Monsters of Men (22 page)

“They wanted our attenshun somewhere else,” I say. “Looking out rather than in. That’s why they killed the spies.”

He looks at me slowly, carefully. “Exactly right, Todd,” he says. Then he turns back to look at the town, darker now, with townsfolk out in their bedclothes, lined up to see what’s happened.

“So be it,” I hear the Mayor whisper to himself. “If that’s the war they want, then that’s the war we’ll give them.”

The Embrace of the Land

(THE RETURN)

The Land has lost a part of itself
, the Sky shows, opening his eyes.
But the job is done
.

I feel the hollowness that echoes through the Land at the loss of those who led the smaller attack on the heart of the Clearing, those who went knowing they probably would not return, but that by their actions, the voice of the Land might sing on.

I would give my own voice
, I show to the Sky as the campfire warms us in the cold night,
if it would mean the end of the Clearing
.

But what a loss the silencing of the Return would be
, he shows, reaching out his voice to mine.
Not when you travelled so far to join us
.

Travelled so far, I think.

For I did travel far.

After the Knife pulled me from the bodies of the Burden, after I showed him my vow to kill him, after we heard the approach of horses on the road and he begged me to run–

I ran.

The town was in burning turmoil at the time, the confusion and smoke letting me pass through the southern end of it unseen. Then I hid myself until nightfall, when I made my way up the crooked road out of town. Sticking to the underbrush, I crept up, zig by zag, until there was no cover left and I had to stand and run, fully exposed for the last stretch, expecting every moment for a bullet to the back of my head from the valley below–

An end which I craved but also feared–

But I made it to the top and over.

And I ran.

I ran towards a rumour, a legend that lived in the voice of the Burden. We were of the Land, but some of us had never seen it, some of the young like me, born into the war that left the Burden behind when the Land made a promise never to return. And so the Land, like their battlemores, was shadows and fables, stories and whispers, dreams of the day the Land would return to free us.

Some of us gave up that hope. Some of us never had it, never forgiving the Land for leaving us there in the first place.

Some like my one in particular who, though only older than me by a matter of moons and likewise never having seen the Land, would gently show to me that I should let go any hope of rescue, of any life other than one we might carve out ourselves among the voices of the Clearing, telling me this on the nights I was afraid, telling me that our day would come, it would, but that it would be our day and not the day of a Land that had clearly forgotten us.

And then my one in particular was taken.

And so was the rest of the Burden.

Leaving only me to seize the chance.

So what choice did I have but to run towards the rumour?

I did not sleep. I ran through forests and plains, up hills and down, across streams and rivers. I ran through settlements of the Clearing, burnt and abandoned, scars on the world left wherever the Clearing touched it. The sun rose and set and still I did not sleep, did not stop moving, even when my feet were covered in blisters and blood.

But I saw no one. No one from the Clearing, no one from the Land.

No one.

I began to think I was not just the last of the Burden but the last of the Land as well, that the Clearing had achieved their goal and had wiped the Land from the face of the world.

That I was alone.

And on the morning I thought this, a morning where I stood on a riverbank, where I looked around yet again and saw only myself, only 1017 with the permanent mark burning into his arm–

I wept.

I crumpled to the ground and I wept.

And that was when I was found.

They came out of the trees across the road. Four of them, then six, then ten. I heard their voices first but my own voice was only just beginning to come back, just beginning to tell me who I was again after the Clearing had taken it away. I thought it was myself calling to me. I thought it was my own self calling me to my death.

I would have willingly gone.

But then I saw them. They were taller than the Burden ever grew, broader, too, and they carried spears and I knew that here were warriors, here were soldiers who would help me take revenge on the Clearing, who would right all wrongs done to the Burden.

But then they sent greetings I found difficult to understand but that seemed to say their weapons were merely fishing spears and themselves simple fishers.

Fishers.

Not warriors at all. Not out hunting for the Clearing. Not coming for vengeance on the death of the Burden. They were fishers, come to the river because they had heard the Clearing had abandoned this stretch.

And then I told them who I was. I spoke to them in the language of the Burden.

There was great shock, an astonished recoil I could feel, but more than that, too–

There was distaste at how shrill my voice was and of the language I spoke.

