The Cyber Chronicles Book II: Death Zone (20 page)

With a yell,
he pounced on the nearest guard, hauled him up by his collar and
shook him. The man scowled and clutched his head while Gearn
shouted in his face. When the gist of Gearn's raving penetrated the
guard's mind, he scrambled to his feet and woke his companion with
over-zealous kicks, then shouted for reinforcements, rousing the
warriors in the barracks down the street. Men came running, and the
sentry pointed at Gearn.

"Not me, you
idiots!" Gearn shouted, but the warriors grabbed him and the
swaying Murdor. The giant swore and drew his sword, shook off his
assailants and laid about him with wild, half drunken swings.
Everyone ignored Gearn's enraged yells. Two soldiers gripped the
mage's arms and dragged him away from the knot of struggling men
around Murdor. An officer arrived, pulling on his trousers and
trying to draw his sword at the same time. He dispatched
torch-bearing warriors to search for the girls, but most
concentrated on subduing Murdor.

Sabre's acute
ears picked up the distant ruckus, and he urged the girls to go
faster. He glanced back at the city, where men with torches ran
about, their shouts growing louder as they moved towards the swamp.
The girls whimpered and clung to each other, and Sabre found that
he was making no headway at all. He turned and pried several hands
off his harness, surprised that some of the Andarons were now
clinging to him.

"Move, girls,
crawl, don't just hang on to me. I can't pull you all along."

The girls
obeyed, and they made progress again, Tassin crawling beside him.
The cyber warned of an approaching swamp creature, and Sabre turned
his head as the band activated. The mud on it hid its glow, but its
deep hum vibrated the air. A slithering, snake-like beast veered
off and whipped away across the mud at a remarkable speed, and
Sabre glanced at the city again.

Torch-bearing
men gathered at the edge of the swamp, launching rafts. He
increased his speed, using his elbows to pull himself along, and
floundered into a patch of wet mud. Muted wails came from the
Andarons while he struggled out of it, then he turned to help the
girls who had followed him in. Tassin was the first one he pulled
out, and she helped the others.

Rafts skimmed
over the swamp, flaring torches throwing light onto the mud. One
approached them, and he whispered, "Get down! Everyone keep still
and quiet!"

A man used a
pole with a wide plate on the end of it to push the raft closer.
The warriors aboard it peered into the gloom, holding their torches
high. The girls flattened themselves on the sludge, and Sabre hoped
that from the raft they would look like a patch of lumpy swamp. The
craft passed by, accompanied by a plopping noise of the pole being
pulled from the muck. As soon as the pool of torchlight moved away,
he urged the girls to start crawling again. The swamp's natural
flatulence would disguise the squelching, sucking sounds they made.
More torch-bearing soldiers swarmed along the road that led to the
city, searching the edge of it. Sabre kept an eye on the rafts that
slithered over the swamp, torches waving as their occupants scanned
the mire.

After a while,
he allowed the girls to rest on a patch of drier ground, and they
lay gasping while they watched the soldiers search. They had to
reach the stilt trees before dawn, or they would be spotted in the
daylight. When the girls had caught their breath, he moved on,
ignoring their faint moans of protest.

Sabre had to
ward off two more swamp denizens before they reached a clump of
stilt trees as the first pale pink light brightened the sky. He
crawled through the roots in search of a hiding place amongst them
and found four trees that grew close together, their interwoven
roots forming a platform. Heaving himself onto it, he helped the
tired girls up beside him, and they reclined on the roots with
sighs of relief, dripping ooze.

Tassin started
to wipe off the mire, and he said, "Leave it. We'll have to hide
here until night falls again, we need the camouflage. Those men
aren't going to give up so easily. They'll increase their search in
the day, hoping to find us stuck in the mud."

Tassin nodded,
her eyelids drooping with exhaustion. The Andarons settled down,
and Sabre found a fairly comfortable niche between two roots,
wedging himself into it. Tassin crawled to his side and pillowed
her head on his chest. Sabre leant back with a sigh as sleep washed
over him in a welcome tide.

The cyber woke
him, and he opened his eyes to peer through the stilt trees at the
sunlit swamp. A raft approached, its occupants scanning the clump
of trees and muttering in angry tones. He glanced at the girls,
meeting many scared eyes as they looked to him for guidance, and he
raised a finger to his lips. The swamp mud had dried to a light
grey that matched the trees' muddy roots, and even he could hardly
see them.

