Read Ghostworld (Deathstalker Prelude) for Free Online Page A

out of the fog to every side, and once-familiar faces seemed to stare from the mists at the corners of his eyes, but he never looked round. The forest was full of old memories, few of them pleasant. Silence concentrated on the man he’d come to find, the traitor called Carrion. The man who’d been his friend, ten long years ago.
    The heating elements in his uniform kept his body comfortably warm, but the bitter cold seared his bare hands and face. The Empire kept promising to supply gloves to go with the uniform, but somehow the budget was always too tight. He grimaced stoically, and did his best to ignore the cold. He wasn’t far from his destination now. Theoretically, Carrion could be anywhere on Unseeli, shielded from the pinnace’s sensors by his unnatural esper abilities. He had a whole world to hide in, but Silence knew where he’d be. Carrion was waiting for him in the clearing half a mile from the landing field, the place where Carrion had lived with the Ashrai in their tunnels under the earth, the place he called home.
    He stopped for a moment, and activated his comm implant. “Carrion, this is John Silence, Captain of the Darkwind . Can you hear me?” He waited, but there was no reply. He wasn’t surprised. Carrion wasn’t stupid enough to give himself away that easily. Anyone could be listening in on an open comm channel, and he knew it.
    Something moved suddenly at the edge of Silence’s vision, and he snapped round, disrupter in hand. There was nothing there, but Silence had a strong feeling that something had been. Whatever had attacked the pinnace during its descent had found him again. There were sudden darting movements in the mists to his left and right, behind and ahead of him. Silence started forward again, careful to keep his pace slow and unhurried. He felt a growing need to break into a run as the shadows moved inexorably closer, but he didn’t. It wouldn’t be wise to give them the idea he was running from them. It wouldn’t be safe. He wasn’t far from the clearing now. It occurred to him that they might not want him to meet Carrion, and the first stab of uncertainty brought beads of sweat to his face despite the cold. He had to reach Carrion. He had to.
    Glowing streamers of quickly changing hues spun in the mists ahead of him, pushed and tugged at by an unfelt wind. There was a sudden sharp crack as a long metal branch snapped off a nearby tree. Silence threw himself to one side just as the jagged spike slammed into the ground where he’d been standing. Cracking sounds echoed from every side as more branches broke off from the trees, raining down about him as he ran dodging and ducking down the path towards the clearing. His boots thudded hard on the unyielding ground, jarring him painfully. He threw himself this way and that, lungs straining against the cold air, and the metal spears slammed into the ground all around him. Silence ran on, refusing to be slowed or intimidated. He’d come too far to be stopped now. A jagged spike torethrough his uniform and slid painfully across his ribs before falling away. Silence thought he’d got away with only a bruise, until he glanced down and saw the wide patch of blood staining his side. Another spike flew at his face, and he deflected it at the last moment with an upraised arm. Blood flew on the air as the uniform sleeve tore, and the impact numbed his arm.
    There were things in the forest now, moving with him as he ran. He could hear them pounding between the trees, the ground shaking from their weight. Silence plunged on, his breath burning in his heaving chest. His gun was still in his hand, but he couldn’t see a target anywhere. And then the path ended suddenly, blocked by a clump of needle-thorned briar that had grown up around a fallen tree. Silence staggered to a halt, and dropped to his knees by the massive trunk of a golden tree. He put his back to the trunk and glared wildly about him. The briar blocked the way completely, and