“Can you think of a safer place, my girl?” Mistress Coyle says.
After Simone’s call, Acorn and I rode fast straight back to the hilltop.
Where the Answer now makes camp.
The cold sun is rising on an open area filled with carts and people and the first makings of campfires. They’ve already organized a mess tent where Mistress Nadari and Mistress Lawson are busy coordinating supplies and rationing food, blue As still written across the front of their clothes and on a few scattered faces throughout the crowd. Magnus and other people I recognize are starting to set up tents, and I wave over at Wilf, who’s taking charge of the Answer’s animals. His wife Jane is with him, and she waves back so vigorously it looks like she might hurt herself.
“Your friends may not want to get involved in a war,” Mistress Coyle says, eating her breakfast on the back of the cart where she’s made her bed, parked near the bay doors of the scout ship. “But if the Mayor or the Spackle decide to attack, I’d imagine they’d be willing to protect themselves.”
“You’ve got some nerve,” I say angrily, still up on Acorn.
“Yes, I do have some nerve,” she says, taking another bite of porridge, “because some nerve is exactly what’s going to keep my people alive.”
“Until you decide to sacrifice them again.”
Her eyes flare at that. “You think you know me. You call me bad and evil and a tyrant and yes, I’ve made tough decisions, but they were decisions with only one aim, Viola. Getting rid of that man and returning to the Haven we had before. Not slaughter for its own sake. Not the sacrifice of good people for no reason. But, as it turns out, the same goal as you, my girl. Peace.”
“You’ve got a pretty warlike way of going about it.”
“I’ve got an adult way of going about it,” she says. “A way that isn’t nice or pretty, but that gets the job done.” She looks at someone behind me. “Morning.”
“Morning,” Simone says, coming down the ramp from the scout ship.
“How is he?” I ask her.
“Talking to the convoy,” she says, “seeing if they have any medical advice.” She crosses her arms. “None so far.”
“I don’t have any cure left,” Mistress Coyle says, “but there are natural remedies that can help take the edge off.”
“You stay away from him,” I say.
“I am a healer, Viola,” she says, “whether you like it or not. I’d even like to heal you, as I can see from a glance that you’re feverish.”
Simone looks at me, concerned. “She’s right, Viola. You don’t look well.”
“This woman is never going to touch me,” I say. “Ever again.”
Mistress Coyle sighs heavily. “Not even to let me make amends, my girl? Not even as a first peaceful gesture between us?”
I look at her, wondering about her, remembering how well she healed, how hard she fought for Corinne’s life, how she managed through sheer willpower to turn a band of healers and stragglers into an army that might have toppled the Mayor, just like she said, had the Spackle not come.
But I remember the bombs, too.
I remember the last bomb.
“You tried to kill me.”
“I tried to kill him,” she says. “There is a difference.”
“Got room for more up here?” says a voice behind us.
We all turn. It’s a dust-covered man with a ragged uniform and a sly look in his eyes. A look I recognize.
“Ivan?” I say.
“I woke up at the cathedral and there was a war a-going on,” he says.
I see other men behind him, heading for the food tent, the men who tried to help me and Todd overthrow the Mayor, the ones knocked unconscious in the Mayor’s Noise attack, Ivan the last to fall.
I’m not actually sure I’m pleased to see him.
“Todd always said you went where the power was,” I say.
His eyes flash. “It’s what’s kept me alive.”
“You’re very welcome here,” Mistress Coyle says, like she’s in charge. Ivan nods and heads off to feed himself. I look back at her, and I can see her smiling at what I’d said about power.
Because he came to her, didn’t he?
“It’s the smart thing to do,” the Mayor says. “It’s what I would do in her place. Try to get our new residents on her side.”
Viola called me first thing and told me all about the Answer showing up on the hilltop. I found myself seeing if I could hide it from the Mayor, trying to keep my Noise light, trying to do it without any effort at all.
He still heard me.
“There ain’t no sides,” I say. “There can’t be no more. It’s all of us against the Spackle now.”
The Mayor just makes an mmm sound with his throat.
“Mr President?” It’s Mr O’Hare with another report. The Mayor reads it, his gaze hungry.
Cuz nothing’s happened yet. I think he expected a new battle at first light but the cold sun rose and nothing happened and now it’s closer to midday and still nothing. Like all that fighting yesterday never happened.
(except it did–)
(except it’s still happening in my head–)
(I am the Circle and the Circle is me, I think, light as I can–)
“Not particularly illuminating,” the Mayor says to Mr O’Hare.