Only Tassin
still slept, her cheek on his chest, her arms wrapped around him.
He waited while the men on the raft peered into the trees. They
drifted off, and the girls relaxed, shifting to more comfortable
positions before settling down again. Tassin sighed and squirmed
closer, her arms tightening around him, and he wondered what made
her cling to him in her sleep. He shifted to restore the
circulation to one leg, then settled back once more.

When he woke
again, shadows crept across the swamp as the sun sank below the
horizon, trailing streamers of crimson cloud. Many of the girls
picked dried mud off each other and conversed in whispers, but
Tassin still slept, now almost in his lap. Sabre smiled at the
Andarons, cracking the mud on his cheeks, and some of them giggled.
Their eyes flitted to the comfortable Queen, whose limbs were
entwined with his. He shook her awake, and she sat up with a start,
disentangling herself.

Sabre
consulted the scanners, finding that the Orokans still searched the
swamp, though none were close to them. Glancing at Tassin's
mud-caked face, he grinned, for the hard grey sludge had cracked in
a grotesque mask. She grimaced, cracking it further, then reached
through the roots and acquired a fresh handful, which she clapped
on his face, smearing it over his nose and mouth. The girls burst
into giggles, and Sabre smiled, wiping the excess off. As the Queen
turned to grin at the Andarons, he scooped up a handful and reached
around to plaster it on her face.

Tassin gasped
and reached for more sludge, even as Sabre scooped up another
handful. Soon a full scale mud fight was in progress, and the girls
joined in, slinging muck at each other. Muted giggles escalated to
soft shrieks, and Sabre signalled for silence, which they managed
with difficulty. Tassin scored a hit in his eye, and he squashed a
glob down the front of her dress.

Tassin
retaliated with a slimy handful down his trousers, until there was
not a scrap of clean skin on any of them, even under their clothes.
He grabbed Tassin's wrists when she tried to plug his ears with
muck and held her at bay until she calmed down, putting an end to
the fun. The distraction had served to pass the time until it grew
dark, but now it was time to move on. The girls quieted, realising
that they were hungry and thirsty, but their spirits were lifted
and they were all covered with wet mud, a painless procedure when
done playfully. Sabre released Tassin and climbed down through the
roots into the sludge. She groaned and followed.

Amongst the
trees, they were able to pull themselves along with the roots, and
made good progress until they had to cross open patches. More trees
loomed out of the darkness, and the mud became a little firmer,
allowing them to crawl on their hands and knees. The cyber's
scanners tracked the progress of the men now searching the edge of
the swamp. A group approached, and Sabre signalled his charges to
lie flat and still, watching the bobbing torches.

The men
shouted and swore while they blundered through the trees, tripping
over roots and cursing when they sank into patches of wet mud. As
soon as they passed by, Sabre moved on, clambering through the
roots when the footing grew firmer. The moons rose together, and
their combined light made the cyber's infrared vision
unnecessary.

A soft shriek
made him whip around in alarm. A girl on the fringe of the group,
who had evidently been crawling under a root, lay prone, struggling
to free her arm. She grunted with effort and whimpered with pain
and fear. Her distress drew the others to her aid, and Sabre
climbed over the roots towards them. Belatedly consulting the
scanners, he found a purple dot next to her, indicating an alien
creature.

Moving faster,
he reached the girl, whose arm was clamped in the jaws of a
blunt-headed, ugly grey animal. Its neck emerged from a hole in the
mud, and he guessed that there was a lot more of it underground.
The Andorans beat it with their fists, but it merely closed its
eyes and tugged at the girl's arm, trying to drag her into its
lair. Sabre shoved the girls aside and bent to grip the creature's
armoured head. Slipping his fingers into its mouth, he hooked them
onto its serrated teeth and pulled.

The swamp
beast writhed, striving to keep its jaws closed, and the girl
whimpered as blood oozed from her wounds. Sabre cursed and yanked
the animal's jaws apart, snapping its lower mandible with a dull
crack. The girl recoiled, and the creature flailed until he broke
its neck with a quick twist. Dropping the corpse, he turned to the
Andaron girl, who clutched her arm, blood seeping between her
fingers. She stared up at him with scared, amazed eyes, and he dug
in his medical pouch for a roll of bandage.

