Chronicles of the Invaders 1: Conquest (17 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

T
he castle grounds rang with the sound of sirens. Confusion reigned, just as Meia intended. Illyri were falling over each other in an effort to establish not only what was happening, but who was responsible for dealing with it. Meanwhile, the entire castle force of Diplomat guards and Securitats, alerted by Vena, was trying to hunt the prisoners, but was being hampered by those who were attempting to locate the fire. Meia, her cloak now discarded, moved through it all with clarity of purpose, while being careful not to draw undue attention to herself. She was under no illusions about how much time her little fire would buy all those involved in the escape bid. She needed to be sure that the human males were safely out of the castle, and Syl and Ani secure in their own rooms, before Vena and her underlings got a handle on the situation.

Still, she could not resist a small smile. She had just organized a major act of treason, and so far it had all gone rather well.

•••

Syl and Ani were not smiling. They were about to undone by a stuck zipper.

The uniforms Meia had secured for them were larger than required, but it hadn’t mattered because beneath them the two young Illyri were wearing their own casual clothes. The plan was to ditch the uniforms outside the castle walls, where the man tasked with getting the boys to safety would make sure that they were burned, destroying all traces of DNA that might be used to identify the perpetrators of the escape. Unfortunately, Meia’s supply of Securitat uniforms was largely determined by whatever she had managed to strip from the dead or otherwise acquire. While Ani’s uniform had opened easily, Syl’s zip had caught on her own clothes underneath, and now the boys and the older human were gone, and had taken only Ani’s suit and boots with them.

“You’ve busted the zip,” said Ani, gritting her teeth with the effort of trying to pull Syl’s fastening down. “You’re clearly too fat for that suit.”

“I am not!” said Syl, tearing at the clasp.

And perhaps it was the fear, but Ani started to giggle, and couldn’t stop.

“I can’t do it,” she said. “I’m serious.”

“You have to. If they find me like this, they’ll know.”

A shadow fell across them, and a blade flashed in the dark.

“I could hear you from across the courtyard,” said Meia. “You’ll bring the whole Diplomatic Corps down on you.”

“We can’t open the zipper,” said Ani.

Meia’s knife solved the problem, slashing the material from the nape of Syl’s neck to the base of her spine. Syl shrugged off the remains of the garment, removed two folded slippers from the pockets of her trousers, and slid her feet into them. Now, like Ani, she looked as though she had been disturbed by the sirens, and had left her rooms hurriedly to investigate. The problem was that those rooms were on the other side of the castle.

Meia blasted the remains of the uniform three times, kicking them into a pile so that the flames consumed them entirely. Then she spat on her fingers and removed the worst of the blood from Ani’s grimacing face.

“Yuck,” said Ani.

“I didn’t like it any more than you did,” said Meia. “Now, heads down and come with me. If anyone stops us, say nothing. I’ll do the talking.”

As it happened, they were stopped only once. A quartet of Securitats, anxious to avoid a pulse to the head, were hunting for the missing humans, and questioning everyone who crossed their path. There was no way to avoid them, so Meia did the very opposite: she went to them before they could come to her.

“You four,” she said. “Come with me.”

“What?” said the leader, who bore the four gold flashes of a lieutenant on his collar, and clearly wasn’t used to being ordered around by anyone with fewer than five flashes, never mind a female with no flashes at all.

“These are the children of the governor and General Danis,” said Meia. “I’m taking them to safety in St. Margaret’s Chapel, and I need an escort.”

“We’re searching for two escaped prisoners,” said the lieutenant. “We don’t have time for this.”

Meia spoke softly and carefully to him, the way she might have done to a very small child.

“There are two humans loose in the castle,” she said. “If anything happens to the governor’s daughter, those responsible will take the humans’ place on the gallows in the morning. Do I make myself clear?”

The lieutenant swallowed involuntarily, as though he could already feel the noose tightening around his neck. He gestured to two of his guards.

“Escort the governor’s daughter and her party to the chapel,” he said.

Meia nodded curtly. “Thank you, Lieutenant. I’ll be sure that the governor is informed of the assistance you offered.”

