Monsters of Men (5 page)

Spackle!
Acorn says, behind me.

“What did you say?” Simone asks me.

“No,” Mistress Coyle says. “Oh, no.”

“Would someone please explain what the hell’s going on?” Bradley asks.

“The Spackle are the indigenous species,” I say. “Intelligent and smart–”

“Vicious in battle,” Mistress Coyle interrupts.

“The only one I met was gentle and much more frightened of humans than the humans here seem to be of them-”

“You didn’t fight them in a war,” Mistress Coyle says.

“I also didn’t enslave them.”

“I will not stand here and have this conversation with a
child–”

“It’s hardly as if they’re coming for no reason.” I turn back to Bradley and Simone. “They’re attacking because the Mayor committed a genocide of all the Spackle slaves, and if we can maybe just
talk
to them, tell them we’re not like the Mayor–”

“They’ll kill your precious boy,” Mistress Coyle says. “Won’t even think twice about it.”

My breath immediately stops as panic starts to rise from what she says, but then I try to remember that she’d
like
it if I panicked. If I was afraid, I’d be easier to control.

But I won’t be, because we’ll stop this. We’ll stop all of this.

That’s what me and Todd do.

“We’ve
caught
the Mayor,” I say, “and if the Spackle
see
that–”

“With all due respect,” Mistress Coyle says to Simone. “Viola is a girl with an extremely limited knowledge of the history of this world. If the Spackle are attacking, we’ve got to fight back!”

“Fight back?”
Bradley says, frowning. “Who do you think we
are?
”

“Todd needs our help,” I say. “We can fly down there and stop this before it’s too late–”

“It’s already too late,” Mistress Coyle interrupts. “If you could just take me up in your ship, I could show you–”

But Simone’s shaking her head. “The atmosphere was thicker up top than we expected. We had to land in full coolant mode–”

“
No!
” I say but of course they did. Two vents open–

“What does that mean?” Mistress Coyle asks.

“It means we don’t fly for at least another eight hours as the engines cool and replenish their fuel cells,” Simone says.

“Eight hours?”
Mistress Coyle says. She makes a fist, actually makes a fist in the air in frustration.

For once, I know how she feels.

“But we’ve got to help Todd!” I say. “He can’t control one army and hold off another–”

“He’ll have to let the President go,” Mistress Coyle says.

“No,” I say quickly. “No, he wouldn’t do that.”

Would he?

No.

Not after we fought so hard.

“War makes ugly necessity,” Mistress Coyle says. “And however good your boy may be, he’s one against thousands.”

I fight down the panic again and turn to Bradley. “We have to do something!”

He looks hard over to Simone and I know they’re wondering what disaster they’ve landed themselves in. Then Bradley snaps his fingers like he’s remembered something.

“Hold on!” he says and rushes back into the scout ship.

[T
ODD
]

I pull the trigger again–

All I get is another
snick–

I look up–

The Spackle’s raising his white stick–

(what are those things?)

(what are they that causes so much damage?)

And I’m dead–

I’m dead–

I’m–

BANG!

A gun goes off right by my head–

And the Spackle with the white stick jerks to one side, a trail of blood flying from his neck above the line of his armour–

The Mayor–

The Mayor shot him from the back of Morpeth–

And I’m staring over at him, ignoring the fighting that’s going on all around us–

“You sent yer son to war with an
EMPTY GUN
?” I scream, shaking from anger and from having just about died–

“Now is not the time, Todd,” the Mayor says–

And I flinch again as the
whisk
of an arrow flies right past me and I grab the reins and try to turn Angharrad to get the hell outta here and I see a soldier stumble back into Morpeth, blood rushing out from a nightmarish-looking hole in the stomach of his uniform and he raises his bloody hands to the Mayor for help–

And the Mayor snatches the soldier’s rifle from him and tosses it over to me–

I catch it out of reflex, my hands instantly wet from the blood all over it–

N
OW IS ALSO NOT THE TIME FOR NICETIES
, the Mayor puts in my head.
T
URN
! F
IRE
!

And I turn–

And I fire–

{VIOLA}

“Survey probe!” Bradley says, coming back down the ramp, carrying what looks like an oversize insect, maybe half a metre long, shiny metal wings spread open over a thin metal body. He holds it up to Simone as if asking her. She nods and I see that she’s Mission Commander for this trip.

“
What
kind of probe?” Mistress Coyle asks.

“They scope out the landscape,” Simone says. “Didn’t you have them when you landed?”

Mistress Coyle snorts. “Our ships left Old World twenty-three years before yours, my girl. We practically flew here steam-powered compared to what you’ve got.”

“What happened to yours?” Bradley says to me, setting up the probe.

“Destroyed in the crash,” I say. “Along with nearly everything else. I barely even had any food left.”

“Hey,” Simone says, trying to say it soft and comforting. “But you made it. You’re alive.” She moves to put an arm around me.

“Careful,” I say. “Both my ankles are broken.”

Simone looks horrified. “
Viola–”

“Look, I’ll live,” I say, “but I’m only alive because of Todd, okay? If he’s in trouble down there, Simone, we
have
to help him–”

“Always thinking of her boy,” Mistress Coyle mutters. “Making it personal at the expense of the entire world.”

“It’s because no one and nothing matters to you that you’re willing to blow the world to pieces!”

Pieces
,
Acorn thinks, shifting nervously beneath me.

