Daygo's Fury (34 page)

He fell to his knees beside the cellar entrance, panting and out of breath. He looked to either side. There was a man lounging in a doorway across the street, directly opposite the alleyway Liam was in.
It doesn’t matter, I’m not coming back here.
He quickly cleared away the stone. Within were two bags, one filled with silver and bronze jewellery, the other coins of the same metal. He dropped the jewellery into one pocket and the purse of coin into the other and turned to leave.

He was struck by a thought as he stepped away. How had they known what street to wait for him? Why were they there? They had men on both sides and one in the middle, there was no chance of escape. He had never worked on that street, either on his own or with Racquel. What reason would they have had to be there, waiting for him especially?

It was the main road back from the fish market. He thought of a variety of places that they might have been that day. The route to them all was through that street and the way back.

There was only one explanation, and it struck new terror in him. They knew where he lived.
Racquel!
Cold sweat broke out on his forehead. He launched himself forward, forcing and stretching every muscle to its limit. His lungs pumped, his knees rose and fell, careless of the valuables in his pockets. A summer heat was in the air, the sun relentlessly emitted its hot light, uncaring of who it fell on. Sweat poured from his skin, his toes grasped at the dirt and grit beneath his feet.

How could he be so stupid? He didn’t need to come for this coin. He could have come back another time. There was no reason why he had to get it now. Racquel was back there alone. They would be back. They would be there before him. Who knew how many they would have with them this time? Too many, far too many for Liam to deal with. What would they do with her? Could he give them something for her life, her freedom? Perhaps they couldn’t get into the building yet, the entrance was small, perhaps she would be safe within it for a time. He just had to find a way to get her out. Maybe they weren’t there yet, he might make it in time.

He was out of breath as he turned the last corner onto his street. The smoke had been billowing up above the buildings before he reached that far, but he hadn’t wanted to see it, hadn’t wanted to think about it. Instead he kept running and barrelled around the corner. The flames became unmistakable as he neared his building, his knees started to buckle underneath him. He kept running, running, running as though it would help, as though there was something he could do, as though he could escape, deny the truth, change what was, change what was to be, alter the horrible course of his destiny, rescue her, refuse to believe, refuse to accept, change history. There must be a way of going back, of correcting his errors, of making new decisions. Why had everything he had ever done seemed to be wrong, why did he keep getting it wrong, keep making such awful errors and misjudgements? Calum was dead because of his mistakes, Racquel’s aunt was dead and she made homeless because of his carelessness, his self-obsession, his blindness to all around him. Now she was there, burning within those flames.
She couldn’t be!

“Noooooo!” he cried out. “Noooooo!” he screamed. “Nooooo!” he shouted with all of his strength, all of his lungs, again trying to roar it out of existence, roar away the horrible truth, deny it, change it with the force of his roar, with the energy and the will behind it.

The six men were spaced out along the street. They were heavily armed and instantly recognisable as gang members. He ran through them, towards the flames, but he could see instantly the entrance was no longer there. There was no way in or out. The timbers were aflame and collapsing, crackling and thumping as they warped, split and caved in on top of one another. Their home was no more, it was an inferno. A cry burped from his lips with a piece of spittle. His chest seemed to jerk outwards and back in, his head felt loose on his neck as though it were not supported by bone at all. There were two men behind him, two in front of his building and two standing side by side just further up the street.

“’Tis nice and warm in there.” The words drifted through him as he ran, their meaning clear in his head as he stared at the flames. Racquel was dead. She was dead. It couldn’t be the case. It had to be something different.

One man wore a heavy broadsword at his waist, another had two vicious-looking hand axes strapped to his sides. They were details that Liam didn’t take in. He fell to his knees, scraping across the floor as his body hurtled to a stop. His limbs and torso felt limp but his head continued to gaze upwards at the towering inferno as it reached for the sky; keeping his body from flopping forwards, weak as it was. His lungs exhaled; a long, broken, high-pitched sound. Sweat poured from his forehead, from all over. The heat of the fire, like a furnace, like a baker’s oven, making a room unbearable on a hot day, was immense, searing his skin.

The clear, clean blue was ruined. The simple beauty that was above; painted red, orange, black, billowing upwards. The simple beauty that was below, changed to dust, smut, dirt, staining black. He felt his legs go, and his body, turning to jelly underneath him. His heart still raced from the run.

