Burden of Sisyphus (Brink of Distinction book #1)

by Jon Messenger

The Seque was caught by surprise by the inky black form launching itself through the air. It lashed out with jagged claws, slashing the Seque’s chest and arms. A clawed hand struck the side of the beast’s face, digging sharp nails through the monster’s tough hide. Latching its fingers under the Seque’s skin, the figure clawed downward.

  Gray hide tore from the vicious slash, spewing green, frothy blood as the nails dragged farther down its face. Tearing past the Seque’s left eye, a sharp nail ripped open the enlarged orb, deflating the eye and spilling sickly white fluid down the Seque’s ruined face.

  Collapsing to the ground, the Seque mewled in pain as it clutched the flap of dangling flesh and favored its ruined eye. A barbed tail struck from the dark figure, piercing the Seque’s exposed neck. Green blood sprayed from the punctured artery, dousing the assassin’s glossy exoskeleton and pouring in rivulets to the ground.

  Ixibas stepped away from his most recent kill and scanned the empty street. Nothing moved. No red eyes glowed at the Lithid from the darkness. Gesturing behind him, he brought Tusque limping from the shadow of a nearby alley, supported on either side by a pair of infantry soldiers. During their run they encountered only four Seques, roaming freely from the pack as if on patrol. Each had been hastily dispatched with little or no sound, a blessing for the tired, injured group.

  After being separated from the main group, Ixibas, Tusque, and four infantry soldiers made the difficult decision to leave the main road and enter a series of maze-like alleys that led deeper into the city proper—and deeper into regions dominated by the predatory Seque. At first, their departure from the main thoroughfare was disastrous. Seque leaped from rooftop to rooftop in steady pursuit, while others crashed through the narrow streets behind them or cut across their path.

  Though Ixibas hated to admit it, the barking, nipping Seque drove them constantly forward. Two of the soldiers were lost in a sea of claws and teeth, their screams fading in the distance, as the others ran on. Pateros and Hollander survived, bearing the weight of the badly injured Oterian.

  Ixibas scanned the road again, a sense of paranoia filling his mind. With the injured Tusque, Ixibas harbored little hope of escaping with the Oterian still alive. Miraculously, after being pursued through a myriad of side streets, the Seque suddenly faded into the shadows as quickly as they appeared.

  Exhausted, sweaty, and bleeding, the four collapsed against the nearest building. Air burned in their lungs as they struggled for breath. Though they wanted rest, Ixibas drove them on, putting more distance between them and the pack that pursued them.

  After cautiously crossing four more streets, they encountered only the meager guard force of the Seque army. He began to think of them as an organized army after watching their behavior in combat. The group of four was funneled farther and farther from the military outpost, to the point where they were near the edge of the city. The Lithid had no doubt they’d never be allowed to flee the city completely. That path would be heavily guarded and would end in disaster. Instead, he searched for a nondescript building where they could hide while they tried to find a way past the impregnable Seque defenses.

  A little way up the street, he saw what he wanted. Motioning the others to follow, he ignored their groans of pain and disappointment as he forced them on. Moving from shadow to shadow, Ixibas sneaked forward as scout, keeping distance between himself and the loud, labored breathing of the wounded Oterian. Eventually he reached the building and checked both the alleys that flanked the small, squat house. Relieved, he noted no windows on either side, with only a single, shuttered window on the front. The seclusion meant the house was the perfect place to lay low while they healed wounds and discussed their next moves.

  The front door wasn’t locked and deep claw marks indicated it was opened by force once before. Still, the latch was intact, allowing Ixibas to close and lock the door behind the other three. Their flashlights pushed back the darkness of the slender, one room house. A sturdy bed sat against one wall, while the opposite wall showed a combination kitchen and dining room. Rotten food sat at the table, the top stained with dark splashes. Ixibas didn’t bother inspecting further, having seen too much splattered blood throughout the city.

  Pateros and Hollander lowered Tusque on the bed, which creaked dangerously under his weight. With him face down, they inspected the gashes lining his back and the severed muscle of his ruined calf. From the effort of fleeing none of the wounds had closed, and all oozed viscous blood to coat his thick fur.

  Wordlessly, Ixibas removed the pack from Hollander’s shoulders and set it on the table to rifle through the contents. The first-aid pouch was buried near the bottom. With a brush of his hand, he gently slid the bowls of ruined food to the edge of the table and unrolled the medical kit.

  A variety of pads, bottles, and sharp metal instruments stared back at him as he unfurled the pouch. He sorted through the ointments and sprays until he settled on a larger bottle with a wide-mouthed spray nozzle. He walked to his injured teammate and stopped short. His featureless face turned to the Uligart and Wyndgaart infantry soldiers.

  “You might want to hold him down.” His gravelly voice broke the silence that held between them for several hours. He knew neither of the men had a chance of holding down an Oterian thrashing in pain. But it made them feel important and part of the team and he needed a close-knit team willing to follow orders.

  Ixibas leaned forward until his dark, oval face was inches from Tusque’s ear. He heard pained breath moving through the Oterian’s mouth and sympathized for the additional pain he was about to cause. Infection was already settling in where the thick saliva from the Seque’s mouth fell over the wounds.

  “This is going to hurt,” he said, adding, “a lot. You’ll want to scream but you can’t. I need you to be a soldier and internalize the pain. If you scream, they’ll find us and kill us all.”

