The Changeling's Fortune (Winter's Blight Book 1)

by K. C. Lannon

  What will the military do now that they’ve got no king to answer to, no government? As much as he wanted to deny it, the thought of his father taking over did not comfort him.

  It’s treason.

  Philip’s accusations of his father’s treason echoed in his skull. If those accusations were true, then General Callaghan had caused more harm in the city than any low-ranking criminals or faeries ever could have. But questioning his father felt more like treason than anything else. Questioning anything that the Iron Guard ordered was treason, yet it did not seem as severe to Iain, though it was just as shameful.

  “D’you know what Boyd’s been calling himself?” Philip suddenly asked, making Iain looked up. Philip’s expression was unreadable in the fading light, his eyes like hollows. “He calls himself General Callaghan’s weapon. Not a person, but a weapon.”

  Iain imagined it would be easier on Boyd that way, to think of himself as a weapon. But it hadn’t been a weapon whose knuckles had bruised and broken his flesh, tangled fingers in his hair, pulled his head back to look into a faceless weapon’s eyes, and spat curses in his face. A weapon hadn’t terrorized and injured innocents at a parade or plotted to kill a king or let smoke choke a city.

  “You want me to feel sorry for him then?” Iain asked sharply. “If he had anything to do with what happened, he’s just as guilty as the one who gave him the orders.”

  Philip turned to look at him in the dark. “If it was your brother that had done this—”

  “My brother wouldn’t have plotted to assassinate anyone,” Iain insisted.

  “But if he had, would you give up on him?”

  Iain was silent.

  No… I would never give up.

  “You wouldn’t.” Philip turned on his headlight, which bathed the camp in a red glow. “That’s the one thing I know about you, Callaghan. Despite everything, the one thing I can consistently respect about you is how much you care about that lad.”

  Iain’s chest tightened. He knew Philip was right.

  “I’m not asking that you forgive Boyd or lie for him or anything like that. All I’m asking is that you help me figure this out and get justice.” Philip stood over him. “Can I count on you, Callaghan?”

  “Once we find James, I can think about it.” Iain answered slowly at first, feeling as if he were watching himself speak from a distance.

  “You promise?” Philip asked.

  Never thought I’d be making a promise to a Prance brother that didn’t involve knocking their blocks off. Maybe it’s all a setup and Boyd’s crouching in the bushes somewhere waiting to catch me. Iain held back a dazed, tired laugh at the ridiculous mental image of Boyd popping out of the thicket like a rabbit and pointing at him triumphantly.

  The absurdness of his own thinking made him realize just how much sense Philip’s suspicions made in contrast.

  Iain sat up, facing Philip in the darkness, all the humor gone from his mind. “Once James is safe,” Iain promised firmly, “I’ll do whatever I can to figure this out. I promise.”

  Philip slumped over slightly, resting his hands on his knees and exhaling in relief, thanking God in a whisper.

  Iain knew he wouldn’t be able to feel any relief until he found his brother. He ran his hands over his face roughly. “What will we do then? What do we do about our mission, about the girl?”

  How does Deirdre fit in with all this?

  An image of her flashed in his mind. A defiant girl sitting in a fortune-teller’s tent, looking too human and too unaware in the midst of Ferriers Town.

  If Philip was right in saying that General Callaghan and Boyd had orchestrated the assassination, then what role had Deirdre played, unwittingly or not? Deirdre played the role of a naive orphan. An innocent. A friend to James, who’d never really had anything resembling a friend before. If she had intentionally caused any of this mess, she was a better liar than anyone he’d met thus far.

  “We’ll take the girl back to the city as planned, but when we get there, we’ll talk to General Windsor. He’s a good man and a good general. He’ll know what to do.”

  “Take her back?” Iain asked, confused. “But that’s what General Callaghan wants, isn’t it?”

  “That might be true, but she’s still a wanted faery. She was arrested for possible theft a few hours prior to the assassination, but she escaped. She might be working with your father, for all we know.”

  Iain sighed and threw his hands in the air. “Are there any other important details I should know about? Just get it all out in the open now.”

  Philip ignored his poor attempt at humor, plowing on ahead. “We go through with the mission as planned. We don’t take any chances with her, got it?”

  After Iain agreed, they settled into a comfortable silence again. Philip insisted that he take the first watch while Iain at least attempted to sleep, so he settled down at the base of a large oak tree and closed his eyes.

  A strange sound brought Iain back to reality, from the edge of unconsciousness. It was like a whistle, high-pitched and seemingly moving about in the air, changing directions. He hadn’t even noticed the chill that was in the air or that Philip was standing and staring into the field.

  In the darkness, all he saw were the faint outlines of hills, the swaying of the grassy fields and leaves in trees.

