She slowed as the cavern wall came into sight. Carefully checking the surrounding area with her rifle scope, she led him along the wall and into a low, wide tunnel. She stopped when they'd gone a few hundred feet.
A wall of smell stayed them.
There was the most intense reek of rotten meat — sour blasts of it assailed them. Will tried to breathe through his mouth, but the horrific stench was so strong in the air, he could almost taste it.
Then, through his scope, he caught something that made his heart skip a beat.
"Oh no!" he gasped.
On one side of the tunnel, there were the bodies of what, from their clothes, had to be renegades. On the other side, facing them, were Coprolites, still in their bulbous dust suits. Will knew instinctively that the Styx had been responsible, and that the corpses had been decaying for some time. The odor could mean nothing else.
He counted five renegades and four Coprolites. The bodies in both ranks were on thick wooden stakes. The victims' heads sagged forward onto their chests, their feet supported by small timber crossbars nailed to the planks approximately two feet off the ground. This gave an eerie effect, as if the dark and silent bodies were actually suspended in air.
"But why did they do this?" Will asked, shaking his head at the terrible loss of life.
"It's a warning, and a show of their power. They do it because they're Styx," Elliott replied. As she walked down the line of renegades, Will stepped over to the Coprolites.
"I knew this man," Elliott said sadly, standing motionless before one of the bodies.
Holding his breath, Will made himself look at a dead Coprolite. The mushroom color of the suit showed up clearly in the amber of his night scope, but there was a darker texture smeared around the eye holes. The luminescent orbs were missing from them. It was evident that the thick rubber of the suit had been slashed to get the orbs out. He shivered. It brought home the full horror of what the Styx were capable of. "Butchers," he mumbled to himself.
"Will," Elliott said suddenly, breaking into his thoughts. She wasn't looking at the bodies now, but glancing up and down the wide tunnel, as if all her senses were straining.
"What is it?" Will asked.
"Hide!" she hissed at him in a strangled whisper.
That was all. He looked at her, not knowing what she meant. She was standing by the last of the renegades' carcasses on the opposite side of the tunnel. She moved so fleetingly that Will could barely keep track of her through his scope. She found a depression in the ground, a small pit, and, tucking the rifle into her body, rolled deftly into it, facedown. Will couldn't see her anymore. She was completely hidden from sight.
He looked rapidly around, desperately seeking a similar hole in the tunnel floor. He couldn't see one. Where could he go? He had to find a hiding place. But where? He ran this way and that, slipping behind the row of Coprolite bodies on his side of the tunnel. No good! The ground was level — it even rose in a slight incline toward the wall.
Hearing a sound, he froze.
A dog's bark.
A stalker!
He couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
He was totally exposed.
26
The abomination of a dog, the stalker, made the most horrific snorting noises and low, snarling grunts as it pulled on its leash. Its handler was one of four Limiters strolling down the middle of the tunnel. He was struggling to keep the beast under control.
On their heads the Styx soldiers wore dull black skullcaps, and their faces were obscured by large, insectlike goggles and leathery breathing masks. A peculiar camouflage of dun— and sand-colored rectangles patterned their ankle-length coats, and the equipment on their belts and in their knapsacks rattled slightly with each stride. It was clear they weren't on active duty — they weren't expecting anyone else to be in the area.
They came to a halt between the two lines of dead bodies, the dog handler hissing an unintelligible command to his animal. It growled and immediately sat on its haunches, still snorting in short, angry bursts as its head craned forward to sample the rancid odor of the rotting corpses. A gush of gluey saliva leaked from its maw, as if it found the stench appetizing.
The Limiters' voices were nasal and reedy, their words clipped and mostly incomprehensible. Then one began to cackle, a vicious, strident laugh, and was joined by the others, until they sounded like a herd of distorted hyenas. They were evidently gloating over their victims.
Will dared not to breathe, not just because of the most appalling smell he'd ever encountered, but because he was petrified the soldiers might hear him.
As the Limiters had closed in, he'd been forced to hide in the only place he could think of.
He was clinging grimly to one of the stakes, directly behind a dead Coprolite. In a blind panic, he'd jumped up, pushing his arm into the gap between the Coprolite's body and the rough timber of the stake. And, as he'd tried to hold on, his feet had scrabbled ineffectually against the stake until the toe cap of his boot had come across the tip of a large nail. Fortunately for Will, it protruded an inch or so through the back of the wood, and at least it gave him some sort of foothold.
But this alone wasn't enough to keep him aloft — as the Limiters approached, he'd needed to find something for his left hand to grip. Desperately feeling around, his fingers came across a gash in the Coprolite's dust suit, just by the shoulder blade. He forced his fingers in, into the thick, rubbery material, touching something damp and soft inside. It yielded as his fingers pushed against it — it was mushy.
His fingers were sinking into the rotted flesh of the Coprolite's body.
Will knew there was not time to find an alternative handhold. Don't think! Don't think about it! tore through his mind.
But the stench from the Coprolite's body seemed to intensify, hitting him with the force of a kick in the head.
Oh God!
If it had been strong before, it was simply unbearable now. His fingers had parted the inch-thick rubber suit and opened the gash in it more widely, releasing the foulest of gases from inside. The stench flooded out. Will wanted to drop to the ground and run — it was more than he could endure. It was the reek of warm, putrid meat from the decomposing man.
It. Was. Gruesome.
Will thought he was going to throw up. He felt the vomit forcing its way up into his mouth and rapidly swallowed the acrid fluid down again. He couldn't allow himself to be sick or to slip from his hiding place. He had to stay put, however bad it was. The memory of the stalker attack back in the Eternal City was painfully fresh in his mind — there was no way he was going to be subjected to that again.
He had his eyes tightly shut and was desperately trying to focus all his attention of what the Limiters were saying. As he listened, he willed them to go on their way again. They began by speaking in the Styx tongue, then alternated between it and English. Every so often, he caught the odd smattering of what they were saying. It seemed to be coming from different members of the patrol, but he couldn't tell because they all sounded equally strange.
"…next operation…"
"…neutralize…"
Then, after a lull during which he could only hear the sound of the stalker as it sniffed the dirt and growled:
"…capture the rebel…"
"…mother…"
"…will assist…"
As he kept his body rigid, his arms were aching, and he realized that the very worst thing was happening: His leg, held in a horribly awkward position, was beginning to shake from the strain of supporting his body. He tried to control the trembling, petrified that his boot was going to slide from its perch on the nail. Sweat coursed from his temples as he strained to disassociate himself from the sheer discomfort and listen to the Limiters' voices.