by Galaxy Craze
As we moved south, the same thing happened in every town and village we approached. The old army post of Blackburn yielded a crowd of hundreds, maybe a thousand, all gathered on horseback and armed with guns. In the village of Clavern, most were too young or too old to fight, but they stood by the side of the road, handing us packets of food and canteens of water and cheering us on our way. New recruits gathered in the town centers, at the resting posts at the forks in the road, at crossways and under bridges, in clusters of two or four or twenty. And the numbers began to add up.
On the third morning, the metal arches of the Tyne bridge—a feat of engineering that had survived the Seventeen Days against all odds—were visible in the soft gray light. We had arrived at Newcastle. I looked back over my shoulder at the faces of the men and women, set with determination and united by a single cause, and wondered if we were marching to our deaths.
Once our scouts had surveyed the surrounding landscape and the roads that led into town toward Hollister’s army, General Wallace announced that we would split into four groups. We would surround the city on all sides and attack at once, at the sounding of the horn. “Swords out and guns loaded,” he said. “Now move quickly—surprise is our greatest advantage!”
Not by accident, Eoghan was in the same group as Polly and me. We descended the hill outside the city quickly, and when we reached the top, Eoghan passed me a pair of binoculars. I could see Hollister’s soldiers, mostly still asleep, some beginning to stir the fires and prepare breakfast. They were unarmed, their horses still tethered. Caligula moved uneasily beneath me, and I knew she had sensed that battle was near. “Shhh,” I whispered, stroking her neck to calm her down.
And then the horn sounded. It was time to go.
I took a deep breath, loosening the reins and grasping the pommel of my sword tight in my hand. Eoghan nodded and we rushed forward as one. I felt suddenly like I was part of something much bigger than myself, swept along by a fierce tide. I saw shock—and fear—on our enemies’ faces as they hurried to find their weapons before our wave of troops crashed over their camp.
A few of them found their rifles and started firing. A bullet cut through the air, missing my head by millimeters and almost clipping my ear. I ducked low, close to Caligula’s mane. Her hooves were a blur. As our troops collided with theirs, everything was chaos.
Caligula and I moved like one being. After our long journey to Scotland with me riding bareback, she was so attuned to my small movements and shifts in weight that all I had to do was think something and she seemed to sense it. She knew when to spin around and when to stay still, leaving me free to focus on the sword in my right hand.
I slashed and parried, always aware of Eoghan on my left and Polly on my right. Eoghan was an incredible shot. He was stealing the weapons of most soldiers he killed, accumulating quite a collection of sevils and pistols.
I looked over toward the tents, where Hollister’s army was still in chaos. Most of the warhorses were still tied up—the men must not have had time to saddle them with all their complicated armor and spiked gear. I wanted to release them. It would destroy Hollister’s cavalry, and these horses deserved to live like Caligula, free of pain.
Caligula seemed reluctant to move toward them, but she did as I wanted, edging toward the side of the wall where they were lined up. I leaned over and pulled up stake after stake, yanking them out of the earth like tough roots. The horses roared and ran in every direction. One of them, pure white with angry red eyes, turned around to face a soldier carrying a harness toward him and trampled the soldier to death.
Just then one of the soldiers charged toward me, gun in hand. He raised the barrel to aim it directly at my forehead. I grabbed my sword, but I knew I would already be dead by the time I charged him; he was just too close.
Everything happened at once. He fired the gun as Caligula charged forward, rearing up to stab at him with her hooves. She moved faster than I’d ever seen and knocked him backward as the shot rang out somewhere behind my head. He lay in a crumpled heap on the ground, but it looked like he was still breathing. I jumped back on Caligula and spun away, back toward the battle, unable to bring myself to finish him off.
My eyes zeroed in on Polly. She seemed so small and defenseless atop her tall russet mare. Where was Eoghan? I watched her lean over, helping someone who had been knocked to the ground, leaving herself utterly defenseless. I realized it was George. He’d been hurt. I rushed Caligula toward her, sword outstretched.
