Monsters of Men

“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 ru

“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 ru

“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.

[TODD]

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–

And I think, No–

I think, It can’t end this way–

I think, Viola–

I think, Viola–

And then I think, “Viola”?

Would it work on a Spackle?

And I sit up as high in the saddle as I can–

And I think about her riding away from me on Davy’s horse–

I think of her broken ankles–

I think of us saying we’d never part, not even in our heads–

I think of her fingers twirling round mine–

(I don’t think about what she’d say if she knew I let the Mayor go–)

I just think Viola–

I think Viola–

Right at the Spackle on the horned creacher–

I think–

VIOLA!

And the Spackle’s head jerks back, dropping both torches and falling backwards over the horned creacher, slipping outta the boots and onto the ground, and the horned creacher turns from the sudden shift in weight, stumbling back into the line of advancing Spackle, knocking ’em this way and that–

And I hear a cheer behind me–

I turn to see a line of soldiers, recovering, surging forward, past me, all round me–

And the Mayor’s suddenly there, too, riding beside me, and he’s saying, “Excellent work, Todd. I knew you had it in you.”

And Angharrad’s tiring beneath me but still calling–

Boy colt? Boy colt? Todd?

“No time to rest,” the Mayor says–

And I look up and I see the same huge wall of Spackle coming down the hill, coming to eat us alive–

{VIOLA}

“Oh, my God,” says Bradley.

“Are those–?” Simone says, shocked, stepping towards to the projection. “Are they on fire?”

Bradley presses the remote and the picture suddenly gets closer and–

They really are on fire–

Through great swathes of smoke, we see chaos, men ru

And some just burning–

Burning and burning and sometimes ru

And I just think, Todd.

“But you said there was a truce?” Simone says to Mistress Coyle.

“After a bloody war that killed hundreds of us and thousands of them,” Mistress Coyle says.

Bradley dials again. As the camera pulls back, showing the whole road and the bottom of the hill, swarming with an impossible number of Spackle, in reddish and brown armour and holding what look like sticks or something and riding–

“What is that?” I say, pointing at some kind of massive tank-like animal stomping down the hill, a single thick horn curving out the end of its nose.

“Battlemores,” Mistress Coyle says. “At least, that’s what we called them. The Spackle don’t have a spoken language, it’s all visual, but none of this matters! If they overrun the Mayor’s army, they’ll just keep coming and kill the rest of us.”

“And if he beats them?” Bradley asks.

“If he beats them, then his control over this planet will be absolute and that’s not a place you’d ever want to live.”

“And what if you had absolute control over this planet?” Bradley asks, surprising fire in his voice. “What kind of place would that be?”

Mistress Coyle blinks in surprise.

“Bradley–” Simone starts to say–

But I’m no longer listening to them–

I’m looking at the projection–

Because the camera’s moved down the hill and south a little–

And there he is–

Right in the middle of it all–

Surrounded by soldiers–

Fighting off Spackle–

“Todd,” I whisper–

And then I see a man on horseback next to him–

My stomach drops–

The Mayor is next to him–

Untied and set free, just like Mistress Coyle said–

Todd’s let him go–

Or the Mayor’s forced him to–

And Todd’s at the very front of the battle–

Then smoke rises up and he disappears.

“Get the camera in closer!” I say. “Todd’s down there in it!”

Mistress Coyle gives me a look as Bradley dials the controls again and the image on the projection searches through the battle, seeing bodies everywhere, living and dead, men and Spackle mixed together, until how can you tell who you’re fighting, how can you safely fire any kind of weapon without killing your own side?

“We have to get him out of there!” I say. “We have to save him!”

“Eight hours,” Simone says, shaking her head. “We can’t–”

“No!” I shout, hobbling over to Acorn. “I’ve got to get to him–”

But then Mistress Coyle says to Simone, “You have some kind of weapons on this ship, yes?”

I spin round.

“You wouldn’t have landed unarmed,” Mistress Coyle says.

Bradley’s face is as stern as I’ve seen it. “That is no concern of yours, madam–”

But Simone’s already answering, “We have twelve point-to-point missiles–”

“No!” Bradley says. “That is not who we are. We’re here to settle the planet peacefully–”

“–and the standard complement of hoopers,” Simone finishes.

“Hoopers?” Mistress Coyle says.

“A kind of small bomb,” Simone says. “Dropped in clusters, but–”

“Simone,” Bradley says angrily. “We did not come here to fight a–”

Mistress Coyle interrupts again. “Can you fire any of them from a ship that’s landed?”

[TODD]

We push forward–

Forward forward forward–