CHAPTER THREE
Unexpectedly, their departure came in the morning.
“Our goal is to help people nearby. We wouldn’t be able to find anyone at night, even if there were people out there. Isn’t that so,” Bernhardt, who stood next to Mathias, observed in his usual singsong manner.
“I suppose…”
A few hundred soldiers were already gathered before the gate. Around a tenth were regulars, and the rest were volunteers. The former were on horseback, while the latter were grouped in so many wagons.
Mathias and the others were in the wagons. Mathias shared one with Bernhardt and Nikki, while Klaus and Jarratt rode in another.
In charge of Mathias’ vehicle was a sloppily dressed middle-aged soldier whose skin had somehow remained supple. He’d been yawning for a while and looked half-asleep. Despite this, the fellow was kitted out with a set of the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment, with launchers and sheaths for his blades slung over either side of his waist. Mathias couldn’t help wondering if the man really was proficient in its use.
“You were lucky. For that man to let you take his place so quickly.”
“Hm. Yes.”
Mathias’ response to Nikki, who sat facing him, ended up sounding half-hearted because in the end, they hadn’t needed to bribe any of the soldiers in charge of signing up volunteers.
They’d gotten Mathias in as follows: First, they’d spoken to a random volunteer, paying him an upfront fee. Next, before they were due to leave, they’d paid him the remaining sum in exchange for his equipment and badge. Finally, they’d watched him disappear into a back street.
There had been little risk of being turned down since the volunteers were mostly in it for the money. During the evacuation from Quinta, many of them had seen the Titans. A number had developed second thoughts and dropped out of the campaign even before passing through the gates.
“If I’d known it would be this easy, I’d have managed it by myself,” Mathias blurted out his complaint.
Overhearing, Bernhardt gave a despairing shake of his head. “Such folly…” He brought his head in uncomfortably close and continued in a whisper, “How would you have reached Quinta, if you’d been on your own? You have no horse, and you lack the guile to rob one from the soldiers. Even supposing you did break away, you would be nothing more than a meal.”
“You can use a gun, right?” Nikki asked.
“A bit. My father showed me how.”
“A very good decision.” Bernhardt sat back, his voice no longer hushed. “The rich often find themselves gaining the antipathy of the poor. And you have a good chance of being robbed. A gun is necessary for your own protection.”
“But surely these aren’t any good against the Titans.” Mathias glanced at his allocated weapon. The gun had two side-by-side barrels. The design meant it could fire a couple of shots in quick succession.
“Your folly knows no bounds,” Bernhardt lamented with another extravagant shake of his head. “Your gun fires buckshot. True, this doesn’t help against a ten-meter-class, but it’s perfectly serviceable for blinding a five-meter-class. Guns are for more than simply killing the enemy.”
“Oh, really?”
Mathias hadn’t seen any Titans during his evacuation from Quinta. His party had left long before their arrival.
He’d only ever seen a Titan in person once.
A few years ago, a connection of his father’s had enabled him to visit the top of Wall Maria. From there, he had gazed down at the world beyond. He’d espied a lone seven-meter-class, only barely visible in the distance, but even then it had been a substantial shock. For a while afterwards, recalling the image at night, he’d been unable to sleep.
“Use your imagination!”
Bernhardt was in high spirits. The thought of venturing beyond the wall didn’t appear to worry him in the slightest. The same seemed to be true for Nikki, as well as Jarratt and Klaus. Their nonchalant attitude stood out among the volunteers, all of whom wore tense expressions. It was no great surprise that many were withdrawing from the campaign.
“We’re not going today, then. To Quinta.”
“The district has the wall,” Bernhardt said. “They’ve judged that Quinta can fend for itself for a while. Our first duty is to reconnoiter the land between Wall Rose and Wall Maria and to save anyone still living there. The judgment itself is sound.”
“I guess it does make sense.”
It was as Mathias had heard the day before. The royal government betrayed no concern for the people stuck in Quinta. Their main priority was to reclaim Shiganshina.
“And yet you are impatient to be reacquainted with your lady friend. That is where we enter the equation.”
All eyes turned to the gate. The great chains began to roll, hauling the iron-reinforced portals open. Light began to filter through the inside portion of the cave-like passageway. A commotion stirred among the ranks of volunteers, and many were holding their hand over their mouths, as though to stifle an urge to throw up. Some were pale-faced and shaking, while others were pleading with the regular troops to close the gate again. No doubt memories of being attacked by the Titans were beginning to resurface.
At the front of the crowd, the commanding officer of the rescue operation seemed to be making a speech. A short while later, an authoritative rallying cry rang into the air.
Bernhardt happily announced, “We’re off!”
The wagon lurched forwards with a start. Mathias came dangerously close to toppling off it. He gritted his teeth and hung on desperately to the lip of the vehicle. The up-down motion was worse than he’d expected. He had to be careful not to bite off his tongue.
“Here’s to getting rich,” Nikki said, sounding blasé as she sat opposite fiddling with her rifle.
The first village rolled into view after a couple of hours on the road.
It was built around a bridge crossing the river. Relatively large, it had acted as a transport hub due to its position intersecting two main routes. Wooden houses lined the main street, while the thatched roofs of various one-story structures dotted the grasslands and hills nearby.
No Titans appeared to be in the area. Mathias had to wonder whether less had made it through Shiganshina than they’d initially feared.
His optimism was painfully short-lived.
“What the…”
The closer they got, the more the air began to reek─with the smell of decomposition, mixed with that of excrement and an acrid accent reminiscent of vinegar.
Soon enough, the origin became apparent.
The villagers’ corpses lay strewn over the main road and the fields nearby. None retained their original shapes. Each had had their limbs severed. Their bones and viscera, exposed. Every last one was slathered with translucent mucus.
“Titan spit,” was all Bernhardt said.
The Titans gorged themselves on people. Yet this action had no relation to sustenance. They chewed flesh and bone then casually spat them out. Even now, it was not known how they sustained their enormous frames.
The march of the rescue force came to a halt before the village threshold. Progressing any farther would mean crushing the bodies under horse and wagon. The commanding officer seemed to have qualms about doing so.
“Just get on with it,” Klaus muttered. His and Jarratt’s wagon had stopped directly in front of the one containing Mathias and the others.
His resolve apparently set, the commanding officer issued his orders. “C-Continue forwards! All units, I want thorough searches of each building. Look for survivors!”
The wagons began to shunt forwards. Wheels climbed onto corpses, the weight crushing them with loud cracks. The sensation rode up through the floor to where Mathias sat. As Nikki had said, it was enough to make him gag.
Bernhardt slapped him on the back. “A little fortitude, son.”
The impact made Mathias want to throw up his guts.
Here and there, soldiers were pulling their horses to a stop. Volunteers were jumping down from the wagons to search the buildings. Someone shrieked after misstepping to land on one of the corpses.
The majority of the regulars remained on their horses. No doubt it was so they could stay alert, and to set the wagons running should something go wrong. And yet the wagons were too closely packed for that. If they did try to flee, they would just crash into one another.
“Should we try searching somewhere else?” Bernhardt, perhaps worried about this, called out to the soldier in charge of their wagon.
“The buildings are crowded together here. The Titans would have targeted this area first.” Bernhardt motioned his chin down one of the side roads. “We’re here to find survivors. I think we might do better over there. The house on top of that hill. It looks like there could be people inside that one.”
The soldier gazed at the structure. Whether or not there were survivors, there were far fewer bodies on the ground. The smell would be better too.
He nodded, pulling his eyebrows into a scowl. “Yes, agreed. We can go there.”
