“Different? Why?”
Seb kept his voice low. “Slum dwellers have been kicked for years, haven’t they?”
“Yep.”
“They have no self-esteem. No hope.”
“Right.”
“So who are they more likely to follow into battle? Someone who looks like them, someone weak and tired and not deserving of a better life than the one they currently have. Or someone who looks like they belong up there.” Seb pointed up at the elevated part of the city and he saw Bruke stare up at it with his mouth open wide. “Someone who’ll stand up to a freak like the monster we just encountered.”
“Okay,” Bruke said with a sigh. “I get your point.”
A nod and Seb said, “We’re going to do this, Bruke. And we need to start laying the groundwork now.”
The conversation between Seb and Bruke ended. When Seb looked behind him, he saw the green scaly creature frown at him, but he didn’t speak again. Janina and her family all watched on without saying anything. They needed to get back to Phulp’s hut now. Maybe they could talk some more when they got there.
Chapter 17
The cold and hard ground of Phulp’s hut sent pains through Seb’s body that balled as a buzzing sting in his hips. He rocked to ease the sensation, but it did little against the frigid and unforgiving ground. He hated it here, but he couldn’t complain. Bruke had spent a night in a tent with a river of sewage running through it just to get shelter. The rickety little structure they currently occupied seemed palatial in comparison to that.
Once everyone else had settled in the small, cold, and uncomfortable place, Seb slipped his backpack off and slid it next to the door. It made a whooshing sound from the fabric scraping against the rough rocky ground. When he looked back at the others, he saw all of them had watched him do it, but none of them asked what the bag contained. If they had, he would have told them, but Janina and the kids didn’t need to see any more of the wax pebbles their dad had been forced to eat.
“Right,” Bruke said while clapping his hands together. “Can I make anyone some food?”
All three of the kids came to life and their hands shot into the air. Seb looked up at the rickety ceiling above them. It hadn’t rained on Solsans since he’d been there, but when it did, the hut didn’t look particularly well set up to deal with it.
“Janina?” Bruke said.
Phulp’s wife nodded and pulled a tight-lipped smile.
“Seb?”
How did he tell them? Seb smiled also and said, “No, thank you. I’m not hungry.”
For the perpetually starving, ‘not hungry’ clearly seemed like an alien concept. Wide eyes and open mouths regarded him; even Janina struggled to contain her dismay.
“Can I have his?” Jince asked.
“Jince!” Janina said and scowled at the little girl, who took the scorn by turning her back on her mother and hunching her shoulders.
While Bruke busied himself lighting the stove, Phulp moved closer to Seb and said, “Why didn’t you fight them?”
“The soldiers in the woods?”
“Yeah.”
A quick look at Janina and Seb saw she seemed as interested in his answer as the kids were. “Fighting isn’t always the best course of action, you know.”
“It’s not?”
“If I’d have fought the soldiers, I would have had to kill them, right?”
The mention of killing seemed to stun the small boy, rendering him mute.
“If I hadn’t killed them, they would have gone back to the Countess and told her what happened. I mean, she probably knows I’m in the slums anyway.” Seb pinched his flight suit and pulled it away from his body. “I don’t exactly look subtle in this get-up, and my skin’s nowhere near as pale as the rest of yours is. So with that in mind, I want to keep as inconspicuous as possible. If I start killing people, she’ll come after me now. We could do with a little more time.”
“Inconslictous?” Phulp asked.
Another look at Janina and the two of them shared a smile. “Inconspicuous,” Seb said. “It means hidden, under the radar. Besides, I had you lot with me and there were a lot of guards out there. I couldn’t guarantee your safety in a battle. There’s plenty of time for me to fight with the foot soldiers.”
A frown crushed Phulp’s face and the girls on either side of him stared at Seb.
Jince then said, “But I thought you were tough.”
A deep breath and Seb growled as he leaned forward. “I am tough!” The small hut amplified the bass tones in his voice.
Jince whimpered and pulled back.
Another growl and Seb lurched forward, scooping the smallest of the three children up in his arms.
Somewhere between a laugh and a scream, Jince twisted and writhed to try to get free of his grip.
But Seb didn’t let her go and he tickled her as he boomed, “I’m super tough.”
The other two children ran at Seb and jumped on his back. Their laughs joined Jince’s.
Seb roared again and hunched over on all fours as the children climbed on him. “I’m the toughest there is. The toughest in all the galaxy.”
At that moment Seb pretended to fall over and die. He rolled onto his back, careful not to squash one of the children, and spoke as if he struggled to get his dying words out. “I’m a fierce warrior. Three children are no match for me.”
The three kids giggled and all jumped on his belly and chest, pinning him down by lying across him.
“I can defeat you.” He flipped his body in a convulsion to fake his death and groaned, “I can …” and with that, he fell completely limp.
After a few seconds, Seb opened his eyes again and looked over at Janina and Bruke. Tears ran down Janina’s face and she moved close to Seb and smiled. She put a hand on his forearm and whispered, “Thank you. They needed that.”
As soon as Seb sat back up again, little Phulp jumped on him. He wrapped his arms around Seb’s neck and hung from him.
