Part 77

The Gryph pilot had somehow, by some miracle managed to touch down without further damage. Only roughing up the paintwork slightly. The crew shakily disembarked the vessel, the field they had landed in was thick with the smog, the relatively flat surrounding area that could be made out soon disappeared into the deep grey mist, first to shadows, and then to nothing. The Pilot jumped from his cockpit, slapping the hull of the hovercopter, saying words in his language that sounded harsh.

Chittering and branches snapping could be heard in all directions. "Probably just wild life..." muttered Lyra, all the confidence from her statement drained away. A distant roar silenced the chittering, but the snapping and creaking of timber came louder and more violent. "Yeah. Wild life." retorted a surviving crewman who had his arm in a sling. His free hand shot to the hand of another crewman who gripped it tightly in return, their matching golden plain band rings seemed dulled by the fog, but the primitive act visibly settled the two's nerve.

After a painfully long few minutes as everyone held their breath and refused to make a sound, the roar didn't return. But the silence never lasted long on this planet, the chittering began again, all around, as if the planet simply needed to fill the silence. The noise seemed to have a certain urgency about it, Solomon instantly felt rushed with a stress wave creeping up his spine, as if a hunter was close on his trail with a loaded gun and was just a flick of an eye away from locating him as prey.

With the smog darkening from something above unseen, Solomon loaded his weapon, his last clip. Thirty five bullets was all he had left for his automatic rifle. Swearing at the dire situation of the day once more, he checked his pistol side arm belt; five clips left. The darkness subsides for a few seconds before returning, the shadows became lost with the light and the group's vision lessened in distance. Sykra rubbed the back of his neck as he gave out a small sigh of desperation that mixed in to the symphony of the chittering and breaking of branches.

"We have to move. Sykra, The Fortress of Forgod is roughly north north east from us, about five or six miles, by my guess, would you agree?" the Gryph looked around manically trying to see any landmarks through the darkened fog only to return to Solomon with a heavy resigned shrug. Solomon turned to the Gryph pilot who nodded his head to the other Gryph that had climbed out of the cockpit area, who was the navigator and he nodded in approval. Solomon pulled out his compass and found the direction of his estimate, pointed the way and encouraged everyone to follow him. The sixteen humans and three gryph made their way slowly and cautiously through the smog. The tufty grassy field soon turned into rough ground with shrubbery scratching at their calf's and then turned into a woodland. The trees started thin and few in number, but soon grew thicker bodied and became a horde of wood. The group seeing no more than ten meters in any direction, now could only make out as far as the next few trees.

Breathing came heavier, more unsteady as the chittering rose and fell in volume, the creaking and cracking of the lumber became more and more violent, only to suddenly stop for some time and to start as suddenly and as violently as before. After a while, the group could predict the rhythm of the breaking wood, one of the crew mentioned the exact time keeping it had, voicing the possibility that it was mechanical. Sykra looked over his shoulder, "Possible. We auto mine. No one needed to work. I think no-one here in wood sea though. I wrong, maybe." a long strained animalistic shriek echoed through the misted tree sea, so loud, the group looked up, raising their weapons, pointing it at an invisible enemy that long vanished into the smog.

The uneven ground rose and fell, dusted with fallen leaves, all colour taken away by the dull grey mist. Here and there, Solomon could catch a glimpse of a small animal rushing up and away from their movements, this gave him little hope. Small hope that life still hadn't fallen to the Banshee infection wholly. Small hope, was still hope. He'd take what little he could. "Come on, not far now." he said more for his own benefit and comfort than the groups.

Forgod City flashed and cracked sporadically with muzzle flashes from the conflict on the streets. Gryph forces had long become overrun, destroyed or beaten back to the outer city by the Pirate invasion force. When The Evergreen came down, the pursuing explosion had created such a force, that it toppled many of the towers, destroyed most armour or attack vehicles either side had, and scattered every single combat unit, if not killing some outright. The Gryph had learnt to protect their vast settlements with signature blocking technology, so any scanning ship without the correct codes would see no activity in the whole of the city. This is what Eve saw, and allowed Kyril to destroy most of the remaining life. The smoke and weather soon turned the once beautiful and proud city into a mire of bogged out ruins, blinded with dull grey. Banshee's swamped the streets like a river bursting a dam's restrictive embrace. Tens of thousands now hunted, stalking any living thing. Little pockets of resistance still fought. When making contact with the Banshee's or Mutated Mares, the fight had been short, brutal and excessively bloody. Something changed in the Mare's method's. They no longer desired to increase numbers. They just simply killed now.