Bill touched Chortley’s forehead. His hand felt warm, but the skin beneath it cooled a little, as if heat were transferring out of his brother’s body.
“Chortley,” he whispered.
There was no answer, but Fitzmichael’s breathing grew deeper as Bill’s arm warmed uncomfortably.
“Chortley, can you hear me?”
Again no answer. Then, just as Bill looked at his mother, a hand swept around and grabbed his arm.
“You cannot take it from me!” hissed the voice of Chortley Fitzmichael. “It is mine!”
Bill fought to free his arm, but Chortley’s grip was unshakeable.
“You fool!” shouted Bill. “The magic is driving you mad, I saw the wreckage you left behind! Give it up.”
Fitzmichael rolled over, knocking Bill to the ground. “Never!” he roared, raising the staff to strike down at his brother.
“Stop!”
At the sound of his mother’s voice, Fitzmichael halted. Bill stared up into his eyes and saw his expression clear then become confused and frightened.
“The gift was not meant for you, my son,” the woman said, “it will kill you and, probably, all of us if you keep it.”
Chortley swayed a little then shook his head.
“Without it, I am nothing,” he said, his voice thick with exhaustion.
“No,” Bill said. “Without it, you are Chortley Fitzmichael, son of the ruler of this land. And we need you to gather an army.”
That stopped him in his tracks. A little of the real Chortley reasserted itself, and Bill imagined his brother picturing himself at the head of a column of troops about to have his vengeance on those who’d manipulated him. There was a momentary smile before he brought the staff down. Bill thrust up his arm in self-defence and grasped the other end of the staff.
There was a surge of heat and the feeling of something returning that had been missed, a sort of emptiness filling again. Chortley fell backwards to lay face up on the grass, his mother kneeling beside him. He quickly sat up, looking around himself as if seeing the world, and them, clearly for the first time.
Bill knelt beside him. “All hell is going to come through that portal any time now. There’s a horse at the bottom of the hill that knows its way to Crapplecreek - you need to raise the garrison and be back here by dawn. Will you do it?”
Chortley looked at his brother and the woman beside him. He had a natural dislike for being given orders, and his first instinct was to tell the two of them where they could shove their instructions. However, for all the haziness of the past days, he knew he’d been manipulated and humiliated, and violence was, for him, the natural way to recover himself and be revenged. He didn’t like his half-brother but raising the garrison at Crapplecreek was the best and quickest way to begin the killing.
He got up and crept to the edge of the stone circle, peering around one of the monoliths. A strange, goblin-like being stood beside the stone with a hole in it talking to several others, all wearing black armour. As he watched, another black-armoured shape stepped through the hole and stood, blinking, in the circle. For a moment, it raised its visor to sniff the air and it was all Chortley could do to prevent himself from gasping at the horror he saw.
Chortley Fitzmichael turned and ran down the slope to the familiar horse at the bottom. He leapt up and disappeared across the grass. Yes, he would oppose those things from the stone circle because he was going to do his best to make sure that he remained the most horrific thing in this world and that meant killing faeries and their slave soldiers. If, indeed, they could be killed. There was only one way to find out, so he tore across the countryside to have another chat with the garrison commander at Crapplecreek.
#
Bill and his mother sat in the grass and watched Percy disappear across the downs. “Quick, we must get away before he sends hunters after us,” she said before getting to her feet and helping Bill up.
“If we head that way,” he said, pointing back the way he’d originally approached the stones, “we’ll probably bump into someone who knows this country better than I do. Mind you, she might not be in a helpful mood.”
Grabbing Astria’s hand, he headed off, carrying the staff in his other hand.
As it happened, he’d hardly walked twenty yards when he spotted Brianna laying in the grass, her hands behind her head, staring up at the sky with, it seemed, not a care in the world. Bill approached her carefully but froze when she started speaking.
“Everything under control is it?” she said, not looking at him. “Managed to save the universe like the oh-so-masculine hero you are?”
