Desperado (Murphy's Lawless: Watch the Skies Book 2) by Kevin Ikenberry (any book recommendations txt) 📕

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Chapter Eight

Imsurmik

Aliza startled awake, alarmed by a rattling of the trash bins closest to the tunnel. She backed away until her spine was pressed against the cold, sharp rock where the walls of the crevice came together.

The sound of voices reached her, not taut with urgency but dull with boredom and weariness. Laborers, tossing trash into the bins before departing back into the dwellings. Aliza allowed herself to breathe again, but listened closely.

Nothing, except for a few creatures Aliza couldn’t see as they scampered and rooted about in the rotting rubbish. At one point, something hissed like a cat in the near darkness. The noise sent a shiver up her spine as she was startled by the memory of a strange, childhood encounter with a village tomcat.

She’d fallen during a game and skinned a knee. Not wanting to let others see her tears, she ducked into a space between two of the buildings in the square, and the cat had been there. Old and ragged, with a chunk of its right ear missing, the cat always hissed at everyone and ran from any approach.

But as Aliza had sniffled and dabbed at her bloody knee, the old cat edged closer tentatively. Instead of a hiss, it gave a soft mewl as if consoling her. She’d frozen, unsure, and then reached out slowly. The old cat let her touch its head and ruffle its ears. Her tears stopped, but then the cat, scared by the sudden yelps of children behind Aliza, had darted away.

She flinched away from the sounds that had startled her out of her drowsy recollection. There were footfalls on the stairs moving up to the dwellings. Two excited soldiers running in her direction. Not part of the patrols she’d heard the night before. They were on an urgent errand.

“Dust clouds on the main road. Do you really think it’s some kind of attack?” one with a high-pitched voice asked.

“Everything is a threat as the Sear approaches. We must fight to protect what we have taken and hold it for as long…” The deeper voice trailed off into silence as they moved beyond her hiding spot and into the dwellings.

So, it had started. Bo’s vehicles were on the way. And, in all likelihood, the dwellings would be swarming with soldiers, some of whom had probably been looking for her well into the night. So she couldn’t go that way.

Aliza counted to thirty and stood slowly. If not out into the town, she would have to take her chances in the tunnels. Her muscles ached, but the relief of returning to her feet and moving felt good.

Committed to her simple course of action, she descended the winding stairs as quickly as she could. Within seconds, she heard running water and realized she must be approaching the man-made canal at the eastern edge of the glacis. Far below, at what seemed to be the base of the stairs, was a pool of early morning light: an opening. Possibly, an escape route.

Aliza looked up, away from the stairs, and slowed her pace so she could figure out her next move. She heard footsteps above her, but then they ceased. Given the many apertures and small passages she’d noticed on this and her earlier trip through the tunnels, there was no way of telling how far sound was travelling, much less its actual point of origin. Resolving not to be paralyzed by every faint noise, she pressed on toward the light below her.

Her own softly padding feet were all she could hear until, with a sudden clump of boots behind her, a soldier reached down and grabbed her right arm.

Aliza spun in his grasp, reaching for the pistol holstered on her leg at the same time. She brought it up in a smooth motion, catching her assailant by surprise and landing the muzzle squarely on the soldier’s nose. Aliza heard rather than felt a distinct crack before the young man yelped in pain and slumped back against the stairs. Behind her assailant, a second soldier froze. She aimed the pistol at his chest, and the wide-eyed young man, face painted in the red-stripes-on-white of the J’Stull—brought up his hands. He backed away, tossed down his weapon, and ran up the stairs. There were more shouts and calls, but she did not look back. She holstered the pistol, ran down the last stairs, and emerged into the eastern end of the Inner City, only a few hundred meters from the sluice and artificial waterfall through the city’s walls.

Above the rising din of a city full of increasingly alarmed or active people, she heard the familiar whump of mortars launching.

Yes, the attack was on.

As she burst into the brightening daylight among the buildings on the inhabited side of the canal, the first explosions rocked the western side of the city. Bo and the cavalry had arrived. Numerous guns and artillery pieces opened fire outside the glacis. In seconds, the Inner City’s streets were filled with chaos. People moved in all directions, clamoring for news, desperately seeking safety. Civilians rushed into their homes, crisscrossing with the soldiers who were running for the glacis walls at the same time.

Aliza heard several men screaming emphatically from the parapet overhead. A barrage of rockets leapt away from a launcher mounted on the glacis somewhere off to her right. She didn’t know Bo’s entire plan of attack, but he had told her what common sense was telling her now: find a safe space. With so many people running in every direction at once, she couldn’t reach the spot she’d chosen. Her best bet now would either be to descend the walkway that paralleled the waterfall outside the town or to find a hiding place in the buildings built against the glacis near the eastern end of the walls.

She assumed the