Chronicles of the Invaders 1: Conquest (6 page)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

T
hey all turned and ran, not toward the castle but away from it, away from the carnage and bloodshed and ammonia stink behind them, away from the billowing cloud of powdered stone and obliterated flesh, be it human or Illyri. Black-and-gold-uniformed Securitats materialized in the area and swarmed over it like beetles, questioning shopkeepers, searching pedestrians and loading into their armored vehicles anyone who failed to come up with a plausible explanation for being near the site of the explosion.

Syl, Ani, and the two humans powered down the Royal Mile together, and then the boys veered off down a side street, slowing only long enough to make sure the girls were with them before racing on, left-right-right-left, twisting, turning, finally stopping in a deep-set doorway on a corner.

“We go left now,” said the older boy, but as they burst back onto the street Ani took the lead, and instead of left she headed right, then took a sharp left down a narrow, urine-scented service alley. Syl followed, and after a heartbeat the boys did too, joining Ani as she crouched in a pool of cigarette butts behind a plastic dumpster at the rear of a greasy shop. She seemed to be hiding.

“What the hell are you doing?” snarled the older boy, but she put her finger to her lips, and then they all heard it: the whine of an interceptor followed by the rhythmic quickstep of soldiers’ boots approaching, rattling like applause on the cobbles as they passed the filthy alley. The youngsters stayed still, barely breathing until the stomping faded away.

“You must have amazing hearing,” the boy said when all was silent once more, but Ani just shrugged and half smiled.

“Lead on,” she said.

Frowning slightly, the human looked from one Illyri to the other, his blue eyes narrowing, then seemed to make a decision. He went to the entrance to the alley, peering around the corner before he beckoned for them to follow.

They moved more cautiously now, stopping to listen every few steps, and still dodging and weaving, disappearing ever deeper into the warren of streets behind the Royal Mile.

“Where are we going?” asked Syl quietly as they paused at another bend, looking down a laneway she’d never seen before, the tall, regal buildings more humble back here, lopsided and blackened by decades of pollution. Windows were broken, some even boarded up, and she saw the painted graffiti of the Resistance on a peeling doorway. This was not a place she should be, where any Illyri should be. Her heart was like a bag of stones clattering terrified in her chest.

“Um, away?” said the older boy next to her ear.

“Where to, though?”

His breath was warm on her cheek and she could smell him, soapy and musky. She stepped back a little, feeling flustered.

“I hadn’t thought of anywhere in particular. Just away from the soldiers and Securitats. They’ll be rounding people up like sheep for the slaughter.”

“Oh. Right.”

They started walking again, sticking close to the buildings, but the street was deserted.

“Why? Where do you need to be?” he said.

“The castle,” she replied automatically before she could stop herself.

He turned to face her now, his eyes wide and shocked.

“The castle? Why would you want to go
there
?”

Syl felt Ani poke her hard in her back.

“Um, a job interview,” Syl spluttered. “We had job interviews.”

“Doing what exactly?”

“Scrubbing floors. She’s great at scrubbing floors,” said Ani from behind her.

“I am. Fabulous,” said Syl. “And she cleans toilets.”

The older boy gave a low chuckle, and the younger one snorted.

“Will you keep your sunglasses on even when you’re cleaning the jacks?” he said to Ani.

“Of course,” snapped Ani. “Safety gear. I never take them off.”

“You really are the strangest pair,” the older boy said, but he seemed more relaxed now. “I wouldn’t recommend going near the castle for a while, though, not until they’ve calmed down. You could always just hang around here: it’s quiet, and the Illyri don’t come this way very much.”

He waved his hand absently at a sheet of corrugated iron that hung from a doorway.
ILLyri is a disease
was scrawled across it in red spray paint.

You reckon? thought Syl to herself, and she gave an inadvertent shudder. The adrenaline was seeping out of her now, and her legs suddenly felt wobbly and weak. She thought she might be sick. She remembered the explosions, the twin bombs, how close they’d been to walking straight into the second one, how these boys had stopped them, saved them, run with them until they were safe from the guards. But how had they known there’d be a second bomb? Had it been their doing? Were they killers, Resistance killers?

“Hey,” the older human was saying, looking at her kindly, “are you okay? Seriously?”

