Bloodmoon (The Scarlet Star Trilogy Book 2) (63 page)

Merion’s world was upside down and inside out. ‘Sea?’

‘Yes, the sea. Where ships go, fool. You’re taking one back to London, I assume?’

‘But …’

‘But don’t I want to kill you?’ Calidae sneered, her tortured skin warping her lips.

Merion let his trembling do the nodding. The shades still clamoured inside him, hot with the Bloodmoon’s energy.

‘Oh, I do. I would love nothing more,’ she answered him, and Merion did not hear any trace of a lie. ‘But you and I, much as I loathe to spit it out, are the same. Orphans. Heirs. And Dizali wants us both. I will kill you, Merion Hark, one day, when all of this is over. But until then, I suggest we share a fate, and go visit this Prime Lord together.’ And with that, she extended a crimson hand. Merion took a while to grasp it. Mistrust and confusion held him back, but the glint in her eye was genuine, and so he grabbed it, and grabbed hard, almost making her wince. With much straining and cursing, they got to their feet and stood there swaying, trading looks, wordless.

‘Where is this ship of yours, then?’ she muttered, clearly displeased at how his bloodshot eyes roved over her scars.

Merion rubbed his throat, winced, and then shrugged. ‘Don’t have one yet,’ he replied, ‘but I have a good idea where to find one.’

‘Do you now?’

‘Let’s go see a king about a ship,’ Merion said, with more grit in his voice than he expected.

*

The fighting had been quelled. Whomever had not met their end at the sharp tips of swords and bayonets, or been riddled with bullets, were now slumped into dejected heaps, bloodied and bruised. Even with the magick surging through their veins, sheers numbers had outweighed them.

Cabele had a leg broken. The bone had burst through her skin in ugly splinters. Itch Magrey had been shackled with iron. He had not a cut on him, but his eyes were glazed as though he had been beaten senseless. The huge lump of Big Jud rose and fell slowly with ragged gasps. He held a hand tightly to his neck, where the blood was finally ceasing to flow. Hashna was missing several fingers, and stared about with wide eyes, his tongue continually pestering his lips in nervousness. Kasfel was out cold, a bayonet still embedded in her side. And Hoarse Hannifer, serene as always despite a gash across his chest, stared defiantly at the Bloodmoon, now perched high in the sky and still blazing red. It was almost as though he expected it to swoop down and save them. But it was just a moon, shackled to the sky, and it stared back at them all, aloof.

Soldiers and guards strolled around them, wrinkling their noses at the bloodied mouths and hands of the prisoners. They had found more than a few kneeling at dead and dying bodies, drinking their fill before the manacles were clamped around their wrists. The soldiers might have seen plenty of war, but nothing such as that.

Lurker and Lilain stood like twin islands amidst the destruction, mostly ignored. They watched Lincoln striding to and fro in his loping gait, sparing a word here and there to his injured men, or brusquely questioning those that dared to scowl at him. But Lincoln was no tyrant. The traitors of Cirque Kadabra would see a fair trial before the gallows.

And still no sign of Merion. Their eyes roved back and forth, teeth biting lips, praying they did not find a corpse that was far too familiar.

At last, Lincoln spied them standing tall and alone, and approached slowly. His face was a blank canvas, neither angry nor smiling, just calm and collected as usual.

When he was close, he removed his hat and extended a hand, first to Lilain, then to Lurker. Lilain curtsied whilst Lurker buried his nose in the dust, like a pauper before a king.

‘Please, Sir,’ Lincoln rumbled, bending to lift the prospector up. ‘That will not be necessary.’

Lurker removed his hat and mopped his sweaty brow. ‘It’s a great honour, Sir, a great honour indeed. I fought with you in Missipine.’

‘And it seems you fight still,’ replied Lincoln, eyeing the scars between the fresh cuts. His face broke into an easy smile, and Lurker bowed again, lost for words. Lilain knew how long he had waited for this moment.

‘We know exactly who was behind this, Sir,’ Lilain spoke up.

‘As do I, Madam,’ Lincoln looked over his shoulder to where Yara lay, folded over a bloodied stomach. She was barely moving. Merion, against all the odds, had done his job. He had turned her trick against her. ‘Yara Mizar, a Rosiyan assassin. The good Lord Dizali is smarter than I gave him credit for.’ Lincoln commented, sighing.

Lilain inclined her head. ‘You know?’ she asked, confused.

‘I was told not half an hour ago.’

Lilain took a step forward. Lincoln’s gaze switched between her wide eyes. ‘Who told you?’ In truth, Lilain already knew. Her heart had begun its descent into the pit of her stomach.

‘A young Empire boy by the name of Tonmerion Hark,’ Lincoln explained. ‘Most confusing, to find him here, all bloodied and beaten. He looked awful, and so far from home. I knew his father well.’

Lilain couldn’t help it; she seized Lincoln’s sleeve and pulled him close. The guards sprang forward, but Lincoln held up a hand. ‘Where is he?’ Lilain was stuck between a sigh of relief and a strangle of worry.

‘Why, I sent him to the docks and had them board my ship. He begged me for help, along with his friend, a girl, also from the Empire. She seemed familiar to me, but Maker knows why. Poor thing was covered in scars. They had quite the tale to tell,’ Lincoln remarked.

Lilain and Lurker shared a black look. For a moment it looked as though the prospector would sprint off in the direction of the docks, but he stayed put, visibly wrestling with his emotions.

‘It appears that’s not the news you were hoping for,’ guessed Lincoln.

Lilain buried her head in her bloody hands. ‘I’m his aunt.’

Lincoln pulled a dour face. ‘He seemed quite adamant that he was alone in his travels, I’m afraid. Orphans, they said, with business in the Empire. With a certain Prime Lord. Something I fully support, I have to say.’ There was a hint of a growl in Lincoln’s voice as he looked around again at the failed attempt on his life, at the smouldering tents and broken bodies. They could see the fire hiding in his dark eyes.

