“Remember who you’re talking to?”
“Gotta say, you don’t lack confidence, old man.”
Gabriele had been keeping careful watch. He was to Mathias’ right, while Bernhardt stood behind the two of them.
The plan was to move into action the moment Rita came into view. First, Mathias and Gabriele would clear a path, forcing people out of the way. Bernhardt would then leap or climb over Mathias and fire an anchor towards the Titan. From there he would sail through the air to assault the creature. Simultaneously, members of the resistance seeded throughout the plaza would pounce on the guards. Others, positioned in the crowd, would fire their rifles at the gun-wielding troops atop the buildings. This would prevent Bernhardt from being shot to pieces along with the Titan.
If Bernhardt managed to slay the Titan, it was Mathias’ turn to act. He would proceed to the front of the plaza and call upon the residents to rise up. He was nervous about addressing a crowd, but it wasn’t a role he could delegate.
Rita, of course, would do whatever she could to obstruct them. They had to make sure she couldn’t act. For this, they had to rely on rifles. She might get injured in the process; depending on the case, she might even lose her life. Mathias found the idea more distressing than the thought of being injured himself, but they needed to go through with this.
Rita was after him with the same determination.
“Hey, old man, you’ll have to show me how to use this someday.” Gabriele gave a couple of hearty slaps on Bernhardt’s back, that is to say, on the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment under his overcoat.
“I don’t see why not. Although I must insist you stop calling me that.”
“You are getting on though, old man.”
“The appellation lacks any hint of glory.”
“Maybe you’re not as glorious as you think.”
“Ah, the gall. Well, I will at least consider teaching you the use of this thing.”
“She still hasn’t shown,” Mathias said, gazing up at the district hall.
The execution had been due to start some while ago, but the window curtains hadn’t so much as fluttered.
Mathias felt a momentary urge to call the plan into motion anyway but thought better of it. They had to kill the Titan in front of Rita. To enable the residents to overcome their fear of her. To show her the true extent of their anger and sorrow. And yet the key element, Rita herself, was failing to materialize.
As the sun started to lose its erstwhile glare, the crowd began to grow restless.
“I wonder if something happened…”
“Like what?” Gabriele scowled, brusquely wiping sweat from his forehead.
“Maybe the plan got out.”
“Everything’s fine. You know, you worry too much.”
“Maybe.”
The moment he’d said this, Mathias heard a series of agitated voices from behind.
“Hey!”
“What the…”
Mathias turned without thinking to see Bernhardt shaking on tiptoes with his eyes rolled up, his chest puffed out, and his arms stretched down unnaturally straight.
The residents around him seemed creeped out and were shrinking away, trying to get some distance.
“Bernhardt?” Mathias made to reach out, but drew his hand back.
The man was convulsing violently, his torso arched like a bow. His face spasmed as though in laughter. He didn’t respond to Mathias; his mouth was open, but the only sound to emerge was a retching from deep inside his throat.
His forehead was suffused with an oily sweat that reflected the sun’s waning rays.
Arching even further, the pose hardly human, Bernhardt’s body teetered backwards.
“Bernhardt!”
Mathias stepped in to catch the toppling form but came up short. Nearly supine, with nary an attempt to cushion the fall, the supposedly resilient outlaw was sinking to the ground.
The back of his head hit the cobblestone with a dull, disconcerting noise. Even then the convulsions continued, and his body lurched onto its side. Blood flowed from the back of his head, and dribble from his mouth.
People were screaming and jumping away.
“Bernhardt, are you okay? What’s going on?!”
Mathias fell into a crouch. He grabbed Bernhardt by the shoulder and tried to get him onto his back, but the fierce convulsions kept knocking his fingers away.
Froth bubbled from the man’s mouth, and he let out a keening cry that sounded more animal than human.
“About bloody time,” Gabriele’s nonplussed voice sounded from above.
Mathias craned his neck to look up at him. “Call for help! Do something!”
“I don’t think so,” the young man said. From near his chest he pulled out a thumb-sized vial. It seemed to have been hanging from his neck on a leather cord.
“Gabriele?”
“Probably should’ve used the whole thing.” He held the vial up to the sun. It was still half full. “Nah, he’d have noticed.”
What is that? Why isn’t he shocked by Bernhardt’s transformation?
