by Phil Parker
Fate had chosen to torture me by re-introducing Oisin, tempting me with him. It was the most exquisite torment, keeping the man I’d come to love again beyond my reach until he was taken from me a second time. Fate hadn’t just denied me my dreams, it had dashed them against sharp rocks that left his beautiful body a bloody mess.
I don’t know how long I cried but I woke again to light streaming through a window. It felt strange, to have a window that wasn’t boarded up.
‘How are you feeling?’
Amelie’s lined face smiled as she bent over me, wiped my face with a cool cloth.
‘Best get rid of those tear stains, eh?’
The mere mention summoned more of the salty bastards. She squeezed my hand and broadened her smile yet it was tinged with sadness.
‘I’m sorry Robin. No one deserves what you went through. But, if it helps, you’ve made such a difference. The war’s ended. The Fae have gone.’
I suppose I should have been pleased but I didn’t feel anything. Perhaps whatever kept the pain at bay was doing the same to my emotions, that offered an addiction I’d readily adopt.
She watched my reaction and her face clouded at the lack of response but then she said something that showed how much she understood of me.
‘I’m sorry Robin. We don’t know what happened to Oisin.’
I looked at her and felt a lump in my throat. Words were hard to form.
‘But Nimue kept her promise?’
A tight nod.
Before I could interrogate her further the twins entered the room. I felt Amelie’s hand tighten around mine as she told them I was feeling better, even though she hadn’t asked.
‘Does he know?’ That was Brea, terse as ever.
‘Know what?’
I tried to sit up but was pushed back by Amelie’s firm spare hand. She sighed and glared at the girl. Her brother watched me closely, I could feel him in my head, rooting around, it triggered big watery eyes as he looked into mine. He tried to smile but failed. Brea looked at him, then at me and frowned.
‘Know what?’ I asked again.
Amelie took a breath and smiled like the doctor that’s about to tell you bad news. I steeled myself.
‘You were very close to dying Robin.’
Just not close enough.
‘For a while we thought you weren’t going to make it.’
I’d depended on it but there was no point wishing.
‘They want me for murdering Llyr, don’t they?’
More glances but this time with smiles.
Finn placed a hand on the part of my shoulder that wasn’t bandaged.
‘Apparently Mab reported Llyr died in battle, honourably. There’s been no mention of your involvement at all.’
Brea giggled, I hadn’t heard the sound for the longest time. ‘She was more concerned about getting that Indian guy back and checking if what you said was true.’
‘I felt sorry for him. He looked petrified. What a shock, to go from slave to aristocracy.’ Finn turned to me. ‘How long had you known about his heritage?’
Now it was Amelie’s turn to giggle. ‘Oh, he’s known about it a very long time, haven’t you Robin?’ She was trying to distract me, to lighten the mood. She looked at the kids, face beaming with mischief. ‘You remember how Oberon and Titania fight over the Indian prince in A Midsummer Night’s Dream?’
They both turned to look at me, mouths open. Amelie laughed as she nodded her head in my direction.
‘Too much beer one night in a tavern with William Shakespeare.’
The three of them chuckled like school kids. It was good to see them happy again. She might be old but Amelie was the closest these two had to a parent. She was certainly much better than me. It gave me time to think about what Mab had done. If I wasn’t facing execution for killing the High Lord of the Dark Court what were they unwilling to tell me?
‘What are you not telling me? If it’s not Mab..?’
The mood changed and Amelie held up a hand as both the kids started to reply.
‘It’s about the pledge you made to serve Nimue.’
I was awake enough for realisation to strike me like one of Brea’s bolts of energy. The old woman had called my bluff. She’d known I was dying and wouldn’t be around to fulfil my obligations. I should have known no one reneged on a deal with the Lady of the Lake.
Fuck.
‘She took you and Oisin back to Tir na nÓg and then her people brought you back here to recover, before time ran out.’
