CHAPTER NINETEEN
Screams of Despair
Confidence oozed from Obi. Connor felt calmer and more reassured in his presence. Having a nine-foot giant on your side in battle made him more optimistic. Bromie appeared more relaxed too. He relinquished his leadership role and seemed content to let Obi make the major decisions.
‘He’s my older brother,’ Bromie explained, chopping a thorn bush for Connor to pass. ‘Where I come from first born are taller than the rest.’
‘And he’s the runt of the family,’ Obi grinned broadly, pointing his thumb towards his brother.
When they arrived at the exterior of the fort, it appeared unnaturally quiet, causing Obi to slow and signal for the other two to stop. The moon watched them quietly. Its silvery light shone brightly above, revealing shadows shifting near the stone enclosure.
Obi shook his head and laughed aloud.
‘Fools!’ he sang. ‘We can see you!’
The secret ambush had been a waste of time and Connor and his new friends stood outside the stronghold, as the place became utter chaos. Whizzers charged with speed from around the corner. The deafening noise sounded like a thousand bees trapped in a small metal container with a microphone pressed to it. Obi yelled insults at the enemy as he struck them. Meanwhile, Bromie grasped hold of Connor, placing him behind his body to protect him.
Whizzers flew, seemingly occupying every available space, but with his sword, Bromie sliced them in an instant as if they were nothing but apples, lying dead on the ground as the lights faded quickly from their bodies. Bromie acted fast, each action precise and deliberate, destroying anything close to them.
Connor gaped in admiration at Bromie’s skill. He held the weapon he’d concealed earlier beneath his jacket and much to Bromie’s surprise began shooting. A few shots strayed but Connor soon mastered it and shot with accuracy. With so miss when so many of them were in the sky.
Obi had since disappeared beneath a blanket of whizzers but a grunt and a deep hearty laugh reassured his comrades he still lived. An occasional remark such as, ‘Come little buzzies, I want to tickle your tummies!’
Obi became smothered in a thick blue sparkling cloud, continuously ducking and diving and spinning round quickly not to give the whizzers a chance to strike him. Whizzers were being whacked and zapped, flying at different angles before darting back for more. Obi swatted them as if they were gnats, with accuracy and perfection. By his sheer skill alone the flock of whizzers decreased and Obi laughed victoriously. When the last one had been eradicated not a drip of sweat could be seen on his furry brow.
But they had more to fight.
Several towering Armatripe were now rushing towards them with black ugly faces contorted in fury and bellowing with open mouths, showing their rotten brown teeth. They were slow, Obi mock yawned. At the last moment, when they were almost upon him, did he jump, engaging himself in battle. At this point the two brothers rushed forward, fighting side by side, leaving Connor safe.
Obi jumped and crashed his hefty weight on to the Armatripe he’d knocked on the ground, squashing them flat as pancakes. Connor shuddering at the sounds of cracking bones. More Armatripe followed the first clump, then another and another. He defeated them with a swift bang to their head and to make sure they wouldn’t rise again, Obi continued jumping in the air before squashing them.
Bromie too, dealt with them in his own way by slicing their heads off with a single motion of his sword. Strangely enough, Connor remained calm. The Armatripe were hideous giant insects and resembled nothing human.
Meanwhile Obi had created a new game. Lifting an Armatripe he threw it towards the others, knocking them as if they were skittles. The aftermath of the battle saw dead Armatripes laying sprawled on the ground as if they were sleeping but others were as flat as pancakes with eyes bulging from their sockets. Some were headless. Connor pressed himself close to the wall, watching the last few remaining Armatripes get beaten.
While the brothers were preoccupied they failed to notice an Armatripe sneaking towards Connor. The boy sensed the creature. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled uneasily and, spinning round fast, he came face to face with a hideous creature. It moved stiffly, appearing older than the Armatripe already engaged in battle.
The creature pulled him harshly, its voice deep and crackly.’ You! Come with me!’
Connor moved quickly. Holding his jacket securely with its pinchers, the foul creature dragged him away, but the boy wriggled and fought against a superior strength far outweighing his own.
‘Get off me!’ he screamed, pointing the gun at the Armatripe’s face. ‘I’ll shoot!’ The Armatripe gave a nasty grin and tightened its grip. ‘I warned you!’ snarled Connor, pressing his finger on the trigger.
He fired immediately. The Armatripe’s face exploded into thousands of pieces and a fountain of green grunge rained over him. The leftover debris of the alien ooze covered his face.
‘Urgh!’ Connor cringed. Its rancid odour was worse than a stink bomb. ‘Gross!’
‘Connor!’ Bromie ran towards him.