His eyes crinkled at the corners. He had that pillow-soft bottom lip, and he didn’t look like a murderer, but what did a murderer look like anyway? Abruptly it all became too much. With a nauseous shiver, Syl tried to sit down where she was, but he leapt forward and steadied her elbow.

“Not here,” he said. “You’re in shock. Let’s get you somewhere safe. There’s a place nearby—”

“No!” said the other boy, jumping forward.

“Seriously, Steven, it’s fine.”

“But . . .”

“Steven, I make the decisions. Now, let’s go.”

•••

Stumbling along between Ani and the older boy, Syl found herself guided up a set of litter-strewn stairs and through a doorway that seemed to open as if by magic when the younger boy—Steven, was it?—pressed a little tune on its crusty doorbell. They went into a cramped hallway where another tune was coaxed from a keypad by a door that looked like wood but sounded like metal, and then they were in a funny little kitchen. The windows had boards nailed over them, but it was quaintly cheerful and bright nonetheless, with polka-dot red vinyl on the table beneath a row of fat yellow lightbulbs. The floor was made of polished checkerboard stones and the walls were lined with scrubbed pine cupboards, each shelf teetering with mismatched mugs and plates, vases and knickknacks, all in bright, crayon-box colors. An enormous old kettle sat on a squat stove, waiting to be used.

Ani pushed Syl gently into a chair.

“Where are we?” she said, watching as the older boy set the kettle to boil, deftly counted tea bags into a green-striped pot, and then poured in the steaming water before covering the whole thing with a fluffy yellow tea cozy.

He looked over at her and smiled genuinely for the first time.

“Oh good, you’re back with us. You okay?”

She nodded and returned his smile.

“Everyone else okay?” he said. “Steven?”

The younger boy nodded, and grinned as if to underscore exactly how okay he was.

“That was amazing! It was crazy!” he said.

“Amazing?” said Ani, rounding on him. “
You
must be crazy!”

His face fell, and he turned to scratch in a cupboard, finding a sugar bowl and some fruitcake in a tin.

“Whatever,” he mumbled to nobody in particular, but the older boy patted him gently on the back before turning to the girls.

“I’m Paul, by the way,” he said, smiling again and extending his hand, but then snatching it back and wiping it clean on his jeans before they shook.

“Syl,” said Syl, without thinking, and his warm hand gripped hers. And then she realized what she’d done.

“Syl?” He looked baffled for a moment, his grip tightening, then said: “Short for Sylvia?”

“Yeah, that’s me,” she said, forcing herself to smile, trying to sound as much like a regular human girl as she knew how. “And this is Ani.”

“Annie,” said Paul, shaking Ani’s hand and nodding. “That’s more like it. When you said Syl, it sounded like an Illyri name.” He laughed drily, and Syl and Ani joined in.

“Oh, and this is my brother, Steven.”

They all said hello and then went silent, eyeing each other awkwardly, the Illyri females still with their glasses incongruously perched on their smudged faces. Ani looked more ridiculous than Syl; at least Syl’s glasses resembled something a regular person might wear on a day like today. Ani, by contrast, should have been lying on a sun lounger and drinking a cocktail.

“You can probably take your glasses off now,” said Paul.

“No!” said the females in unison. In a rush of words, Syl explained that Ani had a nasty eye condition from toilet chemicals, and Ani said Syl had a squint.

“A squint?” said Paul.

“Uh-huh.” Syl nodded, but gave Ani a kick under the table.

Paul and Steven looked at each other, and then Paul turned to fetch the teapot, pouring them all large colorful mugs and loading Syl’s with sugar, “for shock,” before slopping in milk. She took a sip. It was sweet and treacly, and vaguely disgusting, but she drank it anyway, feeling the color returning to her cheeks, the vitality reawakened in her strong Illyri bones.

“Where are we, then?” said Ani, breaking the silence that descended again as they all munched on cake.

“Just a place,” said Paul, waving a hand vaguely, and Steven gave a meaningful cough.

“A place? I see.”

They were silent again. Syl watched Paul, saw how he held his mug with both hands, his fingers interlocked, lean and strong, yet vulnerable too, as though he was trying to warm them even though it wasn’t cold. Could they really be the fingers of a bomber, of a murderer? She had to know.

“Paul,” she said, and everyone looked at her. Paul raised an eyebrow, and she bit her lip nervously. “How did you know there’d be a second bomb?”

“I didn’t know,” he said. “I just guessed.”

“How, though?”