“There’s reports of possible movement to the south–”
The Mayor shoves the papers back at Mr O’Hare, cutting him off. “Do you know, Todd, if they chose to come at us with full numbers, there’d be nothing we could do? Our weapons would eventually run out of ammunition, our men would eventually die, and there would still be more than enough of them left to wipe us out.” He clicks his teeth together in thought. “So why aren’t they coming?” He turns to Mr O’Hare. “Tell the men to go in closer.”
Mr O’Hare looks surprised. “But, sir–”
“We need to know,” the Mayor says.
Mr O’Hare stares at him for a second, then says, “Yes, sir,” before leaving, but you can tell he’s unhappy about it.
“Maybe the Spackle don’t think the way you do,” I say. “Maybe their goal ain’t just war.”
He laughs. “Forgive me, Todd, but you do not know our enemy.”
“Maybe you don’t neither. Not as much as you think.”
He stops laughing. “I beat them before,” he says. “I will beat them again, even if they’re better, even if they’re smarter.” He brushes some dust off his general’s trousers. “They will attack, mark my words, and when they do, I will beat them.”
“And then we’ll make peace,” I say firmly.
“Yes, Todd,” he says. “Whatever you say.”
“Sir?” It’s Mr Tate this time.
“What is it?” the Mayor says, turning to him.
But Mr Tate ain’t looking at us. He’s looking past us, across the army, where the ROAR of the men is changing as they see it, too.
The Mayor and I turn to look.
And for a second, I truly don’t believe my eyes.
“I really think Mistress Coyle should have a look at this, Viola,” Mistress Lawson says, her worried hands rebandaging my arm.
“You’re doing fine on your own,” I say.
We’re back in the little makeshift healing room on the scout ship. As the morning went on, I really did start to feel unwell and sought out Mistress Lawson, who nearly fell over herself with concern when she saw me. Barely pausing to get permission from Simone, she dragged me aboard and set about reading the instructions for every new tool they landed with.
“These are the strongest antibiotics I found,” she says, finishing the new bandage. It feels cool as the medicine sinks in, though the red streaks are now stretching in both directions from the band. “All we can do now is wait.”
“Thank you,” I say, but she barely hears me as she goes back to inventorying the scout ship’s medical supplies. She was always the kindest of the mistresses, tiny and round and in charge of healing the children of Haven, always the one who wanted more than anything to stop other people suffering.
I leave her to it and head back down the ramp from the bay doors onto the hilltop, where the Answer’s camp is already looking almost permanent with the hawklike shadow of the scout ship watching over them. There are rows of orderly tents and fires, supply areas and meeting places. In barely the space of a morning, it looks almost like the camp they had back at the mine when I first joined up with them. Some of them were happy to greet me when I walked through it, but some wouldn’t speak to me at all, unsure of my place in all this.
I’m not too sure of my place in it either.
I had Mistress Lawson treat me because I’m going back down to see Todd, though I’m so tired right now, I’m not sure I won’t fall asleep in the saddle. I’ve already talked to him twice this morning. His voice on the comm is tinny and distant, and his Noise is muffled, overwhelmed on the tiny comm speakers by the Noise of the army around him.
But seeing his face helps.
“Are these all friends of yours, then?” Bradley says, coming down the ramp behind me.
“Hey!” I say, walking right into his hug. “How are you feeling?”
Loud, his Noise says and he gives a little smile, but it actually is a bit calmer today, less panicky.
“You will get used to it,” I say. “I promise.”
“As much as I might not want to.”
He brushes a strand of hair away from my eyes. So grown up, his Noise is saying. And looks so pale. And he shows a picture of me from last year, learning a math segment in the classes he taught. I look so small, so clean, that I have to laugh.
“Simone’s been speaking with the convoy,” he says. “They agree with the peaceful approach. We try to meet with these Spackle and offer humanitarian help to the people here, but the last thing we want to do is get involved in a war that has nothing to do with us.” His hand squeezes my shoulder. “You were right to want to keep us out of it, Viola.”
“I just wish I knew what to do now,” I say, turning away from his praise, remembering how close I came to choosing the other way. “I’ve been trying to get Mistress Coyle to talk to me about how the first truce worked but–
I stop because we both see someone running across the hilltop, looking this way and that, searching each face, then seeing the ship, seeing me and running even faster–
“Who’s that?” Bradley asks, but I’m already pulling away from him–
Because it’s–
“LEE!” I shout and start running towards him–
Viola, his Noise is saying, Viola, Viola, Viola, and he reaches me and spins me around in a breath-squeezing embrace that makes my arm ache. “Thank God!”
“Are you okay?” I’m saying as he lets me go. “Where’d you–?”
“The river!” he says, his breath heaving. “What’s happening to the river?”
