The pair didn’t speak as they walked, and Seb divided his time between watching where he trod and checking where Bruke headed so he didn’t lose track of him in the crowd of beings.
Every few steps, Seb knocked into another slum dweller. Sometimes they seemed to crash into him intentionally, but neither he nor the dweller said anything. It made it easier to think of every contact as an accident.
Besides, the cramped conditions made it impossible to move without banging into other beings. Any sense of personal space a slum dweller had would have been knocked out of them the second they could walk. A stranger on a strange planet, Seb needed to adapt to their way of being rather than expect them to adapt to his.
The air turned to mist with every one of Seb’s breaths. The activity around him should have set the atmosphere alight with chatter and noise, but silence hung in the place like the low-lying fog. The slum felt like a graveyard.
A scream cut through the silence. Seb stopped as the sound ripped gooseflesh up his body. Fight or flight kicked in, his heart running away with him and his breaths coming out in short and sharp bursts. Another scream and he looked over the tops of the huts into the square.
Like before, a ring of Crimson foot soldiers had formed around the outside of the space. One of the taller soldiers had hold of what looked to be a boy barely in his teens. The boy held the silver curved blade, the moonlight winking off its glistening yet blood-coated surface.
Because Seb had been watching the square, he jumped when Bruke spoke. “They often do that, you know.”
“I know, I saw it the other day.”
“No, I mean do them in quick succession. They’ll come out one day and find all the teenage boys they can get, and then they’ll come out another day shortly afterwards to get a lot of the ones who’d hidden the first time around.”
“Did you have to—?” Seb stopped when he watched Bruke lower his pale face and stare at the dark ground.
“We need to do something about it,” Seb said. “I can’t believe how long it’s been allowed to go on for.”
“Hopefully, you’ll get to the Countess like you plan.”
The weight of responsibility pushed down on Seb as he watched the square. The Crimson foot soldiers grabbed another boy and dragged him into the middle. They stood him up in front of what must have been his father. “Yeah,” he said while chewing the inside of his mouth. He winced as the boy cut his dad’s throat, and then sighed, “Hopefully.”
Chapter 11
“This is it,” Bruke said when he stopped in one of the walkways.
As unremarkable as the huts surrounding it, Seb stared at the small dwelling. He’d been let down before when he’d trusted someone he shouldn’t have. How did he know the hut he now looked at was the one Phulp had taken them to?
Seb looked at the beings around him. They seemed no different than any other time he’d been in the slum. Busy, each one looked to be on their own mission somewhere. He’d notice an ambush, wouldn’t he?
Bruke stood with a blank expression for a few seconds as Seb stared at him. He finally said, “What?”
“How do I know this is the right hut?”
Confusion crushed the creature’s scaled face. He looked from Seb to the hut and back to Seb again. “It’s hard to tell, isn’t it? I don’t suppose you would know it’s the right hut.”
“Okay,” Seb said. “So how do you know this is the right hut?”
“I’ve lived here all my life. I’ve had twenty-six years in this hellhole. That’s enough time to learn where everyone lives.”
Another glance at the beings around them and Seb saw many of them stare back at him. Although no more than normal since he’d put the flight suit on. He looked at Bruke again. “You go in first.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“But I don’t know Phulp. Sure, I’ve heard of him, but I’ve never spoken to him. I can’t just walk into his place.”
Seb didn’t respond.
Anxiety twisted through Bruke’s face and he wrung his hands. “If he gets upset with me, you need to have my back, okay?”
After he’d dipped a curt nod at him, Seb looked to both sides and then raised his eyebrows. “Come on, we don’t have all day.”
Bruke walked to the entrance to the small hut and pushed on the palette blocking the doorway. “Hello? Excuse me, Mr Phulp. Um, you don’t know me, but my name’s Bruke.”
It seemed convincing and Seb had to stop himself from shoving the timid creature aside and bursting in there himself. He needed to be patient. He needed to see Bruke had taken him to the correct place.
