Garrison Girl

by Rachel Aaron

  “As sure as we can be without firing it,” Rosalie said, pointing at the freshly oiled gears. “I don’t know what was in the report, but this is one of the better cannons I’ve seen on the wall.”

  “Maybe whoever reported it made a mistake?” Emmett suggested.

  “Maybe,” Jax said skeptically. “Either way, we’re done here.”

  That was the best news Rosalie had heard all day. But when she went to help Emmett pack up the repair cart, Jax said, “Leave it.”

  “Out here?” Emmett said, looking in horror at the blowing snow. “But it’ll get buried!”

  “We’ll dig out tomorrow,” Jax said. “Right now, our priority is to get back to base before we freeze. The cart will just slow us down.”

  “But it could be ruined by tomorrow,” Emmett said anxiously. “You know how Captain Woermann feels about lost gear.”

  “I’ll take responsibility,” Jax promised. “It’s not safe to be on the wall in weather like this, and I’d rather lose an equipment cart than a squad. Just tie a tarp over it and let’s go.”

  Emmett obeyed reluctantly, covering the cart with its oiled cloth, but Rosalie’s eyes were on Jax. He was talking like a responsible officer, but his face was pale and his blue eyes were wide. If she didn’t know better, she’d say he looked terrified, and he still hadn’t stopped staring over the wall into titan territory.

  “This isn’t about the weather, is it?” she said quietly, stepping up beside him. “There’s something out there.”

  Jax’s fingers drummed nervously on the handles of his maneuver gear. “You’ve heard about my first squad?”

  Rosalie nodded. The moment anyone in the Garrison learned that Jax was her sergeant, they fell over themselves telling her about how his first team had died horribly.

  “Did you…” Willow swallowed nervously. “Did you kill them?”

  “Of course not! Do I look like a murderer?”

  Willow and Rosalie exchanged nervous looks, and Jax winced. “Never mind,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Point is, they did die, but I didn’t kill them.”

  “So why don’t you tell everyone that?” Rosalie asked angrily. “The whole Garrison thinks you’re a killer!”

  “I’m well aware of my reputation, thank you,” he said testily. “But there’s no point in trying to set the record straight. No one would believe the truth if I told it.”

  “Why not?” Emmett asked, stepping away from the now tied-down cart to join them. “What happened?”

  Jax looked nervously at the snow blowing on the Maria side of the wall. “Have you ever heard of the Gobbler?”

  Rosalie vaguely remembered the name. “Isn’t that a titan?”

  “An aberrant,” Jax said, nodding. “Looks like a child with weird, long limbs. But he’s a big bastard, and he loves the snow. Blizzards always bring him out.”

  “What makes him so bad?” Willow asked.

  “Because when he’s out, soldiers vanish.”

  “Vanish?” Rosalie repeated skeptically. “You mean they get attacked?”

  “If I’d meant that, I would have said it,” Jax snapped. “But there’s no attack. One minute they’re on the wall, the next they’re not. They’re just gone. Poof.”

  “Wait, they vanish off the wall?” Emmett said. “How does that happen?”

  “If we knew that, it wouldn’t be a mystery, would it?” Jax snapped, pointing back down the wall. “Let’s get moving.”

  They fell in to single file and started marching, Jax in front and Rosalie at the rear. Happy as she was to be headed back to base, Rosalie wasn’t ready to let this go. “How does a titan attack people on top of the wall?” she yelled over the wind.

  “No idea,” Jax yelled back. “But I lost my whole squad that way last winter. One minute we were all there, the next I was alone.”

  “If they vanished, how do you know it was the Gobbler?” Willow asked. “Maybe they fell?”

  “Because I saw him,” Jax said. “That’s why I was away from the squad when it happened. I’d caught a glimpse of the Gobbler and went to investigate. When I came back, my team was gone. I thought they’d cut and run, but when I spotted the Gobbler again a few minutes later, his hands and teeth were covered in blood, and he had that stupid smile on his face.” Jax clenched his fists. “I couldn’t even find parts to send home to their families. That’s why they call him the Gobbler. Because he gobbles everything up.”

