The Crimson War: A Space Opera: Book Three of The Shadow Order

by Michael Robertson

  Jince gasped.

  “A lone traveller called Bruke the Great was out wandering the streets. The latest round of fires had burned his home down and he’d lost the plot of land to the evil Countess and her army. He’d become a nomad.”

  Seb continued to watch on in silence.

  “In search of a home, Bruke the Great came across three soldiers. Now these men were evil to their bones. One of them stood as tall as the spire on the Crimson Palace, and the ground shook when he walked.”

  All three children pulled in closer to their mother, who watched Bruke with a twinkle in her red eyes and a half smile on her face.

  “Another one—the leader of the pack—wasn’t even eye level with Bruke the Great’s kneecaps, but his power resided inside his vicious brain. Such a scheming and twisted little blighter, he could think of torture that would make your skin fall off just to hear of his designs.

  “Now our hero—”

  “Bruke?” Phulp asked, his eyes wide as he leaned forward, hanging on every word.

  “Yes, Bruke the Great, our hero. Now Bruke the Great was desperate and these men promised him shelter.”

  “So he took it?” Jawty asked.

  “He did. He was promised a hut as fine as any of the huts in the slum. But, alas”—Bruke sagged as he looked at the ground—“it didn’t live up to the hype.”

  Seb couldn’t help but grin to watch how Bruke captivated the children. All three of them sat with their mouths wide open.

  “So what did you do?” Janina asked.

  “What did Bruke the Great do?”

  Janina smiled.

  “Well, Bruke the Great doesn’t rush into anything. He uses his brains. When dealing with a band of criminals like the three soldiers, he had to think smart.”

  For a few seconds, he said nothing, clearly milking the silence as he looked along the line of Phulp’s family and back again.

  “But even our brainy hero thought himself into a dead end. He couldn’t think of a way out.”

  “What did he do?” Jince asked.

  Bruke sighed. “He thought he’d try it out; stay in the dwelling and see how he fared. But because the palace he’d been promised was no more than a tent with sewage running through it, he lasted just one night. He told the evil soldiers he couldn’t stay in it.”

  “And what did the evil soldiers say?” Phulp asked.

  “They weren’t having any of it, I’m afraid. When he told them he wouldn’t be staying in the tent, they got angry.” He leaned close to the children and lowered his voice so it boomed at them. “Real angry.”

  All three children recoiled.

  “Our hero found himself in a rather tight spot. They hung him up by his ankle. At first, he thought the figure he saw coming from the woods was a figment of his imagination.”

  Heat lifted beneath Seb’s cheeks and he shuffled back into the darker part of Phulp’s hut.

  “But no, the true hero of this story, the warrior Seb Zodo of Danu, strode from the woods like a deus ex machina, and he said”—at this point, Bruke put on a even deeper voice that sounded nothing like Seb—“‘Put him down!’”

  “But you don’t look as strong as Bruke,” Phulp said, looking Seb up and down. “How could you help him?”

  “And the soldiers thought the same,” Bruke said. “They looked at Seb and judged a book by its cover. Sometimes it pays to see what’s beyond the first impression. Sometimes you should judge a warrior by his heart.”

  Phulp lowered his gaze.

  “So the soldiers laughed at him and told him to go away. Especially the one as big as the palace spire. What was a measly little human doing telling him what to do?”

  “Measly seems a bit much,” Seb said. “I am taller than you, after all.” He instantly fell silent again. Best not to ruin Bruke’s tale. The kids seemed to be enjoying it and they needed some light in their life.

  “That day, the soldiers made a big mistake, and they would pay for it with their lives.”

  Another gasp and Phulp looked at Seb. “You killed them?”

  Bruke spoke for him, his brown eyes wide on his green face. “Not only killed them, Seb annihilated them. Three punches, one each, and he knocked each one out in turn. They didn’t stand a chance.”

  “And where are they now?”

  Seb spoke. “I made sure they wouldn’t get back up again. It’s not something I’m proud of, but they would have got in the way of me getting to the Countess and nothing can jeopardise that.”

