Monsters of Men (55 page)

“You said you were transformed,” I say, sweating as I look at the panel. “You said you were a different man.”

“I was wrong. Men can’t be transformed. I will always be who I am. And you’ll always be Todd Hewitt, the boy who can’t kill.”

“Yeah, well,” I say, with feeling. “People change.”

The Mayor laughs.
“Have you not been listening? They don’t change, Todd. They do not change.”

The ship lurches again as he makes another pass, torching the world below us. I’m still sweating over the comm panel. I don’t know which number is Viola’s but if these are recent and in order then she must be 1 or 3 cuz–

“What are you up to in there, Todd?”
the Mayor says.

And the comm panel goes blank.

{VIOLA}

The scout ship’s hardly visible now through the smoke that’s rising everywhere. We’re safe so far in the middle of the rocky riverbed, but there’s no way to get out with fires all around. The Mayor’s flown around the whole valley, which is burning so bright it’s difficult to look at directly–

How can there be so
much
of it?
Ben asks as we watch the fire rage through the forests, spreading almost impossibly fast.

“A few drops of it was enough to blow up a bridge,” I say. “Imagine what a whole shipful can do.”

Can you not contact the vessel?
the Sky asks me.

I hold up my comm. “No answer,” I say. “I keep trying.’

Then as the vessel is out of reach of our weapons,
the Sky says, his Noise resolving into a decision,
there is only one course of action.

We all stare at him for a moment as we realize what he means.

“The river,” I say.

And there’s a roar in the air that makes us turn–

“He’s coming back round!” Bradley yells–

And we see, in a parting of the smoke, the scout ship flying up over the lip of the hill, screaming out of the sky like judgement–

Coming straight for us–

[T
ODD
]

The screens are nothing but fire now, fire everywhere, ringing the valley, ringing New Prentisstown, blazing on the hilltop where Viola still is, somewhere in all that burning–

“I’ll kill you!” I shout. “You hear me? I’ll KILL YOU!”

“I should finally hope so, Todd,”
the Mayor says, a weird smile on his face in the screen he’s left up of himself.
“You’ve waited long enough.”

But I’m already looking round for some other way to contact Viola (please please please). The comm panel won’t come back on but I swear I saw Mistress Lawson doing something on one of the screens by the healing beds. I go over and press one.

It lights up at my touch with a whirl of words.

And one of ’em begins with
Comm
.

“I should probably tell you what’ll happen next, Todd,”
the Mayor says.
“It’s important that you know.”

“Shut up!” I say, pressing the
Comm
box on the screen. Up pops another set of boxes and a whole lot of ’em begin with
comm
this time. I take a deep breath and try to make my Noise into its reading shape. If the Mayor can steal learning, then so bloody well can I.

“I’ve ordered Captain O’Hare to lead a small force into battle with the Spackle that will inevitably attack the city,”
the Mayor continues.
“A suicide mission obviously, but then Captain O’Hare always
was
expendable.”

Communicayteeons Hoob,
I read. I squint and breathe again. Please please please.
Communicayteeons Hoob
. I ain’t got no idea what it means so I breathe deep a third time and close my eyes (
I am the Circle and the Circle is me
). I open ’em again.
Communications Hub
. There it is, that’s what it says. I press it.

“Captain Tate will already be leading the rest of the army to
the Answer on the hilltop,”
the Mayor rattles on,
“to dispose of the remnants of the rebellion–”

I look up.
“What?”

“Well, we can’t go around risking me being blown up by terrorists, can we?”
he says.

“You effing
monster
!”

“And then Captain Tate will be leading the army to the ocean.”

I
really
look up at this. “The ocean?”

“Where we will make our last stand, Todd,”
the Mayor says and I can see him grinning.
“The ocean at our backs, the enemy at our fronts. What better war could you ask for? Nothing to do but fight and die.”

I look back at the comm screen.

And there it is.
Recent Comms
. I press it. More boxes pop up.

“But it has to start with the death of the leader of the Spackle,”
the Mayor’s saying.
“And I’m sorry to say that means all who are near him.”

I look up again. We’re right near the lip of the hill, flying up over it and down the dry riverbed towards the fleeing Spackle–

Towards Viola–

Who I can see on the screens now–

See that she’s still riding Acorn, Bradley and Ben next to her, the Spackle leader behind ’em, urging ’em all to run–

“NO!” I scream.
“NO!”

“I’ll be sorry to lose her,”
the Mayor says, as we bear down on ’em, fire trailing out behind us.
“Less sorry to lose Ben, if I’m honest.”

I press the top button on the comm screen, the one that says
Communicator 1,
and I scream “VIOLA!” into it, my voice breaking with the volume,
“VIOLA!”

