by Patrick Ness
The line of soldiers has broken–
Mr Morgan has fallen under the feet of a horned creacher–
Spackle are pouring down the hill now–
Pouring onto the battlefield from all direkshuns–
Cutting thru the men who still fight–
Pouring like a wave straight at me and the Mayor–
“Ready yourself!” shouts the Mayor–
“We have to retreat!” I shout back. “We have to get outta here!”
And I try to turn Angharrad’s reins–
But I look behind us–
The Spackle have come round the back of the men–
We’re surrounded–
“Ready!” the Mayor shouts into the Noise of the soldiers around him–
Viola, I think–
There’s too many of ’em, I think–
Oh, help, I think–
“FIGHT TO THE LAST MAN!” screams the Mayor.
{VIOLA}
“Her?!” Mistress Coyle says. “She’s just a girl–”
“A girl we trust,” Simone says. “A girl trained to be a settler just as much as her parents were.”
My face flushes a little at this but only partly out of embarrassment. Because it’s true. I did train for this. And I’ve been through more than enough in this place for my opinion to count–
I look back at the projection, back at the battle, which seems to be getting even worse, and I try to think. It looks awful as anything down there, but the Spackle aren’t attacking for no reason. And their target could just be the Mayor and we did beat him before but–
“Your Todd’s down there,” Mistress Coyle says. “He’s going to be killed if you don’t do something.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” I say. Because that’s the thing, the thing that overrides everything. I turn to Bradley and Simone. “I’m sorry, but we have to save him. We have to. Me and him were this close to saving the whole planet until they screwed it all up–”
“But would saving him be at the cost of something greater?” Bradley says, kindly, but very serious, trying to make me see. “Think hard now. What you do first anywhere is remembered for ever. It sets the whole future.”
“I’m not inclined to trust this woman, Viola,” says Simone and Mistress Coyle glowers. “But that doesn’t mean she’s not right about this. If you say it’s right, Viola, we’ll intervene.”
“If you say it’s right, Viola,” Bradley says, echoing Simone with a little snap, “we start our new life here as conquerors and you’ll be setting up brand new wars for generations to come.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake!” Mistress Coyle shouts in frustration. “The power is here, Viola! Here is where we can change everything! Not even for me, my girl, for Todd, for you! Right here, right now, what you decide can end all of this!”
“Or,” Bradley says, “you can start something even worse.”
They’re all looking at me. I look back to the projection. The Spackle are throughout the men now and more and more are coming–
And Todd’s down there in it–
“If you do nothing,” Mistress Coyle says. “Your boy dies.”
Todd, I think–
Would I start a new war just to save you?
Would I?
“Viola?” Simone says again. “What’s the right thing to do?”
[TODD]
I fire my gun but there’s so many Spackle and men mixed together I have to aim high to make sure I don’t hit none of my own side and cuz of that I don’t hit no Spackle neither and one is suddenly in front of me raising a white stick to Angharrad’s head and I swing the barrel of the gun round and hit the Spackle hard behind his too-high ear and he falls and another one is already right there and it’s grabbing my arm and I’m thinking VIOLA right into its face and it stumbles back and there’s a rip at my opposite sleeve and an arrow’s flown right thru it and just misses going into the soft spot underneath my jaw and I’m pulling Angharrad’s reins to turn her cuz there ain’t no way outta this alive and we gotta run and a soldier gets hit with a blast from a white stick right next to us and a spray of blood covers my face and I turn away not seeing where I’m going and I’m pulling Angharrad with me and all I can think, all I can think in the middle of so much Noise, all I can think as I hear men die and Spackle die and see them die in Noise even with my eyes shut, all I can think is–
Is this what war is?
Is this what men want so much?
Is this sposed to make them men?
Death coming at you with a roar and a scream so fast you can’t do nothing about it–
And then I hear the Mayor’s voice–
“FIGHT!” he’s shouting–
In his voice and his Noise–
“FIGHT!”
And I wipe away the blood and open my eyes and it’s plain as anything that fighting is all that’s ever gonna happen in the world till we die and I see the Mayor on Morpeth and both he and his horse are bloodied and he’s fighting so hard I can actually hear his Noise and it’s still cold as stone but it’s saying TO THE END, TO THE END–
And he catches my eye–
And I realize it really is the end–
We’ve lost–
There’s too many of ’em–
We’ve lost–
And I grab Angharrad’s mane with both my hands and I hold it tight and I think Viola–
And then–
The entire bottom section of the hill the Spackle are coming down explodes in a roar of fire and dirt and flesh–
Rising up and over everything, pelting us with stones and soil and bits of Spackle–
And Angharrad’s yelling and we’re both falling sideways to the ground and there’s men and Spackle screaming all round us and running this way and that way and my leg is pinned under Angharrad who’s trying to work her way back up to standing but I see the Mayor ride past–
And I can hear him laughing–
“What the hell was that?” I scream at him.
