Bill’s father, Blackjack, had hardly been much brighter. It had been eighteen months and more since his humiliation at the hands of the Faerie King, but the Blackjack of old showed no signs of resurfacing. He was polite enough, and would respond if spoken to, but returning to the scene of his woes had, if anything, caused a relapse. And as for Brianna’s relatives, they were, generally, a suspicious lot who weren’t convinced that Bill was a suitable suitor. It seemed that being a fire mage and guardian of the free world wasn’t a sufficient qualification. After all, the lad couldn’t take his scumpy.
Bill would be the first to admit that he had a pretty low toleration threshold for alcohol. Back home, supping on familiar ales, he’d generally be fast asleep before he’d finished the third pint. Unfortunately, scumpy had a different effect - it kept him awake long enough to be dancing on the table rather than snoring underneath it. And, as with all alcohol, it magnified the general mood which, in the case of the previous night, had been dark enough already.
Fortunately, the evening had been saved by the arrival of an old friend. The locals had been discussing a worrying increase in cases of chicken-rustling when the door swung open and a hulking figure stood framed against the night. “What ho!” it cried. “Is there a lad here by the name of Bill Strike?”
“Flaxbottom!” Bill leapt out from between uncles Enok and Ezra, banged his knees against the underside of the table and limped over to embrace the poultry infused figure of the Wing Commander.
“I hoped you were coming!” he said, stepping away and gesturing to a quiet bench and leaving Chortley glowering amongst the relatives.
Flaxbottom tapped the side of her nose. “The KFC was engaged on a secret mission, lots of chicken abduction going on, it seems. But, anyway, let’s not talk business. I arrived at the Hemlock’s farm an hour ago and, after settling the squad into their temporary barracks, decided I’d come and say hello myself. I know, technically, it’s a cock party…”
Bill nodded towards the gloomy assemblage. “Oh, we have no shortage of cocks already. Frankly, Permanence, you’ve saved the evening. The KFC triumphs again!”
Flaxbottom’s cheeks coloured as she waved away Bill’s compliment.
“So, what have you been doing since, you know, the battle?” he asked, returning with a pint of scumpy.
Flaxbottom took a mouthful, nodded in a satisfied fashion, and put the tankard down. “Excellent, if a little sweet,” she said. “Well, there is much to tell, but where to begin?”
“Have you rebuilt the Amelia?”
“I have done better than that!” Flaxbottom boomed, her chest inflating with pride and forcing the buttons on her khaki jacket to strain menacingly. “After leaving the Hemlocks, I returned to my farm and gave most of the squadron an extended period of rest and recuperation, while I and a hand picked team of my finest operatives - I call them the CIA…”
“The what?”
Flaxbottom smiled. “Chickens In Action, or the Poultry Dozen, as I sometimes call them.” She guffawed to herself for a few moments as Bill sat, titterless, waiting for her to continue.
“Where did you take the CIA?”
“To the jungles of Awimbaway, to seek fresh stocks of featherwood with which to build a replacement for Amelia - the Amy.”4 Flaxbottom sighed, and gazed into her memory. “Oh, I do miss Amelia, she was a pioneer. But Amy, you should see her, Bill, she’s a miracle! Brianna won’t need to sit on your lap in the passenger seat, there’s room for half a dozen people or cargo. She’s a miracle I say!”
“Where is she at the moment?”
Flaxbottom thumbed at the door to the pub. “I landed in Farmer Hemlock’s turnip field, I’m afraid he wasn’t particularly amused. But, still, what’s the odd turnip in the annals of aviation history?”
“A turnip for the books?”
Flaxbottom’s laugh echoed around the pub. It was a bold laugh, the sort of laugh that, having got out of bed on a dull, damp morning, would have been determined to make the sun of happiness burn away the fog of mundanity. However, bold and enthusiastic though it was, it broke on the intransigent gloom of the Hemlocks, and was finally wiped out as it came face to face with Chortley Fitzmichael.
