Encounters

After that, they came across Titans a total of four times more.

The first were a couple of seven-meters distant enough for them to go undiscovered and slip away.

The second, Mathias broke out into a cold sweat when they'd just entered another area of the forest off the road when a single five-meter class had suddenly appeared from behind one of the tall trees. It raced alongside them, reaching out, but ended up stuck between two other trees, its massive fingertips brushing the branches above their heads. Not a pretty sight, that one, Bernhardt had remarked, slapping him on the back at how grotesque that particular Titan was, not worried in the slightest they could've all died if it'd been bigger—Longer limbs, Jarratt had said—though Bernhardt still forced them to abandon the wagon in favor of cover under the giant trees on horseback because of it, which marginally improved their chances.

The third was also a single Titan. Luckily this one they only glimpsed beyond a ridge, floating face-down in the river. At first they'd not even recognized it as a Titan. It'd been covered in so much green muck from the river washed up from someplace else. It appeared to have died, a broken log or stick, debris from the river's bottom, stuck in its nape, but none of them dared go in for a closer look despite Bernhardt's optimistic reassurance that it was, in fact, dead, and that soon its flesh and organs would melt away so only the skeleton would remain in time. For a former Military Police soldier to know this was just another testament to what Mathias surmised as the old man being far more dangerous than his demeanor suggested and what that spelled for him when they eventually parted ways.

For the fourth encounter they'd crested the top of a hill once free of that forest to come across several Titans directly below them. Noticing them at the same time, the Titans began to chase them, clambering over each other, pushing and shoving almost as if they were racing one another. Which left the Titans tangled together, giving them time to lash their horses and escape.

And now they were in yet another forest, letting the horses rest. The sun was low in the sky. Above their heads was many-layered foliage, the highest level of which seemed to extend into the stars themselves further dimming the sun's already waning light so its reddish glow hardly reached the ground.

"Couple days from here to Quinta?" Jarratt asked Bernhardt. They had both gotten from their horses and stood side by side, stretching.

Bernhardt turned to admire one of the horses. "Beautiful, isn't he? We should be there a little quicker than that, without the wagons."

"Not long, then."

"This is really tasty, you know." Seated underneath one of the towering trees and paying no heed to their exchange, Nikki was wolfing down mouthful after mouthful of the smoked meat they'd snatched from the village, after holding onto it as if her life depended on it even as the Titans were on their heels.

Mathias pursed his lips. The two of them had shared the same horse and on more than one occassion she'd favored pushing him off to save that smoked meat, leaving him sore and bruised and having to catch up before they could move on. Not only had her smoked meat delayed them, but his whole body hurt. He wanted nothing more to do than take it from her and throw it somewhere in the forest—but then they'd just waste more time trying to find her instead. Either way he was in a foul mood.

"There's something wrong with all of you," he grumbled.

How could they still be so composed? Like everything was normal? A soldier had died, slain by Bernhardt with a blade, of which he still carried along with the soldier's Vertical Maneuvering Gear. The man hadn't done anything wrong, and yet...

His eyes went down to his shoes, searching for an answer he couldn't find. An explanation as to why, even though the soldier was killed, murdered in cold blood, that he wasn't as upset as he should've been. One that Klaus, who was also against a tree, tending to his gun, did for him.

"Get used to it."

Bernhardt came over, stepping over fallen leaves and undergrowth. With one massive hand he pat him on the shoulder with a dark understanding behind his otherwise bright blue eyes. "Have no regrets, lad. They hadn't done anything wrong, they were simply unlucky."

"Problem was that he were there," Jarratt elaborated, putting a hand to his waist and twisting to one side.

He protested. "But there was no need for it."

"Hm, do you think so?" Bernhardt queried, adjusting the positioning of the very piece of equipment he'd appropriated from the dead soldier, pacing back and forth stroking his mustache. "How can you be so certain?" he said, raising a hand in question. "Did you have another idea in mind? Could you, in the heat of the moment, have offered me a better alternative? I would love for you to tell me what. Or rather, I would have loved for you to tell me. Had you done so, I might have gotten through all that without murdering anyone. Yes...?"

