The Shadow Order: A Space Opera Page 14

  “Where’s the rest of the animal we ate last night?”

  But Sparks didn’t answer. Instead, she sat bolt upright and looked around. She scratched her head, her black bob lacking its usual sharpness from where she’d slept on it. She finally looked back at Seb and made a noncommittal, “Huh?”

  Despite the daylight, Seb still couldn’t see the back of their cave. The veins of lava ran away from them, beneath the line of trees just twenty or so metres away, and into the void beyond.

  When Sparks stood up, Seb did too. Her sharp gasp snapped through the enclosed space and dove down into the darkness of the tree-mites. “Do you see …?” she said.

  “Yep, I do.” Seb fought against the wobble in his voice as he said, “What the hell?”

  A pool of blood lay from where they’d dumped the creature the previous evening. That seemed fairly normal. However, the trail that led away from it, from where the creature had been dragged off, made Seb’s skin turn to gooseflesh.

  When Sparks lit up the torch on her computer, it revealed a long and wet line that ran away from them. “Probably just another animal, I’d say.” Although she sounded far from convinced.

  “Yeah, I’d say so too. I mean, life has to be hard on this rocky planet. There’s probably plenty of opportunists around.” Before Sparks could respond, Seb added, “Whatever it was, we need to move on. We need to find a spaceport and get out of here.”

  Seb faced the daylight outside the cave and walked toward it.

  The patter of Sparks’ feet caught up with him and she fell into stride beside him. The pair said nothing to one another as they quickly marched from the place. What could they say? That something big enough to drag a creature heavier than Seb came up while they slept and pulled it away. Anything could have happened to them.

  At the mouth of the cave, Seb walked outside and peered across at what looked like a spaceport in the distance. The wind had picked up and blew stronger than the previous night. Not only did the bitter gales cut to his bones, but they burned his skin. As Seb wrapped himself in a tight hug, he looked at Sparks and the breath left his lungs. “You’re bleeding.”

  When she looked back, her hair tossed by the strong gusts, she drew a sharp breath. “You are too.”

  After he’d wiped his hand down the side of his face, Seb looked at his palm to see it had turned red. “Damn, what do you …” But before he could finish, Sparks raised her palm into the wind.

  A few seconds later she turned it to face Seb. It too ran red with her blood. “It’s the wind,” she said. “There’s something in the wind that’s cutting us. Almost like glass.”

  Sparks ducked back into the cave and Seb followed.

  Once inside the cave, Seb’s face throbbed from what felt like a thousand paper cuts. Another rub of his skin and he found more blood on his hands. “We can’t go back out there again. It may be a storm, or it may be the daylight that does it to the planet’s atmosphere. We’ll have to sit and wait it out.”

  Although Sparks opened her mouth to speak, a breeze rushed up the cave, a breeze warmer than the one outside. It cut her dead as both she and Seb stared into the darkness below.

  “Did you feel that?” Sparks said.

  “Yep.”

  “This isn’t a cave, is it, Seb?”

  Seb shook his head.

  “What do you think?”

  “Huh?”

  “We could go through here.”

  Another shake of his head and Seb said, “What about the thing that dragged the animal off? That’s down there.”

  “It’ll be long gone. If it didn’t wake us, then it’s probably more scared of us than we are of it.”

  When Seb squinted into the darkness again, he saw just how far the veins stretched away from them. “I suppose it has to lead somewhere, right?” he said. “The breeze wouldn’t come from a dead end.”

  “It’s gotta be better than standing here while we wait for something to change. We need to get off this planet before they send a search party down here, so I’d rather do something than nothing. We’ve got my torch to guide us.” At that moment, Sparks started up her computer and tapped at the screen. After she’d brought an image of a planet up, she turned the screen to Seb and said, “Look.”

  “What am I looking at?”

  “This is the planet we’re on.”

  Seb squinted to read the writing on the screen. “Zenk.”

