Deathstalker 07 - Deathstalker Return

jungle. The towering trees had thick black boles and heavy crimson leaves with sharp serrated edges. All around, the jutting foliage and sudden bursts of undergrowth were every shade of red, in fierce organic hues, as though they had walked inside a living body. Bright pink streamers of crawling vines and matted ivy curled around the black tree trunks, moving slowly, constantly, like dreaming snakes. Bloodred lianas and hanging vines twisted and swung slowly, though there wasn't a breath of a breeze on the still air. Even the ground was covered with pulsing scarlet mosses and mulch.
    And everywhere, every part of the jungle was moving, seething, twisting, and stirring, awake and aware and slowly aggressive. For millions of years there was nothing but plant life on Lachrymae Christi, until the Empire came and made it a colony. A leper colony, to be exact. There was no cure and no hope for them, so the sufferers were just rounded up and dumped there, and no one gave a damn if they survived or not. For a long time there was war between the leper colonists and the unrelenting jungle, until Tobias Moon came and made telepathic contact with the mass consciousness of the plant life—the Red Brain—and brokered a symbiotic peace. At least, that was the legend. Lewis didn't have the faith in legends that he once had.
    But the peace applied only in and around the cities. In the wild, the plants were just as hungry and vicious as they'd ever been. Some of the larger plants were already lurching eagerly towards the intruders, with lunch on their mind. Lewis shot several of them, and Rose tore several more to shreds, and Brett kicked hell out of a shrub, just to be doing his bit. Several small fires broke out, quickly smothered by surrounding plants. After that, the bigger plants pretty much ignored the party, as long as they didn't get too close. The rain kept drizzling down, and hot steam rose up on the still air.
    Lewis drew his sword and set about the slow progress of cutting a trail through the uncooperative mass of vegetation before him. It was hard work and slow going. His sword jarred painfully against the heavier branches, and vines clung stickily to his blade until he jerked it free. He pressed on, his arm rising and falling mechanically, while sweat dripped from his face. The others stuck close behind him, while the jungle slowly closed the trail behind them.
    The air was thick and heavy with so many scents it was like an overwhelming perfume that raised strange atavistic feelings. It was as though they belonged in the jungle, and always had. Like coming home…
    There was more oxygen in the air than they were used to, and it left them all feeling heady and a little giddy. The rain slowed to a steady pitter-patter. The overhead canopy of interlocking tree branches was much thicker than it had been, this close to the human settlements, due to the intervention of the Red Brain. But even so,
    Lewis and his companions were soon soaked through, as much from sweat as rain, as they plowed through the humid air of the uncooperative jungle. Only the reptiloid Saturday wasn't physically discomforted, the rain running easily off his scaly hide. Of them all, he should have been the most at home, but the semisentient jungle disturbed him greatly, and his great wedge head swung constantly back and forth, alert for any attack. On his world, the plants were the only things that didn't try to kill you. He chewed on a few things experimentally, but usually just spat it out again. Evolution had not designed Saturday to be a vegetarian.
    Rose didn't approve of the jungle at all, and said so loudly. Rose was a city person, born and bred, and had no use at all for the great outdoors. She liked roads and transport and climate control, and all the other niceties of the human condition. Weather is what poor people have, she said sniffily. Also, killing plants did nothing for her. It seemed somehow beneath her.
    Brett was miserable, but then he always was. At least no one was shooting at him here. Yet.
    Lewis slogged along at the front of the group, opening a path through the stubborn jungle with his sword and occasionally the razor-sharp edges of his force shield. It was slow, hard work, and even his hardened muscles grew weary in time. After one particularly long break for Lewis to get his breath back, Saturday volunteered to take over. He slammed through the crimson vegetation, using his size and bulk and weight to force open a trail, but