Then Seb heard it. The now familiar swoosh of rushing water beside him. The sound of something moving through the sewers, something large.
A quickened heartbeat and Seb peered over the side of the elevated path. When he aimed his torch at the murky water below, his stomach sank. Like standing in a tiny fishing boat and watching an enormous whale travel beneath him, he looked at the huge black body of the squid-like creature and his legs shook. How had it got so close to him?
The blur started at the edges of Seb’s vision like it always did and his world slowed down. He watched the monster turn in the water so it stared up at him through one of its huge eyes. So black it made the sewers look grey, it had torment sitting deep within its onyx orb.
Maybe the same one he’d escaped from earlier, maybe not, Seb saw determination deep in its black glare. Something about the way it stared at him told him it had already won.
It roared beneath the water’s surface, the deep sound bubbling the river of shit, adding more green froth to the coating on the top. Seb’s body lit up with gooseflesh. Before the beast could do anything else, he turned his nervous energy into motion and took off in the direction he’d been heading.
Chapter 27
Seb’s world remained in slow motion as he ran from the beast. The rush of the massive creature lifted the sewer water up onto the path behind him. If he slowed down, the flood of shitty waste would take his feet away.
Although he still had no idea which way would lead him from the tunnels, it seemed more important to turn now than ever. When Seb came to the next left, he took it.
The sudden sharp turn seemed too much for the beast; it overshot it and crashed into a wall. Bricks fell from the dark ceiling and rained down on the path around Seb. Fortunately, none hit him. The vibration shook the place so hard they must have felt it in the elevated city.
The monster gave chase again, drawing closer to Seb with every passing second.
The pathway narrowed up ahead and Seb took his chance to cross over to the other side. This time he turned right at the next tunnel.
Another loud crash as the creature collided with the wall again. The vibration would have registered on the Richter scale, but it did nothing to slow the creature down. In fact, it had already closed the gap on him.
By the time Seb made his next sharp turn, the creature had almost drawn level with him. A glance down at the water and he saw the black leather dome of its head break the surface, cutting a path through the river like a ship’s prow.
Another turn and the monster crashed into the wall again. Seb felt the spray of the filthy water against the side of his face. Because everything moved in slow motion, he had time to think about the reality of what coated him—one of the disadvantages of his gift.
As Seb ran, he wiped his face with his sleeve and looked ahead. A slight change in the light showed the ground highlighted with silver. Moonlight! The sewer’s exit sat just metres away.
Exhaustion threatened to turn Seb’s legs to jelly and his lungs burned, but he pushed on regardless. Clumsy as he moved, his torchlight swayed from side to side with his pumping arms.
The creature had pulled level again, almost as if it toyed with Seb, showing off its ability to destroy him whenever it pleased. It had lifted its head completely free from the water, and it looked at him again with its dark glare.
The black eye he’d seen beneath the murky water seemed even darker now—it looked even larger too. This creature didn’t belong on this plane. It looked like a denizen of hell.
Another look at the exit and Seb only had a few metres to go. When he turned back to look at the monster, he saw it had gone. But where?
Before Seb could think on it any further, a loud explosion accompanied the huge domed black head of the beast rising from the water between him and his way out of there. It filled the tunnel, shutting out any sliver of moonlight. It had the same strands of torn, black skin hanging down in front of its mouth like the other one had. When it opened it, it revealed a large beak inside that looked powerful enough to chew through metal.
The monster screamed and the rush of air crashed into Seb, stopping him dead in his tracks. When it screamed again, the expulsion of air threw him on his arse, the hard ground sending a shock wave of pain up through his spine.
Freedom lay beyond the hideous thing and Seb had no way of getting past it. He scrambled to his feet and turned around to head back into the sewer. Then he stopped dead again.
Because he’d focused all of his attention on the creature in front of him, Seb hadn’t seen the one behind. Equally as large, the second one screamed too, its fleshy strands blowing away from its mouth with the vehemence of its yell. The same smell of blood he’d caught from one of the creatures earlier smothered him.
No side tunnels to escape through, Seb watched the winged creatures rise higher in the sewer, their frames impossibly large for the already cavernous space. A look from one beast to the other and he watched them slowly close in on him. He had nowhere to go.
Chapter 28
Sandwiched between the two beasts, Seb looked from one to the other and remained rooted to the spot.
It didn’t matter if everything moved in slow motion, he had no way past either of them. If anything, his gift simply prolonged his torture.
Seb couldn’t even pick the smallest one of the two. They both seemed a similar kind of massive. A similar kind of indomitable. If he had to go against either, it made sense to charge at the one blocking the exit. Get past that one and he’d be out of there.
The idea seemed solid, but when Seb tried to plan a route past the beast, he couldn’t see one. The thing blocked every centimetre of the tunnel. A wall of a monster, its domed head filled most of the available space, its wings taking up the rest.
And as if the task didn’t seem impossible already, at least six thick tentacles swayed in front of it, ready to slam down on his head and shatter his spine. The beast snapped its beak, showing it could pulverise him if he got anywhere near it.