Connor face turned green. Clutching his stomach, he leaned forward and gagged.
‘You did well. I was too far away to help you but I saw what happened,’ Bromie paused briefly. When he next spoke he sounded disappointed, though not with Connor but more with himself. ‘I should’ve been watching you!’
Connor puked a second time.
‘You did well, lad.’
His lips quivered as he leant his body forward to heave for a third time.
‘Better clean you up, lad.’
Bromie led Connor towards Obi. ‘We’ve got a casualty.’
Obi jumped on the spot from one foot to the other, full of energy, and revitalised after his battle. Waving his weapon in the air like a racket, he seemed more like a tennis champion than a warrior. Next to him was a pile of squashed Armatripes. He made a face at Connor.
Obi twisted the head of a large flask of water and poured over Connor’s head. The freezing cold liquid immediately washed the green gunge from his face, helping Connor recover.
Obi slapped his back a little harder than Connor would have preferred. ‘So, you killed your first Armatripe, did you? You did well, Sir. You’re one of us now.’
Until today, he hadn’t killed anything in his whole life apart from the odd spider when he’d been too young to know better, now he’d killed a rock dweller and an Armatripe. He tried to make excuses for what he’d done. He tried to convince himself he’d killed a cruel beast, which had destroyed and harmed others. Surely it wasn’t a bad thing. But deep inside no matter how he tried to disguise it, he’d killed and from experience he knew killing was wrong, though it couldn’t be avoided.
Whistling jovially, Obi stepped through the entrance to the stronghold where they came across a large, flat roofed building. The building’s square perimeter, made entirely from stone, had metal doors barring the entrance. Bromie appeared more attentive than Obi at this time but it wasn’t the case. Although he was whistling, Obi’s senses were heightened to the constant threat of danger.
Rubbing his palms, with his one good eye he eyed the massive doors.
‘How come your brother wears a patch?’ Connor whispered quietly to Bromie.
‘He lost his eye in battle a few years back,’ Bromie explained.
‘How awful.’ Connor wondered what it looked like beneath the patch.
‘Leave this to me.’ Obi’s muscular leg kicked the doors, causing an echo to reverberate beyond the doors, enough to deafen anyone standing close to it. Once he’d made a sizable gap, he ripped the doors off their hinges and threw them above the high wall like paper aeroplanes.
‘Wow!’ murmured Connor. ‘Nothing can stop him!’
Bromie grinned.
Deep inside the entrance a flurry of activity roared below in the tunnels.
‘More whizzers. Stay clear.’ Obi braced himself for another onslaught. ‘It’s playtime again.’
He dashed inside the building.
‘Be careful, brother,’ Bromie called after him.
The passageway inside the entrance sloped to where a tremendous racket erupted. Roars echoed through the tunnel. Connor covered his ears as the noise blasted from the doorway. They waited in silence for Obi to emerge a few minutes later.
‘Well, I got them,’ he cheered.
‘You’re getting old, brother,’ Bromie jibed.
‘I am,’ he agreed. ‘But there’s still a lot of life in the old dog yet. Be careful where you step – it’s messy inside and I didn’t have time to clear up.’
Terribly dark and damp in the passageway, Connor shivered as he slipped on the remains of some dead creature but thankfully remained on his feet. Obi led the way down the slope, avoiding the slippery, dead whizzers in his path. Further along the passageway green lamps glowed gently, lighting their way. Being unventilated in the massive corridor and Connor coughed to clear his throat. The rancid odour made Connor cover his nose with his jumper, relieved to whiff the homely scent of Marion’s home, sparking recent memories of the place. How were they coping? Did they know Jeremy was still alive on Dramian and trying to rescue his son Daven? But what if Daven had already died? What if they don’t find Jeremy?
‘This is a large room!’ said Obi.
They entered a circular room, filled with a mysterious blue light, with a magnificent domed ceiling beautifully carved from stone. Pale blue stone seats occupied the boundary of the room and in the middle of the floor, a pinhole of blue light shone from the ceiling.
‘This room is positioned directly below the moon so it shines when its at its highest. It’s a meeting place of sorts.’ Bromie examined the seats.
With one doorway to enter, goosebumps appeared on Connor’s arms as gaze rested on a magnificent stone carving of a massive bear with huge teeth. Its piercing eyes shone on yellow stone.
Bromie thought deeply. ‘This bear must be important – too many references to suggest otherwise.’
Most walls had a carving of a bear, standing tall and mighty with a double row of thorns along the length of its spine.
‘It’s creepy,’ whispered Connor. ‘Do you think this is where Kia’s ship had been taken?’
