Chapter 26 Jean
I look at Scythro, hoping for some kind of reassurance. He’s going to tell me that sound is just a subterranean wind. Or some kind of geological phenomenon that happens all the time here on Ul.
But what about the scream we just heard?
I imagined that.
Right?
Scythro’s face says otherwise. By the glow of the flashlight, I can see that his usual cocky smirk is long gone, and the muscles of his dark blue face are tight with concern.
He turns and stares back down the tunnel, his long ears flexing forward briefly to drink in the rising tide of sound.
Then those ears fold back flat against the sides of his head.
“Forgive me,” he whispers. “I have made a grave mistake.”
Okay, that is not what I wanted to hear.
“Run!” he hisses.
I run. We run. Feet pounding. Blood pounding.
I grip the alien’s tail like a lifeline with one hand while I hold Gerber with the other.
Scythro’s strength pulls me along faster than I could ever hope to move on my own.
The toes of my boot skip across the smooth stone floor like I’m running on water.
Ahead of us, the beam of the flashlight hacks and slashes at the darkness.
And behind us… the sound.
It’s louder now, so much louder than before, like the noise of a sudden rainstorm sweeping across a parched landscape. But I know it’s not rain. Not down here, hundreds of feet below the surface.
It’s the sound of feet. There’s nothing else it could be.
Hundreds of them.
Thousands.
God.
“Run!” Scythro shouts over the din. He’s not bothering to be stealthy anymore. We’re obviously well beyond that point. “Run!”
We reach a bend in the tunnel. A right angle. My feet slide. Momentum slams me into the wall, knocking away my breath. If it weren’t for Scythro’s tail, I would have gone down. As it is, I just hold on for dear life.
I’m slowing him down. I should let go, sacrifice myself to whatever horror is scrambling up the tunnel after us, but I’m too scared for that. I’m too damn scared.
Besides, I have a feeling Scythro wouldn’t leave me behind.
“Run, Jean! You must run!”
He sprints down the tunnel, yanking me along after him. The sound is right behind us now, shaking the very walls of the mine. Dust sifts downward from the ceiling into the madly swinging beam of the flashlight.
I don’t dare look back. I don’t dare.
And then, suddenly, I have no choice in the matter.
In one quick and graceful movement, Scythro spins on his heels, slowing just enough to send a volley of gunshots down the tunnel behind us.
Clutching his tail as I am, my only option is to turn with him.
That’s when I see them, their chitinous exoskeletons rendered in a series of violent snapshots like images in a flipbook, each one closer than the one before.
They are man-sized, but they don’t move like men.
They skitter toward us on all fours—along the floor, the walls, even the ceiling—moving as a single insectoid mass.
I scream.
The gun drowns out my voice. Every shot lands. It would be almost impossible to miss, considering the wall of organisms rushing toward us. Bugs come apart in explosions of spiny armor and black slime. Maybe a dozen shots in total. Enough destruction to slow the ones behind the first wave.
But for how long?
“Let’s go!” Scythro shouts.
He doesn’t have to tell me twice. I thought I was afraid before, but now I’m running on pure adrenaline. My legs pump with newfound energy. My heart feels like a locomotive that’s ready to come bursting out of my chest.
Behind us, in the darkness, I hear the click of pincers. Wet crunching sounds. Squeals.
Oh God, oh God, oh God…
I sprint down the length of the tunnel, one hand on Scythro’s tail, the other holding Gerber’s limp body.
Whatever happens, I can’t let go of the little droid.
If I dropped him now, there would be no chance of getting him back, and he’s still my only hope of finding Mel, and hopefully getting off this insane planet.
At the moment, however, my main concern is just getting out of this mine.
The sound of the bugs is almost deafening now. It’s not just behind us anymore. It seems to be coming from everywhere at once, a deadly exhalation bleeding from the very walls of the mine.
We’re not going to make it.
We’re not going to make it…
Suddenly, Scythro skids to a halt in front of me, and I slam into him from behind, nearly bowling him over in the process. The flashlight drops from his hand, but in the falling beam of light I glimpse the reason he stopped.
There’s a bug in the tunnel ahead of us, but this one’s not like the others. It’s standing upright, like a man. And it’s holding something in its right hand.
Is that… a sword?
