“They’ve come crossing,” one of the soldiers groaned, his gaze fixed on the wall. “They must have climbed up in Shiganshina, then walked all this way…”
Getting up and down the wall was mostly done via a system of ropes, pulleys, and gondola lifts. But perhaps some districts featured staircases, and that was how the Titans had found their way up. Not that they’d actually decided to “use the wall to cross into another district”─they weren’t intelligent creatures. They must have wandered up by chance sometime during the last six months and just carried on walking in search of people, until they happened upon Quinta.
“Who cares how,” Amanda snapped. “Rita. Give the order.”
“Oh. Right…” The acting commander seemed unable to pull her gaze from the south wall.
The first Titan turned west, onto the circular wall that ran around Quinta. The path ahead of it was dotted with cannons, next to which stood small figures.
Soldiers.
“Bad news…”
By now even Gabriele’s voice was shaking. The troops on top of the wall seemed paralyzed, unable to take a step despite the Titan coming their way.
One of its arms reached out.
Long fingers clamped around the head of one of the soldiers and squeezed, instantly pulping it.
The others, caught in the shower of blood, came back to life only to scream and run, in no state to fight back. One disoriented soldier fled in the wrong direction and lost his footing at the edge of the wall. He plummeted towards the ground, letting go of his rifle, his arms whirling in the air. He wasn’t wearing the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment. Nothing could save him from the fall.
Mathias was about to avert his eyes but quickly pulled them back. He swallowed.
The screams in the plaza became even louder.
Another Titan came into view atop the wall. Considerably bigger than the first two, it had to be a seven-meter-class.
The wall was five meters wide at the top. Any Titan under ten meters could traverse it without difficulty.
The seven-meter-class paused near the edge. It looked out at the town sprawling beneath it. Its expression was too distant to make out.
Incredibly, it sauntered off the edge. Still upright, its hair swept back and its arms spread wide, it hurtled down. This was a fifty-meter drop. It couldn’t possibly emerge unscathed.
Sure enough, a boom like cannon fire sounded, sundering a roof and throwing up a nimbus cloud of steam and dust at the point of impact. The vapor was the kind a Titan shed from its wounds. In other words, it had taken severe damage in the fall.
Its bones broken, skewering through skin. Its flesh ripped, squashed, splattered…
That was when Mathias remembered.
A Titan didn’t die unless the nape of its neck was sliced out.
No doubt the creature was quickly regenerating right there amidst the steam and dust.
“So many?” someone rasped.
The cloud had distracted Mathias, but he now saw even more of them atop the wall: a scrawny Titan, an abnormally potbellied Titan, a bowlegged Titan, a hunchbacked Titan… They ranged from three to seven meters.
All were approaching with meandering steps.
Then, tipping forward, a Titan with bedraggled hair that came to its chest fell headfirst off the wall.
“Holy…”
Staggering, Gabriele held onto a nearby soldier by the shoulder.
Another Titan rolled sideways off the wall, another huddling its knees, another extending its arms like wings. Each with its chosen pose, they hurled themselves from the wall without the slightest reluctance as though nothing was more natural.
It looked like a mass suicide.
Thunderous peals continued to ring out, and the endless clouds of steam and dust blanketed the town. The southern limits of Quinta were turning a uniform white.
“Rita!”
Rita’s body shook at Amanda’s razor-edged cry.
A haphazard evacuation was still underway in the plaza below. Many of the residents were in a state of panic. Amongst them, pulled down by the chains each time it tried to stand, the plaza Titan swiveled its head, taking in the scrambling masses with a most melancholic expression.
Rita took a deep breath. She closed her eyes for one second─no longer─then opened them again.
“Fetch Amanda’s equipment and weapons! Gather all civilians before the east gate. Prepare horses, and food!”
“You’re giving up on Quinta?” asked one of the soldiers, stunned.
Rita averted her eyes. “Yes. If those were all, we may have had a chance of winning.”
“Ten or a hundred times as many could be on their way. There’s no guarantee that isn’t the case,” Amanda said, turning to hold out her bound wrists to the soldier as though ordering him to remove them immediately.
The soldier hurried to comply.
Frowning a little, Amanda said, “It isn’t safe here, not anymore.”
“It’ll be dangerous.” Rita’s hand was clasped tight over a hilt. Her knuckles were white. “But we’re all leaving for Fuerth, on foot.”
“Wait,” Gabriele cut in, “what do you think you’re saying? I told you, we don’t want you!”
“The situation’s changed.” Rita pulled out one of her blades. “Fuerth will take us. I won’t let anyone get in the way.”
“Have you gone mad? It’s still afternoon! There are Titans out there, too. You’ll get attacked, all right?! Even if you did wait for nightfall, you can’t travel to Fuerth in half a day!”
“Maybe. But we have to try, even if it means getting wiped out… Wouldn’t that suit you? The royal government, I mean. You want us all to die.”
“Don’t make me spell it out. And…God forbid, you might actually make it…”
“We’ll deal with that when it happens.”
Mathias wanted to swallow but couldn’t. His mouth had dried up completely.
Rita had decided to abandon everything she’d spent the last half-year building. In that scant second she’d had her eyes closed.
How did she do it?
How could she be so strong?
It had to be enough to tear her apart. He wouldn’t have been surprised if her mind had simply ground to a halt.
No, maybe it had.
Maybe she was acting mechanically, like a cog, simply obeying her principle of protecting the residents.
“Let…”
Mathias had opened his mouth and taken a step before he realized. By now none of the soldiers tried to stop him, and he was allowed to walk freely.
“Let me help.”
He looked out over the plaza. People, out of their minds, were tumbling over one another, struggling to get as far away from the Titans as they could.
There was a young woman striking an elderly woman by the narrow exit; a middle-aged woman yanking a middle-aged man out of the way; a woman cradling an infant and trampling over a fallen, screaming youth. The doors of houses lining the street had flung open, ejecting people burdened with luggage who were sucked into the desperate stampede. They flew into a rage when their things were pulled away and launched themselves at anyone in their path.
A thin layer of vapor drifted through the air above them, sparkling in the light of the dipping sun.
“I can help with the wounded. At least let me do that.”
I’m powerless.
It was the truth, and it made him want to cry.
“And set my comrades free. They’ll be willing to help.”
He believed it, too. The members of the resistance─more than anyone─would be willing to sacrifice themselves if it meant delivering the people of Quinta to safety.
“All right. Got it.”
“We’re running out of time,” Amanda said, glaring up at the wall.
She had already been given her Vertical Maneuvering Equipment and was almost done putting it on.
Rita tucked in her chin in the way of a nod and walked to the edge of the platform. Once there she fired an anchor and leapt into the air. The wire immediately whisked her away toward the southern avenue.
Amanda followed along with the other soldiers.
None had wasted a single word on sentiment.
They landed on surfaces lining their path, crouching to cushion the impact and firing their next anchors in almost the same moment. They soared over the fleeing crowd in the opposite direction, with a trajectory like lightning, closing in on the danger.
It had happened all so quickly, in the blink of an eye.
Mathias rubbed his arms. They felt wrong from being held in place for so long. Gabriele was there next to him, cursing and stamping his feet. They were the only two left on the platform.
Mathias pushed the fellow out of the way and began to make his way downstairs.