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.
Another bombardment rang out, overpowering his voice. The air seemed to shudder.
“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.