The two Securitats stayed with them until they reached the chapel door, whereupon Meia informed them that they could return to their duties. Once they were gone, she led Syl and Ani to the nave and, with their help, lifted a stone from the floor, revealing a set of steps winding into the darkness.

“Down you go,” she said.

Syl went first, then Ani. Meia brought up the rear, restoring the stone to its original position from below as she came. For a few seconds they were in total darkness, until Meia produced a flashlight and pointed it down a tunnel that was so low they had to bend almost double to make any progress, their backs nearly touching the roof and their necks straining. It seemed to take forever to make their way along it, Meia instructing them from behind to go left or right when necessary, until they came to another flight of stairs. There was just enough space for Meia to squeeze by Syl and Ani and ascend. She placed a finger to her lips, and all three listened carefully for any sound from above, but heard nothing. At last Meia pushed upward, and a dim light was revealed to them from above. She vanished briefly before returning to tell them that all was well.

They found themselves in Meia’s closet, making their way through her garments into the bedroom beyond. Syl and Ani collapsed in a heap on the floor. Their faces, hands, and clothing were filthy. They had cuts and scrapes on their knuckles, and Syl found a gash on her head from where she had misjudged the height of the tunnel ceiling, but they were safe.

“Let’s never do that again,” said Syl.

“Seconded,” said Ani.

Two sets of nightclothes were laid out on Meia’s bed, one for each of them. Meia, as always, had planned ahead. Syl and Ani took it in turn to wash and change in the bathroom.

“That,” said Meia, when they looked respectable once again, “was very, very impressive. Sloppy, and noisy, but impressive nonetheless.”

“Thank you,” said Ani. “I think.”

“How many tunnels and escape routes do you have exactly?” asked Syl.

“Exactly?”

“Yes.”

“None of your business.”

“Oh. Fine.”

Meia relented.

“Some of them were here already,” she said. “Most of them were constructed shortly after your father decided that the castle should be his base of operations. He gave me responsibility for its security systems. I just added a few safeguards of my own along the way.”

“They won’t find out that we did it, will they?” said Ani.

“I disabled all the recording systems in the Vaults. There’s nothing to prove you were ever there. As far as the guards are concerned, Vena ordered the prisoners’ transfer, even if that has probably come as a surprise to Vena herself. Now I’m going to escort you back to your rooms. Naturally, you will say nothing of this to anyone. If you’re questioned, I came to get you when the alarms sounded, and took you to the chapel until I determined that all was safe. Okay?”

Syl and Ani nodded.

“You did well,” said Meia. “You didn’t just save two lives tonight. You saved many. Remember that, in the days to come.”

And they did, both of them, even later as they were running for their own lives.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

P
aul wasn’t sure where they were.

As soon as they were away from the castle, he and Steven were bundled into the back of a van by Trask. The front seats were cut off from the rest of the vehicle by a sheet of metal that had been welded to the sides, and there were two masked men waiting to help them up, although
help
was probably not the most accurate way to put it, given that the boys were dragged inside, told to keep their mouths shut, and made to wear rough sacks over their heads to obscure their vision. The two men were unfamiliar to Paul, but he knew them for what they were: pure muscle—unsympathetic and unyielding. Their presence in the van gave him some idea of what was to come.

While they drove, Paul tried to keep track of the distance they might have traveled, and the route they were taking, but quickly gave up. He knew that Trask would double back on himself, and make unnecessary stops and turns, just to confuse his passengers and, indeed, anyone who might be following them. Nevertheless, he didn’t stay on the streets for too long. Even though a curfew was no longer in place, and there was plenty of traffic, the prisoners’ escape would force the Illyri to start closing roads and searching vehicles. A system of retractable bollards was in place on all major roads in Edinburgh, capable of sealing off the main routes into and out of the city center. Trask’s priority would be to get beyond them and make for a safe house. Someone else would then ditch the van a few miles away, probably by sticking it into the back of a truck or hiding it in a container, just in case the Illyri had spotted it on a security camera and had put out an alert. There were fewer cameras away from the city center and the main roads—and those that the Illyri had tried to install were routinely vandalized—but there might well be drones or lurkers in the air, and they wouldn’t know about it until the van was stopped, or a missile vaporized them.

