I walk faster, ignoring my new limp, and shoot my best friend a look that’s half glare, half plea. His head whips around, cataloguing our smoky surroundings—the buildings barely peeking out of billows of grey and white and black, the panicked people running in one direction and then another, the distant shapes against the hazy sky. A muscle in Siah’s jaw twitches but his face doesn’t change. He looks completely calm, in control. Only I know he’s not.
He takes hold of my elbow and steers me away, down a back road that runs parallel to the high street. The smell around here is a damp tang, and only when I look down a side road do I realise the scent is blood. I watch Siah’s expression harden to mirror my own. I hold Tom’s head against my shoulder so he doesn’t see the carnage. Bodies are piled up—Guardians, Manchester guards, Officials. These deaths aren’t the result of a bomb. These people have been shot, and by the looks of who’s been killed—some of who I recognise: the dark skinned woman on the Guardian council, a few Manchester people who were at an important meeting—they knew exactly who to target. Which means they’ve been watching.
“They’ve been played,” Siah says. “Someone had to have been an Official spy.” His mouth twists into a grimace. “Why else would Manchester be attacked the night their leaders planned to join the rebel movement in Bharat?”
“We could have led them here.” I watch the shadows but the street is empty.
Yosiah looks at the street behind us. It’s ordinary and quiet, just shuttered loading bays and shop backs. “No. If they’d followed us, they would have killed us the first night. Why wait ten days? They wouldn’t—”
A harsh wind picks up a few streets over and Yosiah whips his head back to me, his eyes so wide the amber is swallowed. He grabs my arm and bolts—running so fast I can’t keep up. My bad ankle drags behind me. My hair is sucked away from my face, the wind sending a cold shiver through me.
A noise stalks us, whining. Something metal scrapes the roofs of buildings. I hear bricks clatter to the street.
Thomas opens his mouth wide and screams.
As Siah throws himself around a corner, away from the wind following us, it’s everything I can do to keep myself from falling. In the split second I look back, desperate to know what’s responsible for Tom’s screams, I see a squat metal creature slicing through the air, a hurricane spinning on top of it and legs like knife blades on its bottom.
I spin away, a new kind of fear pushing my legs faster. The pain in my ankle is suddenly irrelevant. Pain means I’m alive. Letting it slow me down means I’ll die.
We fly around another corner, and another, and another, until we reach an alleyway so thin the metal thing is forced to back off. The whisper of wind seeks but can’t find us. We collapse behind an industrial metal bin.
I run my hands over Tom’s back, his spindly arms. “It’s okay,” I tell him. “I won’t let it hurt you. You’re fine, Thomas. Just please stop screaming.” And he does. He listens to me. So I promise again and again that I’ll keep him safe. I’m his big sister—that’s my job.
I reach across my body to where Yosiah is wedged between me and the bin, and I grab Olive’s arm through her dark coat. She looks at me, for the first time, without the bravado she’s built over the two years I’d been missing. She lets out a sob and writhes to free herself from Siah’s arms, pressing herself against me.
Yosiah’s next exhale shudders from him and as he turns to me, dropping his head onto my shoulder, his nose sliding along my neck, he lets out a scolding sigh on my cold skin. With my family pressed against me I realise two things: we’re going to die, and Yosiah doesn’t know how much I love him.
I put my arms around all three of them, fierceness surging through me like it can make me superhuman, like I can somehow protect them all from the whining machine now directly above us if I’m only brave enough.
I press a kiss to the heads of both my siblings.
As a dark cloud rises around us, I tilt my head to Siah’s and whisper that I love him. His kiss, hot and gentle, obliterates the burning sky above us.
***
III
The Promise of War
***
Branwell
00:41. 30.10.2040. The Free Lands, Northlands, Manchester.
Manchester is burning.
A small group of us were discussing secret plans of a device to scan for life forms when the first explosion shook the ground. By the time we were herded out of a side door, the sky was already full of smoke, flames were licking at some of the smaller buildings, and we’d lost Dagné and Marc. By now the flickers of orange have crawled up the length of the brick buildings, devouring any people left inside.
Yosiah’s sister Kari, who is now the highest authority in Manchester, leads us—Honour, Hele, Cell, a Manchester guard, and me—across a smoky road towards the train tracks. Dalmar has gone to find Horatia, Miya and Yosiah. They’re supposed to meet us at the train and then we’ll be taken to an evacuation point.
I cover my mouth with my sleeve, breathing through it as Honour and I stumble onto the platform and wait for the yellow train to accept us.
“Everyone still here?” Kari asks, looking over our heads.
“We need to wait for Dalmar,” Honour says. “And my sister.”
“And our friends,” I add. “Your brother included.”
Kari nods, a tightness about her expression suggesting distress. She exchanges words with the Manchester guard who depresses a button in the side of the tram and boards it. Our driver, I assume. What would have happened if nobody knew how to work the train?
Kari gestures for us to embark, too, but since Honour hangs back so do I. Dalmar and Horatia come careening into the road several minutes later, but without Miya, Yosiah, or their family.
Honour lets out a breath and rushes to embrace Horatia.
