Condemned (Death Planet Book 1) (34 page)

Moses looked him over again. “And what in the King’s name are you doing here?”

The slaves glanced at Daniel, then looked away. The guard stared at him. Were they part of the Revolution, like Guy had said? Or didn’t they know what Guy had planned?

Safer to assume not.

“Can we talk in private?”

Moses stared into Daniel’s eyes, then into the dark woods around them. The flickering light from Butt-Clench’s torch barely illuminated a metre beyond the track.

“You can talk here, boy, or not at all. I’ve already had too many surprises for one day.”

Should he tell them? Well, it wasn’t like the rest of the world didn’t know. Probably everyone on Hades had heard about it by now. A drone buzzed down through the branches above, and circled the men. Everyone back home would already know, by the time they saw this recording.

“I... I blew up the King.”

Moses laughed. “You blew the King? I hope he enjoyed it.”

“I blew up the King. With a bomb.”

Moses stared at him with wide eyes. “Start again, boy. I think you’ve gone mad.”

“I blew him up, at his Brawl. But I didn’t kill him. I killed lots of other people when I blew him up, I didn’t mean to, but I did it all for the Revolution.”

Like the girl. Could she have survived that? Would she want to survive? People with things stuck in their head weren’t much like their old self afterwards, were they? Whatever happened to her after he escaped, he might as well have killed her.

“You’re babbling, boy.”

“There was a grandstand, and a bomb, and I threw a torch and it went boom,” Daniel flung his arms in the air for effect. “And the grandstand collapsed, and people were dead, but the King was still moving in his metal suit. I didn’t see much after that. I escaped and floated away.”

Moses just stared, and his jaw slowly dropped.

The Revolution had to be worth the harm it caused. How could he live with himself, otherwise? One way or another, he would make it worthwhile. Or die trying.

Daniel rubbed the bruised side of his face, and opened his mouth to expose his teeth. He pushed his tongue through the gap where the tooth had fallen out. “It’s true. They did this to me when they caught me. When they tortured me, to tell them what I knew about the Revolution. Before I escaped, and blew up the grandstand.”

Moses rubbed his face, and winced when his fingers pressed against the gash on his cheek. Blood oozed out around them.

“Why the fuck would you try to kill the King?”

“Guy said you were bringing more men to fight the King’s Guards, and bring freedom to Kingston.”

“Guy? Where is that shit?”

“He was supposed to attack the castle after I killed the King and you brought in his troops. Then they’d take the castle, and everyone would be free.”

Moses stared at Daniel for a moment, then opened his mouth. He took a breath, as though about to speak, then stopped. He rubbed his forehead, then spoke.

“Back a moment, boy. You said the King tortured you, to find out what you knew about this Revolution?”

Daniel nodded. His chest heaved, and his body shook, as he thought of the time he’d spent chained to the wall, as the King shouted at him. His wrists had bled, and his arms lost all feeling as they hung from the chains, and the King’s Guards punched and smacked him around. He could still taste of blood in his mouth from the torn gums.

Moses stepped closer. “And what, exactly, did you tell him?”

N
ow what the fuck could they do? Guy led the way through the woods, far enough from the river to be hidden from view, close enough to follow it toward the sea. The Brain trailed along behind, his feet crunching down the plants Guy had pushed aside. What they really needed was a big fucking knife to hack them down, but that would be even more effective in leaving a trail Moses could easily follow than helping them move faster with Guy’s wounded leg.

Would he follow?

Fuck, yes. He’d be pissed at losing his boat, his guards, his slaves, his cargo... nothing good was going to come of all that. Nothing good at all. Shit, why did he have to make trouble in the first place? They could just have come to an agreement, and settled their differences like gentlemen.

At least for long enough to drop his guard, so Guy could slip a knife in his back.

If they followed the river at their current speed, then turned right at the sea, they’d reach the monastery in a day or two. But that was exactly where Moses would be looking for them. If he got his boat fixed, he could even be there before Guy and the Brain reached it, unless the wind that hissed through the trees above them turned into a storm strong enough to keep his boat off the sea.