Although Seb drew a deep breath, it did nothing to settle him down. Instead, he stood there, frozen and living every painful second of his anxiety, his heartbeat pounding through him as a ticking reminder of how little time he had to make his move. He had no hope.
But he had to do something. The longer he stood there, the more likely one of the creatures would be to win. He had to give it a go at least.
Just before Seb could run at the beast by the exit, another shrill scream bounced off the walls of the dark and dank tunnel.
Different from the sound made by the monsters, the high-pitched yell had a tongue-rolling ring to it. It also had the collective force of being loosed from tens, if not hundreds, of diaphragms.
Seb spun around to look at the monster behind him—the one farthest away from the sewer’s exit. It also turned to look behind it and he caught a glimpse of a tribe of sewer dwellers.
More than he’d thought existed down in the dark labyrinth, they moved as a swarm, rushing forward en masse.
The small ratty one Seb had originally thought to be the leader led the charge. It already had its curved silver sword drawn and it headed straight at the large beast, leading with the point of its weapon. It jumped impossibly high for something so small and landed on the face of the creature, a squelch responding to the blade burying into its huge eye.
The small sewer dweller hung onto the handle with both hands, its slight body swaying with the distressed monster’s thrashing movements.
The walls shook and the water bubbled from the monster screaming. But before it had time to react any more than that, several more sewer dwellers followed the action of the first.
Suicidal in their conviction, they all landed on one of its two large eyes and several more squelches rang through the tunnel.
A couple fell away instantly into the churning mess of water beneath it, but for the most part, they hung from its now shredded eyes.
Seb looked at the other creature near the exit and
saw it didn’t move as it watched the struggle. It seemed almost reluctant to get involved.
When the large monster under attack spun around, Seb saw thick, tarry blood oozing from its eyes and running in streaks down its black skin.
The large creature continued to spin and scream. It lashed out with one of its tentacles and clattered into the wall.
More chips of stone and brick fell from the ceiling above.
The beast had clearly been rendered blind because it flailed wildly, missing all of the other dwellers and smashing the walls again and again.
A rush of sewer dwellers slipped past the monster as it thrashed about to stand between it and Seb.
Like the first lot, the dwellers launched themselves at the monster. Each one had a weapon of some sort. Swords, daggers, spears—each one embedded something in the brute’s domed head, and most of the attackers managed to hold on.
The large squid-like monster set the air alight with its fury and blindly lashed out. Massive in the cramped space, it couldn’t move without clattering into one of the walls.
Every attempted swing ended with a ground-shaking crash. The lack of space that had been its advantage only moments earlier when it trapped Seb, now served as its prison, restricting its defence.
Every time the monster twisted, the sewer dwellers hung on, but their bodies swung away from the beast. More black blood ran from its eyes and it screamed again and again and again, only pausing to draw breath before it released another expression of its fury.
The one by the entrance still hadn’t moved, so Seb looked back at the monster under attack. The shredded flaps of skin in front of its mouth blew out with every call, and the smell of its metallic breath overpowered the reek of shit in the air.
In one final attempt to get away from the attack, the creature pulled beneath the water, dragging the dwellers down with it.
The fury vanished as quickly as it had exploded to life. The only evidence of the scuffle showed as a foam on top of the river.
It all happened so quickly, the other monster still hadn’t moved. It’s large black eyes stared at the space where its mate had been as if it felt uncertain of what to do next.
The crowd of dwellers who hadn’t been dragged under with the first beast rushed the second one. They ran down the paths on both sides of the river, screaming like they had when they’d attacked only moments before.
Seb watched the monster twist from side to side as if to take in the two pathways full of sewer dwellers.
Before any of the dwellers could get to it, the monster pulled into the river and Seb listened to the rushing water of its retreat.
Plenty of the sewer dwellers threw spears after the creature as it passed, but its hide would undoubtably be too thick for their weapons to have an impact. The resistance of the water would also have slowed down the projectiles too. A gesture at best, it showed the creature they would fight if they needed to.
As quickly as they’d appeared, the dwellers disappeared as if folding back into the darkness. Only one of their pack remained.
The off-kilter, twisting and swaying man smiled at Seb. His shock white maw bore the signs of having eaten fresh shit. He pressed his muddy hands together and nodded. “Safe passage, Chosen One.”
For a moment, Seb simply stared at the leader of the dwellers. They knew more about the prophecy than they let on, they must do. But they wouldn’t tell him.
The thought of another creature appearing spurred Seb on to let his curiosity hang. He’d already ridden his luck in the horrible place.
Seb nodded at the crazy man and then spun on his heel before running out of the sewers.
Chapter 29
Barely able to walk in a straight line because of exhaustion, Seb ventured out into the relative light of the slums. The moon hung in the clear sky. Full but not bright compared to a sun, it certainly cast more light than he’d seen in the sewers the entire time he’d been down there. Enough for him to have to blink against the slight glare from it.
Legs of jelly, frayed nerves, and sore all over, now he’d walked free of the slums, Seb thought about what he’d just encountered down there. Were it not for the sewer dwellers, he’d be dead by now.
