Saul of Sodom: The Last Prophet (9 page)

  The vast settlement came into view as the
airship settled on its landing pad.  The doorways opened, filling the fuselage
with a cold draft of scorched air.  The red sun disappeared over the horizon.

  
The war economy flourishes; warzones multiply.  The martial world advances; the
civil world recedes.  Year by year, mile by mile, the battle-filled boundaries
between the East and West widen, devouring everything in their path like wildfire. 
In three decades, the fire had not yet yielded. 

  
The Eurasian warzones between the USE and the NSRRS comprised one of the more
volatile sections of the Walls.  The warzone belt cut diagonally from the very
north of Russia down to the southernmost tip of the former Ukraine – the New Borderland. 
Territorial shifts of war ploughed through the land, toppling buildings, razing
earth.  Repeated skirmishes and reprisals reduced whole provinces to piles of
rubble.  For everything the martial world built, there was a price to be paid
in blood and destruction.  That is the rule. 

  
As soon as war touched the limits of a civil city, more than a third of the
population was gone after the first week.  The poorer classes, who did not have
the money to move, had no choice but to stay and hope that the fire of war
would pass.  But, like a cancer, battle recurred again and again, feeding off
its host until it was utterly destroyed. 

  
Spooked herds of civilians drove through underground paths, sewer systems and
tunnels, screaming, stampeding and trampling one another underfoot.  In the
background; a choir of explosions, gunshots and tremors, and the whinging of
splitting rock and twisting metal as buildings crumbled, fell and crashed to
the earth in smoldering piles.  The air was tainted with smoke and fire.  A
sulphurous fume rose from the underground cesspools through the cracked earth,
mingling with the scent of exposed wounds, molten tar and decomposition. 
Meanwhile, ghostly figures floated noiselessly across darkened paths above and
below.  Silhouettes skimmed the straggling rays of light in dark corners. 

  
Be
dark
 
and impenetrable as night…  Fall
 
like
a thunderbolt
…

  
Saul watched them move like spirits.  The cigarette cherry glowed through the
dense, cold gloom.  To his right, the 13 remaining men of Infil Squad 3 hugged
the shadow-enclosed walls of the backstreet.  The firefights from the abutting
streets filtered through wall layers behind them.  The passage to Building 4 was
just further up the tunnel, and on the opposite end of the street, on the 10th
and 15th floors of Building 6.  S-Squad Two had their sights lined down the
adjoining roads.  It had been 10 minutes since D-Squads had given an update and
they were starting to fall behind schedule.  The tick-tock of the cerebral
clock pecked away at his mind. 

  
Finally, a transmission:

  
“
Boss man
.”  Duguay’s voice came over the airwaves.

  
“What is it?”

  
“
Six amicals headed your way off alley three.
”

  
Seconds later, the echoes of fleet-footed boot heels surfaced through the
requiem of shots and explosions and a group of silhouettes materialised at the
end of the tunnel. 

  
“Check your fire.  Friendlies.”

  
The six silhouettes slipped through the tunnels, keeping their heads low. 
Every soldier in 5
^th
Brigade was marked with caste signets and squad
indices and their markings glowed through the scopes.  He identified the six as
men from I-Squad 8. 

  
The squad leader approached, the Overclass caste markings flashed through the
illuminating scopes over his eyes and a marred and tattooed face passed under
the ghostly pale light.

  
“Building 5 is secure,” said the scar-faced overclass.  “Last one to go.”

  
He took the cigarette and tossed it aside.

  
“Are R1 and R2 holding?” he asked.

 
 
 “Yes,
but it won’t be much longer before the heavies…”

  
They were interrupted by the sound of footsteps coming from the other side of
the tunnel intersection.   He silently gestured toward the doorway.  The hand
signals translated as “multiple enemies.”  They immediately assumed firing
squad positions around the door.  They waited.  The footsteps became louder.

  
The doors slid open.

  
“Hold fire!”  The order was sharp but controlled.  All trigger fingers froze.

  
A group of fleeing civilians staggered back in fright as soon as the doors
opened.

  
“
Molchat
,” he pronounced, lowering his gun. 

  
The children were instantly pulled back and took cover behind the adults,
staring back with quiet condemnation from behind knocking knees.  The
expressions on their soot-blackened faces were of people expecting to die.

 
 “Let them go,” he ordered.

  
The mock firing squad lowered their guns and reluctantly dispersed.

  
“If they’re interrogated at gun point, our cover will be blown.” 

  
“That is a chance we will have to take,” he answered with a glower.

  
Just as the last of the civilians passed through, a child suddenly broke away
from his mother’s hand.  He watched the boy push urgently past the soldiers and
stop right before him, eyes up-turned and gaping terribly.  The boy’s mother
scurried back, shout-whispering; “
Shcho ty
robysh!
”

   He looked back at the young boy’s trembling face.

   “
Chto ty delayesh?
”
he asked.  “
What are you doing?
”

  
“
Oni idut
,” said the
boy.  “They are coming…”

  
The mother seized the boy by the shoulder just as the warning was uttered and
pulled him away.

  
“Shadows.  Now!”