He looks over to Bradley and back to me. His Noise gets louder, so does his voice. “Haven’t you seen the river?”
“But how?” I say, staring up at the falls–
Staring as they get quieter and quieter–
Staring as they start to disappear altogether–
The Spackle are turning off the river.
“Very clever,” the Mayor is saying to himself. “Very clever indeed.”
“What is?” I nearly shout at him. “What are they doing?”
Every man in the army is watching it now, ROARing loud about it like you wouldn’t believe, watching as the falls trickle back just exactly like someone turning down a tap, with the river below shrinking, too, metres of mud popping up where riverbank used to be.
“No word from our spies, Captain O’Hare?” the Mayor says, in a voice that ain’t happy.
“None, sir,” Mr O’Hare says. “If there’s a dam, it’s back quite a ways.”
“Then we need to find out exactly, don’t we?”
“Now, sir?”
The Mayor turns to him, fury-eyed. Mr O’Hare just salutes and leaves quickly.
“What’s going on?” I say.
“They want a siege, Todd,” the Mayor says. “Instead of a battle, they take away our water and wait until we’re so weak they can walk right over us.” His voice sounds almost angry. “This isn’t what they were supposed to do, Todd. And we will not let them get away with it. Captain Tate!”
“Yes, sir,” says Mr Tate, who’s been waiting and watching with us.
“Get the men in battle formations.”
Mr Tate looks surprised. “Sir?”
“Is there a problem with your orders, Captain?”
“The uphill battle, sir. You said yourself–”
“That was before the enemy declined to play by the rules.” His words start filling the air, twirling around and slipping into the heads of the soldiers around the edge of our camp–
“Every man will do his duty,” the Mayor says, “every man will fight until the battle is won. They won’t be expecting us to come at them so hard and surprise will win us the day. Is that clear?”
Mr Tate says, “Yes, sir,” and heads off into the army, shouting orders, while the soldiers nearest us are already gearing up and making lines.
“Prepare yourself, Todd,” the Mayor says, watching him go. “This is the day we settle it.”
“How?” Simone says. “How did they do it?”
“Can you send the probe back upriver?” Mistress Coyle asks.
“They’d just shoot it down again,” Bradley says, dialling some more on the probe’s remote panel. We’re gathered around the three-dimensional projection, Bradley aiming it under the shadow cast by the wing of the ship. Me, Simone, Bradley and Lee, with Mistress Coyle and more and more people from the Answer crowding in as word spreads.
“There,” Bradley says, and the projection gets even bigger.
There are gasps in the crowd. The river’s almost completely dry. There’s almost no waterfall at all. The picture rises a bit, but all we can see is the river drying up above the falls as well, the Spackle army a white- and clay-coloured mass on the road to the side.
“Are there other sources of water?” Simone asks.
“A few,” Mistress Coyle says, “streams and ponds here and there, but . . .”
“We’re in trouble,” Simone says. “Aren’t we?”
Lee turns to her, perplexed. “You think our trouble is just starting now?”
“I told you not to underestimate them,” Mistress Coyle says to Bradley.
“No,” Bradley replies, “you told us to bomb them into oblivion, without even trying for peace first.”
“And you’re saying I was wrong?”
Bradley dials on the remote screen again, and the probe rises higher in the sky, showing even more of the Spackle army stretching down the road in their thousands. There are further gasps behind us as the Answer sees how big the Spackle army is for the first time.
“We couldn’t kill them all,” Bradley says. “We’d only be guaranteeing our own doom.”
“What’s the Mayor doing?” I ask, my voice tight.
Bradley changes the projection angle again, and we see the army sorting itself into lines.
“No,” Mistress Coyle whispers. “He can’t be.”
“Can’t what?” I say. “Can’t what?”
“Attacking,” she answers. “It’d be suicide.”
My comm beeps and I answer it immediately. “Todd?”
“Viola?” he says, his worried face in my hand.
“What’s going on?” I say. “Are you all right?”
“The river, Viola, the river’s–”
“We can see it. We’re watching it right–”
“The falls!” he says. “They’re in the falls!”
There’s a line of lights in the shadows under the disappearing falls, stretching down the path Viola and I once took when we were running from Aaron, a watery, slippery stone path under the crashing wall of water that led to an abandoned church stretched across a ledge. The inside wall was marked with a white circle and two smaller circles orbiting it, this planet and its two moons, and you can see it glowing there, too, above the line of lights gathered across the rocky face of what’s now just a wet cliff.
“Can you see ’em?” I say to Viola thru the comm.
“Hold on,” she says.
“Do you still have those binos, Todd?” the Mayor says.
I’d forgotten I’d taken them back from him. I run over to where Angharrad’s still standing silently next to my stuff.
