Toxic Game (GhostWalkers #15) - Christine Feehan Page 0,7
new territory. The village made an agreement with the local poachers to leave the tiger alone in exchange for trading their copper exclusively with them. Even with that agreement in place, traps were set for poachers looking for tigers or other rare animals. Draden couldn’t afford to be caught in one of them.
Heavy vegetation surrounded Lupa Suku. Tall dipterocarp trees joined at the top to gather into a canopy. Climbing their trunks were woody, thick-stemmed lianas and dozens of species of epiphytes. Orchids and ferns also lived on the trunks and derived their nourishment from the air.
Flowers were everywhere, and the exotic plants and vines were surprisingly colorful. Several trees and brush held the colored flowers up and out. Cicada trees lined a path from the water to the inland village, more trees forming a barrier to the peat swamp, the flowers threatening to blossom at any moment.
Draden drank in his surroundings with both appreciation and sorrow. The beautiful path led to a village that should have been thriving. Instead, it was now a path to certain death. The stench was unbelievable. The WHO camp had been set up a distance away from Lupa Suku, but still within sight. He could see that members of the MSS had ransacked the camp after killing the workers and doctors. Some lay dead in their hazmat suits. He went right past their camp and entered the village.
It was eerily silent. A pit had been dug and the bodies had already been placed inside of it for cremation by the WHO. Even the fuel was sitting there in cans. It would burn hot and fast. Draden made a quick circuit of the village to make certain no bodies had been left behind before he doused all buildings with the accelerant and then the bodies in the pit. He lit the entire thing on fire and then backed away from the terrible heat.
He was fortunate that it wasn’t raining, although the forest around Lupa Suku was saturated. He moved into deeper forest, away from the flames shooting into the air, going farther inland so that the sentries the MSS had left behind would have to actively search for him.
He covered his passing through the peat swamp, using trees to travel in rather than making his way across the wet ground. He found a nice place to wait—the branches of a hardwood tree. Around him were aromatic spice trees, but this one had a nice crotch where several branches met at the main trunk, providing him with a semi-comfortable place to rest.
Draden remained very still and quiet so that all around him the insects and rodents in the forest once more became active. They made for good sentries. He drank water he’d retrieved from one of the fallen Rangers’ packs while he studied the forest around him. Fig trees were abundant, mass-producing enough fruit twice a year to feed many of the forest’s inhabitants, including the endangered helmeted hornbill. The forests were rich in valuable hardwood and he saw the evidence of that all around him. The tree he’d chosen was in the middle of a grove of exotic fruit trees that attracted a tremendous amount of wildlife.
Colorful birds were everywhere. He identified scarlet-rumped trogon and the red-naped trogon. Eventually, he spotted the Asian paradise flycatcher and a blue-throated bee-eater. He’d already seen the blue-eared kingfisher when he’d been closer to the river. He looked for the rarest of the birds, the helmeted hornbill, wanting a sign of good luck, but there were none to be seen. This was a place poachers often came to trap birds to sell in other countries as there were so many sought-after species. That, in turn, could mean there were traps set by the villagers.
Farther out from the fruit trees was a small grouping of Cinnamomum burmanni trees. This village had everything it needed, not only to survive, but to thrive. The cinnamon in the bark could be harvested and traded as well as used by the villagers.
Draden took his time studying the layout of the forest floor. Once the members of the MSS came, he would have to move fast, kill most and then track one back to their nest. He wanted to know where every trap might be, so he didn’t get caught in one. After mapping out the forest floor in every direction as far as he could see, he marked the places he thought a trap most likely would be set.