The Friendly Ambassador: The Beginning of the End

Chapter Seven

  Devastation

  With the command given, the beleaguered and surviving citizens of Elengrad were the first to suffer the Gathering. Pouring forth from the Keruh Portal now came the true and complete Host. What had passed through before, what had trudged the road to Jutlam City and beyond, had been only the advanced guard: the Warriors. They had come to establish their hold on Eden, to bring the first attack and to clear the way. With their job done the Host proper could now enter unopposed.

  What had been thousands were now millions. In a relentless torrent, the Keruh Host emerged from the portal and spread out over the land in a black tide. They were like insects rushing angrily from their underground nest. Elengrad was engulfed and swallowed. Everything in their path fell to their rifles or their axes. But the majority of the Host was comprised of figures that were not Warriors. They carried no weapons but their sight was just as fearsome.

  The first of these figures were more symmetrical than their Warrior brothers. They were also a lot larger. Both their arms and hands were the same immense size. Their legs were also equally sized, large and powerful. And above their large torsos their heads were larger too. But here there was no extended cranial cavity, no larger size to their eyes. As with all their race, their brains were housed deep within the hump in their large bodies. Their heads were larger for one purpose only: to support their massive and immensely powerful jaws.

  These were the Gatherers. They rushed forth, fleet of foot and more nimble in their movements, and seized all in their path. People, animals, grass, bushes, even trees, anything biological that could be consumed and broken down, all were snatched from the ground by the huge fists and passed to the great jaws. Here, crushed and mangled together, their bloody prizes would be held aloft as each Gatherer hurried away. The bodies that had littered the ruined buildings and streets of Elengrad vanished in their path, swept clean. But it wasn’t only the dead that they took.

  Sometimes their jaws were filled with those who still lived. Even the large Edenites were no match for the Gatherers. They were snapped up, their bones crunching between the great jaws. They screamed in pain and terror, kicking and struggling as they were carried away.

  Alive, their fate was worse than any other.

  What the Gatherers took in their great jaws they brought to another member of the Host. These new arrivals were massively larger than any other, so grotesquely swollen that they were forced to walk on all fours. Their hands and arms had evolved over time to this retrograde use, and were now so distorted and deformed that they could no longer grip with their hands; no more could they even stand upright. So massively swollen were their bodies that even down on all fours they were unable to support their own weight, and other members of the Host had to push them along. But even though they were so large, their jaws were tiny and there was a look of deflation about them. It was as if they could no longer feed themselves, that their once massive bodies had collapsed downward, sagging behind them in folds, forcing each one to drag it across the ground behind them. And all the time the other Gatherers pushed them along, heaving at the grotesque folds. But if they emerged from the portal resembling deflated armour-plated balloons, they didn’t stay that way for long. They had indeed lost the ability to feed themselves, but it was an ability that they no longer required. Between each pair of tiny jaws waited a gaping mouth, and one by one the Gatherers took their struggling victims and stuffed them screaming inside, where they were swallowed whole.

  These were the Receivers: the mobile storage jars who would return through the portal to the Hive when full. And they soon began to fill. Again and again the Gatherers would run to them, stuffing their booty into the gaping mouths. Soon the great bodies were swelled to their full balloon shape. But still their mouths gaped wide and still more was stuffed inside. Only when the plates on their carapaces had split apart revealing a thin, tautly stretched membrane beneath holding them together, would the Receivers return to the portal, lumbering along with their entourage of Gatherers in support. But for every filled one that returned, ten times more emerged empty, their mouths already gaping.

  As more of the Keruh Host emerged from the portal, Elengrad was finally engulfed. But even then, the portal never stopped in its constant, continuous disgorging. And slowly, relentlessly, the black tide spilled beyond the limits of the city, spreading out over the land, and moving nearer and nearer to Jutlam City and the road to Hilbrok.

  Kiki Nomanta was desperate. He carried Susu Antipo from one street to another, until he finally reached one of the city’s main hospitals. Here he found a military field hospital had been set up in a square outside it. It was obvious that the huge numbers of injured people had soon overrun the hospital and its staff, and the soldiers had set up large green tents with extra beds in the square to try and make up for the vast overflow. Even these tents were now full, and people were laid out on the grass in long lines around them. Medics ran about among the doctors and nurses trying to tend to all the wounded, and there was a long line of streamlined trucks parked along the streets around the far side of the square. They were green army trucks, each with a large number on the side. Kiki just stopped and stared at the scene before him. It was so unfamiliar, so shocking. Even the sight of the trucks shocked him. He had never seen army trucks in the city before.

  The trucks all had six wheels, and at the front the cab and bonnet were gently curved. The same curving bodywork swept back along each side, flowing over the large wheels and fat tyres and giving the vehicles a modern and pleasing appearance. It was only at the back that they became more utilitarian. Here the flowing metalwork gave way to a simple wooden platform with short sides and a tailgate. Covering the back was a green canvass cover supported on a metal frame. Even though the bodywork attempted to flow into the shape of the squarer platform and canvass cover, it still seemed an incongruous blend of old and modern.