“Don’t you worry,” I say to her, digging thru my bag. “I’ll keep you safe.”
I find the binos and don’t even go back to the Mayor before I put ’em up to my eyes. I hit some buttons and zoom in–
“We see them now, Todd,” Viola says from the comm in my other hand. “It’s a bunch of Spackle on that ledge we ran down–”
“I know,” I say. “I see ’em, too.”
“What do you see, Todd?” the Mayor says, coming over to me.
“What are they holding?” Viola asks.
“A kind of bow,” I say, “but those don’t look like–”
“Todd!” she says and I look up above the binos–
One speck of light is leaving the line from the falls, flying out from under the church symbol in a slow arc down the riverbed–
“What is it?” says the Mayor. “It’s too big for an arrow.”
I look back thru the binos, trying to find the light, coming closer by the second–
There it is–
It looks like it’s wavering, flickering in and out–
We all turn as it flies down the river, as it takes a rounded path over the last trickles of water–
“Todd?” Viola says.
“What is it, Todd?” the Mayor growls at me.
And I see thru the binos–
As its path curves in the air–
And starts heading back towards the army–
Back towards us–
That it ain’t flickering after all–
It’s spinning–
And that the light ain’t just light–
It’s fire–
“We need to get back,” I say, keeping the binos to my eyes. “We need to get back into the city.”
“It’s heading right for you, Todd!” Viola’s screaming–
The Mayor can’t help it no more and tries to yank the binos from my hand–
“Hey!” I yell–
And I punch him in the side of his face–
He staggers back, more surprised than hurt–
And it’s the screaming that makes us turn round–
The spinning fire has reached the army–
The crowd of soldiers is trying to part, trying to get away as it flies towards ’em–
Flies towards us–
Flies towards me–
But there’s too many soldiers, too many people in the way–
And the spinning fire comes blazing thru ’em–
Right at head height–
And the first soldiers it hits are blasted nearly in two–
And it ain’t stopping–
It ain’t effing stopping–
The spinning don’t even drop speed–
It rips thru the soldiers like matches being struck–
Destroying the men directly in its way–
And engulfing the men on either side in a sticky, white fire–
And it’s still flying–
Still as fast as it was–
Coming right towards me–
Right towards me and the Mayor–
And there ain’t nowhere to run–
“Viola!” I yell–
“Todd!” I yell into the comm as we watch the fire curve through the air and slam into a group of soldiers–
Through a group of soldiers–
Screams start rising in the air behind us from people seeing the projection–
The fire slices through the army as easy as someone drawing a line with a pen, curving as it goes, tearing the soldiers to pieces, sending them flying, coating everything it even comes close to in fire–
“Todd!” I shout into the comm. “Get out of there!”
But I can’t see his face any more, just the fire cutting a path in the projection, killing everything in the way, and then–
Then it rises–
“What the hell?” Lee says next to me–
It rises up above the army, out of the crowd, out of the men it was killing–
“It’s still curving,” Bradley says.
“What is it?” Simone asks Mistress Coyle.
“I’ve never seen it before,” Mistress Coyle answers, her eyes not leaving the projection. “The Spackle obviously haven’t been idle.”
“Todd?” I say into my comm.
But he doesn’t answer.
Bradley draws a square with his thumb on the remote and a box appears in the projection, surrounding the fiery thing and enlarging it out to one side of the main picture. He dials some more and the image slows down. The fire burns on a spinning bladed S, so bright and ferocious it’s hard to even look at it–
“It’s going back to the falls!” Lee says, pointing back to the main projection, where the fiery thing has risen up out of the army, still curving, still flying viciously fast. We watch as it lifts higher in the air, completing one long circle, rising up the zigzag hill, heading towards the ledge under the now-dry falls, still spinning and burning. We can see the Spackle there now, dozens of them holding more burning blades at the end of their bows. They don’t flinch as the flying one heads right towards them, and we see a Spackle with an empty bow, the one who fired the first shot–
We watch as he flips his bow up, revealing a curved hook at the bottom end, and with perfect timing he snatches the flying S right out of the air, turning it with a practised motion, and immediately it’s reset, ready to fire again, tall as the body of the Spackle itself.
In the reflected light of the fire, we see the Spackle’s hands, arms and body are covered in a thick, flexible clay, protecting him from the burning.
“Todd?” I say, into the comm. “Are you there? You need to run, Todd! You need to run–”
And in the larger view, we can see all the Spackle raising their bows–
“Todd!” I yell. “Answer me!”
