A nod and Gurt said, “How will I know when to start climbing?”
Although Seb opened his mouth to answer, he had nothing to say, so when Sparks stepped between them, he moved back and let her speak.
“I’ll set this off,” she said whilst retrieving a flare from her bag and holding it up for Gurt to see. “It’ll glow red when it burns.”
Gurt nodded, and although Seb waited for a snarky comment, none came.
Just before they set off again, Gurt grabbed Seb’s arm and pulled him close. “You’re a born leader,” he said. “You’re doing a good job.”
At first, Seb didn’t know what to say, watching Gurt’s face for a hint of mirth. He couldn’t see any, so he said, “Thank you.”
Gurt didn’t respond, so Seb turned around and led the others deeper into the sewers.
Chapter Forty-Three
A few minutes later they arrived at the next ladder. Although nothing had happened, the deeper Seb walked into the sewers, the more tension wound through his body. Much further and he’d become brittle. Some of his anxiety seemed to rub off on Bruke, who appeared to grow more nervous with every passing minute.
More arrows had directed them to the next ladder, so Seb should trust they’d lead them all the way. Also, the large squids had left them alone so far. Maybe they got a sense of just how many beings had entered their domain and they thought better of it. Even those monstrous beasts would have a hard time defeating Seb’s army. Besides, nothing had happened yet, so he shouldn’t worry unless he needed to.
When Seb pointed his torch up the length of the ladder, he saw the tunnel it disappeared into didn’t close as tight as some of the others. “SA,” he said, “I need you to take one in every three beings and wait for the signal.”
The water splashed next to them and Seb jumped, pointing a trembling torch in the direction of the sound. Foam floated on the surface of the river as if stirred up by something—possibly a tentacle—but nothing else happened.
Seb looked back at SA and her eyes glowed the same colour as the markings on the wall. Ever calm, she stood perfectly still. A look at Bruke and he watched the large, scaly creature wring his hands and chew on the inside of his mouth.
“Also,” Seb said, “I want you to take the giants with you too. I think they’ll fit up this tunnel.”
SA nodded again.
Another look at Bruke and Seb saw his wide brown eyes. “Bruke, I want you to use this ladder. Stay with SA, okay?”
“Okay,” Bruke said. Although it sounded more like a question than anything. SA would help calm him down. He needed her influence.
Although Seb wanted to hug SA, he refrained. Instead, he rubbed her upper arm and smiled at her. “I want you to be the first up the ladder, if that’s okay? The Shadow Order should be the first to emerge just in case there’s a trap up there. And then head for the square in front of the Crimson Palace.”
She smiled back and nodded.
“Good luck,” Seb said. Before he could set off, Bruke grabbed his arm and pulled him to one side.
“What’s up?” Seb said, speaking so only Bruke could hear him.
Bruke looked all around them and walked on the spot. “I’m worried,” he said.
“That’s okay, we’re all worried.”
“What if it goes wrong?”
“We have to have faith it won’t.”
“Is that all you have?”
“What else can we do, Bruke? It’s worked so far.”
“No, we’ve had plans so far. What are the plans now?”
“Get up to the city and see what’s waiting up there for us.”
“That’s it?”
“Look, Bruke, you may have thought I had plans when we went to the fighting pit, but I didn’t. I didn’t know the Shadow Order would turn up at that point. What would we have done if they hadn’t?”
Bruke gasped, the sharp drawing of his breath running away from them into the darkness. “What would we have done?”
“Exactly.”
A shrug and Bruke said, “What’s your point, Seb?”
“It worked out. Sometimes you can’t plan everything. We have enough of an army to deal with whatever we need to deal with. Now we need to see what happens.”
The chat didn’t seem to allay any of Bruke’s fears, so Seb reached across and placed a hand on his friend’s scaled shoulder. He leaned forwards and looked into Bruke’s dark eyes. “Just follow SA. She’s the best fighter and calmest head out of everyone here.”
A look over at SA and then back at Seb and Bruke nodded. “Okay.”
“Okay,” Seb repeated. “See you up top, yeah?”
Bruke nodded again. “Okay.”
After Seb had stepped away from Bruke, he looked at Sparks. She offered him a tight-lipped smile and the two of them led the rest of the army deeper into the sewers.
Chapter Forty-Four
Once they’d gotten far enough away from the previous ladder, Seb spoke to Sparks in a low voice so only she could hear him. “I’m worried. What if this doesn’t work?”
Sparks shrugged. “It has to work.”
The collective sound of movement echoed through the tunnels behind them. Quieter for losing half of the army to Gurt and SA, it still reminded Seb of the weight of his responsibility. Where he’d expected Bruke to have faith, he now had to take his own advice. He smiled at Sparks. “I can’t argue with that.”
“Seb?”
Seb looked at his small friend and saw her looking at one of the bioluminescent arrows.
“Why have the sewer dwellers marked out the way for us?”
Extra careful to keep his voice down, Seb said, “I came down here on my own. I had to find out what the nutty woman was talking about when she called me the chosen one.”
