The Continent (The Continent #1)(15)
After a while, the steward returns to the front of the plane. “We’ll be approaching the border any minute,” he says, “and I just want to remind you that we may see violence here today. After an advance flight this morning, the pilot did report that two parties were seen en route to this location. I should like to say at this point that although the sight of battle can be shocking—even disturbing, to some—it is a valuable thing to witness. Few Spirians ever see what battle is truly like—few have the opportunity to fully appreciate the Spire’s peaceful accord. However, if you find yourself distressed by any violence, please know that I am here to assist—and you may always retreat to the solitude of the aft cabin.”
“Will we be close enough to get a good view?” Aaden says. “When we saw the Aven’ei yesterday, we must have been at some two hundred feet.”
“Touring altitude largely depends upon the terrain, as well as the activity taking place on the ground. This part of the border sits in a wide basin, which will allow us to get quite close; these aircraft are specially equipped to hover at low altitude. The plane will stay at between fifty and one hundred feet—near enough so that you may see all the action taking place, near enough so that you can enjoy a truly visceral experience. Facial expressions and the like should be very clear. Oh—there we are, the pilot is turning toward the border now. It’ll be just a few minutes.”
He sits on the bench opposite the passenger seats and folds his hands together. There is a quiet amongst us now, quite different from the awkward silence of yesterday afternoon. This is something altogether unique—it is a tension, an impatience, an uncertainty. Our curiosity is so strong, it is nearly palpable. Even I cannot take my eyes from the window.
We come upon a clearing surrounded by a wood. The quiet aboard the plane persists, and I feel my stomach twist with nerves.
“This side of the plane,” Aaden says. “Come to this side.”
Mrs. Shaw moves to sit beside Mr. Shaw, my father crosses to the other side of the aisle, and I sit down next to Aaden, my heart hammering in my chest.
What strikes me first of all is not the movement of the warriors—not their huge strides, not the swinging of their weapons, not the frenetic activity of the battle. What strikes me first is the blood.
It is everywhere—carved out into wild arcs beside the natives, dripping from the branches of leafless bushes, coursing in rivulets along the limbs of the Topi and the Aven’ei alike. It is bright red in the snow, spattered into patterns so delicate and graceful, they seem to have been painted there on purpose. And aside from the gaudy cloaks and vests of the Topi, it is the only thing of color in the stark white.
Only secondarily do I become aware of the actual brutality playing out before me. It seems to register in bits and pieces, in fragments of activity. For although there is a single battle taking place, I realize that it comprises many smaller conflicts, each seeming to occur independently of the others. My eyes don’t know where to look, and everywhere I cast my gaze, there is death.
An Aven’ei warrior is pinned to the ground, his shoulder reduced to flesh and muscle as it is struck by a Topi hammer. Beside him, a Topi fighter is killed by a knife driven into his chest. And on the other side of the clearing, nearest the wood, an Aven’ei archer is charged by three Topi and decapitated before he can escape.
It goes on and on, the killing and violence and horror, while not a word is spoken aboard the plane. Finally, there are only Topi left standing in the field—perhaps forty or so, while at least a hundred men in total lay dead around them. The men scream and raise their fists to the air, drunk with victory, reveling in blood. One of them points to the heli-plane, then gestures to the fallen archer. The group laughs together, and a short, stocky warrior darts across the clearing to retrieve the severed head.
We all watch in silence as the man pushes through the snow, making his way back to his group. One of the other Topi—a tall man with long, braided hair—shouts something at the heli-plane, his face contorted with disgust. A moment later, the stocky warrior hurls the head toward us.
We’re too high for it to reach, of course, but its effect is powerful nonetheless. Mrs. Shaw gets up at once and moves down the aisle toward the aft cabin; Mr. Shaw follows her directly. The steward heads forward to the cockpit, and seconds later, the plane tips gently and moves once again toward the Riverbed.
My father pulls me back to sit beside him. I stare at him, acutely aware that I am looking at him with eyes that can never unsee what has just taken place, and he looks back at me, willing me to unsee it. Then he puts his arms around me and I cry, because there is nothing else in the world to do.
CHAPTER 5
THERE IS NO PART OF ME THAT CAN UNDERSTAND how one person can harm another.
I feel like a fool, having somehow failed to ever mark the difference between spectacle and death. I take no comfort in knowing that almost every citizen in the Spire has done the same, for their failure is just as shameful as my own. I feel this truth so profoundly that I wonder how it never occurred to me before.
Even after I saw the men hanging from the bridge, I didn’t fully grasp the reality of the natives’ war. It took seeing with my own eyes the cleaving and ripping of flesh. It took a severed head hurled toward us in hatred and contempt. It took too much to understand something that ought to have been clear from the beginning.