Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
Accredited to Exiled Knight Grand Commander (Justice) Orexis
It was midday; a busy time in Fort Hope, but the Wharf was quiet as the dark water flowing around them. Rats were sleeping, talking quietly, repairing clothes, or cleaning weapons and tools. Somebody had lit a fire and put a tyre on it to burn. It smelt better than the river.
The majority of the rats were snoring. Even the look-outs positioned just inside the mouth of the tunnel were nodding sleepily in the heavy calm of the afternoon.
It had been hot for days and mists had been steaming over the river, draping the wharf in humid clouds until the brick walls had been dripping wet. Autumn had been merciless.
But today, the sky was the colour of welcoming soot, and the morning air had been sweet with the smell of approaching rain.
Have you ever felt that strange feeling, how you become aware of a sound without ever noticing when it started? Josh now realised that he could hear a thumping, whirring noise. It was deep and shrill at the same time and was constant although it had been faint at first. Josh sat up to try and hear it better. It sounded like it was coming out of the air and not from anywhere in particular. But it was definitely getting louder.
Warning cries from the look-outs pierced the slumbering gloom of the wharf. Children, no older than eight or nine, appeared from the shadows of the buildings to find out what was happening. They slid down ropes, jumped down floors and slithered out of cracks in the walls. In seconds the wharf was full of them. They were quiet at first, listening at the noise getting closer. The older teenagers and adults knew what the sound was though. One thought echoed terrifyingly in their minds.
Vertibirds.
"Jericho!" Screamed Josh, "Get up! Now!", as he gave her a kick, and another, until she got up.
She woke quickly, eyes squinting. "Vertibirds! We need to move!"
Beneath the approaching screech and hum, there was another sound, distant at first, but approaching a lot quicker. Dogs.
Luc appeared with Jonah and Matt at the lip of the ledge. Their face gave across a message quicker than words. Heralds. Before he could utter any words, an explosion of activity was formed, as a hundred or more street rats began stuffing their belongings into bags or sacks and then scrambling to the tunnel opening to try and get out before the hunters could trap them. There were cries and yells mixing with the screaming of the helicopters, and a splash when one of the rats lost his footing in the panic and fell into the water.
"We'll never get out." Jonah shouted.
The whine of the engines and thump of the rotor blades made Josh's chest vibrate. He couldn't see the helicopters yet, but from the roar of noise and the way that the water was churning and swelling, they must have been hovering just beyond the tunnel openings.
It was complete chaos everywhere below the ledge. There were more rats than there was space on the slippery stones of the quays and with so many of them packed together tightly and pushing, nobody was able to move forwards. There was a lot of shouting. Two small boys were shouting and crying, but no-one could hear them. Nobody noticed them except Josh. He tried to pick out Gemma, but couldn't find her among the jostling bodies.
As Josh and Jericho watched, the rats surged backwards. Some stumbled onto the floor, and some were slammed into the river, which claimed more and more victims, as the throng fell onto one another. Then they saw what made them retreat. Charging out of the mist came a group of heralds, shock batons rained down, breaking bones and spilling blood. Their stainless white combat armour drove the tunnel into a wedge, and at their sides came dogs, savage and unchained.
"There's loads of them!" Luc shouted, "They must have blocked the docks and walks." He puffed out his cheeks. "This is massive."
Josh said nothing because there was nothing to say. He stood above the mayhem lamely and watched forty or fifty heralds plough into the children and deeper into the tunnel. At the rear came a commander, flanked by two Dame Commanders. He wore a throat-mike, and was talking into it. His black lenses of his glasses tilted up at intervals as he scanned the walkways and alcoves on the tunnel walls.
The tunnel was filling with heralds and the rats were forced back. Children screamed, dogs snarled. When all the heralds were inside a thick net dropped down of the mouth of the tunnel, like a portcullis, preventing any escape.
Had Josh been on the opposite bank of the river, or had there been no mist, he would have seen the same thing happening at each of the tunnels along The Wharf. He would have seen legions of Heralds, some armed with rifles, most swinging machetes menacingly, packing the quayside and pouring into the arches. He would have then seen the nets unfurling from the helicopters that hovered over The Wharf like a swarm of locusts. Every entrance to every tunnel was sealed by the nets. Every rat was trapped.
"We've had it." Said Matt to no-one in particular. Josh was silent.
A white gloved hand was pointing up at him. It was the leader of the group, and he was looking straight up at him. His two commanders also turned their impenetrably darkened glasses towards him. A commander spoke into their throat-mike. Five heavily armed Heralds turned their back from those pushing into the tunnel and halted in front of him.
All the time that Josh and Matt was looking at the guards, Jericho had been busy in the shadows behind them.
"Follow me." She shouted.
"Where?" Josh said back, still eying up the hunters, unable to shift his gaze away from the barrels of an L1A1.
"You'll see."
Matt, Luc and Jonah hesitated and then hurried down to where the gantry joined the side of the ledge. The platform was chained to a pair of iron posts that were firm in the stone. He looked for a way to loosen it so that the platform would collapse and the hunters would not be able to reach them. Already, two Heralds were climbing up the ladder.
Jericho gave the chain a yank. The platform fell and swung sideways, but was secure. It had to be.
Josh was still looking over the ledge, however. He saw one of the Heralds who had stayed by the commander raise his rifle to his shoulder and drop his head to the stock, taking aim. The barrel was trained onto Josh.