“And?”
“It was crazy. They caught me and tied me up. I thought they’d eat me. I watched them slaughter another creature and cook it. But then I saw some paintings on the cave wall.”
“Paintings?”
“Like hieroglyphs. It painted out what I think is their prophecy. They showed images of my life, all the way up to meeting you Shadow Order guys.”
“I was on there?”
“Yep. Gurt and SA too. It was freaky. One of the elders arrived while I was tied up and he recognised me. He called me the chosen one, but they couldn’t tell me much more than that. They know about my mum. They know more about my mum than I do, but they wouldn’t tell me. On my way out, I ran into a couple of those”—he lowered his voice some more and glanced back at the slow march behind them—“squid-like monsters.”
“What happened?”
“I thought I was done for until the sewer dwellers turned up and attacked them. Several of them died in the process, but it gave me a chance to escape.”
“So they really do want to help you out?”
“It would seem so.”
They came upon the next ladder and Seb sighed. He’d only got a fraction of his worries out, but it would have to wait. “Okay, Sparks, you take one in every two beings now, yeah? I’ll call down to you when I need you to drop the flare.”
For a second, Sparks didn’t reply, a frown on her face as if trying to process their conversation. She then nodded. “You take care, okay? Everything’s going to work out.”
“See you up top,” Seb replied and moved off into the darkness following the direction of the next arrow. The collective glow of hundreds of torches had dropped down to just tens with the thinning crowd.
Chapter Forty-Five
Seb stopped at the fourth ladder and looked at the line of beings behind him. Now they’d been whittled down to just a quarter of their number, they seemed impossibly underpowered. The Countess would destroy them. But he couldn’t think like that. He had to have faith. He had to.
The sound of the river still rushed beside Seb and he continued to listen for the creatures. Nothing.
Once the beings at the back had caught up to him, Seb drew a deep breath to cal
l to Sparks. Before he could loose his call, two frog-like creatures appeared in front of him. They were the two he’d seen when he’d snuck into their hut whilst hiding from the Crimson soldiers. The ones whose child he’d healed.
“Where’s your boy?” Seb asked. “Is he okay? His sore healed fine?”
They both nodded and one of them spoke. “We’ve left him with family.”
“And he wasn’t in the huts that got burned?”
“No.”
Seb heaved a relieved sigh. “Praise the stars for that.”
“We wanted to fight this war with you because we believe in you,” one of the creatures said. “We’ll never forget what you did for our boy. We’re forever in your debt.”
Seb batted the comment away with his hand. “You owe me nothing. But if you feel like there’s a debt, you can consider it paid now.”
Before they could say anything else, Seb pointed up the ladder. “We need to get up there.”
They both nodded. They could talk later. Now they needed to keep moving. Seb drew a deep breath again and did his best to ignore the smell of waste. He called back into the darkness, his voice echoing through the tunnels. “Sparks, set the flare off.”
A rock tightened in Seb’s gut as he heard the whoosh of the flare and saw the red flickering glow. No chance of turning back now. A deep breath to settle his nerves and Seb gripped the cold rungs of the ladder. He fought against the reluctance in his legs and started his climb.
Chapter Forty-Six
By the time Seb reached the top of the ladder, his hands had turned numb from the frigid metal rungs. The long climb had left him out of breath and his legs and arms ached.
The beings who’d followed Seb had discarded their torches at the bottom. The collective glow from them sent light up the tunnel and showed him the line of creatures on his tail. They stretched from the top to the bottom of the ladder. His stomach lifted to look down at how far he’d climbed. At how far he could fall.
Seb reached up for the manhole cover just above him with his left hand. Because he now had to grip on with just his right, he shook worse than ever, his entire body wobbling as the strength drained from his limbs.
Through fear of being heard, Seb pushed the manhole cover away as gently as he could. The moon cast a pale spotlight down the tunnel and illuminated the faces staring up at him.
As quietly as possible, Seb eased the manhole cover completely clear of the hole. The scrape of the metal against the hard ground betrayed him to anything close enough to hear. But what other choice did he have? They had to get out of there.
When Seb had pushed the cover far enough away, he gripped back onto the ladder. The shake in his right arm eased a little. Several deep breaths to find the final push he needed and he climbed the extra few rungs to allow him to see out of the hole.
They were in an alley similar to the one he and Sparks emerged into when they came to the elevated city before. Small cottages, with thatched roofs, white brickwork and dark beams, lined either side of the space. Black cobblestones ran along the dark ground, and every so often the fog glowed from where it hid a gaslight.
Seb climbed out into the white mist. It hid him from sight, but meant he wouldn’t have any idea if something watched them.
One of the frog-like beings followed Seb from the hole. He held his hand down to help them out. After he’d aided the first one, he left them to help their partner and hopefully continue the trend.
A scratching sound called from the fog and Seb squinted to see better. It took a few seconds of searching, but he finally saw another manhole cover move. He ran over to it and lifted it free to see Sparks’ bespectacled face staring up at him. Like he’d done with the froggy creature, he helped her and then the next being to follow her from the hole.