Either he had to come up with some other destination, or he had to convince Moses that they weren’t going there. Or maybe he could find a place to ambush Moses, and end the chase there and then. If he had his gun, he could do it. But, with just knives... no chance.

He’d pulled Moses’ knife from his leg, and bandaged it as well as he could, but pain stabbed his thigh every time he took a step, and blood was slowly soaking through the cloth. The Brain’s forearm was turning black where the stupid spider had bitten it. Would they even live to see the monastery? They weren’t going anywhere fast, and they needed to.

The Brain crashed through the bushes behind him.

“We have to go back for Simon.”

Not the damn spider again.

“He’ll find you.”

“I can’t just abandon him. He’s looked after me for years.”

“If we go back, and run into Moses, we’ll be dead. The spider saved your life. Be happy with that.”

“Send your drone to look for him.”

“My drone is looking for Moses. He’ll kill us if he finds us.”

It was buzzing through the night sky a couple of hundred metres behind them. The noise might attract attention, but there were enough drones flitting through the trees that his should just be one in a crowd. Seemed like a busy night, he hadn’t seen that many in the woods in a long time. Something had attracted their attention. Hopefully not him.

Guy pushed on. The bushes were tall and wide, the leaves spread out enough to block his view, and the branches thick enough that he had to push them aside to pass, rather than just stumble through and break them. They’d better be slowing Moses down as much as him.

“Simon... Simon... Simon...” the Brain muttered behind him.

He’d been muttering for hours, since they first reached the riverbank. If he wasn’t worth so much money, Guy would have killed him by now. Not just because the noise was another way for Moses to find them, but the incessant repetition for all that time was giving Guy a headache.

“I can’t live without Simon.” The Brain smacked himself on the head. “I can’t think without him. He’s been with me for so long, it’s like he’s part of my mind.”

“Then you don’t need to worry about him, do you?”

“You don’t know what it’s like, losing someone you really care about.”

“Trust me. I fucking do.”

Guy pushed the bushes aside, and stepped through them. Then he stopped, and looked up. Then looked higher. And higher still.

“Oh, shit.”

D
aniel raced through the woods, arms and legs pumping, and lungs gasping. It was just like his first hour on Hades, except, this time, he was naked. And it was night. Being chased seemed to be just a way to pass the time there.

Drones dodged around him. They twisted around the tree trunks, and flitted from side to side as they avoided each other. The moonlight was barely bright enough to see his own feet, and he could only see the trees by looking for where they blacked out the stars behind them.

Perhaps Moses wouldn’t be able to see, either.

“Come back here, my boy,” Moses yelled. “Let’s just talk this over, and work it out.”

Daniel glanced back. Lights moved in the woods behind him, Moses and his guard with torches. The slaves swung their chains in front of them, tearing through the undergrowth.

So not much chance of that.

What was wrong with Moses, anyway? They were both on the same side. OK, he might have told the King that Moses was part of the Revolution, but he was, wasn’t he? What would it matter, once the King was dead?

Daniel’s chest crunched as he smacked into a tree trunk. Pain from his ribs stabbed through his body again. The spiky skin of the tree added more scrapes to those he already had.

He groaned as he pushed himself away from the tree. Look where you’re going, even if you can’t see, dumbass. If he knocked himself unconscious out there, who knows what Moses might do to him before he woke up? If he woke up...

He pushed past the tree, and through the chest-high plants beyond. The spiny leaves scraped his bare skin as he pushed through them, but he barely noticed over the random pains from every other part of his body. If he ever escaped from these people, he was going to sleep for a month to recover.

“Come on, boy,” Moses yelled. “I just want to take you back to the King to explain our little misunderstanding.”

That just made Daniel’s legs move faster. The best that could happen if Moses caught him was to be tortured to death by the King. That would be a heck of a lot more painful than anything he’d suffered so far. And, this time, he wasn’t likely to escape. The worst... had to be much worse than that.

He ignored the pain as leaves slashed across his thighs and chest, and winced as a thin leaf stung his wildly-swinging dick. He glanced down at his groin, and held a hand there to protect his most vulnerable parts. He’d never even really had a chance to use them.

