The Cyber Chronicles Book II: Death Zone (19 page)

"No one's
allowed near the women, fellow, so push off."

"But I want to
buy one. They are for sale, aren't they?"

The guard
grunted. "Tomorrow. Until then, you stay away from them."

Gearn glanced
at the girls, who had stopped talking to stare at him with
hate-filled eyes. The mage swung away and rebounded off Murdor's
sweaty chest with an oath. Rubbing his nose, he headed for another
alehouse, where he sipped sour wine and considered his options. If
he waited until tomorrow, he suspected that he would find some rule
banning outsiders from buying the women, so it would be better to
steal her tonight. He told Murdor of his plan while the giant
downed a second mug of ale, and he grunted and nodded. Deciding to
catch up on some sleep, the mage rented a room and retired to it,
leaving Murdor to drink.

Sabre woke
with a terrible crick in his neck from sleeping on a narrow beam
that buttressed the stilts of one of the houses built over the
swamp on the edge of the city. His mouth tasted as if something
furry and old had made a nest in it; a mixture of mud and bile. The
black swamp mud had dried to a hard shell, which cracked and flaked
off when he moved. Easing his backside on the beam, he restored the
circulation to various parts of his posterior.

The sun sank
towards the marsh mud, huge and red through the dusty atmosphere,
and he picked dried mud from his face while he waited for the light
to fade. Boots tramped overhead, mingled with the scurrying steps
of playing children, their shrieks and laughter disturbing the
dusk's stillness. His stomach growled, and his tailbone had
developed a sharp ache. He shifted again, wishing that the sun
would hurry its descent.

The activity
above lessened as people retired to their houses for the night, and
lights appeared as torch-bearing men lighted street lamps. More
feet tramped above him when the city's nightlife began, and music
drifted from the town. Sabre sighed, willing the hours to pass as
his perch grew increasingly uncomfortable. Hours crept by before
the city darkened as street lamps ran out of oil, and staggering
footsteps overhead told of men reeling home with too much liquor in
their bellies.

When at last
an eerie silence fell over the town, Sabre eased himself off his
perch and into the mud once more. With his slithering crawl, now
well known to him, he made his way to the city's solid foundations.
He paused to daub himself with fresh mud, then moved up the bank
into the deserted streets. A few sputtering lamps still cast dim
glows, and he switched to infrared.

Finding Tassin
in the sprawling warren would have been impossible without the
scanners. Unfortunately, most of the buildings were stone, and he
hoped she was not incarcerated in one of them. He was pretty sure
she would be with the rest of the girls, and searched for
structures capable of housing them. The first such edifice he
encountered turned out to be a barracks, and he trotted past it.
Most of the life signs were patrolling sentries, and these he
avoided. To his surprise, there was a group of eighteen life signs
on the scanners, which meant they were either in a wooden
structure, or out in the open. He found himself in a square
bordered by pillared, important-looking buildings, and the one he
had seen from outside the city dominated it. Staying in the shadows
around the perimeter, he came to a cage full of girls. A pair of
guards stood beside it, idly chatting while they leant on their
spears. Sabre crept up behind them, but as he got into position,
one man looked up with a curse.

"What's that
smell?"

His companion
sniffed. "Swamp mud."

"Never smelt
it so strong before."

Sabre realised
that he was the source of the stench, and his nose had become
immune to it. Creeping from the shadows, he gripped the men's necks
and banged their heads together. Their spears clattered onto the
cobbles, and he lowered the unconscious soldiers, then waited a few
moments to see if there was any reaction to the noise. When none
came, he approached the cage.

Tassin stared
into the darkness, her eyes gritty from weeping. The other girls
had moved away after they had cleaned her wound, plaited her hair
and comforted her. She ached with weariness, but the dread of what
tomorrow would bring gave her no peace. Over and over, she saw
Sabre's still body on the table, and a stab of pain shot through
her heart each time. She tried to banish the image, but that only
brought back the terrible visions of what was going to happen
tomorrow, and she could not decide which was worse.

