The Cyber Chronicles Book II: Death Zone (18 page)

Rai bent over
Sabre, also hunting for a pulse. After a moment he straightened and
frowned at the monk. "I would not have thought it possible," he
muttered. "A reaction to the drug?"

The monk shook
his head. "Doubtful. I would say that he willed himself to death. A
bad omen. Very bad. Norak will be furious."

Rai paled,
shooting Tassin an angry glance, then turned back to the monk. "You
don't have to tell him about this. We could tell him that we flung
him into the pit with the beasts."

The plump monk
shook his head again, his triple chins wobbling. "No, I won't lie
to save your hide, Rai. This was your idea, and a bad one. You
should have readied him for sacrifice, not tortured him."

"He might have
been dangerous! We don't know what he could have done, maybe evaded
the monsters and won free. That would have been a bad omen too, and
we would have had to release him. At least now he's no longer a
threat."

The monk
shrugged. "Maybe so, but he might have been as helpless as the next
man when faced with those creatures. No excuse will appease Norak
now." He turned away. "Dispose of the body. I'll make my report.
You'll be disgraced, Rai, so prepare yourself."

The monk
waddled out, and Rai turned to Tassin, his expression murderous.
"You caused this, you bitch! It was to save you that he died!"

Striding up to
her, he gripped her throat and squeezed. Tassin struggled while
Rai's face mottled with fury, his eyes like chips of obsidian. The
world grew dim, and she sagged. She was hardly aware of the guards
who dragged Rai away and thrust him out of the door into the
custody of others. Hanging in the chains, she breathed in whooping
gasps. A man unshackled her, supported her when she would have
collapsed and took hold of the chain around her neck.

"I'll take
this one back to the pen," he said.

The second
warrior nodded, undoing the clamps that held Sabre to the table.
Tassin cast a despairing glance at him as she was led out, her
heart a leaden lump, her emotions a turmoil of anguish and anger.
Was it possible that Sabre was so monumentally stupid that he had
willed himself to death in order to save her from torture? Surely
it would have been better to have told Rai what he wished to know?
Could he have killed himself, with the aid of the cyber? She knew
so little about his abilities, and if Rai said Sabre was dead then
it must be true. Without him, she had no hope of escaping from this
terrible place. How could he abandon her like this?

Numb with
desolation, she followed the soldier through the streets to the
cage that held the Andaron girls, where he removed the collar and
pushed her inside. Many soft hands guided her to a pile of straw,
and she sank down on it as the girls clustered around her to stroke
her hair and wipe the tears from her cheeks. Surrounded by
sympathy, she bowed her head and wept, which broke down the girls'
composure. They joined in, hugging her and each other with wails of
misery. The guard glanced around and clicked his tongue in
annoyance as he surveyed the huddle of weeping women.

Chapter Ten

Sabre floated
in the soft arms of darkness, remembering a time when he had done
this before. It seemed like only a short while ago that he had hung
in this disembodied gloom, neither fully asleep nor awake, unaware
of anything except the steady beat of his heart. The control unit
prodded his peaceful mind with urgent red flashes that exploded
inside his skull, driving him towards wakefulness. Readouts flashed
past, many of the indicators red, warning him of a low blood oxygen
level and increasing hypoxia. He realised that his lungs burnt, and
instinct activated his neck muscles, raising his head from the
semisolid substance that blocked his nose and mouth. Air rushed
into his lungs, and he relaxed.

Waking from
cold sleep was always painful, and he waited for the stabbing
cramps from long disused muscles. Instead, the cyber flashed a
warning again, and his lungs spasmed once more. Raising his head,
he drew in another gasp. Confused, he struggled through the
dragging blackness of cold sleep, his heart speeding up. Again he
raised his head to breathe, his inhalations becoming more frequent
as his metabolism rose back to normal. Odd sensations impinged upon
his waking mind. Something cold and clammy clung to him, and
wetness surrounded him.

A strange
bubbling noise accompanied his exhalations, which was not liquid
enough to be water. Raising his head to breathe again, he tried to
open his eyes and found that something sticky glued them shut.
Pulling an arm from the grip of more sucking stickiness, he wiped
the goo from his eyes and looked around. He lay face down in mud,
his legs and one arm sunk into it. An almost impenetrable darkness
surrounded him, relieved by starlight and the dull orange glimmer
of a distant city.

