52 Ash 90 Age of Steel
West End, Zaichaer
Gateway burned, and all around her people begun to scream. Some had been deafened by the truly inconsolable number of explosions, and others in nearby neighborhoods awoke to the sounds of shattering glass and the thock of shrapnel meeting flesh. Gateway sought to share her anguish, lashing out indiscriminately with debris launched sky high by the explosives set by the Order.
At the sounds of the first explosions, some had tried to flee the center of the Gateway where the chain reaction had begun, only to be buried beneath rubble or split limb from limb when another explosion cleaved the very ground beneath them. There were few visible bodies, but the sounds, god the sounds. The gurgling of dying men, the panicked rasping of those still fighting. It was a haunting chorus that flooded the air to join in the frenzied wailing of those that had awoken to slaughter.
Word traveled quickly, but seldom accurately. There had been witnesses to the explosives wheeled into Gateway. The 'why' behind the Order's actions was less clear and speculated on. Some speculations gave the Order a measure of grace, but these were not nearly as popular among the grief stricken populace.
If the Order had truly believed that leveling an entire district would not incite violence, then they had miscalculated the human spirit. Families were broken in an instant, and there was no world large enough to contain the grief of her people. Questions were rebuffed, answers ungiven, and violence ensued. Citizens took to the streets, and some tried fruitlessly to sort through the rubble. There were hundreds of them before long, some armed with nothing but their rage. They trickled from their homes slowly at first, but were emboldened as more of their countrymen bled out onto the cobblestone roads.
The Defense Corps had been deployed quickly to contain the violence that swept through the streets, but their presence was not as beloved at it usually was. There was dire hatred here, the final gift that Gateway could impart, a grim knowledge that they could be next.
The soldiers of Verowa End had been the first to respond, many reacting to the cries of alarm as easily as they breathed. Confusion in the ranks meant there was no method to the carnage, and no goal. There was violence for its own sake, Zaichaeri against Zaichaeri, both believing the other had been tainted.
Such were the first casualties of the Gateway riots, and their deaths incensed either side of the conflict. The rioters were spurred on, righteous fervor burning away reason and making them into the beasts that the ZADC had been warned that they would become. The Defense Corps responded in kind with escalating violence and brutality, orders coming from above that these conspirators were traitors to the State.
Even Reconciliators were not spared, their air of authority erupting as swiftly as Gateway did. They seemed almost surprised when they were killed. They fell to stones, mattocks, hammers and whatever the rioters had on hand. Each Reconciliator took dozens of average Zaichaeri down with them at least, and many more were able to simply flee the scene safely. But even just a single dead government mage was cause for celebration, and the bodies of the few slain Reconciliators had been burned in the fires of Gateway in a cruel mockery of the fate of all witches in Zaichaer.
Some of the citizens tried to stop the horror, but Zaichaer grieved for her lost. The Zaichaeri coursed through the city streets as blood through Zaichaer's veins, a tide of bodies crying out for friends and family gone. Many did not even know if their loved ones were yet dead, the bodies still buried beneath the rubble.
The defense corps killed them. They did not grieve for their lost, instead butchering whomever stood between Zaichaer and peace. Orders were orders, and they were not to be questioned. Many had been fed lies that the neighborhood had been abandoned save for the known witches. This single lie was enough to calm their conscience as they cut down men and women armed with sewing needles or bits of rubble.
Backdropping the entire rebellion were the flames of Gateway. The accelerant had gone up predictably, and ravenous flames consumed whatever the explosives could not crush into unrecognizability. Fiery wreckage plumed in the sky, new debris joining it when another pocket of blast powder went up, and Gateway's flames stretched far. Roofs of nearby neighborhoods and even a barracks were not spared from this last act of defiance. A spiteful farewell before the end.
In the West End, Vanessa was running. She did not know where, only that her uncle was leading her. He had abandoned all pretense of stealth, his heart thundering as he bolted down the main streets. He did not stand out, many nobles staring dumbfounded out towards the Gateway as the neighborhood burned. Some servants were running too, dismissed by their lords and ladies to see to their own families.
Arthur was not going home, not now. His home was back in the Knob, and even from here, he could hear the sounds of unrest growing closer. He focused on them, forcing away the realization that gnawed at him.