But in the screens, we’re already over the top of ’em–

(THE RETURN)

The Sky turns his battlemore hard, corralling the beasts of the Clearing to the side, pushing them out of the path of the vessel, towards trees that are burning on the riverbank–

But the beasts of the Clearing are resisting–

Fire,
I can hear them call wildly,
Fire!

The vessel is coming!
I show, not just at the Sky but at the Land around me, radiating the warning in all directions and I am pulling my own beast back towards the burning trees, where there is a small space we might use as cover–

GO!
I hear from the Sky, and my battlemore responds, whirling round towards the fire as the beasts of the Clearing do the same, and here come the Source, the man from the Clearing, and the Knife’s one in particular–

Ben and Bradley and Viola–

Their beasts racing towards me now, towards the small space in the burning trees, where we will not be able to stay for long but which might just avoid the vessel still screaming down–

And all around us the Land’s fear courses through me, their terror, their
deaths,
and I feel more than just the ones I can see, the ones running by my charging battlemore, I can feel them
all,
I feel the soldiers remaining to the north of the valley and the soldiers to the south, trying to save themselves in a forest where every tree blazes, where the fire keeps leaping from branch to branch, even in the falling ice, leaping faster than many of them can run and I feel the Land up the river, too, away from this inferno, watching it roar up the valley towards them, overtaking some of those who flee, and I see it all, too, see through the eyes of every Land–

I see the eyes of this planet, watching itself burn–

And I burn, too–

“HURRY!” I hear the Knife’s one in particular shout and I turn again and I see she is screaming for the Sky, whose battlemore has fallen a step or two behind as the Sky sends out orders to the Land to save themselves–

The vessel flies directly overhead–

Raining fire down the riverbed–

And the Sky’s eyes meet mine–

They meet mine across the smoke and fire and falling ice–

No,
I show–

No!

And he disappears in a wall of flame–

{VIOLA}

The horses leap forward as the wall of flame
WHOOSHES
up the riverbed behind us–

And there’s hardly anywhere to get away from it, the trees in front of us are ablaze and the rocks on the hillside above are somehow burning, too, even the snowflakes are evaporating in mid-air, leaving little wisps of steam where they were hanging, and we’re away from the first attack but if he comes back, there’s nowhere to go, there’s nowhere at all to go–

“Viola!” Bradley yells, bumping Angharrad into Acorn and they greet each other with terrified whinnies–

“How do we get out of here?!” I say, coughing in the smoke, and I turn to see a ten-metre wall of fire burning down the dry riverbed where we were just standing–

“Where’s the Sky?” Bradley says.

We turn to look at Ben and I realize for the first time that we can’t hear his Noise, that’s it’s focused away from us, that all the Spackle nearby have stopped as well, as if frozen, a sight beyond eerie in the middle of an inferno, even though there’s nowhere to run–

“Ben?” I say–

But he’s staring at the wall of flame down the riverbed–

And then we hear it–

A tearing sound, like the air being ripped in two, approaching from behind us–

1017–

Off his battlemore and on foot–

Racing towards the flames, which are already decreasing on the bare rocks–

Leaving burning piles of ash–

Like on the battlefield before when the Spackle shot the fire bolts–

Except this time it’s just two–

1017 races for them, his Noise making a sound more horrible, more full of rage and grief than anything I’ve ever heard in my entire life-

As he rushes towards the blackened corpses of the Sky and his battlemore-

(THE RETURN)

I run–

No thought in my head–

No sound in my voice except a wail I can barely hear myself–

A wail demanding that it be taken back–

A wail refusing to believe what I have seen, refusing to accept what has happened–

I am only vaguely aware of the Clearing and the Source as I run by them–

Vaguely aware of the
roar
forming in my ears, in my head, in my heart–

In my voice–

The rocks in the riverbed still burn but the fire is lifting off them even as I approach, so this attack was a waste in terms of setting more things ablaze–

But not a waste because it clearly had a single target–

I plunge into the flames, feeling them blister my skin, some of the rocks blazing red as coals–

But I do not care–

I reach where the Sky was riding his beast–

Reach where he has fallen to the stones–

Where he and the beast still burn–

And I am beating at the flames, trying to put them out with my bare hands, the wail getting louder, reaching beyond me, out of me, out into the world, out into the Land, trying to erase everything that has happened–

And I grab under the Sky’s burning arms and pull him from his burning steed–

And I show it out loud,
No!

And my skin is burning on the rocks, my own lichen smouldering from the heat–

NO!

But he is a dead weight in my hands–

And–

And–

And then I
hear
him–

And I freeze–

I cannot move at all–

The Sky’s body is in my hands–

But his voice–

Removed
from his body–

Hanging in the air as he leaves his body behind–

But pointed at me–

Showing–

The Sky
–

He shows to me,
The Sky
–