The Chronicles of Riddick - Alan Dean Foster [32]
It was the fact that he had chosen to leave the knife—blade, hilt, and all—where it was. It protruded from the center of his back like a flag, a rallying point for his fellow soldiers and a warning to any enemy. Here is my pain, it declared for any and all to see. I welcome it, I embrace it, in the service of the faith. In its utilitarian appearance, in its owner’s indifference to its presence, it was more frightening to an adversary than any deformity of face or body. On observing the injury, the Lord Marshal himself had praised Irgun for his defiance of pain, and had insisted that the blade remain forever where it lay.
As Irgun and his squad swept their surroundings with waiting gun muzzles and sharp eyes of their own, the lensors scanned everything in range or sight of their enhanced senses. Streets, windows, doors, cracks in the ground—all were subject to the same remorseless scrutiny. Occasionally, they found something. Some feeble sign of life. Wounded soldiers being more trouble to the cause than they were worth, they were efficiently finished off by Irgun’s team.
Instantly divining the source of the squad’s leadership, Riddick determined to start there, before the busy lensors could find him and those who had consigned themselves to his care. Working the darkness and the shadows as only he could, he slipped out of his hiding place and advanced. As he moved, the blade he carried shifted from hand to hand. In an instant, he had drawn close. Should he do it now? Or should he wait, hoping the lensors’ senses would overlook the only active life-forms within blocks? He decided to wait.
The squad moved on, lensor heads moving slowly from side to side, soldiers watching, waiting, but not taking aim. Imam and his family stayed where Riddick had put them, holding their breaths. Trying to hold their heartbeats. The Necromonger team was rounding a far corner. Except . . .
There was another lensor. Trailing the squad, it hesitated. Perhaps Lajjun breathed too strongly and it detected the sudden rise in carbon dioxide. Possibly Ziza inhaled too sharply and the working of her small lungs was overheard. Or it might have been the pounding of Imam’s heart. Whatever the reason, the creature turned. Locking on, it began to move directly toward the family’s hiding place. Noticing their bloodhound’s sudden change of direction, several of the soldiers changed direction to follow. One proceeded to alert the others.
Seeing the Necromongers coming toward them, Imam reacted without thinking. Bolting into the open, robes flying, he sprinted as hard as he could for the ruined buildings on the other side of the street. As a gesture worthy of a parent bird or rabbit seeking to draw sniffing predators away from its nest, it worked. Irgun and his troop immediately gave chase. They could have cut him down immediately, but they were curious. A single Helion, in civilian clothes, running from them at high speed, constituted an unusual encounter in this part of the devastated city. He might be worth interrogating. While killing him would take only seconds, questioning would not take much more. Irgun was curious. So he and his troops pursued, but did not shoot.
It might be a diversion, of course. Any such sudden, unexpected action might be a diversion. So one soldier and one lensor remained behind, to keep watch, and to see if there was anything else that might have drawn the first lensor’s curiosity.
Lajjun and Ziza huddled in their hiding place, pressed back as far as they could among the rubble. It was very quiet. It remained quiet even when the lensor’s distorted, sensor-filled skull appeared above them. There followed a muted, cracking sound, but it was not the sound of gunfire, or even of sensors rendering confirmation. The lensor’s head twisted around 180 degrees, its faceplate catching the star-light. Lajjun had never seen one of the creatures before, but given its otherwise human body she did not see how it could be capable of such a feat of skeletal dislocation.