  Another tap of the screen brought up a video of the planet’s surface, and Sparks said, “It says here that the glass winds continue unabated all day, every day. Daylight can last for up to sixteen of their twenty hours, and nothing survives outside during the day.”

  Another look into the total darkness of the cave and Seb looked back at the image of the planet they currently stood on. After a deep breath, he nodded. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  As Seb got closer to the line of tree-mites with Sparks at his side, he looked down at the thin streams of red beneath his feet. With each step down, he expected the ground to warm up, but the temperature never changed. The cold, glassy environment remained as frigid and hostile as ever.

  Sparks kept the torch on her computer on, which lit up the ground and the line of blood from where the creature’s carcass had been dragged away from them while they slept.

  “What do you think took it?” Seb asked when he saw Sparks stare at the mess again.

  Without lifting her head, Sparks raised her torch to light up more of the trail. “I’m not sure. I just hope this tunnel brings us out closer to the spaceport and off this hideous planet. Is it too much to ask for a bit of greenery, air that doesn’t cut us to shreds, and an existence where I don’t have to live in fear of something eating us? Add to that that we have beings that want to imprison us for no reason whatsoever.”

  ‘No reason whatsoever’ seemed a little naive—Seb had beaten up too many people to count, and Sparks had robbed her way through Aloo. But he didn’t say anything; the mood in the cave didn’t need to go any darker.

  With the tree-mites packed so tightly together, their roots mixed in with the glassy rock and the veins of lava, Seb negotiated his way through by holding the rough bark of one before he moved onto the next. He might not have been able to see his way, but at least he could feel it.

  When Seb stepped forward another pace, something cold and leathery sprang from the darkness. It slapped him in the face from being startled to life. Seb’s heart exploded as the creature smothered him in a panicked and flapping frenzy before it knocked him over.

  A dull thud jolted through Seb’s body when he hit the hard ground. He pulled the creature off him, and it took flight. It disappeared into the dark while Seb lay panting on the floor.

  When Sparks lifted her torch, Seb’s heart leapt in his chest. Above them, in the branches of the tree-mites, hung hundreds of creatures. Like large exotic fruit, they hung down, their wings wrapped around their bodies like cocoons. The average size of the beasts ran around a metre in length and Seb’s skin crawled to look at them. If they all took off at the same time … he shuddered.

  So preoccupied with the creatures and darkness, Seb hadn’t noticed the damp and tacky ground … until he put his hands in it. Sat amongst the mess, he looked around to see the layer of excrement they’d been wading through. What he’d taken to be loam of some sort turned out to be the waste of the winged creatures above. Apparently odourless, the sticky layer felt like milky snot to touch.

  Seb jumped to his feet and rubbed his hands against his trousers.

  When he looked up, he found Sparks staring at him. “Are you okay?”

  Sore and covered in crap, Seb’s face flushed hot. “I’m fine. Come on, let’s go.”

  ***

  After about ten minutes, they came out of the other side of the tree-mites. A deep ache sat in Seb’s back from having to walk with a stoop to avoid the creatures, and his calves stung from walking on tiptoes to keep the noise down. Any sound could hav
e startled them, and the thought of them all taking flight at the same time spun Seb out.

  Although darker than before, Seb breathed more easily in the vast open space on the other side of the tree-mites. From the look of the glowing red trails in the rock, the ground beneath them ran on a steep decline into the tunnel.

  “I’m not sure I like this,” Sparks said as she held her torch out. The beam shook at the end of her outstretched arm.

  “Anything’s got to be better than going back the way we came,” Seb replied.

  The torch beam swung around as Sparks lit up the tree-mites behind them and the creatures in them. She didn’t reply as she seemed to consider her options.

  “Let me put it another way,” Seb said. “I’m going down into this tunnel now. I’m not prepared to debate it, and if I have to go on my own, then I will. However, I’d rather you came with me.”