Bill looked down at her. “Look, I’m sorry for chucking you off the horse, I didn’t want you to get hurt.”
Brianna shifted her head to make eye contact. “So, you sorted it then? I’m now completely safe as you’ve averted the apocalypse. Correct?”
“Well, not exactly,” Bill responded. “In fact, pretty soon a bunch of faeries is going to come down that hill hunting for us.”
“Oh dear, oh dear.”
Bill crouched down beside her. “I was wondering if you could help us. I need to find somewhere for us to hide, me and my mother.”
He shifted uncomfortably. “I said I’m sorry, I did it in the heat of the moment.”
She looked up at him. “There’s no point in running.”
“We can’t just wait here for them to find us!” Bill said, as his gaze swept the hilltop for signs of pursuit.
Brianna sighed. “Once the hunt is up, they’ll pursue you until they find you. They’ll do it ceaselessly and without tiring. I remember the stories my mother told me.”
“She’s right, my son,” Astria said, wearily. “They are relentless once they scent blood.”
Bill felt desperation welling up inside him. “But there must be something we can do!”
Brianna jumped nimbly to her feet, brushing grass from her breeches. “Our only chance is to hide where they’d least expect it.”
“Where?”
“Follow me,” She said, and strode through the grass in the direction of the stone circle.
Bill ran to get ahead of her. “But you’re heading the wrong way, that’s where they’ll be coming from!”
“Exactly,” said Brianna, as she pushed past him and headed for the foot of the slope.
#
“There!” Jessie Hemlock said. The others followed her outstretched hand as it picked out a circle of stones on the horizon.
They were lying amongst a small patch of gorse bushes that grew on the crest of a hill at the edge of the downs. Between them and the stone circle was a folded landscape of dells and dingles.
“I can’t see a bloody thing,” Gramma grumbled as she squinted into the distance.
Velicity shielded her eyes with her hand. She could see well enough. “There are shapes moving in the circle. I can’t make out individuals, but they look as though most are clad in black. There’s one in white and black, though. Quite dazzling.”
“That’ll be him.” Said Jessie.
Velicity pointed. “Look down there.”
“Well, I can see that,” Gramma said. Roughly half way between them and the stone circle, a ragged group of men emerged from a hollow. “We’ll never catch the buggers.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Jessie Hemlock said, “seems our vagrant captain ain’t so keen to meet his master. Look, he’s hangin’ back.”
Gramma hauled herself, grumbling, onto her feet. “Right, let’s get ‘im, I’ve ‘ad just about enough of this skulkin’ around. C’mon.”
And she plunged down the hillside, the others following in her wake.
#
The Faerie King waltzed around the stone circle as, one by one, black figures emerged from the doughnut.
“Come, my generals, don’t be shy,” he sang, “there’s a world to be conquered under a bright sky.”
Bently dodged his twirling master as he made another pass around the increasingly crowded c
ircle. As the Faerie King approached him again, he cleared his throat.
“Yes, my servant, what do you say?” he sang.
Bentley opened his mouth to respond then almost bit his tongue off in his haste to close it again as his master continued.
“Do you have good news to relay?” crooned the King. “For no other cause should disturb my play.”
Suddenly he stopped, and the stone circle became silent.
The butler wiped the blood from his lips with his sleeve. He was committed now, best get it over with.
“I shimply wondered, mashter, whether the hunt should begin. They’ve had quite a head shtart.”
The Faerie King’s face creased in puzzlement, almost as if he’d forgotten. He quickly recovered, however.
“Ah, but it’s the sport, my dear Bently. We must give them the ghost of a chance, mustn’t we?” he smiled. “But, you’re right, they’ve had long enough to hide. Generals Swissjeez, Elderjam and Grime, return our guests if you please.”
Three figures extracted themselves from the black group gathered in the centre of the circle, bowed, and ran down the bank, the glint of steel at their hips.