  Phulp gasped again.

  “And that is the story of Seb Zodo, the warrior from Danu.”

  “And Bruke the Great,” Jince said, clearly in awe of the sweet and scaly creature.

  The aftermath of Bruke’s story spread silence through the hut and it took for Janina to break it. “You keep the hut,” she said to him.

  At first Bruke didn’t respond, he simply stared at her.

  “It only has bad memories for us, and besides, we have somewhere else we can stay.”

  “Are you sure?” Bruke asked, his hands joyfully clasped together in front of his chest.

  “Yeah.”

  “How many huts does Phulp have?” Seb said.

  Janina didn’t answer and she didn’t need to. Phulp clearly knew how to hustle, they could leave it at that.

  “I think,” Seb said, shifting on the hard ground, “we should bury Phulp’s body. He was a good being and he deserves to be put to rest with some dignity.”

  A look across the hut at the small mound of tarpaulin and Janina sighed. Silence spread through the space.

  Bruke then turned to the stove, filled a can with grains, and handed them to Seb. A look at Phulp’s family and none of them seemed hungry anymore, so Seb tucked into his bland meal.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The group walked in silence through the stinking and noisy slum. Seb led the way and Bruke took up the rear. The slums were always busy with beings, and most of the time they had something with them. It made Seb look much less conspicuous with a lump of tarpaulin on his shoulder. If he got any looks, it probably had much more to do with the flight suit than the wrapped-up corpse.

  Seb stepped out of the vile place onto the small patch of muddy ground between the edge of the slum and dense tree line of the woods. When he didn’t hear the others follow him, he looked around to see why.

  Jince, who had walked through the slum on Seb’s heels, had stopped at the edge of it. The others queued up behind her, including Bruke.

  “Come on,” Seb hissed, trying to keep his voice down as he scanned the slum behind Phulp’s family. There were too many beings for him to make a scene. Simply leaving the slum attracted more attention than he would have liked.

  Jince shook her head, her small lips pursed. “We don’t know what’s out there.”

  “It’s nothing worse than what’s in the slum,” Seb said, but the party still didn’t move.

  “Look,” Seb said, “I’ve been out here a few times already. Trust me when I say there’s nothing to worry about, I promise. I don’t think the foot soldiers even come out here.”

  Still no movement.

  As much as he wanted to shout, the family in front of him were both scared and grieving for the loss of their patriarch. “This is the only place we can bury him. Unless you have any other ideas?”

  Seb looked over his shoulder at the trees behind him. So densely packed they shut out even the moonlight. He turned back to the others. “Look, I know it seems scary in there, but we only need to go a little way in. Just far enough so his body’s hidden. Hell, we don’t have a shovel, so we won’t even dig a hole. We’ll put the body down, cover it over, say a few things, and then head back.”

  Still no movement.

  Unable to hide his frustration, Seb spoke through a clenched jaw, a cloud of condensation forming in front of his face. “If you want to do this, we need to do it now.”

  Jince looked at Phulp behind her, who looked at Jawty, who looked at Janina. All
the while, Bruke remained impassive at the back of the line.

  Janina finally nodded at Jince and the small creature stepped out of the slum.

  Until now, Seb hadn’t thought of the woods as scary, but as he plunged into the pitch blackness of the place—the trees so tightly packed he had to move sideways to get through the gaps—he saw it in a different light. Not that he could let the others know that.

  When Seb felt something grab the back of his flight suit, he jumped and turned around to see the large red eyes of little Jince staring up at him. The others held onto one another in a line. Jince simply copied them by reaching out for Seb in front of her.

  A shrug of his shoulders and Seb walked deeper into the woods with the tug of a little hand behind him. The scent of evergreen needles hung in the air and the ground felt soft underfoot.

  After just a few steps, Seb looked behind him. Despite the slum being only a few metres away, the thick line of trees blocked it completely from his sight.