“Not alone, though?” Bernhardt said, glancing at the wagon ahead.
Jarratt seemed to be making a point to his own wagon’s trooper. It seemed the old man had understood Bernhardt’s intention and was suggesting the same.
The two soldiers exchanged glances then nodded in unison.
“We can both go,” the soldier with the supple skin said. He pulled on the reins and turned the horse around.
Trampling and riding over bodies as they went, the two wagons proceeded past the rows of buildings and up the hill. They finally came to a stop at the house, which consisted of a main building, a barn-like structure, and an outhouse. As expected there were no corpses in the area. The horrific stench was also mostly gone.
“Go take a look around.”
Urged by the soldier, Mathias and company stepped down from their wagons. It was humiliating to be bossed around by a low-ranking grunt, but Mathias supposed that this, if any, was the time for “a little fortitude.”
“Ah─how we underlings must suffer!” Bernhardt said, cheerful and not looking the slightest bit put out.
Together, the five of them headed towards the house.
“We should split up for the search.”
In line with Bernhardt’s instructions, Mathias and Nikki stepped into what seemed to be the main building. The air carried the smell of dust.
“Hello? We’re here to help. Are there any survivors?” ventured Mathias, but there was no response. There was nothing to suggest that the place was inhabited. He stayed alert as he explored, but the bare-floored room and kitchen were both empty. The owners had either fled or been snapped up by the Titans.
“When are we going to break away?” Mathias addressed Nikki’s back.
They didn’t have time to be making a serious search for survivors. They needed to get clear of the rescue force as soon as possible, to make haste for Quinta.
Nikki answered over her shoulder, “No good comes from being impatient.”
“But I am impatient!”
“Bernhardt will make good on his word. First, we’ve got work to do.”
She was examining shelves, the insides of pots.
“Ah, I see…”
They had never intended to look for survivors, but only to take for themselves any supplies the residents had left behind. A place like this was sure to have all kinds of cured meats, cheeses, oils, and booze for the finding. Mathias felt a sudden rush of anxiety─could he really place his trust in this bunch?
“Everyone, over here!” a shout came from outside. It was Jarratt.
Nikki pulled her head out of a storage bin and peered out of the window. “Was that someone calling?”
“I think so. Although it didn’t sound particularly urgent.”
“Righty-ho. Let’s go see.”
They walked out from the main building. The voice had seemed to come from somewhere inside the barn-like structure. The supple-skinned soldier had dismounted and was also moving in to investigate. Mathias and Nikki joined him, circling around, and entered.
“Wow…”
They could see it immediately. The place was a stable. Tied up within an enclosed space were two cows, imposingly big. The feed and water troughs were both empty, suggesting they hadn’t been fed in a while. The air was putrid. A mountain of excrement had piled up beneath the two animals.
Mathias had to face away.
Jarratt and Bernhardt were standing next to each other, right up against the enclosure. They seemed bewitched by the animals, apparently unaware of the offensive smell.
“This…is an amazing find,” the soldier with the supple skin breathed, staring wide-eyed.
Nikki swallowed audibly. “Enough for…how many meals?”
It was only then that Mathias understood. The cows were indeed a tiny fortune. They could be eaten, or maybe even milked.
“Think we could transport them?” the soldier asked no one in particular.
“Think about it,” Bernhardt calmly pointed out. “They’re too big. The wagons wouldn’t hold them, and even if they could, we’d be too slow to outrun any Titans that might appear.”
“We could let them go, if that happened.”
“And how many seconds would you waste doing that? How many tens of seconds? If a seven-meter-class takes one step for every second, how much would it gain on us in, say, five seconds?”
“Damn it,” the soldier cursed, irritated. His hand tightened over the hilt of one of the blades around his waist.
“Be lighter if we butchered them,” Jarratt said, extending a hand through the enclosure to stroke one of the cows on the head.
Everyone was staring at Jarratt. The gigantic old man simply shrugged. “Used to be in the business. ’Course, if we do that we wouldn’t be able to milk them and all. But if we take the meat and the skin, get rid of everything else…”
“That would make it somewhat lighter.” Bernhardt considered the matter, brushing his hand over his chin.
“Two hours would be enough.”
Bernhardt raised an eyebrow. “Two hours per cow, you mean.”
“I could show you how to do it, boss,” Jarratt said matter-of-factly. “Wouldn’t be a problem if you stood next me, followed what I did. There’s a bit of a knack, sure, but you’d be fine. You are after all a master when it comes to flaying flesh,” the old man reminded with a chuckle.
Mathias recalled that Bernhardt had been in the Military Police Brigade. The man was accustomed to special blades and knew all there was to know about wielding them to fight the Titans. Apparently, the only way to slay one was to slice a vertical chunk of flesh from the nape of its neck. If Bernhardt boasted such know-how, then perhaps, at least compared to an amateur like Mathias, butchering a cow was an easy task for him.
“I see─good thinking. Would you be happy for us to do that?” Bernhardt checked with the soldier.
“Butchering the cattle, huh…”
“First we’ll need to get them outside. It’s difficult to move in here, and the stink won’t have anywhere to go,” Jarratt said.
“Get them outside?” Mathias found himself asking.
“Of course.” Jarratt was already opening the gate to the enclosed space. “See that rope? Fetch it this way. Never know when they might start to struggle. Loop it around the neck, like so…”
Everyone followed the former butcher’s instructions and led the first cow out of the stable. Klaus, who had been away investigating the outhouse, rejoined them partway through. Even he stared in amazement when he heard their plan.
The cow just ambled forward, shaking its head like it was being tickled by the sunlight. It blew air through its nose.
To think of me helping transport beef… Until the previous day Mathias had spent his time in the Kramer townhouse, and now, in a corner of a village cluttered with corpses, he was shooing an excrement-covered cow with a band of former outlaws. Even a week ago, he would never have imagined doing anything like this.
A little fortitude, he repeated to himself.
They encircled the cow outside the stable. Only the second serviceman remained away from the group. He was apparently keeping watch over the wagons.
“Good. Now hold it steady, both sides. Not so tight. Good… Would someone pass me a gun?” His eyes fixed on the cow’s, Jarratt turned his right hand so its palm faced upwards.
Jarratt gave it a quick look, then shook his head. “Best we don’t use buckshot.”
“Take this.” Nikki took her rifle from the leather belt slung over her back and held it out towards the gigantic old man.
“Perfect.” Jarratt took the weapon and held it ready, positioning the muzzle over the middle of the animal’s forehead.
“How wonderful. To be blessed with such talented friends!” Bernhardt gestured towards Jarratt as though introducing him to some unseen audience.
The others were watching with bated breath. The cow slathered its long tongue around its mouth, showing no awareness of its impending doom. All eyes were focused on it.
So many eyes…
His heart almost stopped.
They had all been in danger of losing their lives before the cow. An enormous human face larger than the animal peeked over the roof of the main building.
A Titan.
The baby-faced creature had both hands clamped on the roof. Showing itself only from the nose upwards, it was watching Mathias and the others with an almost perversely joyous glint in its eyes.
“Up there! Everyone. Titan!” Mathias yelled at the top of his voice.
The group looked up together.
“When did it…” Even Nikki had gone pale.
“How could we not notice?!” Klaus’ teeth were clenched tight.
Jarratt lifted the barrel of the rifle. “It’s dead…”
“Do not fire!” Bernhardt commanded, for some reason stopping the man.
“Boss?”
“What do you think you’re doing? Hurry up and fire!” the soldier commanded, all blood gone from his face.
