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Buzzzzz--
They don't understand. Most of 'em are just watching the bomb coming right for them. "RUN!" I keep shouting and I'm sending explozhuns out in my Noise, showing 'em what'll happen when that bomb lands, imagining blood and guts and the BOOMthat's on its way. "RUN, GODDAMMIT!"
It finally gets thru and some start to scatter, maybe just to get away from me screaming and waving my shovel, but they run and I chase them farther up the field. I look back. The Mayor's moved to the entrance of the monastery, ready to ride farther if necessary.
But he's watching me.
"RUN!" I keep yelling, getting the Spackle to move up and away, fleeing from the center of this field. The last few hop over the nearest internal wall and I hop over with 'em, gasping for breath and turning round again to watch it land--
And I see 1017, still there in the middle of the field, just staring up at the sky.
At the bomb that's go
I'm jumping back over the internal wall before I even know it-
My feet pounding over the grass-Leaping over the trenches we've dug-Ru
And 1017 raising up his hand to shield his eyes from the sun - Why ain't he ru
And -pound pound go my feet--
And I'm chanting "Damn you, damn you" --
BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ-
And 1017 don't see me coming-
I slam into him hard enough to lift him off his feet, feeling the air punched from his lungs as we fly across the grass, as we hit the ground rolling, as we go end over end across the dirt and into a shallow trench, as one titanic--
BOOM
eats the entire planet in a single bite of sound
blasting away every thought and bit of Noise
picking up yer brain and shattering it into pieces and every bit of air is sucked up and blown past us and dirt and grass hits us in hard, heavy clods and smoke fills our lungs
And then there's silence.
Loud silence.
***
"Are you hurt?" I hear the Mayor shout, as if he's miles and miles away and deep underwater.
I sit back up in the trench, see the huge smoking crater in the middle of the field, smoke already thi
I'm breathing but I can't hear it.
I turn back to 1017, still mostly under me in the trench, scrabbling to get up, and I'm opening my mouth to ask him if he's all right even tho there's no way for him to answer--
And he hits me in a hard slap that leaves a rake of scratches across my face.
"Hey!" I shout, tho I can barely hear myself--
He's twisting out from under me and I reach out a hand to hold him there-
And he bites it hard with his rows of little sharp teeth-
And I pull it back, already bleeding--
And I'm ready to punch him, ready to -pound him--
And he's out from under me, ru
"Hey!" I shout again, my Noise rising into red.
He's just ru
Animals, I think. Stupid, worthless, effing animals.
***
"Todd?" says the Mayor again, riding over to me. "Are you hurt?"
I turn my face up toward him, not even sure if I'm calm enough to answer, but when I open my mouth-- The ground heaves.
My hearing's still gone so I feel it more than hear it, feel the rumble thru the dirt, feel the air pulse with three hard vibrayshuns, one right after the other, and I see the Mayor turn his head suddenly back toward town, see Davy and all the Spackle do the same.
More bombs.
In the distance, toward the city, the biggest bombs that've ever exploded in the history of this world.
18 TO LIVE IS TO FIGHT
***
(Viola)
I'M SO STUPIDLY UNDONE after the Mayor and his soldiers take Todd away that Cori
When I wake in my bed, it's only just dawn, the sun so low it's not quite over the horizon yet, everything else in morning shadow.
Cori
"As much as it would do you good to sleep longer," she says, "I'm afraid you can't."
I lean forward in the bed until I'm almost bent in half. There's a weight in my chest so heavy, it's like I'm being pulled into the ground. "I know," I whisper. "I know."
I don't even know why he collapsed. He was dazed, nearly unconscious, foam coming from his mouth, and then the soldiers lifted him to his feet and dragged him away.
"They'll come for me," I say, having to swallow away the tightness in my throat. "After they're done with Todd."
"Yes, I expect they will," Cori
The morning is cold, surprisingly, harshly so. Even with my window closed, I can feel a shiver coming. I wrap my arms around my middle.
He's gone.
And I don't know what'll happen now.
"I grew up in a settlement called the Kentish Gate," Cori
I look up. "Cori
"My father died in the Spackle War," she presses on, "but my mother was a survivor. From the time I could stand, I worked with her in our orchards, picking apples and crested pine and roisin fruit."
I stare at her, wondering why now, why this story now?
"My reward for all that hard work," she continues, "was a camping trip every year after final harvest, just me and my mother, as deep in the forest as we dared to go." She looks out into the dark dawn. "There's so much life here, Viola. So much, in every corner of every forest and stream and river and mountain. This planet just hums with it."
She runs a fingertip over her calluses. "The last time we went, I was eight. We walked south for three whole days, a present for how grown - up I was getting. God only knows how many miles away we were, but we were alone, just me and her and that was all that mattered."
She lets a long pause go by. I don't break it.
"She was bitten by a Banded Red, on her heel, as she cooled her feet in a stream." She's rubbing her hands again. "It's fatal, red snake venom, but slow."
"Oh, Cori
She stands suddenly, as if my sympathy is almost rude. She walks over to my window. "It took her seventeen hours to die," she says, still not looking at me. "And they were awful and painful and when she went blind, she grabbed onto me and begged me to save her, begged me over and over to save her life."
I remain silent.
"What we know now, what the healers have discovered, is that I could have saved her life just by boiling up some Xanthus root." She crosses her arms. "Which was all around us. In abundance."
The ROAR of New Prentisstown is only just starting to rise with the sun. Light shoots in from the far horizon, but we stay silent for a moment longer.