This time, Gurt frowned at Seb, and Sparks seemed uneasy too as she scanned the area with her torch.
Phulp then stopped in the middle and turned to the group. The look on his face sat somewhere between resentment and regret.
It suddenly made sense when the shuffle of footsteps surrounded them, the acoustics of the cave amplifying the sound. When Seb looked back at the way they’d come in, he saw the tunnel blocked with silhouettes of figures. He spun on the spot and watched at least fifty Crimson foot soldiers emerge from the shadows around them. One final glance at Phulp and he heaved an exhausted sigh.
Chapter 39
Seb’s pulse quickened as he spun on the spot to take in the Crimson soldiers who’d closed in around them. The need to run coiled within him, but no matter where he looked, he couldn’t see anywhere to run to. He glanced back at their small and pale-skinned guide. “What have you done, Phulp?”
An insipid laugh squeezed from Phulp’s white lips. “What does it look like I’ve done? Come on, Seb, you’re a clever man. Surely you’ve worked it out by now?”
Any hope of escape Seb had vanished when he saw every robed foot soldier had at least one blaster in their hands. Even if they did fight them, and even if Seb could have avoided over fifty people firing at him—which he couldn’t—the others wouldn’t survive it. The faceless and silent guards continued to close in on them, the circle tightening like a strong grip around his throat.
When Seb looked at the others, he saw panic on Sparks’ face. No doubt she represented how they all felt at that moment. It manifested on Gurt’s features as anger. The brute looked like a Rottweiler chewing a wasp as he glared at the foot soldiers. SA, if anything, seemed even more serene than usual. Still and calm, her blue eyes shone in the darkness, her posture as impeccable as ever.
Other than the shuffle of their footsteps, the soldiers made no sound when they approached.
Phulp then spoke again, almost like he couldn’t help himself. With his pudgy hands linked together in front of him, he laughed like before. “If it makes it any better, I’m sorry, I truly am.”
To look at the smug albino-like creature wound Seb tight and he clenched his jaw. “You don’t look sorry, you pale little rat.”
“Now come on, Sebastian, there’s no need for that kind of language, is there? The truth is, as much as I like you and your little band of mercenaries, nothing will ever compromise the love I feel for Mother. I owe Mother everything. She’s the light on this dark planet of ours.”
“The light that makes you slaughter your families?” Seb’s voice echoed in the huge cave. A second later, the silence swallowed it and he saw Sparks look behind him, her already wide purple eyes wider still.
Before he’d even turned around, Seb knew who would be there. Although no amount of anticipation could prepare him for her.
At least nine feet tall, the huge cloaked mass stepped forward. As silent as the foot soldiers and as faceless, she moved closer to the group. Her red robe had been decorated with golden thread. It had to be the Crimson Countess. The woman’s very presence seemed to suck the air from the cave, and even the foot soldiers froze when she walked past.
Just a few metres away from the group, the Countess raised her right hand. With one finger pointed at the sky, she spun it as if to signal for her soldiers to round her prisoners up.
Although it was impossible to tell, it seemed like the Countess looked Seb’s way. He’d been the one to speak, after all. For a second, he glanced into the void inside her hood and shuddered.
The group put up no resistance when the foot soldiers bound their wrists. The soldiers then proceeded to take all of SA’s knives, all of Gurt’s guns, and Sparks’ rucksack. They roughly patted Seb down, but when they found nothing, they backed away and shrugged at the Countess.
As the only voice in the cave, Phulp said, “It didn’t matter how much you paid me, I would never betray Mother.”
“Yet you still took our credits,” Gurt said to the little creature.
A wide smile on his thin lips, Phulp nodded at the Mandulu. “Why, of course. I’m not going to pass up free credits, am I?”
None of the group replied to Phulp. The small rodent seemed far too pleased with himself already. They didn’t need to validate his smugness any further.
The foot soldiers—headed by the huge robed figure of the Countess—walked from the cave back in the direction Seb and his group had come from. Hard to tell in the darkness, but it seemed like the only way out of the space.
With soldiers on every side, Seb felt their attention when it turned on him, even if he couldn’t see a single face inside the hoods. Gurt led their line, SA in front of Seb, and Sparks behind him. All of them had their wrists bound together with a strange metal that had been wrapped around them like a huge bangle. Cold to the touch, the metal gripped too tightly for them to get out of.
Once they’d entered the tunnel they’d walked down to get to the cave, the soldiers around them thinned out a little. On such narrow walkways, they couldn’t walk at the sides of the group even if they’d wanted to.
The small amount of time they’d spent in the cave had lowered Seb’s guard against the reek of the tunnels. Now he’d re-entered them, he screwed his face up at the stench.
Several of the foot soldiers had flaming torches. They’d been scattered throughout the group, allowing them to light their way. The flicker animated the shadows and glistened off the damp rock beneath their feet.
Even in the warm orange glow of the flames, when a magnesium glare flared up behind him, it dazzled Seb. Everything slowed down as he listened to the ching of Sparks’ broken metal cuffs when they hit the hard ground. Before the soldiers could react, she’d grabbed his right arm—her long fingers easily gripping his biceps—and dragged them both toward the frothy brown water.
