PROLOGUE
PROLOGUE
They were at breaking point. They all knew it.
The party of wagons thundered across the interior, throwing clouds of dust into the air. There were dozens in view. Their total number was even greater.
No…not the interior. It had ceased to be the interior.
It was the reason they were fleeing.
A group of Titans approached clumsily, their arms lumbering forwards. They were all stark naked. Outwardly human in form, they had heads that were either abnormally large or small, arms that were too long or short. Their eyes gave no hint of intelligence. They were a variety of sizes; even then, the shortest looked almost twice the height of a regular person. With nothing to which to stage a comparison, the plains made it impossible to scale their distance.
“Do whatever it takes─buy them time! Keep those Titans back!”
The soldiers of the Garrison urged their horses on, vying desperately to safeguard the wagons. The Vertical Maneuvering Equipment was all but useless in the open plains. Left with no means to permanently fell the Titans, the soldiers could do nothing more than buy time for the evacuees to break free.
Rita was astride one of the horses. The animals were valuable assets, each the equivalent of a life fortune. She was still a rookie, only in her second year of service, but she’d received special permission to command a steed.
In order to protect the citizens of Quinta District.
The wind was harsh, bitingly cold against her exposed ears. When her admission to the Garrison had been decided, she had chopped off her long blond hair. Due to this people often mistook her for a man─or more specifically, for a boy.
In view up ahead squatted a Titan with low-sloping shoulders. Plastered over its face was an expression of melancholy. This didn’t mean the creature was in any way grieving. The Titans didn’t harbor anything that resembled emotion.
The slope-shouldered Titan began to stretch an arm forwards. Beyond, a group of people scattered from an overturned wagon. With a broken leg, its horse thrashed like an insect in its death throes. The other wagons were giving the area a wide berth.
“Somebody?!”
Rita looked frantically around. None of her senior troopers were available to help. One was busy acting as a decoy, galloping fiercely away with three Titans in chase. Another had landed on a fallen Titan and was attempting to hack through the vital spot on the nape of its neck. As she watched, a Titan’s fingers pinched the head of another of her fellow soldiers. Her ears picked up the man’s screams. She looked away, suppressing a sudden urge to cry.
No one could aid her. If she was to save the defenseless evacuees, she needed to do it alone.
She heard a sound like thunder rip through the air. Friendlies, firing artillery from the top of the wall. Rita pulled sharply on the reins and made a beeline towards the overturned wagon.
You can make it…
She readied a blade in one hand.
The Titan’s fingers were already closing on an evacuee who hadn’t managed to get away. She was just a child, a little girl of about five, in simple clothes and with black hair bunched around the nape of her neck. No doubt terror-stricken, she had sunk onto the ground and was gazing up at the Titan, her small eyes stretched wide. For a split second, Rita hesitated.
Save the horse, or the girl?
“There’s…nothing to even consider.”
Steadying her aim, she fingered the trigger on the hilt of the blade. An anchor fired from the barrels slung around her waist, and they oscillated violently, held fast by her leather belt. Wire cut through the air and the anchor caught hold of the Titan’s neck. Rita immediately readjusted the trigger, setting the wire to reel in. An incredible pressure exerted itself on the belt strapped around her body. She caught her breath as the world flickered dark.
The wire pulled her abruptly forwards. She gave in to the momentum. Her body began to rise, up and off the saddle where she sat. The wire spun into the cylinder on her back. The force of pressurized gas.
Rita was propelled rapidly up towards the Titan, to where the anchor had struck it. Her mount receded into the distance behind her.
The Titan cocked its head slightly and, still squatting, brought its half-outstretched arm back to pad around its neck. Rita twisted the hilt of her blade, pulling it at an angle to release the anchor from the Titan’s flesh before its fingers found the wire. The action did not diminish her inertia.
She pirouetted in midair, simultaneously readying her blade. Graze the Titan’s flank, then slice through its neck. That had been the plan, but it wasn’t going to work; for whatever reason, the Titan had abruptly risen to its feet.
“That’s what you do?!”
Rita crashed straight into the creature’s belly. She flipped, started to tumble, and hit the ground with her shoulder. Spasming in even more pain, she let out a senseless wail and came dangerously close to dropping her blade. Somehow managing to pull herself onto all fours, she lifted her head.