#
Bill watched as the hunters set off, holding his breath as they passed beneath the tree he was sitting in. All it would take was for one of them to stop and look up, and it would be all over. But they didn’t hesitate, their eyes cast downward as they followed the trail.
Relieved as he was, he felt wretched. Somewhere along that trail was Brianna, and he dreaded to think what would happen if they caught up with her, as they surely must. But it was her plan, it was a clever one, and he was in no position to deny her after his stunt, as she called it, earlier. When she’d led them back along their trail to the small stand of oak trees that sat near the foot of the hill, he’d thought they would hide there together but, just as he’d climbed onto a branch mid-way up and hidden amongst the yellowing leaves, she’d run off. He’d called, of course, but she’d simply run away from the hill, reinforcing the trail they’d now followed twice.
“She’s leading them away,” his mother had whispered. “You choose your friends well.”
A darkness had descended on Bill as he thought of her, hounded by those creatures. He’d seen the state of his mother and Fitzmichael, so he needed little imagination to picture what would happen to Brianna when they caught her and found that she’d led them away from their quarry. If nothing else, their fear of their master’s wrath should they return empty-handed would push them to desperate and, probably, violent measures.
“Do not underestimate her,” his mother had said as if reading his thoughts. “I’ve only just met her, but I think there’s more to her than meets the eye.”
Bill had chuckled at that. “You’re not wrong there, mother.”
But he couldn’t get out of his mind the image of her running, alone and desperate, pursued by monsters out of the worst nightmares. He sat in the tree, watching as they disappeared into the distance, before turning his attention to the top of the hill. “More are coming through.”
His mother stirred next to him, shifting to get a better view. “I have seen his army, my son. We may have escaped his hunters but, in a few hours when he has gathered his host, we will be overwhelmed and forced to witness the last Faerie War and the subjugation of the Brightworld. For there is no-one left to oppose them.”
Chapter 28
The first signs of dawn spread across the horizon as Gramma rubbed her eyes. She’d not had a wink of sleep as the other two had a pact to poke her whenever she started snoring and, as everyone knows, you need a good snore for a decent night’s kip. Everyone being the snorer, naturally. Gramma understood the need for quiet, close as they were to the tramps’ camp, but she was feeling tired and cranky. Someone was in for a leatherin’.
“Right, let’s go,” whispered Jessie Hemlock as she crawled out of the bush they’d been sharing for the night and sat, waiting for the others to follow.
A grumbling Gramma brought up the rear.
“My brain’s right faggled after bein’ poked all night,” she said, looking accusingly from one to the other, “and I can’t remember - are we goin’ in together or on our own?”
“Together,” Velicity said, rolling her eyes. “We went through this enough last night. Everything’s lost if we don’t get those vessels back but without our powers, we’re stronger together than apart.”
Gramma nodded. “Right-o. Let’s get it over with, I’m sick of bein’ just a deaf old woman.”
“But we’ll go slow,” cautioned Jessie. “We ‘as to get close before we can make a dash for the vessels.”
“And once we’ve got them, oh we’ll make them pay,” Velicity said, her normally placid features hardening.
Gramma hauled herself up, hefting a large stick she’d found the previous day. “That we will lass, that we will.”
#
Bill’s mood deepened further as light spread into the hollows of the downlands. He’d dozed during the night, propped up against the trunk of the tree with his staff across his lap, but he’d been aware, from time to time, of movement below and around them. Now that dawn had arrived, complete with the incongruent twitter of birds in the surrounding trees, he looked out between the golden leaves to see a landscape covered in black. They must have been coming through all night, he thought, and who could oppose them now?
He could see a mass of black figures swarming around the foot of the hill, the closest of them just a few yards from where they hid. All hope left him. There must have been thousands, so many that even the famous legions of the old Varman empire would fear to face them. And more were coming, minute by minute, hour by hour.
“There is nothing you can do,” his mother said, her face half shrouded in the orange half-light.
He turned to look into her sad eyes. “Then what’s the point in having the gift if I can’t do some good with it?”
