Monsters of Men (58 page)

Follow!
Acorn answers–

HOLD!
they yell together–

And I’m nearly knocked off his back by an impossible burst of speed–

A burst of speed that can only be tearing the muscles in his legs, that can only be bursting his lungs–

But we’re doing it–

I look back–

We’re outrunning the flood–

[T
ODD
]

VIOLA!
I think right at him–

Hitting him with all the rage that she’s in so much danger, all the rage that I don’t know what’s happened to her, all the rage that she might be–

All
that
rage–

VIOLA!

And the Mayor flinches and rocks back on his heels–

But doesn’t fall–

“I told you you’ve got stronger, Todd,” he says, steadying himself and giving me a smile. “Not strong enough, though.”

And there’s a flash of Noise in my head so hard I fall back over a bed and crumple to the floor, the world reduced to nothing but the Noise echoing thru me,
YER NOTHING YER NOTHING YER NOTHING
and everything shrinks to just that sound–

But then I think
Viola–

I think of her out there–

And I push it back–

I feel my hands on the floor–

I use them to rise to my knees–

I lift my head–

To see the Mayor’s surprised face only a metre or so away, coming towards me, something in his hand–

“Goodness,” he says, sounding almost cheerful. “Even stronger than I thought.”

And I know another blast’s coming so I do it the old-fashioned way before he can gather himself–

I jump at him, pushing hard with my feet and leaping out–

He ain’t expecting it and I hit him about waist-height, knocking us back into the screens–

(where the river’s still shooting down the valley–)

(where Viola ain’t nowhere to be seen–)

And he slams into ’em with a grunt, my weight against him, and I pull back my fist to punch him–

And there’s a light tap on my neck–

Just light as a touch–

And there’s something sticking to me and I put my hand to it–

A bandage–

The thing he was carrying–

“Sleep tight,” he grins down at me–

And I fall to the floor and the screens full of water are the last things I see–

{VIOLA}

“Acorn!” I shout into his mane–

But he ignores me, just keeps up his insane run, Angharrad, too, with Bradley up ahead–

And it’s working, we’ve reached a curve in the road and the river behind us is still coming, still full of wreckage and trees–

But it’s slowing more, lowering its height some, keeping more to the riverbed–

And still the horses run–

Down the road and away, a rushing fog reaching out to us, its tendrils licking at the horses’ tails–

And the river still coming–

But getting farther behind–

“We’re doing it!” Bradley shouts back to me–

“A little farther, Acorn,” I say between his ears. “We’re almost out of it.”

He doesn’t say anything back, just keeps running–

The road is becoming thicker with trees, half of them burning, slowing down the river even more, and I recognize where we’re getting to. We’re nearing the old house of healing where I was kept for so long, the house of healing I ran from–

And found the hilltop with the communications tower–

The hilltop where the army’s marching somewhere ahead of us–

Maybe already even there–

“I know a back way!” I shout. I point up the road, to a little farm off to the right, up a hill with a forest above it where the fire hasn’t reached. “Up there!”

Girl colt
,
I hear Acorn say in acknowledgement and the horses turn for it, skirting the corner and shooting up the drive, heading for the narrow path I know is there through the woods–

There’s a huge
crash
behind us as the river comes pounding down the road we just left, sloshing water and trees and debris everywhere, dowsing the fire but drowning everything else, surging up the drive behind us, swallowing the little farmhouse–

But we’re in the woods and branches are smacking my face and I hear Bradley cry out once but he doesn’t let go of Angharrad–

And it’s up a hill to a flat–

And then another uphill–

And through some shrubs–

And then we’re sailing into the clearing, hooves thumping into the crowd, scattering screaming people this way and that, taking in the scene in a flash–

Seeing the probe cameras still projected on the sides of tents–

They know what’s been happening–

They know what’s coming–

“Viola!” I hear shouted in surprise as the horses race through the camp.

“Get people off the drive up the hill, Wilf! The river–!”

“There’s an army!” Jane shouts next to him, pointing across the clearing to the entrance–

Where we can see Captain Tate leading what must be nearly the entire army–

Marching up the hill–

Their guns raised, ready to attack–

Cartloads of artillery ready to blow the hilltop to pieces–

(THE SKY)

The Sky hears everything.

I knew that before but I did not really
know
it until now. He hears every secret hidden in every heart of the Land. He hears every detail, important and nonsensical, loving and murderous. He hears every wish of every child, every memory of every old crone, every desire and feeling and opinion of every voice in the Land.

He is the Land.

I
am the Land.

And the Land must survive,
the Source continues at me as we ride east over the hills, fast on our battlemores.

The Land
is
surviving,
I show back to him.
And will continue to do so under the leadership of the Sky.

I can see what you’re planning and you must not–

I turn round to him sharply.
It is not your place to tell the Sky what he must do.