  Rosalie looked nervously at the curtain of snow shrouding the Maria side of the wall. “And you think he’s out there now?”

  “I haven’t seen him yet,” Jax said, picking up the pace. “But this is his weather, which is why we need to get back to base as fast as possible.”

  “I just wish that awful smell would go away,” Willow said, putting a hand over her mouth. “Where is it coming from?”

  It seemed to be getting stronger. By the time they’d lost sight of the cannon, Rosalie could taste decay on her tongue. Desperate for something to block the odor, she bent down to grab a handful of fresh snow and shoved it into her mouth, sighing in bliss as the clean, cold meltwater swept down her throat.

  The relief lasted only a moment, so she stopped and reached for an even bigger handful. She’d just finished packing the clean snow into a nice ball when something grabbed her from behind, wrapping around her body and yanking her off her feet before she could scream.

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  Jax hadn’t realized he’d been listening to the comforting crunch of Rosalie’s footsteps until they vanished.

  He whirled around, hands reaching automatically for his swords, but saw nothing except his squadmates.

  Two of them.

  “Where’s Rosalie?” His voice sounded panicked even to him. “Where’s Rosalie?!” he said again, looking around frantically at the blowing snow. “Rosalie!”

  When no cry came back over the howling wind, Jax’s heart began to pound. “Fan out!” he yelled at the others. “Scan the ground! It can’t have gotten far.”

  And then he jumped off the wall.

  Jax fired his hooks halfway down, knowing instinctively where the wall was even with the wind blowing snow into his eyes. When his body jerked to a stop, he planted his feet on the icy stone to hang horizontally and looked around, searching the blizzard for a sign. Then, below and to his left, he spotted a dark gray shape huddled against the base of the wall.

  It was roughly the size and profile of a collapsed house. It looked nothing like a titan, but only because it was hunched over, its freakishly out-of-proportion arms and legs folded onto themselves like a frog’s. And sticking out from between two thick fingers of its barn-door-sized hands was a familiar blonde braid.

  “Got him!” Jax screamed, yanking his hooks out of the wall and sending himself into freefall before he fired them again at the titan’s shoulder. “Base of the wall! He’s got—”

  His jaw snapped shut as his body jerked like a fish on a line. The moment the barbed hooks of his maneuver gear sunk into the titan’s flesh, the monster jumped. Just leaped straight up, its disturbingly long legs unfolding to launch the creature right up the side of the wall.

  Still hooked into its shoulder, Jax was yanked up as well. By the time he recovered control, the titan had landed on the top of the wall. Right in front of the rest of his squad.

  Emmett and Willow froze, staring up at the grinning, childlike face looming over them like a hideous moon. They were still standing motionless when the Gobbler leaned closer, its clasped hands rising over their heads like a hammer.

  “Move!” Jax screamed, breaking the spell. He hit his triggers to yank himself up to the titan’s shoulder. “I’ll get the weak spot, but watch his hands! He’s got Rosalie—”


  The Gobbler whirled around, its huge head turning like an owl’s to lock its gleeful blue eyes on Jax. Then, as though the monster wanted him to see, it whipped its impossibly long arms around and shoved Rosalie into its mouth.

  “NO!” Jax screamed. As he kicked off the wall to swing around the titan’s head and stab its weak point, the Gobbler smacked him out of the air.

  For a terrifying second, Jax could see nothing but snow. He was spinning wildly in freefall, his maneuver gear cables whipping around him as the hooks tore out of the titan’s unfeeling flesh. He fired again blindly, shooting one cable first and the other in the opposite direction, hoping to double his chances of hitting something useful. When neither caught, he thought at last that his luck had run out. Then his left cable jerked hard, knocking the breath from Jax’s body as his descent stopped cold.

  The second he stopped falling, instinct kicked in. Jax flipped over, planting his boots on the wall’s icy surface and looking around to get his bearings. He was less than a meter from the snow-covered ground. His heart was still stuttering from how close he’d come to death when he spotted a growing shadow on the ground in front of him.

