Invasion [Sentinel/Guide] - Section 54

Seven or eight hands reached out all at once. Several had taken on the forms of beasts: a tiger’s heavy paws, the feathered wings of a gyrfalcon, a wolf’s sharp claws…

Shen Fei, standing behind Lin Yuan, gave a pointed cough. Only then did the sentries come to their senses, hurriedly hiding their furry arms behind their backs.

The last Guide who had come here had been frightened off by the sentries’ half-beast forms.

“It’s all right,” Lin Yuan said, handing the little lion, bundled in her clothes, to the short-haired female sentry. “You can have her.”

The female sentry nicknamed Little Bird looked delighted. She held out her arms, which were covered in broad, pure-white feathers, and gently took the kitten-soft lion into her hands. Then she carefully sheltered it beneath her white wings.

From her appearance, Little Bird’s spirit companion was probably a gyrfalcon, the pure-white ruler of the skies. Yet her companions called her Little Bird.

Lin Yuan found it rather amusing.

“When Captain Lei wakes up and sees his spirit companion has gotten this small, he’ll never hear the end of it from us.” Little Bird said the words, but tears slipped down her cheeks. Four or five towering sentries gathered around her, their eyes reddening too.

“Don’t mind them. They’re a bunch of rough soldiers with no manners at all.” Shen Fei’s eyes were red as well, but she was beaming as she invited Lin Yuan to see the room they had prepared for her.

Without her coat, Lin Yuan wore only a short top that left her slender neck and pale arms bare. She had barely reached the doorway when she sneezed.

A sentry hurried out after her and called to her.

It was the broad-built sentry with thick brows and round eyes.

Big Tiger held out a standard-issue jacket for female sentries. One hand rubbed the back of his head as he offered it, looking terribly embarrassed. “Your clothes are wet. This is Little Bird’s. D-do you want to put it on for now?”

Afraid Lin Yuan might be offended, he quickly added, “Don’t worry, it’s clean. She washed it and hasn’t worn it since.”

Lin Yuan said nothing. She simply took the jacket, shook it open, and draped it over her shoulders.

[Actually, this place is pretty nice.]

[There are big cats and little cats.]

[And little birds and things like that.]

[They all seem to like us.]

[I kind of like it here.]

[It would be nice if that fish were here, too.]

[The world is so big. Why do you keep going on about that fish?]

Amid the tentacles’ incessant chatter, Lin Yuan turned to look back.

The big sentry was still standing by the doorway. He bowed to her, bending at a precise ninety-degree angle, and had yet to straighten up.

Lin Yuan touched the jacket on her shoulders.

She felt, perhaps, a little happy.

Chapter 25

Early in the morning, Lin Yuan stood by the window of her single room, holding a steaming enamel mug as she looked out at the street.

The dormitory was old and run-down. Paint peeled from the wooden door and window frames, and the bed was a narrow wooden cot. But the room had clearly been cleaned thoroughly in advance, and all the furnishings had been replaced. The view was good, too: all the way to the misty sea in the distance.

The sentries had brought her hot water first thing that morning. The tea leaves had been a special gift from Little Bird the day before. She had said she’d flown to a sheer cliff to pick the wild tea herself.

Back at the White Tower Academy, hot water had been available all day, and the housekeeper brewed excellent black tea.

But for some reason, Lin Yuan thought the steaming cup of wild tea in her hands tasted much better. Perhaps things picked from sheer cliffs really were different.

Lin Yuan wiped the thin mist from the window with her sleeve and looked down. The residents near the outpost lived packed tightly together. All kinds of shabby little houses crowded against one another, and a wall rose in the distance, enclosing the people and the small sentry tower within its high ramparts.

Though it was still early, the nearby streets were already lively.

A ragged little boy clutched a loaf of bread to his chest and darted out of a bakery like a rabbit. The baker’s wife chased after him with a broom, cursing him all the way.

[Hunger, fear, anger.]

A few sentries passed beneath the window. Something one of the men in front said made Little Bird furious. Powerful white wings appeared, and the woman with the face of an eagle beat her wings and knocked him to the ground in one swift move. The sky’s mighty ruler pinned his neck to the ground with her powerful talons.

“I give up! I give up!” The defeated male sentry, riled up enough to sprout a lizardlike tail, whipped it against the ground as he begged for mercy.

They looked as if they were fighting, but they were actually having fun. People sometimes used completely opposite ways to express how they felt.

[Happiness, ease, delight.]

The noisy seaside morning was alive with the bustle of everyday life.

All kinds of emotions drifted up to her.

From upstairs, Lin Yuan watched the lively street through the glass. She understood and could see every joy, anger, sorrow, and fear.

And yet, so often, she felt just as she did now: separated by a pane of glass, forever a spectator on a balcony.

Lin Yuan slung her backpack over her shoulders and hung the gun she had gotten aboard the airship at her lower back. She checked her ammunition as well. The compact Scorpion submachine gun weighed only about one and a half kilograms, making it well suited to a Guide and not too much of a burden.

She had worked out the pattern aboard the airship.

The most efficient way to fight was to combine mental attacks with physical ones: effective, capable of taking on large numbers, and less tiring.

Lin Yuan regretted that, but there was nothing else for it. She couldn’t expect to run into a Sentry as powerful and perfectly in sync with her as that one whenever she needed one.

Whatever she did, she would have to rely on herself.

After gathering her weapons, Lin Yuan went downstairs and stopped by the treatment room to check on the injured man from the day before.

It was still very early. The lights in the treatment room were dim, and white noise played in the background—the sound of wind rippling through grasslands.

Someone had taken good care of Rachel in the hospital bed. His tousled blond hair had been combed smooth, and his complexion looked much better. The muzzle strapped over his mouth had been removed, along with the heavy chain that had been locked around his neck. Only the restraints remained, to keep him from hurting himself.

He still looked fragile, but at least he looked somewhat human now—not like a dying beast chained to a bed.

At that moment, Rachel woke. His gaze was unfocused at first; after a moment, a little life returned to his eyes, and his weak, bewildered stare fell on Lin Yuan outside the window.

He was a Sentry whose mind had been corrupted by a mutant creature, and Lin Yuan herself had just violently destroyed most of his mental landscape. She wasn’t sure what she ought to do.

She desperately tried to recall how Shu Jingtong and Nicole behaved, then did her best to imitate them, managing a smile.

She waved at the Sentry in the hospital bed and gave him a gentle smile.

Outside the outpost, the early morning air was cool. The sea breeze carried a faint fishy smell, and mud covered much of the street. Lin Yuan lifted her foot to inspect the muck stuck to her sole, then kept walking.

The people who lived here were nothing like those in the Imperial Capital.

Most wore patched clothes, had sun-darkened skin, and paid little attention to their hair.

A pale-skinned, slender young woman like Lin Yuan walking along the road in the early morning quickly attracted some unsavory looks.

A few sleazy men trailed after her, laughing and joking. At the mouth of an alley, they blocked her way.

“Where’d a pretty girl like you come from? Your big brothers here have a few things they’d like to say to you.”

Lin Yuan calmly followed them into the alley. A short while later, she emerged just as calmly, smoothing wrinkles from her clothes that weren’t there.

[Ugh. I feel like throwing up.]

[I need to wash my hands.]

[Don’t give me this job next time.]