Monsters of Men

And what do you know? They start doing it.

“Try for peace if you can,” I say to Wilf. “Stall them, tell them we’ll bring them the Mayor, keep as many people alive as possible–”

Wilf nods. “Will do. Yoo take care of yourself, ya hear?”

“I will, Wilf,” I say and I take one last look at Lee, at Wilf, at the people on the hilltop.

I wonder if I’m ever going to see any of them again.

“The road’s under water,” Bradley says. “We’re going to have to take the hills and ride through the trees.”

I lean down between Acorn’s ears. “Are you sure about this?”

Girl colt, he coughs. Ready.

And that’s all there is. That’s all that’s left.

Bradley and Angharrad and Acorn and I take off through the trees, flat out towards the ocean.

Not knowing what we’ll find there.

[TODD]

I blink my eyes open, pain throbbing in my head. I make to sit up from where I’m laying down but I’m tied down tight.

“Nothing to see anyway, Todd,” the Mayor says as my surroundings start to come into focus. “We’re in an abandoned chapel in an abandoned village on an abandoned coast.” I hear him sigh. “Pretty much the story of our time on this planet, eh?”

I try raising my head and this time it comes up. I’m on a long stone table, cracked at one corner by my left foot, and I see the stone pews along the floor, a white New World and its two moons carved in the far wall in front of a podium where a preacher would stand, and another wall that’s half-collapsed, letting the snow in.

“So many important things have happened to you in churches,” he says, “I thought it only fitting to bring you to one for what is either your last chapter.” He steps closer. “Or your first.”

“You let me go,” I say, concentrating to control him but my head feels so heavy. “You let me go and fly us both back there. We can still stop all this.”

“Oh, it’s not going to be that easy, Todd,” he smiles, taking out a small metal box. He presses it and it projects an image in the air, one full of white fog and churning smoke.

“I don’t see nothing,” I say.

“One moment,” he says, still smiling. The image shifts and shimmers under the fog–

And then for a second it breaks–

And there’s the Spackle, marching along the hilltops–

And there are so many of ’em–

A whole worldful–

“Marching towards the hilltop,” the Mayor says. “Where they will find that my army has already despatched my enemies there before continuing their march here.” He turns to me. “Where we will have our last battle.”

“Where’s Viola?” I say, trying to prime my voice for an attack with her name.

“I’m afraid the probes lost track of her in the fog,” he says, pressing buttons to show me the different views of the valley, all hidden by fog and smoke, with fires in the only clear spaces, burning in a huge way to the north.

“Let me go.”

“All in good time, Todd. Now–”

He stops and looks into the air, his face momentarily troubled, but not by nothing going on this room. He turns back to the probe projeckshun but it’s still all fog and there ain’t nothing to see there.

VIOLA! I think right at him, hoping he don’t hear it coming.

He barely flinches, just stares up into empty space again, his frown getting deeper and deeper. And then he heads outta the little chapel thru the collapsed wall, leaving me there, tied fast to the table, shivering in the cold, feeling like I weigh a ton.

I just lie there heavy for a long while, longer than I want, trying to think of her out there, trying to think of all the people who’re gonna die if I don’t move.

And then I slowly start trying to get myself free.

(THE SKY)

The fog is thick as a white night now and the Land marches only according to its voice, tied together, showing us our way as we near the hilltop, coming through the trees–

And I order the battlehorn to be blown–

The sound spills out into the world, and even from a distance we can hear the Clearing’s terror at it–

I press my battlemore on, faster through the forest, feeling the pace of the Land pick up behind me. I am at the front of the guard now, the Source still with me, ahead of the first of our soldiers, their fires lit and ready to be shot, and behind them–

Behind them the entire voice of the Land–

Quickening its stride–

Nearly there, I show to the Source, as we pass through a deserted Clearing farm swamped by receding waters and on up through a dense forest–

We march through it, faster, faster still–

The voices of the Clearing hear us coming now, hear our voice, hear our innumerable voice bearing down on them, hear the battlehorn blown again–

And we march onto a small flat of land and up through another rise–

And I burst through a wall of foliage, acid rifle raised–

And I am the Sky–

I am the Sky–

Leading the Land into its greatest battle with the Clearing–

The fog is thick and I seek out the Clearing in the whiteness, preparing my weapon for its first firing and ordering the soldiers to raise their burning bolts and ready them to fire–

To purge the Clearing from the world once and for all–

And then a single man from the Clearing emerges.

“Wait,” he says calmly, unarmed, alone in the sea of fog. “Ah have somethin to say.”

{VIOLA}

“Look at the valley,” Bradley says, as we race through the forests on the hilltops.

In glimpses down to our left, through the leaves and tendrils of drifting fog, you can see the river in full flood. The first wave of debris is well past us and it’s just water now, settling its way above the riverbed, flooding the road that takes you straight to the ocean.

“We’re not going to get there in time,” I shout to Bradley. “It’s too far–”

“We’ve come a long way,” Bradley shouts back. “And we’re moving fast.”

Too fast, I think. Acorn’s lungs have started rasping in an unnerving way. “Are you all right, boy?” I ask between his ears.

He doesn’t answer, just keeps on chugging forward, foamy spit flying from his mouth. “Bradley?” I say, worried.

He knows. He’s looking down at Angharrad, who seems better than Acorn but not by much. He looks back at me. “It’s the only chance we’ve got, Viola,” he says. “I’m sorry.”