But another rider was charging toward Polly too. He came up behind Polly, aiming his sevil with perfect precision at the back of her head.
“Polly!” I screamed, but she didn’t hear me. I charged forward, swinging at enemies right and left, trying to forge a path through the thick of the battle. All I could think about was getting to Polly.
Just in time, I slid in front of her and blocked the rider’s attack. He kept slashing at me, but I parried every hit, fueled by a fierce protectiveness, until one of my blows struck him so hard that he fell backward off his horse.
I looked over at Polly. She was pulling her father up into the saddle, completely oblivious to what had just happened. Even in the midst of everything, I felt a pang of sadness and envy. I wished I could have done the same for my father when he had lain bleeding on the ground.
It was midday when the New Guard retreated, fleeing down the roads toward London. The Resistance forces had suffered some injuries but very few deaths. Exhausted but exhilarated, we set out for London to fight the next battle.
We rode slowly, taking the winding and narrow roads through the woods to avoid the interstate. At each village, groups of people waved at us, cheering us along. Word of our victory had already spread. Everywhere we went, people offered us food, blankets, buckets of horse feed.
We sat on the lawn outside the inn of a small town, surrounded by a buzz of excitement, while the innkeeper passed around cups of water and cold ale. Though I wanted to join in the celebrations, a heaviness anchored me to the ground. I couldn’t shake the image of two nooses being placed around the heads of my brother and sister. Today was Wednesday. In a few days’ time they would be dead, and Cornelius Hollister would crown himself king.
I felt a tap on my shoulder. A young girl of about five or six stood in front of me. She was barefoot and wore a dirty white sundress.
“Princess Eliza?” She curtsied, holding up the sides of her dress as she bowed her head. Her blonde hair was so fine the sun shone through it. “This is for you,” she said, pulling a small navy blue box from her pocket and holding it out.
I managed a weak smile. “Thank you.”
With another curtsy, she walked away, disappearing into the crowd.
I stared down at the small box, curling my fingers around it. My curiosity got the better of me and I opened it. It was a locket, and I gasped as the gold caught the light. It looked identical to the one I had worn for most of my life. My fingers were trembling as I undid the latch, not daring to hope what I would find inside.
A tear pricked my eye and slid down my cheek. I knew this photograph all too well. The long dark hair, the melancholy pale blue eyes. It was my mother.
I looked up after the girl, to ask where she had gotten this, but she was gone. It was impossible—a miracle, really—to think my locket had been traded by the Collectors only to find its way to the Scottish countryside, and back to me. How? But as I clasped the locket around my neck, tucking it safely under my shirt, I began to feel the faint stirrings of hope. If my mother’s photograph could find its way to me against all odds, then maybe my family could find its way home.
We rode through the day and into the night, joined by more and more volunteers from all over Scotland. Word of the upcoming execution and our recent victory had spread rapidly. By the time we reached the outskirts of London on Friday night, we had gained hundreds, even thousands, of men and women. We had finally formed a real army.
When we rounded a bend in the foothills, I looke
d back at the line of riders behind me, so long it disappeared in the distance. For the first time I believed we might have a fighting chance.
29
THE NIGHT WAS PITCH BLACK, THE MOON COVERED IN HEAVY clouds that threatened rain. A strong wind blew in from the north, blistering and cold. Far off in the distance over the Northern Hills, streaks of fire lit up the sky, vanishing as they fell. We rode down narrow country lanes through the woods until the general led us to a deserted street of burned and abandoned houses. Loose electrical wires, harmless now, whipped in the gusts of wind. We dismounted, leading our horses through the doorway of what looked like a brick house.
On the entrance wall, a row of coat hooks, each labeled with a child’s name, hung over a row of wooden cubbies. I realized we were in an abandoned schoolhouse. The toilets were low and small, the blackboards covered in dust, and rows of small desks and chairs lay broken and toppled. Behind the school was a walled-in garden where the partisan and ground troops had set up sleeping and medical tents for the soldiers.