  Before Sparks could reply, Seb walked off down the hill. A few seconds later, the beam from Sparks’ computer followed him. Thank God. He needed both the light and the company more than he’d been prepared to say.

  ***

  The farther they plunged into the darkness, the steeper the decline. “If we’re not careful,” Sparks said, “this could turn into a cliff and we could fall to the bottom.”

  Panting from their descent and sweating profusely, Seb didn’t reply. They’d committed to it now; they had to keep going. A deep burn streaked through his legs because of the angle of the drop, but he continued down, and Sparks—despite her tiny form—kept pace with him.

  Just when the angle felt like it couldn’t get any steeper without them falling over, the ground flattened out.

  As Seb stared into the inky void in front of them, he grinned. “See, I told you we’d make it to the bottom.” He then added, “You never did tell me how you got out of your cell on The Black Hole.”

  Sparks didn’t reply. Instead, she swiped her torch around them.

  Seb watched her for a few seconds before he asked, “What are you doing?”

  “I don’t think we’re in a tunnel anymore.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s bigger than a tunnel down here.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “Can’t you feel it?”

  Seb let the silence hang as he stretched his senses out into the dark environment around them. As much as he wanted to deny what Sparks had just said, he could feel the vastness of the space stretch away from them. Something about it felt infinite like the sky, although they couldn’t see any more than a few metres in front of them, the torchlight ineffective in such a large space. Even the veins of lava seemed to be less visible, almost as if they ran deeper than they had up on the surface.

  To test the theory, Seb made a noise as loud as he could. “Ooooo-weeeee.”

  Like an eagle taking flight, the sound of his call rushed away from them. The long drawn-out note seemed to last a lifetime. As Seb waited for an echo to come back to him, his throat dried. The sound died without returning. “I think you’re right, Sparks. It seems endless down here.”

  The light wobbled in Spark’s hand and her voice shook. “What shall we do? Where shall we go?”

  “Straight.”

  “Straight?”

  “Yep, I think we should continue straight ahead. This room has to end somewhere, right?” To test the vastness of the room again, Seb called once more into the dark. “Oooooooo—weeeeeeee.”

  The slap of Sparks’ hand stung Seb’s upper arm and she hissed, “Will you stop doing that?”

  Before Seb could reply, a noise came back to him. Although not the mimic of his sound that he’d hoped to hear. At first, he heard something like the groaning of a large tree as it fell to years of rot, but the tree didn’t land. Instead, it morphed into a deep and vision-shaking roar.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Panic came at Seb from every angle as he spun on the spot in the darkness and tried to pinpoint the sound. It surrounded him.

  When it came again, deep and booming, it sounded so loud it shook the ground beneath Seb’s feet. “Those roars sound like they could bring the damn ceiling down.”

  When Seb looked at Sparks, he saw that she too spun on the spot, her torchlight reaching out away from her, but not spreading far in the darkness. Another look at their surroundings and Seb lost his breath. Such a complete absence of light, in spite of Sparks’ torch, it pressed against him as if to suck the vision from his eyes. “Which way were we originally headed?”

  Sparks stopped, and for a moment, she stayed silent. Then, in a small voice, she said, “I’m not sure.”

  A third roar—louder than the previous two—hit Seb like a hard wave and he stumbled backwards, but it helped him pinpoint where the sound came from. With his pulse fluttering like a hummingbird’s heart, his breath got away from him. “Whatever way we were headed before”—he stopped to pull himself together—“doesn’t matter. All we need to do now is get away from that sound.”

  Another roar and Sparks took off first.

  Seb followed her torchlight, but the gap between him and Sparks increased with every step. As he watched the feeble beam wobble, he gave everything he had to the chase, his chest burning and his pulse throbbing through his temples.

  The roar sounded again behind them, loud enough that it echoed through the vast underground amphitheatre as a deep boom. When Seb looked behind, he only saw darkness and the veins of lava that ran through the ground.