When no reply came, Bruke looked back at Seb and shrugged. “There’s no answer. He might not be in.”
“Check,” Seb said.
Bruke let out an anxious and nasally whine as he pushed against the palette again. This time it rocked before falling into the hut and hitting the rocky ground with a thwack. The scaled beast jumped clean off the ground from the noise.
Already dark in the streets, at least they had the moonlight above them, turning the mist around them silver. The darkness in the hut looked like a black hole in comparison. One last glance back at Seb, and Bruke said, “I really don’t like doing this.”
It took all Seb had not to swing for the wretched creature. “Just go in.”
This time Bruke ducked down and went into the hut.
Almost as soon as he’d gone in, the large lizard-like creature jumped out with one of his long hands clamped over his mouth. Several heaves snapped through him before he pulled his hand away and threw up all over Seb’s boots.
Seb balled his fists and glared at Bruke. “What the hell?”
Before Bruke could reply, he vomited again, this time on the hard ground.
As much as Seb wanted to whack the creature for throwing up on him, when he looked down at his shoes and the bottom of his tan flight suit, he saw the stains from the sewage in the street had already made a mess of them. What difference did a little bit of sick make?
Another heave flipped through Bruke and he vomited on the ground again. Seb shook his head and walked towards the hut. It would be easier if he just looked himself.
The stench hit Seb the second he poked his head into the darkness of Phulp’s home. It ran straight to his gag reflex. No wonder Bruke threw up. A charred stench, it had a rancid, curdled twist to it like burned yogurt or mould and overcooked pork.
An immobile lump lay on the ground, but the darkness of the hut made it hard for Seb to see more than its silhouette. It didn’t seem to cause him any immediate danger. He slipped his backpack off, rested it on the ground, and fished the torch from it. After he’d re-shouldered his bag, he flicked the bright light on.
“Damn!” Seb called and jumped backwards, colliding with one of the hut’s walls.
The light shook at the end of Seb’s trembling arm, but he kept it trained on Phulp—or at least, what used to be Phulp.
The small creature’s previously pasty skin now sat as dark as soot. His red albino eyes had turned black and looked like two lumps of coal. His little mouth hung open as if he’d died screaming. For some reason the tiny form had a massive hole in his stomach. It looked like a bomb had blown up inside of him.
A strange tingling ran down Seb’s arms to his hands and it stretched out across his fingers. A need to touch Phulp surged through him, so he clamped his torch between his teeth and stretched his hands out in front of him.
When Seb touched the charred and dead body, he flinched. It seemed like the right thing to do, even though he didn’t know what he expected to achieve.
“He’s dead,” Bruke said, and Seb spun around to see his green face behind him. He’d obviously found the courage to come back into the hut.
“I can see that.” When Seb looked up at his guide, he drew a deep breath and dropped his head. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t expecting to find him like this.”
“It’s okay,” Bruke said. “I didn’t know him and eve
n I’m finding it hard. You know, when you first asked me to lead you to Phulp, I thought you had a beef with him. I thought you wanted to do something horrible to him. Guess I was wrong.”
The crispy skin of Phulp’s charred corpse felt like a dried leaf to touch. For some reason, Seb couldn’t pull his hands away. “No, you weren’t. I did have a beef with the little rat.”
Bruke looked like he didn’t know what to say, his brown eyes widening at Seb’s comments.
“I dunno, seeing him like this helps me understand why he did what he did to us.”
“What did he do?”
“Sold us out to the Countess.”
Bruke gasped.
“I know. At least we got away from her. It looks like we fared much better than he did. What a way for him to learn he shouldn’t have trusted her. I can see now he just did what he needed to do to survive.” When Seb looked around the hut, he saw the canned goods they’d bought for Phulp. “He needed our money more than we did, and he needed to fight to stay alive in this place.”