“Ah yes, first things first.” Crouching down next to Mathias, Gabriele took hold of Bernhardt’s overcoat and pulled it open. The concealed Vertical Maneuvering Equipment came into view along with the twin blades. “I should probably requisition this─always pays to be careful.” He’d pulled out a dagger from somewhere. Making deft use of it he set about cutting the leather straps that secured the equipment. It came free and clunked on the cobblestone.
Bernhardt’s convulsions were already weakening and feeble. His heart-wrenching cries had subsided, too.
“What on earth,” Mathias barely managed to ask.
Even as he spoke, a number of burly men pushed through the crowd. They approached until they were behind him and reached around from both sides. They grabbed and twisted his wrists and started dragging him away from Bernhardt. The pain was enough to make him whimper.
He was stumped. He realized he should resist, but he was too dazed even to command his limbs.
“Doesn’t it speak for itself?”
He turned towards Gabriele’s voice.
Mathias simply couldn’t process what was happening to him.
“What do you mean?”
He saw it after he said this. Similar events were happening not just around him but across the whole plaza. He could hear screaming and swearing. Fights were breaking out. At the center of each disturbance, one or two men or women were being set upon and detained by a greater number of men and women.
“They’re all…resistance?”
“Uh huh. A mass arrest.”
“Why?”
“Because I reported what they looked like and where they’d be. Why else?”
The men on either side of Mathias forced him to turn around.
Out of the corner of his eye he could see Bernhardt being dragged by his overcoat by two oversized men. He was still arched backwards, but his convulsions had finally stopped. A grotesque smile was pinned to his hollowed-out features. A gap in the overcoat gave Mathias a glimpse of Bernhardt’s groin. It was discolored, black and damp. He had, it seemed, lost control of his bladder.
For whatever reason, that was when Mathias finally understood that the man was dead.
Dragging his corpse and shouting “Make way! Garrison coming through,” the hulking men boisterously waded through the crowd.
Mathias, his hands still in a lock, was also being hauled away. His face ran into people’s backs and shoulders. He didn’t feel any pain, though. He was too bewildered for that.
Gabriele followed from behind.
Cutting a path through the confused crowd, they approached the chained Titan. When they emerged from the throng, they were in an open area in front of the district hall. The soldiers manning the winding mechanisms around the Titan cast nervous looks at Mathias and Bernhardt.
Mathias, who was still being forced along by the men, turned just his neck.
“You betrayed us. You chose Rita, over us.”
“Not exactly.” Gabriele laced his hands together behind his head. “I was never on your side to begin with. Had you from the start. So, not a betrayal.”
“You were serving Rita from the outset, then.”
“Wrong again. Sorry it’s a little complicated.”
Gabriele lifted his eyes, and Mathias stretched his neck to follow his gaze.
Troops were now lined up on the wooden platform─with Rita in the middle. Amanda was there too, farther back and restrained by soldiers.
When had they appeared? Rita was looking down at Mathias, the expression in her eyes inscrutable. Without a doubt, she was aware of everything happening in the plaza.
Mathias was made to walk towards the scaffolding right past the Titan. The monster seemed almost close enough to touch, and he registered its peculiar heat. He could hear it breathing. Once they reached the foot of the wooden structure, he could no longer see Rita.
“You’re a decent guy. I’ll make an exception and tell you,” Gabriele said from behind.
The soldiers yanked Mathias by the arms, and he continued forwards. They proceeded along the scaffolding and through the entrance, between the soldiers standing guard, to enter the cool, dimly lit district hall. The clamor of the crowd was suddenly far away.
“I was lying when I said I came from a small village. And about spending the last six months alone and on the run in the exterior.”
It didn’t make any sense. Gabriele had known where to wait during the daytime to evade the Titans. Together they’d spent a whole day in a narrow gap in a cliff.
“The bit about losing my horse was true, mind. But I didn’t find it outside, I’d had it from the start. I got you good, didn’t I?”
They took Mathias to the staircase. He noticed there were fewer soldiers around him now. Bernhardt had been carried off somewhere.
Gabriele continued to talk as they climbed the stairs. “I may not look it, but I’m a Fuerth official. Young for it, I know, but I do get by thanks to my folks’ connections. You’re from a rich family too, right? Bookstore guy told me. I expect you know all about that sort of thing.”
Could he really be an official? Attached to the royal government? If so, what on earth was he doing here in Quinta?
“I’ll give it to you from the top. Three months ago, one of your friends shows up at our place.”
Indeed, the resistance had sent Jarratt to Fuerth. He was supposed to communicate what was happening in Quinta in order to request immediate assistance.