  In that one look over his shoulder, Sparks seemed to have doubled the distance between them, and her torchlight had dimmed from the increasing gap she opened up between them. Torn between his need to breathe and his desire to call after her, Seb opted to breathe. She’d wait for him … hopefully.

  When the solid ground shook beneath Seb’s feet, he looked over his shoulder again as he continued to run. What had been dark only moments earlier now took on a new form. Still dark, but Seb saw a silhouette. It stood blacker than its surroundings; almost as if the creature took on a deeper shade than the inky void around it. Nestled in the form sat two flaming eyes—each one’s diameter taller than Seb. Glowing orange, the eyes burned like furnaces and they belched grey smoke into the air.

  The silhouette shifted to look like the creature had opened its wide mouth. When it drew a deep breath, it dragged Seb’s clothes backwards and pulled him toward it. It released a roar again that caused Seb to stumble, and he nearly toppled forward.

  The hot rush of air from the creature’s mouth reeked of smoke and it choked Seb. As he fought to breathe, Seb focused on keeping his legs working. His face burned with sweat, and his pulse galloped out of control.

  When he looked back in front of him, Sparks had gone.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Seb opened his mouth to call after Sparks but lost his words when the smoke from the creature’s eyes choked him. Every inhalation felt like trying to drag air in through gauze and made Seb’s head spin. Dizzy and tired, Seb’s world slipped into slow motion. Like the weak spots that opened up before him when he fought, Seb now saw a path he could follow.

  Another look behind and the monster had gotten closer. A wall of shadow, it seemed to fill what space Seb could see. Each of its thunderous steps rocked the ground and threw Seb off balance. With his arms windmilling to help him remain upright, Seb kept going.

  About thirty seconds passed before Seb turned around again. This time, he had to crane his neck to look up at the creature behind him. Its eyes glowed so bright, they lit up the ceiling above it. At least twenty metres tall, it seemed to stretch as wide. Although Seb couldn’t entirely make out where its form finished and the dark started, it didn’t matter, many more steps forward and the thing would crush him beneath one of its heavy feet.

  When Seb looked in front of him again, everything in slow motion, he still saw no sign of Sparks, but a path remained visible. No breath left in his lungs to call out, he pushed on, his legs wobbly, his will well and truly shaken.

  Then Seb saw i
t. The glow of the monster’s eyes lit up a wall in front of him. Finally, the edge of the open space that contained the creature. The path he saw before him led to a small tunnel that stood about two metres tall. Inside it, he saw the glow of Sparks’ torch. If he got to that, the beast on his tail wouldn’t have a chance of getting through behind him.

  The heavy footfalls had gotten so close to Seb, each one flipped him from the ground like a pea on a drum. As they slammed down behind him, a gust of wind dragged at Seb’s clothes, and the next step promised to crush him. The smell of bonfires smothered him, but he kept on.

  Another heavy boom through the ground behind Seb, and when the monster lifted its leg this time, it caught Seb on the way up with what felt like its huge toe and nudged him forward.

  On the edge of his balance, Seb yelled as he teetered on the brink, clumsy in his forward momentum. When his right foot caught around the heel of his left, Seb fell, hit the ground so hard it ran a violent shake through his frame, and slid toward the hole.

  Seb came up a metre or two short of the tunnel, and the monster behind him roared again. It had stopped running, and the sound of its vicious call came close to Seb as it brought its face down to him. Even more terrifying in slow motion, the dark smoke that the monster breathed coated Seb’s skin with a thick, tacky film. When he turned to look up into its cavernous shadowed mouth, he saw only darkness and shook as he pulled his hands over his face. Before he felt the touch of the monster, someone grabbed his hands and dragged him backwards.

  The monster roared again, and when Seb opened his eyes, he saw the creature lunge forward and miss him as he slipped into the shelter of the tunnel.

  When the huge monster crashed into the wall, it seemed to shake the entire planet.