A white tent stood out among the others, where Clara was tending the wounded. The worst was one man who had been impaled by a sevil. He lay in the tent, gritting his teeth as Clara extracted the bloody rod from his abdomen.
We gathered in the main tent, where mugs of hot water mixed with a few tea leaves were being passed around. General Wallace sat beside the radio. The excitement that had fueled us earlier had turned to exhaustion, and I dreaded what I would hear. A new voice came through the airwaves, a voice I immediately recognized as Cornelius Hollister’s.
“Our recent losses at the Battle of Newcastle will not defeat us. The execution of the last remaining Windsors will be held as planned on Sunday morning, followed by my immediate coronation as king of England.”
A fearful silence fell over the troops at the words. Even his voice sounded evil; low and menacing.
General Wallace quickly shut off the radio. “Do not let him scare you. We won the Battle of Newcastle and tomorrow we will do the same. We will march into London together and storm the Tower. But for now we must get some rest.”
The soldiers retreated to the sleeping area, where they took off their boots and checked their rifles, hiding them beneath their bedding. I lay down beside Polly on a tarp, resting my head on her shoulder. It was a cold night, but the tent stayed warm from the body heat and the fires still burning around camp. Soon the soldiers lay still, breathing heavily in the night.
“You must be so proud of your father,” I said to Polly. “He helped start this whole Resistance army.”
“I am,” she said sleepily. “And I’m proud of you, Eliza. You could be sleeping in a real bed tonight, safe under a real roof. You could have gone to Wales. But you chose to stay and fight.”
I stared up at the starless sky, thinking of Mary and Jamie. My greatest fear was that we would arrive too late to save them.
“I wish the British people were more proud of my father,” I whispered. I had never spoken these words aloud before and felt an ache in my chest as I said them. “I wish I was more proud of my father. His legacy was a shattered country. Even if England survives all this, he will always be remembered as the king who almost lost us everything.” I thought of one night last spring, during a meeting of all the heads of government at Buckingham Palace. Mary and I were passing around hors d’oeuvres and glasses of red and white wine—playing hostess. It was our favorite thing to do at the palace parties. An argument erupted between Prime Minister Charles Bellson and my father. The prime minister was trying to warn him of a “mounting problem” while my father sat on the sofa smoking his cigar and sipping vintage wine. “That’s preposterous,” my father said. “Let’s just drop the subject.”
The prime minister was trying to convince him to turn over the last of the lands around Balmoral. Father used to call them “Mary’s woods.” It was said that a supply of oil and cadmium was in the soil, but the woods would be ruined in the digging process. My father stood up, almost teary-eyed. The woods were one of the last properties owned by the royal family and not the state, and letting go of them would be admitting defeat. He was not willing to do that. He turned to the prime minister and said, “Please, you are ruining the party.”
Polly squeezed my hand in hers. “He was a good, kind man. He didn’t want to start a war. And the Seventeen Days had nothing to do with him. He had no idea what would happen—no one did.”
“I know,” I said. Perhaps he was not the best king, I thought, but he was a kind man and a good father. It is not just soldiers who are killed in wars, he used to say, civilians die, too. Children, mothers, fathers, grandparents. There is no such thing as a safe war, which was perhaps why he never started one with Cornelius Hollister. “But I wish my family had done more.”
“You will,” Polly murmured. “Mary is going to be a great queen, and you are the best princess this country has ever seen. Now get some sleep. We need to be up in a few hours.” She turned on her side, pulling the covers to her chin. Soon I heard the steady sound of her breathing.
I felt exhausted, my body heavy as lead, but when I closed my eyes I found myself unable to sleep. The execution was in a matter of hours. I pulled on the sweater I was using as a pillow and tied my boots, moving carefully so as not to wake Polly. I tiptoed around the other soldiers, stepping over sleeping bodies until I was near the door flap. Every one of them had a beating heart. Every one of them was someone’s mother or father, sister or brother, son or daughter. And every one of them was loved deeply, the way I loved Mary and Jamie.