Moving like a cat, his footsteps utterly silent, Bernhardt closed on him. “Forgive me,” he said, throwing his arms around the supple-skinned soldier.
Confusion spread across the soldier’s face. “What are you…” Bernhardt unsheathed a blade from the man’s waist. “You son of a…”
Before another word was uttered, Bernhardt stepped away from the soldier. In the same motion, he gracefully swung the blade upwards. As though it were a gentle caress.
That was all it took for the blood to gush from the soldier’s neck.
The slashed man stared in horror. One of his hands started towards his throat, but the strength drained from his arm, and it fell limp before getting halfway. His whole body began to tip forwards. By then Bernhardt had circled to the side. Blood sprayed into the air, staining the earth, but the executioner hadn’t a drop on him.
Mathias couldn’t breathe. Too much was happening that he couldn’t process. He’d seen a Titan. For the first time in his life, he’d seen a Titan at close quarters. Then a man had been murdered right in front him.
“Gunfire would have made too much noise. So I stopped him,” Bernhardt replied, shrugging.
“That’s not what I… That’s not…”
“This is the opportunity we’ve been waiting for. I believe the main force has yet to notice the Titan. Why not use this window to take the horses?”
“But. To just kill…”
Mathias shuddered. The man is a vicious outlaw. The fact finally sank in with a visceral clarity. He fumbled around next to his thigh. His shotgun was there, slung from the leather belt. His fingers found the grip, but he couldn’t summon enough strength in them to pull it free.
“Now we head for Quinta. Everyone, to work!”
On Bernhardt’s cue, the rest of the outlaws snapped back to themselves, gulping, and sprang wordlessly into action.
The sound of breathing came down from overhead, unusually slow.
Right… The Titan!
The expression on the creature’s face was unchanged. It was reaching forwards now, still wearing the same unnaturally bright look. It had noticed Mathias and the others and was already getting ready to pounce.
They’re going to steal the wagon?
A figure jumped out to intercept the trio.
“Quick!” The other soldier had noticed the Titan and come around the side of the building. The next moment, he realized his colleague was dead. “Wha… What happened?”
“This.” Bernhardt’s hand plunged down to the dead soldier’s waist. He exercised his fingers, lightheartedly it seemed, as though he were just playing an instrument.
Seeing this, Jarratt and the others veered out of the way. A line shot into the air from the deceased soldier’s waist. To Mathias it resembled a bolt of lightning.
But no, that wasn’t it─it was an anchor, on a wire, from the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment.
A howl broke out.
The soldier, unharmed until a moment ago, held his hands over his chest. The anchor embedded in his flesh poked out from between his fingers. He staggered, crumpled forwards, and immediately began to convulse on the ground. The taut wire loosened into a lazy curve.
“There. Now you can be friends,” Bernhardt said, alternating glances between the two regulars. A single wire joined them together.
The other trio was already beyond the building and out of sight. Their movements had been as uniform as a single organism’s.
“No time for daydreaming, Mathias. Your precious friend awaits. You wouldn’t want to be eaten in the middle of your quest.” With the blood-soaked soldier still in his embrace, Bernhardt motioned his eyes upward.
Mathias spun around. The Titan had hauled itself onto the roof of the building without his even noticing. It was crawling in his direction on all fours. The expression on its face was still that of a kid who had found a toy to play with. The cow bellowed senselessly and began to back away.
“Now, for the other one.”
Yet again, Bernhardt fumbled around the dead soldier’s waist. A second wire shot into the sky, soaring upwards to pierce the Titan’s eye, itself the size of a human head. The oversized eyeball exploded with a wet pop, and steam funneled out to obscure the cavity. The Titan padded a sluggish finger over the ruined socket and brought its hand back down to examine it.
“Excellent. Haven’t lost the knack,” Bernhardt sang his own praises.
Mathias was unable to move; it was as though he’d been rooted to the spot. His heart pounded in his chest. He was soaked with sweat. But cold. He couldn’t stop himself from shaking.
“Get ahold of yourself,” Bernhardt admonished, quietly lowering the dead soldier to the ground. In a crouch, he spent an instant reeling in the wires he’d fired and made quick work of appropriating the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment. He got back to his feet and started towards Mathias.
“Uh…”
Mathias was terrified. There was nothing he could do to resist. Bernhardt hauled him easily away.
The Titan was still moving in the corner of Mathias’ vision, heaving its naked, dumpy frame over the roof of the stables.
It was large. Maybe a seven-meter-class.
The clouds of steam around its left eye were beginning to clear, and a large, round, glossy eye emerged anew from underneath. The creature’s huge frame began to slide off the roof. It crashed face first into the ground.
Like the dead soldier.
The Titan cranked its arms around, pushing up a dirt-covered face. It didn’t seem to be in pain. Its expression was as jubilant as before.
The muscles around its enormous shoulders tensed. It continued towards them using only its arms, moving like a gecko on a wall.
“Not a pretty sight,” panned Bernhardt. He continued to drag Mathias relentlessly, and they rounded the corner of the building. Just as the ex-soldier muttered, “Sorry to keep you waiting,” one of the wagons appeared before them, overshooting five meters before it ground to a halt.
Jarratt was at the reins. Klaus was in control of the second wagon a little farther back, and Nikki was scrambling onto it.
Jarratt’s eyes blinked repeatedly as he took in the sight of the Titan chasing them. “First one I’ve seen in a while. Gotta admit, they’ve got impact.” Even he had tremors in his voice.
Tossing the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment then Mathias into the wagon, Bernhardt chided, “You might not weigh much, but I wouldn’t say you’re light as a feather.”
Mathias felt a sharp jab of pain when he hit the floor, but that, too, felt like something happening in some far-off world. The wagon tilted as Bernhardt clambered on beside him.
After that, they came across Titans a total of four more times.
The first encounter was with a couple of seven-meter specimens that were distant enough not to notice them.
The second encounter was close enough for Mathias to come out in a cold sweat. They had just entered a wooded section of the road when a single five-meter-class appeared from behind one of the tall trees. It raced alongside them, reaching out, but ended up crashing head first into another one of the great trees. It fell, then simply receded behind them.
The third encounter was also with a single Titan. This one they only glimpsed beyond a ridge. At first they hadn’t even recognized it as a Titan.
They crested the top of a hill to discover four Titans below them for their fourth encounter. Looking up and noticing the party at the same time, the creatures began to give chase almost as if they were racing against one another. These the humans eluded by lashing their horses.
Now they were in another forest, letting the animals rest. The sun was already low in the sky. The many-layered foliage masked the light, so the reddish glow hardly reached the ground.
“Three hours from here to Quinta?” Jarratt asked Bernhardt. They had both disembarked and were standing side by side, stretching.
Bernhardt turned toward the wagons. “They’re pretty much empty. We should be a little quicker than that.”
“This is really tasty, you know.” Seated underneath one of the towering trees and paying no heed to the exchange, Nikki was wolfing down mouthful after mouthful of the smoked meat they’d snatched from the farmhouse earlier in the day.
Klaus was also against a tree, tending to his gun.
“There’s something wrong with all of you,” Mathias couldn’t help accusing. “How can you act so composed? Like everything is normal?” Two soldiers had died, both slain by Bernhardt, one with a blade, the other with an anchor fired from the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment. “Those men… They hadn’t done anything wrong.”
“You mean the soldiers?” Bernhardt queried, adjusting the positioning of the very piece of equipment he’d appropriated from them.
“Clearly!”