“Where are they?” I ask. “Where are Miya and Yosiah?”
“I don’t know.” Dalmar shakes his head, coming over to take Hele’s hand. “I couldn’t find them. They weren’t anywhere, and the … the Station collapsed.”
“Were they inside?” Kari strides out of the train, her attention fixed on Dalmar.
“I don’t know.”
Kari’s eyes narrow. “What do you know?”
“Nothing. All I know is I turned up to the Station and it was a wreck. I found Horatia and a group of Guardians wandering around the main street. I told the rest of them to go to the evacuation point.”
“Thank you for your honesty.” She looks off into the distance, searching for Yosiah, I assume. I follow her gaze but there is nothing but fire and smoke. My heart clenches. Miya and Yosiah can’t truly have been in that building, can they? They can’t really be gone, be dead.
It’s unthinkable.
“On the tram,” Kari says and we obey.
I notice we’re yet again in the strange purgatory of being half Guardian, half civilian as I stumble across the gap between tram and platform, pressing my back firmly against the solid carriage wall.
Unlike the trains of my home and the Underground trains of Forgotten London, this train is two carriages long, narrow, and bright yellow. It connects to an overhead cable via an antennae and powers up with a low whirr.
Honour is close beside me, his eyes shifting nervously. He’s jumpy and afraid but suffering silently in true Honour Frie fashion. His sister, Dalmar, and Hele drop into ratty seats by us and Honour’s tension lessens slightly.
In the dark, the bright electric lights cocooning this carriage are a beacon drawing the wrong attention. We’re going to be shot or bombed—whatever is causing the massive earthquakes still rippling through the ground is going to fix upon us. I sigh with relief when the train is pitched into darkness abruptly.
With a gasp, the tram begins to move. Slowly, steadily, we crawl through the town. At some point Honour grips my arm, whether for stability as we round a corner or because he’s frightened, I can’t tell. I search for him in the dark but can only see a faint profile,
the crook of his nose catching the light of distant fire.
“Are you alright?” I ask.
“Fine,” he says, which is Honour-speak for ‘not at all’.
I lean my arm against his. “I’m sure everything will be okay.”
“Yeah. We’re just getting bombed. No big deal.”
I smile, though he can’t see it. “It’s hardly as if we don’t have prior experience. We’re practically specialists in surviving an attack.”
I sense his eyes on me. “Anyone can die,” Honour says. “Even us. Even people who’ve cheated death twice before.”
“You’re melancholy tonight,” I reply. “Usually conflict brings you alive—truly alive.”
“Maybe I’m tired of fighting. Maybe I’d rather just die.”
My chest becomes tight, straining my breath “I’m afraid I can’t let that happen. You’re my closest friend and I won’t allow you to give up. Not after everything you’ve endured. And certainly not after all the trouble I went through to stop the disease taking your life.”
“It’d be easier for you to just let me die.”
“The easiest route is often the most worthless.” My father recited those words to himself whenever an invention wasn’t going to plan. It’s surprisingly comforting to pass them on. “You’re not dying, Honour. So you may as well get used to life.”
“Stubborn ass,” he grumbles.
I squeeze his shoulder. “You have no idea.”
The train jerks and shudders and stops. Through no small miracle we have travelled a route that wasn’t destroyed by explosions, to an area that is unclaimed by fire. I suspect that was more by careful planning on Kari’s part than any luck favouring us.
I pry myself from the wall and force my stiff legs to take me off the tram. I don’t know how long we’ve been travelling but it’s long enough for my body to have locked and my fear to have woken from slumber. Honour’s fright is apparently quite contagious.
We gather, my family, Kari, and her guard, underneath the shadow of a turquoise glass building. It’s thrice the height of an omnibus, shaped like the crest of a great wave, and perplexes me. Why might you need a building shaped like this? What is its purpose?
“Where are the Officials?” Kari asks nobody in particular. Her voice could easily slice stone. “Marc must have told them where we’d go.”
“I’m sorry?” I take a step closer to her and the quiet guard. “Marc? What has he to do with the Officials?”
Kari’s expression darkens. “He’s a traitor. He betrayed us, led a fleet of Officials to Manchester, and abducted our leader.”
“What?” Dalmar wears a look of outrage and disbelief. “Dagné’s been kidnapped?”
“Yes.”
A burst of crackling diverts the conversation and Kari unclips a black box with antennae from her belt. A voice comes through, in sporadic surges of static, though I can’t make out a single word. I watch, perplexed, as Kari speaks into the box in reply. So it is a two-way communication device? That’s clever.
The conversation lasts no longer than a minute, but by the end of it the flames of the town have huddled closer around us and the blanket of smoke and smog has settled much lower. We wouldn’t be able to see any Officials now, not even if they came charging at us.
The booms of bombs smacking the ground get louder—closer.
But the Manchester guard isn’t beaten. From what I heard, they are planning something—a counterattack of significant size. I only wish Kari would tell us what to expect, but she shakes her head at every question aimed her way. I find myself yearning for the Guardian council, who give us answers no matter how disheartening they are. Where is the Guardian council?