  A full evacuation was under way. People who could stand on their own were being bundled into the back of the trucks, while those on stretchers were passed carefully to those already inside. Some of the nurses went with them. And every few minutes one of the trucks roared away only for another empty one to move forward in its place. People were everywhere. They filled the entrance and foyer of the hospital, they sat on the pavement, slumped against the wall, they lay in the street outside and in the square, sat in the tents waiting for attention, or lined up in the hundreds waiting for their turn in the trucks. Many were crying while others just stood, sat, or lay in silence, their faces devoid of any expression. Some of them were bandaged and bloodstained. All of them were dirty.

  Kiki ran forward and joined the rest, disappearing among all those people. He just vanished into the sea. And the last time he saw Susu was when he was being bundled into one of the trucks with other wounded survivors. The wounded were being evacuated first. In fact everyone was being evacuated, wounded or not, and the military weren’t interested in any stories about lost loved ones or relatives. You either climbed onto a truck willingly, or you got thrown on. Everything was done in a rush, and Kiki used the confusion and turmoil of the situation to slip away. There were so many crying and wounded people, so many others who demanded the attention of the doctors and the medics that no one even noticed or cared when he left.

  He ran among the streets he knew so well. He knew where he was going, knew the way without thinking. But in the past he would have driven this distance across the city. Now he was on foot, and distances that he remembered as being short, suddenly took an age to complete. Each road was agonisingly long, each junction so far apart. He began to tire, but he wouldn’t give up.

  At the next intersection, Kiki turned the corner and found himself staring at more than a dozen Keruh Warriors. They were pouring out of one of the underground subway entrances, an ungainly bobbing rush hour. Warrior after Warrior ran up the steps onto the street, all of them facing the other way. Kiki hastily jumped back. He pressed himself against the wall of the building, h
is whole body tense with fright. When he heard the explosion, he almost jumped out of his skin.

  The Keruh were firing at one of the buildings, bringing it down in a cloud of smoke and debris. Kiki didn’t know if there was anyone still inside. He wasn’t thinking, he just ran, using the cover of the smoke and dust to shield him as he ran across the intersection as fast as he could. He didn’t stop running either. He didn’t even know where his strength came from. He ran and ran, terrified that at any moment a Keruh Warrior would shoot him down. On and on he went, not even conscious of where he was going or what he was seeing, until he fell full length in the middle of the street. He hadn’t tripped or anything, it was just that his body had been travelling too fast for his tired legs to keep up anymore. His momentum caused him to stagger a step or two and then dive forward, hitting the ground and sliding along. When he finally came to a halt he just lay there, his lungs heaving, gasping for air.

  Slowly, as his mind cleared and his breathing eased, he became conscious of the sound. It was a rhythmic thump, a continuous repetitive monologue. Crump, crump, crump. It seemed to be coming from the very ground beneath his ears. He opened his eyes and froze when he saw them, his breathing stopped in his shock.

  Trudging down the street was a column of Keruh Warriors. One after another they came, their great axes and rifles in their hands. They were walking almost right above him. One of them ran alongside the column and paused to look up at the skyline. He stood so close that Kiki feared that he would actually stand on him.

  How could they not see him?

  The Warrior moved on and the end of the column appeared. As the last Warrior disappeared from view, Kiki began to breathe again. But he dare not move. He lay there for ages, until the sound of their feet faded and all was silent. But even when only the distant explosions and roar of collapsing buildings filled his ears, he still remained immobile on the road. It was a smell rather than the noise that finally stirred him. At first it was only a faint trace, but gradually it began to grow stronger, stronger and more unpleasant. Slowly, he sat up.

  It was only now, when he sat up, that he noticed all the bodies. They were scattered all around him. Some sprawled out of the open doors of crashed cars. Some had been shot to death, while more bore the deep and vicious wounds of axes. Some of the bodies were so mutilated by the blows that they were almost dismembered. There was blood everywhere. It had dried and stained the road. Kiki was right in the middle of them all, just another body among the corpses.

  Kiki climbed to his feet. He was shaking, his whole body trembling. He couldn’t stop it. He had never felt like this, he had never felt so—

  Kiki staggered to the side of an abandoned car and threw up. He retched and retched. Finally he just lay crumpled over the bonnet, exhausted. He stayed there for some time. Finally, he moved away, staggering forward and breaking into a jog.

  He had to find Breda, he had to. He ran on and on, down street after street. Always there were bodies, always the buildings were damaged, and some were even still burning. Kiki ignored it all. He just ran and ran. It couldn’t be far now. He knew where he was, knew that her office building was just around the next corner. As he got closer to the intersection he began to run faster and faster, until finally, at last, he was there.

  What Kiki found drained all the spirit from him. The building was gone. In fact the whole street here was gone. There was just rubble with the remains of walls pointing up at the sky like blackened fingers.

  Kiki collapsed to his knees and stared at the rubble.

  “Breda!”

  Breda sat in the back of a truck, a blanket over her shoulders. She stared at the other women sitting opposite her and on either side of her. They all looked the same; their clothes were torn, blackened, and dirty, their faces were smeared with sweat and dirt, and they all looked desperately forlorn. They were all dead inside, that was it. Dead but not yet cold.

  Did she look like that?

  Breda raised a hand to her face. Her hand was already dirty, but she knew from the feel of her skin on her cheek that her face was dirty too.