And as one–
They all fire–
“VIOLA!” I scream–
But I don’t got the comm no more, the binos neither–
They were knocked outta my hands by a wall of running soldiers, pushing and shoving and screaming–
And burning–
The spinning fire ripped a curve thru the men right in front of me, killing ’em so fast they barely knew what happened and setting ’em alight in two or three rows on either side–
And just as it was about to take off my own head–
It lifted–
Up into the air–
Curving round–
And flying back to the ledge where it came from–
I whirl round now to see where I can run–
And then, over the shouting of the soldiers–
I hear Angharrad screaming–
And I’m pushing back and hitting out and shoving men aside to get to my horse–
“Angharrad!” I yell. “ANGHARRAD!”
And I can’t see her–
But I hear her screaming in terror–
I push forward even harder–
And I feel a hand on my collar–
“No, Todd!” the Mayor shouts, pulling me back–
“I’ve got to get to her!” I shout back and yank away from him–
“We have to run!” he yells–
And this is so completely something the Mayor would never say I spin round to look at him–
But his eyes are on the falls–
And I look, too–
And–
And–
Holy God–
An expanding arc of fire is racing out from the ledge–
The Spackle have fired every single bow–
Dozens of ’em–
Dozens of ’em that’ll reduce the army to nothing but ash and bodies–
“Come on!” the Mayor’s yelling, grabbing me again. “To the city!”
But I see a break in the men–
I see Angharrad rearing up in fright–
Her eyes wide open at the hands grabbing her–
And I lunge towards her–
Away from the Mayor–
Soldiers filling the space twixt us–
“I’m here, girl!” I yell, pressing forward–
But she’s just screaming and screaming–
I reach her and I knock back a soldier trying to climb into her saddle–
And the spinning fires are getting closer and closer–
Curving both ways, this time–
Coming from either side–
And the men are running in every direkshun, up the road to the town, into where the river’s trickling away, even back to the zigzag hill–
And I say, “You have to run, girl!”
And the spinning fires reach us–
“Todd!” I scream again and I see the fires zooming in over the river and some coming round the other way, curving along the hills of the valley–
Coming at the army from both sides–
“Where is he?!” I yell. “Can you see him?”
“I can’t see anything in this mess,” Bradley says.
“We have to do something!” I say.
Mistress Coyle catches my eye. She’s searching my face, searching it hard–
“Todd?” I say into the comm. “Answer me, please!”
“They’ve reached the army!” Lee yells.
And we all look back at the projection–
Where the spinning fires are slashing through the fleeing army in all directions–
They’re going to reach Todd–
They’re going to kill him–
They’re going to kill every man down there–
“We have to stop this!” I say.
“Viola,” Bradley says, a warning in his voice.
“Stop it how?” Simone says, and I can see her considering it again.
“Yes, Viola,” Mistress Coyle says, staring right into my eyes. “Stop it how?”
I look back in the projection, back at the army burning and dying-
“They’ll kill your boy,” Mistress Coyle says, like she’s reading my mind. “No two ways about it this time.”
And she can see my face–
See me thinking it–
Thinking it again–
Thinking about all that death.
“No,” I whisper. “We can’t–”
Can we?
WHOOSH!
One spinning fire flies right by us on our left and I see the head taken off a soldier trying to duck–
I pull on Angharrad’s reins but she rears up again in panic, her eyes wide and white, her Noise just a high-pitched scream I can barely stand–
And another fire WHOOSHES across the path in front of us, spilling flames everywhere, and Angharrad’s so terrified she lifts me off my feet by the reins and we fall back into a crowd of soldiers–
“THIS WAY!” I hear yelled behind us.
The Mayor, screaming, as a spinning fire makes a wall of flames outta the soldiers just behind me and Angharrad–
And when he yells it, it’s like I feel a pull in my feet, almost turning me round to face him–
But I force myself back to Angharrad–
“Come on, girl!” I yell, trying to get her moving, any way, any how-
“TODD! LEAVE HER!”
I turn and I see the Mayor, somehow back up on Morpeth, leaping twixt men and racing out from under a spinning fire as it rises back into the sky–
“TO THE CITY!” he shouts at the soldiers–
Planting it in their Noises–
Planting it in mine–
Throbbing thru it with a low hum–
And I knock him back again in my head–
But the soldiers near him are running even faster–
I look up and see the spinning fires still cutting thru the sky like swooping birds–
But they’re heading back to the ledge–
There are burning men everywhere but the army that’s still alive is also noticing that the fires are going back–
That we’ve got a few seconds before they come again–
And the men are reaching the city now, the first ones heading up the road, running where the Mayor’s yelling–
“TODD! YOU’VE GOT TO RUN!”
But Angharrad’s still screaming, still pulling away from me, still flailing in terror–
And my heart’s ripping in two–
“COME ON, GIRL!”