The sun on the horizon had turned the skyline a suitable red. His red eyes kept the flames’ gaze, burning high, consuming the building, licking it up into the sky, transforming it into that black smoke as things disintegrated to dust underneath, the colour of destruction, of change, of loss.

Was Racquel up there? Floating away into the sky but not surrounded in blue, surrounded in that hellish black, dirty, mucky mist. Why? Why? Why? Had she burned? Had her flesh grown red? Had she screamed as it peeled back from her bones, as she cooked, as she blackened? What pain did she suffer? Why was she deserving of such a fate? Daygo’s fire. Daygo’s fire. Hate. Hate, suffering, destruction, pain. He would be those things now. He could bring Daygo’s fire. Daygo’s fury. He was such, he was nothing else, everything else was denial. A list, a long list of deaths. It would grow ever larger, but the names on that list would change, from the innocent to those most deserving. They would die, they would be torn apart.

The sweat went cold on his body, an icy hand clasped over his mind, freezing misty tendrils descended downwards, coalescing and reaching, like frozen arrows, to the soles of his feet.

“Racquel.” The word escaped from his lips like the whisper of a wind, unnoticed, unknown. The six men circled around him, their faces blackened by the soot and the smoke. His eyes found one in particular. A sandy-haired man with weasel features. The man smiled back at him with vicious intention.

“Did you like that bitch, boy?” Liam looked at him, strangely empty. His stare was slow. Everything had collapsed within him, as though all substance had been scooped out by a giant spoon.

“What?” his voice was cracked, broken. The man laughed, looking about at his companions.

“Your bitch is as dead as you!” he repeated. Liam stared at him dully for a long moment. Then, slowly, his vision seemed to narrow, honing in on the man, as everything else around him went to fog. He could feel a slow shake through him. The air was dry, the smell of smoke strong, he could feel it so clearly as it passed through the hairs of his nostrils. The thumping of his heart, the panting of his breath, seemed to amplify within his ears, all other sounds receding, until all he could hear was coming from within. His touch turned inwards, away from the cloth of his tunic, away from the weight of the pouch and the dust underfoot. The souls of his feet tingled, the sensation ran up through him like a million pinpricks. The pumping of his heart seemed so large, so strong, he could feel the blood push outwards from it in great bursts, he could feel the race of it, up through the back of his neck to his head, down to his feet, out to his arms, surrounding his lungs in great waves. It slowed, then raced again, every time with new urgency, as his heart urged it on and on, never ending, never giving up, no matter how many times it was asked to pump, no matter how many beats, with no end in sight, no end goal, no ultimate purpose, it beat, it pumped, it continued on, it moved, it squeezed tightly, painfully, and he gasped, it released, and he missed the vitality of it, the urgency, the strength, it squeezed again. Life was movement. It continued, it existed. He could sense it, all around him. There was a connection, a commonality that existed in all things, the soil beneath his feet, the skin on his hands, his flesh and bone, the flames, the smoke, the air itself. It seemed most obvious there, in the air, open to him, calling out, as though it had nothing to hold it back, as though it was open, free to all, sharing its essence, free from solid form.

The flames dashed up into the sky, tearing at cleanliness, a film of dust and dirt floating outwards, coating people and buildings, muddying them, blocking nostrils, ruining taste.

He grasped for the air surrounding him, reaching out for it, and it shivered as though vibrating at his call, tingling in greeting, a private greeting, felt and shared with him while remaining obscured from all passing eyes, with no outward show. There were no words to describe it. For it was not touch, or sight, smell or taste, he couldn’t hear it but it was there, unmistakable to him, calling out to him, telling him of its existence. It seemed to tingle with a billion invisible lines, always moving, changing, floating, but at the same time staying connected. It was as though his whole body could breathe in this connection, breathe through it, become part of it, connected to its movements, to its existence, almost one with it. His sense of it faded with distance, yet he knew instantly that it was out there in all things. It ebbed and flowed with the wind, it was taken away, gliding out of reach to be replaced by more of the same, the same yet different. He felt the loss of the passing air as he felt the greeting of the new, all spoke to him, all was connected to him.