  Yes, she was like them. Just the same: a survivor in body but not in mind. What they had lived through a person wasn’t supposed to live through. The very act of surviving had relied on all those others dying. And they all knew it. They all knew what they had done to escape. They were all sitting there remembering how they had fought and scrambled with all those others to survive, how they had thought of nothing else except themselves. How their very selfishness had brought them life and condemned the others to a violent death. For every one at the front there had to be one at the back, to be first meant that someone else had to be last. Only the winners had survived.

  But was it worth it?

  Breda sat in misery, listening to the sound of the truck’s engine. It was harsh and unfamiliar. All the cars and buses in the city were electric, like the underground rail system. It was cleaner, cheaper, and ecologically friendly. The truck’s engine wasn’t electric. She could even smell the difference.

  Someone at the back of the truck sneezed. Without thinking, Breda said, “Bless you.”

  There was a pause, and then a timid voice replied, “Thank you.”

  It was a sudden spark of humanity, a hint of kindness and civilised behaviour all had thought had gone forever. It brought a glimmer of hope to those in the back of the truck as it rushed along the road to Hilbrok.

  The Eden Ring Network Portal was housed in a large square building that seemed to comprise mainly of large stone columns. Above the columns was a decorative pitched roof also in stone and with statues carved at each gable end. It was an impressive and majestic building set in a walled garden with fountains and statues. Wide roads led up to the front of the building and the entrance was wide enough for quite large vehicles to be driven inside and through the portal. But the building wasn’t just an elaborate roof over the portal. Within the double row of columns were offices and waiting rooms, a restaurant, and the main hall where the portal itself was installed. It was an enormous hall, with a high vaulted roof. Like the main entrance, access to the hall was through two immense and decorative doors. The whole building was constructed in light brown stone and was paved with marble. All the rooms were large and bright. It was the first impression of Eden any visitors would see, and it had been designed accordingly. Normally the building and the gardens around it would be teeming with life, but not today.

  Gusta crouched behind the garden wall with Didi. He was peeping over the wall at the portal building while she waited nervously. Her heart was beating so fast it felt like it was trying to burst out of her chest. She felt so scared, and with good reason.

  When they had left the Tun-Sho-Lok Embassy, there had been no sign of any Keruh Warriors. But here, near to the Eden Ring Network Portal, there were hundreds of them. They seemed to fill the garden area, with many of them coming and going from the entrance to the building. Some of them even ran back up the road toward the city centre. And if that wasn’t bad enough, what made it much worse were the bodies scattered around. Men and women who had been travelling through the portal, aliens from other worlds who had just arrived, police and customs officials who had been on duty, they all lay dead. The garden was full of them, and even the statues had been shot at and many lay broken.

  For Gusta, the sight of the bodies in the gardens and by the entrance to the building was the first true indication that war and disaster had come to Eden. Until then, it had been too remote. She had heard it and seen it on the news broadcasts, she had heard the explosions, seen a ship fly overhead, and even seen Keruh Warriors in the street. She had thought then that she knew what was going on, knew what it all meant. But seeing the bodies and the blood for the first time, smelling the death in the air, changed all that. For the first time in her life, Gusta knew the real meaning of fear and of what it meant to live in the shadow of death.

  Didi crouched down lower and turned to Gusta. “There’s too many
of them,” he whispered. “We’ll have to try and go around them.”

  Gusta kept her lips pressed tight and nodded briskly. She couldn’t talk, she couldn’t even think of opening her mouth, because if she did, she would have let out such a moan of fear, such a scream, that every Keruh in hearing distance would have come rushing toward them.

  Didi smiled encouragingly. He reached out his hand to hold her arm. “Come on,” he whispered. “And keep low.”

  She nodded again, trying to smile back. It didn’t quite come off. They ran away, skirting around the gardens and using the wall to hide them. Darting into a side street, they headed deeper into the city, and soon Gusta and Didi were travelling down once familiar and friendly streets that were now bleak and foreboding.

  At first the streets and the buildings were empty, and only the distant sounds of gunfire and the roar of collapsing buildings gave away any hint of life. Cars were abandoned in the streets, shops were deserted, and the doors and windows on many of the buildings were open. But worse was to come.

  They began to see more bodies.

  Sometimes it was just the odd one, lying in the road as if it were a doll abandoned by a giant child. Other times they found groups of bodies, either all together or scattered about. One scene caused Gusta to cry silently. It was a half burned car, its occupants obviously a family. They were all dead and burned where they sat.

  The farther they went, the worse it got. There were more burned out cars, they began to fill the streets, as if they had all been in a rush hour jam. And among the cars were buses, now just skeletons of metal. Gusta knew there were people inside, but she tried not to look. But what she couldn’t see she could smell.

  Then, as they ran up another street, a Keruh Warrior appeared at the far end. Didi pulled Gusta to the ground. They watched with their hearts in their mouths as the Warrior continued his bobbing path across the street and then disappeared around the corner. From that moment on they hid in the shadows, creeping forward carefully, watching and listening for any signs of movement.

  As they moved farther toward the centre of the city more of the Keruh began to appear. Sometimes, as before, a lone Warrior would run from one street to another or from one building to another. But more often now it was several Warriors that would appear together. They ran along the streets in short columns, their axes and bodies stained red, or they emerged en masse from the entrances of the underground rapid transit system, fanning out across the street until they jumped through broken windows or doorways into the buildings nearby.

