Meat

by Joseph D'lacey

  It was seeing another party approach from the town that made his mind up. He recognised the feared figure of Magnus’s closest man, Bruno, at the head of more black-coats. Shanti and Collins and their tiny group of rebels would be trapped.

  Parfitt backed away from it all.

  The Grand Bishop watched the smoke rise with a swelling sense of dread. He stood in the road halfway to the MMP plant with every remaining Parson. They numbered about two hundred and none as skilled or experienced as those he’d already lost. His grip of Abyrne was slipping. He cursed himself as he stood there with his Parsons spread out behind him. He couldn’t afford to appear weak in front of them but he couldn’t take his eyes from the uprush of black fumes.

  The curfew he’d ordered wasn’t working.

  Now he found himself trapped between the workers he would come up against at the plant and the angry rabble that would soon be following them along the road. Circumstance was funnelling him into a narrow corridor. He’d run out of choices.

  Turning away from the fire, he set off toward the plant. In the distance he could see fields where the herds of the Chosen roamed and the barns where they sheltered. He gave no command to his Parsons.

  He knew they’d follow him.

  They had no more choice than he did.

  They stood amid the bodies of the first group Torrance had sent out, each of them serene.

  In front of them was the main gate and just inside it a raucous crowd of combatants that was growing larger all the time. The crowd swore and taunted and waved their various weapons. Shanti saw clubs of wood and bone, cleavers, meat hooks, machetes and chains.

  He glanced back down the road and saw the second party arriving at a run with Hema and Harsha being carried. Trouble couldn’t be far behind.

  ‘What’s the plan?’ he asked Collins.

  ‘For me, for my followers, this is it. We make our stand in front of all these workers and all those townsfolk that will no doubt soon arrive.’

  ‘Yes, but what’s the plan?’

  Collins smiled but it soon faded.

  ‘The plan is to never be forgotten, Richard. The plan is to martyr ourselves.’

  ‘Maybe there’s another way to do this. You might win. You haven’t lost a single man yet. Maybe you can come with me.’

  ‘We can’t. I can’t.’

  ‘But if you triumph, there’s no need for you to stay.’

  ‘We’re not going to triumph.’

  ‘John, come on. Of course you won’t if you talk that way.’

  The second group arrived and Shanti’s girls ran to him. He bent and kissed each of their heads, then stood and held them beside him.

  Collins turned to him.

  ‘I would have liked to get to know you better, Richard. I wish we’d had a little more time. But you have to see that all of us are making sacrifices today. Some will be in blood, others in service. You have your place in this and I have mine. The scales must be balanced and this is only the very beginning of the repayment that is owed.’ Collins looked down the road and saw Bruno and the rest of Magnus’s men approaching in the distance. ‘You have all the knowledge you need now and you know what to do. Take your girls and hide. Don’t let anyone see you. Go quickly now.’

  Collins put out his hand and Shanti grasped it. There were many words that passed in that silent communication, but not enough. Shanti took a hand of each girl and together they crouched and ran away from the gate and the shouting mob, away from the road where Bruno and his men would soon arrive. They crept into the long grass and down into the ditch below the hedgerow. From there they half ran, half stumbled away from town following the smell of rot.

  She woke to the sounds of angry shouting, of men spoiling for affray.

  It wasn’t clear how long she’d slept for. This time she’d entered such a deep sleep that it might have been a few hours of blackness or a whole day. Her first act was to vomit but nothing came except the pain of spasms contracting around the growth inside her. Crying, she stood up. Weakness of the legs and a fog of dizziness brought her straight back to her knees.

  So. The rest, no matter how deep, had done little for her.

  None of this was going to be easy.

  With more will than physical power, she used the top of the tower wall to haul herself up. Once there, the top of the wall came to just above her waist. Its only function, she assumed was to stop stockmen from falling. She was grateful for it.

  Her vision cleared and she saw it all.

  To her right, the MMP plant and the burgeoning gang of workers and black-coats that thronged near the entrance. Beyond the gate, she saw – finally – Prophet John Collins. There was no mistaking who it must have been. A smooth-headed man dressed in rags and a band of two or three dozen others that looked much the same. They stood calmly whilst the men inside the plant appeared close to frenzy. She felt that Richard Shanti should be there too but there was no sign of him. She wanted him there, somehow. The idea of his presence comforted her but she knew the reality would be that Magnus had done away with him or was about to. It was a terrible pity.

  In front of her, a few fields away, was the road connecting the plant and the town. Along this she could see three distinct groups. The first, nearest Collins, was another group of black-coats. Some distance behind them, far enough that the former group might easily not have been aware of them, was a huge band of Parsons led by a man she recognised even from this distance. The way he walked, the tilt of his head and the set of his shoulders; she knew the mannerisms all very well. And yet not well enough.

  The final group was the largest and still quite distant. As far as she could make it out it was simply a huge crowd of townsfolk. The head of the column advanced but the tail never ended. It stretched right back into Abyrne. There was no way to calculate how many there were.

  Everyone heading to the MMP plant.

  Everyone ready to spill blood.