And how many had died for his cause? No way would they have survived being dragged into the river. Only the large, squid-like creatures knew how deep the water in the sewers went, but it ran deep enough to conceal a fully grown one of them—the creatures made a whale look like whitebait.
The weight of responsibility pressed down on Seb. They might have only been sewer dwellers, but many lives had already been lost for his cause. They’d believed in him enough to sacrifice themselves. But what did he do now? ‘The chosen one’—what did that even mean?
Regardless of what he didn’t know, Seb knew one thing: lives had been lost in his name and he had to make sure it counted for something. Revolution seemed like the best avenue to focus his energy on.
Now a good fifty metres from the sewers, Seb’s surroundings grew even lighter as he stepped from the dark shadow cast by the elevated city. He looked around. Huts and rickety roofs everywhere as always. Busy as always with beings going about their business. Although, now more than ever, the slum dwellers stared at him. Sure, he had the flight suit on still and no doubt looked like crap, but there seemed to be something more. Whenever he got near enough, every one of the beings in close proximity stopped what they were doing and stared at him.
A commotion in the distance pulled Seb’s attention across the slum. Were it not for the sounds, he wouldn’t have seen them coming. Fortunately, the Crimson foot soldiers moved through the place like a stampede, destroying every hut they got close to and laughing so loud he’d have to be deaf not to hear them.
“Damn it,” he muttered.
It took Seb a few seconds of looking around him to make the choice. He then ducked into the nearest hut.
Inside, he found a family of what looked like a mum, dad, and a small child. Seb raised his hands at them and said, “Please, I don’t want to run into the soldiers.”
One of the adults pulled the child close and the other one stared as Seb as if it would fight him should it need to.
“Please,” Seb said again. “I don’t mean you any harm.”
It seemed to be enough to calm the tension in the cramped space.
Green skin, blue eyes, and wide, slim mouths, the three creatures looked like frogs. Only now, upon seeing they accepted him in their space, did Seb see the young one’s stomach. A bright red sore sat in the centre of it and the poor creature winced as if in constant pain. A small stove burned in the corner, lighting the space up enough to show Seb the white film of pus forming on the wound. It also showed the shimmer on the creature’s forehead from it sweating with a fever.
A slight tingle ran pins and needles through Seb’s hands like it had done several times previously. But he ignored it as he looked at what seemed to be the most hostile of the three creatures. “Have you heard there’s going to be a revolution?”
The creature didn’t respond.
“Well, there is. I’m going to lead it and we’re going to take this planet back from the Countess’ control. Is your child a boy or a girl?”
The blue eyes observed Seb and it still didn’t reply. The other one spoke instead, her voice soft. “A boy.”
The answer dropped a sinking feeling through Seb’s chest and into his stomach. “I want to see families have boys without living in fear.”
The poor kid twisted where it sat as if it could wriggle free from its infection.
Before Seb could say anything else, the crack and crash of a hut collapsed just outside.
“If they take down this hut, I’ll make them pay; I promise,” Seb said. “But if I can hide away from them now, I’d rather do that. If we can take the fight to them on our terms, we can get this city back.”
Again, the family didn’t speak.
The tingling buzzing through Seb’s hands increased and he looked down at th
em. He almost expected them to sing like a tuning fork.
Seb finally gave into his desire and reached across to put a hand on the child’s stomach. The parents tensed at him touching their boy, but they didn’t stop him. The already frantic throb buzzed harder than ever and he looked into the little kid’s eyes. Almost instantly he saw the change in the small creature. The pain of only seconds ago seemed to ease a little and it relaxed.
As the buzz grew more frenetic, heat spread through Seb’s hands. They grew so warm it felt like he’d held them over a fire.
A deeper green ran through the small boy’s cheeks. It took for Seb to see the kid’s true colour to realise just how pale he’d been.
When Seb pulled his hands away, the sore had vanished. He looked at the boy and then the parents.
The dad’s jaw hung loose. “How did you do that?”
Seb stared down at his hands. The strange sensation had gone. “I … I don’t know. I just got an urge to touch his sore. I don’t know what I did.”
Tears ran down the mum’s face. “Thank you. You’ve just saved our little boy’s life. We were sure he’d die from the infection.”
Seb needed to get out of there. He couldn’t explain what had just happened and he didn’t want to know either.
When he got to the door and peeked outside, he said, “The soldiers have gone. Thank you for your help.”
“Wait,” the mum said. “There must be something we can do for you?”
“Just be ready,” Seb said.
“For what?”
“For the revolution.”
Before they could say anything else to him, he slipped out of the hut into the busy slum. All the beings looked at him like they had done before he hid away. Even the ones whose hut lay on the ground in pieces looked up, Seb more interesting to them than the devastation of their home.
But Seb didn’t react. With his head dipped into the cold wind, he walked and looked at his hands. What had just happened in the hut? Something had made him want to do it—and not for the first time. But what?
The Shadow Order - Books 1 - 8 + 120 Seconds (The complete series): A Space Opera Page 45
