But as I stood there shouting and waving stupidly, it was increasingly clear that they would. They were going to let me burn.
Except that the tower itself, being brick and stone and concrete, would fall rather than burn. I considered climbing down the outside wall, but as I took a step toward the far parapet, something gave beneath me. One of the pit props had collapsed in the inferno, and the tower shuddered. I didn’t have long. I took another step, but before my right foot had come down properly, the world shifted sideways. A terrible sound came from the base of the structure, a creaking that swelled, turning into an animal bellow, as the tower began to split.
The floor beneath my feet tipped toward the boys, and realizing I had no other option, I turned and ran down the sudden slope to the parapet and stepped up onto it as the tower began to fall. I had one foot up, one back, arms spread, like I was riding a great wave. For a moment, I seemed to hang there in the hot air, almost motionless but tipping fractionally earthward, and then I was hurtling toward the ground in a long, deadly arc that threw up dust and hunks of brick as the tower collapsed.
I timed my jump, waiting for the last possible moment, springing forward and rolling as the top of the tower broke against the square below.
The swelling roar ended in a deafening explosion and I tumbled head over heels, knees and elbows tucked tight into my body as bricks rained down around me. I felt the skin strip from my arms and legs, the impact of the debris on my back and shoulders. Eyes and mouth shut, head buried in my hands, I rolled, then I stopped, and pain boiled over my body like fire.
It took all my concentration to reach into my belt and pull the revolver out, and by the time I had rolled onto my back and raised the weapon, Fevel was almost on me.
He had a chisel in one hand, and his eyes were mad and vengeful, but he felt the black eye of the gun on his heart and he stopped as I snapped the hammer back.
For a long moment, he fought with his own survival instinct, and then, at last, he spat and took a step backwards. He turned as Tanish came running past him, slashing at him with the chisel, but the younger boy danced away and came skidding to my side.
I had not moved. Every bone and muscle seemed to cry out in agony. The fall had reopened Florihn’s slashes across my face, but I was still training the gun on Fevel’s retreating back, my finger curled around the trigger.
“Ang,” whispered Tanish. “It’s all right. You’re safe now.”
But I barely heard him over the furious roaring of the blood in my veins. It was a long time before I lowered the gun and got clumsily, painfully to my feet.
I leaned on Tanish, staring back to where the dust still swirled over the fractured heap of rubble that had been the tower. Fevel recovered his swagger as he neared the other boys, and then, very slowly, I limped away.
*
IT TOOK TANISH AND me two hours to get back to the city. It would have taken me twice that without him. My right ankle had twisted in the fall, and I could put no weight on it, but while I didn’t think I had broken anything, it felt like I had been beaten head to foot, and the longer we walked, the more the aching stiffness blossomed into torment. At least we encountered no animals. We would have been easy prey for a clavtar or hyena pack, gun or no gun.
At the city walls I approached the nearest dragoon and gave him my name. “I should be in your records,” I said. “I’m wanted for murder. You are going to want to find Detective Sergeant Andrews.”
I said it coolly. The police had no terrors for me worse than what I had already gone through, and I felt, however misguidedly, the confidence of innocence. I had, after all, not killed Billy. Even so, my composure was unexpected, and I realized how much the last few days had changed me. Not so very long ago I would have been hesitant and tongue-tied in the presence of the authorities. Now, at least in my own head, I had some authority of my own. I had earned it.
The police response was almost comically excessive. Three armed men chained my hands and feet and bundled me into an armored carriage, watching me as if I were a wild animal, though I was mild and compliant throughout.
At the jail I was grilled by the duty officer about my relationship with Billy, and my movements the previous evening. He was openly scornful of my version of events, the “cloak and dagger nonsense” of messages and secret meetings, and particularly of my claim to have heard another man in the fog, a man I took to be Billy’s killer. I told him about Morlak, but not Mnenga, though I wasn’t sure why. After I had recounted my story twice, I said I would not speak again till Andrews arrived. This might have earned me a beating, but the command with which I spoke of Andrews gave the duty officer pause, and they decided to save their more physical response till my claims had been debunked.