“Specifically, the problem was that they were there,” Jarratt elaborated, putting a hand on his waist and twisting to one side.
“What are you saying? You can’t justify it like that. There was no need for it!”
“Hm, I wonder if that’s the case.” Bernhardt walked closer, stomping over fallen leaves and undergrowth. “How can you be so certain? Did you have another idea? Could you, in the heat of the moment, have offered me a better alternative? I would love for you to tell me what. Or rather, I would have loved for you to tell me. Had you done so, I might have gotten through all that without murdering anyone. Well?”
“Now that you put it that way… No, I can’t offer any alternative. I might not, but it didn’t need to be right then. If you’d waited just a little longer, we might have gotten away without anyone dying.”
“Yeah, if we could spend days mulling it over,” Nikki said, sucking on a bone from the smoked meat.
Bernhardt gave a dramatic nod. “She speaks the truth. Who is to say whether we would have had another chance? By acting immediately, I guaranteed us a means of getting away. That was why I made the decision.”
“Still!”
“Sacrificing the two soldiers was simply part of that decision. You disapprove.” Bernhardt arched his eyebrows. “But suppose I left them alone…”
“Now, that’s reckless,” Jarratt chimed in. “We couldn’t have taken the wagons, and they would have called for backup. What could be worse?”
“Suppose I knocked them unconscious─which by the way requires a more advanced technique and is much harder than killing them, even for me. Anyhow, supposing I left them sprawled unconscious on the ground…”
“Chomp chomp, munch munch, same thing,” Nikki completed. Her incredible appetite seemed to know no bounds; she had all but finished her hunk of smoked meat, originally the size of a pig’s leg.
Bernhardt made another deep nod of his head. “Excellently put. Whichever the case, the soldiers would have ended up as Titan feed. Better to be dead, then, than to be eaten alive. It was a consideration, as well as a form of taking responsibility. They weren’t just eaten, they were eaten because of me. Call it a ritual to make sure I was fully aware of my culpability.”
“But…”
“Hypocrite,” Klaus spat, his eyes still down on his firearm. “We’re a shameless bunch. I don’t remember us ever hiding that. You knew well enough the type of people we were when you asked for our help.”
“But I never thought you were so…”
“You only saw what you wanted to.”
“We are beyond the wall here,” Bernhardt pointed out with a hint of sadness. “The rules of the interior no longer apply.”
“The nerve?” To survive beyond the wall, to turn his back on the royal government, to forgo all dependence on his father, and to rely instead on his own wit and grit to help Rita.
Perhaps it was true that he lacked the nerve. Perhaps he’d been naive.
The scene from earlier replayed itself in his mind. The matter-of-fact way Bernhardt had killed the two soldiers, then fired the anchor at the Titan. The look on his face, detached somehow from the events taking place. Was that it? Was that the look of someone who had the nerve? Was that how Mathias had to be?
“Anyway, we needn’t be so serious,” Bernhardt said, trying to lift the mood. “We should probably get going. I believe this should help us all get past the wall.” He slapped the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment on his back. “I’m all for staging a glorious entrance, but I’ll wager it’ll be safer to sneak in.”
“Plus, we have no idea what it’s like inside,” Jarratt agreed.
“Precisely. Once we’re in, we can head straight for the treasure.”
“You know what it’ll mean if you’ve been lying?” Klaus clutched his gun’s grip and wrapped a finger around the trigger.
“Of course.”
“Our arrangement expires the moment we confirm that the horde exists. After that, you’re free to go after your sweetheart or to commit suicide─whatever pleases you. We assume no responsibility for your means of escape, either.”
“Meaning it’s up to you to find your way back out through the wall.”
Mathias responded with a resolute nod to Jarratt’s clarification of Bernhardt’s terms. He wanted nothing more than to part ways with these people as soon as possible.
***
Seated in a room within the district hall, Rita was mediating citizen disputes, a task to which she was hardly accustomed. This kind of work was usually reserved for the staff of the royal government, but as they had disappeared, leaving no one behind, she had no other choice.
The room was needlessly large. Warm air streamed through the open windows together with the faint afternoon sunlight.
On the other side of the desk stood two middle-aged women engaged in a shouting match. One was abnormally thin with an oversized chest and somehow brought the words “vulgar figure” to Rita’s mind. The other was short and chubby, with frightfully greasy long hair. Although the two bore no resemblance to each other, apparently they were sisters. The chubby older sister fired spit into the air as she launched another offensive.
“I’m telling you, you lost all claim to ownership the moment you left town! You abandoned the house. It should be only natural that I inherit it now.”
“You left first!”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You should hear yourself! You just upped and left us behind, the first chance you had.”
“But you did. Didn’t spare us a single thought. Just left us stranded.”
“I was thinking of you. Dad said we had to go, that’s all.”
“Uh huh, sure.”
“It’s true. I looked after him! Stayed with him all the way to the end, even had to see what I did.”
“How do I know that’s not just another lie? For all I know, you could have sacrificed his life to save your own. Left him to die. Did you?”
“Why, you─”
“Ahem. Excuse me, ladies.”
Having listened thus far, Rita saw that she needed to intercede. Amanda was at her side taking down everything that was being said, but that was all she would do to help; she’d been keeping her eyes down and acting as though the whole thing had nothing to do with her.
“Okay, let me see if I can get this straight. You, the younger sister, were living with your father. You, the older sister, had married and moved away from home. When the evacuation began, you, the younger, left Quinta with your father. Is that right so far?”
“Yes, leaving us behind,” hissed the short and chubby older sister.
The thin younger sister snapped her head around and began to argue back. “Didn’t I just tell you that’s not what happened? What else could we have done? Make the trip to your place? In the midst of all that chaos? Our house was a mess.”
“I’m not surprised, the way you tried to grab anything remotely valuable.”
“Please. If you could try to stay calm. During the evacuation, you and your father were attacked by Titans…”
“Yes, but I came back. Our wagon was destroyed, I lost everything. And Dad was killed!”
That was it. Their father had been attacked by a Titan. No doubt, he’d been eaten alive. While the surviving younger sister hadn’t gone into the details, she must have witnessed the entire thing. A Garrison soldier had rescued her, and she’d barely made it back to Quinta with her life.
It wouldn’t have been surprising if she were in shock. Instead, she was locked in a fierce battle, with her older sister who had remained in Quinta, over the ownership of those of her father’s belongings that still remained at home.
And yet it seemed the situation wasn’t so clear-cut. Tears began to form in the thin younger woman’s eyes, and her face crinkled. She bawled at the top of her lungs, “After what I had to go through! To be left with nothing… How, how, how could anyone just expect me to accept that?”
The woman, essentially, wanted compensation─some material benefit to give meaning to the horror and desperation she’d had to experience. Or perhaps, to fill the hole rendered in her heart. It appeared that she had been single her entire life. Having devoted herself to her father, perhaps she had never owned anything of value that she could say was truly hers.
Yet that was not the issue for the older sister. “Then maybe you shouldn’t have run away. You could have let Dad go and stayed behind by yourself!”
“Do you really think I could do something like that?! Don’t say you wouldn’t have gone if you’d had the chance. You’d have left both of us to die!”
“What kind of trumped-up accusation is that?!”
Rita’s head was pounding. She wished from the bottom of her heart to stay out of it.
What did the law say on all of this? She’d had the trainee Duccio make a search of the building, but he’d failed to turn up anything of relevance. Of course, even if he’d found something, Rita had no faith in her own ability to understand the contents.
“I’m really not made out for this,” she muttered quietly to herself, and sighed.
