Symphony of the Wind

by Steven McKinnon

  ‘You don’t know the half of it,’ muttered Gallows.

  ‘Me? I set some charges. Anyone gets in, I wanna put ’em down for good.’

  So Damien’s not going in for the kill? Don’t know if that’s good or bad.

  They stood by a curling rail, looking down upon the grand foyer. Dead silence lay over the whole mansion like it was a mausoleum built in memory of a saint.

  ‘Reckon I’ll take the second floor,’ Valentine said. ‘I got better aim than you do. Courtyard don’t leave much space for cover, so don’t reckon we’ll need to handle a frontal assault—but it wouldn’t surprise me if the pawns came straight at us while the real fighters come in from the rear.’

  ‘We don’t have the resources to plug every gap, but we’ll make do. Skyport opens at eight. Genevieve’s crew, they’ll look after Serena.’

  ‘Then we got business of our own to take care of.’

  The upturned furniture in the foyer wasn’t the best cover for a firefight, but most of the Watch and Zoven’s crew weren’t armed with guns. Valentine had set up a sniper’s nest by a window on the second floor landing. A rope ladder she’d rigged from the third floor would serve as a getaway point if anyone needed it, but the only protection up there was narrow passages and tight corners. Too much could go wrong.

  ‘The other entry points are chained and barricaded,’ she continued, ‘but if an enemy force breaches, you ain’t got anywhere to go but up. If they find out we’re here, that patrol craft will be on us like a rash in a whore house. I don’t like not having an escape route—Sturrock was one for last stands but not me. No glory in dyin’.’

  Valentine reminded him of Fallon. ‘It won’t come to that,’ Gallows said.

  ‘Terros’ balls, I hope not. If any get through, funnel ’em up and lose them—I’ve rigged a couple charges in some of the corridors. Hope Musa don’t mind that I’m desecrating harps and shit. Other’n that, we ain’t got much in the way of ammo.’

  ‘We’re only here to buy time. This place is huge and most of ’em won’t know their way around. We can separate them, isolate ’em, hit hard and fast and then fall back. Guerrilla tactics. We can do this. The shit hits the fan, Serena can escape through the Hunters’ quadrant, out through the stables.’

  Valentine looked impressed. ‘Reckon the Idari gave you more than scars.’

  ‘Reckon they did.’

  ‘Alright then,’ said Valentine, staring up at the chandelier. ‘Keep in contact.’

  When Valentine left, Gallows took her position against the bannister. It’d take a battering ram to get through the giant doors but once they were in, they’d have free rein around the place. How long could he hide before they got him—got Serena?

  ‘Tyson.’ Damien’s voice.

  Gallows’ limbs sagged. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I’m going. One of the sisters at the orphanage may have information on Outpost One Three Seven. Serena recognised her name in the files.’

  Gallows planted his feet apart and squared his shoulders. Damn—Damien looked like he’d been crying. ‘You going without a chaperone?’

  Damien couldn’t meet his eye. ‘I… Once this is over—however it ends… I intend on leaving.’

  That was a surprise, but not one Gallows disagreed with. ‘Okay.’ Damien looked wounded. Did he want me to talk him out of it?

  ‘Tyson… Neither of us can predict what will transpire. I’m sorry for… losing myself. I put you in danger. Please, know that I’m-’

  ‘Don’t,’ said Gallows. ‘You knew you were a walking time bomb long before this. We both did. This… This is on me, too.’

  ‘That almost sounds like an apology.’

  ‘It ain’t. I’m… I’m not good at talking, Damien, but.. You were my partner, and one of the few friends I have.’ Gallows wanted to forgive his friend, to will the things Damien had done away. But life didn’t work that way. ‘How many jobs did we pull together?’ Gallows asked. ‘Side by side and all that time you were rigged to blow. How many times were you tempted to choke me to death?’

  Damien’s eyes narrowed. ‘Are you angry because I could have killed you—or because I didn’t?’

  Gallows shook his head. He wanted to argue back, but couldn’t.