“A GIFT!” he screams back as he rides thru the dirt and the smoke and he’s yelling to the men, “ATTACK! ATTACK NOW!”
{VIOLA}
We snap our attention back to the projection. “What was that?” I say.
There was a sudden boom but all the probe is showing is a solid block of smoke. Bradley dials the screen of the remote and the probe rises again, but smoke is covering everything.
“Is it recording?” Simone says. “Can you rewind?”
Bradley dials some more and suddenly the picture is going back on itself, back down into the cloud, the smoke rapidly gathering together and–
“There,” Bradley stops it and runs it forward again in slow motion.
The battle is as chaotic and terrible as it was, the men being overwhelmed by the Spackle army and then–
BOOM!
There’s an explosion at the base of the hill, a sudden violent eruption sending dirt and rock and the bodies of Spackle and their battlemores flying up and out, spinning into the cloud of smoke that rapidly covers everything–
Bradley rewinds again and we watch it once more, a small flash and then a whole section of the hill is picked up and thrown into the air and right there on the screen we see Spackle die–
Die and die and die–
Dozens of them–
And I remember the one on the riverbank–
I remember his fear–
“Is this you?” Simone says to Mistress Coyle. “Has your army reached the fighting?”
“We don’t have missiles,” Mistress Coyle says, not taking her eyes off the projection. “If we did, I wouldn’t be asking you to fire yours.”
“Then where did it come from?” Simone says. Bradley’s fiddled with the controls and the picture is bigger and clearer and on the slowest setting you can see something flying into the base of the hill, see even more slowly the earth flying up, the Spackle bodies being torn, not caring what lives they had, who they loved, what their names are or were–
Lives ending–
We did this to them, we made them attack, we enslaved and killed them, or at least the Mayor did–
And here we are killing them all over again–
Simone and Mistress Coyle are arguing but I’m really not hearing them–
Because I also know this.
When Simone asked me what to do–
I was going to say fire the missile.
I was.
I was going to cause this damage myself. I was going to say, yes, do it, fire it–
Kill all these Spackle, these Spackle with their real reason to attack someone who deserves it more than anyone on this planet–
If it would save Todd, it wouldn’t have mattered, I was going to do it–
I would have killed hundreds, thousands to save him.
I would have started an even bigger war for Todd.
And that realization is so huge I have to reach out a hand to Acorn to steady myself.
Then I hear Mistress Coyle’s voice rise over Simone’s, “It can only mean that he’s been building artillery himself!”
[TODD]
In the smoke and the screaming, Angharrad rocks her way back up to her feet, her Noise not saying nothing now, not saying it in a way that makes me really scared for her, but she’s up again and I’m looking back and I’m seeing it, I’m seeing where the blast came from–
The other army units. Led by Mr Tate and Mr O’Hare, back from collecting the rest of the soldiers, back from collecting the armaments the Mayor was talking about.
Armaments that I for one didn’t know he had.
“Secret weapons only work if they’re secret,” he says, riding back up to me.
He’s smiling wide now.
Cuz here comes a surge of new soldiers from the city road, hundreds of ’em, fresh and screaming and ready to fight–
And already the Spackle are turning–
Already the Spackle are looking back up the hill, trying to see if there’s any way over where the ground exploded–
And there’s another flash and a whistling sound over our heads and–
I flinch and Angharrad screams as another hole is blasted into the hill and more dirt and smoke and Spackle bodies and horned creacher parts go flying into the air.
The Mayor don’t flinch at all, just looks happy as the new soldiers flood round us, as the Spackle army collapses into chaos and turns and tries to run–
And is cut down by our new arrivals–
And I’m breathing heavy–
And I’m watching the tide turn–
And I gotta say–
I gotta say–
(shut up)
I feel a rush as I see it–
(shut up)
I feel relief and I feel joy and I feel my blood pumping as I see the Spackle fall–
(shut up shut up shut up)
“You weren’t worried there, were you, Todd?” the Mayor asks.
I look back at him, dirt and blood drying on my face, the bodies of men and Spackle around us everywhere, a new bright flood of Noise filling the air even tho I didn’t think it could ever get any louder–
“Come!” he says to me. “See what it’s like to be on the winning side.”
And he rides off after the new soldiers.
I ride after him, gun up, but not shooting, just watching and feeling–
Feeling the thrill of it–
Cuz that’s it–
That’s the nasty, nasty secret of war–
When yer winning–
When yer winning, it’s ruddy thrilling–
The Spackle are running back up the hill, climbing over the rubble and running–
Running away from us–
And I raise my gun–
And I aim it at the back of a running Spackle–
And my finger’s on the trigger–
And it’s ready to pull–
And the Spackle stumbles over the body of another Spackle, but it ain’t just one body, it’s two, it’s three–
And then the smoke is clearing and I’m seeing more, I’m seeing bodies everywhere, men and Spackle and horned creachers–
And I’m back in the monastery, back where the Spackle bodies were piled up–
And it don’t feel so thrilling no more–
“CHASE THEM UP THE HILL!” the Mayor shouts to his soldiers. “MAKE THEM SORRY THEY WERE EVER BORN!”