  Every time they appeared, Didi would pull Gusta to the ground and they would hide around a corner or underneath an abandoned car. The constant fear began to have an effect on Gusta, and soon the slightest sound, the mere sight of a Keruh Warrior in the distance sent her into fits of trembling. But a far greater fear drove Gusta and Didi on.

  They had to find Breda. They had to find Tipi.

  They came nearer to the more damaged part of the city, nearer to where Breda’s office building was. The bodies were everywhere here. And they weren’t only civilians. Neither were they all Edenites.

  Scattered over the streets and pavements and littered among the ruins of the buildings were the bodies of soldiers and Keruh Warriors. They lay in separate piles at different ends of the street, or all intermixed in one place as if they had all died together. The wounds were brutal, and the smell as offensive to the nose as the sight was to the eyes.

  Among the burned cars and buses were now military vehicles. They were also burned and broken open, smashed bodies hanging from the twisted metal. The signs of battle were everywhere. Large craters pockmarked the streets, and dismembered and burned parts of Keruh Warriors were scattered among the debris.

  Street after street, block after block, the more devastation and death they found and the more hopeless their quest seemed. The air began to fill with smoke; they could smell the fires and feel the heat. Soon they could see the flames rising in the air and hear the fires burning. The streets began to be filled with the debris of collapsed buildings and it was difficult to keep going. Amid the smoke and the heat they had to clamber over concrete and masonry, twisted steel and fallen beams.

  Finally, battered, bruised and dirty, they reached a section of the city where no buildings remained standing at all. After all their efforts, Gusta and Didi Albatus found themselves standing in front of a sea of ruins, smoke all around them.

  As Didi rubbed the smoke and sweat from his eyes and looked around, Gusta collapsed to her knees next to him and burst into tears.

  “It’s gone!” she wailed. “The whole building! The whole street! Breda’s dead, Didi! We’ve lost her!”

  Didi continued to look around at the devastation. “She can’t be dead!” he insisted, his voice raised and almost angry. “She can’t be! It must be the wrong place! Everything is smashed, it would be easy to make a mistake and end up in the wrong street or the wrong block! That’s it! It’s the wrong street!”

  Behind them both, a despairing voice spoke up.

  “It’s the right street. You aren’t lost. Her building’s gone. I know. I’ve searched everywhere.”

  Didi and Gusta turned in surprise and saw Kiki Nomanta slumped against the rubble under a fallen beam. He must have been there all the time. He was dirty and grimy, his clothes were torn, and his fingers bloody.

  Gusta screamed out and scrambled toward him. “Kiki! Have you seen Breda? Were you with her? What happened?”

  Didi was more practical. As Gusta fussed over the forlorn Kiki, demanding to know everything, Didi opened one of their bags and took out a bottle of water. He gave it to Kiki.

  “Tell us what happened,” he asked him.

  Kiki drank gratefully. He hadn’t even realised how thirsty he was. He wiped his mouth after taking another big gulp and stared up at their expectant faces. There was nothing he could tell them that could ease their pain.

  As they sat among the ruins of the once fine buildings, Kiki told Didi and Gusta of his own experiences since the first shots were fired in the square. He told them about the battles, about his flight through the streets, about the evacuation, and, finally, about his search through the ruins for first Breda, and then his father.

  “Everything’s gone. Breda’s office building, Titi’s restaurant, everything.”

  By now, Gusta was crying again, all hope drained from her body. Only Didi had any spirit left in him.

  “You said the military were evacuating all the survivors. Could Breda and your father be among them?”

  Kiki shook his head. “I don’t know.” He paused. “I didn’t see them.” He shook his head again. “I don’t know.”

  Didi grabbed Kiki’s shoulders and shook him. “Where were they taking them?”

  “North...Hilbrok, I think...Yes, Hilbrok.”

  Didi let go of Kiki and stared at Gusta. “They would have to go passed the College of Learning before turning on to the road to Hilbrok. Tipi could already be on his way.”

  Gusta looked up at him, the tiniest glimmer of hope cutting off her sobs. “And Breda?”

  “We have to hope that she’s on the road, too. It’s our only hope. Come on!”

  He began helping Gusta to her feet. Kiki looked at them both. “What are you going to do?”

  Didi looked down at him. “We’re going to find our children, Kiki. That’s the only thing that matters to us. Are you coming with us? Your father could be on one of those trucks, too, you know.”

  Kiki hesitated and then began to climb to his feet. “Of course I’m coming. I want to find Breda as much as you do. And my father. And Tipi. It’s just that—”

  Gusta stopped him by putting her fingers over his mouth. The tears were still in her eyes, but she had stopped crying.

  “Don’t say anymore, Kiki. Don’t break the little hope I have by telling me what’s so plainly obvious that it takes me all my effort to block it out of my mind as it is. We have to keep hoping. If
we don’t, we might as well sit here and let the Keruh find us.”

  Kiki took Gusta’s hand in hers. He nodded sadly. “It’s alright, Gusta. I understand. We live in hope. It’s the only thing we have left, I know. But I wasn’t going to say what you think. What I was going to say was that, if we’re going to find them, we’ve first got to find one of the evacuation points the military set up. We have to get on one of those trucks.”

  Didi wasn’t so sure. “What, and let the soldiers send us somewhere else? No. We’ll steal a car. We saw lots of them on our way here. And there are even more left undamaged in the suburbs around the Embassy.”

