Mr O’Hare is at the front 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–
“You did well, Todd,” the Mayor says, riding up close behind me. “Very well indeed.”
“It was–” I say but I stop.
Cuz how was it?
“I’m proud of you,” he says.
I turn to him, my face a picture.
He laughs at my expresshun. “I am,” he says. “You didn’t buckle under extreme pressure. You kept your head. You kept your steed even though she was injured. And most importantly, Todd, you kept your word.”
I look into his eyes, those black eyes the colour of river rock.
“These are the actions of a man, Todd, truly they are.”
And his voice feels true, his words feel true.
But then they always do, don’t they?
“I don’t feel nothing,” I say. “Nothing but hate for you.”
He just smiles at me.
“It may not seem like it, Todd,” he says, “but you will look back on this as the day you finally became a man.” His eyes flash. “The day you were transformed.”
{VIOLA}
“It does seem to be ending down there,” Bradley says, looking at the projection.
A separation is opening up on the zigzag road. The Mayor’s men are pulling back and the Spackle are retreating, leaving an empty hill between them. We can see all of the Mayor’s army now, see the big cannons he’s somehow got, see his soldiers starting to gather themselves in some order at the bottom of the hill, regrouping to prepare to fight again, no doubt.
And then I see Todd.
I say his name out loud and Bradley zooms in to where I’m pointing. My heart rushes as I see how he leans into Angharrad, and he’s alive, he’s alive, he’s alive–
“That your friend?” Simone asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “That’s Todd, he’s–”
I stop because we see the Mayor riding over.
Riding over to talk to Todd, like it was just a normal day.
“Wouldn’t that be the tyrant, though?” Simone asks.
I sigh. “It’s complicated.”
“Yeah,” Bradley says. “I’m getting that impression.”
“No,” I say firmly. “If you ever doubt anything here, if you ever not know what to think or who to trust, you trust Todd, okay? You remember that.”
“Okay,” Bradley says, smiling at me, “we’ll remember.”
“But there remains the bigger asking,” Simone says. “What do we do now?”
“We were expecting dead settlements and hopefully you and your parents in the middle of it all,” Bradley says. “Instead we got a dictator, a revolutionary, and an invading army of natives.”
“How big is the Spackle army?” I say, turning back to the projection. “Can you fly up?”
“Not much higher,” he says, but he dials some more and the probe moves up the zigzag hill, cresting the top of it and–
“Oh, my God,” I say, hearing Simone take in a breath.
Reflected in the light of both moons and of the campfires they’re burning and the torches they’re holding–
A whole nation of Spackle stretches back down the river road above the falls in the upper valley, far, far bigger than the Mayor’s army, enough to overwhelm them in a flood, enough to never, ever be beaten.
Thousands of them.
Tens of thousands.
“Superior numbers,” Bradley says, “versus superior fire-power. A recipe for unending slaughter.”
“Mistress Coyle said there was a truce,” I say. “If there was one before, there can be another.”
“What about the competing armies?” Simone asks.
“Competing generals, really,” I say. “If we can sort those two out, then it’ll be easier.”
“And maybe we should start,” Bradley says to me, “by meeting your Todd.”
He dials the remote again until the view zooms back in to the men on horses, on Todd next to Angharrad.
And then Todd looks up, right at the probe, right into the projection–
Right into me.
We see the Mayor notice and look up, too.
“They’ve remembered we’re here,” Simone says. She starts back up the ramp into the scout ship. “I’ll get something for your ankles, Viola, then I’ll contact the convoy. Though I don’t even know where to begin explaining . . .”
She disappears into the ship. Bradley comes over to me again. He reaches over and gently squeezes my shoulder. “I’m so sorry about your parents, Viola. More than I can say.”
I blink away fresh wet from my eyes, not just at the memory of my mum and dad dying in our crash, but at Bradley’s kindness–
And then I remember, almost with a gasp, that it was Bradley who gave me the gift that proved so useful, the box that made the fire, the box that made a light against the darkness, the box that eventually blew up a whole bridge to save me and Todd.
“It flickers,” I say.
“What’s that?” he says, looking up.
“Way back on the convoy,” I say, “you asked me to tell you what the night sky looks like by firelight, because I’d be the first one to know. It flickers.”