Bloodfeud (The Scarlet Star Trilogy Book 3) (34 page)

A blast of a horn sent them scarpering again, pushing aside curious workers standing gawping in the tunnel. They shouted curses on seeing humans. Some even gave chase. Rhin cut a hand from one and that sent the rest packing.

‘What’s that horn mean?’ Gunderton yelled.

‘You don’t want to know!’ Rhin snapped over his shoulder.

Merion swapped a look with the Brother. ‘I think we do!’ he shouted back, dizzy with pain.

‘Moles! Just imagine big horses with giant claws and gnashing teeth.’

Merion felt much better after hearing that.

Wordlessly, all three pushed on, running as hard as their legs could bear, their lungs aflame, knees screaming with pain, hearts rolling like war drums.
It was strange
, thought Merion, as his aching feet pounded the dirt.
The extra depths of energy that fear and pain can dig out of you
.

‘It’s this way!’ said Rhin, zipping down another corridor, painted blue by glow-worm lanterns. They heard a strange whining snarl behind them, peppered with shouting. ‘They’re close! Keep running!’

And they did, pelting over the dirt floor of the tunnel with all they had.

A brown mole, muscles rippling through its fur, skidded around the corner of the tunnel. A Fae rider was perched on its spine, his wings drawn back, lance jabbing the air. He spied them immediately, and drove his mole into a scrabbling gallop. Its claws dug chunks from the earth with every stride.

Who knew moles could be so fast?
Merion wondered amid the panic, the booming of his heart, and the sensation of the magick slowly losing its hold.

‘Take her and keep running!’ Gunderton had seen the mole and was far from impressed. He skidded to a halt, slung the faerie onto Merion’s shoulder and waved them on with his sword. ‘I’ll catch up! Find that hatch!’

Merion ran ahead in an awkward trot. The faerie was impossibly heavy, and the pain in his side threatened to break his concentration, but he steeled himself. He looked back and saw Gunderton standing tall and straight, black sword held level with the mole. The rider lowered his lance, ready to pierce the man’s heart when the mole had finished mauling him. They both roared as they came together. Even the mole screeched as it leapt, spittle flying from its jaws.

Gunderton threw himself to the dirt, sword rising high like a banner above his head. The mole missed him by a whisker, its claws grasping at nothing but the tails of his cloak, teeth gnashing at thin air. Then, there came a crunch, the tearing of flesh, and a deep whine from the beast as it crumpled to the dirt, blood oozing from under it. The rider had his leg pinned, but he waved the lance in great arcs, trying to fend off Gunderton. The Brother ducked his flailing, and drove the sword through the faerie’s neck.

‘Merion! This is it!’ The faerie yanked at him. They stood at a brick wall where an old grille stuck out, old and disused, locked shut.

‘Gunderton!’ the boy shouted. ‘It’s here!’

‘He’s a big man. I’m sure he’ll be fine!’ barked Rhin. ‘You and I need to get this hatch open!’ He was sagging closer to the ground with every moment he stood unsupported. The race had almost finished him.

‘The sword!’ shouted Merion.

Rhin passed him his blade. The boy lifted it with a blood-slick hand and brought it down on the bolt of the lock. Two more hits and it was lying in pieces in the dirt. Rhin pulled at the grille but the metal stuck fast, encrusted with mould. Merion gave it a kick and still it refused to budge. It was only when they were breathless with the strain that a third pair of hands joined them.

‘Two more moles are bearing down at us,’ said Gunderton, spattered with red and purple blood. ‘Pull!’

With grunts, growls, and even a yell from Rhin, the grille cracked open, revealing a muddy tunnel leading into the darkness and curling up into the earth. Merion didn’t dare to think about how long it was. He pushed Rhin inside first, then himself, leaving Gunderton to grab the dead faerie and slam the hatch behind them. They were plunged into darkness.

‘Climb!’ Merion yelled. His wound burnt like spitting embers. Their feet scrabbled at the slippery mud, hands clawing at whatever rocks and roots they could find in their blindness. He could feel the magick pushing him to breaking point; it was like holding a breath he could not give up. His clothes were beginning to groan with the strain. He could already reach the tunnel roof if he stretched. He was tensing every muscle he had just to keep from bursting.

Rhin was slowing. Merion kept grabbing at his feet in the darkness, getting kicked in the process. Gunderton was also falling behind; the weight of their prize dragging him back. Merion could feel panic setting in. He snarled at it.

