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 middle-aged soldier with supple skin shot him a suspicious look. “Hunh?”
“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.”
Underfoot he felt the earth and the grass.
“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.
“Butcher them?” Mathias echoed.
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.
Nikki cut in. “Wouldn’t that take ages?”
“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.