The fog and the falling ice combined have damped down some of the fires in the forests that surround the valley as we continue on. Those to the north still rage and I can see in the voices of the Land that they will
continue
to rage despite the river. Numbered among the damage the leader of the Clearing has done will be a blackened and scorched country.

But the south is rockier. There are paths through the hills where the trees are thin and the brush is low, and the fires do not burn so hard.

And so we march in the southern hills.

We march east.

All of us. Every member of the Land that has lived through the blaze, every Pathway, every soldier, every mother, father and child.

We march east in pursuit of the Clearing.

We march east to the far hilltop.

Our weapons are ready, weapons that drove them back before, weapons that killed them in their hundreds, weapons that will destroy them now–

Then I hear the voice of a soldier riding up next to me–

He is bringing me a weapon of my own–

For the Sky must not enter battle unarmed.

I thank the soldier as I take it from him. It is an acid rifle of the Land, not unlike the rifle the Knife himself carried.

Not unlike the rifle I promised that I would use one day to–

I open my voice to the Land.

I summon them again.

I summon them all.

We are marching east,
I show them.
The Land that survives is marching towards the Clearing.

To what end?
the Source demands again.

I do not answer him.

And we march faster–

{VIOLA}

“Viola, stop!” Bradley calls after me–

But I’m already riding forward, almost without having to tell a weary Acorn to do it–

We gallop through the people on the hilltop as they start to scream and run from the approaching army, some of them raising the guns they got from the Answer, the mistresses racing for their own larger weapon stock–

War is coming, right here in insane miniature. The world is falling to pieces and the people here are going to waste their last moments fighting each other–

“VIOLA!” I hear–

It’s Lee, at the edge of the crowd, turning his head to read the Noise of the men around him, trying to get a picture of what’s happening, trying to stop me–

But I won’t be responsible for another single person dying, not if I can help it–

This started with the missile I fired, the decision
I
made to involve us in this war, a decision I’ve spent all the time since trying to rectify, and what’s making me angrier than even the fire or the flood or Todd being flown out of here by the Mayor, is that even when peaceful cooperation is the
obvious
thing, the
only
thing that will keep any of us alive–

There are
still
people who won’t make that choice.

I pull up Acorn at the front of the advancing soldiers,
forcing
Captain Tate to stop.

“PUT THAT GUN DOWN!” I find myself screaming. “
RIGHT NOW!
”

But he just raises his rifle.

And points it at my head.

“And then what?” I shout. “There’s no more city below and you’re going to kill off the only people who can help you rebuild it?’

“Get out of my way, little girl,” Captain Tate says, a faint smile on his face.

And my heart sinks as I see how easily he’ll kill me.

But I lift my gaze to the army behind him, to the men readying the artillery to fire.

“What happens after this attack, huh?” I shout at them all. “You all march to the ocean to meet your certain death as a million Spackle cut you down? Are those your
orders
?”

“As a matter of fact,” Captain Tate says. And he cocks his rifle.

“Did you come to this planet to be soldiers?” I’m still shouting and now I’m also shouting at the hilltop behind me. The Answer and its remnants, the people gathered here, the ones picking up their own weapons. “Did you? Is that what any of you wanted? Or did you come for a better life?”

I look back to Captain Tate.

“Did you come to make paradise?” I say. “Or die because one man told you to?”

“He’s a great man,” Captain Tate says, looking down the barrel of his rifle.

“He’s a killer,” I say. “If he can’t control something, he destroys it. He sent Captain O’Hare and his men to their deaths. I saw it with my own eyes.”

There’s murmuring in the army behind him at this, especially as Bradley rides up, opening his Noise to the sight of Captain O’Hare and his men on the road. I’m close enough to Captain Tate to see a bead of sweat coming down his temple, even in the cold, even in the snow.

“He’ll do the same to you,” I say. “He’ll do the same to all of you.”

Captain Tate’s face looks like he’s fighting with himself and I begin to wonder if he
can
disobey the Mayor. If the Mayor hasn’t done something to–

“NO!” he shouts. “I have my orders!”

“Viola–” I hear Lee shout from close by–

“Lee, get back!” I yell–

“I HAVE MY ORDERS!” Captain Tate screams–

And there’s a gunshot–

(THE SKY)

The fog grows thicker, twining itself with the smoke and steam rising from the valley below us.

But fog does not stop the Land. We simply open our voices wider, passing the small steps in front of us along and along and along, each to each, until a whole picture of the march opens in front of us and our own limited physical sight in the fog becomes a single walking vision.

The Land is not blind. The Land marches.

The Sky at its front.

I can feel the Land gathering behind me, streaming in from north and south, winding their way through the burning forests and the hilltops around the valley, coming together to march in their hundreds, then their thousands and beyond. The voice of the Sky reaches back and back and back, passed along through the Pathways and the Land itself, through forests I have never seen, across lands unknown by any of the Clearing, reaching voices of the Land that sound strangely accented and different–