Rita had given them orders to that effect, but even so… “I’m surprised the adults complied.”
“Ah, um…” the soldier stammered for some reason. Maybe they’d had to take forceful measures to bring people into line. Maybe they’d killed someone as an example, and she was balking at delivering the report herself. Whatever the case, Rita would find out when she got there.
“What about Gabriele?” she asked. She’d thought of a use for him after the fight with the Titans had started and issued orders to a nearby subordinate.
The girl soldier nodded enthusiastically. “We managed to track him down. He’s in our custody now.”
“Next to the gate, I hope?”
“Yes.”
“Good work.”
Soldiers were still engaged in combat close to Rita. Yet, the Titans’ descent appeared to have broken off, at least for now. She could afford to leave the fray without doing much harm with her absence.
“We’ll go there together.”
Rita broke into a run across the roof. Without hesitation she leapt from the edge and into the air, controlling the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment as she did. She fired her anchors at buildings on either side and swung like a pendulum, yanking her anchors free when her height crested and firing them at the next buildings ahead. This she repeated, carrying herself rapidly through the empty streets.
More and more people appeared below her. They eventually turned into a crowd.
A large number of residents were packed together around the district’s gate. Their voices overlapped to give the impression that the earth itself was growling.
In line with her instructions, wagons had been set up in a line before the gate. Some had tarpaulin covers while others didn’t. Small children were packed tightly into the latter.
She stood on a rooftop across the road from the gate. A few of the soldiers noticed and acknowledged her presence with their eyes, whether they were on top of the wall or down on the ground. The troops were busy commanding the civilians to queue up calmly.
She realized something. Many of those helping guide the civilians weren’t wearing Garrison uniforms. A number were people she recognized, from the teachers association, the butchers union. People who’d been arrested and subsequently released in response to Mathias’ appeal─members of the resistance. Scholars, booksellers, many more, were all working hard, hollering at the civilians, urging them to cooperate.
Without the rebels’ help, she doubted they could have assigned the wagons to just the children.
It was ironic.
Rita had claimed that people could live in Quinta forever. She had seen the resistance as subversives who undermined law and order. Yet, now that the Titans were here, it was due to their efforts that order was being maintained.
Maybe that was why the girl soldier had hesitated to report the reason.
It meant Rita had been wrong─and Mathias, right.
No, that wasn’t true, either.
Mathias’ plan had been to appeal to Fuerth for assistance. But Fuerth District lacked any such intention.
Both of their expectations had been proven wrong, and the world was crueler than either of them had supposed.
Rita felt dizzy. She came dangerously close to falling from the roof. She took a hurried step backwards.
She couldn’t die yet.
It wasn’t as though her principles had been proven wrong.
A lanky young man was arguing with one of her soldiers, ahead of the line of wagons, just in front of the gate. The man’s hands were bound behind his back.
Gabriele.
Rita stepped back a little, took a running approach, and leapt into the air. She fired an anchor into the wall that protected the district, set the wire to reel in, and cut straight over the crowd beneath her. As she came back down she kicked both feet off the gate, killing her momentum and coming to rest next to Gabriele.
Caught unawares, he flinched a little. The civilians nearby were watching with wide eyes.
Gabriele threw her a defensive look. “What? What the hell are you planning for me?”
“Oh, nothing too taxing,” Rita said in response. “Just for you to steer one of the wagons. The one at the front.”
“That’s…” He looked over to the wagons, then, realizing Rita’s scheme, turned pale. “That’s impossible. I told you, you can’t come to Fuerth.”
“We can’t stay here. I think the same applies to you. I’m offering you the use of a wagon.”
“As a bargaining chip? You’d give me a wagon, if I took them.” The children inside the wagons were huddled together, visibly anxious. Some looked sulky, others were openly bawling.
“Yes. That sounds about right.”
Gabriele was a Fuerth official and the son of one of the district’s luminaries. It was unlikely they would ignore him or turn him away, even if he arrived with a trail of refugees.
“They won’t open the gate, you know?”
“Who can say? We’ve got refugees living there already, lots of them. Who knows what might happen if they find out their own are being kept out?”
They would probably riot. And that would be high on the list of eventualities the royal government wanted to avoid.
“Damn it.”
“If you arrive ahead of us, request them to send out their elite. To protect the refugees following behind.”
“They’ll never do that, all right?!” Gabriele ploughed his hands through his hair. “And, yeah, haven’t you considered that I might double-cross you? Who’s to say I won’t steal one of the horses and race off to Fuerth by myself?”
“I’ll be assigning troops to keep watch so that doesn’t happen. And to make sure the refugees are safe. Except…” I’d rather trust you on this.
Gabriele was a man who put Fuerth’s interests first─he hadn’t shown the slightest reluctance to poison Bernhardt─but Rita didn’t think he was low enough to abandon a few hundred children stowed in wagons.
“Damn… Damn. Damn!” he swore, then started to make his way to the lead wagon. He’d decided to comply, if only to save himself.
Rita nodded at one of her soldiers. He ran after Gabriele, made him stop, and cut the ropes from his arms with a sword.
That would do, for now.
Rita shot an anchor low on the wall, set the wire to reel in, and hauled herself onto the tarpaulin covering one of the wagons. She used the vantage point to study the crowd.
No praising looks─the people watched her without a word, their eyes filled with anger, hate, resentment, contempt.
It was only to be expected.
She’d been draconian. It had all been to keep them safe. Yet her hopes had vanished into thin air as rapidly as a mirage, leaving behind nothing but despair.
She was overtaken with an urge to say something, but decided against it. She feared she’d start mouthing excuses.
Looking away from her people, she caught the eyes of the soldiers flanking the gate.
“Raise the gate!”
The soldier in charge was flummoxed for a moment, but soon pulled himself together. He turned on his heels and ran into a structure attached to the wall. There came the sound of metal grinding as the chains began to turn; the iron slats that were the gate slowly lifted up.
Light filtered into the dark passageway.
Gabriele whipped his horse before the gate was all the way up. As though waking from a hypnotic state, people began to swarm towards the corridor. None of them paid Rita any more attention. They were all scrambling to get out.
Firing her anchor again, Rita returned to the roof where she’d stood earlier.
The swarm of people moved below her like a turbid stream.
When she looked up, a ghost town lay before her. In the distance, more Titans were diving off the wall. Clouds of debris and steam seethed upwards. Bloody battles were resuming within them.
Rita knew she had to go back, and as soon as possible.
Everything was lost.
The screams, the shouts, the cries of the fleeing civilians somehow seemed so faraway.