While the creatures climbed from the sewers—a steady stream of them emerging one at a time—Seb looked up and down the alley. “Can you see any more manhole covers?” he asked Sparks.
She too looked up and down. After a few seconds she shook her head. “Not that I can see that well, but it doesn’t look like it. Maybe SA and Gurt will come out in a different alley. They know to meet us at the entrance to the square. That’s enough, right?”
Seb nodded and continued to scan the fog.
Both Seb and Sparks moved towards the end of the alleyway, but stopped far enough back to remain hidden.
The stream of beings emerging from the sewers didn’t look to be ending any time soon. They followed Seb and Sparks and packed the width of the tight space. The two frog-like creatures stood at the front of them.
Since they’d climbed out of the sewers, Seb had avoided looking at the Crimson Palace. When he finally did, his stomach flipped. A formidable sight, the large black stalagmite of a structure seemed to taunt them on the horizon. It looked impenetrable.
“Can you stay here and make sure everyone gets out okay?” Seb said to the frog-like creatures.
They nodded as one.
He pointed to the ground. “Make sure they don’t go any further than here though. We’re going to go up ahead and check out the situation in the square.”
Again the creatures nodded.
Sparks moved close to Seb as they walked away and whispered, “It seems too quiet up here.”
And it did. Despite looking in every window of every house they passed, Seb only saw darkness in all of the dwellings. “I suppose with what we did to the pit, they’d have to know we’re coming.” That thought made the silence worse.
They stood just a few metres from the square, so Seb moved against one of the cold and damp walls. He pressed his back to it so he could hide in the shadows, but his flight suit did little to combat the chill from the bricks. A shake had already taken a hold of him from the climb and fear-induced adrenaline. The cold wall simply added to it.
Seb clamped his jaw, but it did little to calm down his shakes. Not far to go to the end of the alleyway, he pushed on an inch at a time and Sparks followed him. Who knew what lay in wait for them.
About a metre of the alleyway left and Seb saw nearly all of the square now. Panic reached up and wrapped a strong grip around his throat. Steam came from his rapid breaths.
One final deep exhale and Seb poked his head out.
As quickly as he’d looked out, he pulled back in again. For a few seconds he didn’t have the words, so Sparks looked out too.
When she pulled back in, she looked up at him. “What are we going to do?”
Seb shook worse than ever and it took a few seconds for him to get his words out. He finally said, “I don’t know.” He looked back at the dense crowd in the alleyway and spoke so only Sparks heard him. “I’m not sure we should have even come up here.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
By the time Seb had pulled himself together, the beings from the slum had moved up the alleyway to be with him and Sparks. So much for the frog creatures holding them back.
Bodies packed the dark passageway. They stood shoulder to shoulder as a dense wall. Seb couldn’t see how far back they stretched. The condensation of their collective breathing filled the air.
The frog creatures remained at the front of the crowd with the minotaur just behind them. Quite a force, but would it be enough? And how could he prepare them for what waited around the corner?
Seb looked at Sparks. “Do you think SA and Gurt have led the others up here now?”
Sparks shrugged.
“We have to guess they’ve come out somewhere else and they’re waiting for us to move, right?”
It looked like Sparks might shrug again, but she finally said, “I think we have to assume that. There’s no way they won’t have made it up here. And the longer we wait, the longer we leave them guessing on what they have to do next.”
A nod at his small friend and Seb addressed the pack. “If anyone wants to turn back now,” he said, the quiver in his voice amplified by the tight space, “this is your last chance.” It didn’t matter if the Countess heard them com
ing. She probably already knew exactly where they were anyway.
Seb continued. “Once we step out into the square, we’re declaring war on the Countess.” A deep breath and he managed to settle himself down a little. “I’m not turning back regardless of who does or doesn’t come with me. I’m not having second thoughts. But what I do know for sure is that not all of us will walk away from this. Many of us won’t, in fact. So if you want to change your minds, now’s the time to do it.”
The pack of creatures remained where they were and stared at Seb. None of them spoke, but none of them moved either. Many of them swayed from side to side as if spending their nervous energy. They were ready for the battle. They had his back.
Seb’s panic eased a little at their support. He nodded at them and raised his voice. If Gurt and SA were nearby, it would do well for them to hear him. “Today we make history on Solsans. Today we take the planet back.”
More movement swayed through the crowd and some of them nodded their heads while others balled their fists and raised their weapons.
“Today we show the Countess what happens when you oppress beings for too long.”
Some of the creatures bashed their bats and poles against the ground. The sound of it echoed through the alleyway and out into the square.
Goosebumps lifted over Seb’s body and he clenched his fists. They were committed now. “I will lead you into this. The Shadow Order will give everything to this battle.” He pointed out into the square. “We’ll leave everything we have out there.”
The creatures swayed and bobbed more than before. Many nodded their heads and some jumped up and down.
The Crimson War: A Space Opera: Book Three of The Shadow Order Page 14