Figures begin to drift through the streets towards us, stumbling and staggering, leaning on one another for support, each of them shadows in the grey. At first they are only sinister shapes but eventually they near and take the definitive outlines of Manchester civilians. What would have happened if this building had been obliterated? If there was no safe area in which to convene? I scan the silhouettes for people I recognise but these are all strangers. No Guardians.
My heart sinks but I will not accept anyone’s death, not until it is inevitable. There is still a shard of hope, a chance my friends are alive.
The civilians collapse onto stone steps a couple of paces away, underneath a mangled steel sculpture. I see for the first time the children cradled in their arms. Children who have not seen the end of the last world but may well see the end of this one.
With every minute that passes, more blasts send my heart racing and more and more people arrive. These Manchester folk have a knack for survival, like Honour and I have. The ground still erupts with trembling every few minutes and the smoke has become something creeping and malevolent, but these people are hardy and resilient and they seem, to all intents and purposes, prepared. To be so calm … how long they have been planning their defence?
I’m about to mention this to Honour when figures in mottled white, dirt brown, and dusty grey appear as one large group, surging towards us.
“Thank the heavens,” I whisper.
Through the smoke I spot a cloud of white-blonde hair. Marie—it has to be. When the Guardians are close enough for me to see their smudged faces, I spot Priya. She looks small, frightened, and bloody, and I’m rushing towards her and Marie before I’m aware of it.
“Are you okay?” I gasp.
Priya’s face is scraped along one side, blood spotted across her cheek. “I’m fine. I just had a fall.”
“A fall down a flight of stairs,” Marie snaps. Her arms are crossed over her chest, the terror in her eyes barely veiled by anger.
I look Priya over, despite the fact that my knowledge lies not in medicine. “Be truthful,” I tell her. “Do you hurt anywhere?”
“Everywhere.” Her voice is almost lost to the chaos of the night, to the second group of Guardians and their families rushing to the wave building, to the roar of confusion building.
“Is anywhere particularly bad, worse than the rest of your body?”
“My ankle. But I can walk on it.”
Marie puts an arm around Priya’s waist, expression crumpling. She leaves a kiss in Priya’s hair and apologises for an argument I didn’t witness.
“For what it’s worth,” I say. “I don’t think your injury is fatal. You wouldn’t be able to walk if it were.”
Marie tears her gaze from Priya. “Are you a doctor?”
“Biologist.”
“Brilliant.”
Priya shushes her and thanks me—for what, I’m unsure. I look over the both of them and decide they will survive and that is what matters. I cross them off my mental checklist of people to be worried for, catching myself glancing back at Honour without meaning to. I will always worry for Honour, no matter what, but I have to remember that he’s capable of taking care of himself. I’m not going to lose him like I lost Bennet.
I search the Guardians who just arrived and am relieved to see Timofei is among them, along with most of the Guardians’ council. More people alive and well. I scan the crowd for Miya and Yosiah but they’re still missing. My stomach drops.
“Alright listen up,” Kari shouts. “Dagné and Marc are gone, lost in an explosion.”
That’s curious. Has she kept Marc’s betrayal secret to prevent panic or to protect the traitor?
Ignoring questions thrown at her, she tells us, “We’re going to bring down an aircraft.” Kari ignores the questions and angry shouts as if they are nothing. She gazes at something in the distance and I follow her line of sight to a cluster of lights. So that is why I’ve yet to see soldiers or Officials—they’re not on foot. They’re airborne. “That aircraft.”
Cloaked in smoke, Dalmar yells, “How?”
The wind picks up.
“Watch,” is all Kari says.
A beam of light cuts through the sky and illuminates the aircraft. The plane must be at least the size of a ballroom, though it is
hard to tell from this distance. It’s a black triangle of wings and angles, squat and wide and foreboding. I am terrified by its size and grandeur.
The smoke thickens. I cover my mouth, cough through the fabric of my sleeve.
The plane is immobilised somehow by the light. I watch, fascinated. It cannot be an ordinary beam—it must be of the advanced, magical technology this future has invented. It would not be able to stop the aircraft otherwise.
I watch as the beam of light withdraws, lowering from the dark sky to the top of a shadowed building. The aircraft remains within it, drawn to the rooftop along with the light. It’s aweing; I should be impressed and amazed but this technology scares me. If this is not beyond reality, what else can they do?
Within minutes the aircraft is resting atop a brick tower, deathly still. As small as ants, Officials exit the plane. They march through the cloud of smoke that has settled over the plane, as it has settled over the entire town, but they never make it to the ground. Inside the churning cloud, they collapse.
Panic ripples through the civilians and Guardians around me and emerges as a roar of voices, all of it heightening my confusion. The order of the Manchester civilians disintegrates. The calm of the Guardian council becomes agitation. Horatia breaks her silence to ask what is happening, but not a single person can offer an answer. This is clearly not the Manchester guard’s plan of defence. I think they meant only to bring the plane down. This is something entirely separate.
Whatever has happened to kill those Officials … it is only a matter of time before it comes to claim us.
***
The Wandering (The Lux Guardians, #2) Page 21