“TODD!” shouts the Mayor–
But I ain’t leaving Angharrad–
“I AIN’T LEAVING HER!” I shout back at him–
Dammit, I ain’t–
I left Manchee–
I left him behind–
And I ain’t doing it again–
“TODD!”
And I look back–
And he’s away from me, peeling back to the city–
With the rest of the men–
And me and Angharrad are being left alone in the emptying camp–
“We are not firing a missile,” Bradley says, his Noise roaring. “That decision has already been made.”
“You have missiles?” Lee says. “Why the hell aren’t you using them?”
“Because we want to make peace with this species!” Bradley shouts. “If we fire, the consequences would be disastrous!”
“They’re disastrous right now,” Mistress Coyle says.
“Disastrous to an army you wanted us to fight,” Bradley says. “Disastrous for the army that brought on the attack!”
“Bradley–” Simone says.
He spins round to her, his Noise filled with incredibly rude words. “We have nearly 5000 people that are our responsibility. You really want them to wake up to find we’ve thrown them into an unwinnable war?”
“You’re already in the war!” Lee says.
“No, we’re not!” Bradley says even louder. “And because we’re not, we might just be able to get the rest of you out of it!”
“All you have to do is show them they’ve got more than just cannons to worry about,” Mistress Coyle says, strangely, to me, rather than Bradley or Simone. “We negotiated peace with them the first time, my girl, because we were in a position of strength. That’s how wars work, that’s how truces work. We show them we’ve got more power than they imagine and they’re more willing to make peace.”
“And then they come back in five years’ time when they’ve gotten stronger and kill every human here,” Bradley says.
“Five years’ time where we can build bridges with them and make sure a new war isn’t necessary,” Mistress Coyle says back.
“Which you obviously did a fantastic job of last time!”
“What are you waiting for? Fire the missile!” Ivan calls from the crowd and more voices join around him, too.
“Todd,” I whisper to myself and I look back at the projection–
The burning fires are flying back to the falls again, being caught and reloaded–
And then I see him–
“He’s alone!” I yell. “They’re leaving him behind!”
The army is fleeing down the road to the city, pushing against each other in crowds past Todd and into the first trees–
“He’s trying to save his horse!” Lee says.
I click on the comm again and again. “Dammit, Todd! Answer me!”
“My girl!” Mistress Coyle snaps to get my attention. “We are here at the crucial moment again. You and your friends are getting a second chance to make your decision.”
Bradley’s Noise makes an angry sound and he turns to Simone for help, but Simone’s eyes just flick to the crowd around us, the crowd demanding that we fire. “I don’t see how we have any choice,” she says. “If we do nothing, those people will die.”
“And if we do something, those people will also die,” Bradley says, his surprise flashing everywhere. “And so will we and so will everyone arriving on the ships. This is not our fight!”
“It will be one day,” Simone says. “We’d be demonstrating strength. That might make them willing to negotiate with us now.”
“Simone!” Bradley says and his Noise says something really rude. “The convoy wants us to pursue peaceful–”
“The convoy aren’t seeing what we’re seeing,” Simone says.
“They’re firing again!” I say–
Another arc of spinning fire is launching from the ledge under the falls–
And I think to myself, What would Todd want?
He’d want me safe, first of everything–
Todd would want a world that was safe for me–
He would, I know he would–
Even if he wasn’t in it–
But he’s still down there in the middle of the battle–
Still down there alone with the fire coming at him–
And the fact I can’t get out of my head, peace or not, is what I also know to be true–
True but not right–
True but so dangerous–
Which is that if they kill him–
If they hurt him–
Then there won’t be enough weapons on this ship for all the Spackle who’ll have to pay.
I look over to Simone, who reads my face easily.
“I’m getting a missile ready,” she says.
“Come on, girl, please,” I say–
There’s bodies around us everywhere, burning in heaps, some of ’em still screaming–
“Come on!” I shout–
But she’s resisting me, flinging her head this way and that, pulling away from the fire and smoke, from the bodies, from the few soldiers still running past us–
And then she falls–
Back and down, onto her side–
Dragging me to the ground with her–
I land near her head–
“Angharrad,” I call, right into her ears. “PLEASE, get up!”
And there’s a twist to her neck–
A twist to her ears–
And her eye spins to me–
Spins right at me for the first time–
And–
Boy colt?
Quivery and small–
Tiny and quiet and frightened as anything–
But it’s there–
“I’m right here, girl!”
Boy colt?
And my heart’s leaping with hope–
“Come on, girl! Get up, get up, get up, get up–”
And I’m leaning back on my knees, pulling on the reins–
“Please please please please please–”
And she’s lifting her head–
And her eyes go back to the falls–
Boy colt! she shouts–
And I look back–
Another arc of spinning fires is coming right at us–
“Come on!”
