Chapter 6
There may have been no sunlight in the underhive but the temperature was still sweltering as Eragon and his squad pushed their way through the crowded street. Locals in unfamiliar clothing pressed around them, staring at them with unfriendly eyes. Many of them came uncomfortably close to Eragon, determined to get a look at this exotic guardsmen. Eragon was tempted to pull his helmet down, but that would obscure the mark on his forehead. And he needed the protection of the mark.
The Emperor had said the mark would protect him from his followers. Eragon hated to think what would have happened to him without the mark.
A bead of sweat rolled down his cheek. He blinked, about to make a comment to Saphira about the beastly temperature. Then he remembered that Saphira wasn't there.
He was imrpoving at stopping himself from talking to Saphira. However, the instinct to do so was still there, and it strengthened every day. All Eragon wanted to do was to see Saphira, hug her, talk to her, fly with her. But he couldn't. She was back in Alagaesia, and Eragon was on Antares Tertias. Not a day went by when Eragon didn't curse the monster for kidnapping him. Only the Emperor's promise kept him moving forward. If he could truly reunite Eragon with Saphira, then he was prepared to do almost anything for him.
A slight breeze blew through the street, kicking up dust and bits of trash. Eragon wrinkled his nose against the stench the breeze brought.
Sergeant Harker had declared that they were to patrol the "slums" of the city. Looking around, Eragon could see how it had earned such an ugly name. The residents were crowded into small habitation blocks, often multiple families to a block. Trash littered the streets. Piles of refuse were piled in alleyways, infecting the air with their awful smell. All in all, it was a grim place to live.
It was also a dangerous place. Gangers, members of rogue groups that flaunted the law, often made their home here. Eragon had heard tales of the gangers' ferocity and of their underhanded tactics. They would think nothing of using passerby as human shields to deflect the shots of guardsmen, or of shooting their way through a crowd. Other tactics apparently included setting mines, a kind of explosive trap, along the patrol routes that guardsmen used. All in all, they were an ugly, dishonorable enemy, one that Eragon would not feel guilty about fighting.
Eragon's eyes swept the numerous windows and balconies that overlooked the street. Any one of them could be concealing an ambush. It didn't take much imagination to imagine the damage such an ambush could do, especially with the strange weapons this place harbored.
Nor did it help that Eragon wasn't scanning with his mind all the time. He could still exercise his mental powers, but he had found that it attracted the foul entities that had attacked him earlier. The daemons, the Astartes had called them. Eragon was not keen for another encounter with them, but without his mind open he felt blind and vulnerable. He compromised by occasionally scanning the minds around him and then quickly withdrawing to his own mind. It wasn't perfect, but it was something.
A rock flew through the air and hit Eragon in the back of the helmet. He spun around, looking for the perpetrator. A group of youths stood nearby leering at them. All of them had bricks and other objects in their hands, ready to throw.
They proceeded to do just that. Eragon was forced to dodge or bat aside a barrage of heavy objects. His defense wasn't perfect. Something collided with his flak armor. Another hit him in the knee. One of them sailed past Eragon and hit Slasher in the back. Slasher immediately turned around, his combat knife out and ready, a snarl on his lips. Having deduced that Eragon was not the perpetrator, he started running at the group of adolescents, who now looked frightened.
"Stop him!" Harker yelled. Ilan and Orson immediately started forward, but Eragon beat them to it, hitting Slasher with a flying tackle that knocked him to the ground. Slasher whipped his knife back, almost skinning Eragon's nose. Ilan and Orson joined him and between them they quickly subdued the enraged Slasher.
By now the youths had scattered, and Slasher sulkily stood before Harker. "You don't fight until I say so, got that!" Harker was shouting.
Slasher snarled back "The little pukes were asking for it!"
"Look, maybe back on Eris you could have gotten away with that, with whatever gang you were in, but now you're under me, and we don't fight kids"
Slasher gritted his teeth mutinously but stayed silent. Harker signaled to the other guardsmen to let him go. They did so, and all of them fell back into line as the patrol resumed. Eragon saw Dirk shoot a dark glare at him, but other than that the incident was over.
The procession continued through the street to a small market. Harker led the way, pushing through the crowd and trying to make up for it with friendly grins and passing jokes. Eragon watched him enviously, wishing he had the easy manner Harker had. And he could certainly do without the prejudice that his appearance attracted.
This particular market was much like the ones he had seen in cities such as Dras Leona and Tierm. Vendors stood behind stalls, selling all sorts of goods. A few Eragon recognized but many were beyond his knowledge. Buyers stood all around, haggling with the salesmen or walking away from a bad deal. Others simply stood around and watched the business going on, shooting wary looks at the guardsmen. People talked. Children screamed. Noise was everywhere. And behind the stalls Eragon caught glimpses of background deals going on, black market traders selling shady wares.