  Seb placed the lump of tarpaulin on the ground and quickly covered it in the litter fall around him. Leaves, evergreen needles, and twigs, he turned the lump of tarpaulin into a lump of nature’s molting.

  Once Seb had finished, his hands numb from moving the damp and cold mush, he stepped aside. Janina moved close to her husband’s dead body.

  For a full two minutes, Janina and the kids stood over the lump, crying and not speaking.

  Janina finally said, “Phulp Fandango was a great man.”

  Maybe the tension of the situation brought it out of him, but Seb couldn’t help glancing at Bruke. He mouthed the word Fandango? But he couldn’t laugh now, not with such sadness in front of him. A look at little Phulp and he sobered himself. To see such devastation in someone so small destroyed any hint of mirth.

  “He was a good dad and a great husband,” Janina said. “He looked after us as much as he could in this cruel world, and for slum dwellers, we lived like royalty. I believe if we’d had another few years in this hellhole together, he would have found the way off this cursed planet. Sadly it’s not to be.”

  After pausing to cry, Janina looked up at Seb and Bruke. “They say you should measure a being by his friends, and the two Phulp’s left behind speak volumes for his big heart and brave spirit.”

  Again Seb wanted to interrupt but stopped himself. If Janina and her family found it easier to think of him and Bruke—who’d never met Phulp—as friends, then so be it.

  A few seconds of quiet and Janina stepped away to let her eldest through.

  To see Jawty’s small form hunched with sadness as if her grief robbed her of the ability to remain upright sent sharp pains through Seb’s chest. His eyes itched with the beginning of his tears and he rubbed them to try to stem the flow.

  “We love you, Dad,” little Jawty said. “One day we’ll see you again and we’ll laugh just as much as we did in this life. You’ll sit us on your knee and read us stories. We’ll pin you down and tickle you until you can’t take it any more.” The little girl smiled through her sadness.

  Then Jawty looked up at the sky, her wide red eyes wet with tears, the tracks on her face glistening in the small amount of moonlight that found a way through the trees. After a deep breath, she said, “Sleep well, papa bear.”

  Seb’s throat burned, his eyes itched worse than before, and his bottom lip bent out of shape. Tears ran down his face and he sobbed like he’d never sobbed.

  Jince came forward next. If Jawty appeared small, Jince looked miniscule. When she got close to her dad’s form, she dropped down onto one knee in front of him. “Don’t worry, Daddy, Seb will make sure the Countess doesn’t take Phulp.”

  By that point Seb couldn’t see for his tears and his shoulders bobbed as he cried. The cold air bit into the tracks on his face and the end of his running nose stung.

  Little Phulp moved forward last. No more than a blur now through Seb’s grief, he walked up to his dad and said nothing. Instead, he stared down at the lump on the ground.

  Seb rubbed his eyes to see the boy a little better. Unlike his family, he didn’t cry. A hard frown dominated his face as if he failed to understand what lay in front of him. He simply stared at what used to be his father.

  The silence lasted for a few seconds before Janina pulled her son into a tight hug.

  As one, Phulp’s family turned their back on their patriarch.

  Seb led the way out of the woods. Slightly easier than entering the trees, he had something to aim for on the other side. Fires burned in the slums. Torches, stoves … The moonlight also ran a silver highlight over the top of the ramshackle buildings.

  Then Seb heard it and stopped dead. The movement of the others behind him also stopped. The snap of a twig went off close to them. Maybe no more than an animal, but they couldn’t be sure.

  After Seb had checked that the others remained still, he stepped forward, the leafy ground crunching beneath his steps. Then he saw them.

  A group of about ten foot soldiers had left the slum and they were headed straight for them. They came in a variety of sizes and looked like they were searching for something. The sides of Seb’s vision blurred and he clenched his fists.

  He turned to the rest of the group and mouthed the word soldiers at them. Wide eyes stared back at him. Wide eyes and very little action. And what did he expect? They were hardly warriors. He’d have to deal with this. After taking a deep breath, he stepped from the trees.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Seb stepped on a thick stick as he walked from the trees, announcing himself to the group of soldiers with a loud crack!