  The Gobbler landed a moment later, dropping into the snow with an eerily quiet crash. Jax was about to detach from the wall and fire his cables at the titan when he spotted something new moving in the monster’s fist. Legs, he realized with a chill. Emmett’s legs were kicking from the base of the Gobbler’s gargantuan hand. That was all Jax was able to make out before the titan launched itself forward in an explosion of snow and began sprinting away from the wall at terrifying speed.

  “Emmett!”

  The scream was Willow’s, and it was surprisingly close. Jax hadn’t even heard her gear fire, but Willow was suddenly falling right in front of him, her face more determined than Jax had ever seen it. A heartbeat later, he realized this was because she hadn’t fired her maneuver gear yet. She was just falling, letting herself get as close to the ground as possible so she’d have enough line to shoot her hooks into the fleeing titan.

  It was a hell of a shot. The Gobbler was already nearly fifty meters from the wall, the limit of their maneuver gear wires, but Willow’s hooks nailed the titan right in the calf. Jax barely had time to grab onto her before the titan’s momentum yanked them both forward, dragging them along the snowy ground at insane speed.

  “Reel in!” Jax yelled, curling protectively around his soldier as they bounced through the drifts. They were moving across open ground now, but if they hit a rock or tree stump at this velocity, they’d be pulped.

  Willow obeyed, hitting her triggers to pull them toward the titan before they were dragged to death. When they were close to the Gobbler’s pounding legs, Jax fired his own hooks into its back, yanking the two of them upward.

  “We have to slow it down!” he shouted over the titan’s pounding footfalls. “Take out the legs, I’ll go for the neck!”

  Willow nodded, firing her hooks into the back of the titan’s knee as she dropped. Again, her shot was good. She might be garbage at balancing, but when it came to aim, Jax realized Willow was a damn sight better than he’d given her credit for. He couldn’t wait to see if she pulled the rest off, though. He was already climbing the Gobbler’s back, stabbing his swords into its flesh as he scaled up to the vulnerable point on its neck.

  But then, just as he was about to strike, Jax heard Rosalie’s voice. She was screaming. From inside the Gobbler. In its throat, right below where he had to stab.

  “Rosalie!”

  * * *

  The last thing Rosalie remembered was being plucked off the wall like a weed. It happened so suddenly, at first she didn’t even realize that the crushing pressure was hands. Then the massive fingers had opened, giving her a clear view of the Gobbler’s enormous face—which looked disturbingly like a little boy’s, complete with apple cheeks, a turned-up nose, and empty blue eyes glittering with delight as it shoved Rosalie into its mouth.

  The titan’s maw reeked of death and decay, the same smell that had almost made her gag earlier. It did make her gag now, her chest heaving as she frantically curled into a protective ball to avoid the Gobbler’s teeth as they slammed down behind her. She was still blinking in the dark of its closed mouth when the monster swallowed, its massive tongue lifting up to slide her back toward the tunnel of its throat.

  With a defiant scream, Rosalie kicked out her legs, but her boots found no purchase. Saliva dripped from the roof of the Gobbler’s mouth, coating her like hot grease. Even her hooks couldn’t make contact. They slipped out every time she fired, leaving her with nothing as the giant tongue flexed and moved her inexorably toward the black pit of the titan’s throat.

  Frantic, Rosalie yanked the hardened steel blades out of their sheaths and plunging them into the titan’s thick tongue. The swords struck deep, halting her slide, but she was now dangling down the back of the titan’s mouth while burning hot blood poured down her arms. She could feel it blistering her skin through her jacket, but the pain only made her cling tighter to the slimy sword grips through sheer force of will. If she let go, she would fall into the lake of acid in the titan’s stomach. She’d read about soldiers fighting their way out of titan mouths before, but she’d never heard of anyone coming back from the belly. Her only chance was to climb back up.

  Kicking her feet against the titan’s flexing throat, Rosalie heaved with both arms, pulling her body up. When her shoulders were even with her swords, she yanked one out and stabbed it in again farther up, scaling hand over bloody hand until, at last, she reached the tip of the titan’s writhing tongue.

