Riddick and Theo ran full out across the causeway in pursuit of the four remaining Company men. A scattering of Underhill’s villagers trailed out behind them along the stone promontory which led out to the shattered ruins of the castle.
A powerful thrum had all but Riddick and the four Company men drop to a crouch, frozen in their tracks. The sound filled the very molecules of the air as though it had come out of nothingness, a powerful sound that made the skin itch. Riddick glared across the remaining distance, and the Company glared back, but neither moved. Yet.
A memory from a long time ago. Riddick remembered the sickening lurch of freefall, eyes closed, unsure if he would live or if the drop craft would plunge him headlong into the cragged earth, just another dead number easily replaced. As far as he knew no one had ever used a cabled drop ship for anyone other than convicts; it was too risky. Too much money and training went into Company soldiers but no one cared too much if convicts got killed.
They were often dropped like that, from ships attached to cables, into situations where those on the ground had the ability to take out the ships as they landed. The convicts would secure the area and only then would the rest of the drop ships come in. In another time they would have been called cannon fodder. There were all sorts of names for those units now but the basic fact hadn’t changed. Riddick remembered every single one of those drops clearly, all twenty-two of them.
Theo stood up from his crouch and joined Riddick but neither he nor Riddick advanced on the Company men. Theo didn’t know why and he looked to Riddick. He didn’t think about why he didn’t go after the four as they finally reached what was left of the shattered fortress of Sunhillow but it felt right to wait for Riddick.
Theo was puzzled. They were so close; all they had to do was close the distance. Ahead, the remaining Company men forced their way into the broken doors of the fortress and pushed them closed again. Annoyed, Theo finally turned to look at Riddick but Riddick hadn’t picked up the chase. A few slow steps forward was all.
More of Underhill’s men came up behind them and Theo turned to Riddick, his voice a harsh whisper. “Riddick! What the fuck are we waiting…” Theo’s argument died out on his lips as he continued to eye Riddick carefully. Something was wrong. “Riddick?”
Riddick didn’t know why he waited either; his thoughts had been intent on only one thing as he had run across the causeway and now that didn’t seem all that important. Everything slowed down, even the air. He could feel the thrum of the ship that had to be miles above on the outer edge of the atmosphere just out of range of the planet’s electromagnetic pulse.
Riddick’s skin tingled and all of his hair rose at once as he took another tentative step closer to the keep, all that remained of Sunhillow. Like the ley lines and the Moorglade but much more powerful, it was a force that pulled at him. Which is why it was so hard for him to move. He didn’t want to accept that pull and to move forward was to do just that.
‘Quiet is good for the soul.’
He felt quiet, truly quiet, for maybe the first time in his life and he wasn’t sure if he was ready to face it. Riddick knew that if he walked into Sunhillow he would have to accept all the rest of it too. Everything else that Imam had said, that all of it would be true. “Can you feel it, Theo?” Riddick asked quietly; he didn’t turn to look at Theo but stared ahead at the heavy, if broken doors that led into the remains of the keep.
Theo took another step closer to Riddick and closed his eyes, his voice little more than a whisper. “Yeah, like the ley lines.” Of course he felt it, that tingle all over his skin that made him feel at peace, despite the circumstances.
“It’s more than that; it’s something else.” There was no way that Riddick could explain, that he whispered was enough to make Theo believe how serious the situation had become. The feel of the air pushed everything back. The Company didn’t matter; they would be gone, like the thousands that had come before, and the thousands that were yet to come. They didn’t matter, only this place mattered to Riddick.
Riddick, Theo and Underhill’s men all looked up as a single very small ship, suspended from a cable, descended over the ruins. Just one ship. It wasn’t a secondary invasion but a hasty rescue operation. Riddick didn’t envy them the trip back and for a few minutes he just watched the small ship descend, along with the others.
Riddick felt her long before she reached him, his lower belly tense, and he turned to watch Shazza run flat out across the causeway once she had climbed over the boulders. She pushed Underhill’s men out of the way, not that they gave any resistance. The spear, the Moorglade’s banner, all the authority she needed to clear a path. Riddick blinked slowly, it was so like the dream that he had. Shazza clarified things for him too.