All Josh could hear was the pounding of his heart as bullets whizzed over his head as he ducked, grabbing at his waist and fumbling for his .22. As each bullet went past him, each closer to his body than the last, his life started flashing by him; his first work, his first bust, and all the things in life he'd miss; a job, a cigarette, Gemma…
A gap in the firing gave Josh all the time he needed. He took his gun from his waist, and looked over his cover and aimed at the Heralds. Surging with panic, he missed. He never shot the gun before, ammo was such a rarity, and cost, he never managed to get any practice, unless you count years ago when he was aiming with a finger-pistol.
The Herald, although shocked at being fired back at, regained composure quickly and aimed, while Josh started hitting the pistol, bullets no longer firing out of the weapon. Jonah shouted blindly, pulling Josh into the escape route, as Josh saw the commander placed his hand on top of the rifle muzzle and push it to the floor.
"Let's go Josh" Jonah urged him, as a Herald made his way up the stairs, metres below them, taking pot shots to get the group.
"Where to?" Josh asked.
"I don't know. Come on."
They ran into the back of Jericho's old room to find boxes strewn about the floor and barrels upended. Where they had been stacked was a low portal in the wall and Jericho was on her knees on the other side, beckoning them on.
"I never knew about this." Yelled Matt.
"Why do you think I wanted the ledge?" Came the reply. "We were always going to need an escape. We always will. Come on."
Stooping, Josh ran through the opening and found himself at the foot of an iron stairwell, with a corridor that sloped down to the left of them.
"We have to get up the stairs, across the roof, and down the fire escape on the far side." Jericho was able to talk without shouting, although the whirr of the helicopter engines still filled the air. "If we get to the bottom on the other side we're OK."
"And if we don't?" asked Luc.
Jericho didn't reply. She turned and charged up the stairs, two at a time, and the rest of the group followed at her hells. They all ran as fast as they could, but there was flight upon flight to the warehouse roof. Josh swallowed the air and his lungs were taut as if they were being crushed. His thighs were screaming hot and her feet were hard to lift. He heard Jericho screaming as well, encouraging everyone to go faster, but the sound of white leather shoes scraping against the iron floor was what made him forget about the pain and run harder.
"Get the target." Snarled the voice behind him. "Kill the others. But you have to get the target. Alive."
Suddenly, a shot rang out from behind Josh, but he kept running, not looking back, and started flinging himself up the stairs. The pace doubled as the first shots rang out, and the door to the outside was in sight. It was dark in the stairwell, but Josh could see a light glimmering, outlining a door. As he reached his sister, the door smashed open and he smashed through the door to the roof, daylight and driving rain.
"What did they shout?" Matt shouted as he caught up with Josh and Jer, running to the edge of the building. They heard a door smash open behind them.
"I didn't hear." Gasped Josh, even though he had. There was no time for questions; no time for blame. The Heralds were coming for them and he didn't know why.
The roof was wide and flat. The air was fresh and cold. They ran to the far side and jumped.
They fell around ten feet, landing on the next building along, and sprinted across it. This was not the first time they had to make their own escape routes on the spot.
Josh saw a ladder on the other side of the building, and raised his arm, pointing at it, while they all kept sprinting, bullets ringing behind them.
They might have reached the ladder. They might have made it to the bottom. But before they ran half way across the roof a helicopter swooped in low and three Heralds dropped from it, blocking their way, two with pistols, one holding a menacingly long sword.
Josh halted. The rest stopped behind him.
"They must really want us." Said Matt, as the helicopter hovered above them and the Heralds started closing in.
Jericho considered their options. They had none.
Luc slipped his hand into his pocket, and grasped a pocket knife he always kept there. It wasn't easy getting the blade open without looking; he did it slowly, without cutting his fingers. The Heralds from the helicopter faced them, pistols at their shoulders, barrels steady and levelled at the children. Rain dripped from the black muzzles.
Jumping cautiously behind them was the commander and two followers that were chasing them. They walked around and faced the children. The commander was not much taller than Josh. He had a lean and hungry face which he thrusts so close that his hatchet of a nose was almost touching his. His lips were pulled tightly against his teeth which he couldn't see, but which he sensed might have been longer than normal and very sharp. He didn't blick and he barely breathed. Rain spotted down the black lenses of his glasses.
He is smelling me, though Chess, and at the same time caught a sour stink of a dog, although there were no dogs on the roof.
The commander stepped back. "We want them. Now take them."
As one of the lieutenants stepped forwards, Luc lunged towards him, knife at throat height. This was unexpected and it was only because the Herald turned his shoulder at the last moment that the knife slashed the air and not flesh. But the Heralds were fast and well drilled. Before Jonah could regain his footing, the lieutenant took his pistol from his holster, aimed, and took three shots, each hitting their mark. Luc, with three shots in the body, fell down to the floor.
Then there was a brilliant flash as electricity soared through the air, as Jonah and Matt fell to the ground in pain, after meeting contact with a large metal pole, and they writhed at the lieutenant's feet. Jericho closed her eyes and Josh looked at the ladder they hadn't been fast enough to reach. All the time the commander kept his hidden eyes on Josh.
The vertibird descended onto the roof, rocking slightly and making web patterns on the rain-slashed concrete. Josh and Jericho's thin arms were manacled as they were frogmarched into it. The two hunters seized opened the helicopter doors, proceeding to throw Josh inside. He landed with a thud and Jericho then was throws inside. She laid there, whimpering.
The commander and the lieutenant with the stun stick climbed into the cockpit beside the pilot. Three Heralds sat in the cargo hold with Josh and Jericho, stun sticks drawn and faces rigid.
"Enjoy the daylight, rats." The commander shouted at them, over the noise of the helicopter. "You won't see much more of it." Then he spoke quietly to the pilot.
The helicopter rose, tipped forwards, and plunged into the driving rain.