Mathias followed him with his eyes, knowing full well he couldn't and knowing full well Bernhardt knew the same. Still. His blood began to boil, putting fire in his words. "I might not, but it didn't need to be right then. If you'd just waited a little longer, we might have gotten away without anyone dying."

Bernhardt wagged a single finger high as he continued to pace. "Might have."

"Yeah, if we could spend days thinking," Nikki said, sucking on a bone from the smoked meat.

Bernhardt gave a dramatic nod, both hands behind his back now. "She speaks the truth. Who is to say whether we would have had another chance? By acting immediately, I guaranteed us a means of getting away. That was why I made the decision." He stopped in front of him, facing away, gazing into what little of the tree-tops could be seen. "Sacrificing that soldier was simply part of that decision." He half-turned. They locked eyes. "You disapprove," he continued, arching his eyebrows. "But suppose I left him alone..."

"That's reckless," Jarratt chimed back in. "We couldn't have taken the wagons, and he would have called for backup. What could be worse?"

"Letting the fat one get away," Klaus said.

"He was slow. Easy for the Titan to catch. Enough distraction for us to make more distance from the main force," Bernhardt said back.

"Juicy," Nikki quipped. Though whether she was talking about Leon or her smoked meat Mathias couldn't tell.

"Suppose I knocked both of them unconscious—which by the way requires a more advanced technique and is much harder than swinging a sword, even for me. Anyhow, supposing I left them sprawled unconscious on the ground..."

"Chomp chomp, munch munch, same thing," Nikki completed. Her incredible appetite seemed to know no bounds; she had all but finished her hunk of smoked meat, originally the size of a pig's leg.

Bernhardt made another deep nod of his head. "Excellently put, dear. Whichever the case, the soldier would have ended up as Titan feed. Better to be dead, then, than to be eaten alive. It was a consideration, as well as a form of taking responsibility. He wasn't just eaten, he were eaten because of me. Call it a ritual to make sure I was fully aware of my culpability. Well... and Titans do best with fresh sport..."

"But—!"

"Hypocrite," Klaus spat, his eyes still down on his firearm. "We're a shameless bunch. I don't remember us ever hiding that. You know well enough the type of people we were when you finally asked for our help."

"... But I never thought you were so—"

"You only saw what you wanted to."

"We are beyond the Wall here," Bernhardt pointed out with a hint of sadness. "The rules of the Interior no longer apply."

"Maybe you just lack the nerve." Klaus looked up at him, his eyes cold and sharp.

"The nerve?" To survive beyond the Wall, to turn his back on the Royal Government, to forgo all dependence on his father, his trust in Suzanne, and to rely instead on his own wit and grit to help Rita, when, really, he was relying on them... Perhaps it was true that he lacked the nerve. Perhaps he'd been naive, but, regardless...

The matter-of-fact way Bernhardt killed the soldier, then fired the anchor at the Titan. The look on his face, detached somehow from the events taking place. Was that it? Was that the look of someone who had the nerve? Was that how Mathias had to be? Was that how he was starting to become?

"Anyway, we needn't be so serious," Bernhardt said, trying to lift the mood. "We should get going again. I believe this should help us all get past the Wall." He slapped the Vertical Maneuvering Gear on his back. "I'm all for staging a glorious entrance, but I'll wager it'll be safer to sneak in."

"Plus, we have no idea what it's like inside," Jarratt agreed.

"Precisely. Once we're in, we can head straight for the treasure."

"You know what it'll mean if you've been lying?" Klaus clutched his gun's grip and wrapped a finger around the trigger.

Mathias' own hand wandered down to his shotgun across his hip, though unlike Klaus, his fingers were trembling. "Of course."

"Our arrangement expires the moment we confirm that the horde exists. After that, you're free to go after your sweetheart or to commit suicide, lad—what pleases you or is popular with the kids these days. We assume no responsibility for your means of escape, either."

"Meaning it's up to you to find your way back out through the Wall."

Mathias responded with a resolute nod to Jarratt's clarification of Bernhardt's terms.

He wanted nothing more than to part ways with these people as soon as possible.