The Titan was gazing down at her. On its face, the same melancholic expression. It bent its torso forwards, blocking the sun, and reached down with both hands.
Fear. Dizziness. Her bladder threatening to release. Yet…
“I’m not done yet!”
Summoning all of her courage, Rita unsheathed her second blade. Brandishing one in each hand she swung them through the air, slicing through the Titan’s fingers, which were each as thick as her arm. Fingertips the size of clubs rained down, all severed at the first knuckle. Unidentifiable plumes of steam began to gush from the remaining stumps. Rita could feel the stuffy heat on her skin.
Wearing the same melancholic look, the Titan withdrew its hand and gazed at its fingers, which were already regenerating at an abnormal pace. For the briefest moment, the Titan seemed to have forgotten about Rita and the evacuee.
“Run!” Rita shouted over her shoulder.
The girl showed no reaction. Her eyes were focused on a single point behind Rita. There lay the upturned wagon. Next to the horse, which was no longer moving, Rita could make out a couple of human forms, also unmoving. Perhaps the girl’s parents. Rita gritted her teeth.
“Come with me!”
She turned her back on the Titan and sprinted towards the girl. Slipping her two blades into their sheaths, she scooped the girl up. The girl weighed more than expected. I guess kids are heavy too, Rita noted despite herself.
“Rita!”
The thuds of urgent hooves approached. When Rita looked she saw Wilco, one of the recruits from her year, racing up to them. His right hand wielded a blade and the reins of his steed; in his left he had the reins of the horse Rita had left behind. Though vigilant of the Titan, he came to a stop before her. The two horses shook their heads and wheeled their front legs in the air.
“Get on, quick!”
“Thanks.”
Rita ran over, hauling the girl with her. Wilco brought his steed around then kicked off towards the Titan.
Rita boosted the girl onto her horse, keeping Wilco in her peripheral vision. He flanked the Titan and sliced right through the tendon behind its ankle. He briefly disappeared into the steam erupting from the wound. Rita pulled herself up and got into the saddle.
“Crap! How can they be so─it’s hardly been a day! Not even a day since they breached Wall Maria!” raved Wilco inside the steam.
“We messed up. We should’ve waited until night! Not now, in daylight, with Titans out! Evacuate, how?!”
News of the fall of Shiganshina─the district jutting from Wall Maria’s southernmost point─had arrived the previous evening. It had resulted in an immediate decision to abandon Quinta, a district farther west along Wall Maria that Rita and the others called home. They were supposed to evacuate towards Wall Rose.
That had been just a few hours ago.
Positioning the girl in front to properly seat her, Rita craned to see the Titan.
If they’re here already, they must have gotten through in no time at all…
The Titans had approached Quinta faster than expected. It suggested that they’d breached Shiganshina’s gate to the interior within an hour of breaking into the district.
“It’s coming!”
Wilco approached, slicing a path through the steam. Rita immediately tugged on the reins, driving her feet into her mount’s flanks. It reared powerfully into motion. The girl was as stiff as an ornament in Rita’s arms.
Rita stole a backwards glance. The steam was beginning to dissipate.
The Titan came abruptly into view. It was on all fours and reaching towards them. Fleeing its fingers Rita came up alongside Wilco.
They moved to rejoin the main force.
Mathias…
Rita bit back the name of her childhood friend. His image came to mind readily. A young man with a slightly broad forehead and gentle features, always looking vaguely troubled, he was the scion of a merchant association. His status had allowed him to leave Quinta at a relatively early juncture. Perhaps he’d made it to Wall Rose already; Rita wished from the bottom of her heart that he was safe.
A horrific scream pealed through the air.
Rita turned to see the soldier who had been leading the Titans away. He’d been caught by a seven-meter-class and was being devoured head first. The Titan had both hands clamped around the man’s shoulders. The man’s legs flailed, but in vain. There was a loud crunch as his skull splintered. His right leg began to convulse. After that, his entire frame went limp.
Another Titan approached, a five-meter-class. With the tips of its fingers, it plucked up her dead colleague’s legs, slipped them into its mouth, and began to gnaw on them.
