by Bobby Adair
“Many more?”
“By my guess, they’ll double inside the hour.”
“They’ll be standing on top of one another,” Tenbrook laughed. He reached for his sword and slid it out of the scabbard, taking a moment to admire the blade. “Muster the men.”
“I anticipated your wishes,” said Captain Sinko.
Tenbrook froze, thought about rebuking Sinko, and then chose not to. He didn’t want any of his officers acting on their own without his authority. He made a mental note to punish Sinko later. “Assemble the men in the street beside the house. Have both squadrons of cavalry mount their horses. Bring my horse, as well. Send word up to me as soon as they’re ready.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Keep an eye out for spies. If any woman or man sees the soldiers in the street, have that man or woman killed. I’d like our visit to Franklin’s gathering to be a surprise.”
Chapter 82: Fitzgerald
The door flew open. Fitz’s friend Ginger, one of the few girls she’d liked from The House of Barren Women, stood there, urgency on her face. “Do you hear it?”
Fitz nodded.
“People are standing outside in the storm. Thousands of them.”
Fitz had no concrete idea of how many “thousands” were, except that they were a lot, a whole lot. In fact, she knew that Ginger didn’t know what “thousands” were, either.
“You can hear them.” Ginger pointed into the hall. “I’ve never seen the Temple so full. Women and their children. Even the old men came.”
Fitz knew. She’d heard the sound of the growing crowd. People started coming in not long after Franklin had left, and they’d kept coming all through the night. There was an excitement in the muffled sounds of their voices. It was that intangible spirit that Franklin had tapped into the first time he’d spoken in the Temple. And each time he spoke, each time people heard him, they seemed more energized and anxious.
They loved Franklin.
He was special enough to draw thousands of them out of their beds in the middle of the night to walk the cold streets through a driving rain, rattled by thunder and startled by lightning. Franklin had tapped into a revulsion for Brighton’s bureaucracy that grew a little in each person every time they’d watched one of their own burn on the pyre, each time Blackthorn’s hawk eyes spied them from up on the dais, or as Winthrop’s gelatinous girth flowed under his robes while their kids went without their meals. And now, to have a new generation of tyrant in Tenbrook…
A lot of hate lay repressed in the souls of the people of Brighton.
“You should come out,” said Ginger. “It’s still dark, but the sun is just coming up behind the clouds. The storm is breaking. He’s going to speak soon.”
Fitz looked at one of the windows. In the dull gray, the heavy rain was turning to a sprinkle. She looked at the fire in the hearth, then looked at the floor.
“Come out,” said Ginger. “I know you’re…” She couldn’t find the next word.
“Ashamed?” said Fitz.
“You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
Fitz nodded, but she truly felt it. Ever since Franklin had come begging at her door and she’d forced him to stay out in the hall as she ground his humiliation into the wounds both their hard words had left, she’d felt a growing shame. She’d been mean. She’d been petty. She’d been showing off in front of the Strong Women.
But he deserved it. That and so much more.
“I’m afraid for Franklin,” said Fitz.
“No.” Ginger smiled with pleading eyes. “You have to come out and see. Franklin knows what he’s doing. You have to see the people. There are so many of them. Tenbrook can’t do anything to Franklin now. Not to any of us, anymore.”
“Do you believe that?” Fitz asked. “Truly?”
“I do.”
“Why?” Fitz asked.
Ginger seemed hurt by the question, but she said, “Because I’ve heard him. All of us have. He hasn’t come right out and said it, but he tells us in words we all understand, what The Word truly says about how we should live. Everybody knows that Father Winthrop was a liar. Everybody knows General Blackthorn’s tyranny wasn’t blessed by The Word. Few of us can read or write, but we aren’t stupid people. You’ve said that to us yourself, right here in this room. You’ve told us what Franklin’s words mean. Now, he’s going to tell us himself. The rumor from the novices is that he’s going to call for a change. When the sun breaks through the clouds this morning, Brighton will be a new city.”
It was exactly what Fitz wanted, exactly what she hoped Franklin would one day say to The People.
Ginger crossed the room and took Fitz’s hands in hers, pulling her up to stand. “Come. You’ll hate yourself if you don’t come out to listen.”
Ginger led Fitz to the door and together they walked down the corridor.
Chapter 83: Franklin
“It’s almost dawn,” said Novice Joseph.
Franklin looked up from where he sat on his old bed, staring across the room at Oliver’s bed, not giving a thought about what he was going to say—he knew that. It was a speech that needed no preparation. It was an epiphany that needed to be voiced. He only needed to follow his heart, and through his words, show his path to The People. It was time for Brighton to become a better place.
If only I knew where Oliver was.
Franklin feared that Oliver had died. They’d heard nothing from Blackthorn’s expedition in days and days. The last word said they’d made it through the pass and had found a safe place on a hill to camp in view of the Ancient City. But every night the demons came in greater numbers to kill them. Everyone in town feared that the demons had done just that, and a despicable rumor was quickly becoming an unassailable truth: the council had betrayed the militia and sent them to their deaths.
