The curfew he’d ordered wasn’t working.
Now he found himself trapped between the workers he would come up against at the plant and the angry rabble that would soon be following them along the road. Circumstance was funnelling him into a narrow corridor. He’d run out of choices.
Turning away from the fire, he set off toward the plant. In the distance he could see fields where the herds of the Chosen roamed and the barns where they sheltered. He gave no command to his Parsons.
He knew they’d follow him.
They had no more choice than he did.
They stood amid the bodies of the first group Torrance had sent out, each of them serene.
In front of them was the main gate and just inside it a raucous crowd of combatants that was growing larger all the time. The crowd swore and taunted and waved their various weapons. Shanti saw clubs of wood and bone, cleavers, meat hooks, machetes and chains.
He glanced back down the road and saw the second party arriving at a run with Hema and Harsha being carried. Trouble couldn’t be far behind.
‘What’s the plan?’ he asked Collins.
‘For me, for my followers, this is it. We make our stand in front of all these workers and all those townsfolk that will no doubt soon arrive.’
‘Yes, but what’s the plan?’
Collins smiled but it soon faded.
‘The plan is to never be forgotten, Richard. The plan is to martyr ourselves.’
‘Maybe there’s another way to do this. You might win. You haven’t lost a single man yet. Maybe you can come with me.’
‘We can’t. I can’t.’
‘But if you triumph, there’s no need for you to stay.’
‘We’re not going to triumph.’
‘John, come on. Of course you won’t if you talk that way.’
The second group arrived and Shanti’s girls ran to him. He bent and kissed each of their heads, then stood and held them beside him.
Collins turned to him.
‘I would have liked to get to know you better, Richard. I wish we’d had a little more time. But you have to see that all of us are making sacrifices today. Some will be in blood, others in service. You have your place in this and I have mine. The scales must be balanced and this is only the very beginning of the repayment that is owed.’ Collins looked down the road and saw Bruno and the rest of Magnus’s men approaching in the distance. ‘You have all the knowledge you need now and you know what to do. Take your girls and hide. Don’t let anyone see you. Go quickly now.’
Collins put out his hand and Shanti grasped it. There were many words that passed in that silent communication, but not enough. Shanti took a hand of each girl and together they crouched and ran away from the gate and the shouting mob, away from the road where Bruno and his men would soon arrive. They crept into the long grass and down into the ditch below the hedgerow. From there they half ran, half stumbled away from town following the smell of rot.
She woke to the sounds of angry shouting, of men spoiling for affray.
It wasn’t clear how long she’d slept for. This time she’d entered such a deep sleep that it might have been a few hours of blackness or a whole day. Her first act was to vomit but nothing came except the pain of spasms contracting around the growth inside her. Crying, she stood up. Weakness of the legs and a fog of dizziness brought her straight back to her knees.
So. The rest, no matter how deep, had done little for her.
None of this was going to be easy.
With more will than physical power, she used the top of the tower wall to haul herself up. Once there, the top of the wall came to just above her waist. Its only function, she assumed was to stop stockmen from falling. She was grateful for it.
Her vision cleared and she saw it all.
To her right, the MMP plant and the burgeoning gang of workers and black-coats that thronged near the entrance. Beyond the gate, she saw – finally – Prophet John Collins. There was no mistaking who it must have been. A smooth-headed man dressed in rags and a band of two or three dozen others that looked much the same. They stood calmly whilst the men inside the plant appeared close to frenzy. She felt that Richard Shanti should be there too but there was no sign of him. She wanted him there, somehow. The idea of his presence comforted her but she knew the reality would be that Magnus had done away with him or was about to. It was a terrible pity.
In front of her, a few fields away, was the road connecting the plant and the town. Along this she could see three distinct groups. The first, nearest Collins, was another group of black-coats. Some distance behind them, far enough that the former group might easily not have been aware of them, was a huge band of Parsons led by a man she recognised even from this distance. The way he walked, the tilt of his head and the set of his shoulders; she knew the mannerisms all very well. And yet not well enough.
The final group was the largest and still quite distant. As far as she could make it out it was simply a huge crowd of townsfolk. The head of the column advanced but the tail never ended. It stretched right back into Abyrne. There was no way to calculate how many there were.
Everyone heading to the MMP plant.
Everyone ready to spill blood.
She was weary of it. Surely there had been enough blood let in this town. Enough to fill a river that stretched to eternity. Suddenly, everything she recognised and understood was wrong. Not just flawed, but so completely warped it made no sense at all.
She turned her attention back to the tiny group made up by Collins and his followers and felt a fierce protective instinct for them. They must each have known with utter certainty that they would die, and there they stood ready, steadfast. Only one other creature shared such nobility.
Perhaps they still had a chance, though.
She turned to go to the ladder and tripped over the hems of her gowns. She landed badly, not able to react quickly enough to protect herself, and hit the side of her head against the opposite wall of the tower. It stunned her. There was more pain but that was easy to ignore now. Pain was the essence of her reality from waking until sleeping. Urgency flared in her mind and she remembered Collins.
She had to move fast. Ignoring the blood trickling into her right eye, she lowered her legs to the rungs and began to climb down. Three steps from the bottom she committed to a rung that wasn’t there and didn’t have the strength to hold herself. She fell the rest of the way landing on her back in the churned mud of the field.
She rolled onto her side, grabbed at one of the tower’s supporting legs and pulled herself upright. A few paces away was a high bolted gate. One of many that kept the Chosen secure. She hobbled to it. It took all her mental effort to pull open the bolt. Then, leaning away from the gate and using only her diminishing weight, she hauled it open. Further along the dense hedgerow, there was another gate.
She staggered down to it.
The Grand Bishop led the Parsons at a fast walk but it wasn’t fast enough to stay ahead of the column of townsfolk drawing up behind.
The crowds that had set out from so many doors across Abyrne were fuelled by fear and anger. Their huge numbers lent them a shared strength and stamina. Not long after leaving the mansion, those at the front had broken into a trot and everyone else that was able had followed suit. Seeing the hurrying group of Parsons up ahead did nothing to slow them down.
The crowd sensed the power of its numbers and began to pursue the Parsons rather than merely follow. They were hungry for meat and ready for confrontation in order to get it.