While making fake gargling noises, Seb laughed. “You three are some of the toughest warriors I’ve met, you know? I’m glad I’ll never have to fight you lot.”
The kids—charged with childish giddiness—wanted to continue the fight, but Seb needed to get on. Janina clearly sensed this because she called at them, “Come on, kids, Seb’s tired now.”
All three of them frowned as they looked at Seb, a half-smile on each of their faces to show they didn’t quite believe what their mother said.
“It’s true.” Seb nodded and sighed. “The great Seb, the fierce warrior, has been worn out by three very brave children.”
All three of them seemed to grow another few inches before they walked back to their mother and sat around her on the cold and hard ground.
A look over at the door and the pallet covering it and Seb sighed. “So I need to go somewhere.”
Even Bruke, who had seemed completely occupied with his cooking, turned to look at Seb.
“You what?” Janina asked.
“I need to go somewhere before we move forward with our plan to fight the Countess. I need a day, maybe two, to sort a few things out.”
“What?” Bruke asked, leaving his pot bubbling on the stove. “What do you need to sort out?”
“Things.”
“And what about us?” The children nodded at Bruke’s words. “What do we do while you’re gone?”
“Start some rumours.”
Such a thick frown on his face it looked painful, Bruke said, “What are you talking about?”
As he edged closer to the door, Seb said, “Tell the neighbours something big’s coming. They already know something’s up. I can’t believe me arriving in this place dressed the way I am hasn’t spread like wildfire.”
As much as Bruke looked like he wanted to contend what Seb said, he shrugged.
“They need to know the Countess’ days are numbered. They need to know a revolution’s coming.”
“And what if it gets back to her?” Janina ask
ed.
“Good.”
The children pulled back at Seb’s words.
“Let it get back to her. She won’t be able to do anything about it now. It’s worth the risk to get everyone in the slums on side. If we can get everyone up for it, it won’t matter what the Countess knows. They won’t be able to stop us.”
None of the others replied.
“So talk to the neighbours and let them talk to their neighbours. Talk and talk. Just don’t tell them it’s me yet. Let them speculate, although they probably won’t need to think on it for long to work it out. I promise you, I’ll be a day or two at the most.”
The same confused frown sat on Janina’s and the children’s faces. Little Jince cried at the news.
“Okay?” Seb said to Bruke.
Bruke finally said, “Okay.”
And with that, Seb moved over to the door of the hut, picked up his backpack, and slipped out into the cold, dark, and misty slum.
Chapter 18
The elevated city’s shadow stretched out over the slum, turning it even darker. The closer Seb walked towards it, the deeper the pitch until he could barely see his feet. The temperature also seemed to drop, lifting gooseflesh along his arms and the back of his neck. His heart heavy, his legs leaden, he looked up at the top of the enormous protrusion. Maybe this would be a mistake, but he had to know.
When he reached the base of the elevated city, Seb looked all the way up it again and his head spun. Although a vile community of greedy beings, it would be a million times better up there. Anything would be better than where he planned to go next. A look into the dark crevice leading to the sewers and his heart galloped.
A deep inhale to settle his nerves and Seb pulled the reek of the sewers into his lungs. He slipped his backpack from his shoulders and removed his torch from it. His hand shook as he fumbled to turn it on. The bright beam lit up the dark wall and the crevice, but did little to penetrate the void beyond.
One final deep breath and Seb looked over both shoulders. When there didn’t seem to be anyone else near, he entered the dark cave in front of him.
Not that Seb had forgotten his experience of walking through the place only a few days previously, but he reeled at becoming reacquainted with the reality of it. The dark walls and floor glistened as if the rocks sweated with a fever. Humidity hung heavy in the bitter air; the dampness clung to his skin, worked into his bones, and made his joints ache almost instantly.
When Seb pointed his torch up at the ceiling, he saw the white and bobbled coating on the rock. It ran so dense he couldn’t see the dark stone beneath them. “Mushrooms,” he muttered. “Mushrooms everywhere.”
A river of shit ran through the middle of the sewer. A brown, churning mess of frothy water. Its current pushed stronger than many rivers Seb had seen before. Hopefully he wouldn’t have to swim in it again. An elevated path ran down either side of it. For no other reason than he currently stood closer to that side, Seb picked the right of the two walkways. Neither looked appealing.
Once he’d gone just a few metres into the sewers, the rushing sound of shit water surrounded him. Despite being so close to the slum, he’d left that world behind now. He’d entered a different dimension. He’d committed to see this through.
The sound of the water called through the expansive network of tunnels ahead. That, Seb could cope with, but then he heard something else and paused. An extra disturbance maybe. A splash of something breaking the surface. It sounded huge, like a tentacle or a gigantic domed head. But maybe not. He could be imagining it. After what he’d seen the last time he’d been in the sewers, it would be perfectly rational to be a bit paranoid.
A few metres farther and Seb could already taste the stale air on the back of his tongue. Each breath felt like it dragged a disease into his body. Almost as if spores floated in the air and every inhale pulled more of the infection into his lungs. He shone his light on the mushrooms above him, expecting to see motes floating around them. He didn’t see any, but no doubt they tainted the already rancid environment with their poison.