Obi ran his fingers along a circular ridge in the ground, as round as the room. ‘Ah huh! I’ll bet you anything this floor is a lift. Search for a button or lever of some kind. This lift will take us down.’
‘I saw something in the wall as we came into the room,’ Connor pointed to the wall with regret. Was he mad? Did he want to descend to a bottomless pit, overrun with rock dwellers which enjoyed chewing the bones of humans?
Obi secured the lever. ‘This must be it! Good work, Connor! Stand in the middle of the floor.’
Rooted to the spot, Bromie held the boy’s shoulders and pushed him forward.
‘Don’t freeze on us now,’ he said gently. ‘Remember as long as you possess the Starstone no harm can come to you.’
Nodding, Connor firmly gripped his weapon. The Starstone might be powerful but he didn’t know how to use it and the gun proved to be a more reliable method of protecting himself at this moment.
‘Here we go!’ Obi warned and gripping the lever he yanked it in one fell swoop. A deep throbbing sound immediately came from within the walls. The ground trembled. Obi ran back to join the others, jumping lightly towards the descending floor.
Clanking metal on metal sounded somewhere, as the ground rumbled. Connor hadn’t encountered an earthquake before, but felt similar to this. The ground wasn’t secure anymore. The deep sound of a metal chain rattled in time with Connor’s pulse as the ground lowered slowly.
They were fifteen feet below the room level and another minute later they were another fifteen feet down.
At that moment, Connor saw a grey creature leaning over the edge of the room above them, peering with wide eyes. ‘We have company.’
Several other rock dwellers had now joined the first.
‘As long as they don’t join us, we’ll be fine,’ muttered Obi.
The creature’s contorted faces filled with panic as they gabbled incessantly. Unsure of what to do they threw a couple of daggers, which narrowly missed Connor’s feet. The blade sparked the stone before breaking clean in half. The others held their weapons and their voices becoming louder. Several of them disappeared.
‘They’re going!’ cheered Connor.
Bromie squinted, thinking hard. ‘But why?’
‘They want to stop us!’ growled Obi. ‘Let’s hope they’re too late.’
When the ground abruptly came to a standstill, it became clear what the rock dwellers had done. They’d halted the lift, leaving them stuck in-between levels in an enclosure with smooth slippery walls. Escape would be tricky.
‘They want to starve us!’ panicked Connor, his mouth dry.
‘Well, you know what they say – where there’s a will, there’s a way!’ Obi inspected the two-inch gap surrounding the lift, as if the wall had vanished beyond it. ‘We’re here! This is the level we were coming to. Stand back and watch for any more flying daggers.’
He pulled his sword from its sheath behind his back and lifted it high into the air, as a rock dwellers threw a dagger.
‘Watch out!’ Bromie cried, leaping forward.
The dagger threw so fast Bromie didn’t have time to push his brother free from its path. It whizzed straight through the air and sliced through Obi’s skin and muscle, embedding itself in his shoulder.
‘Ahhh!’ Obi cried, grabbing the handle and tearing it, causing blood to seep from his wound. A cheer of victory erupted above them. Grimacing angrily he flicked the blade with speed back from where it had come, slicing into the heart of a rock dweller and causing it to fall below. Its body slammed heavily on to the huge stone slab, its bones snapping. Connor closed his eyes. The rock dweller crumbled into dust. Above, the others hushed, retreating.
Bromie stood by Obi, urgently applying healing ointment on the deep gash. Obi remained still while his brother continued to nurse him. His clothes were soaked in blood, but at least with the ointment, the wound had stopped bleeding and had started to heal. In another hour the wound would be as good as new.
‘You evil fiends!’ Bromie snarled at them and watched them retreated.
‘Thank you, brother. Let’s go!’ Obi grumbled, lifting his sword once more and striking it hard at the stone slab.
Connor gasped as the sword shimmered in the air and became more astounded to see the blade remain intact as it crashed on the bloodstained stone. What sword could possibly be stronger than rock? Slinking away the rock dwellers disappeared. Relieved, Connor saw them flee with their tails between their legs.
A large crack appeared in the surface of the rock. Obi stamped his foot at the edge and a chunk gave way, into the chasm below. The lift could descend further, but this was the level they were getting off at. The hole in the floor was wide enough for Obi to climb through. He shuffled on the edge of the hole with his legs dangling below. He struck his sword into the wall.
‘Hold my sword before lowering your body. Make sure you swing to make the jump. Otherwise, you’ll fall.’
Connor’s jubilation had long since vanished. Scared, he thought they’d plunge into the chasm below. What if the sword gave way? Obi believed it would work and if the sword could withstand his weight, then Connor would be fine, as long as he didn’t let go of the sword.