Brea shook her head dismissively. ‘That was two weeks ago. You’ve done nothing but sleep all the time.’
‘But you don’t know what happened to Oisin?’
They shook their heads at the same time.
‘The Fae dumped you and left. They were in quite a hurry,’ Finn said.
I lowered my head and stared at my hands gripping the bedsheet. At least, I told myself, Nimue was honourable. If she’d healed me to fulfil my pledge, she’d heal Oisin to fulfil hers. He was probably lying in bed like me, in a Light Court bedchamber, recovering.
In another realm. A world apart.
But with Llyr and Oberon gone, there was no longer any need for my self-imposed exile. Amelie and the twins were babbling about the end of the war but I wasn’t listening. I could go home.
I could go home.
The thought brought more tears but I didn’t care. Brea noticed and sniffed disdainfully as she shook her head.
‘What are you crying for? Aren’t you pleased the army are destroying them?’
My puzzled look made her frown in confusion.
Finn looked at me closely.
‘He didn’t hear what we said.’ He blinked as he looked at me a little more closely and then swallowed hard. ‘Oh. Oh dear.’
His glance at Amelie told me that bad news was on its way.
‘He was planning to go back,’ the lad mumbled.
All three looked at me, frowned and glanced at each other in the assumption someone else would break the bad news. The long pause was unbearable. Apparently, fate had one more ace to play. Amelie gave a sigh of resignation, she hadn’t let go of my hand the whole time and she squeezed it harder now. I held my breath.
‘Mab returned hours after your fight with Llyr. She announced the end of the invasion and the withdrawal of all Fae forces. A week later an Army unit arrived in the town and confirmed it. They declared martial law.’
Amelie took a deep breath and tried a smile.
‘Remember Robin, you were the one that ended the war. It was your bravery.’
The words she and Finn had used earlier struck me now. The urgent need for the Fae to return meant one thing. The soldiers would have one objective to carry out beyond maintaining order.
Amelie sighed. ‘They destroyed the portals. They had to make certain there was no chance of the Fae returning. It’s happening all over the country, every historic site is being demolished.’
I nodded. The lump in my throat threatened to choke me but what words were there to say? I was trapped here. My exile was permanent.
The three looked awkwardly at each other and stood up. Amelie reached in the pocket of her pinafore and drew out a piece of brilliantly white paper that shimmered. I held my breath, I knew who it was from and its purpose.
‘I was told to give you this,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s from…’
It weighed no more than a bird’s feather. ‘I know who it’s from.’
The paper was folded twice and sealed with silver wax stamped with the sigil of an apple. I broke the bond and opened it. The message was short and written in a spidery handwriting. It was signed Nimue.
‘You know as well as I do this is far from over. Your vow to be my paladin was perfectly judged, even if you didn’t intend to fulfil it.
You will be my agent in the human realm, Master Goodfellow.
Mankind will seek vengeance. The Dark Court will use it to retaliate with even greater force. Next time they will not be l
ed by an idiot. There are forces abroad in the Dark Court that have ambitions beyond those of Llyr and I am no longer able to withstand them. The past is never dead, Master Goodfellow, it can return and cause chaos to both our worlds.
You must stop it from happening. That is your obligation to me.’
I refolded the paper, moulding the wax bond together again. Instantly the message evaporated into silver mist.
‘What did she say?’ Brea asked, suspicious suddenly.
I looked at the girl and her brother and smiled.
‘Apparently my obligation to Nimue is to continue to protect the Knights.’
Brea snorted. ‘Continue to protect? That’s a fucking joke.’
I wasn’t sure why I was lying about it, except that I needed to keep the kids safe, they’d suffered enough. Finn watched me, frowning now. I hastily emptied my mind.
‘But the war’s over. The Fae can’t return without the portals. Why do we still need protecting? It doesn’t make sense.’
I smiled reassurance. ‘We’re a long-lived and unforgiving race Finn. I’ll be your insurance, just in case.’
