We hadn’t been able to recover them all. Most of the bodies on the plain were either crushed into pulp by the falling tower, or so messed up from the fighting we couldn’t tell who was who, or what was what. Some had been reduced to just bits and pieces. So we just brought back the heads. We spent hours under the hot sun, digging through the wreckage and sorting through the carnage, the blood and the offal, and the stench, but in the end we brought less than half of the family home. The watching crowd made soft, shocked noises as the first bodies appeared. They’d never seen so many dead Droods before. No one had. Such a tragedy, such a loss of life in one operation, was unprecedented. Some people cried out at the sight of familiar faces, broken and disfigured and smeared with dried blood. Some people made to rush forward, but the Sarjeant-at-Arms was there with his people, to keep order. Family dignity must be maintained at all times.

The family doctors and nurses soon ran out of stretchers, even though they were dropping the bodies off in the mortuary and returning as fast as they could. So when the stretchers ran out, they improvised with tables and trolleys and other flat surfaces. For the bits and parts of bodies, and the severed heads, the doctors loaded them into black plastic garbage bags, to be sorted out later. The crowd didn’t like that, but the decision had been made to get the bodies off the planes and out of sight as quickly as possible. It wasn’t my decision. I was too numb to think of anything except how badly I’d screwed up. No, someone in the Inner Circle had thought ahead, and made the decision for me. How very thoughtful of them. Though of course, this wasn’t to spare my feelings, but the family’s.

I stood in the shadow of my plane and made myself watch silently until every last body had been carried into the Hall. Brought home, at last. That was my duty, and my penance. Molly stood beside me the whole time, still holding my hand. I held onto her like a drowning man, clutching her hand so hard I must have hurt her, but she never made a sound. I never said a thing, not even when my family looked at me with hot teary eyes and cold judgemental faces. What could I say, except I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

As the last few stretchers and the last few plastic bags disappeared inside, Molly finally stirred and leaned in close to me. “Don’t you have any body bags?” she said quietly. “For disasters and emergencies like this?”

“There’s never been a disaster like this before,” I said. “We never needed body bags, because we never lost this many people.”

“We didn’t lose the battle,” said Molly. “We destroyed the Loathly Ones’ nest, and their tower. We stopped the Bad Thing from coming through. Hell, we saved the world, Eddie.”