I walked quickly out into the cool night air, taking deep breaths, hoping to walk the worry out of my mind. The battle, the invasion of the Steel Tower, keeping our troops alive, getting Mary and Jamie out. We had won the Battle of Newcastle, but I knew Hollister’s real forces were waiting for us in London. I pressed my hands against my face, wishing I could cry. I wanted some kind of relief.
There was a flicker in the dark, the flame of a match moving to light a torch. Eoghan’s face appeared out of the darkness. “Are you okay?” he asked, tilting his head at me.
I was glad to see him. “I’m fine,” I said, shivering from the cold night air. “I just can’t sleep, that’s all.”
“Here.” He placed his coat around my shoulders. “This will keep you warm.”
I felt the touch of his hand through the fabric of his coat, warm and reassuring as he sat beside me on the broken stone wall.
“Up worrying?” Eoghan continued. “It happens to me all the time.”
I looked over at him. His brown eyes glistened in the dancing light of the torch. “I understand now why my father never wanted to start a war,” I said softly. “People are going to be killed tomorrow, people who are loved and respected and needed. Because of me.”
Eoghan looked away. “When I was young, my mother sent me to Sunday school. They taught us about Heaven and Hell.” He pulled his jacket close, his breath visible in the cold night air. “But when my son was born, he was very sick. The doctors told us he wouldn’t make it. I held him in my arms, just praying and praying that he would live. For the first week, I hardly let go of him at all. He was so small. I remember thinking, what kind of world is this where you can love someone so much, only to lose them forever? That’s when I realized that Heaven doesn’t exist in another place, and neither does Hell. It’s all here on Earth. We live them both, right here with one another. It’s just that sometimes we have to go through Hell to get to Heaven.”
His eyes blazed in the firelight. “We are all here because we want to be. Every one of these men and women knows the risks and is willing to die for the cause. For your cause. Have faith in our troops, have faith in our country, and most of all, have faith in yourself.” He paused. “I know you may not have faith right now. But until you regain yours, trust me when I say I know we are doing the right thing.”
30
THE GRAY OF THE SKY AND THE GRAY OF THE PAVEMENT BLURRED together in the predawn darkness as we rod
e silently into London. In the distance, the Steel Tower rose from the city skyline. The general brought us to a halt, straining through binoculars to see what lay ahead on the road to the Tower.
“The roads look clear,” he said, but his brow furrowed skeptically. “Hollister’s forces seem to be headed south. They’re fighting another band of Resistance troops coming in from that way.”
I turned to Eoghan and Polly on either side of me. They looked visibly relieved to find out we were not alone. The general had heard on the radio that battles had been fought in the south by other Resistance forces and that Hollister’s army had suffered considerable losses. Public opinion seemed to be changing. I felt hopeful, but I knew never to underestimate Cornelius Hollister.
The general gathered the troops, giving final battle instructions. “We will divide into two groups. I’ll lead the cavalry to the Tower, the infantry will fight the troops to the south.”
I looked behind me at the thousands of troops spreading out like a sea. The Tower was so close. We had come so far.
“I’ll stay with you,” Eoghan said to me.
“All’s clear!” the soldiers on lookout called as they rode toward us.
The general looked back at us. I waited anxiously, trying to read his expression, but he mostly just seemed exhausted. “Charge the Tower!” he finally called.
The brigade of horses made their way across the Thames. The roads were clear, and we rode without opposition toward Tower Bridge. When we arrived at the Tower, we found the drawbridges down. I slowed Caligula. The cavalry were already making their way across, following the general’s command to invade the White Tower first. Eoghan disappeared inside, followed by Polly and George, who were among the first to enter.
“Wait!” I called out breathlessly to the troops. The bridge was never left down; something was wrong. “Turn back! Turn back!”