Clarity had him think of Jack also and he pulled his eyes away from Shazza. Not an easy thing to do, with her hair blown wild from their ride across the plain, and her hard run over the stones and causeway.
Riddick had seen the river mouth in his dream and his eyes were drawn there, to the glint of pale green that cleared the forest wall. The three; Theo, Riddick and Shazza, stood close together on the causeway, with Underhill’s men behind them and looked out as the Moorglade hove into view.
Shazza stole a glance at Riddick from the corner of her eye. He rarely smiled for others but he smiled now as he watched the sight in front of him. It was fleeting however and he spun on his heel again with Shazza’s arm in a vise-like grip as a shot was fired from the forest wall. Exposed on the causeway, there was no safe place, and Riddick instinctively sought to protect Shazza even if it meant he put himself in harm’s way.
Riddick shoved Shazza forward mercilessly until they stood in the shadow of the great fortress. Mere fractions of a second had passed although it felt like much longer. Theo had followed a step behind, his weapon drawn, torn between the forest wall where the shots had come from and the ruins of the fortress where the Company men had fled. Underhill’s men flattened against the causeway but remained between them and the weapons fire from the woods. Between the Rider and harm, Riddick realized. It was then that Riddick eyed the banner that Shazza still carried, its standard whipped hard in the breeze, clear for all to see. Underhill’s men defended that too.
Underhill’s men stood after the first few sharp cracks of weapons fire. The forest was out of range still and anyone firing from the forest wasn’t likely to hit much. Riddick pressed Shazza behind him, hard against the stone wall and made sure that she was safe before he turned back to look out over the causeway to the forest.
The keep, on its spot of land at the end of the causeway, was an easy place to defend. Underhill’s men fanned out, low to the ground, and got into position along the low crenelated walls that ran along either side of the causeway. Even if the rogue villagers they had faced earlier advanced on the causeway itself, they wouldn’t get far. Underhill obviously understood this and had his men hold fire. To wait for them to advance closer.
If they managed to get any closer. The rogue villagers had crossed half the distance between the safety of the forest wall and the broken start of the causeway. The Moorglade bore down on them until she stood between the villagers and those on the causeway.
Riddick didn’t turn to Theo but nudged him, his eyes narrowed as he watched the Moorglade move in. Some of the villagers got a look at the Moorglade and disappeared back into the forest but not all of them. Riddick didn’t imagine that any villagers that fought on the wrong side would live long. They didn’t fight just to fight. Like the Company men, they fought to escape as well.
The drop ship made a deeper roar as it slowed, right above their heads. Riddick could hear Shazza behind him as she called out to him about it but he wasn’t about to let her go. All his focus was ahead, across the causeway, on the Moorglade. To Jack.
What remained of the rogue villagers took positions amidst the broken stones and had started to fire at the Moorglade. When the weapons turned towards her, it no longer mattered what the Company men did. Riddick stepped forward onto the causeway, only to be pulled back by Theo. “Jack doesn’t need you getting shot too.”
A hard glare was exchanged between the two men but Riddick stepped back against the wall of the fortress, Shazza still pressed behind him. She pushed and strained against him to no avail, Riddick held her fast.
The sound of weapons fire being returned from the deck of the Moorglade had Theo and Riddick start forward again and even Shazza managed to pull ahead, despite being held by Riddick. Duncan and Johns fired back at the villagers from the deck of the Moorglade but what had all of them hiss in a breath at once was the sight of Joanne.
From where they stood they couldn’t tell that Joanne was terrified or that she winced every time she took a shot. They couldn’t hear Duncan’s words to her, that soothed and comforted her as she fired. They couldn’t see that she cried when she hit one of the villagers. All they saw was that she held her ground and fired back despite the barrage of weapons fire directed at the Moorglade.
Riddick heard the cable again on the drop ship above them and knew that the four Company men had escaped. It didn’t matter. They would fight anyone that returned; they would kill all that invaded. The four that left would see that message passed on.
Before long the air grew deathly quiet again.
Copyright © april 2007 xxxevilgrinxxx