  ‘Your death wish is your business, Tyson. I only hope that this crusade of yours isn’t an attempt to get yourself killed. Other people don’t deserve to die. At least I’ve attempted to rectify that.’

  Gallows turned his back on his former partner. ‘Make it quick.’

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  He wasn’t fast enough.

  The Watch had descended on the orphanage, encircling its grounds like a steel ring. Damien inched closer, avoiding the light cast by streetlamps where he could. The officers kept their distance—watching but not searching.

  Something’s not right.

  Damien struggled to analyse the environment. What would once have taken seconds now took minutes. Doubt crept in and infected him, made him distrustful of his abilities.

  I will not succumb to temptation again. I will not. He fought to steady his heart, beating as it did with heavy thumps. Maggots nested in his belly.

  I will not succumb to temptation again.

  Small compared to other churches in the city, the orphanage would have nonetheless made for an impressive building in its day. Spiky black rails protruded from its outer wall. A bell tower stood at the corner of its north-eastern side, facing towards the centre of the city. Most of the Watch were congregated there.

  Damien glided up the rough brick wall, over the metal railing and dissolved into the shadows, hugging the wall. He closed his eyes, concentrating, fighting to divine the sounds around him. Did everything mean what he thought it meant? How could he be sure—of his senses, of his resolve?

  ‘…Verimedes okay with this?’

  ‘Verimedes don’t know his arse from his elbow…’

  ‘…remember, none of the kids get out…’

  ‘…this ain’t right, it ain’t right…’

  ‘…green-haired freak stupid enough to come back…’

  ‘…Cauldbright, what do you reckon? Ain’t he one of Vaughan’s freaks…’

  The cadence of their voices, the apprehension in their small, jittery movements—they were scared.

  What could put the fear into a mob of armed officers of the Watch?

  A sour smell burned in his nostrils.

  Igneus.

  The horror of what was about to happen hit Damien like a freight train.

  They were going to set the orphanage on fire.

  To hell with stealth.

  He leapt over the wall and sprinted across the orphanage grounds. A watchman stood by a side entrance, beneath a sloping canopy. ‘Hey!’ It took him a whole second to unsheathe his sword—in that space of time, Damien swept his feet from under him and backflipped up onto a stone canopy.

  I will not kill him.

  The stone crumbled at his touch. He gazed up to the next level; he’d memorised the blueprints of the chapel but they were based on its original design from at least a hundred years ago; the building had been used as a school and orphanage for decades.

  He could not trust what was in his head.

  Digging a foot into loose stone, Damien flipped and spun, landing on a sloping roof by the clerestory windows. Three slates slid and shattered on the ground.

  Breathe…

  But rather than regulate it, Damien let the adrenaline course through him and exhaust itself. The high of the opera house massacre hadn’t left him yet—his blood was still aflame with the joy of it. He sat there, back against the windows, hunched in the shadows. The feeling came over him like the fringe of an ebbing wave. But instead of focusing on it, as the Nyr-az-Telum had taught him—savouring every moment and turning it into prolonged, pure bliss—he let it wash over him and fade.

  The temptation to focus his senses and savour it was immense.

  Never again.

  ‘Stop fighting it,
’ Azima had whispered that cold, wet morning after their first night together. ‘Embrace it as the Gods will you to. Indulge in the ecstasy of slaughter!’

  ‘No.’

  He stood upright, mastering himself. I am in control.

  He peered down through the row of barred windows: Long tables had been set out along the central nave, probably used for dining. Makeshift boards had been set up between pillars, blackboards and chairs placed in the squat spaces they provided.

  Watch officers crawled around inside, some flitting up staircases.

  Where are the children?

  Damien pelted along the canopy. The bell tower glowered at him.

  He flew up a steel drainage pipe, his nimble fingers finding purchase with ease. It brought him to the uppermost floor—dormitories. Empty bunk beds sat in each room. The windows were secured with barred gates, but he came to one which was unlocked. Voices emanated from within—Damien couldn’t detect the words but he could sense the urgency they carried. A watchman paced back and forth past the dorm’s doorway.