Rita’s fellow soldier was being fed on by two Titans, working respectively from his head and his legs. Blood jetted from the neck. Blood sprayed from the knees. The two monsters continued to gorge, soaking their faces red with blood, moving closer until their noses touched.
“What the hell…” Wilco muttered.
Rita used one arm to pull her ward in tight and, with her other hand, shielded the girl’s eyes. That was when Rita noticed. She couldn’t believe it.
“But that’s…”
“Seriously?!”
Wilco must have seen the same thing. There, at the crest of a gradual incline beyond the caravan of wagons, emerged an even greater mass of Titans. The majority were three to five meters tall, but Rita noticed some that were almost three times as large.
“We can’t keep this up. Don’t let any more out!”
Following the booming voice, their commander pulled up on horseback. He appeared to mean the flow of evacuees from the gate. His blade was steaming. He had, it seemed, only just slain one of the Titans.
“You two return to the wall. Ensure the gate is closed!”
“Yes, sir!”
Rita and Wilco brought their steeds around and, side by side, began towards the gate. Rita glanced down at the girl seated against her belly.
It was probably for the best. With her to look after, Rita’s ability to help was limited. And she wanted to deliver the girl through the wall and to safety as quickly as possible.
That very wall was pulling closer. It stood fifty meters tall, and at its foot, it was over ten meters thick. Its towering height had seemed endless, but now the wall looked awfully vulnerable, as though the Titans might scale it with ease.
Stunted wooden structures jostled on the near side. Until just hours earlier, large throngs of the poor had illegally settled there, in what had been the interior. Now the place was utterly devoid of people.
The poor had left for Wall Rose the moment word of Wall Maria’s fall had arrived. Rita believed they had made the right decision since they had no hope of being allotted horses or wagons. As far as they were concerned, the only option was to cover as much distance as they could on foot before the Titans came.
As she’d feared, a group of Titans was already swarming around the shantytown. The cannons mounted on top of the wall targeted them and spat flame. There was a tumultuous roar and clouds of smoke distended into the air.
The girl in Rita’s arms let out a muffled cry, and they felt the earth tremble through their steed. The wooden structures that had taken direct hits were decimated. Fragments seared into the air then rained back down. Angry shouts rose from the caravan of wagons. The bombardment had─unfortunately─failed to hit the Titans.
“Damned idiots!”
Rita raised her voice in response to Wilco’s cursing. “We can’t blame them. They’re fresh recruits!”
The Training Corps had been assigned to man the cannons, all kids who had enlisted only a few weeks earlier. The soldiers of the Garrison Regiment had been sent into direct combat with the Titans.
Meanwhile, the Military Police Brigade─membership of which was open only to the highest-scoring graduates of the Training Corps─had departed for Wall Rose with the rest of Quinta’s elite during the early stages of the evacuation. Rita’s childhood friend Mathias would be under their protection.
Which means he’ll be okay…
One of the shells slammed into a Titan nearing the foot of the wall.
“That’s better!” Wilco yelled reflexively.
The Titan’s wagon-sized head flew apart, spraying the air with bone, muscle, and something that resembled hair. The fragments stuck to the wall in gruesome, mottled patterns. Immediately they began to vent steam and to vanish whole. The headless Titan staggered and collapsed onto its rear end, pulverizing the wooden structure trapped underneath. Debris and steam shot up in dense clouds. By the time they cleared, the Titan’s head was already in the process of regenerating.
“Insane… This is insane. Damn it!” Wilco spat the words along with spittle.
In front of Rita, the girl began to sob. No doubt her mind and emotions were starting to catch up with her.
Artillery crashed into the ground ahead. A huge blanket of dirt took flight, assaulting them in time with the blazing air. Rita’s arm came up without thought, shielding the girl’s face for a second time.
“We’re going to…fall?!”
A gaping hole had been punched into the ground. Rita pulled her steed around, just barely managing to avoid the lip.
She navigated between burning houses. The fire was already spreading, and a Titan was slumped on its backside amidst the flames. A group of Rita’s seniors in the Garrison were charging towards it.
Fierce battles unfolded in every direction. Her former classmates and juniors, who had little field experience, were falling in quick succession. Yet, Rita forced herself to look away.