The girl
shrank back when he reached for her arm, and he beckoned to Tassin,
holding out the bandage. "Here, someone will have to wrap that
wound. We don't want to leave a blood trail for everyone to
follow."

One of the
girls near Sabre took the bandage and bent to tend to her friend,
shooting him an unreadable look. He moved away and sat down to
wait, and Tassin joined him. As soon as the girl's arm was bound,
they set off through the roots once more, and the going became
easier when they moved further into the trees. They floundered into
a few deep puddles of mire, but for the most part they were able to
walk and crawl through the trees with comparative ease, the worst
behind them. When the ground grew firmer, he urged the girls into a
trot, splashing through pools of clear water as they drew near the
edge of the swamp. Tassin puffed beside him, her dress heavy with
mud.

"Why are we
running?" she panted. "They're not chasing us."

"We've left a
trail out of the swamp that even a brain-damaged monkey could
follow. They'll be after us soon."

"Then what? Do
we run all the way back to the village?"

"I don't know.
Maybe they'll give up if we get far enough ahead."

Sabre knew
that he would, in all likelihood, have to kill their pursuers.
Tassin kept up with the pace for a while, then slowed to a walk to
catch her breath. The swamp trees gave way to open forest,
moonbeams dappling its leafy floor. When they stopped to drink at a
stream, the Queen sat on the bank and washed the mud off her face.
Sabre caught many of the girls staring at him with a mixture of
wariness, curiosity and bewilderment, and sympathised with their
dilemma. When their thirst was slaked, he urged them on, helping
Tassin with a hand under her elbow.

Dawn found
them walking, exhausted. Tall, grey-barked trees with pale foliage
populated the forest, and red-gold leaves carpeted it, interspersed
with patches of moss and clumps of ferns. Sabre called a halt, and
the girls collapsed with weary groans. After a rest, some of them
foraged, and Sabre made a brief foray to bring Tassin a fruit. The
Andorans stretched out and fell asleep, and Sabre's eyelids
drooped.

The control
unit's alarm jerked him from his doze, and he sat up. The scanners
showed over thirty men on their trail, only one and a half
kilometres away, approaching fast. He shook Tassin awake and
shouted at the girls, who sat up frowning and knuckling their
eyes.

"Get going!"
he yelled as he dragged Tassin to her feet and propelled her
through the trees. In the time it had taken to get the girls
moving, their pursuers had gained half a kilometre. Tassin stumbled
beside him, and Sabre supported her when she tripped over roots,
her feet dragging. The Andorans ran ahead, then waited for them,
and the scanners told him the men were catching up rapidly.
Tassin's pace was far too slow; her tired legs buckled with every
step, and she growled with frustration. Sabre picked her up,
ignoring her mumbled protest, and increased his pace as only a
cyber could, his feet flying over the ground.

The girls made
a valiant attempt to keep up, but were soon left behind, forcing
Sabre to slow down. He matched his speed to theirs, but although it
was a lot faster than Tassin's, their pursuers still gained on
them. Sabre could have out-sprinted the Orokans, even carrying
Tassin, but if he left the girls behind they would be recaptured.
Although they were not his primary concern, he wanted to save them
as well, and knew he could.

The scanners
showed that the soldiers were only a few hundred metres behind now.
He wanted to urge the girls to greater speed, but knew they were
exhausted, and the only way they would escape was if he stopped
their pursuers. The soldiers' shouts rang through the forest,
mingled with the crashing of heavy boots, and the girls darted
fearful glances behind them. They entered a grassy, sunlit glade.
Ferns bordered it, and animal trails criss-crossed it. Men burst
from the trees, sprinting after them in a horde of yelling,
sword-brandishing brawn.

Sabre shouted,
"Run!"

The Andorans
scattered like startled deer, and Sabre stopped. Putting Tassin
down, he pushed her away and turned to face the first warrior, who
charged him with sword raised. Sabre ducked under it and lunged,
sending the Orokan flying backwards with a punch that lifted him
off his feet. Half the men chased the Andorans, leaving fifteen to
deal with Sabre.