Memories
returned in a rush, and he struggled to sit up, pulling his other
arm free. Glancing at the city again, he smiled, then grimaced as
he realised that his mouth was full of foetid muck. He spat it out,
wishing he had water to rinse it. His plan had worked, but going
into cold sleep had been risky, since he did not know what these
people did with dead bodies. In cold sleep, his physical functions
became imperceptible. His heart beat only once a minute and his
respirations were even slower. Without modern equipment to detect
his brain function, he appeared to be dead. He had fooled them, and
they had dumped him in the swamp, as he had thought they would.

It had seemed
unlikely that they would go to the trouble of burying him, and
Death Zone monsters did not eat dead meat. The easiest way to get
rid of the dead was to throw them here, where the crabs would
dispose of them. Lying back in the ooze, he waited for his strength
to return. It always took a little time to recover from cold sleep,
though not as long as it had taken him to go into it. He found that
he was wearing his harness, complete with medical pouch, and
marvelled at his luck.

Evidently the
Orokans wanted to be rid of everything that went with him, too. He
prompted the control unit for night vision, which it fed directly
into his optic nerve, as it did the computer graphics it used to
communicate with him. The Orokans had dumped him far out in the
swamp, presumably to prevent the stench of his rotting corpse from
reaching the town, although the swamp stank pretty badly. Only the
half-hearted croaking of a frog and the occasional glug of noxious
bubbles rising to the surface broke the silence. He shifted as his
limbs sank into the mud again, finding something hard and round
under his palm. Glancing down, he recoiled with a curse.

A half sunken
skull grinned up at him, its eye sockets oozing mire like hideous
tears, and he scrambled away from it, encountering more muddy,
grinning skulls. His attempt to stand up made him sink knee-deep in
the sucking ooze, and he was forced to crawl through the
skeleton-infested slime as he struggled to escape the macabre
graveyard.

Bony hands
clutched at him, and accusing eye sockets wept mud as he wallowed
amongst them, his movements enraging the tiny creatures that fed on
the corpses. Worms wriggled under his hands and crabs scuttled over
him as he crawled through the mire, the stench and gruesome sight
of the rotting bodies knotting his stomach. A bevy of crabs
scuttled from a half rotten cadaver in his path, and he changed
direction to avoid it. The mud sucked at him, making rude, moist
noises when he extracted each limb to move it.

A glance
inward at the scanners showed him that millions of minuscule
creatures surrounded him, most of which he hoped were harmless.
Remembering the grey animal Rai had set on him, he shuddered,
crawling over the muck as fast as he could extract his limbs from
its sticky clutches. In places he floundered into wetter mud and
sank into its foul embrace, freeing himself with difficulty. In
drier areas coarse grass sprouted, but no stilt trees grew nearby.
He crawled towards the city, glad to leave the graveyard behind,
apart from an occasional bone scavengers had dragged from it.

Swamp gas rose
in rude expulsions of noxious foetor, forced to the surface by his
movements, and accompanied his slow slither with sounds that might
have been heard at a giants' dinner party after they had feasted on
beans. The struggle with the muck sapped his strength, and he
paused on a patch of firmer ground to rest, eyeing the city. He had
not made much progress, since walking on the mud was impossible.
Even crawling, his arms and legs sank into the ooze, and he had to
tug them free each time.

The men who
had dumped him must have used some sort of smooth-bottomed raft
that could skim over the slippery surface, and poled it over the
mud. The swamp was certainly an excellent defence. An attacking
army would become mired in its sucking embrace and slowed to a
crawl, easy targets for the defenders. He looked at the sky,
wondering how long it was until dawn. A glance at the cyber's
chronometer told him that it was four in the morning. At the rate
that he was progressing, he had little chance of freeing Tassin
tonight.

A flashing red
light in his mind warned him of danger, and he consulted the
scanners. A large, unidentified life form approached him from
behind, and he turned to face a flat shape sliding over the ooze,
many paddles propelling it. The cyber came to life, filling the
quiet swamp with its low drone. The creature raised a blunt,
featureless head, turned and slithered away, diving into the
sludge. Sabre sighed and quit his soggy island, lowering himself
into the ooze again.