  Rosalie gasped in relief. She couldn’t see in the dark, but she could feel the hard wall of teeth right in front of her. Clinging to her bloody swords, Rosalie swung her legs around and slammed her boots into the back of the incisors. When that did nothing, she yanked her right sword out of the tongue and began bashing the blade against the hard enamel. Again, the teeth didn’t budge. Next, she tried stabbing its gums, then cutting the top of its mouth. She attacked wildly, slicing every bit of flesh she could reach, but all she managed was to bring more hot blood raining on top of her as the titan’s jaw remained stubbornly locked.

  Desperate, Rosalie stabbed the edge of her sword into the gap between the Gobbler’s pictured-window-sized front teeth. When she’d wedged it in as far as it would go, she leaned on it with all her weight, using the blade like a crowbar. For a soaring second, she could feel the giant tooth turning in its socket. Bracing her legs against the molars, Rosalie pushed harder, shoving until, with a terrifying crack, the hardened steel blade snapped in half.

  The sudden loss of resistance slammed Rosalie into the bloody, meaty wetness of the Gobbler’s cheek. She would have fallen right down its throat had her left sword not been lodged deep in its tongue. She had spare blades in the sheaths on her hips, but Rosalie wasn’t sure what good they’d be. The titan’s teeth were unbreakable, and the shallow cuts she’d made in its mouth had already healed. She wasn’t even sure how much longer she could hold on to her sword, which was now so slick, her fingers slipped every time she moved. Rosalie was scrambling to think of what to try next, fighting back the panic and revulsion threatening to overwhelm her, when the Gobbler’s head lurched to the side, slamming her across its mouth and yanking the sword out of her hand.

  She kicked back up the second she hit, her hand flying out to grab the maneuver gear wire that still connected her to the handle of her lost sword, but it was too late. She was already falling like a ball down a chute. Rosalie screamed as she picked up speed, flailing in a last-ditch search for anything to grab onto. Then, just as her legs slid over the edge of the titan’s throat, Rosalie heard someone shouting her name.

  She screamed back, digging her feet into the walls of the Gobbler’s flexing esophagus. She was still sliding, but bracing with her arms and legs slowed her fall. She wasn’t stopping, though, and a few seconds later her boots touched th
e sphincter that separated the titan’s throat from its stomach. The grasping muscle caught her left foot like a bear trap. It was pulling her in when a bolt of light shot through the bloody darkness above her head.

  Rosalie looked up just in time to feel the blast of cold air as a sword sliced through the titan’s flesh where its neck met its jaw. A man’s arm appeared next, shooting through the already closing wound and down the titan’s throat after Rosalie. Releasing her death grip on the throat’s slick walls, Rosalie grabbed back, stretching as high as she could to wrap her bloody hands around the hands reaching out for her.

  The moment she made contact, Jax grabbed and pulled hard, yanking Rosalie up out of the titan’s throat, through the gaping hole in its neck. Suddenly she was out, falling into something bright, soft, and cold. Snow, Rosalie realized with a gasp. She was kneeling in snow.

  “Rosalie!” Jax’s frantic voice was right next to her. “You all right?”

  She couldn’t answer. Coughing up the blood in her throat, Rosalie plunged headfirst into the beautifully cold, clean snow. She rolled frantically, rubbing it against her face and into her mouth to remove the rotten taste of the Gobbler. Her skin was raw when she finished, both from the rubbing and the burns left by the titan’s hot blood, but that didn’t matter because she was alive. She was alive.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, finally looking up at Jax. “Thank you.”

  He brushed the snow out of her bloody hair with a gentle hand. “We’re not in the clear yet.”

  “Jax!”

  The panicked scream was Willow’s, and Jax shot to his feet. “Don’t move,” he ordered Rosalie. “I’ve got to get Emmett next.”

  Rosalie couldn’t have moved if she’d wanted to, but she did manage to turn her head to see Willow frantically hacking at the Gobbler’s clutched hand a few meters away. The monster was down, having suffered two strikes to the back of the knee and the bloody mess Jax had made of its face. When he joined Willow by its clenched fist, the two of them managed to pry the titan’s fingers wide enough to free Emmett, who fell gasping to the snow just as Rosalie had. Willow grabbed him at once, sobbing into his chest. Rosalie was just happy they were all alive when her head finally cleared enough to realize where they were.