Shattered Soul (29 page)

Three burned bodies were tied to stakes. Burned black, no hair. It was empty around them, nothing stirred. Whoever had burned them had gone. For now.

Moving slowly, she crested the rise and came down the sand dune in a crouch with Vexna by her side. Closer to the bodies, she wrinkled her nose against the stench of freshly cooke Cfred dund flesh.

Moving closer, she studied the burned corpses, trying to find a resemblance of anyone she knew. The sound of Vexa vomiting behind her, she ignored. .

And then one of the corpses moved, eyes opening, ruined, bubbling, destroyed, but she knew it pleaded with her, could feel it wanting to die. Needing to die. Forcing the horror back she raised her laser, survival instinct making her ensure the silencer was on it, and then she shot it.

A mercy killing. She’d have vomited and cried like Vexna was now doing, but in her short life she’d seen burned and raped bodies, heard the pleas for death, just as she’d heard the screams for mercy. Just as she’d always obeyed the call to arms of her sister warriors when under attack.

Outlawed for things they’d never done. Hunted down and killed or sold on slave blocks. Yes, she’d seen worse. At seventeen, she was hardened to many things.

But Vexa wasn’t as hardened, not yet. He’d have to get harder if he wanted to survive as a mercenary. Tightening her lips, she motioned to him. “Go back and tell the others it’s safe for now. We need to keep moving.”

They continue onwards and the sounds come faintly at first, then louder. Screams, laughter, smoke, the smell of blood. The same kind of mirage wavering in the air, an outline of some kind but too huge, disappearing into the sun. Mirages were the hell of the desert, made a man or woman think there was water where there was nothing but sand. The desert played tricks on the eyes, but sometimes mirages were all too real.

Onward they pushed, hearing the sudden silence. Again the mercenaries stayed back as she and this time Starn crested the sand dune. They saw the bodies pegged out on the ground. Motioning Starn to stay where he was she scouted ahead, slithering down the sand in a crouch to move amongst the bodies.

The bodies had been skinned, and going by the marks in the sand they’d been alive when the torture had commenced. Clotted blood on the sand, raw flesh glistening in the sun.

She was puzzled. Why would cannibals skin and then leave their victims? Why burn and leave them? It didn’t make sense. Something was wrong.

Moving fast, she started up the sand dune, only to stop as the mercenaries came over in a grim-faced group.

“We need to go back,” she said.

“Why?”

“We’re not alone out here.”

“We know that,” one mercenary sneered. “That’s why we’re here, to kill the cooks, remember?”

“Use your head, Harding,” she said harshly. “Cannibals take their prey back to their nest, they don’t burn and torture them and leave them to rot in the sun.”

“Maybe they just have eclectic tastes.” He grinned.

“The commander ordered us forward,” Zadox told her. “He doesn’t want us to linger any longer. He wants this over now.”

“He’s moving too fast,’ she replied tightly.

“I agree with you, but he pays my wages, so...” He shrugged.

“We may not collect this wage if we’re not careful.”

He grinned. “With you beside us, Reya, I fully expect to survive.”

The commander was a fool. He should have held back, studied what they’d found, talked to his mercenaries, but now it was too late. Turning around slowly, she looked up at the sand dunes around them. Something was out there watching them.

“What’s wrong?” Vexa again, so young, so innocent, so much a wannabe tough mercenary.

“We’re being watched.” She fingered the laser in her hand, her finger caressing the trigger. “Keep your weapons primed.”

Sneer about her behind her back some dared, but none denied the young Reeka knew what she was talking about. They looked around and now the more experienced ones moved uneasily, feeling the gazes of unseen beings.

The feeling of being surrounded crept in on her. The cannibals? Were they surrounding them unseen in the hot sun? Behind the sand dunes that circled them.

“We’re sitting targets,” one mercenary muttered.