Before Bruke could respond or Seb could say anything else, footsteps approached the small hut. Despite the busy noise of the crowd outside, it seemed clear that the steps were heading straight for them. The pair stared at one another.
Seb pressed his finger to his lips and pointed for Bruke to go into the darkest corner of the small space, the same place SA had hidden when the guards had busted in on them.
As quietly as he could, Seb got to his feet and rushed over to the wall next to the door. He pressed his back against it and watched the space as the footsteps drew closer. Then it dawned on him. Why hadn’t he seen it before? They’d used Phulp’s corpse as a trap and he’d walked straight into it.
Seb drew deep breaths to calm himself down and stared at the doorway. The steps drew closer still. As he balled his fists, the world slowed down around him. If he had to go out this way, he’d go out fighting.
Chapter 12
Seb stood in the darkness of Phulp’s cramped hut and looked down at the foot of the approaching creature as it entered the gloomy space. Tension knotted in his shoulders, but before he could jump on the intruder, the fight left him. He frowned so hard it nearly hurt. “Phulp?”
The small being—who looked exactly like Phulp—jumped as he turned to face Seb. Three smaller Phulps followed him in. All of them had the same balding heads as his now dead guide. He’d assumed the look came with age. Apparently not. Unless the small children were considerably older than they looked.
All four of the creatures had the red eyes of albinos and the same short, squat frames. As wide as they were tall, the tribe looked like four squares.
“What’s going on?” Seb said as he looked from one to the other.
“Who are you?” Phulp said.
Except, not Phulp. Phulp lay on the ground, blown up from the inside and burned to a crisp. Also, this new Phulp had a high-pitched voice. “You’re female?” Seb asked.
A genuine twist of confusion crushed her face. It quickly gave way to indignation as she straightened her back. “Of course I’m female. I’m Phulp’s wife, Janina. And these are our three children, Jawty, Phulp, and Jince.”
Seb frowned as he stared at the odd little family. Had he known their species better, he might have been able to tell the difference between Phulp and Janina, but to his eyes they looked exactly the same—even now, when he knew they weren’t. The kids all looked the same too. “So you have one boy?”
“And two girls, yes.” Janina’s tone had an edge of exasperation. How could Seb be so ignorant?
“I’m sorry, you all look the—” Seb caught her glare and stopped.
It took for Seb to see Janina staring down at her husband’s dead body for him to clap his hand to his mouth. “I’m so sorry, I forgot where we were for a minute. We knew Phulp.”
Although small, Janina had a sharp tongue. As the only protector of their family, if she hadn’t been tough before, she certainly had to be now. Whilst pulling her children close to her, she continued to glare at Seb. “I wouldn’t mind betting you had something to do with his death.”
The three children all stared at Seb through their wide, red eyes. Accusation burned in their tiny round grief-stricken faces. He raised his index finger at Janina. “Now, wait a minute. I can take a good guess as to what happened here, but I sure as hell had nothing to do with it. I would assume the Countess did this. Or one of her many soldiers.”
After a deep inhale, Janina let go of a long sigh and looked down at her children. She seemed to be addressing them rather than Seb. “She did do this. But we never found out why.”
Maybe she told him the truth, maybe she didn’t. A look at Phulp’s kids again and Seb kept his mouth shut. What would the truth achieve? They didn’t need to know their dad swindled him and the others. Let him be a hero in their eyes. “Phulp and I were friends. He helped me out and I—” he looked at the shelves with the tins of food on them “—I bought him some food.”
The situation had caught Seb off guard, and when he looked at Phulp’s family again, he said, “I’m sorry, please sit down.”
Janina and the kids sat cross-legged on the cold, hard floor and Seb joined them.
It took for Bruke to step from the shadows in the corner for Seb to remember he’d been there the entire time.
Janina gasped when she saw him, and the three kids cowered away from the green-scaled brute. If only they knew just how far his personality was from his appearance.
“I’m sorry,” Seb said again. “This is Bruke. I needed to find my way through the slums to Phulp’s hut and he helped me. You can trust him.”