Fear lived in
the pit of her stomach like a cold, writhing snake, but she tried
not to show it. As the eldest, and a queen, she had to set an
example for the others, who looked to her for leadership. Earlier
on, some drunken men had approached the cage, calling crude
comments and promises. The guards had kept them away, but the
shouted threats had made the girls cringe. Now the town had grown
quiet, and some of the Andorans had slipped into an uneasy doze,
twitching and moaning as their terror invaded their dreams.

A terrible
smell wafted into the cage, making her wrinkle her nose in disgust,
and several girls groaned at the added irritant. This was really an
awful place, she mused, a dung hill in a cesspit; a fitting home
for the men who dwelt here. She looked over at the guards,
wondering if they had noticed the stench, but they were stretched
out on the ground, apparently asleep.

Snorting, she
turned away, then almost leapt out of her skin when a hiss came
from behind her. Swinging around, she peered into the shadows.
After some fruitless searching, she wondered if she had imagined
it. Perhaps a beast had crawled out of the swamp, bringing the
stench with it. A muttered curse made her peer harder into the
darkness, widening her eyes.

"Tassin."

The Queen
glanced at the other girls, who did not seem to have heard
anything. The whisper had been barely audible, but she was sure it
came from the smelly shadows. No one had asked for her name, not
even Rai. She moved closer to the bars, trying to pierce the gloom.
Something black shot through the bars and gripped her arm, yanking
her closer. She opened her mouth to bellow in alarm, but a second
hand clamped over her mouth, reducing her outcry to a whimper. The
stench that emanated from the hand made her eyes water, and she
struggled.

Warm breath
fanned her ear as a voice whispered, "Tassin it's me, Sabre. Keep
still and be quiet."

The Queen
froze, her eyes widening as the shadows moved. Sabre was dead, so
this had to be a trick. Yet who else knew her name, or his? Still
she could not believe it; she had seen his corpse. She tried to
wrench away, but the hand that gripped her was like steel, holding
her against the bars.

The whisper
came again. "Feel the cyber if you're not sure. I'm not dead."

Tassin slipped
a hand through the bars and touched a muddy face, shuddering at its
sliminess. Her fingers encountered the familiar shape of the brow
band, caked with mud like the rest of him, which was why she could
not see its lights, and she relaxed.

"Okay?" he
asked.

She nodded,
and he released her. She scrubbed the mud from her lips, revolted.
"You stink!" she whispered.

"I know. I'm
glad to see you, too. Wake the girls, tell them to be quiet. I'm
getting you out of here."

Tassin turned
and crawled amongst the Andarons to shake them awake and whisper
the instructions. Many still gasped and whimpered when a man-shaped
shadow detached itself from the darkness and moved to the front of
the cage. Sabre came to the door, gripped the bars and pulled them
apart. The metal creaked as it bent, then the bolt snapped with a
dull ‘plink’.

Sabre opened
the door and gestured for them to follow, raising a finger to his
lips. Tassin led the girls, who clung to her and each other.
Sabre's muddy disguise was sufficiently repellent to prevent her
from touching him again. They followed him along the edge of the
square and into a narrow side street. Sabre did not need to pause
at corners to peer around them, but headed towards the edge of the
city at a brisk walk. No one spoke until they had scrambled down
the bank and encountered the sea of mud. Tassin stopped dead,
causing a pile up behind her.

"Sabre, you're
not suggesting we cross this, are you?"

He looked back
at her, and white teeth flashed in his black face. "I'm afraid
so."

"What's wrong
with the road?"

He sighed.
"Remember Olgara? This is the difference between the wall and the
gate, between escape and recapture."

"This is
different, no one has seen us."

"There are
guards at the gate."

She snorted.
"I'm not climbing into that filth."

Sabre
approached her, and she recoiled from his smell. "That's exactly
what you're going to do, Tassin." She jerked back when he took hold
of her wrist, opening her mouth, and he muttered, "If you scream,
that will be the end of our escape."

Tassin closed
it with a snap. "I wasn't going to scream."

"Good." He
pulled her closer, his muddy face centimetres from hers. "Soon
you'll smell just as bad as I do, little queen."