“Because this is my home, Sylvia. I live here, and I intend to carry on living here without being blown up. That’s how it sometimes is with bombings: one blast followed shortly afterward by another. The first lures in the soldiers and the Securitats who respond to it, and then the second kills them. I figured it would probably happen that way again. I watch. I’ve been watching since I was born. Don’t you pay attention too?”

“I guess,” she said, but she was starting to realize how little she knew about outside, about the world beyond the castle walls.

Then his face changed, and his eyes narrowed. “Did you think it was me? You think I’d do something like that, in a place where civilians could be killed?”

“Well, no . . . maybe . . . I don’t know. After all, I don’t know you, do I?”

“And I don’t know you,” he countered, “yet we brought you here where we’d all be safe because we’re not like them, and because that’s what we do. We’re humans, not Illyri. We stick together.” His tone changed. There was a note of suspicion to it now. “We
are
in this together, Sylvia, aren’t we?”

“She was just asking!” said Ani, jumping up angrily and clattering the cups together, then dumping them in the sink. “Anyway, it’s time we left.”

“Yes, I think it probably is—Steven, you clean up here and I’ll get these two back to the Mile. I’ll see you in fifteen, right?”

Steven shrugged and looked into his tea.

“Bye,” said Ani gruffly as she followed Paul to the door.

“Thanks,” said Syl, but her voice was weak and high.

“Yup. Cheers,” Steven said, and then they were out on the streets again, weaving down alleys, crisscrossing their path, and she wondered if Paul was trying to confuse them so they couldn’t find their way back to the little safe house. If he was, he’d definitely succeeded. Fat raindrops started splashing around them, and Paul turned up his collar and hurried on, never saying a word. Syl guessed he was used to outpacing people, but the Illyri were naturally vigorous and lean, and even Ani’s shorter legs kept up easily.

All at once he stopped, and pointed ahead. “Go that way to the very end, then take a right and you’ll be back at the Mile, but I’d stay away from the castle. I presume you can find your way home from there.”

Syl nodded, but his attention was already elsewhere. Ani shrugged.

“Right, thanks. Bye,” she said, turning to go, but Syl hesitated.

“Thank you, Paul,” she said, and she stretched out a tentative hand toward him. “And I’m so sorry. You saved my life today—our lives—and I’ll never forget that. Truly, thank you.”

He looked at her for real now, and his eyes wrinkled warmly again as he took her hand in his, not so much a shake as a friendly squeeze.

“Well, it’s certainly been interesting, Sylvia.”

“It has,” she said. “Good luck, Paul.” Then she turned and scampered after Ani.

“See you, Syl,” he called. She looked back and waved, and he waved too. She couldn’t be sure, but it looked like he was laughing.

CHAPTER TWELVE

L
ater, Syl would wonder quite how they had managed to make it back under the noses of so many patrols, both Military and Corps, but somehow they did. The initial panic around the castle had quietened down in their absence and things were getting back to normal again, as happens quickly in cities that have grown used to violence.

Apart from the minor detail of saving their lives, those boys had done them another favor too, Syl knew, for she and Ani would surely have been picked up by their own people and charged with being outside the castle walls without authorization if they hadn’t been led away to safety. The best they could have hoped for was to be dragged before her father, who would have forced them to explain just what they’d been doing wandering round Edinburgh while bombs were going off. She’d have been grounded until she turned twenty-one!

Illyri under the age of eighteen were not allowed beyond the castle walls, or designated Illyri areas of control, without permission, although most took this to mean that they shouldn’t be
caught
outside certain areas without permission. Syl wasn’t the only one who routinely made illicit excursions; life would have been very dull otherwise. While many of the Military guards took a liberal view of such escapes, just as long as their officers weren’t around, the Securitats were less forgiving, and particularly so in the case of children of the Military: they never passed up a chance to make life awkward for soldiers and their families. The Securitats would have been overjoyed to discover that they had the daughter of Lord Andrus in their hands, along with one of her little friends. They’d probably have kept them overnight in a cell, just to make her father sweat, before parading them before him in order to make him look foolish. After all, if the governor could not keep his own child under control, how could he be expected to rule nations? It was as much for her father’s sake as her own that Syl wanted to return safely to the castle.