Something in the air. Something wrong, a mirage, a wavering in the area to the right. She peered intently at the area and then a roar rent the air, shaking the ground.

The mercenaries swore and some started to panic.

“What the hell was that?”

“Shit!”

“Get off me!”

“Hold!” Reya yelled. “Stand your ground!”

The men subsided, holding their lasers and breathing harshly.

Where the hell was the commander? She looked around but couldn’t see him. It didn’t really matter, she knew there was no going back now. It was too late.

“Looks like the fight is coming to us,” she said tightly.

Another roar, and then laughter, high-pitched squealing. Something skittered under the sand not far from them, tunnelling. Several mercenaries fired and the sand went flat.

“We need to get the hell out of here,” one mercenary gritted out from between clenched teeth.

“Must have got the bastard with your first shot,” another mercenary said.

Reya looked at him. What kind of person, cannibal or not, could tunnel that fast under the sand? Fool. No, what they faced wasn’t right, wasn’t normal.

Something in the air, a chittering, and then it swooped at them, coming down, materializing, tearing through the air and shearing past her, empty sockets where eyes should be, gaping mouth, and then in a flash it wasn’t there. Gone, like a nightmare appearing and disappearing.

The mercenaries were panicking, firing into the air, scrambling back.

“We need to split up!” The commander appeared, eyes wild, obviously near breaking point. “Split up!”

“No.” Heart thumping, fear splintering through her, Reya nevertheless sought refuge in training. “Stand your ground, stay together! This is no time to split up! It’s our only chance!”

“We stand a better chance if we split up!” the commander insisted.

“There is safety in numbers!” Anger at his stupidity raked through Reya. “Stay in a big group!” She looked around and saw Starn. “Tell him, Starn! Tell him there’s safety in numbers!”

There was no help from the commander. He turned and ran. Zadox shook his head grimly. As one, the mercenaries turned and looked at her, seeking leadership.

Well, hell. Taking a deep breath, she pulled her shoulders back and lifted both lasers. Coldness filled her, steadying her nerves, and she became again what she was, a warrior, and a mercenary.

“Vexa?

“Yes?”

“Tell the men to stand in a circle, shoulder to shoulder, facing outwards. Now, damn it!” she barked out sharply when he stared at her, fear in his eyes. “Now!”

He jumped to her bidding and the men obeyed. Within seconds they stood in a circle, facing outward, shoulder to shoulder. The desert shimmered, and laughter and the stench of sulphur filled the air.

She could feel the fear of some of the men, the grim determination of others, and the steady presence of Zadox at her side. She pushed down her own fear, knowing if she gave in to it they would all fall apart. They were looking to her for leadership, to face this great unknown, and she pulled on her coldness, drew up the frigid wall, and focused.

She could show no weakness.

The sound came, moving closer, like rough cloth on skin, like jaws snapping, like saliva dripping, though how that could be was anyone’s guess.

What they faced wasn’t normal, and it was coming for them.

Giggles, and then sweet children topping the rise, all smiles but so eager for the blood of the mercenaries. She felt the revulsion at knowing the cannibals were children. They chattered so excitedly, some wearing chains made from human ears, others with vests made of human skin.

And behind them came the monsters, great rearing beasts that tore at the flesh of the victims.

Terrifying were the monsters, clawed toes and great maws gaping, jagged teeth.

The children didn’t seem to see them or maybe they were the pets of the children, who knew? The children giggled, coming loser. The monsters vanished.

Was it all an illusion?

Cannibals she could deal with, monsters - well, they were another story. But right now, the cannibalistic children were the threat.

More came, and still more spilling over the dunes, knives gleaming, sing-song voices laughing. Death in their eyes.

She didn’t want to give the order. She had to give the order. Everything she was fought against giving the order, and everything she was knew she had to give it. There was no going back for these cannibals, these children, these torturers and eaters of men.

“Kill them all!” She shouted.

And they did.