  
The order was concise and the response was quick.  They evaporated into the
dark corners.  Saul pressed up against the space right beside the doorway; the
elite opposite on the left.   Sure enough, more footsteps were heard
approaching from the end of the path, light and steady steps, no voices nor the
sound of heavy breaths.  Martials.  He estimated six.  Three hand signals
communicated the orders:

  
Two fingers hovering over the eyes -- “scouters.” 

  
A thumb drawn along the neck, index finger up over the nose -- “keep it
quiet.”  

  
A clenched fist followed by a single raised finger -- “one live.”

  
There were nods of agreement from the shadows. 

  
The doors slowly slid sideways.  Rifle barrels peered over the threshold and
scanned the tunnel path.  The first two bodies came slowly through and marched
straight forward, keeping their eyes down the tunnel.  After the second two
passed, Saul gave the signal with a bowed head.

  
The final two pairs of footsteps crossed the entrance.   Blades out.

  
He sprung up first, latching his left arm around the chest; his right arm slung
around the head, wrenching, he felt the sharp crunch and a snap as the skull
twisted round, the body went limp and the man was instant dead weight in his
arms.  Blood showered his face from the open neck where the scar-faced
overclass had driven his blade into his own mark and the split jugular sprayed
profusely.  The ghosts pounced from the shadows, stabbing, ripping rapidly and
repeatedly, hands over mouths to muffle the dying screams.  Blood frescoed the
walls. 

  
Five fresh corpses were laid down quietly.  As instructed, one was subdued
alive.  Two men pinned the last East Grider to the floor.  Just as he let out a
yell of “
Promo-
” his shouts were cut short by a blow to the jaw and one
to the gut for good measure.  Once debilitated, the East Grider was hauled to
his feet.

  
He summoned them with a wave and the East Grider was dragged up, head hung,
slivers of blood falling from the broken jaw, wheezing through punctured
lungs.  He drew a blade, grabbed the martial by a tuft of hair and lifted his head
up.  When the features of the soldier’s broken face entered the light, a surge
of distress shot through him like lightning. 

  
It was a woman.

  
He looked upon the inflamed, sapphire eyes and the otherwise feminine beauty,
marred by the hematoma forming over the fractured skull.  She coughed and blood
issued from her lips and sputtered across his face.  “
Prosto
ubit menya
.”
she rasped through a crushed trachea. 

  
He froze, mute, and his hands shook.  Visions flashed through his mind in
incoherent fragments, flashes of crimson and the screams of his nightmares. 
The woman’s dazed eyes locked on to his and a mad and blood-toothed leer
extended across her broken face.   The blade shook in his grip.

  
“Commander…”

  
He was roused by the voice.  The cold sweat sizzled on his brow, chest rising
and falling rapidly.  He tore his eyes off the woman and blinked away the
hallucinations.  He shook off his passion, seized the woman by the hair once
more and brought the tip of the blade to her neck.  He could hear the muffled
static Russian voices on her transmission. 

  
“Tell them the area is clear,” his voice shook.  

  
The woman martial cackled again.  “
Ubey menya
,” she scowled. 

  
“You do not have to die here.”

  
She coughed.  Her head hung.  With her head bowed, a single word was muttered:

  
“
…
Liar.”

  
The word repeated in his mind, spiralling and escalating into a constant shriek. 
He lapsed, and for a brief moment the immediate warzone and the whole
war-ravaged world beyond it fizzled away.  There was only himself and his
reflection staring back in the sapphire eyes.  Then the woman’s head shot up
and she yelled, “
ONI V’ZAKOUL-
ach…” 

   Her eyelids flared. 

   The blood poured from her lips and flowed over the hand
clutched around the blade.  He pulled the blade back and felt the spine crunch
and the blood spray, showering his face.  The body was released and collapsed,
the puddle of blood slowly forming. 

   The blade fell from his hands and clattered on the floor
by the woman’s corpse.

   “
What happened?
” The voices echoed in his head.  “…
Commander?
”
 
He staggered away, stopped and stared at his own blood-sodden hands. 
Visions burst into flame before his eyes, feeding the maelstrom in his mind.  A
sharp pain simmered in his gut and rose into his chest…  

   “
Saul.
”

   A voice came over the transmission.

   “
Saul…
”

    The trembling hand stopped and clenched into a restrained
fist. 

   “
Saul, are you there?
”

  
“Yes…” he answered with a gasp. 

  
“
Thought you’d bought it for a second there
,” said Celyn.
 “
We’re
moving up to intersection two on North Street.
”

  
“Where are you?” he asked, rapidly shifting his focus.

  
“
Look down…
”

  
He stopped pacing and tuned in to the clanking of his boot heels against the
rain grate, and when he looked down into the sewer culvert, flickers of human
forms zipped under the light directly below.

  
“How much longer?” he asked, rejoining his men in the shadows.

  
“
Not sure.  This is one hell of a mining operation.  Maybe 10 minutes, tops.
”

  
“The whole city is a battlefield.  We cannot stay hidden for much longer.”

  
“
Well, this wouldn’t take as long if we didn’t have to keep diverting civy
traffic.
 
What’s the situation on South Street?”

  
“Hold on.”
He quickly adjusted the transmission signal.  “Phase 4
update.”

  
The firefights on
the adjacent streets were escalating.

  
“Malachi…”

  
“
Building 6 is secured,
” Malachi’s low voice came through patches of
white noise and a flurry of gunfire in the background.
  “Moving to secure
Building 7 now.
”