She rocks up to her feet, unsteady on the ground, stumbling away from a burning body near us–
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–
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–
“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–
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–”
And then there’s a sudden shriek in the air above us, whipping by like a bullet and–
–the whole hillside explodes outwards like a volcano of dust and fire and the blast wave knocks me and the Mayor and Angharrad down to the ground and a hail of pebbles splatters down on top of us, big boulders landing nearby that could smash us flat–
“What?!” the Mayor says, looking back up–
The dry falls is collapsing into the emptied pool below, taking all the spinning fire Spackle with it, dust and smoke heaving into the sky as the zigzag road is obliterated, too, the whole front section of the hill tumbling down on itself, leaving a jagged wreck along the top–
“Was that yer men?” I shout, my ears ringing from the boom. “Was that the artillery?”
“We didn’t have time!” he shouts back, his eyes reading the destruckshun. “And we don’t have anything like that kind of power.”
The first billows of smoke start to clear a little, showing a big, gaping funnel where the lip of the hill was, jagged rocks everywhere, a scar ripped right outta the hillside–
And Viola, I think–
“Indeed,” says the Mayor, realizing it, too, a sudden, ugly pleasure in his voice.
And standing up in front of a field of dead soldiers, a field covered with the burnt remains of men I saw walking and talking not ten minutes before, men who fought and died for him, in a battle he started–
In front of all of this–
The Mayor says, “Your friends have joined the war.”
And he smiles.
The blast hits us all.
The hill that overlooks the valley is torn from the earth. The archers of the Land are killed instantly, as are all the Land near the edge of the hill when it exploded, the Sky and I only saved by a matter of body-lengths.
And the blast keeps on occurring, echoing through the voice of the Land, stretching back down the river, amplifying over and over until it seems to be continually happening, the shock of it roaring through us again and again and again, leaving the Land dazed as one, wondering what the sheer size of the explosion means.
Wondering what will come next.
Wondering if it will be big enough to kill us all.
The Sky stopped the river shortly after the sun rose. He sent a message through the Pathways to the Land who were building the dam far upriver, telling them to raise their final walls, drop their final stones, turn the river back onto itself. The river began to subside, slowly at first, then faster and faster until the arcs of colour thrown up by the spray of the waterfall disappeared and the vast width of the river became a muddy plain. As the sound of rushing water vanished, we could hear the voices of the Clearing raised in bafflement and fear at the bottom of the hill.
And then came the hour of the archers, and our eyes went with them. They had slipped beneath the falls under cover of darkness, waiting until the sun rose and the water stopped.
And then they raised their weapons and fired.
Every part of the Land watched as it happened, seeing through the eyes of the archers as the burning blades tore through the Clearing, as the Clearing ran and screamed and died. We watched as one as our victory unfolded, watched as they were powerless to retaliate–
And then came the sudden tearing in the air, the whoosh of something moving so fast it was sensed more than seen, a final, thudding flash that filled the mind and soul and voice of every member of the Land, signalling that our apparent victory would come at a cost, that the Clearing had bigger weapons than we thought, that now they would use them to destroy us all–
But further explosions do not come.
The vessel that flew over us, I show to the Sky when the Land begins to stumble to its feet again. He helps me up from where the blast knocked us back, neither of us hurt more than small cuts but the ground around us littered with bodies of the Land.
The vessel, the Sky agrees.
We go right to work, fearing a second blast every moment. He sends out commands to the Land for immediate regrouping, and I help him move the wounded to healing crèches, a new camp already organizing itself farther up the dry riverbed even in the early moments after the blast because that is what the Sky has ordered, a place for the voice of the Land to gather itself together again, to become one again.
But not too far up the riverbed. The Sky wants the Clearing still in physical sight, even though the hill is so destroyed now there is no longer space for an army to march down it, unless it were to climb down single file.
There are other ways, he shows to me, and already I can hear the messages being passed from him to the Pathways, messages that rearrange where the body of the Land rests, messages that tell it to start moving along roads that the Clearing is unaware of.
It is strange, he shows, hours later, when we finally stop to eat and a second blast has still not come. To fire once, but not again.
Maybe they only had the one weapon, I show. Or they know that such weapons are useless against the force of a backed-up river. If they destroy us, we will release it and destroy them.
Mutually assured destruction, the Sky says, words that catch oddly in his voice, like foreign things. His voice turns in on itself for a long moment, searching deep within the voice of the Land, looking for answers.
Then he stands. The Sky must leave the Return for now.