The van came to a halt. Strong hands hauled Paul and Steven to their feet and guided them out and down a flight of steps. A door opened and then closed again behind them. Paul smelled coffee and cigarettes, and a conversation suddenly ceased. He was forced into a chair, and the sack was removed from his head. He was in a near-empty basement. There was a battered table before him, and behind it two more chairs waited. Steven was gone. They would be questioned separately. That was standard practice. It was what Paul himself would have done had he been faced with two Resistance members who might have revealed secrets to the Illyri.

Trask took one chair and one of the two masked men from the van took the other. The second masked man entered with three cups of coffee and a plate of toast on a tray before leaving again.

“Help yourself,” said Trask.

Paul did. He was hungry, and the coffee smelled wonderful, even though it was cheap and nasty instant. But when he tried to lift his cup, his hand began to shake, and the coffee slopped over the sides. He felt sick and he thought he might faint.

“You’re all right, son,” said Trask. “It’s natural after what you’ve been through. Take a couple of deep breaths. You’ll be fine.”

Beside him, the masked man took a piece of toast and dunked it in his coffee. Trask looked at him peculiarly.

“You dunk toast in coffee?” he said.

“I dunk anything in anything. Coffee or tea, it’s all the same to me.”

“It doesn’t taste right if you dunk it.”

The masked man nibbled on his soggy toast.

“Tastes fine to me.”

“There’s something wrong with you.”

“Will you give it a rest?” said the masked man. “You’re ruining it for me.”

Trask shook his head at Paul as if to say “See what I have to put up with?”

“It’s hard to get decent staff these days,” said Paul, who was recovering himself with the help of sips of coffee and bites of toast.

“You shut up, or I’ll do you,” said the masked man, the threat made only slightly less intimidating by the fact that he was waving a piece of soggy toast. “You’ll be lucky to walk out of here without broken bones.”

Paul nodded. It was good cop, bad cop. In another room, Steven was doubtless experiencing the same routine.

“Our mum,” he said. “Is she still in the city?”

He knew that the Securitats would come looking for her in the aftermath of her sons’ escape. He didn’t want her to suffer more because of what he and Steven had done.

“We moved her to Aberdeen earlier today, when we knew there was a chance of getting you back,” said Trask. “Wouldn’t want the Illyri taking out their temper on her, would we?”

Paul closed his eyes in relief.

Trask took a long gulp of coffee.

“Right then,” he said. “May as well get started.”

•••

The debriefing went on for most of the night. It began gently, but grew tougher. Twice the masked man slapped Paul hard across the back of the head, causing Trask to tut-tut and tell him to take it easy, even while his eyes remained cold. In the end, it all came down to one question:
What did you tell them?

Because everybody broke, in the end. They had seen Steven’s fingers. He was just a boy, and he’d have told them something to make the pain end. Hell, a grown man would have confessed in order to stop it. It was understandable. It was okay. They just wanted to know what had been given away.

But Paul was good—better even than Trask suspected—and he had taught his brother well. They had fed the Illyri tidbits of information, but it was all useless: the locations of safe houses long abandoned or burned to the ground; the names of operatives who were dead or had never existed; codes that were years old. It was the kind of information that a couple of low-level boys in the Resistance might have been expected to have overheard from others. Paul had drummed it all into his brother, going over it again and again as they lay in their adjoining beds at home.

If we’re captured, this is what we say, and we never, ever deviate from it. Understand?

Yes, Paul. I understand.

And he had. He was screaming in pain, and there was nothing that his older brother could do to stop it, but still he gave them only what Paul had taught him to give. This is the safe house. This is the man who told us where to go. This is the code.

Useless: all of it useless.

From time to time, Trask or the other man would leave the room, and Paul knew that they were checking what he told them against what his brother was saying. By the time Trask said, “Enough,” Paul’s head ached, he desperately needed to go to the bathroom, and he wanted to shower because he could smell himself. He was left alone while Trask and the masked man went outside to confer. When they returned after about twenty minutes, the second man was no longer masked. His head was shaved, and he wore a white T-shirt, exposing arms covered in tattoos. On his right forearm was a thistle that dripped blood from its leaves: the symbol of the Highland Resistance.