‘
Ogar
!’ came a shout in Fae tongue, echoing up the tunnel. They soon heard the wet slap of boots behind them.

‘Faster, Rhin!’

‘I am trying!’ wheezed the faerie, utterly spent. He was like a body inhabited by a fading ghost, animated only by the so-closeness of escape.

More shouts now. Gunderton stumbled on a smooth rock and pitched the body in the mud. It began to tumble down the slope.

‘Grab her!’ yelled Merion.

‘She’s gone!’ shouted the Brother.

‘Then we need another!’ said the boy. But he knew they did not have the time, and that hurt more than the magick and his wound combined.

‘The shade could break at any time, Merion. Move!’

Merion pushed Rhin, holding him under his arm as the tunnel began to pinch.
Or was he just growing more quickly?

He didn’t have time to figure it out. The pain in his side was unbearable. He prayed he hadn’t been poisoned.

Black shifted to grey, and through the gloom they spied a faint blob of light, at the end of the slope. It was like a fisherman’s hook in their mouths, pulling them forward. Merion could feel the roof of the tunnel brushing his head, then his neck as he ducked. He held his breath and staggered on, Gunderton pawing at his back. Their clothes fell from them, stitching bursting as they grew. In their crazed dash, they overtook Rhin, and with barely half an inch to spare, they exploded through the wooden panels guarding the exit, and rolled down into a muddy culvert behind a loop of oak trees.

Rhin came flopping after them, crumpling into a heap on the bank of the puddle. He was spent. He could barely keep his eyes open, as he watched Merion and Gunderton shiver and expand. They were soon wedged against the sides of the culvert, groaning and yelping with pain.

‘Not painful, my backside,’ Merion growled, coming to a kneel, still inching taller even as he spoke. He frowned, and realised he was naked, with only mud for privacy. Gunderton was impassive, as ever. Rhin just lay there, gasping, letting the water from the drain above splash him.

‘The Fae blood, Gunderton,’ Merion whispered, still breathless. ‘We need it.’

The Brother took up a position to the side of the pipe, raising a wet rock in his hand. Merion scooped up Rhin with great care and carried him to the grass. The boy stared down at his broken faerie, elated by the fresh air in his lungs and the sunlight on his face, but desperately worried by the state of his friend.

The young Hark shook his head and went to slump opposite Gunderton. The man’s hand was held like a claw, ready to grasp at whatever poked its head out. Merion waited with him; one hand clutched to his scarlet ribs, the other curled into a fist.

Long minutes of silence passed. Only whispers of bells and drums could be heard echoing along the pipe. Only once did they hear a scrabble; boots on brick, slipping in the water. Even faeries could make mistakes, it seemed. Merion held his breath. Gunderton tensed, ready to bring the rock crashing down.

Nothing emerged but spitting water, leaking from the wet earth. No sound was heard but the clamour of the streets not too far away. Even the echoes of Undering died in due course.

Merion groaned as he shifted in the grass. He looked down at his side. The injury had grown with him and was now a deep tear in his skin, oozing blood. Merion felt as though he had already lost a few pints. At least the breeze was soothing.

‘Well, that’s that.’

‘Don’t dwell, Merion. You did the best you could. We’ll find another way,’ said Gunderton, sharing the boys angst. He lowered his rock. ‘I need to sit down and think about what just happened. Then I’ll deal with that wound.’

‘Never killed a mole before?’ Rhin coughed, finding a scrap of energy for some laughter. He was a different faerie in the daylight, now free of Sift once more. Her spells had broken along with the clutches of the darkness. He still looked like a corpse in motion, but Merion was cheered to see that his eyes had lost the panic they had shown in the caverns.

‘No time to waste!’ Merion ignored Gunderton’s advice and pushed himself to his feet. He edged out between the branches and bushes, taking a peek at their surroundings. They were in a copse not too far from the well. A family were picnicking, not too far away, and a dog-walker strolled in the opposite direction. He could see his aunt and Lurker, sitting like two obelisks on the nearby hillock.

‘This may be problematic,’ he said, covering his nakedness with a hand.

‘AUNT!’ he bellowed, before ducking back behind the leaves.

The sound of Lurker’s guffawing arrived before their hurried footsteps. ‘This isn’t funny, John Hobble,’ he called to them.

