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.
“Is this okay?” Mathias hurried to hold out his weapon.
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…
Abruptly, Mathias was seized by a feeling that something was wrong. He looked up.
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.
“Why… Why?!” his voice finally made it past his throat.
“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.
Klaus clicked his tongue. Along with Nikki and Jarratt, he ran stumbling towards the main building.
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…”
Bernhardt took him by the scruff of the neck and pulled.
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.