Panic leapt through Seb’s chest and into his throat as they fell toward the river of shit in slow motion, and before he could think about it, they’d broken the surface of the water with a loud splash.
Harder for having his hands cuffed, Seb rode the currents of the river and tried to stay afloat. When he looked behind at the blasters pointing their way, he ducked beneath the surface. He had his eyes closed, but still heard the volley of blaster fire hit the river above his head, and he still saw the flashes of light as the lasers shot past him.
The current beneath the surface seemed to run quicker than that above, and it dragged Seb away. The soldiers’ shots went nowhere near hitting him.
Seb collided into a hard wall and fought his reaction to gasp. He kept his eyes so tightly closed, it hurt his face. The germs in the river would blind him if he opened them. Instead, he kicked his way to the surface, the current threatening to drag him away, and he looked back to where they’d come from.
The second Seb opened his eyes, he saw SA. Maybe Gurt looked at him too, but Gurt didn’t matter at that moment. Not that she could hear him, but he said it anyway, “I’ll be back for you, I promise.”
The first of the soldiers seemed to notice Seb because a shot from a blaster hit the wall above him, sending chips of stone onto the top of his head. The fetid and muddy reek of excrement ran up his nose and he heaved before he ducked beneath the water again, pushed off from the wall he’d slammed into, and headed around the bend with the flow of the river.
Chapter 40
One of the longest days of Seb’s life and it didn’t look like it would be ending anytime soon. As he bobbed down the river of shit with Sparks at his side, he raised his head high enough above the water to keep the excrement away from his mouth.
Darkness surrounded them, and with every kick in the frothy water, Seb expected a tentacle to wrap around his ankle and drag him under. They still hadn’t found a low enough walkway to allow them to climb out.
Fortunately, Sparks had been able to remove the metal around Seb’s wrists when they’d gotten away from the soldiers, but other than that, they’d spent so much time in the rancid water that
his skin had wrinkled and he could feel the waste from the residents of the city above soaking into his pores.
The splash of their movement gave the pair away to anyone who wanted to hear them as it called out in the darkness of the sewers.
When they came around the next bend, Sparks squealed and Seb’s pulse spiked. Instead of seeing his little friend vanish beneath the surface of the water as he’d initially feared, he watched her swim to the opposite side of the river. When she climbed out, his heart lifted and he muttered, “Thank god.”
However, before he moved over to her, a rush of water came down toward him. Something large seemed to have picked up their trail and plowed through the liquid towards them.
Chapter 41
The magnesium flash from Sparks’ watch created a strobe effect as the pair of them sprinted through the pitch-black tunnels. Whether it did more harm than good, Seb couldn’t tell. Each flash illuminated the way for a second but destroyed his night vision when the glare died down.
The whoosh of the beast in the river continued to chase them. When Seb glanced behind, he saw the monster’s domed head break the surface of the water. Easily three times the size of the one they’d taken down earlier, its flaccid wings trailed behind it like a long tail. Hopefully the tightness of the sewers would restrict its movement should it try to fly.
The next flash from Sparks’ watch and Seb saw it. “A ladder,” he called after his small friend.
Sparks flashed her watch again. Only a step away from the rungs embedded in the wall, she leapt onto them and climbed.
Seb caught up a second later and followed her. Where the small Thrystian had been quick on her feet when she ran, her stature worked against her in scaling the ladder. Impatience tore through him as the rush of water closed in on them. Were Sparks not in front of him, then he’d be gone already.
After three or four metres, the ladder disappeared into a tunnel that led up through the ceiling. Although Sparks slipped up into the hole, Seb remained out in the open as the beast behind them rose from the river.
A glance behind as he climbed and Seb saw the cold fury in the monster’s black eyes. As large as tank tyres, they fixed on him with a hatred that sent a shiver through him. This beast knew who’d taken the little one away from it, and it clearly had plans to make them pay.
Looking into a mouth three times the size of the one they’d seen earlier, Seb saw a horn-like beak inside it. It looked like it could shred metal. Like the little one, it had fleshy and torn strands of skin hanging down in front of its mouth. Covered in scars and cuts, the beast had the appearance of a creature used to battle.
The monster almost seemed to stand up on its tentacles as water rushed off its emerging form. Its large and jagged wings spread wide behind it as a wall of thin skin with elongated finger-like bones running through them. It roared, deeper and louder than anything Seb had ever heard before. The water bubbled around it from the vibration of the sound.
Just a metre from the tunnel above him and Seb willed his exhausted body up the ladder. He felt tempted to look behind at the beast one last time, but any more stalling and he wouldn’t make it out of there. He used everything he had to climb, willing his tired legs and exhausted body up.
The wall next to Seb thundered as a thick tentacle crashed into it. The vibration damn near threw him to the ground, his wet hands struggling for grip on the metal rungs. But although he lost his footing, he managed to hold on. Just.
Seb scrabbled to find the rungs again with his feet as the beast behind him roared.
Before it could strike for a second time, Seb climbed up into the tunnel, the wall shaking again from another tentacle blow.
Seb continued on up behind Sparks. The tight space amplified their breaths as they exerted themselves. The wet whoosh of a tentacle reached up the tunnel after them.