Despite him vouching for the muscly creature, Janina and the kids didn’t seem ready to start calling him Uncle Bruke anytime soon.
“So,” Seb said as he adjusted his sitting position, “please tell me what happened to Phulp.”
After another deep sigh, Janina looked at Phulp, tears glazing her eyes. “The Countess was here with him when we arrived.” Her bottom lip bent out of shape and she scratched her face with a shaking hand. “She said we should see it, so she dragged us to the square with him. All of us.”
All three children looked down.
“She said she needed to make an example of him and we needed to witness it. The people of the slums should know what happens to traitors.” The shake continued to run through her hands as she held up her thumb and index finger to show a small gap between them. “She has these small wax pebbles, about this big. Have you seen them?”
Seb didn’t respond. Not sure if he should reveal he had a bucket of them in his bag, he remained mute to give Janina the chance to continue.
“Well,” Janina said and sniffed, “she made him eat two. They’re highly explosive. Once he’d eaten them, she instructed one of her guards to electrocute him. The guard did as she said and then ran.”
Seb looked down at the dead Phulp, his stomach blown wide open, his skin hard and charred from where he’d burned. “And he blew up?”
Janina pressed the back of her hand to her nose and nodded as her red eyes glazed. Tears ran down her pale cheeks.
Before Seb could do anything to comfort her, Bruke dropped himself down next to the grieving woman and pulled her into a tight hug. He enveloped her with his huge arms. Although clumsy, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world and Janina sobbed freely. A few seconds later, all three of the children moved into the warm-hearted creature’s strong embrace. He had a wide enough reach for all of them.
It didn’t matter what Phulp had done to Seb and the others, no one deserved what had happened to him. No one. And to have to leave a family behind … on this planet, of all places.
Maybe he shouldn’t have said it, but what else could he do at that moment? In the cold hut, sat on the cold ground, the darkness and shadows swamping them, he cleared his throat and looked at Phulp’s family one after the other. “I’m going to take the Countess down.”
Janina’s eyes widened and she stopp
ed crying for a moment. “What?”
“I’m going to take her down. I’m not from this planet, but I’ve seen what she does to the beings in this city. I can’t stand by and let it happen. I’m sorry I didn’t do it before this happened to Phulp, but I’ll stop her from doing it to anyone else.”
For the first time since he’d met them, the eldest girl, Jawty, spoke up. She had a tiny high-pitched voice. “Until you said that, I thought you were one of them. I was worried our time was up too.”
“Why would you say that?” Seb said.
When Jawty looked at his tan flight suit, Seb nodded. “I see. And no, I’m most definitely not one of them.”
The middle child of the three—little Phulp—stepped away from the group hug. He moved closer to Seb. A voice to match his stature, he seemed to be whispering. “She said to Mummy that she’ll come for me when I turn thirteen. I don’t know what that means.”
“She won’t!” Bruke said. His deep voice boomed in the small space and made Phulp’s family jump.
Seb looked from the large creature to Janina and back at the boy.
Little Phulp watched Bruke as if expecting another outburst. When none came, he turned to Seb again. “She said she’d drag me out into the square.”
Another look at Bruke and Seb saw he’d pressed his lips tightly together as if to hold onto his anger. Janina confirmed what the boy said with a nod. Seb looked back at little Phulp. “Not if I kill her, she won’t.”
“But how do we know someone else won’t just replace her?” Janina said. “Phulp and I planned to make as much money as we could over the next few years and get off this hellish planet. We have a couple of years before Phulp junior is of age and I’d still like to get away from here.”
For a moment Seb didn’t reply. The sound of the busy slum outside whispered into the place. “You’re right,” he finally said. “It’s more than her. Who’s to say this way of being won’t continue? We need a better plan than an assassination. We need—”
The Shadow Order - Books 1 - 8 + 120 Seconds (The complete series): A Space Opera Page 39
