Monsters of Men

❮Chapters ❯

Boy colt! she’s still screaming–

“Come on, girl!” I say and try to get to her side–

Get on her saddle–

But here come the fires–

Like swooping burning eagles–

One sails right over the top of her–

Right over where my head woulda been if I’d been on her back–

And suddenly she’s dashing forward in terror–

I hang onto her reins and run after her–

Stumbling along the ground–

Half-running, half-pulled–

As spinning fires come flying in from all direkshuns around us–

Like the whole sky is ablaze–

And my hands are twisted in the reins–

And Angharrad is screaming, Boy colt!

And I’m falling–

The reins are pulling away–

Boy colt!

“Angharrad!”

And then I hear SUBMIT!

Yelled in a different horse voice–

And as I fall to the ground, I hear another set of hooves, another horse–

The Mayor, riding Morpeth–

Swinging a cloth round Angharrad’s head–

Covering her eyes, blinding her from the rain of fire storming down around us–

And then he reaches down and grabs me hard by the arm–

Lifting me up and into the air–

And throwing me outta the way of a spinning fire that burns the ground where I had just fallen–

“COME ON!” he yells–

And I scrabble over to Angharrad, grabbing her reins to guide her–

And the Mayor is riding a circle round us–

Dodging the fires in the sky–

Watching me–

Watching to see me get safe–

He came back to save me–

“BACK TO THE CITY, TODD!” he yells. “THEIR RANGE IS LIMITED! THEY CAN’T REACH–”

And he disappears as a spinning fire slams right into the broad chest of Morpeth–

{VIOLA}

“Think what you’re doing,” Bradley says, his Noise roaring Stupid, selfish bitch behind Simone in the cockpit seat. “Sorry,” he says immediately through clenched teeth. “But we don’t need to do this!”

We’re crammed in here, Bradley and Mistress Coyle stepping into each other’s space behind me and Lee.

“I’ve got telemetry,” Simone says. A small panel opens, exposing a square, blue button. You can’t just press on a screen to fire a weapon. It has to be physical. You have to mean it. “Target locking,” Simone says.

“The field is clearing!” Bradley says, pointing at the viewscreen above the cockpit. “It doesn’t even look like the fires can reach any further!”

Simone doesn’t respond but her fingers hesitate above the blue button–

“Your boy is still down there, my girl,” Mistress Coyle says, still talking right to me, as if I was in charge of this whole thing–

But it’s true, he is still down there, trying to pull Angharrad to her feet, somehow we can still see him, in the middle of the twisting smoke and fire, small and alone and not answering my comm–

“I know what you’re thinking, Viola,” Bradley says, trying to keep his voice calm even as his Noise rages. “But it’s one life against thousands.”

“Enough talking!” Lee yells. “Fire the goddam thing!”

But on the viewscreen, I see the battlefield is emptying, clearing out except for Todd and a few other stragglers and I think, if he can make it, if he can just make it out, then maybe it’s true, maybe the Mayor will realize how out-matched he is against weapons that powerful, because who’d want to fight this? Who could?

But Todd has to make it–

He has to–

And his horse is running now, pulling him along–

And the fires are whooshing in–

No, no–

Simone’s fingers are still hesitating above the button–

“Todd,” I say out loud–

“Viola,” Bradley says strongly, getting my attention–

I turn to him–

“I know how much he must mean to you,” he says, “but we can’t, there are so many more lives at stake–”

“Bradley–” I say–

“Not for one person,” he says. “You can’t make war personal–”

“LOOK!” Mistress Coyle shouts–

And I turn back to the viewscreen–

And I see–

A spinning fire slam right into the front of a running horse–

“NO!” I scream. “NO!”

And the screen erupts in a blast of flame–

And crying out at the top of my lungs, I lunge past Simone and I slam my fist down onto the blue button–

[TODD]

Morpeth don’t even have time to scream–

His knees buckle as the bolt of fire cuts right thru him–

I jump away from the blast, pulling Angharrad’s reins again, dragging her from the impact as the fire roars right over the top of us–

She comes easier now that at least her eyes are dark, her Noise trying to find the ground to run on–

And the bolt of fire flies on, flames pouring out everywhere–

But another batch of fire separates from it–

Tumbling out to one side and hitting the ground-

The Mayor, rolling furiously towards me–

I grab the blanket off Angharrad and fling it down on top of him, smothering the flames on his general’s uniform–

He rolls a few more times in the dirt and I jump around, patting down spots of fire on him–

I’m dimly aware that the fires are returning to the ledge again–

That we have another few seconds to get moving–

The Mayor stumbles up, still smoking, face black with soot, hair singed some, but mostly unharmed–

Not so Morpeth, whose body is barely recognizable in the burning heap–

“They’re going to pay for that,” the Mayor says, his voice rough from the smoke–

“Come on!” I shout. “We can make it if we run!”

“This isn’t how it was supposed to go, Todd,” he says angrily, as we head up the road. “They can’t come as far as the city, though, and I think they’ve got vertical limitations, too, which must be why they didn’t fire them from the hilltop–”

“Just shut up and run!” I say, huffing Angharrad along, thinking that we ain’t gonna make it by the time the next fires come–

“I’m telling you this because you shouldn’t think we’re beaten!” the Mayor yells. “This isn’t a victory for them. It’s merely a setback! We’ll still go after them, we’ll still–”