Not now!
They were to relay instructions to the soldiers beyond the wall to close the gate. It was not far now. From the gate a passageway with a barrel-vaulted ceiling led inwards, five meters tall and three wide. Suspended on an array of chains above it were iron plates, reinforced with multiple layers, the same width as the passageway.
Wagons were being swallowed and spat out one after the other. Poorer citizens who hadn’t been able to secure one were attempting to escape on foot. Some, who had come out only to witness Titans running amok, now crowded the entrance in a panic. Those who were still trying to leave the town clashed with the ones clamoring to go back in. They cursed and threw punches. Large numbers of men and women were bloodied and had broken noses, cuts on their eyes and mouths, and bruised fists, all without being attacked by the Titans themselves. The yells and indignant shouts were enough to make Rita’s ears ache.
“Wh-What are you all doing? Hey!” Rita gave a hard flick of the reins. Her mount picked up speed. “Please, turn around. Go back! You’ll be safer inside!”
“Get back. Hey, are you even listening? Do you want to die?” Wilco yelled, moving faster with Rita.
No one paid any notice. The line of wagons continued to push down the artery road. The count of Garrison soldiers protecting their passage was notably diminished. In contrast, the tally of gathering Titans was visibly greater.
“Shut the gate, this instant! Commander’s orders!”
“Wilco, there are people…”
If they forced the gate closed now, people could get caught between the falling portal and the ground.
“We don’t have the time. If they won’t listen, we have to force them.”
Rita supposed he had a point. “Yeah… Okay!”
“Damn it─they can’t hear me!”
The cannons were still booming intermittently, and the air was filled with screams. There was absolutely nothing to suggest the gate was being closed.
“I’ll tell the guys in charge, directly.”
Wilco began to operate his Vertical Maneuvering Equipment. He fired an anchor, embedding the tip in the ceiling near the passageway’s entrance. He must have judged that he couldn’t get through on horseback thanks to the evacuees jammed inside.
Just then a shell detonated in close proximity. A structure burst into flames, sending fragments of floor and wall and roof hurtling towards them. A slab of the debris hit the side of Wilco’s head with a heavy thump.
His body immediately went limp. The Vertical Maneuvering Equipment was already pulling the wire in, but without accelerating any further. Moving like a string puppet, Wilco fell off his horse and hit the ground.
“Wilco?!”
The wire continued to reel in under the force of the compressed gas. Wilco’s shoulders, rear end, and head were flung hard into the earth again and again. With each impact his limbs contorted unnaturally and blood sprayed from his skin. Rita desperately tried to catch hold of him, but he stayed ever so slightly out of reach.
The soldier continued to bounce and whirl, dragged along by the wire. He suddenly began to pick up speed; perhaps his finger was caught on the trigger on the hilt of his blade. The evacuees scrambled to get out of his way. His path was open.
The string puppet was now a tattered sack. Scattering blood, it lifted up from the ground. It climbed over the evacuees’ heads, showering them.
The wire hit full recoil, crucifying Wilco where the anchor had dug in. There was a squelch like someone beating a wet cloth, followed by a crunch as his remaining bones shattered. Some poked visibly from his body. Even more blood spilled onto the evacuees who jostled below. This, at last, silenced them.
Around them, the bombardment continued to pound. Also faintly audible was the sound of the blazing fires, and the Titans’ footfall and chomping.
Wilco was dead.
He’d died in vain.
No…I won’t let it be in vain.
Rita clasped hold of the reins.
“Everybody, get back inside. We’re closing the gate!”
Strange. The words flowed easily.
Strange. Her body was moving of its own accord.
She focused on a point straight ahead─Wilco’s crucified form. Aiming a fraction to the left, she fired her anchor. The tip drove into the stone ceiling of the passageway. She felt the impact through the wire.
“Close your eyes.”
Taking firm hold of the bawling girl, Rita rose up in her saddle. Depressing the trigger, she kicked into action the recoil of the wire. The equipment on her back growled and started to spin. An incredible force wrapped itself around her, and she and the girl were propelled into the air. Her arms felt ready to come off.
They sailed through the air. Wilco’s crucified form rushed closer.