“I expect you’ve upped the chicken power to raise the lift?” Bill geeked, oblivious to the general silence.
Flaxbottom nodded. “Indeed, although I’ve also made other improvements to the design. She’s a flying marvel!”
“What will you use her for?”
“The sky’s the limit,” Flaxbottom guffawed. “But seriously, the possibilities are almost infinite. I mean, just imagine - I could offer passenger flights. Think of how much faster it would be to fly over the landscape rather than through it, and completely safe from bandits and highwaymen.”
Although not completely safe from falling out of the sky, thought Bill. But he was enjoying listening to her. This was the closest he’d come to experiencing enthusiasm for anything in days.
“Bill?” Flaxbottom had stopped mid-sentence and was looking at him, her face creased with concern. “Are you alright?”
Bill snapped out of it suddenly. “What? Me? Yes, I think so,” he said.
But he wasn’t. His mind was whizzing around in ever more destructive circles. Sometimes it took opening the window to realise how much your bedroom stank after a night on the scumpy. Flaxbottom was that breeze - he’d forgotten what it was like to be excited about something. And yet, tomorrow was his wedding day. He certainly felt emotional about the prospect of getting married, but he’d expected, alongside the perfectly normal pre-nuptial nerves, to experience a sense of anticipation, whereas all he could actually feel was fear. Not the natural fear that most people had when around Brianna, but the terror of wondering whether what he was doing, what they were doing, was, when all was said and done, a good idea.
So that was last night, and now it was the morning of his wedding. He was lying on the bedroom floor, where he’d landed after waking in a panic believing, for a moment, that he’d gone blind. It turned out separating eyelids that had glued themselves shut overnight could be extremely painful and it was a reluctant, and rather bloodshot, Bill Strike that looked back at him out of the mirror.
He stumbled over to the window and threw back the curtains, experiencing his second blindness episode of the morning as the bright sun flooded the room. He felt his way to the latch and pushed the window open, admitting a fresh breeze laced with the unmistakable aroma of roasting pig. Well, at least Messrs Tardy et al had turned up on time.
The ceremony would take place at noon which left Bill with several hours in which to avoid bumping into Brianna or, indeed, his own trepidation. He’d decided to leave getting dressed in what passed for his finery until later in the morning, so he pulled on his regular trousers and slumped downstairs to the kitchen.
Blackjack Strike was sitting at the table, deep in conversation with Flem Hemlock. Silence fell like a priest’s cassock in a brothel as Bill reached the bottom step. He was too wrapped up in his own dark thoughts to consider too deeply what his father and the bride’s father might be discussing, so he gave a brief ‘good morning’ before sitting at the table and cutting a big slice from the loaf.
“Morning, lad,” Blackjack said.
Bill nodded at his father, while chewing on the slightly stale bread. “Dad.”
“Big day.”
“Mmm.”
Bill got the distinct impression that his father and Flem had been talking about the upcoming wedding and, judging by their expressions, it hadn’t been the sort of care-free reminiscence that two future in-laws might be expected to engage in. The two men, so different in looks5, wore the same worried frown.
“What is it?” Bill said, finally cracking.
Blackjack shrugged. “What’s what?”
“You two. You look as though you’re about to go to a funeral.”
Flem’s face coloured. “Sorry, lad. Don’t pay us no heed, we’re just a couple of dads being all unnecessary.
”
“Is that right?” Bill snapped. “Because it seems to me that most of Brianna’s relatives don’t think I’m good enough for her.”
“Ah, well, you ‘ave to understand that she’s a bit special to us all, she’s the only girl in her generation, see, and she’s seen off any advances by cousins and suchlike.”
Bill reached for the loaf, but put the bread knife down when he realised he was waving it about. “Cousins? I should think so.”
“Oh, it’s not so unusual out here in the country, but then cousin can mean different things to different folk,” Flem said. “But what they’re wonderin’ is what’s so different about you that she said yes? They don’t see nothin’ remarkable.”
