Monsters of Men (8 page)

And I’m back in the monastery, back where the Spackle bodies were piled up–

And it don’t feel so thrilling no more–

“CHASE THEM UP THE HILL!”
the Mayor shouts to his soldiers.
“MAKE THEM SORRY THEY WERE EVER BORN!”

{VIOLA}

“It’s finishing,” I say. “The battle’s ending.”

Bradley let the projection play normally again, and we all saw the arrival of the rest of the army.

Saw the second explosion.

Saw the Spackle turn and try to run back up on themselves, over the wreckage of the bottom of the hill, chaos sending some of them falling into the river, into the road below, into the battle where they didn’t live for long.

The amount of death is making me feel physically sick, throbbing along with my ankles, and I have to lean against Acorn as everyone else argues.

“If he can do
that,
” Mistress Coyle says, “then he’s even more dangerous to you than I’ve been saying. Is
that
who you want in charge of the world you’re about to join?”

“I don’t know,” Bradley says. “Are you the only alternative?”

“Bradley,” Simone says, “she’s got a point.”

“She
does
?”

“We can’t make a new settlement in the middle of a war,” Simone continues. “And this is our last stop. There’s nowhere else for the ships to go. We have to find a way to make it work
here,
and if we’re in danger–”

“We could land somewhere else on the planet,” Bradley says.

Mistress Coyle takes a sharp breath. “You wouldn’t.”

“There’s no law that says we
have
to join up with the previous settlement,” Bradley says to her. “We never had any communication from you so we were already landing on the assumption you hadn’t made it. We could just leave you to your war. Find our own place to start life new.”

“
Abandon
them?” Simone says, sounding shocked herself.

“You’d end up fighting the Spackle anyway,” Mistress Coyle says, “without anyone experienced to help you.”

“Whereas here we’d end up fighting both Spackle
and
men,” Bradley says. “And probably
you,
eventually.”

“Bradley–” Simone says–

“
No,
” I say, loud enough for them to hear me.

Because I’m still watching the projection, watching men and Spackle die–

And I’m still thinking of Todd, of all the death
I
would have caused for him–

It makes me dizzy.

And I don’t ever want to be in that position again.

“No weapons,” I say. “No bombing anyone. The Spackle are retreating. We beat the Mayor before and if we have to do it again, we will. Same thing for a truce with the Spackle.”

I look at Mistress Coyle’s face, hardening at my words. “No more death,” I say. “Not by my choice, not even for an army that deserves it, Spackle or human. We’ll find a peaceful solution.”

“Well said,” Bradley says strongly. And he looks at me with a face I remember well, a face full of kindness and love and a pride so fierce it stings.

And I have to look away because I know how close I came to having them fire the missile.

“Well, then, if you’re all so sure,” Mistress Coyle says, her voice cold as the bottom of a river. “I’ve got lives to save.”

And before anyone can stop her, she’s gone, running to her cart and driving off into the night.

[T
ODD
]

“CUT THEM DOWN!” the Mayor’s yelling. “SEND THEM RUNNING!”

It don’t matter what he yells, tho, he could be screaming types of fruit and the soldiers would still be surging up the lower part of the zigzag road, climbing over where it’s been blown away, hacking and shooting at the Spackle scrambling up it before ’em.

Mr O’Hare is at the front of the new group of men, leading the charge, but the Mayor’s stopped Mr Tate and called him over to where we’re waiting on the open ground at the bottom.

I hop off Angharrad to get a closer look at the arrow wound. It don’t seem that bad but she still ain’t saying nothing in her Noise, not even plain horse sounds, just silence, which I don’t know what it means but I’m sure it ain’t good.

“Girl?” I say, trying to rub calm hands over her side. “We’ll get you stitched up, okay? We’ll get you all healed up like new, all right? Girl?”

But she hangs her head down towards the ground, foam coming up round her lips and in the sweat on her sides.

“Sorry for the delay, sir,” Mr Tate’s saying to the Mayor behind me. “We’ll have to work on their mobility.”

I glance over to where the artillery sits: four big cannons on the backs of steel carts pulled by tired-looking oxes. The metal of the cannons is black and thick and like it wants to knock your skull clean off. Weapons, secret weapons, built away from the city somewhere, the men doing it kept separate so their Noise wouldn’t be heard, building weapons meant to be used on the Answer, ready to blow ’em to bits with no problem whatsoever and now used to do the same to the Spackle.

Ugly brute weapons that only make him stronger.

“I leave improvements in your capable hands, Captain,” the Mayor says. “Right now, find Captain O’Hare, tell him to draw back to the base of the hill.”

“Draw back?” says Mr Tate, surprised.

“The Spackle are on the run,” the Mayor says, nodding at the zigzag road, almost clear of Spackle now as they disappear over the top of the hill into the upper valley. “But who knows how many thousands are waiting on the road above? They’ll regroup and replan and we shall do the same here and be ready for them.”

“Yes, sir,” Mr Tate says, and takes off on his horse.

I lean into Angharrad, pressing my face against her side, closing my eyes but still seeing everything in my Noise, the men, the Spackle, the fighting, the fire, the death, the death, the death–

“You did well, Todd,” the Mayor says, riding up close behind me. “Very well indeed.”

“It was–” I say but I stop.

Cuz how was it?

“I’m proud of you,” he says.

I turn to him, my face a picture.

He laughs at my expresshun. “I
am,
” he says. “You didn’t buckle under extreme pressure. You kept your head. You kept your steed even though she was injured. And most importantly, Todd, you kept your word.”

I look into his eyes, those black eyes the colour of river rock.