Physical work she could handle. How easy it’d be for her if this were like suppressing a rioting mob. Her work over the last few days had been nothing of the sort. She’d been subjected to petition after petition: There aren’t enough doctors. There aren’t enough teachers. You need to get the cobbles fixed on the streets.
Yet, none of the staff she needed were around. Not only that, they seemed to have raided the vaults and storehouses of the district hall during the evacuation and taken everything with them. Rita was bereft of means to respond to the residents’ demands. She also lacked the personnel she needed to bring in more personnel or to collect taxes. The fact that Quinta’s total population had fallen by more than half further limited the resources she could muster.
She was just about managing to run things with the help of the trainees and civilian volunteers. Even so, she had to admit the situation was dire. She hadn’t had a wink of sleep in two days, and she probably wouldn’t again that night.
“Well? What do you say? The house belongs to my husband and me. Yes?”
“Your husband? That squanderer?” the thin younger sister howled, her eyes bloodshot. “I’d rather have it all thrown away if it’s going to him!”
“Well, go on then!”
It seemed to Rita that the two sisters were about to start physically wrestling. Under more peaceful circumstances, they might not have gotten into such an ugly argument. As things stood, Quinta was isolated, and the cost of necessities like water and food was skyrocketing. The older sister was, in her own way, desperate too. So much so that she couldn’t even mourn her father’s death.
Rita remembered then─the whole of Quinta was in crisis. While she sympathized with the women’s plight, she couldn’t spend all her time dealing with private matters.
“Ladies. I will now hand you my decision as the Garrison’s acting commander,” Rita hardened her tone a little as she addressed them. “The decision is only for the interim, until a suitable official is appointed by the royal government. Understood?”
“What?”
They faced Rita─the elder first, then the younger─and fixed her with defiant stares. At least they seemed willing to listen. Perhaps the title of “acting commander” had had some effect. And maybe the blades that hung around her waist. Word of a whirlwind of a young acting commander silencing a mob a few days ago had already made its way throughout the district.
Rita took a deep breath to gather her thoughts, then opened her mouth to speak. “For now, I request that you maintain the status quo. You, the younger sister, will look after all assets left behind by your father. Their value will be calculated when my replacement arrives, so don’t go and sell any of it please. Once the assets have been valued, we’ll start proceedings to divide them between you two.”
She was, she realized, simply passing the real decision-making on to government staff, but she had no knowledge of or experience in such affairs. It was all she could do.
“You’ll assign someone to keep watch, I assume?” the elder sister cautioned straight away.
“To keep watch?”
“So she doesn’t go and sell off anything.”
“I’m not going to sell anything off!”
“Okay, yes,” Rita promised without pause. “Soldiers will be monitoring the house. I’ll make sure they aren’t conspicuous, so they don’t get in the way. But it’s definitely a good idea to have troops around. I assume you are aware about the recent looting?” Rita asked the younger sister. “Things like that are liable to happen. The guards will be there to protect your assets rather than to make sure that you don’t sell anything. Please think of it that way. Agreed?”
“If you’re willing to send people out for free…well, yes, that would be great.”
“Wonderful.”
Needless to say, Rita didn’t really intend to dispatch anyone to monitor the place. She knew all too well that she lacked the headcount for such work. But the sisters were not party to the details of the Garrison’s situation, and there was no need to fill them in.
“You’re happy, then, big sister?”
“Don’t sound so puffed up,” the older sister snorted and folded her arms over her chest.
The two women squared their shoulders and left without exchanging another glance. From behind, they did look a little alike.
“They were the last for today. I’m on my break,” Amanda declared, sorting her sheets and getting up. She failed to offer even one word of appreciation despite Rita’s obvious ordeal.
Thinking that at least she herself might, Rita said, “Thanks. Good work.”
“Ah. Me too, I guess.” Rita felt her heart sink, but she supposed it was better than being forced into more admin work.
That was depressing in its own way.
I really am not the brightest person, am I…
Amanda paced out of the room, and Duccio entered to take her place.
“Great work. Next is patrols, right? I think I’m coming with you.”
“Oh, okay.”
She couldn’t appear lax in front of a trainee. Summoning all her remaining willpower, Rita got to her feet and straightened her back. Duccio, still a boy really, was like good cheer personified. Over the last few days he’d handled a workload not so different from Rita’s, enough to leave him exhausted, but he let none of it show. Instead he volunteered to help at every opportunity. He seemed to hold Rita in some kind of reverence.
“Ma’am, I took the liberty of fixing up your Vertical Maneuvering Equipment!”
“Thanks. But remember, I’m only the acting commander. I don’t have any real authority. I’m just trying to deal with things as they come in.”
“You shouldn’t be so modest! You’re super strong!”
It was, of course, her fighting skills that he held in esteem, Rita realized, and she felt a little down again.
“Yeah. I’m okay at it,” she conceded.
“Oh, and the owner at the bakery gave us some cake. It’s really sweet. Loads of honey. She said we’d need it to keep up our strength, so we could guard her business properly. Let’s eat them later!”
“That’s an open bribe, isn’t it?”
Maybe food couldn’t be helped, she could tacitly permit… No, it was probably best to keep a strict regime. Corruption probably spread from such trivial exchanges.
Another sigh crept out. “Definitely not cut out for the brain work…”
“What’s wrong?”
“Ah, nothing.” Rita came around the desk. “We should go do the patrols.”
“Yessum!”
“Then you’re going to the bakery to return those cakes.”
“Whaa…?” Duccio actually staggered with shock and dismay.
Looking through the window, she noted black and gray clouds overlapping in the distant sky.
***
“Rotten luck,” Jarratt complained, shivering. “I hate it when it rains at night.”
The party were all in long coats, their heads deep in hoods, but the unpleasant cold seeped in regardless. The rain came down hard enough to sting. The tumultuous noise made it difficult to hear their own voices without standing right next to each other.
Mathias stood squinting into the dark, his back pressed up against the towering fifty-meter wall.
“I don’t know about this…”
They were at the north side of Quinta where the district wall intersected with Wall Maria itself. Towards the gate, the way was littered with the remains of wooden shanties. Charred and black, most had lost all but their skeletal supports. The group had concealed their wagons under some of the few that still retained their original form.
The rain had been falling for quite some time, but the faint tang of charcoal hung in the air. It couldn’t have been long since the fires had gone out.
From place to place, the ground was marked with vast, mortar-shaped cavities, signs of a bombardment. When Mathias had evacuated, the firing hadn’t yet taken place. The shantytown being subjected to such violent shelling could only mean…
The Titans were right here.
Could Rita have survived? She was a Garrison soldier. It would have been her job to engage the Titans. She had gone through plenty of training, and it was hard to imagine that she’d gone down. Yet the Titans were overwhelmingly powerful─and, as the name suggested, overwhelmingly huge.
Mathias cast his mind back to the ones he’d encountered on his journey. The Titan that had clambered onto the roof of the stables only to slide back down hardly seemed to notice losing one of its eyes to Bernhardt’s anchor. And the damage regenerated with alarming speed. Could humans really stand their own against such abominations?
They hadn’t seen any near the district, for now.
“About what?” Jarratt asked.
“This rain. It’s too loud. There could be a Titan nearby and we wouldn’t even hear its footsteps.”
“Don’t assume we’re all halfwits like you,” Klaus scoffed.
“I’d rather not.”
“Say that again?”
“It certainly is coming down.” Bernhardt parted the front of his long coat, put both hands around his waist, and casually strode up to the wall. “It does seem to be easing, but I daresay haste remains the best option.”