Then he looked back up, just in time to see the drone that hovered in his path. He dodged to the right, but his foot slipped on the mud. His legs slid out from beneath him, and he turned his head to the side to protect it as he tumbled forward.

His chest slammed into the mud. His stomach smacked down onto a rock, knocking the air from his lungs. He gasped for breath until he could push himself back up, and stumbled on. His stomach muscles added their own complaints to those from the rest of his wounded body.

Something crunched, smashed, and thumped through the undergrowth ahead, coming his way. Had some of Moses’ men run ahead of him, and now turned to catch him? Shit.

Two tree trunks had grown into a twisted mass near the ground, and he crawled into a gap between them. The men might not notice him there as they raced past. He hunched down between the trees, and peered into the darkness beyond.

The drone buzzed down. Lights clicked on, and the narrow spotlight beams shone into Daniel’s face. He swung his hand toward the drone, but it just dodged aside. He swung again, and it rose a few centimetres, then dropped back.

If the men came past right now, they could hardly miss him.

He grabbed a stick, and swung it. The drone ducked, and the blow went high. He swung again, coming from above this time. The drone buzzed forward, and the stick missed. But that brought it close enough for him to grab one of the arms that held the fans. The props spun madly, and the drone twisted in his grip. He smashed it against the tree, and it flipped upside down in his hand. Then he slammed it onto the ground, and brought the stick down on the underside. Plastic cracked, and the fans whirred. He smashed it again, and the lights went out. A third time, and the fans stopped.

He ducked back into the hole between the trees. The sound of breaking twigs approached. If he was lucky, they hadn’t heard the commotion. If he was unlucky...

The black, spiky shadows of long-stemmed leaves moved in the dim moonlight that reached him through the dark canopy above. They swished as something pushed between them, and the sound of gasping breath grew louder.

The drone’s fans spun up. It flipped over, turned in the air, then its lights clicked on. The spotlight beams cut through the darkness, until they illuminated a wide-eyed face coming his way. The scalp was bald, with dark tattoos, and a beard hung so low below the man’s chin that it dangled out of the beam. The man screamed, dodged the drone, and raced past.

Daniel pushed himself deeper into his hidey-hole between the trees. More leaves moved, further back in the woods. Feet stomped on twigs, and something smacked against a tree trunk. Then the plants ahead of him moved aside as another man pushed out between them.

The drone’s light illuminated a familiar, scarred face. A face with only one eye. Guy.

He’d come back. Come to rescue him.

Daniel pulled himself out of the tree.

“Guy...” he began.

But Guy hobbled onward faster than his limping leg should carry him, only glancing Daniel’s way before disappearing into the darkness beyond. Guy’s own drone raced through the trees, dodging left and right between the trunks and branches. Then it was gone, too.

The other drone stared into the woods, slowly moving side to side and shining its light between the leaves. What the heck was it so interested in?

Then the ground shook. Branches cracked, and clattered down until they slammed into the ground. Something smashed against the trees like a crack of thunder. A furry face appeared in the drone’s spotlight beam.

Three big, glowing eyes looked Daniel’s way.

Oh, shit.

T
he King stomped along the riverbank. Two Royal Hounds hissed at his heels, and rattled their chains. Lights moved between the trees on the far side of the river, where Pig-Face led two dozen men spread out through the woods. Dividing his forces had never seemed a good idea, but he needed to cover both banks. If the shitheads were on the far side, that would keep them busy long enough for the rest of the army to cross.

His right leg creaked every time he put weight on it. He'd need the fucking Brain to fix this fucking exoskeleton. For now, moving fast seemed to be enough. With the weight only on the leg for a split second, it didn't have time to complain. But the steam engine was belching smoke so thick that his eyes were watering. That had better get fixed, too.

“Come on, you fuckers,” he yelled.

The men yelled around him as they smashed their way through the undergrowth, swinging sticks and swords through the bushes, and banging them against trees. They were spread out a nearly a kilometre into the woods. If the shits had gone further from the river than that, they were probably already food for one of the vicious creatures that lived there.