Obi grabbed his sword and lowered his body through the large gap. Lifting his legs forward he swung his body back and forth a few times before making the jump.
‘Hurry!’ he urged.
Bromie looked at Connor. ‘Go on, you go next!’ You’ll be fine.’
Shaking, Connor tried to grab the sword, but it was too far.
‘It’s no good,’ he said. ‘I can’t reach it.’
Bromie leaned forward. ‘Hurry! Grab hold of my hands and I’ll lower you through the hole and swing you instead.’
r /> Connor might have resisted this idea if he hadn’t witnessed Bromie’s earlier display of strength when he’d managed to lift him from the crevice with ease. Trusting Bromie, he held on tightly to his large hands, roughened by years of hard work. Bromie gripped his wrists and lowered him gently until he hung above a bottomless shaft. Once his body slipped through the gap, Bromie swung the boy several times.
‘I’ll catch you!’ Obi called, his voice echoing. ‘Swing him a little bit more. That’s great. Now after three let him go. One… two… three! Go!’
He flung Connor towards Obi, who caught him and laughed at the child’s terrified expression. He released the trembling lad. But after the initial fear had faded, the boy grew courageous. He’d faced many trials and thankfully survived them. He became invigorated, believing after such an experience he could face anything.
‘Stand further back!’ Obi urged Connor. ‘Bromie’s going to make his jump.’
Connor waited several feet from the edge as Bromie prepared to lower himself.
‘Hold on, brother!’ Obi called.
Through the hole they watched Bromie’s feet dangle before the rest of his body came into view. With a single kick, he swung with ease like his brother before him and landed safely. Relief swept across Obi’s face with his brother now safe. Standing on tiptoes, Obi retrieved his sword from the rock.
This area had a small passageway leading from the room.
‘I guess I’ll have to make it bigger,’ Obi lifted his large sword, brought it crashing into the rock. The huge chunks of collapsing rock broke on impact. He kicked the huge boulders away as if they were empty cans and continued to break the walls until he was able to pass through the gap. Despite the deafening noise, the place erupted with shrieking screams of despair and hopelessness. The small group stopped dead in their tracks listening to the harrowing sounds coming from somewhere in front of them.
Obi eyes darkened with concern. During this time no one uttered a word. He elevated his magnificent sword high above his head and continued to sever the rock. It fell apart as if it were tree bark. Haunting cries rose above the racket of falling slabs crashing to the floor. Obi sweated. Screeches and wailing moans made Connor’s blood curdle. He shivered with a face of pure terror.
Previously he’d come face to face with Definastine, his dark hounds and rock dwellers, yet these screams without a face were something else entirely, more terrifying and soul destroying. They had a way of entering your body uninvited, frightening every cell and atom in the process.
Connor jumped.
‘The lost children!’ Bromie whispered, appearing equally affected by the haunting din. ‘We’ve work to do.’
‘The lost children?’ Connor gulped with shimmer of excitement. If they’d found the lost children, they’d find Jeremy too.
Putrid and foul, they’d entered what appeared to be the heart of a sewage system. Connor gagged and covered his nose and mouth at once. Pulling a couple of sweet scented handkerchiefs, Bromie tied one round Connor’s nose and tied one across his own. Obi did the same. Like bandits they entered through the widened doorway into a massive corridor lined with beautiful decorative pillars. Eerie green fungus shone dimly from the walls, lighting their way. Obi moved carefully along the strange passageway when a shrill cry erupted on the other side of the wall, causing them to turn sharply.
Doors were unnecessary, as rock dwellers didn’t use them, yet on the other side of each wall persistent cries rained. Banging vibrated through the walls as people thumped it from the other side.
They walked the entire length of the fifty-foot corridor, but there were no doors. Occasionally Connor jumped as dampened wails erupted from the wall beside him. The screams were hallowing.
Obi turned to the others. ‘These are cells but they have no entrances.’
Connor explained to Obi how the rock dwellers were able to manipulate rock and move it in certain ways. He mentioned how they had made a doorway disappear and how a young rock dweller had made a ladder appear in the rock to enable his escape. Bromie confirmed his story, having witnessed it himself.
‘So the rock dwellers must have sealed them!’ finished Connor.
Obi raised his eyebrows. ‘That explains it. We’ll let our troops know our position.’
He took a small black device from his pocket and flipped the lid. It gave a loud beep. ‘Sampras, send our men in to these co-ordinates. We’ve located the lost children.’ He reeled off several different numbers, which meant nothing to Connor. After ending his call he looked at Connor and Bromie. ‘There’s one way to deal with this situation.’ He grinned as he lifted his sword. It flashed in the green light. ‘Stand back and watch the master at work.’