“You did good, laddie,” said Trask. “You and your brother.”

“Sorry about the slaps,” said the tattooed man. “You know how it is.”

Paul knew. He didn’t have to like it, but he knew.

“This is Joe,” said Trask. “Just Joe.”

Paul had heard the name. Just Joe was the Green Man’s lieutenant, which made him the second in command of the Highland Resistance. The Highland Resistance was scattered, but disciplined; if it had a leader, it was the Green Man, and Just Joe stood at his right hand. He was the face of the Highland Resistance. The Green Man’s identity was kept very secret, and there were those who claimed that he did not exist at all.

The Highlanders did not use surnames because no one wanted family members intimidated or friends tortured for information should their true identities be revealed. All that was known of Just Joe was that he had an army background, he was fearless and loyal, and completely ruthless, doing what needed to be done without flinching or sentiment. He was respected, yes. Feared? Absolutely. Liked?

It had never occurred to anyone to try.

There were stories about Joe, of course. They all had stories. Joe’s, it was whispered, was that he had once had a wife and a baby boy, and they’d lived together near Aviemore. Being a military man, Joe had been an early prisoner of the invading forces. According to rumors, his wife had received a visit from an Illyri intelligence officer while Joe was in jail. The officer told her that Joe had died in custody, and she and her child were to be thrown out of their house because of evidence that her husband had been conspiring against the Illyri, and the property of all conspirators was automatically forfeit. It was an act of casual cruelty, committed because, it was said, this particular intelligence officer had developed an early liking for human women, and Joe’s wife was exceptionally pretty. She was also very delicate—physically, emotionally, and psychologically. The intelligence officer told her that he might be able to find a way to look after her and her child, in return for certain favors. He gave her until the morning to think about it. She didn’t need that long. She killed herself before midnight. They’d shown Joe pictures of the bodies of his wife and child beside each other on the bed, their faces transformed by the gas. It was only later that he found out why she had done it.

The intelligence officer vanished from Fort William the following year, on a clear, cool March evening not long after Just Joe’s release from internment. The Illyri’s head was found impaled on a fence post a week later. The rest of him was never discovered, although the story went that it had been fed to pigs. His head had still been attached to his body at that point.

He couldn’t have screamed otherwise.

But it was just a story, although it might have explained why Joe’s small guerrilla fiefdom in the Highlands was known as Camp Glynis—the name of his Welsh wife, murmured the gossips, or perhaps it was just because Glynis meant “narrow valley” in his late wife’s tongue. Anyway, it no longer mattered. Camp Glynis, like Glynis herself, was now merely a memory. Joe’s band had allied itself to the troops of the Green Man many years earlier. The Green Man promised Joe that more Illyri blood would be spilled if they fought together than if they fought alone, and he had kept his promise.

“You’ll be going to the Highlands,” Trask told Paul, “you and Steven. It won’t be safe for you in the city. The Illyri will tear it apart looking for you.”

Paul nodded. He had guessed as much.

“The Green Man has also decided that a little more cooperation with us city boys might not go amiss,” continued Trask.

And then Paul understood: somehow this was related to the attack on Birdoswald, and it was the Highlanders who must have been responsible for it. The Highlanders had never struck so far south before, but they were still the only ones outside Edinburgh equipped to carry out such an assault. Clearly someone in the Edinburgh Resistance had let the Highlanders know that they couldn’t simply start blowing up Illyri bases outside their own patch without first asking permission. It wasn’t polite.

“You’re to be our ambassador to the Highlanders. I’m sure that pleases you as much as it will please them. You can get up from that chair now. There’s a hot shower waiting for you, and clean clothes, and a proper meal before you leave.”

But Paul didn’t move. He wanted to. He wanted it all so badly: the shower, the clothes, all of it, but it wasn’t time, not yet.

“I have more to say,” he said.

Trask looked puzzled, and Just Joe scowled in a manner that suggested some more slaps might be on their way.

“You haven’t asked me what we found under Knutter’s shop,” said Paul. “I have to tell you about the bodies.”