For a brief moment, Rita lost her composure. She came close to shrieking. But the girl’s weight and heat─not warmth, it was heat she felt─allowed her to hold on to her senses.
Together, Rita and the young girl soared over the evacuees, who craned to watch when they caught sight of the pair.
Rita twisted the hilt of her blade again; setting the angle she pulled, freeing the hook from the ceiling. In an instant it wound fully in. Carried now by inertia, Rita and the girl continued to soar diagonally upwards. They would trace a trajectory then gently descend─or so she’d pictured it.
Instead Rita rammed shoulder-first into the curved ceiling, and pain shot from her head to her toes. The girl stiffened in her arms.
Rita came close to losing her grip. She gritted her teeth, endured it, and somehow channeled renewed strength into her arms to hold the girl tighter─tighter still.
“What the…?”
“Up there!”
They began to tumble towards the evacuees’ heads. Rita considered firing an anchor before impact but didn’t have the time. Instead, she noted the directions of the ceiling and the exit. Twisting around, she used her back and arms to protect the girl.
They scythed into a few of the evacuees. In a stroke of luck, they seemed not to have hit any children or seniors. The people around them cleared space amidst shrieks and jeers.
“Sorry…but I’m in a hurry!”
Rita adjusted her hold on the young girl and, without attempting to stand, fired an anchor at a section of the ceiling nearer the exit. She felt her belt constrict. She struggled for air. The next moment, she surfaced from the surrounding evacuees. One tried to grab her─probably a man she’d knocked over─but unable to match the pull of the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment, he cried out and pulled back.
Rita and the girl climbed diagonally up towards the ceiling once again. This time Rita was quicker to free the anchor but careened into the ceiling regardless. The impact was at least gentler. She rebounded and began to tumble diagonally, and again lacking the time to fire an anchor, she was flung towards the ground and another group of evacuees. Even as she was beginning to lose feeling in her arms, the pain ricocheting through her body refused to dissipate.
Repeating the process, Rita finally cleared the passageway. Her vision darkened, then light flooded back.
A vast crowd thronged inside the gate area, the majority carrying valuables or children on their backs. They were making frighteningly slow progress. Avoiding the densest clusters of people, Rita touched down. She let her limbs absorb the impact, then placed the girl gently down.
Rita raised her head and appealed to everyone around her.
“The Titans are close by! Leaving is too dangerous, go back to town for now.”
She pressed the girl’s diminutive frame into the arms of a middle-aged woman. The girl was utterly passive. No doubt she was finding it hard to process the events that had unfolded before her eyes. The middle-aged woman looked hesitant but accepted the girl.
Rita meant it when she told the girl, “Be strong, okay?”
Her parents were in all likelihood dead. If they had survived, they were continuing their evacuation on the other side of the wall. It was impossible to know when she’d see them again. The same applied to Rita and Mathias as far as that was concerned.
For now…the gate!
Forcing herself to change gears, Rita set off for a structure close to the gate and appended to the wall. She peered through the open doorway.
There.
As she’d expected, the post was manned by greenhorns from the Training Corps. They gazed at Rita with eyes on the verge of tears, their hands clasped around the crankshaft that opened and closed the iron gate. They knew they had to do something, but not what or how, and looked it.
Rita hollered, “Close it! Right now we have to shut the gate. Commander’s orders. Hurry, before the Titans get through!”
“Hey, wait. What about us?”
“We won’t be able to get away!”
“How is that fair?”
Voices of discontent rose from the civilians who had overheard. Rita turned and barked at them, “What’s the point if we’re all wiped out?!”
The trainees finally began to heave the enormous crankshaft around, releasing the chains. The gates began to come down in unison at either side of the passageway.
“Ouch. Reel them back!”
“Out of my… Stop it!”
Here and there shouts began to erupt after having once abated. No one cared to get sandwiched between the gates and the ground. There was a wild scramble to get out first, either beyond the wall or back into town.
But the gates didn’t halt.
Little by little, the outside world was suppressed from view.
Wilco was first to go.
Flames lapped over the shanties. Rita’s colleagues were embroiled in battle. Titans of varying sizes eyed the passageway with confusion. A few began to approach.
Mathias was out there, beyond it all.