The Chronicles of Riddick - Alan Dean Foster [85]
“Technically speaking,” the mercenary went on, losing the grin, “you’re still my prisoner.”
Riddick made no attempt to bring one of the guns he carried to bear. With black goggles between his eyes, and those of everyone around him, it was impossible to tell where they were focused. The same ambiguity did not apply to his words.
“Don’t move.”
Toombs took umbrage. Maybe the present situation wasn’t quite what he would have preferred, but he was damned if he was going to put up with that kind of shit from a lousy prisoner.
“Me don’t move? What is this, Reverso World? You’re forgetting the totality of the reality, man. You don’t move.”
The big man didn’t—but not because the mercenary had voiced an order. “Better adjust that attitude if you want to have a chance of getting out of this. And whatever you do, do not point that weapon at me.”
Toombs’s face twisted as if it had suddenly turned to putty. It might have been working toward another grin. No one would ever know, because as soon as the muzzle of the gun he was holding started to come up, something big, superfast, and nasty slammed into him fang first from behind.
Convicts blanched and backed away as the hellhound ripped into the mercenary. With the mad strength of the damned, Toombs somehow managed to wrench his gun around and fire. It blew a hole through his attacker, but by that time the beast was already crunching the mercenary’s throat in its jaws. Man and monster died together, alien blood and human blood mixing indiscriminately on the black rock of a world foreign to both and beloved by neither.
In less than a minute, Toombs lay motionless, his life seeping out onto the rocks. Atop him, the hellhound was still breathing in short, shuddering gasps despite the gaping wound in its torso. Moving close, Riddick happened to notice the tag on the beast’s ear. Number Five. Thrash. He bent over the dying animal.
Anxiously, the Guv was eyeing the predawn sky. Was the dark drape of the heavens a fragment brighter than just a few seconds ago? Or just a figment brighter? The distinction was crucial.
“Riddick,” he muttered uneasily, “we’d better get moving.”
Still staring down at the dying hellhound, the big man straightened. His words were directed to the animal before him, not the men beside him.
“I know how it feels.”
Then he turned and, without a look back, started off into the rocks.
They ran as fast as they could, which is to say, as fast as the landscape would allow. There was no direct route straight through the congealed lava, no convenient path connecting the nerve center of the prison compound with the distant promise of the hangar. It had never occurred to the designers and the builders of the complex to construct such a route because it was impossible to envision anyone foolish enough to try and make use of it, even in an emergency. Anyone planning a jog across the open surface of Crematoria would have to be disturbed, deranged, mentally addled.
Or Riddick.
Being in prison often damages the mind but frequently improves the body. Diet may suck, but overeating is rarely a concern. So the fugitives stayed together pretty well as they made their way through the twisted, bizarre hoodoo towers and frozen cataracts of black stone. No one fell behind. No one dared to. It was unspoken but understood by all that if someone fell and twisted an ankle, or proved unable to maintain the pace, they were on their own. There would be no improvised stretchers, no willing carriers, to help them along. Even if any of the convicts were inclined to help a comrade in such a situation, everyone knew there would not be enough time. Better one should perish than two more trying to help him.
And all the while, they were being pursued. Not by something as mundane as guards or even hellhounds, but by a danger infinitely more threatening. Implacable, remorseless, and lethal. Dawn.
Hints of it began to show themselves back the way they had come; flecks of illumination, suggestions of sunshine.