He flexed backwards and pulled the triggers on the hilts of both blades, simultaneously firing twin anchors up into the sky. The roar of the downpour muffled the sound of the wires cutting through the air. Even then, they all heard the crunch of the tips impacting the surface of the wall. The wires snapped taut, and Bernhardt’s stance became that of a man on a swing with impossibly long ropes that reached up from either side.
“I’d say we’re lucky,” claimed Jarratt. “The rain’s covering the noise we’re making, too.”
He was probably right. Had the night been clear, they’d have had to hide the wagons farther away. And there was always the chance of someone picking out a call or a shout even if they remained out of sight.
Bernhardt turned and crouched down. “A couple of trips should do it. Who wants to go first?”
Jarratt stepped forward. “If you wouldn’t mind.”
“Yup, yup, me too.” Nikki approached Bernhardt and sprang up. She caught one of the wires in her right hand, fixed her right foot on the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment above Bernhardt’s waistline, and pulled herself up.
Jarratt repeated more or less the same process, only more slowly and without rushing.
They appeared to be standing on Bernhardt’s waist, but their weight was in fact being supported by the wires now implanted in the wall.
Bernhardt, for his part, seemed perfectly relaxed.
“To the heavens, then!”
The mustached ex-MP maneuvered the levers embedded in the hilts of the blades. Compressed gas fired, and the wires began to spool in.
The three figures began a smooth ascent.
They moved more slowly than Mathias had expected. Bernhardt had no doubt adjusted the speed of the rewind mechanism. He kicked off the wall every now and again as they rappelled up into the darkness.
“Impressive…”
“I won’t.”
After a short while Bernhardt returned alone, looking again like he was sitting on a swing. “I assume you’ve grasped the basics?”
“Yes,” Mathias answered with a firm nod. “Mind if I go first?” he made sure to ask Klaus.
Walking up to Bernhardt, Mathias took hold of one of the wires, put a foot on the equipment, and kicked off the ground to jump up. He wobbled a little but managed to keep his balance. The shotgun strapped to his thigh was a little bit in the way.
“You’re wearing gloves, I take it? Wonderful. Don’t hold on too tight.”
“Huh?”
“Use your head for once,” Klaus muttered, putting his own foot on the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment.
“All on board? Okay, here we go.”
As soon as Bernhardt said this the wire in Mathias’ hands began to slide downwards, and downwards again.
“I see…”
Indeed, it would have been obvious if he’d used his head. The wire was being reeled in bit by bit, meaning his hand was moving up towards the anchor. If he tried to hold on without gloves, his skin would tear badly.
They ascended through the rain. They swung in arcs away from the wall each time Bernhardt kicked off. He was, Mathias realized, taking care that they didn’t collide with the surface. Had it been the middle of the day, and not raining, they probably could have seen off into the far distance. It might have felt as though they were flying.
Instead, either because of the torrential rain or the way it blocked their lines of sight, Mathias had the illusion that he was plunging ever deeper into a vast expanse of water. This despite the fact that it was the other way around and they were soaring upwards.
Weird…
“And here we are. It’s wet and slippery. Watch yourself.”
Mathias swallowed. Right there in front of him was the very upper lip of the wall. The wind was, unsurprisingly, stronger than it had been below. Bernhardt had both feet planted on the wall, keeping them steady, but even then he couldn’t fully dampen their sideways movement. Above them, Nikki was keeping vigilant watch against both stretches. Having already checked the frequency of patrols, and hidden and inaudible in the rain, the truth was that they had no reason to fear being spotted.
Jarratt lowered his huge frame and extended an arm. Mathias took hold and let himself get pulled up. His feet were on the flat surface of the wall before he could even think about the terror of falling. Just like his first time, the wall felt solid and secure and afforded a sense of stability comparable to standing on a stone floor.
Mathias turned to face Quinta. It was still early in the night. Numerous lights were visible towards the center. Didn’t that mean most of the residents were alive and well?
“Phew…”
Jarratt folded his arms and gazed at the town below. “Doesn’t look like they got in.”
Klaus used his own strength to pull himself up. “Which was what we’d heard,” he said.
“We didn’t need to worry.” Bernhardt reeled in the last stretch of wire and scrambled a little ungraciously up to join them. “We saw people on guard up here. And the gate was shut tight. Neither of which seems appropriate for a town in ruins, hmm?”
“I guess so.”
“We truly are blessed!”
Bernhardt tugged the anchors free and pulled those in too. He strode across the wall and twirled around so his back faced inside. Then, in a manner that was disarmingly casual, and that left no time for anyone to intervene, he threw himself backwards into the air.
“What?!”
Immediately there was the hard crack of anchors being driven into the wall’s surface. Mathias charged over to see Bernhard hanging on tightened wires, about a meter down, arms stretched out but his body securely attached to the wall.
“Who wants the tour first?”
“You shouldn’t frighten us like that! I thought you’d fallen.”
“Apologies.”
Mathias realized Bernhardt and the others were watching him with grins on their faces. They were, all of them, of dubious moral character and jerks to boot.
He sighed and said, “I’ll go first, if that’s fine.”
“Hoo.” Bernhardt teased him with a smile. “No rush. Your sweetheart is all cooped up inside the wall. She won’t be going anywhere.”
“Can we just go?”
Mathias crouched. He turned his back on Quinta and got down onto his stomach, then carefully began to lower his legs. His toes found Bernhardt’s shoulder. Making sure his chest was flat on the wall, he let his legs reach even farther. Finally the soles of his feet landed on the surface of the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment. He started to transfer his weight, letting it take the strain. At the same time he groped for and found the wire, taking tight hold of it.
“Expertly done!”
“Could you just…stay quiet?”
Fortunately, Mathias’ annoyance was taking precedence over his awareness of height and any fear.
They descended, Mathias and Klaus going first, followed by Jarratt and Nikki.
Bernhardt freed the anchors lodged some fifty meters up with a practiced twitch of his wrists and rapidly pulled the wires back in.
The nighttime town was quiet, partly due to the rain, and partly to the fact that half of the population had fled. The stillness was greater than Mathias had imagined, and he was beginning to doubt whether he’d needed to escape in such a hurry.
“I thought the town would be in a worse state, with people getting desperate from the isolation. From being surrounded by Titans.”
“Might be a different story in the daylight.” Jarratt might have been easygoing, but he was also realistic.
Initially they kept to the wall, getting closer to one of the wider passageways that radiated out from the center. Not surprisingly the road carried some traffic, and they heard the bustle of chatter and footsteps.
Even though he’d only been gone a few days, Mathias felt a burgeoning wave of nostalgia. Fuerth differed from Quinta in every possible way, from the design of its buildings to the size of the main roads and even the smells in the air.
“A moment please.” Bernhardt waved his hand for everyone to stop. “Mathias, perhaps now is a good time for you to enlighten us as to where these treasures are kept.”
All eyes honed in on him. It was understandable that they wanted to know the general direction, in order to make their way there efficiently. Mathias, for his part, no longer required the gang’s company now that he was inside Quinta.
“Sure,” he said.
“Where is it?” prompted Klaus.
“I see, closest to the interior side. Obvious when you think about it.” Bernhardt put a hand to his chin, thinking about something. “Meaning it’s the mansion. Your…father’s.” He’d gotten it in one guess.
“Yes.”
“Even so, I imagine the mansion will be quite large. We’ll need your help.”
“You shouldn’t have any trouble. Under a large tree in the northeast corner of the courtyard, there’s an iron trapdoor. Open that and─”
“Nice, sounds about right,” Nikki cut in.