  She was weary of it. Surely there had been enough blood let in this town. Enough to fill a river that stretched to eternity. Suddenly, everything she recognised and understood was wrong. Not just flawed, but so completely warped it made no sense at all.

  She turned her attention back to the tiny group made up by Collins and his followers and felt a fierce protective instinct for them. They must each have known with utter certainty that they would die, and there they stood ready, steadfast. Only one other creature shared such nobility.

  Perhaps they still had a chance, though.

  She turned to go to the ladder and tripped over the hems of her gowns. She landed badly, not able to react quickly enough to protect herself, and hit the side of her head against the opposite wall of the tower. It stunned her. There was more pain but that was easy to ignore now. Pain was the essence of her reality from waking until sleeping. Urgency flared in her mind and she remembered Collins.

  She had to move fast. Ignoring the blood trickling into her right eye, she lowered her legs to the rungs and began to climb down. Three steps from the bottom she committed to a rung that wasn’t there and didn’t have the strength to hold herself. She fell the rest of the way landing on her back in the churned mud of the field.

  She rolled onto her side, grabbed at one of the tower’s supporting legs and pulled herself upright. A few paces away was a high bolted gate. One of many that kept the Chosen secure. She hobbled to it. It took all her mental effort to pull open the bolt. Then, leaning away from the gate and using only her diminishing weight, she hauled it open. Further along the dense hedgerow, there was another gate.

  She staggered down to it.

  The Grand Bishop led the Parsons at a fast walk but it wasn’t fast enough to stay ahead of the column of townsfolk drawing up behind.

  The crowds that had set out from so many doors across Abyrne were fuelled by fear and anger. Their huge numbers lent them a shared strength and stamina. Not long after leaving the mansion, those at the front had broken into a trot and everyone else that was able had followed suit.
Seeing the hurrying group of Parsons up ahead did nothing to slow them down.

  The crowd sensed the power of its numbers and began to pursue the Parsons rather than merely follow. They were hungry for meat and ready for confrontation in order to get it.

  The Grand Bishop heard the hurried panic in his own footsteps and realised he had to make a decision. If they tried to open the gap now, the crowd would run them down. His only option was to turn and face the townsfolk, talk to them as he had so many times before in the streets, in the squares and in the Central Cathedral. He’d give them God’s word they’d receive everything they required. He held his hands up to the Parsons behind him and stopped. He wanted time to regain his breath before the townsfolk caught up to them.

  Atwell was right behind him.

  ‘What are you doing, Your Grace?’

  ‘Trying to prevent the end of the world. If we don’t turn and face the townsfolk, we’re finished. When we’re gone, the town will destroy itself.’

  ‘But wouldn’t it be safer to outrun them and take refuge at the plant? Then we can address them from safety.’

  ‘No. If they’ve chased us all that way, they’ll have no reason to listen. They’ll have lost all respect. We must face them.’

  The Grand Bishop pushed his way back through the panting Parsons. Then, with his back to the fast approaching crowd he said to them, ‘Stand firm. Don’t give an inch or show any emotion. The Welfare is the highest authority in the town, God’s voice to His people. Let’s act like it.’

  He turned to face the oncoming throng of townsfolk and grain workers. When they were still two hundred yards distant, he held up his hands with his palms to them. He set his expression in stone and waited.

  The front ranks approached quickly. They were thinned out by their pace but they were only the vanguard. Hordes were close behind them. They saw the Grand Bishop but continued to run. Their faces were full of rebellion and disrespect, twisted by a feral mob spirit, knowing anything might happen and that nothing could stop it once it began. The Grand Bishop noticed many of them were armed with iron bars or lumps of rubble and brick. He filled his lungs in a final attempt to control his breathing.

  He made eye contact deliberately with as many of the approaching men and women as he could. He kept his face stern and imperious. The crowd’s pace slowed. The front ranks thickened as more drew up behind them. They became a wall of faces.

  He noticed how thin and hollow-faced so many of them looked while the Parsons were plump, robust and ruddy cheeked. He knew his voice would only reach the first few hundred, possibly a thousand townsfolk. After that, word would have to pass back on its own. He waited until he was sure the column had stopped and that enough folk had caught up to hear him.

  ‘Townsfolk of Abyrne, you are God’s children in God’s town. As His representative, as the keeper of your welfare, I tell you this: A great blessing has come to pass this day. Rory Magnus, the man who kept the town on the edge of starvation because of his greed, Rory Magnus is dead. He is dead because God wants a righteous town where everyone eats and no one starves. He wants a town where there is order and piety through compassion, not violence. He decrees –’

  ‘What about meat?’ shouted a voice. He couldn’t see who’d said it.

  ‘You shall have it. The whole town shall have meat. Go back to your homes. Allow my Parsons and I to continue to the plant where we will regain control of all production. Then we can distribute God’s divine gift of nourishment fairly and abundantly.’

  ‘But we’re hungry now,’ someone else shouted. ‘What are we going to eat right now?’

  He knew he shouldn’t have considered the question, allowed it to linger in his mind. He should have just continued and ignored it.

  ‘Yeah,’ yelled another voice. ‘We want meat today. Now. Not some fucking distribution.’