Gearn stopped
and gazed at the city crouched in the swamp at the end of the road.
His feet ached and his legs trembled with exhaustion after the
nonstop march from the women's village. His strengthening spell was
useless now that his energy reserves were gone. Lack of sleep made
his head pound and his eyes burn, and only the prospect of finding
the Queen in some man's boudoir kept him going. The wolf sat on the
road and yawned, passing the urge to Gearn, who scowled at him.

"You'll have
to wait in the forest."

As the animal
trotted away, Gearn stifled a yawn and promised himself a week of
sleep once they had the Queen. He headed up the road, Murdor
tramping behind him. The gladiator's penchant for whistling seemed
to have deserted him. The sweltering sun in which they had trudged
all day had boiled the urge to be irritating out of him,
apparently. As they approached the gates, a pair of stony-faced
warriors confronted them, who eyed Murdor with a great deal of
wariness.

"What's your
business here, strangers?"

Gearn pulled
out a damp handkerchief and mopped his brow. "Just travellers,
seeking a good meal and rest."

The guard
scowled at Murdor. "As long as you have coin, and start no trouble.
A meal and a bed you can buy, but don't expect to hire a
woman."

"Oh?" Gearn
raised his bushy brows. "Why is that?"

The sentry
thrust out his chin. "'Cause there aren't any."

"I see. Very
well."

The guards
stood aside, and Gearn entered the clean streets of Oroka, ambling
towards the heart of it. He wondered how he was going to find the
women from the village, and, realising that his chances of
stumbling across them by happy coincidence were slim, he entered
the next inn.

Settling at a
table, he glanced around at the male crowd that quaffed ale and
filled the air with their droning hubbub. The room boasted
well-swept floors and freshly scrubbed walls. Even the polished
furniture lacked the grubby patina that usually covered the tables
of inns. Murdor licked his lips in anticipation as a fresh-faced
youth took Gearn's order of ale. When the boy returned with it, the
mage detained him.

"Tell me, lad,
are there any women to be found in this town?"

The boy
frowned as Gearn flashed a gold coin at him. "Didn't the gate
guards warn you not to look for women here?"

"Well, yes,
they did, but -"

"Then you
should know better than to ask." The youth spun on his heel and
stalked away.

Gearn sipped
the thick, bitter ale, watching Murdor glug his down. "There's
something odd about this place, Murdor."

The
ex-gladiator wiped foam from his lips. "If they 'ave to go to the
trouble of stealing women, they must be desperate."

"Yes, but we
know they have them, so where are they?"

Murdor
shrugged. "I could grab someone and beat it out of 'em."

"We might just
have to do that." Gearn pushed his mug away and stood, heading for
the door. Murdor polished off its contents before following.

Gearn headed
up the road again, looking for a suitable alley, which he found in
a quiet suburb. Murdor lurked in it until a lone man passed by,
then grabbed him and dragged him into the lane, silencing his
cries. Gearn approached the terrified man while Murdor held him, a
huge hand clamped over his mouth.

"If you tell
me what I need to know, we won't hurt you."

The
middle-aged man nodded, and Murdor released his mouth.

"There were
some women brought here a couple of days ago. Where are they?"

The man
frowned, his expression hardening just as the tavern boy's had
done. Murdor growled and shook him until his teeth rattled, and the
Orokan cowered.

"Don't hurt
me, please!"

"Then tell me
what I want to know," Gearn said.

"They're in
the cage by the palace temple. The building with pillars, in the
city square."

"Thank you."
Gearn walked away as Murdor broke the Orokan's neck with a soft
crack.

Half an hour
later, they found the city square and wandered across it with
studied nonchalance, heading for the cage in front of the pillared
edifice. Two soldiers leant on their spears next to it, watching
Murdor approach with narrowed eyes. Tassin's black hair set her
apart from the blonde girls with whom she was huddled in a
murmuring group. Gearn approached the cage, excited to be so close
to his quarry, only to be confronted by a flinty-eyed guard.