Another splash broke the water behind him and Seb spun around, shining his torch into complete darkness. Had he been brave or stupid to come into the sewers? Either way, he had questions that needed answers and it seemed like the best place to start.
The labyrinthine maze of walkways bisected every few metres. Every turn Seb took relied on intuition. It must have taken Phulp years to learn the mazy paths through the dank tunnels. But if he had plans to leave like Janina said, then maybe he needed to know how to access the elevated city. There wouldn’t be any other way off the dreary planet.
A loud splash came through the tunnels again. Distant, but loud—definitely larger than the other creatures they’d encountered.
A second later, another, even louder splash came at Seb. More than one of them together. Because of the interconnected maze of walkways, the sound hit him from several angles. Impossible to pinpoint. Impossible to run away from.
Seb shone his torch down on the water below. Maybe the disturbance affected its flow, but maybe not. Hard to tell as he stared at the churning and twisting river. The torchlight shook at the end of his outstretched arm. He couldn’t do much about it now anyway. Another sweep of his torch revealed nothing more.
“Come on, Seb,” he said to himself, and after rolling his shoulders and raising his chin, he delved deeper into the sewer.
Chapter 19
It felt like hours had passed, but then five minutes in the dark and dank space felt like hours. The smell seemed to get worse the longer Seb spent down there and the splash of breaking water came at him sporadically. Because he found no landmarks to gauge his progress by, for all he knew he could have been walking in circles for the entire time he’d been down there.
Another loud splash called at Seb from the distance and, like he’d done every time before, he froze. He would have looked in the direction of the noise if he could pinpoint it. Instead, it came at him as a wash of sound from multiple tunnels. Because he couldn’t locate it, he couldn’t run away from it.
Seb continued and turned down the next tunnel he came to. He had no good reason for his navigational decisions other than he felt the urge to make them.
It had already been a long day, and as Seb’s strength slipped away from him, so did his will to keep going. He’d killed some Crimson soldiers, watched a fight in the pit, had a run-in with a minotaur, and now this. The permanent darkness of Solsans made it almost impossible to gauge how much time had passed. Maybe he should have slept. Maybe he’d been awake for a couple of days already. It certainly felt that way. But where would he rest now? Not exactly the best place to catch forty winks.
So when Seb came to a crack in the wall to his right, he stopped and shone his torch through. There seemed to be some sort of cave beyond. It would have to do; at least the gap certainly looked too small for a tentacle to fit through.
Another splash ran through the complex maze of tunnels. Louder than any of the other splashes, it sounded as if a whale had leapt from the water. Seb looked around, his heavy heartbeat rocking him where he stood. If he passed up this opportunity to rest, who knew when he’d get another chance, and if he passed up this opportunity to hide, maybe he wouldn’t ever get out of the sewers.
A second splash rushed through the dark maze. Seb hadn’t heard two so close together before. Then another splash.
A second later, the rushing sound of a waterfall reached him. It sounded like a large domed head rising from the river of shit. A look at the water and he saw more than its raging current. For the first time since he’d been down there, something disrupted the flow of it.
A rush of adrenaline added rocket fuel to Seb’s actions. He wriggled free of his backpack and dropped it on the ground. A shake ran through his clumsy hands as he unzipped it and slipped his torch inside. He dragged the bag next to the gap and went in first, turning sideways so he could fit through the narrow space.
Tighter than h
e’d initially anticipated, Seb pushed into the crack and got stuck. His chest and shoulder blades pressed into the rough rock.
The rush of the water came closer, followed by another splash as if the thing had leapt as it raced towards him. It sounded like more than one.
A long exhale to force the air from his body and Seb pushed farther into the gap. The jagged walls bit through his flimsy flight suit. He managed to move a few inches, but still didn’t get all the way through.
“Come on,” he muttered to himself through clenched teeth and he wriggled, each movement ripping at his chest and shoulder blades.
Thankfully the walls were wet. The lubrication allowed him to steal an extra inch, and then another. He gritted his teeth against the raking pain and pushed on, the sound of the oncoming beasts spurring him forward.
Blind without his torch, Seb listened to the monsters getting closer. They sounded nearby. Where he’d heard the splashes coming at him from multiple tunnels, they now came from just one. They were closing in.
Panic rose up in Seb and threatened to choke him. He gasped as he pushed on, the tight pinch crushing his lungs.
When he got just metres from the cave on the other side, the water from the river kicked up and splashed against Seb’s hand and the side of his face. A tsunami heading his way, he shouted, “Come on!” at himself.
A scream met Seb’s call. Deep and loud as if driven from a gargantuan diaphragm. It shook the walls, vibrating through the rock holding Seb and rattling his vision.
Seb ground his jaw and yelled as he pushed harder than ever. It crushed his body, but he still couldn’t get through.
Then silence.
Fire tore through Seb’s chest and back as the rough wall held him in a vice-like grip.
The water whooshed next to him as the sound of something broke through the surface and rose up.
The Shadow Order - Books 1 - 8 + 120 Seconds (The complete series): A Space Opera Page 42