  “The Keruh shoot at everything that moves,” Kiki pointed out. “Only the military will know the safe routes out of the city. I heard them say they were providing air cover. We won’t last five minutes in a car on our own. The only way out of Jutlam City is on one of those trucks.”

  Gusta remembered the burned out car with the bodies inside. “Listen to him, Didi. He’s right. The Keruh will soon hear or see us driving down one of those empty streets. We have to do as he says.”

  Didi sighed. “Alright then. But where do we go? Where are these evacuation points?”

  “I know where there’s one,” Kiki told them. “Come on.”

  By the time Kiki had led Gusta and Didi back to the hospital, the square was almost deserted. All the people, doctors, nurses and medics had gone. The square and streets were littered with used dressings, bandages and other medical tools and equipment, even belongings that had been dropped or cast aside lay abandoned. They were the only trace of all those people who had passed through before. The hospital itself was silent and empty, its occupants evacuated. In the square outside, the tents had already come down and the few soldiers that were left were packing up. There was only one streamlined truck left in the square, the number fifty-seven painted on the side of it. Soldiers were rushing about throwing the last of their equipment into the back of it. Everything got slung aboard: Radios, medical equipment, chairs, camp beds, the last of the tents, anything that was useful. A Corporal was overseeing it all. When he saw the late arrivals he quickly ran over to them. His green battle armour was stained red in places and there was a dent in his helmet. His face was burned red by the sun and he seemed annoyed to see them, but his voice was filled with urgency rather than anger.

  “Where the hell have you come from? Are there any more of you?”

  Kiki tried to explain. “I was here before. I brought someone with me from my office building near Government Square—”

  “Didn’t you get in a truck with the others?”

  “No. I went back for someone else—”

  The Corporal looked horrified. “You did what?!”

  “I’ve been searching for someone—”

  Now the Corporal was angry. He put his hands on his hips and told him off. “What did we tell you about searching? Didn’t we tell you not to go wandering about in the city on your own? Didn’t we tell you it wasn’t safe? Are you deaf or just suicidal?”

  Didi finally pointed out the obvious. “If Kiki hadn’t done what he did, we’d still be out there.”

  The Corporal looked at Didi and Gusta and gave in. He sighed and took a deep breath. “Alright. At least you’re here now. Five minutes later and you’d have had it.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “Get in the truck. Now!”

  The Corporal didn’t wait to see if they complied. He ran back to the truck and jumped into the cab next to the driver. The engine immediately roared into life, blue smoke coming from the twin exhausts above the cab roof. It was quite clear that when the Corporal had said “now” he meant “now.” Even the other soldiers were rushing to climb aboard. Kiki started to run straight away, and Didi grabbed Gusta’s hand and pulled her forward. They ran to the back of the truck and quickly began to climb aboard with the last of the soldiers. Two of them helped Kiki and Gusta as Didi threw in their holdalls and climbed up behind them. The last soldier clambered aboard and pulled up the tailgate. As soon as it was latched in place, he thumped the side of the truck. With a sudden lurch, the truck surged forward.

  Didi and Gusta ended up sitting next to one another among the packed supplies and equipment, their holdalls at their feet. Kiki sat opposite them. The other soldiers sat where they could, one even on the floor. The truck was moving fast and everything heaved from side to side as the driver took a corner at speed, the tyres squealing.

  Didi looked across at one of the soldiers. “Your driver’s in a hurry!” he called out.

  The soldier nodded. “Has to be! The last radio report said the Keruh were heading this way!”

  Gusta didn’t like the implications of that. She tried to keep calm, and having Didi hold and squeeze her hand helped. But her fears kept growing. She kept thinking about the dead family in the car. She couldn’t get the image out of her head.

  “We’re going to be alright, aren’t we?” she asked anxiously.

  The soldier sitting on the floor pushed back the rim of his helmet. “Only with a good bit of luck!” he replied.

  Gusta looked even more worried, and Kiki quickly said, “I thought you had safe routes out of the city all prepared, with air cover and everything.”

  “We did,” another soldier replied. “And most of the trucks have got out that way. But we’re the last, and we’re late. Air cover is all gone and the armoured divisions are moving back. It’s going to be tight. So if you believe in any gods, pray!”

  Didi turned to Gusta. He wanted to say something comforting to her, to put her mind at rest, but he couldn’t think of anything. It didn’t matter. To his surprise she just smiled back at him and rested her head against his shoulder. She had looped her arm through his, and now she gripped it tightly with both hands. Didi put his arm around her. He held her tightly, kissing her on the head. There was nothing they could do now but wait.

  The truck hurtled down the street, swerving to avoid the craters, wrecks and rubble that lay in its path. At the end of each city block, the driver threw the wheel over and the truck skidded around the corner. The Corporal had a city map on his lap with a complicated red route marked out on it, and he pointed the direction at each turn. He was taking no chances. Despite the deserted nature of the streets they travelled, he never stayed on any of them beyond the first intersection. It was a wise precaution.

  They drove down street after street. Always it was the same: Silence, debris, smashed vehicles, bodies, burning buildings. Everywhere there was damage and desolation. But the city wasn’t empty.

  The truck roared up another street. It had just gone passed a damaged building when a Keruh Warrior emerged from inside. He just climbed out through a broken window and instantly raised his rifle. He fired just as the truck skidded around the next corner and the laser blast hit the wall of the building opposite.