Vanessa slipped, falling first to her knees and then to her face. Blood streaked her nightgown from her skinned knees, and she scraped her hands trying to catch herself.
Arthur wheeled around and grabbed her by the arm, pulling her to her feet again. Tears streaked her face, and she wiped them away with her other hand. She tried to ask a question, but Arthur was running again, and her words were lost to her exhausted breathing.
Soldiers ran past them now, paying the both of them no mind aside from curt nods of acknowledgment. Every fiber of Arthur screamed at him to jam a knife between their ribs. The anger returned to a dark hollowness, and he passed them by on the way to the airfield.
The East End was in far more disarray than the west, but the chaos made it ever easier to pass through unnoticed. When the crowds grew too thick, Arthur simply scooped Vanessa up and ran with her in his arms, head tucked into his neck. This also kept her from seeing the grisly displays of violence that had begun to consume even more polite society. Non-humans were beaten, and some were not moving. Blood stained the stone streets in splotches, marking areas where the brawling had been the most intense.
Grand Central Station had been the worst of it when they had arrived. Everyone was trying to leave for the safety of the sky, but that merely led to congestion at the front gates and further arguments that spilled again into fights. The ZADC were more concerned with keeping their own airfield secure, so this one was left to individuals to defend. The dockworkers did so with gusto, successfully defending their cargo and ships from those that either wanted to steal the ships or merely be a stowaway
Being a smuggler, Arthur did not need to use the main entrance, and slipped in through a cargo loading zone that was well enough off the beaten path that the main throng of bodies had not yet discovered it. Vanessa's uncle rushed her over to his unimpressive airship, lifted her over the railing onto the deck. He leaped over the gangplank himself afterward, pulling it up behind him. He cut the cords anchoring the beauty to the ground, and in only a few minutes the Quill family ship was floating lazily skyward.
“Can we go get mom and dad now?” Vanessa asked, looking through the gaps in the railing towards the roiling fire that consumed her home.
“No...” Arthur said, deflating. He looped a safety line around her waist and pulled it snug. He distracted himself by tending to her and the ship in equal measure. The vessel was small, needing only Arthur himself to man it effectively. There were rooms below deck, but he could not bring himself to try and put her to bed. Not yet.
“Why not?” Vanessa asked.
“Because mom and dad are gone.” her uncle replied, his voice faltering. Saying aloud, even like this, made the reality come home.
“Gone where?” Vanessa said, stepping closer to bring her arms around her uncle as best she could. “Will they come back?”
“They'll come back. I promise.” Arthur said, tears welling in his eyes. He tried to blink them back, but failed. “We'll see them again. Won't be long, Nessa.”
Vanessa nodded. “I knew it.” She said confidently.
Her reaction jolted uncle Arthur momentarily out of his daze. She was headstrong and confident like her mother, and inquisitive and clever like Percy. A pain spiked through him as he thought of the two, but the pain was a welcome respite from the fathomless void that was currently protecting him from reality.
Uncle Arthur moved back over to the controls to set the vessel on a slow drift forward and then returned to sit beside Vanessa on the deck of the airship. He looked out towards the ruin of Gateway, and saw the fire it belched into the sky only to rain back down. It stung him deep into his core, but he could not look away.
“Uncle Art?” Vanessa asked quietly, also looking out over the city of Zaichaer. “Are mom and dad okay?”
Could he lie to her? He wanted to. He wanted to protect her, the only reminder he now had of his brother and his wife. He wanted to shield her from the world, but that was not what Orphea nor Percy would have wanted. He calmed his nerves, exhaling through his nose. “No. Your mother and father are dead.” The words crushed him, and he wished he could have taken them back as soon as they left his lips.
Vanessa looked down, her brows furrowing. “Oh...” she said quietly. She knew about death as a concept, it was difficult to live in the Knob without experiencing it, even at a young age. She was still too young to grasp the full weight of it, the finality of it all.
“They loved you, Nessa.” was all her uncle could think to say, and he brought an arm around her shoulder. “If you never forget that, it's like they never left.”
He did not even know if he believed that himself, but he could not leave Vanessa with no salve to ease the pain.
“I love them too.” came Vanessa's reply, small and quiet.
