, being below him, he could easily see down her shirt. He ripped his focus away. The last thing they needed right now was him worrying about screwing her.
“ Where are we?” Sasha asked a few moments later.
Klous looked around, realizing that in their mad dash he’d lost all track of where they were. Not that he’d had much of an idea before, but with all of them together he assumed they could backtrack themselves at least. Now the thought of trying to follow their trail back seemed suicidal. There was a massive beast waiting for them, something that treated an overcharged laser rifle blast as though it was sunburn.
“ You’re in a pot of boiling water, one step away from being called shit stew.”
Klous swung around while Sasha cried out in surprise. A man stood there, a worn plasma rifle held in his hand and some other weapon slung across his back. He was wearing a mixture of some sort of body paint, some animal fur or hide, and boots that had seen better days.
“ Who’re you, old man?” Klous asked.
“ Funny, since I been here I been feeling younger and better every day,” The man said. “Now you shut the hell up unless I ask you something.”
Klous glanced at Sasha, then shrugged. “Two of us, you think you can take us?”
“ Shit, I don’t even need my guns,” he said, stepping forward. “You toss yours down and maybe you’ll get out of this alive.”
Klous noted how he moved, picking his feet up and walking carefully but smoothly. He was at home on the uneven and occasionally slippery jungle floor. The muscles that stood out through the camouflaging paint on his arms showed that the man might have been strong enough to wrestle the giant creature that had chased them.
Klous considered his options. The stranger was most likely one of the survivors from the Rented Mule. He wondered if he was the source of military influence that Brand had suspected.
“ Klous!” Sasha hissed.
He glanced at her sharply, irritated at the distraction. He saw she’d already tossed her rifle away from her. Like it mattered, she couldn’t shoot the damn thing straight. “Got a name?” Klous asked, pulling his own rifle off slowly and then tossing it to the ground.
“ Yeah,” He answered without offering it. “Now move back.” He waited until both Sasha and Klous had stepped back several paces before he gathered up their rifles. He checked them over and grunted. “Yep, same sons of bitches that tried to board us. If I could fly it myself I’d shoot you dead and take your ship for myself right now, but I can’t. Come on, let’s go. You walk in front of me. Try anything and I shoot you. You run and you’re on your own. That overgrown chicken chasing you? That’s not the biggest or the baddest thing around here.”
“ Klous, what about-“
“ Sasha, shut it,” Klous snapped at her. “Let’s go, stay between us.”
“ Good idea,” he said, then pointed off into the jungle. “Now move your ass that way!”
Klous tried to talk twice more before angry outbursts from their captor convinced him he was wasting his time and, according to the stranger, endangering them. He walked where he was told, all the while wondering how he could trick their captor into doing something stupid so he could get one of their rifles back or, better yet, get his hands on the plasma rifle the man carried.
Twice they stopped and waited, the first time Klous and Sasha exchanged confused looks. The second it was apparent when a group of two legged animals ran across their path several yards ahead of them. A moment later the fleeing animals were pursued by four beasts that Klous thought might have been related to terrestrial cats, except they possessed six legs. The pirate captain judged them to be only a little taller at their back than his hips. The way they moved and pounced, he knew he’d be hard pressed to go against one without at least a gun.
Less than an hour after the run-in with the six legged cats they were ordered to stop. “This is it, grab that rope and start climbing.”
Klous and Sasha looked at each other and then around. Finally she stepped forward and gestured at a vine hanging from a tree. Their captor grunted. Klous moved up to another one and took it. He studied it, noticing that it wasn’t a vine after all, but a bunch of fibers woven together to make a rope that looked just like a vine. Together they looked up and, together, they gasped in surprise.
Over two dozen feet up they saw rope and wood bridges connecting the trees together and offering paths between them. The trees had portions of them hollowed out, though from the ground they could see little more than shadows within the openings.
“ Welcome to Treetown,” he snapped. “Now quit gawking and get your asses up there!”