  The laser blast didn’t go unnoticed inside the truck. Didi felt Gusta jump in his arms, and the soldiers grabbed their rifles and knelt by the tailgate. One of them lifted the canvass flap and hitched it up. Now they could all see out. Didi could see too. The street was empty behind them, the last corner they had turned falling rapidly behind. The soldiers kept looking out, their rifles resting on the tailgate. They were all anxious, nervous, staring back down the street expectantly. The engine raced and the truck wove from side to side. It seemed to take an awful long time to reach the next intersection. Still the street behind them was empty. The driver began to drop down the gears for the next turn. Three Keruh Warriors rushed out from the corner at the far end of the street behind them. The soldiers all started firing, and then the truck lurched and skidded around the next corner.

  Didi didn’t see if any of the Keruh were hit, but two laser beams whistled passed the back of the truck and blew masonry from a building near them. The blasts were so close that some of the dust and debris actually landed in the back of the truck. Gusta almost screamed, but she was so frightened that it came out more like a wail. Didi
squeezed her even tighter. She squeezed back, her eyes clamped shut.

  Gusta was hiding in the dark, keeping the noise and the sight of the world out of her mind. It wasn’t working. She heard every gunshot, felt every lurch and shake of the truck, and felt the warm breath of the dust blow over her. She was terrified, terrified of what might happen at the very next moment. She didn’t want to be like them, she didn’t want to end up a charred corpse in a burned out vehicle. She wanted to see Tipi and Breda again. She wanted them all to be together, alive, safe, and happy.

  She wanted it to be yesterday.

  The driver accelerated, going back up the gears. One of the soldiers clambered forward, staggering from side to side as the truck wove back and forth across the street. He banged on the wall of the truck behind the cab. Each impact made Gusta jump in Didi’s arms. “Get a move on!” the soldier shouted to those in the cab. “They’re on to us!”

  Didi was fixing his eyes on the view out of the back of the truck. He was waiting to see if the Warriors would appear as before, or if they would give up the chase. They couldn’t outrun the truck, could they?

  In answer, several Keruh Warriors jumped out of another ruined building halfway down the street behind them. They jumped out of the holes in the walls and slithered over the rubble. Kiki shouted a warning almost at the same time as the soldiers kneeling by the tailgate opened fire. This time Didi saw one of the Keruh fall, his axe knocked from his large hand. But the others had raised their rifles, and as another Warrior fell to the soldiers’ fire, Didi saw the bright light of the laser beams surge toward them.

  It all happened in an instant. The beams lashed out, shooting across the distance in no time at all. They came straight at the truck. One hit the canvass cover. It shot right along the length of the side of the truck like lightening, burning a line in the fabric that parted and smoked. The second beam came through the open back of the truck. It went over the heads of the soldiers kneeling at the tailgate, passed between Kiki and Didi, and hit the front wall behind the cab with a bang and a flash. Or it would have done if something hadn’t been in the way. The soldier who had banged on the wall before was hit full in the chest by the blast. The impact took him off his feet. The laser penetrated his armour and came out the other side. Blood splashed on the wall of the truck as he tumbled to the floor.

  This time Gusta did scream.

  One of the soldiers shouted, “Get down!”

  Didi pulled Gusta to the floor and lay on top of her; Kiki was also on the floor. The truck wove from side to side more violently, and another laser shot through the back of the truck and hit one of the camp beds piled up on one side. It must have burned through the webbing that had kept the camp beds and tents tied down, because they all suddenly tumbled free. Kiki, Didi, and Gusta were suddenly buried.

  The truck wove and swerved down the street toward the next intersection. The soldiers at the back kept up a barrage of fire that peppered the street behind them. It wasn’t an accurate fire, but the force of it was enough to send two more Warriors tumbling. Those that were not hit ran forward, their rifles resting on the shafts of their raised axes as they fired. The truck was hit again, a beam going through the tailgate. One of the soldiers screamed out and fell back, clutching at his leg.

  The next corner came up; the driver changed down the gears and threw the wheel over. Another beam hit the truck low down at the back as it went round the corner. There was a loud bang as the tyre burst. The truck shuddered, careered across the street, and then ploughed into the foyer of a building in an explosion of glass and debris. But still it didn’t stop.

  The building the truck went into was a hotel, and the foyer was ornately decorated and the furnishings were plush. The truck destroyed it all in a few seconds of mayhem. Chairs were crumpled under its wheels, the reception desk was shattered into fragments of red wood, and the rich red carpet was ripped up and shredded. Glass flew everywhere. With a dull and heavy thump, the truck finally came to rest embedded in the wall behind what was left of the reception desk. It rocked on its suspension and the engine died.

  It seemed to take forever for all the glass and fragments to come to rest, but finally silence returned and all was still. But not for long.

  The cab door flew open and the Corporal fell out. He landed on his back and rolled over.

  “Everybody out!” he shouted. “Head for the stairwell! Move it!”

  Didi looked up from underneath a tent. One of the soldiers kicked down the tailgate and jumped out. Another began to throw the tents and camp beds out of the truck as he helped to uncover everyone underneath.

  “Come on!” he shouted to Didi. “If you’re in this truck in two minutes time, you’ll be in it forever! Come on!”