Bill chuckled without humour. “Probably because her mother insists I keep my abilities secret, I daresay they’d be more impressed if they knew I was a fire wizard.”
“I doubt it. We see lots of weird stuff out here, near the stones and all. And it certainly ain’t your wizarding that’s swayed our Brianna, that’s for sure.”
“What is it then?”
Flem looked Bill in the eye for the first time. “I dunno, lad. I was hoping you’d be able to tell me.”
Chapter 3
CHORTLEY RODE THROUGH THE GATES of Hemlock’s farm, enjoying the sun on his face as the morning warmed. The one advantage of attending his brother’s cock party the previous night was that he’d woken up stone cold sober. Chortley was a man on a mission and he wasn’t going to let the infuriating behaviour of his half-sibling and relatives once removed to deflect him, however tempting it might be. I mean, these people simply hadn’t been brought up right and he’d be prepared to bet that most of them wouldn’t be able to tell a fish knife from a cleaver.
Overall, however, he was proud of himself for staying off what passed for liquor - it had required every ounce of self control to rein in his temper on more than one occasion. At least the Flaxbottom woman had been entertaining.
No, his mission today involved Velicity De Veer. Despite her father’s fall from grace she had, at least, been of noble birth so, from that perspective, she was an acceptable match. And she was the most gorgeous woman he’d ever seen - long, dark hair and a flawless complexion. As for the rest of her… he had a good imagination.
There was that unwelcome feeling again. If he’d had any friends, he’d have regaled them with tales of her beauty, and how he had seduced her with the infamous Fitzmichael charm6. But, since he was his own best mate, he’d found the inner monologue hollow and false. He couldn’t fool himself. For the first time in his life he wasn’t the only person on his mind.7
And so he was as dry as a kite as he dismounted from his horse and led it into a paddock to graze. The farm was bustling with rustics doing the sorts of things that rustics did on such rustic occasions. He didn’t doubt that, in their simple way, they knew how to have a good time, but it was done without sophistication (or, indeed, exploitation) and so it was a plain sort of enjoyment, the sort that didn’t have edges to it. He felt he could, for example, stroll up to one of the ruddy-faced women currently laying out the long tables over there and wish her a good morning with no need to examine her reply for a concealed weapon. How quaint.
He wasn’t going to do that, however. He was looking for Velicity. His heartbeat had, quite treacherously, kicked into overdrive as he'd dismounted and now all he wanted was to catch sight of her. All he could see right now was his half brother strolling out of the farmhouse, his face set in what Chortley had learned to recognise as a single-minded look of concentration. Nerves, perhaps. Chortley could relate to that. Mind you, he wasn’t the one marrying a knife wielding maniac.
And then there was a blur in the corner of his vision, as if the turf itself was flowing like an angry sea. It was heading for his brother.
#
Bill felt his feet being pulled from under him and the next thing he saw was the sky moving like a river above him as he was transported along. He opened his mouth to shout, and a dirty cloth was bundled in and somehow tied around the back of his head. He tried to kick out, but his legs were already bound together and his arms flailed wildly at thin air as he seemed to be floating along the back of the farmhouse, unregarded.
And then, as he desperately twisted his head left and right in an attempt to catch a glimpse of anything that might explain what was going on, he saw a flash of green and realised he’d passed into the narrow, hedge-lined, lanes leading away from the farm. Leading away from help.
It was probably only minutes later that he came to a halt, dumped as if a mattress had been pulled from beneath him. He was rolled onto his side and his hands bound together by what could only be described as a pair of lizards. Wearing trousers.
“Keep silent and you will be safe. Try to summon your powers and I’ll slit your throat.”
Bill flipped himself onto his back and looked up. It was an elf, but, unlike the only other elf he’d ever met, this one looked well fed and in peak condition. It was a healthy elf, though not necessarily one he felt inclined to trust. To believe he was in no danger from a creature that had successfully abducted him from a farm full of people on his wedding day using, it would appear, a reptilian army, would be a clearcut case of elf and safety gone mad.