Friends. Neighbors. Husbands. All dead.
“Father Franklin,” Novice Joseph persisted, “the dawn. It’s here. The People await.”
Franklin stood up. It was time. If only Fitz had come to kiss him and wish him luck. It would have been nice, but it wasn’t necessary. The hour had come for Franklin to stand as a man on his own two feet. He would not spend the rest of his life being tyrannized by the Tenbrooks of the world. He’d show Fitz that he was a man that she could love.
Franklin looked at Novice Joseph and smiled placidly. “Let’s go.”
Novice Joseph rushed a smile in return and hurried over to open the door.
As Franklin walked into the long hall, he saw all of the clergymen and all of the novices lined up from his door all the way down, all soaked from running through the streets in the pouring rain, carrying Franklin’s message.
They looked on proudly as he passed.
He’d talked with them earlier in the night when he’d told them what to do, and he’d told them why. It was time that The Word ruled the townships—not Father Winthrop’s venal version of it, but the true Word, that made all men brothers and all women sisters, The Word that didn’t burn children, that didn’t starve the orphans, and didn’t force women to be the slaves of men, The Word that didn’t make one man the servant of another, or make all men the servants of a vicious few.
This was the morning.
This was the day.
Franklin reached the end of the hall and the Sanctuary erupted in a cheer louder than the thunder of the night before. He turned and took the stairs up to the stage, empty except a simple lectern in the middle. The fathers and novices filed past to take up the empty seats on the first row of pews that had been held for them.
Franklin crossed the stage in long, confident strides, seeing on the far side, just by the door to the hall that led down to his old quarters, that Fitz was standing beside her friend Ginger, packed tightly among many other onlookers. All throughout the Sanctuary, Fra
nklin saw the faces, hands, and shoulders of people, packed in as tightly as people could be packed. Save the clergy, no one sat.
Still, they cheered.
Through the open doors into the square, Franklin saw in the growing light a seemingly endless ocean of people, all wishing they were inside. He laid his hands on the lectern. He was ready. He opened his mouth to speak, and he paused to allow a long, last rumble of thunder to pass before he started.
Chapter 84: Tenbrook
Tenbrook ordered Sinko to march the foot soldiers across the square, directly toward the Temple’s open doors.
“The crowd,” Captain Sinko asked him. “Shall we disperse them or march through them?”
Tenbrook looked at the mass of pig chaser’s wives, spinsters, and widows mobbed in front of the Temple and relished the thought of what was to come. “They won’t be there when you arrive.” He stood in his saddle, drew his sword, and stabbed it at the clouds as he called his orders.
Behind Tenbrook, the cavalry trotted up the side of the square, two by two, past the pyres and along the walls. Two hundred sets of hooves pounded the stones and shook the ground. The rumble echoed off the buildings and shook every door.
Tenbrook watched the mob as they felt and heard the hooves and one by one, each of them turned away from the Temple doors to see the cavalry they were feeling through their feet and hearing over the shrill joy that surrounded them.
The sight of so many wide-eyed wenches and pissing whelps aroused Tenbrook in a way he hadn’t experienced before. He hadn’t guessed that so much fear from so many, so impersonal, and yet so tangible, would be such a rush.
With the whole of the cavalry following his line and every horse, every cavalryman, every raised sword, visible in all of those staring eyes, Tenbrook ordered his cavalry to follow and he kicked his mount into a gallop.
The thunder of the hooves, powerful and satisfying when the horses were trotting, turned into a deafening roar, drowning out the screams that Tenbrook knew had to be pouring from the mouths of all those women who were now running left and right, panicked, dragging each other, holding the hands of their children, thousands of them, fleeing like stupid demons from the death that was barreling down on them from atop war beasts trained to stomp flesh and break bones with their hooves.
Tenbrook suffered a moment of dissatisfaction when he reached the Temple steps. He’d not trampled a single wench.
He wheeled his horse around and passed the order to send one squadron through the streets to chase the fleeing women and old men until they were locked in their hovels with enough fright stomped into their souls to keep them there until they felt they needed personal permission from Tenbrook himself to come out and tend to their chores. He ordered seventy of his squadron to dismount.
He looked up to see that his foot soldiers had covered half the span of the square. They’d arrived soon enough. Tenbrook turned in his saddle and looked into the Temple’s open doors, more than tall enough to accommodate men on horseback, and his eye followed the line of the Temple’s central aisle, packed with treasonous women all the way from the door to the foot of the stage.
Tenbrook charged through the door and into the aisle.
Chapter 85: Fitzgerald
Already packed in tight, the people in the aisle tried to avoid the massive horses trampling their way through them. They climbed, clawed, and screamed. Those in the pews along the aisle tried to dodge the steel blades, raised in the air and glinting in the candlelight. Fitz and Ginger were pushed against the wall as people poured into the hall to their left.
Franklin stood at the lectern, watching, frozen, horrified.
“Franklin!” Fitz screamed, trying to get his attention, not knowing what to say, just wanting to reach out to him. Her voice was lost in the pandemonium.
