Blackbeard Superbox by Michael Wallace

Author:Michael Wallace [Wallace, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Balsalom Publishing
Published: 2019-04-19T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

Tolvern met with her three companions in a burned-out sugar silo. Nyb Pim checked the door to make sure nobody had followed them into the scorched, still-smoldering mill, then shut it behind him. Tolvern felt suddenly like she’d been dropped into a pan of hot, caramelizing sugar. The smell and heat were almost overwhelming.

But the shut door at least cut out the screams of dying Hroom. The battle may be over, but the killing wasn’t. The sound turned her stomach.

“I cannot bear any more of this,” Carvalho said. “How much longer with the torture and murder?”

“We have fallen in among a death cult,” Nyb Pim said. “The more victories we have, the more glory they give to the god of death. And the more victims they must sacrifice.”

“Superstitious rubbish,” Brockett said. “Lyam Kar isn’t aiding this rebellion. It’s science.”

“You don’t have to tell us that,” Tolvern said. “We all know. And I suspect that Pez Rykan does, too. He is feeding the religious hysteria for his own purposes.”

“That villain,” Carvalho grumbled. “Cut us off, will he? Watch us take our antidote and leave him on his own. How long will his little rebellion last?”

Tolvern eyed him. “You think that’s an option? He can set half the continent on fire with the doses we’ve already given him if he can only get his hands on some weapons. This thing is growing exponentially. There’s no stopping it now.”

During the days after the raid on the slave barracks, Tolvern had received a brutal education in the realities of a revolution. The Hroom guards working for Malthorne’s estate were dismembered and killed in religious rituals. That spread fear ahead of Pez Rykan’s rampaging, growing army. Many times, they arrived to find the cane fields and slave villages already abandoned. The slaves were taken away, when possible. Other times, the enemy shot them first to keep them from falling into Pez Rykan’s hands.

The slaves themselves sometimes fought back, but most took their antidote without complaint. As the rebels moved on, they left hundreds of eaters gradually shaking off their addiction. Most of the newly freed fled into the bush, leaving a desolate, abandoned plantation behind them. Others became bandits, or free-ranging rebels on their own. But hundreds more had joined Pez Rykan’s force.

Only fifteen days had passed since the first attack, and the rebel commander had more than five hundred Hroom in his army. So many had joined, they quickly ran out of arms. Tolvern had distributed the weapons and ammo from the pod, and guns taken from the enemy were given to others. That armed maybe ten percent of the Hroom force, leaving the rest to make do with spears and crudely fashioned clubs. Almost no point to it.

Still, it was no wonder that Lord Malthorne had attempted to keep the sugar antidote a secret from the Hroom. The alien race had a reputation for being docile and easily led. When conquered, they were quickly enslaved, and those free Hroom who worked with humans—Nyb Pim, for example—were well disciplined.

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