They were a quiet trio that took up the journey later. If Keeven noticed he was always center man, he made no sign.
The woods were dense and Keeven's mighty arm hacked often with the sharp blade to clear their path. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the woods began to change.
"We approach the Forbidden Area," Keeven's words were tense.
It was very silent. Insect and bird life seemed to have tabooed these habits. The landscape became twisted and strange. Seemingly normal trees sprouted bizarre growths. Giant bushes of a red mold color grew side by side with stunted trees that barely reached their knees, yet seemed fantastically aged.
The trio moved closer together, ears strained for normal sounds that did not exist there. The suffering ground was bitter, and erupted into convulsions, as though ejecting the monstrosities it had nurtured. Their feet ached from the humped and hollowed path. There was no whisper of wind. Yet Allyn shivered. A cold, ancestral fear laid lean fingers on his dry throat.
Light made their faces wan when they came to the edge of the deformed woods. Ahead was the narrow stretch of barren waste that led to the rotted wood paling. The paling was only token warning now, encircling the shunned and dreaded Forbidden Area.
Movement caught their eyes. Instinctively, they fell to earth, hardly breathing, watching.
Into their line of vision paced a Gard, flame gun in hand. Even as they watched another Gard paced in from the opposite direction.
Allyn's whisper was sick: "They've thrown a cordon around the Forbidden Area!"
Keeven caught a gleam on dark metal. "There's a gyro—to the left. Can you fly one?"