Simone looks at him, furrowing her forehead. “Wait a minute–”

“Ready!” Bradley says, standing back from the probe, a small control device in his hand.

“How does it know where to go?” Mistress Coyle asks.

“I’ve set it to fly towards the brightest source of light,” Bradley says. “These are just area probes with limited altitude, but it should be enough to clear a few hills.”

“Can you set it to look for a specific person?” I say.

But I stop because the night sky lights up again with the same glow I saw on my ride here. Everyone looks towards the city.

“Get the probe up!” I say. “Get it up now!”

[T
ODD
]

I fire the gun before I can even think if I want to–

BANG!

I ain’t ready for the kick-back and it knocks me in my collarbone and I grab Angharrad’s reins and we spin round in a full circle before I finally see–

A Spackle–

Lying on the ground in front of me–

(with a knife stuck in his–)

With a gunshot wound bleeding from a hole in his chest–

“Nice shot,” the Mayor says.

“
You
did it,” I say, turning to him. “I told you to stay the hell outta my head!”

“Not even to save your life, Todd?” he says, firing his gun again and another Spackle falls.

I turn, gun raised–

They’re still coming–

I aim at a Spackle raising his bow at a soldier–

I fire–

But I pull it to the side on purpose at the last second, missing altogether (shut up)–

The Spackle jumps away, tho, so it worked–

“That’s not how you win wars, Todd!” the Mayor yells, firing his gun at the Spackle I missed, catching it in the chin and sending it sprawling–

“You have to choose,” the Mayor says, ranging his gun round, looking for the next thing to shoot. “You said you’d kill for her. Did you mean it?”

Then there’s another
whisk
sound–

And the worst squeal imaginable from Angharrad–

I turn round in the saddle–

She’s been hit in the back right flank with an arrow–

Boy colt!
she yells.
Boy COLT!

And I’m immediately reaching back to try and grab the arrow and not fall off from her leaping about at the pain of it and it snaps in two in my hand and I leave a broken bit stuck into her back leg and
Boy colt! Boy colt! Todd!
and I’m trying to calm her so she doesn’t throw me down into the heaving mass of soldiers all round us–

And that’s when it happens again–

WHOOMP!

A huge flash of light and I turn to look–

The Spackle have another fire weapon at the bottom of the hill.

The flames spill out from the top of the horned creacher and cut right thru the middle of the soldiers and men are screaming and burning and screaming and burning and soldiers are turning back and running and the line is breaking and Angharrad is bucking and bleeding and squealing and we’re slammed by a wave of men retreating and she bucks again and–

And I drop my gun–

And the fire expands out and up–

And men are running–

And smoke is everywhere–

And suddenly Angharrad spins free and we’re somehow in a place where no man stands, where the army is behind us and the Spackle are in front of us and I don’t got my gun and I don’t know where the Mayor is–

And the Spackle on the back of the horned creacher with the fire-making thing has seen us–

And he starts coming right towards us–

{VIOLA}

Bradley presses the screen on the remote device. The probe lifts lightly off the ground, straight up with almost no sound except a little
zip
. It hovers for a second, extends its wings, and then takes off for the city so fast you almost don’t see it go.

“Wow,” Mistress Coyle says under her breath. She looks back to Bradley. “And we’ll be able to see what’s happening?”

“And hear,” he says, “to a limited degree.”

He presses the remote again, dialling the screen with his thumb until a light flashes out the end of the remote device, projecting a three-dimensional picture that hangs in mid-air, lit up in bright greens because of night vision. Trees rush by, a flash of the road, a few blurs of tiny people running–

“How far is the city from here?” Bradley asks.

“Ten kilometres, maybe?” I say.

“Then it should almost be–”

And then the probe’s there, at the edge of the city, rushing over buildings burning where the Answer set them alight, rushing on over the ruins of the cathedral, rushing over crowds of townsfolk running in panic from the square–

“My God,” Simone whispers, turning to me. “Viola–”

“It’s still going,” Mistress Coyle says, watching.

It
is
still going, flying past the town square and down the main road.

“Brightest light source–” Bradley starts to say–

And then we see just exactly what the brightest light source is.

[T
ODD
]

Men burning–

Everywhere–

The screaming–

And the terrible smell of cooked meat–

I gag in my throat–

And the Spackle’s riding right towards me–

He’s standing on the back of a horned creacher, his feet and lower legs strapped into boot-type things on either side of the saddle, letting him stand there without needing to balance–

And he’s got a burning torch in each hand and the u-shaped fire-making thing in front of him–

And I see his Noise–

I see
me
in his Noise–

I see me and Angharrad alone in the middle of an emptiness–

Her screaming and twisting with the broken arrow in her flank–

Me staring back at the Spackle–

Me without a gun–

And behind me is the weakest part of our line–

And I see the Spackle shooting the fire in his Noise and taking out me and the men behind me–

Leaving the Spackle an opening to come pouring into the city–

Their war won before it’s barely even started–

I grab Angharrad’s reins and try to move her but I can see the pain and fright shooting thru her Noise as she keeps calling out
Boy colt! Todd!
and it’s ripping my heart as she calls it and I wheel round trying to find the Mayor, trying to find
anyone
who’ll shoot the Spackle on the horned creacher–

But the Mayor ain’t nowhere I can see–

Hidden by smoke and panicking men–

And no one is lifting a gun–

And the Spackle is raising his torches to fire the weapon–