Death Zone by T C Southwell

Author:T C Southwell [Southwell, T C]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fantasy
Goodreads: 10392963
Publisher: T C Southwell, via Smashwords
Published: 2010-12-17T00:00:00+00:00

Sabre woke with a terrible crick in his neck from sleeping on a narrow beam that buttressed the stilts of one of the houses built over the swamp on the edge of the city. His mouth tasted as if something furry and old had made a nest in it; a mixture of mud and bile. The black swamp mud had dried to a hard shell, which cracked and flaked off when he moved. Easing his backside on the beam, he restored the circulation to various parts of his posterior.

The sun sank towards the marsh mud, huge and red through the dusty atmosphere, and he picked dried mud from his face while he waited for the light to fade. Boots tramped overhead, mingled with the scurrying steps of playing children, their shrieks and laughter disturbing the dusk's stillness. His stomach growled, and his tailbone had developed a sharp ache. He shifted again, wishing that the sun would hurry its descent.

The activity above lessened as people retired to their houses for the night, and lights appeared as torch-bearing men lighted street lamps. More feet tramped above him when the city's nightlife began, and music drifted from the town. Sabre sighed, willing the hours to pass as his perch grew increasingly uncomfortable. Hours crept by before the city darkened as street lamps ran out of oil, and staggering footsteps overhead told of men reeling home with too much liquor in their bellies.

When at last an eerie silence fell over the town, Sabre eased himself off his perch and into the mud once more. With his slithering crawl, now well known to him, he made his way to the city's solid foundations. He paused to daub himself with fresh mud, then moved up the bank into the deserted streets. A few sputtering lamps still cast dim glows, and he switched to infrared.

Finding Tassin in the sprawling warren would have been impossible without the scanners. Unfortunately, most of the buildings were stone, and he hoped she was not incarcerated in one of them. He was pretty sure she would be with the rest of the girls, and searched for structures capable of housing them. The first such edifice he encountered turned out to be a barracks, and he trotted past it. Most of the life signs were patrolling sentries, and these he avoided. To his surprise, there was a group of eighteen life signs on the scanners, which meant they were either in a wooden structure, or out in the open. He found himself in a square bordered by pillared, important-looking buildings, and the one he had seen from outside the city dominated it. Staying in the shadows around the perimeter, he came to a cage full of girls. A pair of guards stood beside it, idly chatting while they leant on their spears. Sabre crept up behind them, but as he got into position, one man looked up with a curse.

"What's that smell?"

His companion sniffed. "Swamp mud."

"Never smelt it so strong before."

Sabre realised that he was the source of the stench, and his nose had become immune to it.

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