  Didi grabbed Gusta and pulled her up. Kiki threw another tent aside and grabbed for the holdalls. One of the soldiers shouted to him.

  “Leave everything! Come on!”

  For a moment, Kiki stopped. Then Didi shouted out, “There’s food and medicine in there! We might need them!”

  The soldier nodded. “Okay! But hurry up!”

  Kiki took both holdalls and jumped out of the truck. Didi had managed to bring Gusta to the back. Kiki dropped the holdalls and helped her down. Another soldier was helping the man with the wounded leg. He could only hop hurriedly as he was helped toward the stairwell. They were all out and running around the truck when the first laser blast hit it. The impact blew bits of wood and metal flying. Didi kept his hand over Gusta’s head as they ran, the fragments showering over them. She was screaming again. It was just one continuous scream as they ran. One of the soldiers turned and fired into the street passed the truck. In reply a laser blast knocked him off his feet. He hit the floor and lay still, a hole burned through his green armour.

  The Corporal was waiting by the stairwell as they all ran through.

  “Come on! Come on!”

  As the last of them went by, the Corporal pulled the pin from a grenade and tossed it under the truck. Then he turned and ran up the stairs.

  Four Keruh Warriors ran into the foyer. One jumped into the back of the truck while the other three moved around it. The grenade went off, taking the fuel tank with it. The truck and the whole of the foyer erupted in a ball of flame that blew out across the street. The blast also blew in the door to the stairwell, and fire and smoke billowed in and rose up the stairs.

  Didi heard the blast and felt the building shake. He looked down as he ran up the stairs with Gusta. All he could see was a dense cloud of black smoke billowing up toward him. Somewhere under the smoke there was fire. He could see the flickering of the yellow flames. But the smoke hid everything.

  The Corporal was shouting at everyone. “You civilians! Keep going! Get as high as you can! Pedomoner! How’s that leg?”

  The soldier with the wounded leg shouted back, “Bloody killing me!”

  “Good! That means it’s not so bad! Move faster!”

  They kept on going, passing floor after floor, gasping and sweating. The Corporal wouldn’t let them stop for a second. He kept looking back down the stairwell all the time, another grenade ready in his hand. And always he urged them on.

  “Keep going! Keep going! Pedomoner, keep up!”

  Gusta had stopped screaming. She had no breath for anything else other than climbing the stairs. It was such a long climb, taken at such speed, that all the previous terror was driven from her mind. Now all she felt was exhaustion. Her lungs were aching, her heart pounding, and the muscles of her legs felt that they were going to snap at any second. By the time they reached the top, she couldn’t run, she couldn’t walk, and she couldn’t even stand.

  The Corporal pointed to the nearest rooms. “In there! All of you! Pedomoner! Watch the street! And keep your head down! Altus, Eastomoner! Take station by the stairwell! If anything moves, drop a grenade on it! The rest of you, get inside!”

  Two of the soldiers took station by the door of the stairwell, and one of
them crawled forward and lay on his stomach peeping over the edge. Pedomoner and the remaining two soldiers went into the room with Kiki, Didi and Gusta. They were all breathing hard, and Didi and Gusta dropped onto a sofa in complete exhaustion. Kiki wasn’t much better. He dropped the holdalls he had been carrying all this time and just collapsed on the floor. The two soldiers and the Corporal did the same. Pedomoner hopped over to the window and dropped down in front of it. He pulled a small pair of binoculars from his tunic, and placing them to his eyes, he peeped over the sill and looked down.

  The Corporal called over to him, his voice now lower. “What do you see, Pedomoner?” he gasped.

  “There’s a couple...of Warriors in the street,” Pedomoner whispered back in between pants. “They don’t seem to be...doing anything...”

  “Keep out of view...they have good eyesight.”

  Kiki raised his head. “What do you think...they’re doing?”

  “Watching...waiting. They’re smart, but with a bit of luck...they might think we all bought it...in the truck.”

  Pedomoner said, “They’re moving away. They’re going up the street, about six of them now...Yes, they’re definitely giving up. They’re going in a line, a column, all walking in step.”

  “Okay! We get the picture. Keep a look out. I’ll go and tell Altus and Eastomoner.”

  The Corporal got to his feet and went out the door. Pedomoner lowered the binoculars and looked over his shoulder.

  “Did I hear one of you say you had medical supplies?” he asked Didi.

  Didi nodded. “Yes,” he said tiredly. He leaned forward and pointed. “In that bag.”

  Kiki reached out and got it. He sat up and opened it. As he began to search inside, Gusta now came to life.

  “Here, I’ll do it,” she said. Didi looked at her with a mixture of surprise and worry. She squeezed his arm. “I’ll be alright now. I’m okay.” She smiled at him and Didi reluctantly let go of her. She crawled off the sofa, and Didi watched her as she took the first-aid kit from the holdall and went over to the wounded soldier.

  Gusta looked at the singed hole in the armour covering the soldier’s thigh. “You’ll have to take that off,” she told him.

  Pedomoner nodded, took another quick glance out of the window with his binoculars, and then reached down to unclip the armour from his leg. The laser beam had gone straight through, the heat cauterising the wound. As a result there wasn’t much blood. Gusta cleaned the wound and bound it with bandages from the kit. Finally she took a syringe from a sealed plastic bag and stabbed him in the leg with it.

  “That should stop you getting anything nasty,” she told him.