“The point? There is no point, the gift is just what it is. You have been unlucky to receive it too late to be of use,” she said.
Then after pausing for thought, she continued. “Perhaps if my father had, at the height of his power, destroyed the king when he defeated him, he might have prevented all this, but he was weakened by his love of my mother, and of me. Because of his foolishness, the king has won. He has come into the Brightworld and death follows.”
Bill considered this, feeling anger and desperation filling his soul. As a young man, he’d not really thought about the long-term future until he didn’t have one and now he found himself gripped with the regret of a potential life that would remain un-lived. It was only days ago, though it seemed much longer, that he’d spent his time chopping wood, building charcoal kilns and wishing for a more fulfilling, exciting, life. Be careful what you wish for, he thought. And now he sat in a tree while a ghastly army was crapped out of another dimension to pollute his world.
Life’s a piece of shit, when you look at it, he thought.
He then held out a hand to his mother. “The time for hiding has passed, let’s go.”
For a moment, Astria looked puzzled. Then she took his hand, and they climbed down together.
#
Brianna had made it to the false safety of the yard at Hemlock’s Farm before they caught up with her. She had been running all night, cursing herself for her impulsive decision to lead them away from Bill. Of all the stupid ideas. At the time, she’d had no plan, and this vacuum had led her, inevitably, towards home.
She knew, instinctively, that they were close behind. She reached the outer gate of the yard, tripped as she tried to vault it and fell to the wet cobblestones as a cry of triumph went up behind her. She felt cruel hands grab her back and twist her over, and she was staring up into the sort of face that couldn’t be conjured up in even her worst nightmares. She saw big, bright eyes in that dark face and a flash of yellow fangs as the creature bent over her. The fangs descended and then they were gone.
“Get your filth
y claws off my daughter,” bellowed Flem Hemlock, as he brought the club in his hand to bear on the second hunter. The creature bore its teeth and screamed as it leapt. Hemlock swung wildly and fell backwards beneath it.
Brianna stood, drew her dagger and threw herself on top of the creature, stabbing downwards. But the blade deflected off something - hide or armour - and jarred her arm. Another set of claws pulled at her, and she rolled in the muddy cobblestones as Vokes reached down to help her to her feet. Between the two of them, they ripped the creature from Hemlock’s bloody body and threw it across the yard.
The three hunters crouched together, growling, as they faced their prey across the wet farmyard. Brianna looked down at her father, pulling back his jacket to reveal a cut to his chest.
“I’m okay,” Flem said, and Brianna turned to the hunters, standing beside Vokes.
“How do we kill them?” she said.
Vokes grunted. “We don’t. We’re the prey, they’re the hunters. Trackers such as these wear close fitting mail from shoulder to foot. Our weapons don’t stand a chance.”
With a scream, the three monsters raised their serrated swords and charged. The first collided with Brianna, sending her flying backwards onto the hard, wet, cobblestones. With an immense effort, she got onto all fours and prepared, dagger in hand, for death to come. In its moment of triumph, the creature yelled its battle cry and Brianna thought how odd it was that the sound reminded her of something she’d heard before.
#
A figure crept with arthritic care towards the makeshift tent. Flitting from bush to bush it passed, unobserved, between small groups of men sitting on the wet grass chewing on cheese and bread. It was so focused on its task that it didn’t notice its stomach groaning at the smell of mouldy Deacon’s Delectable, but simply passed, like a three-legged badger, through the undergrowth.
It stopped a dozen yards from the tent which was, in fact, nothing more than some mouldy canvas draped between a tree and the back of a cart. But Odius sat beneath it as if he were a king at his ease. Gramma ground her ivories as she watched him sprawl, half asleep, with a glass of wine in his hand. She smiled to herself as she anticipated disturbing his repose. All that remained was to await the signal, so she fixed her gaze at the gnarled oak tree they’d agreed on, fingering the pebble in her palm.
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