Lilain wanted to curse the boy for all his worth. But the truth was crystal-sharp: to protect them; to keep from asking them to cross the Iron Ocean; to keep them out of it. ‘He may be an orphan, Sir, but he still has family. It may be a strange one, but it’s ours.’

‘Family takes many forms, Madam.’ Here Lincoln paused to sigh, as if the decision to help the boy weighed heavy on him. ‘History might have told a different story had it not been for your nephew. He saved my life. It was the least I could do to send him home.’

‘He has a habit of that,’ Lilain confessed, joining Lincoln in his sighing. ‘Which way, Sir?’

Lincoln beckoned two of his men closer. ‘My guards will take you to the docks. Though I can’t promise the Black Rosa will still be at anchor. They were quite eager to leave. And who can blame them? I had half a mind to join them, see to the Prime Lord myself.’ Another growl there.

‘That might not be such a bad idea,’ Lurker mumbled.

Lincoln laughed at that. ‘They call me Red King Lincoln, and you’d have me start another war?’

‘If it’s a just one,’ Lurker bowed again.

‘There are other ways to win a battle than to build a war around it,’ Lincoln smiled warmly, and reached for their hands. ‘I wish you good luck and safe travels. Something tells me your family is stronger than an ocean.’

Lilain and Lurker said their goodbyes and let the soldiers lead them away, more than a little numb. Lurker too, by the looks of him, seemed to understand, but that didn’t mean it sat well with either of them.

‘I take it we’re followin’ him.’

She nodded firmly. ‘Of course we are.’

‘Even if he don’t want us to?’

Lilain looked up at the Bloodmoon, maybe for a little patience, maybe to blame it for all the mess, or maybe just for somewhere to look while she reached for Lurker’s rough hand. She held it lightly, as though if she squeezed too hard he might crumble. ‘You boys don’t know what you want, or what you need. That’s why you need someone like me around,’ she whispered. ‘I hope you like the sea, John Hobble, because we’re catching a ship.’

Lurker patted his chest for his flask, but when he came up empty, he just shrugged. He squeezed her hand. ‘Looks like it’s a day of firsts.’

*

Rhin stood alone on the dock, half-visible, watching the stern of the Black Rosa disappear into the crimson-washed waves of the Potomac estuary. She was just a dark hunk of steel, with cinder-specked steam billowing from her jagged stack and two thick masts sporting grey sails. One solitary light hung from the railing at her stern. Even Rhin’s eyes couldn’t be sure, but something told him that the light had a shadow for company. A boy, staring back at the glittering city and the faerie he had left behind. Rhin could almost feel his angst washing up under the dock with the red-tipped waves.

The decision had been made weeks ago, when the black cross on his hand was still raw, when Merion had looked down at him and sworn murder to protect him. It been painful in its simplicity: the
bean sidhe
would kill anything that stood in the way of their prey. They had done it before, and they would do so again. Rhin would not subject the boy to their cold bones, to their teeth. He would save him, though it tore his heart to do so.

Rhin knelt one knee to the wood and let his hands rove over his armour, old habits of checking the straps and plates; and finally his blades, two of black steel, and one of pine. Rhin ran his hands through his hair and calmly blinked his violet eyes, waiting for the cold wind he knew was coming.

His wait was brief. It came from behind, blowing out to sea. It was graveyard-cold, and sought out all the gaps in his armour that blades could never find.

Then came the wailing, just as before. Rhin couldn’t ignore the hammering of his heart. He got to his feet, took the deepest breath of his life, and drew his blades, both pine and steel.

The banshees came cautiously this time, one wailing just a little louder, its screech tainted with pain. Rhin wondered if it bled. He turned to see.

The three gathered behind him, standing between him and escape. Rhin swallowed his heart as he stared at their fell faces: worm-eaten skulls, black and brown with age, a greenish light lingering behind the hollow sockets they called eyes. The rest of them was covered in rags and grave-dirt, betraying pockmarked bones here and there, giving way only to skeletal claws like winter tree branches. Mist gave them flesh where it could, wrapping around their ancient bones. Their tongues were made of it, their expressions forged by it. All in all, they were terrifying to stare at, but Rhin refused to give them the satisfaction of cowering. He stood and waited.

Their voices were distant, as if their vocal chords had been buried with their souls, just a shrill wailing with words for bones. They rasped and they rattled as they delivered Rhin his sentence:

‘The one called Rehn’ar,’ the first creaked.

‘You have been summoned,’ added the second.

‘By Fae Queen Sift,’ the third screeched, the one he had cut. There was a fiercer glint to its sickly glow. Rhin noticed its eyes sneaking between his pine-knife and trying to bore a hole in his forehead.

‘She’s never been one for the dirty work,’ Rhin mused, carving an arc of splinters in the decking of the dock with his sword.

Several wails answered him, echoes of the dead dragged back to the world. Rhin shuddered. The banshees floated forward, arms reaching out for him. The cross in his hand burnt the closer they got. Rhin brandished the pine-knife, and one of them slunk back. The others had yet to be bitten.

‘It’s inevitable,’ one moaned, clearly the leader. It crept closer. Rhin balanced his sword under its chin. The banshee barely flinched. It did not fear Fae steel. ‘None have escaped the
bean sidhe
.’

‘Then let’s see if we can break that tradition, shall we?’ Rhin snarled, finding bravery in his anger. He didn’t wait for them to strike first. He didn’t wait for them to grasp him with their dead fingers. Instead he raised his sword in a warrior’s salute and, with his heart encamped in his throat, his voice raised to a bloodcurdling roar, he swung for all his might.