Leave? I show. But there is work to do–
There are things the Sky must first do alone. He looks down on my bewilderment. Meet me by my steed at dusk.
Your steed? I show, but he is already walking away.
As the afternoon dwindles away, I do as the Sky asks and walk back up the dry riverbed, past the cookfires and healing crèches, past the Land’s soldiers, recovering after the blast, tending to their weapons, readying themselves for the next attack, and mourning the body of the Land that died.
But the Land must also keep living, and as I get far enough upriver from the blast site, I pass members of the Land regurgitating the materials used to build new bivouacs, with several huts already reaching their way into the still smoky evening. I walk by the Land tending to flocks of whitebirds and scriven, part of our living larder. I walk by the bivouacs of grain and the fish stores, replenished now from the emptied river. I walk past the Land digging new latrine holes and even through a group of young ones singing the songs that will teach them how to sort out the history of the Land from all the voices, how to turn and twist and weave the mass of sound into one single voice that will tell them who they are, always and for ever.
A song whose language I still struggle to speak, even when the Land talks to me at the pace they would to one of those children.
I walk through the singing until I find myself at the paddock of the battlemores.
Battlemores.
They were always creatures of legend to me, seen only in the voices of the Burden as I grew, in dreams and tales and histories of the war that left us with the Clearing. I half-believed they were fantasies, exaggerated monsters that either did not exist at all or would be grave disappointments in the flesh.
I was wrong. They are magnificent. Huge and white, except when covered in clay battle armour. Even without it, their hides are thick and formed into hard plates. They are nearly as wide as I am tall, with a broad back that can easily be stood upon, the Land using the traditional foot saddles to stay upright.
The Sky’s steed is biggest of all. The horn that thrusts up from its nose is longer than my entire body. It also has a rare secondary horn as well, one that only grows on the leader of the herd.
Return, it shows as I approach the paddock fence. The only word of the Burden it knows, taught it by the Sky, no doubt. Return, it shows, and it is gentle, welcoming. I reach out and place a hand in the space between its horns, rubbing gently with my fingers. It closes its eyes with pleasure.
That is a weakness of the Sky’s steed, shows the Sky, coming up behind me. No, do not stop.
Is there news? I show, taking my hand away. Have you made a decision?
He sighs at my impatience. The Clearing’s weapons are stronger than ours, he shows. If there are more, the Land will die in waves.
They have already killed thousands these years past. They will kill thousands more even if we do nothing.
We will continue with our original plan, the Sky shows. We have shown our new strength and driven them back. We control the river which deprives them of water and lets them know we can drown them at any moment should we release it all at once. And now, we will see how they respond.
I stand up straighter, my voice rising. “See how they respond”? What possible good can–?
I stop, as a thought comes, a thought that stops all other thoughts.
You do not mean, I show, stepping forward. You cannot mean that you will see if they offer a peaceful solution–
He shifts his stance. The Sky has never shown that.
You promised they would be destroyed! I show. Does the slaughter of the Burden mean nothing to you?
Calm yourself, he shows and for the first time, his voice is commanding me. I will take your counsel and experience, but I will do what is best for the Land.
What was best once before was leaving the Burden behind! As slaves!
We were a different Land then, he shows, under a different Sky and with different skills and weapons. We are better now. Stronger. We have learned much.
And yet you would still make peace–
I have not shown that either, young friend. His voice is growing calmer, more soothing. But there are more vessels coming, are there not?
I blink at him.
You have told us this. You heard it yourself in the voice of the Knife. There is a convoy of vessels coming with more weapons like the one fired today. These things must be taken into account for the long-term life of the Land.
I do not respond. I keep my voice to myself.
And so, for now, we will move the body of the Land into an advantageous position and we will wait. The Sky walks to his steed and scratches its nose. They will soon find they cannot live without water. They will make their move, and even if it involves another weapon like today’s, we will be ready for it. He turns to me. And the Return will not be disappointed.
As dusk turns to night, we return to the Sky’s own campfire. And as the Land and the Sky turn towards sleep, as the Clearing makes no move below us to attack again, I layer my voice to obscure it like I learned from a lifetime with the Clearing, and within it, I examine two things.
Mutually assured destruction, showed the Sky.
Convoy, showed the Sky.
Words in the language of the Burden, words in the language of the Clearing.
But a phrase I do not know. A word I have never used.
Words that are not from the long memory of the Land.
They are new words. I could almost smell the freshness on them.
As the night pulls in and the siege of the Clearing begins, that is what I keep hidden in my voice.
The Sky left me today, to be alone, as the Sky occasionally does. It is a need of the Sky, of any Sky.
But he returned with new words.
So where did he hear them?