The Shadow Order - Books 1 - 8 + 120 Seconds (The complete series): A Space Opera

by Michael Robertson

  “A revolution,” Bruke said.

  Everyone turned to look at the muscly creature.

  “I think you’re right,” Seb said. “The only question is are you ready for one?”

  When Bruke drew a deep breath, he seemed to sit straighter than Seb had seen from him before. Steel shone in his dark eyes and he nodded. “Yes. I think everyone is.”

  Chapter 13

  The ground didn’t get any more comfortable as Seb and the others remained sat on it in Phulp’s hut. A cross-legged approach seemed like the best option, but the numbness in his arse had already turned into sharp pains in his hips. Even his knees tingled as the discomfort stretched through his body. If he stayed that way for too long, he wouldn’t get up again.

  A small amount of moonlight stretched into the dark hut. It combined with the stove in the corner to offer just the slightest illumination. Seb’s eyes had adjusted a little to the poor light, but it also helped that his companions had such pale faces. Even Bruke in his own green way seemed to glow in the muted environment.

  The smell of cooked food hung in the air from Bruke having been busy with Phulp’s stove. Not only had he fired it up, but he’d cracked open a tin of meat and was cooking it. Seb didn’t know which animal the meat came from and he tried not to give it too much thought. It smelled great, his rumbling stomach certainly needed it, and after he’d eaten sea slug, anything had to be an improvement.

  For the past ten minutes or so—since Bruke had fired up the stove and covered Phulp’s body with a tarpaulin—the group had sat in near silence. Seb listened to the hive of activity outside the small dwelling. The lack of conversation in the hut suited him. Better to hear an attack coming than make small talk with strangers.

  “Right,” Bruke said, his loud voice making Seb jump, “we have dinner.” He walked over to the children with three steaming cans. Phulp seemed to have a range of the empty containers washed out and ready to use. He must have served all his meals in them.

  One can for each of the kids, Seb watched them jump on them, their little hands spooning the contents into their mouths so fast they turned into a blur.

  By the time Bruke handed Seb his can, hunger had withdrawn his stomach so tightly into him it almost hurt. He hadn’t eaten for a few days. Then he looked down at the three children. They’d all finished their meals already, and they all stared at him. Phulp Junior’s tongue hung from his mouth and dribble ran from Jince’s chin.

  After letting out a deep and grizzled sigh, the smell of the cooked meat slithering up his nostrils, teasing him with what sat in the can for him, Seb handed the kids his dinner and shook his head to himself.

  Jince snatched the can, took a mouthful, and handed it to Phulp, who did the same before passing it along to Jawty.

  “Excuse me!” Janina said.

  The three children looked at their mum, their jaws slack.

  “What do you say?”

  “Oh,” Jince said and covered her mouth as she burped. “Sorry. And thank you.”

  Phulp and Jawty spoke in unison. “Thank you.”

  Seb smiled in spite of himself.

  “But what about your dinner, Seb?” Bruke said to him.

  “It’s okay,” Seb replied. “I’ll have something else.”

  “There’s no more meat.”

  “That’s okay. Are there any grains of any sort.”

  “Yep.”

  “That’ll do.”

  “Plain grains?” Bruke asked.

  A shrug and Seb said, “Whatever’s easiest.”

  While Bruke made some more food, Seb smiled at Janina. “You guys look hungry.”

  “Phulp would always get the food for us,” Janina said.

  When Bruke gave Seb his can of grains, he handed it to Phulp’s wife. “Here, I can wait.”

  Janina wrapped both of her hands around the can and cradled it as if the warmth nourished her as much as the food would. Instead of eating, she stared at Seb. “Thank you. You’re a good man.”

  Heat lifted beneath Seb’s cheeks and he cleared his throat. He didn’t reply to her praise. “So why didn’t you eat some of the food in here?”

  “We didn’t know who the food belonged to. Had we known about it and known it was Phulp’s, then we may have done, but it could have been a trap laid by the Countess. Besides, I didn’t want to come back into the hut with …” Janina looked down at the tarpaulin in the corner.

  “I understand.”

  “This was the first time I felt ready to bring the kids here.”

  “And you found us waiting,” Bruke said.

  “Exactly.”

  “I want you to have the food,” Seb said.

  The familial resemblance struck Seb when all four of their faces lit up in the same way.

  “But,” Jince said, “what about Bruke? He needs some.”

  A glance at the scaly brute and Seb nodded. “You’re right, he does. How about leaving him enough for a couple of days and you guys take the rest? Sound good, Bruke?”

  Most beings would have resented not getting as much as someone else, but not Bruke. A large smile spread across his face and he nodded. “I came here with no food. If I leave with a couple of day’s worth, then I’ve done well.”

  Janina nodded and looked from Seb to Bruke. “Thank you. Both of you.”

  Now she’d found her voice, Jince seemed to be getting braver. Without a word, she walked over to Seb and pressed the side of her face to his chest as if listening for his heartbeat. She spread her arms across him in an attempted hug, managing to reach just about far enough for the tips of her fingers to cling onto the top of each of his arms.

  It had to be the stress of the past few days that made the lump rise in Seb’s throat. He quickly swallowed it down.

  When Jince pulled away, Seb saw the small patch of food she’d stained his hideous flight suit with and he smiled. Kids!

  Maybe Seb being overwhelmed by his emotions had seemed obvious, maybe she’d just been curious, but Janina changed the subject as if sparing him any more attention. She looked at Bruke. “So how did you two meet? If you don’t mind me saying, you seem like a strange partnership.”

  Where Bruke had been busy with the stove, he came to life and stepped close to Phulp’s family. At first, he spoke in a near whisper. “It was a dark and misty night—”

  “It was about six hours ago,” Seb said.

  The illusion of the story had already been shattered and the other five stared at Seb as if to tell him that. He pulled back into the shadows.

  Bruke continued. “It was a dark and misty night in the slums. Babies were crying, raised voices rode the cold evening breeze, and danger lurked in every shadow.” He leaned close to Jince, grimacing at her with a wide grin.

  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 14

  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.