  More voices joined in.

  ‘He’s right.’

  ‘No distribution.’

  ‘Give us meat.’

  ‘We’ll not starve.’

  ‘We want it now.’

  The Grand Bishop raised his hands once more to placate the agitated voices.

  ‘Please, please. That’s enough. You shall all have full stomachs, as God is my witness.’

  A couple of the Parsons to his right backed away from the crowd. Just a couple of inches, more of a flinch really, but the townsfolk sensed it even if they didn’t actually see it.

  ‘Stand firm,’ hissed the Grand Bishop from the side of his mouth.

  ‘We want meat.’

  ‘I’ve already told y–’

  ‘We want meat.’

  A chant had begun.

  ‘We want meat.’

  ‘Good townsfolk, I implore you…’

  He was losing control.

  The chant intensified and spread back through the crowd. Anger flared in their eyes again.

  ‘WE WANT MEAT.’

  Someone threw a broken brick. It hit Atwell between the eyes making a loud, damp thud. Something had broken inside.

  The chant stopped.

  Atwell staggered half a step back, unsure what had happened. Blood cascaded from the wound, down his face and onto his robes staining them an even deeper red. He dropped to his knees and fell on his face.

  The chant began again, spoken quietly now, not shouted.

  ‘We want meat…We want meat.’

  Boots and bars tapped the broken road surface in time with the syllables.

  ‘We want meat…We want meat.’

  The chant gained power, townsfolk from far, far back giving their voices to it.

  Someone threw another brick. The Grand Bishop saw it coming and ducked. He didn’t see which of his Parsons it hit but he heard the cry of pain.

  There was a moment, it stretched long between chants. In the moment both sides knew something was about to happen. It rose like an invisible wave. At the end of the moment every Parson turned away and started to run. At the same time, missiles shot from the mob and thundered into their turned backs. Stones hitting heads, rocks hitting backs and legs. The Parsons began to fall and the suddenly rushing mob trampled them into the tarmac with its thousands of stomping feet.

  The Grand Bishop lifted the hem of his robes and fled.

  The ditch was just deep enough that, if they kept their heads down, no one would see them from the road or from the plant. From time to time Shanti stopped and peeped up over the long grass and weeds that grew unchecked along the verge.

  Collins and his followers had split into two lines. One faced Bruno’s men, the other the MMP gate. Bruno’s arrival had emboldened Torrance and the stockmen anew – their enemies were now trapped in a pincer as well as outnumbered. It couldn’t be long before someone made a move on them. Shanti didn’t want to see them butchered but going back to help would do no good. He had his part to play, as Collins had said. There were no more choices now.

  Further ahead on the other side of the road was the rear perimeter fence that surrounded the meat packing plant. Shanti knew it was old and poorly maintained. Breaking through would be easy. He knelt down.

  ‘Girls, I want you to stay here. Lie down in the ditch or go further back into the hedge, but whatever happens, do not come out to look for me. No one must see you. Understand?’

  Two solemn nods and with them, quiet tears.

  He hugged them tight.

  ‘If there was any other way of doing this, a way that meant we could stay together, I’d do it. But there isn’t.’

  In his mind he said to them: But if we survive this, it must be without either of you seeing the inside of this plant. No one should ever see such a place again.

  ‘So, hide now, my sweethearts, and I’ll come back for you as soon as I can.’

  He gave them each another kiss, telling himself it would not be the last.

  Then he scrambled farther along the ditch, far enough that none of the fighters at the gate would see him. Finally, he darted up over the lip of the ditch and across th
e road. The fence was completely broken down in one place and he ran straight over it to the wall of the first building. The wall was made of wood. He pulled nine thimbles out of his pocket and pressed his eight fingers and one thumb into them.

  Then he began to tap, loud and hard, on that wooden wall, like a madman playing a tuneless piano.

  Collins stood beside Staithe and with his back to Vigors.

  In the road right behind them stood Bruno and his crew – ready to go at it again but with reservations. Ahead were too many men to count. The followers stood back to back with eyes on each faction. It was fine to die this way and Collins was more than ready. His life had gone on far longer than he’d planned. He might have died that day back in Magnus’s study had it not been for the realisation that he could do so much better, so much more.

  However, he didn’t mean to give the opposition an easy victory. He and his followers would take as many as they could and hold the rest off for as long as possible. But the light in their bellies would not last forever. Sooner or later the energy would be spent, and at that moment they’d succumb to the odds.

  He harried himself over how best to use their small numbers. Finally it came to him. He spoke into Staithe’s ear and the message passed swiftly. Unseen by their opponents, they all put their hands behind their backs and touched for strength and friendship one final time.

  ‘NOW!’ cried Collins.

  The thirty lean, rag-attired followers all faced the front gate and rushed in past the barrier. They split, fifteen slipping past the right side of the mob, fifteen passing to the left. Collins saw the look of outraged disbelief on Torrance’s face as he flitted past the man. It had been the perfect move. Now the stockmen and black-coats had to fight on two flanks and Bruno’s men would have to join them rather than having the advantage of attacking simultaneously from behind.