“We have to run!” Ginger shouted into Fitz’s ear.
“No!” Fitz shouted back. “We have to stay.”
Tenbrook’s horse, blood dripping from its legs, hooves soaked in red from having just trampled people who couldn’t get out of the aisle fast enough, pushed through the last of the women in the way. The aisle cleared in front of it as it broke into a gallop and leapt onto the stage.
Franklin jumped out of the way as the horse knocked over the lectern at which he’d been standing.
Horse after horse followed Tenbrook’s, jumping onto the stage until seven or eight crowded the platform, each turning to face the congregation, snorting and stomping, their blood running hot to do what they’d been trained for.
Franklin stood, silent and strong, facing the riders and their horses.
Up and down the body-strewn aisle, a line of horses came to a stop as soldiers ran in between the horses and the pews.
The Temple echoed with the screams of the injured and the dying, and of those panicked and trying to get away. Many crowded into the hall past Fitz.
Soldiers filed into a line in front of the rows of pews, turning their backs to the stage and raising their swords, facing the congregation. All the soldiers in the central aisle brandished their weapons and stared down the crowded women in the pews.
“Franklin!” Fitz hollered. “Tell The People to fight!”
Franklin did nothing.
Tenbrook sheathed his sword, dismounted, and stepped toward Franklin.
Franklin didn’t move; he didn’t flinch. He glared.
Fitz was proud of him.
Many stopped screaming, stopped running, stopped climbing over one another in their rush to flee, and stopped to look at the stage.
“Franklin!” Fitz called again. “Turn around! Talk to The People!” Even with the noise starting to settle, Fitz’s voice was lost. She begged, “Please!”
Ginger repeated Fitz’s shouts with no more success.
Tenbrook was in Franklin’s face, towering over him, grinning like a psychopath, shouting orders. Fitz heard Tenbrook’s voice, but in the noise, she couldn’t make out what was being said.
Still, Franklin said nothing. Still, he stood his ground, looking up with fire in his eyes to match the fire Fitz knew was in his heart, knew had been there all along.
Tenbrook said something emphatic with a finger thrust in Franklin’s face. He pressed it against Franklin’s cheek, using his strength to shove Franklin’s face to the side. Franklin turned and let the imposing finger slip away and thrust his defiant glare back at Tenbrook.
For a moment, both seemed to have become statues, measuring each other, choosing what to do next.
Tenbrook moved first. He spun and took a step away from Franklin.
Fitz threw her hands over her mouth. Was it that easy? Had Franklin won by standing up to the bully, taking all he had to give, just bellicose words and little-man threats?
“What happened?” Ginger asked.
Fitz started to answer, and then the world froze into tiny droplets of time, each terrible, each more horrifying than the last, each leading to a certain, unavoidable tragedy.
Tenbrook’s right arm reached across his body, and his gloved hand grasped the hilt of his sword.
A scream peeled out of Fitz’s throat.
Tenbrook’s face turned from that of a grinning madman to a twisted devil.
Ginger shrieked.
Tenbrook pulled a shimmering, silvery blade out of his scabbard, long and lethal.
A thousand women gasped.
All the air in the room stopped flowing.
The blade cut through the air as Tenbrook spun.
And as Fitz’s scream reached its peak, as terror sheared her heart in two, the blade found Franklin’s defiant throat and cut as though slicing through nothing at all, not slowing, not stopping. Blood spewed out in an arc along the path of the blade, hitting horsemen, soldiers, clergy, and women in the crowd.
The expression in
Franklin’s eyes changed from defiance to surprise as his head separated from his neck and spun into the air, coming over upside down and falling out of Fitz’s sight. And for that moment, the world was silent, except for the thunk of Franklin’s head on the wooden stage.
And still, the blade cut through the air, swinging all the way around, spraying even more of Franklin’s blood on the people in front of and around Fitz, across her face.
Then Tenbrook’s arm stopped. Tenbrook stood in a striking pose in front of Franklin’s standing body.
Gasps turned to screams.
Fitz felt part of herself die.
Franklin’s body folded on its joints and fell out of sight.
Chapter 86: Beck
“I was thinking about what you said the other day. I’m getting overwhelmed by your melancholy,” said Beck as he looked along the beach from out the window of the ancient house where they’d spent the night. He’d been hoping to see the sun rise over the water. For yet another morning, all he saw were clouds and rain.
“I’m sorry,” said Jingo, turning away from the window and looking over at him.
Oliver leaned through a door from another room. “Melora and Ivory are almost done cooking breakfast.”
“Thank you,” said Beck to Oliver as Oliver disappeared into the other room.
“I saw my family die,” Jingo continued. “The sadness, even after three hundred years, still hurts. I saw a whole world die, right before my eyes. Since then, in the ashes of the apocalypse we brought upon ourselves, I’ve seen man do nothing but make the same mistakes over and over again and slowly slide toward ruin.”
“But we’re thriving in Brighton,” argued Beck.
“Is that why you burn your children and women? Is that why you sent nineteen thousand to the Ancient City to be murdered by spore-infected men?”