Death had rejected me. I was obliged to continue living, and as much as I hated the thought, I had to accept its decision. Part of me was a demon with a dark heart but I was also a soldier, pledged to protect others. I’d made vows to Nimue and to the twins’ father and Robin Goodfellow was an honourable man. I’d keeping trying to fulfil my commitments.
Hopefully next time, I wouldn’t fuck it up.
Want to know what happens next?
Robin may think things are over for him but they’re only just starting! He’s upset a lot of people and they want to get their own back. Plus, Keir is about to experience a very different life as High Lord of the Dark Court and Filidea is about to discover what life is like beyond the Light Court.
Read the first chapter of ‘The Renegade of Two Realms’
The Renegade of Two Realms: Chapter 1
People were trying to kill me.
Technically, they weren’t people but that didn’t matter, it was their determination that bothered me more. I stared at the kitchen ceiling and waited but the creaky floorboard refused to make another sound. I slammed my mug of tea on the table so that its steaming contents spilled over my hand and cursed.
‘Comes to something when you can’t enjoy a mug of tea without some bastard trying to kill you.’
The mug didn’t reply, none of the inanimate objects did, but it didn’t stop me talking to them.
I picked up my sword from its place by the back door, snatched a bag of salt off the kitchen table, stuffed it in a trouser pocket and hefted my sawn-off shotgun over my shoulder. Having weapons to hand was proving to be essential these days. I listened intently, still nothing.
I snuffed the flame in the lantern, plunging the kitchen into near darkness. Shafts of purple June twilight seeped through holes in the boards at my window, they offered all the illumination I’d need. I climbed the stairs on tiptoe, keeping my attention focused on the darkness in front of me.
Doors to the bathroom and spare room on the right remained closed, as I’d left them. Not so the door to my bedroom on the left, over the kitchen, I stepped towards it and listened carefully. Nothing.
Someone dropped on to my shoulders, wrenched the shotgun out of my hand and hurled it to the floor. An arm wrapped around my neck; thick, rigid hairs dug into my skin. My head got yanked back to expose my throat. I threw myself back against the wall before the attacker could finish what he started. It forced air out of his mouth, fetid and hot, I followed through by jerking my head back, smashed it hard into my new friend’s face. It was enough for the arm around my neck to release its hold slightly, I dropped my sword so I could perform a tight forward roll along the landing. I reached out, felt the pommel of the sword and stood up.
I wasn’t fast enough.
A hairy and very solid head hit my chest, forcing my arms to windmill as I tried to keep my balance at the top of the staircase. I grabbed at the vague shape in front of me, felt his greasy clothing as I lost my footing but held on to him as we tumbled downstairs.
We rolled, head over heels, and not always my own, until we landed in a tangled heap at the foot of the staircase. Somehow, no doubt rigorous training in my youth, helped me land without injury. My sword clattered after us but in the dark and cramped hallway, amongst the snarl of arms and legs, I was trapped with the hairy bugger on top of me. A narrow beam of light from a boarded window fell on a small but deadly looking knife in a hairy hand. I watched it draw back, knew I had a second, no more.
I brought my knee up sharply in the hope of connecting with the bastard’s balls, my luck was in, I struck soft tissue and heard a loud gasp of pain. The knife vanished but the gasp told me Mister Hairy’s head was directly in front of me. I lashed out with my fist, punched as hard as I could and heard him groan. Rather than give up, hairy hands clawed my face, clutched at my throat. We rolled around on the floor, like passionate lovers, as we both searched for the knife in the darkness while trying to inflict as much damage on the other person.
After failing to find the knife he rolled me onto my back, which gave him the advantage. He pinned me to the floor with his weight and tried to punch my dodging head in the darkness, I hoped it offered enough of a distraction. By raising my knees, I managed to lift him slightly, letting me free one hand just enough so I could reach into my pocket. I grabbed a handful of salt and ground the granules into the bastard’s face.