The panic weakened Seb’s legs, but just before the tentacle caught up with him, it stopped. He looked down to see the tip of it flap about as the beast tried to grab him, but it couldn’t reach. Sparks looked down too.
“I think its tentacle’s too thick to reach up,” Seb said. The tip of the slug-like appendage thrashed wildly, hitting the walls in its snapping movement.
Sparks didn’t reply; instead, she turned around and pushed on up the ladder. They needed to get out of the sewers now.
Chapter 42
The manhole cover at the top of the ladder made a loud screeching noise when Sparks shifted the heavy metal circle away from her. In anticipation of the flood of light, Seb squinted when he looked up. But no flood of light came. On the dark planet of Solsans, floods of light only happened when the slums below burned.
They’d climbed for at least fifteen minutes to get to the top of the ladder and the beast down below made sure they didn’t forget it lay in wait for them. It roared and slapped the wall with its huge tentacles. It screamed. At one point, it made a deep booming sound that could have been a laugh.
When Seb finally crawled from the hole, he fell forward in an exhausted heap. Everything ached. His legs, his arms, his back, his lungs … Sweat dripped from him and mixed with the reek of sewage, running urine and excrement into his eyes no matter how many times he tried to wipe it away.
The top of the ladder brought the pair out into a quiet and foggy alleyway. A look up and down the street and they seemed to be alone.
The alley had been formed by a row of houses on either side, and before Seb could catch his breath, Sparks stripped naked in front of him. Not knowing where to look, he did his best to stare into his friend’s eyes. “What are you doing?”
“We stink.”
“We do.”
“And we need clean clothes.”
“Also true.”
“So that’s what I’m doing. Keep a lookout, yeah?”
Before Seb could take the conversation any further, Sparks jimmied one of the house’s windows open and slipped inside.
Wet, smelly, and now on his own in the strange city, Seb shivered in the cold and waited.
Sparks returned with an armful of clothes for both her and Seb. She looked like she’d washed; her hair was cleaner and less matted than his, and her skin free of the flecks of excrement that no doubt coated his face. “The house is empty and they have running water,” Sparks said. “Go inside and clean yourself up.”
A risk, sure, but Seb needed to get himself clean. After another quick look up and down the shadowed and foggy alley, he climbed through the house’s window into the darkness of the residence beyond.
A small amount of light came from what looked like the moon and some lamplight out in the street. It allowed Seb to see the drip of water Sparks had left behind her and he followed it through the house’s living room to the bathroom.
The only running water in the slums came in the form of piss and shit in the streets. Up in the elevated city, they had plumbing in the first house they’d come across. It must be the same for every residence. Seb washed his face then stripped off and washed his body, the cold water making him shiver. Afterwards, he drank freely from the tap. The fresh water quenched his thirst and went a little way to easing the pain the smoke had caused his throat.
Because he hadn’t taken the clothes with him that Sparks had brought out for him, Seb remained naked and left the house. He’d seen Sparks without clothes on; she could see him now. Not that she’d necessarily want to, but their friendship had probably passed that point.
After Seb climbed out of the window, Sparks—who’d dressed in what looked like a tan flight suit with more pockets than anyone ever needed—stared at him in horror.
Seb covered his modesty and said, “What?”
“Your clothes.”
“I left them inside.”
“I can see that. Look, I know the Countess will probably assume we’re going to come for her, but do we need to leave a trail of breadcrumbs for her to follow?”
What an idiot. “I’m sorry, Sparks, I’m so tired, I wasn’t thinking.”
; Sparks threw Seb his clean clothes and said, “Get changed and then get your other clothes out of there.”
“What?”
“You can’t leave them.”
“But isn’t it obvious that we’ve been here anyway? I mean, their window will be open—”
“Not if we close it.”
“And their clothes will be missing.”
“They may not notice that straight away. I guarantee you they’ll find your stinking clothes on their bathroom floor within seconds though.”
Half-dressed already, Seb continued to pull his clothes on and shook his head. “Damn it.”
Once he’d got changed, he looked at Sparks. She’d folded her flight suit in many different places so it fit her. His, on the other hand, fit perfectly. As much as he wanted to ask his small friend to slip back into the house on his behalf, he’d made the mistake and he needed to rectify it. He looked back at the open window and sighed. “I won’t be long.”
Seb returned to the house’s bathroom and found a towel to wrap his filthy clothes in. Once he’d tied the towel around the dirty garments, he stepped out into the front room and heard the lock click open on the front door. Muffled voices sounded on the other side. He couldn’t hear what they said, but that didn’t matter; what mattered was the owners of the house had returned home and the front door stood between Seb and his exit. If he ran for it now, they’d see him for sure.
Chapter 43
Seb withdrew into the bathroom and held his breath as he pulled the door shut. With a tight grip on the towel containing his stinking clothes, he pressed his ear to the wooden door to hear the beings on the other side. The cold atmosphere of Solsans had permeated the entire place and the door felt frigid to the touch, but he remained pressed against it.
The Alpha Plague - Books 1 - 8: A Post-Apocalyptic Action Thriller Page 180