“These are the actions of a man, Todd, truly they are.”

And his voice feels true, his words feel true.

But then they always do, don’t they?

“I don’t feel nothing,” I say. “Nothing but hate for you.”

He just smiles at me.

“It may not seem like it, Todd,” he says, “but you will look back on this as the day you finally became a man.” His eyes flash. “The day you were transformed.”

{VIOLA}

“It does seem to be ending down there,” Bradley says, looking at the projection.

A separation is opening up on the zigzag road. The Mayor’s men are pulling back and the Spackle are retreating, leaving an empty hill between them. We can see all of the Mayor’s army now, see the big cannons he’s somehow got, see his soldiers starting to gather themselves in some order at the bottom of the hill, regrouping to prepare to fight again, no doubt.

And then I see Todd.

I say his name out loud and Bradley zooms in to where I’m pointing. My heart rushes as I see how he leans into Angharrad, and he’s alive, he’s alive, he’s alive–

“That your friend?” Simone asks.

“Yeah,” I say. “That’s Todd, he’s–”

I stop because we see the Mayor riding over.

Riding over to talk to Todd, like it was just a normal day.

“Wouldn’t that be the tyrant, though?” Simone asks.

I sigh. “It’s complicated.”

“Yeah,” Bradley says. “I’m getting that impression.”

“No,” I say firmly. “If you ever doubt anything here, if you ever not know what to think or who to trust, you trust Todd, okay? You remember that.”

“Okay,” Bradley says, smiling at me, “we’ll remember.”

“But there remains the bigger asking,” Simone says. “What do we do now?”

“We were expecting dead settlements and hopefully you and your parents in the middle of it all,” Bradley says. “Instead we got a dictator, a revolutionary, and an invading army of natives.”

“How big is the Spackle army?” I say, turning back to the projection. “Can you fly up?”

“Not much higher,” he says, but he dials some more and the probe moves up the zigzag hill, cresting the top of it and–

“Oh, my God,” I say, hearing Simone take in a breath.

Reflected in the light of both moons and of the campfires they’re burning and the torches they’re holding–

A whole nation of Spackle stretches back down the river road above the falls in the upper valley, far, far bigger than the Mayor’s army, enough to overwhelm them in a flood, enough to never, ever be beaten.

Thousands of them.

Tens
of thousands.

“Superior numbers,” Bradley says, “versus superior fire-power. A recipe for unending slaughter.”

“Mistress Coyle said there was a truce,” I say. “If there was one before, there can be another.”

“What about the competing armies?” Simone asks.

“Competing generals, really,” I say. “If we can sort those two out, then it’ll be easier.”

“And maybe we should start,” Bradley says to me, “by meeting your Todd.”

He dials the remote again until the view zooms back in to the men on horses, on Todd next to Angharrad.

And then Todd looks up, right at the probe, right into the projection–

Right into me.

We see the Mayor notice and look up, too.

“They’ve remembered we’re here,” Simone says. She starts back up the ramp into the scout ship. “I’ll get something for your ankles, Viola, then I’ll contact the convoy. Though I don’t even know where to begin explaining . . .”

She disappears into the ship. Bradley comes over to me again. He reaches over and gently squeezes my shoulder. “I’m so sorry about your parents, Viola. More than I can say.”

I blink away fresh wet from my eyes, not just at the memory of my mum and dad dying in our crash, but at Bradley’s kindness–

And then I remember, almost with a gasp, that it was Bradley who gave me the gift that proved so useful, the box that made the fire, the box that made a light against the darkness, the box that eventually blew up a whole bridge to save me and Todd.

“It flickers,” I say.

“What’s that?” he says, looking up.

“Way back on the convoy,” I say, “you asked me to tell you what the night sky looks like by firelight, because I’d be the first one to know. It flickers.”

He smiles, remembering. He breathes in deep through his nose. “So this is what fresh air smells like,” he says, because of course it’s the first time he’s ever breathed it. He spent his whole life on a ship, too. “It’s different than I expected.” He looks back at me. “Stronger.”

“Lots of things are different than we expected.”

He squeezes my shoulder again. “We’re here now, Viola,” he says. “You’re not alone any more.”

I swallow and look back at the projection. “I wasn’t alone.”

Bradley sighs again, looking with me.
It flickers
, he says.

“We’ll have to build a fire so you can see for yourself,” I say.

“See what?”

“That it flickers.”

He looks at me puzzled for a minute. “What you said earlier?”

“No,” I say. “Just now, you said–”

What’s she talking about?
he says.

But he doesn’t say it.

And my stomach turns in a knot.

No.

Oh, no.

“Did you hear that?” he says, looking even more puzzled and turning around. “It sounded like my voice . . .”

But how could it be my–?
he thinks and then stops.

He looks back at me.

And
Viola?
he says.

But he says it in his Noise.

He says it in his brand-new Noise.

[T
ODD
]

I hold the bandage to the wound on Angharrad’s flank and let the medicine enter her bloodstream. She still don’t say nothing, but I keep my hands on her, keep saying her name.

Horses can’t be alone and I need to tell her I’m part of her herd.

“Come back to me, Angharrad,” I whisper into her ears. “Come on, girl.”

I look over to the Mayor, talking to his men, and I try to think how the hell it came to this.

We had him
beat
. We did. Beaten and tied up and we’d
won
.

But now.

Now he’s just walking round again like he owns the place, like he’s completely in charge of the whole goddam world again, like what I did to him and how I beat him is of no concern at all.

But I
did
beat him. And I will again.

I untied a monster to save Viola.

And now I’ve somehow gotta keep hold of the leash.