  Tusque nodded imperceptibly. Standing over the Oterian’s back, Ixibas examined the wounds with a single clawed hand. He pulled back the torn flaps of skin with surgical precision though Tusque flinched from pain as the Lithid’s claws scraped exposed flesh. Ixibas raised the bottle until it was less than an inch from the wound.

  Depressing the top, he shot foaming liquid until it filled the gaping wounds. Tusque’s back arched from the pain. Through tightly clenched teeth, he whimpered. The foam spread through the injuries, cauterizing exposed muscle and stopping the oozing blood.

  Ixibas moved from injury to injury for less than a minute, inserting foam, much to Tusque’s dismay, until the bottle was empty. The Oterian’s heavy breathing settled into a comfortable rhythm as pain drove him unconscious.

  The other three collapsed to the floor, overwhelmed by exhaustion. Ixibas’ featureless face failed to show any of the weariness and concern evident on the other two.

  “We can’t keep running like this,” Hollander whispered. “I’m exhausted and cramping in muscles I didn’t know I had.”

  “We won’t be running for a while.” Ixibas’ words eased the Uligart’s concern, though his voice sounded rougher than traditionally came from a Lithid. “He needs time to heal. Until then, we’ll be hard-pressed to wake him, much less move him.”

  “Thanks the gods we were able to lose them.” Pateros sighed and leaned his head heavily against the wall. Sweat glistened over his tanned skin and brightly colored tattoos.

  “We didn’t lose them, you fool,” Ixibas hissed. “They let us go. They drove us exactly where they wanted and turned away.”

  “Why would they let us escape?” Hollander painfully pushed away from the wall.

  “We weren’t the target. They weren’t trying to kill us, just get us away from the others. We’re separated by dozens of city blocks. They separated us to make us easy prey. Now they can pick us off at their leisure.”

  “You can’t know that,” Pateros said.

  “I can,” he replied harshly. “If you don’t believe me, take a look out that window using the thermals on your helmet.”<
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  Hollander and Pateros looked at each other before clambering to their feet and donning their helmets. They moved to the window and slowly pushed back the left shutter so they could look toward the heart of the city. Under thermals, the streets were cast in shades of dark blue and black, their heat from the day already expended. As they looked toward the far side of the city, toward the outpost, their eyes widened in astonishment.

  The sky above the outpost glowed with a deep red that flickered as if the flames of hell swallowed the compound. The red glow swirled around the buildings in a dancing circle as the sea of Seques moved as one, trying to find a gap in the impenetrable building. The glow reached to the sky in a pillar of light, casting a red pallor over the nearby city like an evil blanket.

  Even in the cool night air, the pair of soldiers wiped sweat from their faces. Closing the shutter, they slid down the wall as one, both looking dejected as they removed their helmets.

  “How can there be so many of them?” Hollander asked. “There would need to be thousands to make the glow that strong.”

  “If not more.” Ixibas’ rough voice cut across the darkness.

  “They’re on the far side of the city.” A tinge of pleading entered Pateros’ voice. “Now’s our best chance to get out of here. Why are we waiting?”

  “You just looked out the window and you have to ask?” Ixibas asked angrily. “When have Seques ever moved with a military mentality? Yet here we are, cut off from any chance of reinforcements, and with no chance of being evacuated any time soon. Something changed those creatures into the killers we encountered. Whatever gave them that much intelligence also made them smart enough not to let four Alliance soldiers walk casually out of the city.

  “You didn’t look the other way, but I’m willing to bet you would’ve seen a fine red glow around the edges of the city, too. There’s no escape unless the Seques let us.”

  “We’re going to die here, aren’t we?” Pateros asked quietly.

  “It’s very possible. Make peace with whatever gods you pray to. The sun will rise in a couple hours. We’ll figure out what to do then. Try to sleep. I’ll take first watch.”

  The sun broke over the tops of the business district and flooded light into the squat building where the foursome huddled. Tusque stirred slowly, letting the recently sealed wounds stretch before trying to do anything as brazen as stand. As soon as he was confident he’d feel nothing more than mild pain, he pushed himself off the bed and looked around the small room.

  “Glad to see you’re still alive,” a gravelly voice said.

  Turning, he saw Ixibas’ dark form leaning against the wall beside the window. The shutter was thrown wide, letting sunlight flood the room.

  “Are you crazy?” Tusque asked brusquely. “Close the shutter, Boss. They’ll find us.”

  “No need. Come take a look.”

  Tusque was joined by the other two as they walked to the window. Looking out, they stared at an empty street marred by signs of struggle and death, but still empty.

  “Where are they hiding?” Hollander asked. “They have to be out there.”

  “I don’t see them anywhere,” Pateros said.

  “That’s because they aren’t there,” Ixibas said proudly. He’d been standing at the window for the better part of an hour, scanning the city for signs of life. “When the sun started coming up, they disappeared. Their lights blinked out one after the other as morning approached. Eventually, just before I had to shut off the thermals, there wasn’t a single living creature visible in the city.”

  “And the outpost?” Hollander asked.

  “I don’t know. If there’s someone inside, they won’t show up on thermals. I’ve tried raising them by radio but got nothing. Either they’re dead, or the outpost walls block the signal.”

  “Where would they go?” Tusque asked, his weak voice still rumbling. “There were so many, Boss. Where’d they go?”

  “It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that the Seque are nocturnal. They’re sleeping. That means there’s nothing between us and the edge of the city.”

  He gestured to the pile of armor and weapons on the floor. “Get your things. We’re leaving this city forever.”