Scythro raises the gun to shoot, but the sword is faster. One flick of the blade, and the pistol comes apart in Scythro’s hand. The bug-warrior follows through with a spinning kick. Its foot connects with Scythro’s head. The blue alien goes down.
“Scythro!”
Before I have a chance to react, the bug-warrior surges forward, sweeping me past with one hand.
“Get behind me, human.”
The voice is hard and cold, and it turns my blood to ice in my veins.
Who is this guy?
Before I have a chance to really ponder this question, the bugs are on us, pouring down the tunnel like water rushing down a drainpipe. I can see the shells glinting dully in the beam of the fallen flashlight. I can hear the mandibles clicking.
We’re going to die. We’re all going to die.
The bug-man shifts into a fighting stance, shielding my body with his own, standing his ground. The sword spins like a propeller in front of him.
Insects shriek. Blood splatters. Limbs fly.
Time seems to slow down, and I can see everything in perfect detail.
I see that the bug-man’s weapon isn’t fashioned from metal like an ordinary sword, but some kind of translucent, blue substance resembling glass or jade.
It glows where it catches the flashlight’s beam.
It whirls like a tornado of blue fire. It slices and chops in one fluid, neverending loop, severing legs, lopping off heads, splitting bug shells along impossibly straight incisions.
The blade sings as it cuts, a high keening that rises above the wet sounds of destruction.
A gush of purplish ichor sprays across my facemask, shocking me back to my senses.
Scythro.
The alien is still lying on the floor where he fell a few seconds ago. I drop down next to him and try to help him up, but it’s no use. He’s still breathing, but he’s unconscious. Out cold.
I try to lift him, but his body is way too heavy. All I manage to accomplish is to make my muscles burn from the strain.
“Scythro! Wake up!”
My shouts barely rise above the din of battle. The warrior is still spinning his blade, and the bugs are still dying, one after the other. Bloody pieces of them soar past my head and clatter against the floor behind me.
Every cell in my body is screaming at me to run, but I can’t leave Scythro behind, so I just cling to his arm, squeeze my eyes shut, and pray for the onslaught to end.
Eventually, it does.
At last, the sound of scrabbling claws begins to recede.
The spinning blade whispers to a stop. I open my eyes and glimpse the last of the bugs retreating back into the darkness.
Around us, the tunnel is awash in blood, and the floor is covered in piles of severed bug parts.
Some of them are still twitching. I am hit with a double wave of repulsion and relief.
But the second emotion is short-lived.
I watch as the bug-man turns and whistles down the tunnel in the direction he originally came from. The sharp, piercing sound stings my ears.
“I’ve found them!” he calls. “Get down here and help me secure the prisoners.”
Prisoners?
This guy may have just saved my ass from the bugs, but he’s obviously no savior. I can only assume he’s one of the bad guys Scythro told me about. The ones we were hiding from in the first place.
Again, I am hit with an impulse to run.
Again, I stifle it.
I’m not going to abandon Scythro like that. I’m just not.
The bug-man tilts his head and looks down at the place where I’m kneeling beside my fallen companion.
His faceted eyes look cold and dead in the low light, but I sense a deep intelligence burning behind them.
He regards me a moment longer before sliding his sword into the sheath on his back.
Then he does something completely unexpected—he reaches up and pulls off his own head.
A helmet!
This guy’s not a bug at all. He’s wearing armor. A freaking suit of armor stitched together out of bug shells.
As the helmet comes off, long blue hair spills out, cascading around the warrior’s shoulders and framing a face that robs all the air from my lungs.
It is a face I never expected to see in a place like this.
Even for an alien, the bone structure is blatantly aristocratic—high, sharp cheekbones; arrogant nose; cruel mouth—and all of it wrapped in flawless snakeskin the color of fire-orange jade.
His azure eyes have neither pupils nor irises. They are a solid, seamless blue.
It is the same face that hung framed on the wall of my bedchamber aboard the Scarlet Ship.
The face of the Emperor.
Before I have a chance to scramble away from him, before I even have a chance to gasp or scream, the armored Znthian stoops and catches me beneath my arms, lifting me to my feet, then off them.
His cobalt eyes burn in the darkness like blue flames.
They strip me bare. His expression offers no discernible sign of emotion, aside from an intensity that raises goosebumps all across my skin.
“Greetings, human,” he hisses. “My name is Venim. It is a pleasure to finally meet you.”