They were lucky too, for just as they neared the castle, a pair of Military trucks emerged, and behind them Syl glimpsed Corporal Laris, who was the closest she had to a friend in the castle guards. She had saved Laris from serious punishment earlier in the year, when he had fallen asleep at his post on a still, humid, summer’s night. Only the fact that Syl had been wandering the courtyard, unable to sleep, had kept him from being court-martialed, for she had woken him seconds before the captain of the castle guard made his rounds.

Laris stared as Syl and Ani removed their hats and glasses, and seemed about to say something to them, but the pleading look that Syl gave him made him hold his tongue, and he waved them into the safety of the castle without a word. But Syl noticed that a figure in black and gold on the other side of the street seemed on the verge of approaching them before a convoy blocked her from view. Even hidden by her helmet, Syl was sure that she recognized Vena, the most senior Securitat in Scotland—perhaps even the whole island. Vena had no love for Syl, and her proximity was even more reason to get out of the courtyard and into the relative safety of their quarters.

They scurried through the castle to the little bathroom. The corridors were unusually devoid of activity, and Syl noticed that there were no humans to be seen. In the aftermath of the explosion, the castle’s human staff would have been surrounded and taken away to a secure location beside the New Barracks. It was standard procedure. There they would remain until it was clear that the threat had passed, and none of them had been involved in any way in the explosions.

Syl and Ani changed their clothes in the bathroom and made themselves look as respectable as they could, then hurried to Syl’s rooms. Once the door was shut safely behind them they stared at each other for a moment before bursting into relieved, hysterical giggles.

“Wow,” said Syl. She hugged her friend. “What a crazy day. What the hell just happened?”

“Well, we were almost blown up, but two boys saved our lives,” said Ani. “We then had tea with them. Then, most shockingly of all, there was the small matter of you flirting with an actual H-U-M-A-N.”

“I did not!” shot back Syl.

“Oh, you definitely did. And I think he was flirting back.”

“Really?” Syl couldn’t help but feel slightly pleased.

“Well, yes . . . until I told him you had a squint.”

Ani’s head bobbed with mocking laughter, but it was infectious. Soon Syl couldn’t help but laugh too.

“Hey,” said Ani finally, “I just remembered: happy birthday.”

“Oh—I nearly forgot about that too. And I never had my cake . . . I’m starving.”

“Here, then,” said Ani, pulling some fruitcake wrapped in a tissue from inside her balled-up sweater with a cheeky grin.

“They save our lives and you steal their cake? You’re evil.”

“Consider it a birthday gift,” said Ani. “I didn’t have time to get you anything else; time, or money for that matter. My father cut my allowance—again.”

Whenever Syl felt that her father was being unfair or unduly strict, she thought about Ani and Danis. Danis made Lord Andrus look soft as a marshmallow.

“Oh no. What’s he accused you of now?” asked Syl.

“He caught me smoking,” said Ani.

“Oh, Ani. That’s just stupid!”

Tobacco had been unknown to the Illyri until they arrived on Earth. On Illyr, all narcotics were strictly controlled, and most citizens avoided them on health grounds anyway. The Illyri had tried banning tobacco in the first years of the invasion, and had failed utterly. Now low-tar tobacco was tolerated for human use. Illyri were forbidden to smoke, but some did anyway, buying strong tobacco on the black market, even though it was known that it was run by criminals, many of whom passed information to the Resistance.

Ani shrugged. “It was only one cigarette, and I didn’t even like it that much. It was just bad luck. I was hanging out of my bedroom window to smoke it—so that the smell wouldn’t get into my room—and old Pops was passing through the Middle Ward and happened to look up, didn’t he?”

“Busted! Busted big time,” said Syl.

“He said that I couldn’t smoke if I didn’t have any money to buy cigarettes. Now I don’t even have enough to buy matches, never mind cigarettes.”

“Well, good thing I like fruitcake, then,” said Syl.

They sat by the window and stared out at the city, munching cake in silence. It seemed so peaceful from up here, and the sky was now such a vivid blue. But the view had changed for Syl, changed forever now that they’d come so close to death in the city below, now that they’d run with the humans, now that they’d hidden from their own. Ani clicked her tongue and sighed, for her thoughts were clearly in the same place.

“I wonder if anyone was hurt in the explosion,” said Syl finally. “The lady who owned that coffee shop seemed nice. She never objected to serving me, even when I wasn’t disguised, and you know what some people are like.”