As they passed through the end of the market, Eragon opened his mind again and cautiously expanded his perception. Most of the minds he felt were harmless, and moved on after a brief glance into each. As he continued his scan however, he found some minds that were not engaged in trade, but rather were focused on the procession of guardsmen.
Eragon continued forward as he focused on one of the minds he had just detected. They were in one of the buildings close to the market. And they were all armed.
Eragon stopped. "Sergeant!" he called. He got no further as he felt a rush of killer intent from one of the ambushers. There was nothing to do but take action. Eragon reached into the mind and briefly seized control. The man fought fearfully, and as they wrestled he pulled the trigger of his gun.
The roar of the auto gun filled the air as the ganger fired it into the air. Eragon, sensing a signal had been given, immediately backed out of the man's mind and retreated to his own. He and his squad mates dove for cover as the air was suddenly filled with the roar of auto weaponry going off.
Eragon ran behind a stall with Slasher, sheltering as a hail of projectiles crashed into their cover. The stall shuddered under the multiple impacts but held together. Eragon brought his lasgun up and returned fire. Red light lanced through the air, and Eragon heard a shriek of pain as the beam collided with one of the attackers. He looked up to see a man clutching a cauterized stump where his arm used to be. A bullet whistled past his ear and Eragon pulled his head down.
A sound like a dragon breathing fire filled the air. Eragon saw Ilan using his flamer on the building, bathing the front in layers of promethium. Some the firing cut off as the guns' owners were caught in the burning stream. Eragon heard yells of pain, and a burning figure toppled out of one of the windows. The others however, kept shooting.
Eragon risked another look, and immediately ducked as one of the attackers shot at him. He snarled to himself. Without his wards he felt too exposed to make a frontal assault. The best thing to do, he thought, was to use magic, or to psyk as Caesar put it. But if he did, that risked daemonic assault. Then it occurred to him. The building was still in flames, and they were growing as they consumed the building. Fewer and fewer shots rang out over the roar of the flames. With a crash, part of the front of the building collapsed, exposing the fleeing gangers. One of them was on the ground flailing as flames consumed his body. Eragon wanted to turn away from the grisly sight but knew it would blind him to the combat. And on this battlefield, to do that was suicide.
"They'll be coming out the front door!" Harker shouted above the flames. It was probably true, seeing as the flamer had left the bottom level relatively untouched. Eragon sighted in on the door, ready to fire. Soon enough, their adversaries came running out the door, desperate to escape the burning building. Eragon recognized the gaudy hair and the torn clothing they sported as similar to Rizo and his ilk. His eye already along the sights, he pulled the trigger. More red beams jumped from his and his comrades' guns and hit the enemy, burning through flesh and filling the air with the stench of charred meat. With wailing and shrieking they were cut down.
They immediately tried to back up and seek shelter, but the press of their comrades was too much, and they were forced further onto the street and into the guardsmen's kill zone.
The firing continued until all of their enemies were dead or fled. For a moment, there was silence. Then Eragon and his squad cautiously began to emerge from their cover. Slasher cursed, and he wasn't the only one doing so.
"Idiot gangers" Harker muttered as he nudged one of the corpses.
"Alright, sound off!" Harker shouted, but before he could start a figure darted from the open doorway and sprinted down the road away from the guardsmen. His orange hair betrayed his ganger status.
"After him!" Harker shouted. The guardsmen all abandoned their positions and took off in hot pursuit of the ganger. Eragon briefly wondered if he should use his elven speed, but stopped himself. There was no need to increase the distance between himself and his squad mates by sowing his superhuman abilities. Besides, with ten men after him, they couldn't fail to capture the ganger.
They all ran, shoving locals out of their way as they tried to catch up with their target. Eragon heard more gunfire, and anger flooded through him as he realized the ganger was trying to shoot his way clear. He tried to bring his gun up, but there were too many people between him and the ganger. He reached out with his mind, but stopped as he heard the familiar voices of the daemons start to rise in volume. They made a brief attack before Eragon forced them out. He ceased his efforts, deciding it was not prudent to tempt the daemons any more than they already were.
Eragon realized he had stopped running in his efforts to combat the daemons, and he cursed as he redoubled his efforts to catch up with the fleeing ganger.
The ganger, still not having lost his pursuers, ran to a door, opening it before going inside and slamming it shut. Sanguinis was the first to reach it and tried to open it. The door was locked.
Sanguinis waited for the rest of the squad to catch up before pulling back and tackling the door. It came down with a crash, trapping the ganger under it. He fought, trying to draw his auto pistol, until Slasher finished him off with blow to the temple.
"Alright" panted Harker. "Now we sound off"
Eragon sounded off with the others, and then took a look at the building they were in.