Mathias nodded. “You should find my father’s treasure inside. Okay, is that it?”
“What do you mean, ‘Is that it’?” Bernhardt asked back.
“It’s time for us to part ways. For good.”
“But why not?”
“Can’t be sure the treasure’s even there.” This came from Klaus.
Mathias gritted his teeth. “You don’t trust me?”
“Well, we are outlaws,” Nikki said without a hint of shame.
Jarratt folded his arms and nodded. “Just the way it is. Come on, we can be pals a little longer.”
Right, until you confirm the treasure exists.
Mathias’ eyes flicked to either side of the road. He knew the town like the back of his hand, but he still wasn’t confident of giving the four of them the slip. If he tried anything now he’d just end up being shot through, either by a gun, or one of those anchors.
“Okay,” he agreed, bereft of alternatives.
“Good answer!” Bernhardt turned to the rest of his group. “Now that we know which way we’re headed, I suggest we split up.”
“Yes. Easier to work that way,” Klaus assented.
“Five of us would only draw attention,” remarked Jarratt.
Bernhardt nodded at them. “Would you two be kind enough to procure a wagon? We’ll meet…” He launched into an accurate explanation of where the Kramer mansion was located. The outlaw and former member of the Military Police Brigade seemed to know everything. “Just keep an eye out for the largest mansion on the street. We’ll go on ahead and make preparations to load everything up.”
“Sure.”
“Sounds good.”
“Now then.” Bernhardt turned again to face Mathias and Nikki. “If you two would like to accompany me. Any problems?”
“No.”
“Yuck!” Nikki had her tongue sticking out from her hood and was catching raindrops.
“Wonderful. We’ll see the two of you later.”
Klaus and Jarratt responded to Bernhardt’s words with shallow nods and left.
The three who remained pressed quickly on through the rain. Mathias stuck to alleys wherever he could. He knew the area well since his earliest days. It was like a backyard to him.
They passed a number of people but didn’t seem to draw any attention. The long coats and hoods they wore to ward off the rain helped conceal the curious combination of mustached ex-soldier, petite thief of uncertain age, and merchant association heir.
In time they entered a district of high-reaching stone walls. Many of the buildings here had large inner courtyards that let in plenty of natural light. The characteristic meant that the walls along the street tended to be unadorned and fairly staid. The mansion Mathias lived in─had lived in─was one of them.
“We can get in through here.”
He led them to the mansion’s rear entrance. Nikki looked up and down the narrow side street, then up at the Kramer mansion.
“This is all your home, Mathias? It’s big! Really big!”
“Everyone who lived here was rich. They’d have been the first to evacuate. There won’t be many left in this neighborhood.”
“Exactly.”
“Should anyone come by there’s a good chance of them being outlaws like us. Or soldiers out to catch them,” Bernhardt continued. An amused smile came to his face. “This is something I’ve been considering since we got here, but somebody seems to be maintaining a very high standard of law and order. I wonder if the soldiers are actually doing their jobs for a change.” He swept his eyes over the other mansions in the street. “No signs of looting. Nothing to suggest an invasion of the poor. Yes, quite a miracle!”
“Really?”
Of course it was Rita whom Mathias thought of right away. Was she in some way helping to keep the peace? She had to be. She would throw herself into the task with twice the passion of anyone else.
“This is fortunate for us, too. You see, it increases the odds of the treasure we are here for being still untouched.”
“True.”
Mathias was conflicted. He was hoping the fortune was safe, but only so it would fall into the hands of thieves. He took a step towards the wooden door that served as the mansion’s rear entrance. The surface was iron-plated, and a heavy-duty lock secured the edges. It wasn’t going to be easy to break.
“How do you want to do this? Should we hop over the wall again?” Mathias asked.
“My, you are getting the hang of this! ‘Should we hop over the wall again?’” Bernhardt said, imitating Mathias’ voice. “Spoken as though it were completely normal. Should we have breakfast? It’s rather cold today, should we don an overcoat? Should we hop over the wall again?”
The man’s tone was more mocking than friendly, and Mathias would have hit him were he not familiar with the former soldier’s martial prowess.
Just barely controlling himself, Mathias asked, “So how are you going to get in?”
“Her expertise?”
Nikki was already holding the lock and gazing at it in deep concentration. She let go for a moment and plunged a hand into her long coat to delve around inside. When it reappeared it was with a collection of thin metallic rods.
“Mind if I took the stage?”
She squatted again before the lock, clamping most of the rods between her lips. She pinched the remaining one between two fingers and inserted it into the lock’s mechanism.
“Yep, obvious you’re rich, this one’s pretty clever,” she remarked despite the metal in her mouth.
“Nikki…can pick locks?”
“Clearly! What else do you think she is up to? Is she cooking? Is she making music?”
“By the way, Mathias. I’m not sure I approve of a gentleman who stands by as a lady gets soaked in the rain.”
It hadn’t even crossed the junior Kramer’s mind.
“Sorry.” He hurried over, stretched himself above Nikki, and opened his coat so her hands wouldn’t get wet. “Isn’t it a bit dark?” he asked her.
“It’s all in the sound and the feel.”
After a while Nikki nodded, then turned her head to look at Mathias.
“Heheh.”
“You got it open?”
Instead of answering she held the unhinged lock up to her face. Hardly any time had passed. Four, maybe five minutes at most.
Mathias got up with a giddy sensation. “When I get back to Fuerth I’m telling my father to change the locks.”
“I could help you choose?”
“We’ll be fine.”
“It pays to listen to good counsel,” Bernhardt scolded. He reached forwards and quickly pulled the door open.
The three of them walked through.
It wasn’t far to the courtyard.
They made a straight line down a corridor with a curved ceiling. Familiar smells, of foliage and of scented wood, drifted on the air. Mathias’ thoughts were pulled back to a memory…the memory of the day he and Rita first met. It felt as though only hours had passed, and yet it could have been centuries, too.
“Ah, yes, wonderful… This air of refinement! This aroma of wealth, of power, of erudition!”
Bernhardt seemed to dance as he walked. Mathias ignored him and headed towards the corner of the courtyard. Treading over the muddy surface, he continued until he reached the foot of the tree.
“This is it.”
“Where?” Nikki was looking this way and that.
“Let me just open it.”
Mathias kicked with his shoes to clear away the dirt, exposing the iron plate underneath. He crouched and, heedless of getting wet, ran his fingers through the handle. The metal was cold through his gloves. He tensed and heaved upwards with all of his might.
“Ooh, cool,” Nikki offered the vaguest of impressions.
When the plate was partway open, Mathias held it still. This was to stop the rain from flooding into the underground room. Bernhardt stepped up and peered inside.
“Anything to suggest it’s been looted?”
“No,” Mathias informed him. “We didn’t see any footprints. And why cover it with dirt, if it was empty?”
“Good points. I suppose it’s about the size of an ordinary household’s bedroom?”
Mathias’ thoughts went to the bedrooms in Rita’s home. He’d never used them, but he’d been inside. “Yes. Pretty much.”
“I think I’ll take a look, then.”
“Please.”
“No reason for us all to go in.” Bernhardt cast his eyes toward the cloisters that surrounded the courtyard. “Would you be kind enough to wait for a bit? Both of you. You won’t get wet if you stand under there.”
“Fine. What do you want to do about the lid?”
“I assume you can open it from the inside? I know I wouldn’t make one that didn’t.”
“It does, yes.”
“Then feel free to close it. It wouldn’t do for the treasures to get wet.”