  As one, the pack of Crimson foot soldiers spun to face him with their blasters raised.

  Like most groups of guards on the planet, the lot in front of Seb stood as a mismatch of shapes and sizes. Species from all over the galaxy seemed to end up in Caloon and in the Countess’ employ. If the galaxy were a huge toilet, Caloon was the final U-bend that caught anything large enough not to get flushed out to sea. The Countess cast a wide net when recruiting, and it didn’t take much skill to become a mindless grunt.

  As with every other group of crimson-robed soldiers, their faces were hidden in shadow. They all stared at Seb. He couldn’t work out how he never saw their faces unless they chose to reveal them. It seemed like some kind of witchcraft.

  The largest of the group stood a couple of feet taller and wider than Seb. Not only the largest, he seemed to be the leader from the way he raised his gun and spoke in a deep boom. “What are you doing out here?”

  The question sent a ripple of tension through the group, and Seb noticed each soldier’s trigger finger move ever so slightly as if readying to fire. Some of the soldiers swayed from side to side, and some stood perfectly still. But they all focused their weapons on him.

  Seb drew a deep breath to still his rapid heart rate. It gave him a second to think before he spoke. The edges of his world had already blurred, and if he didn’t remain vigilant, his gift would drag him under.

  The beast stepped a pace towards Seb and said, “Well? Don’t keep me waiting, scumbag.”

  A couple of the others stepped forward with their leader. One of the smaller ones came so close to Seb he had to refrain from kicking out at the tiny rat. A hard boot would have driven the small creature several metres back into the slum.

  Another deep breath and Seb held his tongue for a moment longer. It would only kick off if he said the wrong thing. If they’d wanted to shoot him, they would have done it by now. He looked at the leader and kept his voice even when he said, “Can you lower your gun, please?”

  The guard and several others stepped another pace closer. He shoved his gun at Seb’s face. His breath turned to steam in the cold air and his voice sounded like a huge ship’s engine ticking over. “Start talking.”

  The smaller one in the group stepped so close to Seb it stood on his toes. It happened the universe over. The small ones, the ones who’d always felt disempowered because of their size, suddenly became the m
ost forward of the group when they had backup. Years of being bullied, they seemed to revel in the chance to bully back.

  “We came out looking for something to eat,” Seb said.

  The other soldiers bristled at his words and looked at one another. A line of three identically sized guards moved in behind their leader and stood shoulder to shoulder. Just in case he thought about running, he now had a wall to get through.

  “We?” the main guard said, looking at the trees behind Seb.

  The distance between them had closed to the point where Seb could smell the brute and his cronies. Not unpleasant, it reminded him of a pack of sweating horses, especially with how heavily they all breathed. They twitched as if ready to burst into action. “Yeah, we hoped we’d find some berries or something in the woods.”

  “You’ve said we twice now.” The shadowed hood moved around as if looking for the others. “Who are the we you’re talking about?”

  Before Seb could ask any of the others to step from their hiding place, he heard a rustling behind him. As if driven by the same mind, the guards snapped their weapons in the direction of the sound.

  “Please,” Seb said, “don’t shoot them. We mean you no harm and we’re unarmed.” His backpack suddenly felt heavy with the weight of his blaster. But, as the only weapon between them, he couldn’t access it quickly anyway.

  When Jince stepped out into the open, Seb looked from her to the guards. Any hint of aggression and he’d be ready for it. No way would he let them attack the poor little thing. “This is Bince. As you can see, she’s just a child and no threat to you.”

  Not all, but some of the guards relaxed at the sight of the little creature. It made no sense for Seb to give up their real names to the soldiers. A name held a lot of power.

  “We’re only out here because we’re all hungry and need some food to survive. We’re desperate. Do you have any food?”

  The question seemed to disarm the lead guard, who tilted his head to one side. When he looked at the others and they stared back at him, he seemed to find his aggression again and boomed, “No! And I wouldn’t give it to a slum dweller if I did.”