It generated a high-pitched wail, with his attention focused on the pain in his face for an instant I tipped my new wrestling partner sideways. A couple of frantic seconds later I found my sword and thrust it into the darkness, hoping luck was on my side.
The blade point penetrated something fleshy but without any real resistance, so nothing fatal, probably a limb. Mister Hairy grunted something I didn’t understand, probably cursing my ancestry or my good luck. Fighting in darkness didn’t bother this guy, I needed a change of location. I ran into the kitchen. Heavy breathing followed just behind me, the stumbling sound suggested I’d wounded the bastard’s leg, I hoped it would slow him down.
Just as I flung open the back door, my foe pounced. We staggered outside and rolled around in my recently dug vegetable patch.
In the fading light I saw my would-be assassin for the first time; the small beady eyes set deep within a face covered in bristles and above a snout with protruding long whiskers, smeared in blood. The rest of the body was human in appearance and dressed in filthy clothes but now I knew what I was fighting.
A Fir Darrig.
The Light Court called them rat boys, not a name intended as a compliment.
Their ability to move without making a sound, their cruelty and lack of any morality made them perfect assassins. This bastard had deliberately made the floorboard creak to bring me upstairs into the darkness.
With him back on top of me again, I managed to hurl him sideways, to give me time to dig into my pocket and haul another handful of salt. He was so busy trying to stop me getting up he missed my hand as I rubbed the salt into the bloody wound into his leg. He howled, tried to brush away the granules clinging to his wound, which gave me enough time to get up and level my blade at the rat boy’s bloody face. Small black eyes followed the blade upwards until they met mine.
‘Tell me who sent you, you rat bastard or I’ll fucking skewer you!’
The creature said something unintelligible but judging by its snarling mouth and spitting delivery, he wasn’t offering to surrender. I doubted it could even speak English, languages were probably low down on the curriculum at rat boy school. Plus, there was an advantage in sending an assassin to do a job when it couldn’t give away any secrets, no matter how much torture you applied.
It prompted indecision, taking the rat boy prisoner was pointless but I couldn’t bring myself to murder the thing in cold blood, I was trying not to be too psychotic these days. My hesitation was all Mister Hairy neede
d, it hurled lumps of soil at me, rolled to one side and was on its feet in a blur.
It crouched and sprang, like a real rat, avoiding my blade in the process. It clung on to me, arms wrapped around my neck, legs around my waist so we staggered like drunken dancers, until the rat-boy headbutted me. For a brief second I smelled its putrid stench until my nose stopped working and blood trickled into my mouth.
Rat Boy tried using his body mass to force me up against the cottage wall, thereby restricting my mobility. I had other plans, I dug my heels into the soft ground and roared into his spiky face and pushed towards my garden shed. We grunted and pushed and pummelled each other like rutting stags, I got head-butted a second time but it didn’t have the same power. His leg wound made the difference in the end, it left him without the essential leverage so, with every bit of strength I could muster, I pushed him until I slammed him against the side of the wooden shed, forcing air out of its lungs in a loud gasp. The shed, which had withstood storms for years, lurched under the pressure, wood creaked and splintered and we crashed through one wall and landed on the floor, followed by dozens of objects that had sat on shelves. Rat boy glared up at me angrily as he sucked in air, blood trickled out of his mouth and a small pool of blood formed near one armpit. He made no effort to move and the pained expression told me he’d skewered himself on something. I struggled to my knees, leg muscles burning, still not sure what to do with my prisoner.
Somewhere nearby I heard a hissing sound.
I glanced around, wary of another attack until I spotted my hairy friend doing the same thing. We spotted it at the same time. A damaged gas cylinder.
‘Shit!’
I jumped up, evading the weak clutches of the rat boy and stood over him as his pool of blood grew bigger. He gave me a look of burning animosity, said something unintelligible again but didn’t try to move.