This was Daygo’s flow. The realisation sent momentary wonder through him. This was life, this was all things, flowing, connected, moving. Movement was life, movement was existence. He knew it in that moment, knew its truth, understood it as one with it.

He lifted a foot forward, slowly, testing. His leg responded as it had before, despite so much more awareness, despite his body being alive with sense, tingling all over with it, breathing it. He was ten times the scale.

He was held within, amidst this flowing sense all around, that seemed to be of him and yet separate, the same as him yet different, as though the encasement of his body withheld him from joining his brethren, from joining himself, from becoming whole once more.

He could feel the force of it flooding through him. He pulsed; slowly, never rushed, constant and yet at the same time too fast to recognise, too miniscule to notice, he just knew. He breathed in life’s essence through every pore, and it filled him up and rushed through him, inflaming every instinct and urge and fiery emotion, magnifying it by ten, allowing it to flow free, loose, no longer restrained by the tight, constant grip of human consciousness and thought. He was free; to be, to act. Guilt lessoned and grew small. There was no guilt to life, to nature. There was only action and movement, destructive and constructive, and all things were born anew.

His emotions flooded with life, with feeling, boiling forth, free and exaggerated, unafraid, not restrained by conscious thought; allowed to roil within as they were created, allowed to take form within himself, allowed control, allowed to dictate thought as opposed to thought dictating to them. Thought became an offshoot, directed and restrained by the emotions within him, it became a tool of feeling, a tool of vibrant, destructive life, an expression like the movements of his body, no longer the dictator, the decider, the tyrant of what was within him; now it was ruled, now it was dictated to, now it could lie in chains, restrained and screaming for freedom, it could be released at the whim of emotion, at the whim of life.

And Rage was in control; turbulent, vicious, lustful rage. It looked out at the men before it.
Racquel
, it was the whisper of thought, but thought was no longer in control. Rage knew the answer now. Thought was a bi-product. Vengeful hate, deprived for so long, repressed, boiling, crying out for freedom, crying out for expression, hungry, thirsting to be satisfied. His body seemed to shake with it, the air around him seemed to shake with his fury, not in fear but in recognition, in simple response to the force of it, the force of nature, ready to burst forth into destructive action, as was nature’s call, as was its right to do. It was answerable to no one; it just was. That was it. It simply was. Unexplained, unforgiving, uncaring, indiscriminate in its expression. It was life, it was movement, it was all.

And it was confined within Liam, it was acting through Liam, it was miniscule and individual within him, it was his peace and it would act.

The men spread out all around him, circling. He could hear their voices, their taunts. They filtered through, playing their part.

Liam smiled. “You’re all going to die.” His arms lifted to spread wide to either side, his dagger held lightly in his right hand. They laughed at him, though some seemed nervous. It was irrelevant to Liam. Pain, terror, death; this was what he longed for, this was what he urged for and it was overwhelming within him. They began to enclose their circle, cautiously approaching him as one.

The first man moved and the air spoke to Liam, the air told him what his eyes could never do, every slight shift of weight reflected in tiny little refractions, tiny little movement, singing out to him, telling him instantly, in constant flow. Liam moved instinctively as his opponents did. He responded to their movements as they made them as opposed to after they made them. They moved and he moved. The man’s body readied, it turned out and then inwards sharply for the thrust of a blade. Liam had reacted, had set himself into flow, even as the man only readied himself for the blow; by the time he made it Liam stepped simultaneously forward and to the side, his knife entering simply into his throat. Liam flowed away from the sword swinging from behind his back and stepped back in as a man’s knife thrust came for his new position; he raised his knife as he moved, cutting long along the man’s exposed forearm, using his strength and the man’s momentum to deadly effect, moving away from the next stabbing blow as he did so, all one flowing movement. He stepped back into the screaming man, sucking in his stomach and rolled around, ducking below the downward swinging axe that buried itself into the already dying man’s shoulder, his knife stabbed roughly into the axeman’s thigh, just behind the protective flap of leather. He wrenched it free, turning, stepping back and then forward, dodging the panicked and awkward swing of a shortsword, his knife slit across the man’s wrist as he ducked underneath his arm, coming up on the other side of him, using him as a buffer against the next charging man, a man that he had been tracking, feeling, for seconds, knowing he was coming and when he would arrive.