The elf regarded him closely for a moment. She was on her hands and knees and, after looking him up and down, turned to a point on the ground beside her. “Are you certain it’s him? He’s not what I was expecting.”
“We watch, mistress. Very long we watch,” came a harsh, croaking reply just beyond Bill’s visible range. “He came long time ago, fire from his hands. It is him.”
“Mistresssss, mistresss!”
Bill glimpsed a tiny hand as it entered and left his field of view. He imagined it belonged to a lizard on a pogo stick.
“Be quiet,” the first voice said in the sort of forced, and very loud, whisper generally reserved for parents of annoying little children interrupting them as they tell a well constructed lie. “I is the master here and I speaks to the mistress.”
The younger voice subsided into a barely audible mumbling and, if Bill’s hearing were to be believed, an annoyed scuffling of patent leather shoes in the dirt.
The elf shook her head. “I find it hard to believe that this is the fire wizard,” she said, “and the cause of all our strife.”
“It is he. I has seen the fire come. Nearly turned old wrinkly cross woman to coal.”
Bill’s mind instantly rewound back to the moment when Mother Hemlock and Gramma had taken him out into the fields, perhaps this very field in fact, and attempted to teach him how to control his powers. Gramma had almost been incinerated.
“Mistressss, mistressss!” Now the higher voice had the tone of a child in really quite urgent need of a convenience.8
“I has told you. I is massster here. Now shuts right up,” the first voice said.
The elf produced a knife which flashed as it caught the sunlight. “I am going to remove your gag. If you make a sound, I will cut your throat.”
The words had the sort of concrete reality that you could make a garden patio out of9 so Bill nodded his acquiescence. The elf flourished the knife again and slashed down expertly.
“My name is Stingzlikeabee,” she said, “and I want to know what you did with my sister.”
#
Afterwards, Chortley was asked why he hadn’t raised the alarm immediately. It was pretty simple, really - he needed to make certain he wasn’t going mad first. He’d seen the grass move like a carpet towards where the upper half of his brother strode along. And, at just the moment Chortley expected to see a collision, Bill had disappeared.
Chortley had stifled a cry and burst into what was, for him, a sprint. For anyone else, it would have been a labouring stumble, but, as a Fitzmichael, achieving physical fitness had been something he’d left to the serving classes. He had stamina in spades, but acceleration in teaspoons. By the time he’d rounded the paddock and could get a clear view, his b
rother had vanished. It was as if the ground had swallowed him up - which, given that he’d just seen the earth move (although, admittedly, with just a suggestion of tiny legs) seemed a reasonable hypothesis. Until he saw that the ground here was, in fact, the irresolute cobbles of the Hemlock farmyard. The only answer, then, was that he must have either run off very quickly (and Chortley didn’t believe his brother was capable of that sort of speed) or somehow been abducted. Okay, there was a third option - Bill might have been disintegrated by some magical force, but Chortley didn’t believe in that sort of luck.
He could just have walked away at this point, whistling perhaps as he retraced his steps in a nonchalant fashion. But that would be risky. At some point, Bill’s absence would be noticed and questions would be asked about why Chortley was seen in the vicinity of his brother’s last known location. Not that this bothered him since, as a Fitzmichael, he was immune from all laws except those handed down from the empire. No, it was she that bothered him. If he saw his brother in trouble of some sort and failed to act, he would have to explain himself. Not to her directly, but to himself. And he would know that she would be disappointed. Bloody women.
And so it was that he found himself lumbering along the muddy lanes (at least, he hoped it was mud) leading away from the farm, his eyes on the ground looking for any signs that a tidal wave had washed through.
#
“Mistresssss!” the little reptile was now jumping up and down with extreme urgency. The bigger lizard looked as though he’d give anything to be able to slap her, but wasn’t sure what the upshot of such an action would be.
Denizens and Dragons Page 2