Monsters of Men Read Free

sometimes have to cut off the leg.”
    I cough from the smoke. “That sounds
exactly
like the kind of stupid thing she’d say. Where is she?”
    “Took off when that ship done flew over. Riding fast to where it landed.”
    My heart jumps. “Where did it land, Wilf? Where exactly?”
    He motions back down the road. “Yonder hill, where tower used to be.”
    “I
knew
it.”
    There’s another distant blast of the horn. Every time it goes off, there’s yet more screaming from the townsfolk running everywhere. I even hear some screaming from the army of the Answer.
    “Ya gotta run, Viola,” Wilf says again, touching my arm. “Spackle army is bad news. Ya gotta go. Ya gotta go
now
.”
    I fight down a flash of worry about Todd. “You’ve got to go, too, Wilf. Mistress Coyle’s trick didn’t work. The Mayor’s army is already back in town.” Wilf sucks in air over his teeth. “We’ve got the Mayor,” I continue, “and Todd’s trying to stop the army, but if you attack head on, you’ll be slaughtered.”
    He looks back at the Answer, still marching down the road, faces still set, though some of them are seeing me and Wilf, seeing me alive on horseback, and surprise is starting to dawn. I hear my name more than once.
    “Mistress Coyle said to keep marching,” Wilf says, “keep bombing, no matter what we heard.”
    “Who’d she leave in charge? Mistress Lawson?” There’s a silence and I look back down at Wilf. “It’s you, isn’t it?”
    He nods slowly. “She said Ah was the best at follering orders.”
    “Yet another mistake she made,” I say. “Wilf, you
have
to turn them round.”
    Wilf looks back at the Answer, still coming, still marching. “Other mistresses won’t lissen to me,” he says, but I can hear him thinking.
    “Yes,” I say, agreeing with his thought, “but everyone
else
will.”
    He looks back up to me. “Ah’ll turn ’em round.”
    “I have to get to the ship,” I say. “There’ll be help there.”
    Wilf nods and points his thumb back over his shoulder. “Second big road up back yonder. Mistress Coyle’s got twenty minutes on ya.”
    “Thank you, Wilf.”
    He nods again and turns back to the Answer.
“Retreat!”
he yells.
“Retreat!”
    I urge Acorn along again and we ride past Wilf and the astonished faces of Mistresses Lawson and Nadari at the front of the Answer line. “On whose authority?” Mistress Nadari snaps.
    “Mine!” I hear Wilf say, strong as I’ve ever heard him.
    I’m already passing through the Answer and pushing Acorn as fast as he’ll go and so I don’t see Wilf when he says, “And hers!”
    But I know he’s pointing at me.

[T ODD ]
    Our front line sprints across the clearing like a wall falling down a hill–
    Men running in a V-shape with Mr Hammar screaming on horseback at its tip–
    The next line of men sets off a split second later so now there’s two rows running at breakneck speed towards the line of Spackle, guns out but–
    “Why ain’t they firing?” I ask the Mayor.
    He breathes out a little. “Overconfidence, I should say.”
    “What?”
    “We’ve always fought the Spackle at close quarters, you see. It was most effective. But . . .” His eyes play over the front line of Spackle–
    Which ain’t moving.
    “I think we may want to be back a bit farther, Todd,” he says, turning Morpeth down the road before I can even say anything.
    I look back to the men running–
    And the Spackle line that ain’t moving–
    And the men getting closer–
    “But why–?”
    “Todd,” the Mayor calls, now a good twenty metres behind me–
    There’s a flash of Noise thru the Spackle–
    A signal of some kind–
    Every Spackle on the front line raises his bow and arrow–
    Or his white stick–
    And the Spackle on the horned creacher takes a lighted torch in each hand–
    “READY!” Mr Hammar calls, thundering forward on his horse, heading right for the horned creacher–
    The men raise their rifles–
    “I really would get