When the small bodies lay bleeding in the dirt, the monsters came again, rearing out of the sand, gulping up the bleeding bodies of the children, eating them as they had eaten those they’d captured for food. And more monstrous nightmares that flew from the sky, great horns tossing in what she now knew wasn’t a mirage. She fought with corpses, hand to hand, and around her the mercenaries fought.

They fought nightmares, living images from Hell. They were stabbed, clawed, their minds ripped apart. Sulphur filled the air, the C thught night sand burned, and she was brought to her knees, bleeding and breathing hard, her hair in the grip of a massive, clawed hand.

And finally they all knelt, bleeding, crying, their minds splintered as the horrors were burned deep. Zadox sat beside her, his eyes wild but recognition still within them. They looked at each other and wondered into what Hell they’d fallen.

A tattered hem appeared in her vision and she looked up, smelling the rot, seeing the flesh fall from a gangrenous hand that reached out to cup her face. She looked up into the face of a half-rotted corpse and she saw what no one alive was meant to see.

“Reya.” Phemar coaxed. “Reya, so controlled and beautiful. So young. Such a fighter. You will stand beside me.”

Her mind, already ravaged and torn from the atrocities brought upon it, snapped. She lunged, grabbing at him, twisting his hand from her face, hearing bone snap. She brought him down, ripping flesh from his arms, the rotting skin and oozing sores scouring under her nails.

Monsters dragged her off, wraiths lunged low over her face, and she screamed at Phemar.

He stared at her, his eyes glowing hot orange.

This monster from Hell, the walking corpse, regarded her thoughtfully. “Ah, not the one. A pity. You would fight me too much. It seems...” He cocked his head to one side, as though listening to something. Reaching up he jerked his hood over his head, his features vanishing from sight. “It seems that even though you are so controlled, warrior, you are not on that threshold, that precious life and death. My mistake. Such a terrible mistake.” He laughed suddenly. “But such a delightful mistake.” Turning to his monsters, he said, “Play awhile, my pretties.”

And they did. Mercenaries screamed, feeling and seeing horrors they should never see. Phemar bore into their minds, extracting information, leaving them whimpering. And Reya he savoured, for she was among the strongest mentally, the most beautiful, the one who fought so hard and refused to give up. He kept her from his pets, he played with her mind, he tore her barriers and delved deep. He fed on her emotions, sucked in her anguish, tasted her despair over the death of her mother, the rape of her sister warriors, the torture of her cousins, the death of her father, the tearing apart and destruction of the Reeka tribe, and her fear for her lost blood sister.

He made her cry and scream and bleed.

And when he’d had enough, he left them. He took his monsters and because it amused him, he let the mercenaries live. He just took their memories of himself and his pets away, and left them with only the few bodies of the dead cannibal children that hadn’t been eaten by the monsters.

But emotions and spiritual recognition were not so easily taken. Fear lingered, horror, the knowing that something unnatural had happened to them.

Many of the mercenaries came back insane. Only two retained their sanity. Reya led them back to civilization, she sat with them through their nightmares, soothing them while battling her own inner nightmares. Zadox worked beside her, seeing to the mercenaries, binding the wounds, both of them looking at each other and knowing that nothing could fix damaged minds.

Wondering how damaged were their own minds.

In the silence while the space ship soared through the endless, deep space, Reya brooded on the fact that she’d ordered the killing of children. I Cf cpact could be the only explanation for the horror and guilt that ate at her. Every time she thought of those children, she felt the horror.

And something else. Something deep inside her mind, something dark, something pulling her dangerously close to the edge of her own sanity.

Some of the mercenaries took their own lives not long after. No one could say why.

Safely back on planet, sitting in the tavern, her mind exhausted after another nightmare-filled night, she looked across the room at the only other survivor who retained his sanity, Zadox. His pale blue eyes met hers and she knew he suffered her nightmares. It was in the coldness of his face, the darkness under his eyes, the barriers he kept up.