Phantoms of the North: An Alice in Deadland Adventure (Alice, No. 6) Read Online Free PDF Page B

exchanged glances, but if any of them wanted rest and a slower
start, they were not going to admit it when Haroula was willing to get straight
to work at her age. Alice smiled as Haroula harangued her team into action.
    ‘Come on, kids. I’m old enough to
be your grandmother and I can move faster than you. We didn’t come here for a
siesta. There are hungry families back home depending on us. You, Patricia,
stick with me.’
    A young woman with blonde hair
picked up her bags and followed Haroula as she continued, turning to Alice with
an outstretched hand.
    ‘Hi, I’m Patricia Sanchez, and
Haroula is my mother in law.’
    ‘She seems amazing.’
    ‘You can say that again. At her
age, she shot three Zeus troopers in the fighting for our hometown.’
    As the new arrivals moved out of
the airport and into the waiting trucks, a sense of relief washed over Alice.
She had been worried about what it would mean to have outsiders from the
Homeland come in. In theory, it made perfect sense, but it would all come down
to the people involved, and with Haroula in charge, she was much more
comfortable with the arrangement.
    As she passed them, she overheard
Arjun talking to Sayoni.
    ‘Sayoni, no, we didn’t have a party
on Valentine’s Day.’
    ‘Why not? We should have a big
party, shouldn’t we? We’ve got so much to celebrate, why not have a Valentine’s
Day-themed party?’
    Aalok laughed and the others
around them cheered Sayoni’s idea. As Alice walked by, she felt that everything
that had happened over the past few weeks—Sayoni’s rescue, the routing of the
slave traders in the Wasteland and the finalization of the deal with
Konrath—had all been for the best.
    She was soon going to be proven
very, very wrong.
     
    ***
     
    The Khan lay back on his mat,
watching his men practice on the grounds below the ledge where his tent was
pitched. He made sure they rode every day and practiced their shooting. At
times, some of his men had grumbled about not having fought a battle for years,
and they were made such an example of that those questions were never raised
again. The Khan knew that their position, their continued survival, all
depended on their continued ability to strike fear into the hearts of those
they encountered beyond the valley where their camp lay.
    One of his men rode by, wearing
the same cloth mask over his face with holes for the eyes, nose and mouth that
all the men wore. Over the years, the Khan had come to recognize them without
needing to see their faces.
    ‘Rashid, what news do you bring
from the pass?’
    The man called Rashid dismounted
and bowed.
    ‘My Khan, I caught a man, one of
our suppliers. He said he was seeking us out with some news. He drove their
truck but there were no people and he was alone.’
    That got the Khan’s attention.
    ‘Bring him to me.’
    The two dozen riders stopped their
exercises as a man was marched into view, his hands bound in front of him and
his eyes blindfolded.
    ‘Take the blindfold off. Let me
look at his eyes as he tells me why he sought us out, and that too
empty-handed.’
    Bilal squinted as the sudden light
assaulted his eyes, and then gave a gasp of horror as he saw the masked giant
sitting in front of him and the dozens of masked riders around him. He had seen
the masked riders only twice, when they had approached him with their deal,
where they would supply him Dreamweed and small arms for his people. He had
learnt how much power that gave him, and Bilal had become an eager party to the
deal. Every time, his men would leave the captives bound and blindfolded at the
drop-off point and pick up the weapons or drugs.
    He had heard from other slavers
about the leader of these monsters, a man who called himself the Khan. Another
slaver, a man who had clearly been much more educated than Bilal before The
Rising, had called these monsters Phantoms, and the name had stuck. The
monsters seemed to like the name and they began using it as well. Now that he
was