  “Thanks,” he said. “It feels better already.”

  One of the other soldiers said, “That’s because you’re sitting down!”

  Pedomoner smiled. He raised the binoculars to his eyes once more and looked out the window.

  Gusta went back to Didi on the sofa. The Corporal had come back in the room and was sitting on the floor with the other holdall on his lap. He had pulled out one of the bottles of water and was looking farther inside.

  “You pack a mean take-away,” he was saying to Didi.

  “That’s because I’m a cook by trade,” Didi told him.

  The Corporal looked up. “How much food have you got in here?”

  Gusta looked at Didi. “Enough to share?” she suggested.

  Didi nodded. “Of course.”

  The soldiers took turns on watch at the window and at the stairs so that everyone had the chance to eat. For some reason, Gusta was actually hungry. She didn’t expect to be, but when Didi offered her one of his special triple sandwiches, she couldn’t resist. Maybe it was the familiarity, maybe it was just hunger. She didn’t really know. But she ate and drank, and she felt better for it.

  There turned out to be more than enough food to go round. Didi had never been shy when it came to food; it wasn’t in his nature. For him, a packed lunch put a sit down meal at an expensive restaurant in the shade. It wasn’t just the quantity either. Didi took pride in his work, and the soldiers ate better that day than they had ever done. There weren’t just sandwiches in the holdall. There were cold meats, cooked meats, pies, flans, cakes, bread, sweets, everything. And all of it fresh and homemade.

  Kiki had smiled tearfully. “You always were an excellent cook. I remember how Dad moaned so when you left.”

  It was a remark that left Gusta in equal tears. She thought about Tipi and Breda, and about Titi Nomanta. Were they all gone? She had to hope that they weren’t. But what were they going to do now?

  It was a question that Didi asked.

  The Corporal chewed on a leg of roasted meat. “We’ll do the only thing we can do. We’ll wait until its dark, and then creep out on foot.”

  Didi, Gusta and Kiki all looked worried. And Kiki said, “Is that wise?”

  Pedomoner answered him. “It’ll be okay, don’t worry. The Corp’s right. It’ll be safer than using a truck. And we’ll have a much better chance on foot in the dark than during the day.”

  The Corporal nodded. “It’ll take longer, but we can move quietly and carefully.” He waved the leg of meat at them. “I promise you, you stick with us, do as we do, and you can still get out of here.”

  Evacuating the students from the College of Learning took far longer than Colonel Falamunus had planned for. By the time the last of the trucks were being filled it was getting dark, and the sound of distant artillery fire had grown alarmingly loud.

  “Get these children moving!” he called out to his men.

  Tipi and Bibi were among the last of the students to be bundled into one of the trucks. Already inside were two teachers and another thirty students. The soldiers latched up the tailgate and lowered the canvas flaps. One of them then smacked the side of the truck. Immediately, the truck lurched forward.

  Teachers and students stared at one another in the dim light. None of them spoke.

  Tipi was sat next to the tailgate right at the back of the truck with Bibi sat next to him on the same side. Sitting opposite him was the same girl he had seen crying before, the girl from the classroom. She was sitting right in front of him, and he had a really good view of her face, body and legs. Fortunately she had her eyes closed, and Tipi used the opportunity to look at her for quite a while. She was definitely pretty, with a nice body and nice legs. He could see her knees pressed together under her dress as she sat squashed against the tailgate. Yes, she was nice to look at, but she always seemed to be angry or upset. At the moment she just seemed upset, as if she might cry again. It was a shame. Tipi had always liked girls with fair hair. He would have liked to speak to her, to get to know her more, although he imagined he would have had little success. He didn’t have a girlfriend at the College, and after what had happened today, he probably wouldn’t get the chance now. No, it wasn’t the right time to be thinking about girlfriends.

  Bibi broke into his thoughts. He leaned across Tipi, raised the canvas flap and looked out. Tipi looked out with him. All they could see was the front of another truck following behind them, the number ninety-five on its bonnet. Bibi lowered the flap.

  “Oh, well,” he said, sitting up straight again. “I’ve never been to Hilbrok.”

  The girl sitting opposite to Tipi had opened her eyes, and now her expression was as angry and as upset as ever.

  “Is that all you can say?” she said to Bibi. “Our world is coming to an end, we might never see our parents again, and all you can say is ‘I’ve never been to Hilbrok?’”

  “Shush, Kelandra!” one of the teachers said. “Quiet now! This is no time to argue!”

  The girl continued to scowl at Bibi, the tears welling up in her eyes, but she kept quiet and silence returned.

  Tipi now couldn’t keep his eyes off her. So that was her name, Kelandra. She caught him looking at her, and her return stare froze him out. He sighed and looked at Bibi. Bibi just shrugged.

/>   The truck roared on in the growing darkness, its occupants slowly drifting into sleep, tears, or just boredom as the uneventful journey continued.

  The truck that carried the students and teachers from the College of Learning was one of many trucks that now sped north along the road to Hilbrok. There the survivors would be safe, as Hilbrok was far away from Elengrad in the east, Jutlam City to the south and the other scenes of battle at Kalahar and Nemen, which were even farther to the east. Hilbrok nestled quietly and safely in the foothills of the Brok Ridge Mountains, but to reach it the trucks would first pass close to the ever-spreading line of the Keruh Host...