  Although the barred gate had been unlocked, the window itself had been jammed closed. Damn. If he had the time, he didn’t doubt he would find a way in.

  What would Tyson Gallows do?

  Damien hurled himself through the glass. Shards splintered and floated like snowflakes.

  It took an age for the guard to turn around, mouth stretched open with surprise. Damien rolled across the ground and slammed him into the wall before he could make a noise.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  The watchman didn’t protest. ‘We… We’re carrying out orders, but…’

  ‘Speak!’ He shoved the watchman harder into the wall. He was young, like most of the Watch these days. All that life ahead of him…

  ‘L-loose ends!’ he whimpered. ‘The Arch Vigil wants someone dead. Look, mate, let me go. This is too much. Verimedes has gone too far. Look! My igneus canister is full, I ain’t used any of it! Aerulus above, this is too far. I swear to you, I’m done. No more.’

  It deserves death… Just take this step and you can revel in the ecstasy you crave. You felt it tonight, I know you did. That was merely a taste; I can make that feeling last forever. All you have to do is take this one, small step…

  His fingers caressed the watchman’s throat.

  ‘No.’ Damien relinquished his grip. ‘Leave. Tell your colleagues that if they don’t follow you, they will die.’

  ‘I’ll, I’ll tell ’em! But it ain’t the other coppers you gotta worry about.’

  ‘Why no-’

  A chorus of screams cut the question off.

  Children.

  They were yelling from the floor beneath; Damien didn’t need his sharpened senses to hear them. Fists hammering on doors.

  They were locked inside a room.

  Then the fire came.

  ‘Get out!’ Damien yelled as he raced down a stairwell, towards the first floor. Fire seeped into pillars, crawled along the walls and swept through wooden beams. A vinegar stench seeped through the red oak. The ceiling peeled away in an avalanche of rubble and stained glass fell in glittering droplets, showering the floor.

  He had to reach the ground level—he had to save the children.

  Do you believe saving them will cleanse the blood from your hands?

  ‘This way!’ voices called.

  ‘No way, that thing’s down there!’

  ‘Then stay here and burn!’

  The floor groaned and split—Damien leapt over the gap. As he landed, the split widened—the floor rose and fell like a violent wave, nearly sending him plummeting. He scrambled to his feet and pushed himself to outrun debris as it rained around him, clouds of dirt and dust erupting and masking his vision. He squeezed through a narrow opening and found himself alongside a watchman struggling with a dormitory door—as Damien reached out to help. The fire stripped floorboards away—the ground opened up and swallowed the officer.

  Heart rising in his ears, Damien turned back. The room shuddered and fire unfolded around him; smoke clogged his lungs—and as Damien struggled for breath, he fell to one knee.

  Perhaps it’s better I perish.

  An awful cacophony rang out, a boom as loud as a thunderclap. Rumbling quaked the room, toppling pillars and stripping beams from the ceiling.

  The whole world rocked from side to side, the heat clawing higher.

  Brickwork flew out in every direction as the curving, monumental brass shape of a bell resolved from the tsunami of destruction, punching through wood and stone. It crashed through with a clang that resonated in Damien’s bones, as though he stood at the epicentre of an earthquake.

  Damien sprinted towards the crater formed by the bell, flames chasing his every step. He jumped and skated along the undulating metal, spinning onto the floor below. Every muscle and sinew in his body ached.

  Tumbling over himself, he crashed in the mouth of a narrow corridor—the flames were less aggressive here. Why start the fire from the top floor?

  Damien took a moment to reclaim his breath. A lumbering body spun out of a space amidst the chaos—its Watch uniform was wreathed in flames and its scream was more animal than human. It collapsed, smouldering on the ground.

  ‘We’re trapped!’ A watchwoman propping a male officer up tripped into the corridor, covered in filth and blood. She dragged him towards a tear in the wall, opened by the collapsed bell tower. The main door was beyond it—barred from the inside.

  Why would they seal themselves in?