Ani nodded. There were places in the city where Illyri were given the cold shoulder if they tried to shop or eat. There would be no service, no talk, only silence until they gave up and left the place to the humans. It was illegal, of course, and dangerous for the humans involved. The Securitats had been known to arrest people who refused to deal with the Illyri, but for the most part such actions were reluctantly tolerated. If nothing else, passive resistance was better than acts of violence.

“Maybe she wasn’t there,” said Ani. “Maybe it was closed.”

But Syl doubted it. The little coffee shop opened all day long, six days a week, and the homely owner was always behind the counter. Frances was her name. It was sewn on her apron.

Had Syl believed in a god, she would have prayed for the soul of Frances. And she would have given thanks for the humans who’d come to their rescue.

“Look,” said Ani. “Something’s happening outside.”

Casual onlookers were being hustled away, and Securitats began to pour into the courtyard. That in itself was unusual: Lord Andrus was strict about keeping the day-to-day functions of the castle under Military control, which included all matters relating to security. The Securitats were permitted a small garrison in the Lower Ward, and a larger base off the Royal Mile, but they had no part in the actual running of the castle. Syl had never before seen so many of the security police inside the walls. And yes, Vena was leading them, her helmet held beneath her right arm. The twin silver streaks above her left ear always made her easy to spot. Syl knew that Lord Andrus privately called her “the Silver Skunk.”

There was some jostling with the regular Military guard as the Securitats took up position around the landing pad, and a confrontation seemed in the offing. Soon Peris, the captain of the castle guard, appeared. He made straight for Vena, and an argument commenced between the two officers. It seemed to get quite heated at one point, because Syl could see Peris jabbing his finger at Vena, his face reddening. In response, Vena produced a document from the pocket of her dress jacket and handed it to Peris. He read it, simmered for a while, and then conceded defeat. He signaled the guard to withdraw, leaving the courtyard in the hands of the Securitats.

A shuttle approached from the north. It was colored a golden red, as though caught in the light of a setting sun, and shaped like a trident, with the central tine forming the cabin and those on either side housing the propulsion systems. It bore the distinctive interlinked black circles of the Diplomatic Corps, but contained within the overlapping of the rings was a single red eye, a variation that Syl had not seen before. The ship hovered high above the landing pad, but did not descend. Its windows were dark, but she sensed the presences behind them taking in the courtyard and the castle. The ship seemed to Syl both beautiful yet unsettling, like an elegant weapon waiting to be fired.

Vena put a finger to her right ear, activating her tiny communicator. She listened for a moment, raised a hand, and summoned two guards to her side. More discussions followed. Still the red ship waited. The guards ran back to the castle, and seconds later a white canvas arch began to extend across the courtyard. It was the sheltering device used to protect honored guests when rain was falling, but the rain had stopped. It seemed that whoever was in the trident ship simply did not wish to be exposed to the curious gaze of onlookers, although the arch was thin enough to allow shapes and colors to filter through, if not faces.

Vena stepped in front of the arch and walked along beneath it as it was unfurled, so that she was gradually lost from Syl’s sight. Only when the shelter was at its fullest extent did the ship begin its descent, the pilot landing the craft perfectly so that the cabin door was concealed by the canvas.

The engines died. All was silent for a time. Syl found herself holding her breath. Where was her father? she wondered. Clearly there was someone important on the ship, and her father usually greeted all visiting dignitaries personally. It was a mark of respect, on their part as much as on his. Either this was someone to whom he was giving calculated offense by not being present—which was so unlike her father as to be unthinkable—or he had not been aware of the ship’s impending arrival, which was stranger still. Yet Vena had known, and whatever authority she had used to dismiss her father’s men from the courtyard was significant, for only Andrus should have had the power to replace his own guard.

Vena’s figure was visible to Syl through the canvas, a patch of darkness against the white. So too was the outline of the cabin door, and Syl saw it turn from red to black as it opened. Shapes emerged: two soldiers with guns, followed by three robed figures, two in pale yellow and one in white, and finally a sixth figure, tall and almost triangular in form, its robes a deep, dark red. The rich fabric cast a faint glow over the interior of the canvas, dancing on the ripples caused by the breeze as the new arrivals made their way from the courtyard. Led by Vena, the concealed visitors entered the Governor’s House.

Syl felt Ani shudder beside her.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” said Ani. “Just a feeling. A really strange feeling. Whoever was in that ship is bad, bad news. . . . ”