‘I’ll take that sight to the grave, your Lordship,’ said Lurker as they ducked under the leaves, clearly delighted to see them. Despite her relief, Lilain was distressed at the sight of the blood painting her nephew’s side and thigh.

‘Maker, what did you do?’ she asked, wrapping him in a blanket. There was a strip of cloth pressed against his side in five seconds flat.

‘Arrow.’

Rhin coughed. ‘You’re lucky it wasn’t poisoned.’

Lurker moved over to check Rhin’s myriad marks of torture. ‘What did that Sift do to you? You look like death.’

‘I’ll tell you once I’ve had a hot meal, a drink, and a good long sleep,’ breathed Rhin.

‘Of course,’ Merion said. ‘Whatever you need, old friend.’

‘I certainly feel a few decades older than I used to,’ Rhin moaned, as Lilain picked him up and lay him in her pack on top of a spare cloak. Before they moved off, the faerie held up a hand and coughed. Merion moved forward to shake it between finger and thumb. Rhin’s hand was now back to normal; the size of a florin, but Merion still remembered the solid boniness of it, enveloping his.

‘Thank you,’ Rhin rasped. ‘You crazy son of a Bulldog. I’d never even imagined…’

It was then that the faerie drifted off, down into a dark and dreamless sleep. Lilain patted Merion’s hand, and said it all with a look.

Well done
.

OF CURSES AND VENGEANCE

8th August, 1867

C
old was the afternoon, but abuzz were the streets. Talk of Victorious and the knotted rope still floated on the chilling breeze. The unseasonal weather mirrored the mood of the city; frozen by indecision, stuck between cheering and whispering.

It seemed that killing a queen was not to everybody’s taste.

Dizali raised the window blind and stared out. Where once applause and yells might have chased his carriage wheels, now he received only nods and scowls. London was now more polarised than ever. If the confining of Victorious to the Crucible had sparked outrage, Dizali’s decision to send her to the gallows had bred dissent. He had intended it to silence dissenters; but the city was still torn, with a deeper gash than before. It looked as though it would take the snap of the executioner’s lever to mend it.

Dizali cradled his chin in his palm, watching his Empire go by, grey in the overcast light. As they pulled around a corner facing a wide park, he could see a large crowd gathered around a bandstand, waving signs.

Royalists
.

Dizali made a mental note to have Rolick dispatch the constabulary. He would have them reminded of the Empire’s opinions on rebellion.

What truly aggravated him was that the unrest wasn’t isolated to the streets; it had reached the Emerald Benches, too. They may have voted in agreement—the announcement of Calidae Serped’s return and her generous pledge of her estate to the Lord Protector had seen to that—but there had been much groaning in the corridors of the House after the session; groans that Dizali did not like the sound of, and that Longweather was failing to quell.

Victorious was like an old tumour; unwanted and yet so ingrained and familiar they feared to cut her out. In Dizali’s opinion, the Benches were spineless, and had lost sight of the cause he had promised them and that they had championed. He shook his head, wondering who in their right minds could snub absolute control of an Empire.
Fools
. He promised himself he would cut them all loose as soon as the Queen was dangling at the bottom of her rope. Once he had proved he could silence a royal, nobody would dare speak against him.

In the seat opposite, Calidae Serped stifled a yawn, staring out of the opposite window. Dizali watched her for a moment, from the corner of his eye. Gone was the confident yet traumatised girl who he had welcomed into his home. A cannier, more difficult young woman had replaced her. She may have played the dutiful lamprey and whistled his tune at the Order’s table, but when it came to her estate, she betrayed the viper hiding beneath.

Calidae had spent half the morning questioning every document the lawyers had delivered to Dizali’s study; picking apart every missive and order, deliberately trying to irritate him. It had worked, much to his displeasure. It reminded him loosely of Witchazel, before he had been broken.

Dizali narrowed his eyes at her. It may simply have been her form of futile revenge for losing the Spit. But his suspicions had bloomed brighter every day she trod his floors. Early sprouts of concern, only partially developed; but suspicions nonetheless. He knew the old adage about friends, enemies, and where to keep them; and that was why Calidae accompanied him today. It also gave the crowds another focus. The populace needed a distraction, and as Calidae had not been formally revealed, it seemed the perfect time to do it. Dizali allowed himself one of his rare smirks.