Sabre swept
her up and carried her down the slope, ploughed into the
malodourous mud and ignored her hisses of outrage. She clung to
him, trying to stay out of the slime, but he grinned and lowered
her into it. The muck burped rudely, and a rancid smell wafted up
from it. Tassin grimaced, trying to keep as much of herself clean
as she could, like a cat in a quagmire. To her horror, Sabre
scooped up a handful and proceeded to smear it on her with all the
glee of a little boy in a mud puddle.

"Stop that!"
she growled.

"Get dirty.
It's the best disguise. Be mud in mud, and no one will see
you."

"Ugh!" She
shuddered as he plastered the cold muck onto her, and it slid down
into her bosom, invading her slip. "You're going to pay for
this."

"I know.
That's what I always get for rescuing you, isn't it? Told to get my
dirty paws off you, and now threats. Well, this time you're as
dirty as me, Your Majesty." He grinned, smeared mud on her face and
rubbed it into her hair.

"Do you have
to be so thorough? I think you're enjoying this."

"Yup. Tell
your little friends to get dirty."

The Andaron
girls hung back on the bank, twittering like a flock of startled
birds. Tassin growled at them, and they climbed gingerly into the
mire. Noting their reluctance to get dirty, she picked up a handful
of sludge and hurled it at them. This evoked muted squeals, then
they got the idea and anointed each other, faint giggles erupting.
Tassin looked up at Sabre as he smoothed the slime onto her
cheeks.

"I'm glad
you're alive."

He smiled. "Me
too."

"How did you
do that?"

"Cold sleep."
He smeared another handful onto her neck. "It's the way cybers are
stored in their caskets. The body's functions are slowed almost to
the point of death, undetectable to anyone but a skilled doctor. It
takes quite a while to sink into, and almost as long to recover
from, which is why I nearly drowned in the swamp."

"You can do it
at will?"

He smeared mud
on her forehead. "It takes a little time, but yes, if the cyber
co-operates."

"Why didn't
you just tell Rai what he wanted to know?"

"Because then
I'd probably be dead, and you'd be his wife."

Tassin stared
at him while he continued to plaster her with sludge, remembering
Rai's rough slaps and threats. "Rai was disgraced. I hope they
sacrifice him."

Sabre met her
eyes with a startled glance, and she wondered how it was that a
supposedly civilised man like Rai could be so brutal, while one
designed as a killing machine was so gentle. His solid presence was
like a bastion of good in a sea of evil, and she flung her arms
around his neck, burying her face in his shoulder. He patted her
back in an embarrassed manner.

"He hit me,"
she whispered.

Sabre hugged
her, imparting a wealth of comfort, and Tassin would have stayed
there all night, but he pried her away. "We must get going. I think
the girls are ready."

Looking at the
black, mire-covered monsters that had once been pretty young girls,
she had to agree, stifling a giggle. Sabre gripped her wrist when
she floundered in the mud.

"Crawl over
it, don't try to walk on it, you'll sink. Tell the girls to hang
onto each other; we don't want anyone getting lost in the
dark."

Tassin passed
on the instructions, and the girls floundered nearer, hanging onto
her while she took a firm hold of Sabre's harness. He began his
slithering crawl, towing the string of girls, who plucked slender
limbs from the sucking slime.

Chapter Eleven

Gearn woke
after dark and stumbled down to the taproom, rubbing sleep from his
eyes and yawning. Murdor was slumped over a table, emitting a
rumbling snore and the reek of ale. The rest of the patrons had
left, and only the bartender remained, polishing tankards and
setting them in rows on the shelves. It took a great deal of
prodding, slapping and shouting to rouse Murdor, then Gearn plied
him with water and bread. The ex-gladiator growled, but the mage
persisted until he was sober enough to walk. Two boys appeared and
swept pointedly around the pair, their message obvious.

Both the moons
had set, and the city's street lamps were almost all extinguished.
Gearn led Murdor through the dark, deserted streets to the square,
where they found the guards asleep on the ground. Gearn blessed his
luck, and hoped the girls would not cause an outcry if he told them
that he had come to rescue them. If they did not rouse the guards,
they might even escape without a fight. He went to the cage and
searched the dim interior for the huddled forms of sleeping girls.
Not finding them, he moved around the cage and discovered the door
open, its steel bolt sheered clean off.