It appeared to be some sort of warehouse, with crates stacked in rows everywhere. One of them had the lid thrown off. Curious, Eragon, walked over and looked inside it. Nestled with some kind of foam like substance, he saw a row of autoguns, with some missing from the row.
"Sergeant!" he shouted. Harker turned around.
"What is it, ab…Bromsson" he asked, in a voice that suggested he would not find whatever he had to say important.
Eragon gritted his teeth a little before voicing his thoughts. "I think this is their arsenal. Take a look at this"
Harker loped over. He glanced at the weapons in the crate, did a double take, and inspected them more closely.
Eragon watched as Harker thought, then said "Jels, Orson, Hotshot, cover the entrances. The rest of you, search the crates"
They did as they were told, snatching up bars with a curve at the end. Each of them chose a crate, pushed the curved end of their bars in, and levered the top off. Grabbing a bar, he selected a random crate and mimicked his comrades. Yanking the loosened top of the box away, he looked in and saw a heavy bolter lying there.
"Got some rations here" Mort shouted.
"Lasguns here" Sanguinis called.
"Unbegakkinglievable" swore Slasher. "They've got fething carapace armor"
That got Harker's attention. He jogged over.
"Unbelievable" he said, lifting a piece of the superior armor. He turned to Mortimer and said "Vox command. They should know about this"
As Mortimer turned away and started speaking to the lieutenant, Harker turned to see Eragon experimentally hefting the heavy bolter. He whistled.
"How are you doing that?" he asked
Eragon started, then looked at the weapon in his hands. It was incredibly heavy for a regular man he knew, but with his own strength he could lift it easily. Perhaps he was being too ostentatious with his strength.
He hurriedly set the weapon back and was trying to think of something to say when Hotshot yelled "Contacts!"
They all turned to see a door fly open and a group of figures in carapace armor run in. They were all armed with chainswords, and each one of them was held high.
Eragon brought his lasgun up and depressed the trigger. Red light lanced into one of the targets. He stumbled, but kept moving forward. Eragon's eyes widened. Not even his own flak armor could stand up to a lasgun shot. How had they gotten their superior armor he didn't know, unless it was sold to them by someone in the guard…
Eragon cursed whatever entrepreneurial ratling had sold these thugs their armor and flicked his gun to full auto. He pumped the trigger, and a stream of lights shot out. His target jerked backward as the barrage hit him, but his armor held in spite of it. Eragon cursed again, then watched as a lasbeam hit his target in the knee. The man crumpled in pain, before another shot broke through his visor and went through his eyes. Eragon didn't have to look to see who had made the shot. It was probably Hotshot, deadeye that he was.
By now the whole area was bathed in flashes of light as the cracks of lasguns going off filled the air. The armored gangers shrugged off most of the barrage leveled at them, but one fell, shredded by Nels and Jacone's heavy bolter. That gave the gangers pause, before their leader spurred them on.
Eragon, noting the effects of the heavy bolter, grabbed the one from the crate and fired. Or tried to. He swore as he realized it wasn't loaded and then dropped the useless weapon. He looked up at the fight.
By now the armored gangers were getting dangerously close to Eragon's squad mates. Eragon knew there was no way their flak armor would hold up to their enemies' chainswords, and he realized he would have to act, and fast.
"Fix bayonets!" Harker shouted. There was a lull in the shooting as the squad did so, and Eragon seized the opportunity. With a warcry he drew his chainsword, activated it, and surged forward, decapitating the ganger nearest to him. He then placed himself between his squad and the oncoming enemy.
Harker had just enough time to protest before the enemy was upon Eragon.
He parried a blow aimed for his head, then swung at the man's abdomen. His chainsword screeched as it bit into the carapace armor. Under the full force of Eragon's swing it made it all the way through, and the man's torso fell from his legs.
Another ganger made his way forward while Eragon was still engaged with the first blow. Having no other alternative he punched the man in the chest. There was an audible cracking noise as the carapace armor caved in under the force of the blow. The man was lifted and thrown into a pile of crates, his ribs completely caved in.
Eragon turned, his chainsword whirring. There were five of the armored gangers left, all of whom were approaching more warily now. They looked at one another, waiting for one of them to go first. Eragon made the decision for them, charging forward and impaling the nearest one on his sword.
The four remaining gangers rushed him, trying to overwhelm him. Eragon pulled his sword out and swept the legs out from the first. The second was bisected by an upwards blow from the fork of his legs up. As he collapsed, the third and fourth came upon him, howling like a pack of wolves. Eragon dealt with them by decapitating both of them in one blow. He turned to see the first one was just getting up. He quickly fell down again as Eragon speared him through the chest.
The last of his enemies dealt with, Eragon turned to see his squadron all staring at him, open mouthed. Slasher swore.
"Behold, he whom the Emperor has marked" Sanguinis said happily.