There was dread and shame at what I represented, what I meant.

And there was the briefest of pauses before they crossed the final stretch of road towards me, before they came forward with their assistance and help. And they
did
come forward, they did help me to my feet and asked me for my story, which I told in the language of the Burden, and they listened to me with concern, listened to me with horror and outrage, listened while also making plans for where to take me and what would happen next and reassuring me all along that I was one of them, that I had returned to them now, that I was safe.

That I was not alone.

But before they did all of that, there was shock, there was distaste, there was dread, there was shame.

Here at last was the Land. And it was afraid to touch me.

They took me to an encampment, deep to the south, through thick woods and over a ridge of hills. Hundreds of them lived there in bulbous secreted bivouacs, so many and so loud and curious that I nearly turned and fled.

I did not look like them, being shorter, slighter, my skin a different shade of white, the lichen I grew for my clothing a different type. I barely recognized any of their food or their shared songs or the communal way they slept. Distant memories from the voices of the Burden tried to reassure me, but I felt different, I
was
different.

Different most of all in language. Theirs was almost unspoken, shared among them so quickly I could almost never follow it, as if they were just different parts of a single mind.

Which of course they were. They were a mind called the Land.

This was not how the Burden spoke. Forced to interact with the Clearing, forced to obey them, we adopted their language, but more than just that, we adopted their ability to disguise their voice, to keep it separate, private. Which is fine if there are others to reach out to when privacy is no longer wanted.

But there was no more Burden to reach out to.

And I did not know how to reach out to the Land.

While I rested and fed and was healed of all of my injuries save the red pain of the 1017 band, a message was passed through the voice of the Land until it reached a Pathway, where it went straight to the Sky faster than it would have otherwise.

Within days, he arrived in the encampment, high on his battlemore, a hundred soldiers with him and more on the way.

The Sky is here to see the Return
, he showed, giving me my name in an instant and ensuring my difference before he had even seen me in the flesh.

And then he laid his eyes on me, and they were the eyes of a warrior, of a general and leader.

They were the eyes of the Sky.

And they looked at me as if they recognized me.

We went inside a bivouac secreted especially for our meeting, its curving walls reaching to a point far above our heads. I told the Sky the story as I knew it, every last detail, from being born into the Burden, to the slaughter of us all, save one.

And while I spoke, his voice surrounded me in a sad song of weeping and sorrow which was taken up by all of the Land in the encampment outside and for all I know every part of the Land this world over, and I was held in it, the Land placing me at the centre of their voices, their one voice, and for a moment, for a brief moment–

I no longer felt alone.

We will avenge you
, the Sky showed me.

And that was even better.

And the Sky keeps his word
, he shows to me now.

He does
, I show.
Thank you
.

This is only a beginning
, he shows.
There is more to come, more that will be pleasing to the Return
.

Including a chance to meet the Knife in battle?

He looks at me for a moment.
All things in their due course
.

As I watch him stand, a part of me still wonders if he is leaving the possibility open for a peaceful solution, one that would avoid the outright slaughter of the Clearing, but his voice refuses to answer my doubts and for a moment I am ashamed to have thought them, especially after an attack that has taken part of the Land.

The Return has also wondered if I have a second source of information
, the Sky shows.

I look up sharply.

You notice much
, the Sky shows.
But so does the Sky
.

Where?
I show.
How does the rest of the Land not know of it? How does the Clearing
–

The Sky asks now for the Return’s trust
, he shows and there is discomfort in his voice. But there is also a warning.
And it must be your unbreakable bond. You must promise to trust the Sky, no matter what you might see or hear. You must trust that there is a larger plan that might not be apparent to you. A larger purpose that involves the Return
.

But I can hear his deeper voice, too.

I have lifelong experience with the voices of the Clearing, voices that hide, voices that twist themselves in knots while the truth is always more naked than they think, and I have far more practice at uncovering concealment than the rest of the Land.

And in the depths of his voice, I see not only that the Sky, like the Return, can conceal with his voice, but I can also see part of what he is concealing–

You must trust me
, he says again, showing me his plans for the days to come–

But he will not show me the source of his information.

Because he knows how betrayed I will feel when he finally does.