“What about lighting?”
“I wouldn’t be so unprepared!” Bernhardt pulled open his coat to produce a lantern from somewhere underneath.
Impressive…
Mathias nodded and stepped to one side, raising the iron lid until it was vertical.
Bernhardt proceeded down without hesitation. From below came the sound of a flint being struck, and pale light streamed out immediately.
“Good. No problems with airflow,” his voice sounded.
He noticed that Nikki had moved to the cloisters. And that she held her rifle in her hands. She didn’t seem to be aiming at anything, but only moments earlier, the weapon had hung from her shoulder on a leather belt inside her coat so it wouldn’t get wet.
“Why…” Mathias began to ask, but the answer flashed into his mind.
She was ready to act if Mathias didn’t fulfill his end of the bargain─if the concealed riches failed to materialize, or if he tried to run.
Having worked through that much, Mathias hit upon the horrific truth.
Bernhardt had no reason not to dispose of him right there, whether or not the hidden treasure existed. If anything, it would behoove the man to get rid of Mathias. If the artworks were still there─and Mathias had good reason to believe they were─killing him would remove the only person in the world who could identify the thieves. It significantly lowered the chances of the Military Police Brigade coming after them.
Not good. Not. Good.
Mathias’ fingers traced down the inside of his long coat and reached his thigh. Freeing the shotgun from its clasp, he brought his other hand over to hold it crossways over his stomach.
The time might come for him to actually need it.
Nikki had the muzzle of her rifle pointed towards the ground; she wouldn’t be able to fire right away. She was pressing her free hand into the windows and doors lining the cloisters, keeping Mathias in the corner of her eye as she surveyed inside. The first floor contained the kitchen, the dining room, and the servants’ quarters, so few of the doors were locked.
Mathias approached the cloisters as though everything were normal. He wanted to keep his distance, but Nikki might grow suspicious if he lingered in the rain. He crossed over the earth in wet shoes.
He reached the stone-slab flooring of the cloisters.
“Stop right there!”
The voice wasn’t his. Nor was it Nikki’s. It had emanated from the corridor to the rear entrance that they had passed through.
Mathias’ head snapped up.
A soldier with close-cropped hair had his rifle raised. He looked young enough to still be a boy, younger than Mathias. And yet, he wore the uniform of a Garrison soldier. Perhaps he was just baby-faced.
The boy’s whole body was trembling. Mathias somehow sensed this even though they were over five meters apart.
The boy could only be seeing the scene as an encounter with some scoundrels who were robbing a wealthy family. How could he know that that was only half of the truth?
Mathias brought his shotgun up on reflex alone. The movement parted the front of his coat.
The weapon in his hands abruptly exploded.
What the…
He heard Nikki gulping nearby.
Mathias looked up.
The boy from before was beginning to fall backwards. There was something wrong with his face.
Something had changed.
Something was missing.
Don’t tell me…
Mathias finally realized what. The right side of the boy’s head was gone, blown away.
“Duccio?!”
It was a female voice that screamed this time.
A familiar voice. One that overflowed with vitality.
Except now, it was tinged with astonishment and despair.
In its wake a woman wearing the Garrison’s uniform came running into view. The voice had to be hers. A comrade or such of the boy whose head was half-gone.
A howl caught in her throat when she saw the boy in mid-fall. She raced over, reaching with her arms, but arrived a moment too late. The boy threw out his arms and legs on the stone-slab floor.
The insides of his head splattered out, plastering the woman’s legs and shoes.
She lifted her head.
Mathias had already guessed it. Of course, it had to be.
“Rita…”
They’d been reunited.
A shot rang out next to Mathias. Fireworks sparked off the wall beside Rita. It took a moment for Mathias to work out what had happened. Nikki had fired her rifle.
“For now,” Nikki said, casual. She took Mathias by the scuff of his neck and dragged him with a strength that seemed to belie her build. All the while she kept firing rounds from her rifle with one hand, transforming the wall where Rita had been into a pockmarked mess. “Happens a lot,” she said, her voice perfectly absent of strain. The incredible force with which she hauled Mathias remained unchanged.
Why do I always let these people drag me around? Mathias reflected as though it concerned someone else.
Nikki was moving with brisk steps and was almost on the door that led to the corner room. She hurled her rifle down, opened the door, and threw Mathias in before following in behind him. It was dark, except for a square of pale light shining through the wall─a window.
Nikki tore the shotgun out of Mathias’ hands. She aimed the muzzle at the window and fired. Mathias was deafened by the thunderous report as the shutters exploded outwards from the middle.
The scene from moments ago replayed in his thoughts. The boy’s head, blown apart. Rita showing up, her eyes stretching wide in distress and horror. Her hand reaching for the body as it collapsed. Her eyes unbelieving as they turned towards Mathias. Rita actually asking him: “Why?” He hadn’t known how to respond.
Rita…
His hearing was slowly returning.
Nikki lobbed the shotgun to one side and used both hands to grab Mathias by his clothes. She pulled him forwards, employing the momentum to catapult him into the wreckage of the shutters.
There was an impact, then a sudden jolt of pain. The sense of being airborne came next.
Mathias sailed into a narrow street together with the fragments of the shutters…and started to fall. Unable to bring himself around, he crashed down into the hard cobbled surface.
He was set upon by the rain and cold.
A grimy puddle of water splashed into his face. When he looked he saw that Nikki had landed soundlessly next to him. She took his collar and pulled him to his feet.
A part of his brain realized he was in a side street. Dark mansion walls towered on either side. It felt claustrophobic, as though they were bearing in on him. The sky was narrow and distant, but the rain came as though it was being tipped from a pot.
The same scene continued to play itself over and over. The boy soldier’s face, blown apart. Rita coming into view, running up to the boy. The turmoil of emotion in her eyes…
I’ll need to explain.
But how? What could he say that would make her understand? How could he possibly justify what he’d done?
“Hmm, that way?”
Nikki began to walk, dragging Mathias behind her. She hadn’t lost her composure. She was acting exactly as she usually did, humming an out-of-tune melody to herself, stroking the wall for no discernible reason. There didn’t seem to be any logic or continuity to anything she did.
Except─maybe that wasn’t true. As far as their survival was concerned, her actions hadn’t once strayed from the mark.
Nikki came to a stop and poked her head around the side of the building. She was checking the situation on the road.
“Ah, that’s what I call good timing.” She observed a while longer, then stepped forward without ceremony. Mathias was pulled into the road with her.
A wagon approached. One man was driving it, while another stood in the uncovered cart. Nikki strolled down the street with no apparent concern, her arm slung around Mathias’ shoulder.
They were, by now, completely soaked, and Mathias’ hair hung wetly over his forehead.
The wagon started to slow, eventually coming to a full stop beside them.
“I think Bernhardt got detention,” Nikki shared, springing onto the wagon.
“Damn it,” Klaus swore.
The man on the cart─judging by his size, Jarratt─extended two bulky arms towards the road.
“It happens, I suppose,” the old man said. Taking hold of Mathias on both sides, he hoisted him lightly into the air and set him roughly down by his side. “We’ll need to get out of here, for now.”
“Agreed.”
Without a pause Klaus whipped the horse.
The wagon began to move, and the vibration rocked Mathias up and down. His joints ached from his earlier fall.
The farther they got from his childhood home, the more he felt like throwing up.
“Rita…”
Unable to bear it, Mathias leaned over the lip of the wagon and actually vomited a little.
Things weren’t right.
They weren’t supposed to be this way.
CONTINUED IN PART 2