{VIOLA}
“It’s finishing,” I say. “The battle’s ending.”
Bradley let the projection play normally again, and we all saw the arrival of the rest of the army.
Saw the second explosion.
Saw the Spackle turn and try to run back up on themselves, over the wreckage of the bottom of the hill, chaos sending some of them falling into the river, into the road below, into the battle where they didn’t live for long.
The amount of death is making me feel physically sick, throbbing along with my ankles, and I have to lean against Acorn as everyone else argues.
“If he can do that,” Mistress Coyle says, “then he’s even more dangerous to you than I’ve been saying. Is that who you want in charge of the world you’re about to join?”
“I don’t know,” Bradley says. “Are you the only alternative?”
“Bradley,” Simone says, “she’s got a point.”
“She does?”
“We can’t make a new settlement in the middle of a war,” Simone continues. “And this is our last stop. There’s nowhere else for the ships to go. We have to find a way to make it work here, and if we’re in danger–”
“We could land somewhere else on the planet,” Bradley says.
Mistress Coyle takes a sharp breath. “You wouldn’t.”
“There’s no law that says we have to join up with the previous settlement,” Bradley says to her. “We never had any communication from you so we were already landing on the assumption you hadn’t made it. We could just leave you to your war. Find our own place to start life new.”
“Abandon them?” Simone says, sounding shocked herself.
“You’d end up fighting the Spackle anyway,” Mistress Coyle says, “without anyone experienced to help you.”
“Whereas here we’d end up fighting both Spackle and men,” Bradley says. “And probably you, eventually.”
“Bradley–” Simone says–
“No,” I say, loud enough for them to hear me.
Because I’m still watching the projection, watching men and Spackle die–
And I’m still thinking of Todd, of all the death I would have caused for him–
It makes me dizzy.
And I don’t ever want to be in that position again.
“No weapons,” I say. “No bombing anyone. The Spackle are retreating. We beat the Mayor before and if we have to do it again, we will. Same thing for a truce with the Spackle.”
I look at Mistress Coyle’s face, hardening at my words. “No more death,” I say. “Not by my choice, not even for an army that deserves it, Spackle or human. We’ll find a peaceful solution.”
“Well said,” Bradley says strongly. And he looks at me with a face I remember well, a face full of kindness and love and a pride so fierce it stings.
And I have to look away because I know how close I came to having them fire the missile.
“Well, then, if you’re all so sure,” Mistress Coyle says, her voice cold as the bottom of a river. “I’ve got lives to save.”
And before anyone can stop her, she’s gone, running to her cart and driving off into the night.
[TODD]
“CUT THEM DOWN!” the Mayor’s yelling. “SEND THEM RUNNING!”
It don’t matter what he yells, tho, he could be screaming types of fruit and the soldiers would still be surging up the lower part of the zigzag road, climbing over where it’s been blown away, hacking and shooting at the Spackle scrambling up it before ’em.
Mr O’Hare is at the fr
ont of the new group of men, leading the charge, but the Mayor’s stopped Mr Tate and called him over to where we’re waiting on the open ground at the bottom.
I hop off Angharrad to get a closer look at the arrow wound. It don’t seem that bad but she still ain’t saying nothing in her Noise, not even plain horse sounds, just silence, which I don’t know what it means but I’m sure it ain’t good.
“Girl?” I say, trying to rub calm hands over her side. “We’ll get you stitched up, okay? We’ll get you all healed up like new, all right? Girl?”
But she hangs her head down towards the ground, foam coming up round her lips and in the sweat on her sides.
“Sorry for the delay, sir,” Mr Tate’s saying to the Mayor behind me. “We’ll have to work on their mobility.”
I glance over to where the artillery sits: four big cannons on the backs of steel carts pulled by tired-looking oxes. The metal of the cannons is black and thick and like it wants to knock your skull clean off. Weapons, secret weapons, built away from the city somewhere, the men doing it kept separate so their Noise wouldn’t be heard, building weapons meant to be used on the Answer, ready to blow ’em to bits with no problem whatsoever and now used to do the same to the Spackle.
Ugly brute weapons that only make him stronger.
“I leave improvements in your capable hands, Captain,” the Mayor says. “Right now, find Captain O’Hare, tell him to draw back to the base of the hill.”
“Draw back?” says Mr Tate, surprised.
“The Spackle are on the run,” the Mayor says, nodding at the zigzag road, almost clear of Spackle now as they disappear over the top of the hill into the upper valley. “But who knows how many thousands are waiting on the road above? They’ll regroup and replan and we shall do the same here and be ready for them.”
“Yes, sir,” Mr Tate says, and takes off on his horse.
I lean into Angharrad, pressing my face against her side, closing my eyes but still seeing everything in my Noise, the men, the Spackle, the fighting, the fire, the death, the death, the death–