  Questions could wait—first he had to save the children. He would never forgive himself if he failed.

  He closed his eyes to pick out the pleading, but there was too much interference, too much destruction. Damien screamed, frustration gnawing at him.

  Fire punched through a wall, sending him flailing. A beam collapsed above him but he bounced from its path, scraping his hands across the floor. Smoke filled the room, heat seared his lungs.

  The floor opened.

  His hands reached out to the first thing they could grasp onto, a smouldering beam. He swung in mid-air before the tension in his arms grew too much to bear. He fell, smashing into a long wooden table.

  Everything turned dark—the screaming and the burning sounded a million leagues away.

  This level of pain was new to Damien.

  I will not fail.

  With only willpower, he prised his eyes open. The Nyr-az-Telun had taught him how to separate mind from his body, to mute all pain—but his body did not listen.

  He had landed in the nave of the chapel—the main aisle running the length of the orphanage. It was mostly untouched by the fire—the modifications over the years had primarily been extensions of wood and metal, but the original stone structure was intact. It would keep the fire at bay—but not forever.

  Damien rolled onto his feet. Children’s paintings and Fayth tapestries burned, independent of the fire that had started in the uppermost floor. The ferocious face of Aerulus glowered upon Damien as the fire consumed him.

  The entrance was set into a stone arch which would provide some shelter from the falling debris—but like the door above, it had been barred closed with a metal beam. It made no sense for the Watch to start a fire before their escape route was secure.

  The male and female Watch officers Damien had passed fell out of a spiral staircase, debris mounting at their back.

  ‘Where are the children?’ Damien demanded.

  The woman pointed to another door at the far end of the room. The sacristy. It was next to a semi-circular recess.

  ‘Unbar the door!’ called Damien. ‘Stay under the arch!’

  On unsure feet, he flitted across the flagstones. Creaking from above signalled that the whole floor would cave in soon. Rubble flowed down like sand in an hourglass. With a second to spare, Damien twisted away from the path of loose stone piling towards him.

  Damien pulled at the beam blocking the sacristy. Most of his strength had been pulverised, muscles s
creaming at him—but still he pulled, ignoring the blood seeping from stinging wounds.

  What manner of person was capable of this—of corralling children like animals and burning them alive? Enfield had sent a watchman to assassinate Serena in the dead of night. Thackeray had put into motion a conspiracy that would bring war once again to Dalthean shores. But this…

  This was inhuman.

  The beam screeched and scraped from the brackets. He pulled the door open. Stuffed wall-to-wall, faces stared out at him. Dozens. Hands reached out from the darkness, small bodies pushing their way past. Most stood rooted to the ground, hugging the sisters’ robes.

  ‘Come on!’ he commanded. ‘Quickly, to the entrance!’

  The children rushed past him, shepherded by the few adults. Damien spotted Catryn, the metal brace clasped over her right knee giving her away.

  Last to leave the sacristy was an adolescent male with choppy dark hair and thick-rimmed glasses, detaching himself from the shadows with trepidation.

  No-one would ever know… No-one would ever know… I can feel the temptation inside you…

  Damien extended a hand, palms burning, fingers tingling.

  …Yes that’s right, just one, just this one…

  Fear had frozen the boy.

  It’ll die anyway, ‘Damien’…

  ‘Take my hand!’ Damien yelled.

  The boy snapped to his senses. Damien hauled him over the threshold. In the distance, the sisters struggled with the door. ‘Go, now!’

  Damien shielded the boy from the plummeting rubble. Fire crept into the room now, but the tumbling masonry posed the biggest threat.

  ‘What are you waiting for?’ Damien called when he saw the door was still closed.

  ‘It’s welded shut!’

  Before Damien could make sense of that, something huge grabbed him and hurled him across the room.

  He bounced along the ground, pain thrumming through him.

  The sound of rupturing walls rang out around him. Through the dust and beneath the flaming image of Aerulus, he saw it standing there—long white hair, deadwood-coloured overcoat, and eyes like solid marble. He stood like a statue, unperturbed by the destruction raining down.