  The whistling grew louder. Iain flipped on his headlamp and hurriedly grabbed his bag and shouldered it as Philip motioned frantically for him to get up. Before Iain could stand, there was a deafening crash from above him, and before he knew what was happening, he was showered with debris and thrown flat on the ground, knocked over by something.

  The tree had fallen, only just missing him. He was covered in splinters of wood and twigs and leaves. Disoriented, Iain struggled to roll over and face the sky to get his bearings.

  The red light of his headlamp reflected something: one impossibly large, glassy eye, peering at him unblinkingly. As Iain scrambled across the ground on his back, his light flitted over a massive, twisted, bulky body. It wasn’t a normal giant. There was something off about it, something grotesque, but in the darkness Iain could only see one hulking leg. The figure towered over him, blocking out the stars.

  “Callaghan!” Philip was shouting at him, but he sounded so far away. “Get up! Move!”

  The whistling sound came again, this time even louder. Iain spotted part of a giant metal chain that the creature was swinging through the air. It had felled the tree with it.

  He gasped as the chain swung past his head with such force that the air stung his face. He got up and immediately stumbled back over a fallen branch.

  Philip grabbed his arm and yanked him to his feet. The creature did not chase after them as they ran. It didn’t need to.

  They heard the sharp whistling sound again, so loud it rang in their ears. Iain turned blindly to see where it was coming from.

  “Get down!” Philip shouted and grabbed Iain around the waist, pulling him down. There was a sickening sound of the chain meeting something solid, of breaking bone. The pain must have been too great for Philip to make a sound.

  Philip’s arms fell away from him and he slumped over. Iain pulled him back up, grabbing ahold of Philip’s jacket and pulling him into his arms. He could feel Philip’s body twitching unnaturally, could hear a choked gurgling sound, could feel hot blood spilling over his hands as they gripped Philip’s shoulders.

  Iain heard the whistling again. He hauled Philip onto his shoulders and stood shakily to his feet, screaming from the effort, and started to move as fast as he could manage. He felt the chain whip past him, narrowly missing his back.

  He kept running blindly. Philip was limp and heavy on his shoulders. Even when he could no longer see or hear the creature behind him, he did not stop.

  In the cold, grey light of morning, there was no denying the damage the blow had done to Philip’s body. Iain had walked until dawn broke, until he was certain they were no longer being followed. When he saw telephone wi
res and a road in the distance, he veered from the fields and followed the road until he came to a small, sparsely populated area. There were only a few farmhouses ahead, but Iain was hopeful they’d find help.

  Iain laid Philip’s unconscious body by the roadside and sat down beside him. He’d become conscious several times during the journey, only to make unintelligible, garbled sounds or to scream in pain, only to pass out again.

  “Philip?” Iain had asked, trying to encourage him to speak, to stay conscious.

  “Weapon—” Philip’s hand had scrabbled uselessly at Iain’s chest, grabbing on to his jacket.

  Iain had attempted to assure Philip that the creature was no longer following them, that they didn’t need a weapon, that Philip was safe. Whether or not his assurance helped, Iain did not know.

  Looking over Philip in the morning light, Iain wondered how the other soldier was still alive at all. The chain had whipped across Philip’s neck and head. There was too much blood to see what damage had been done, but he knew the head injury was grave. The way Philip had been moving, Iain knew he was seizing. He had managed to staunch the flow of blood from the gashes on Philip’s head and neck, but he knew the bones were fractured in some places. There was little else he could do with his limited training.

  With bloodied, shaking hands, Iain found his radio and flipped it on. Contacting General Callaghan was his only option. He peered around first to find out where they were; somewhere in the Surrey Hills, judging by the street signs.

  When Iain finally got an answer, he began explaining what had happened. He calmly went over every detail he could think of and then waited for his father’s response.

  “I’ll send a team to help right away. There are troops stationed nearby; they’ll be contacted to meet you with medical in an hour. Can you move him to the town?”

  Iain slumped over on the ground, as if all the strain was finally allowed to catch up with him after the long night of walking. “Negative. He’s too rough to move him.”

  “What about the monster? Did the hostile follow you?”

  “It was. It might still be.”

  “Get out if you can. I can track your location through your radios. Keep one on you.”

  Iain nodded to himself dazedly. All through the night, he thought he heard the whistling sound or the thundering crash of a tree being felled.

  “Have you found James and the girl?”

  “I’ve lost their trail.”

  There was a long, empty silence on the other end. Iain wondered if there was interference of some kind, but he heard static. Iain shook the device uselessly. He thought General Callaghan must have turned the radio off from his side, though he didn’t know why.

  “Keep tracking them,” his father’s voice finally came. “Medical will come for Commander Prance soon. That’s an order.”

  The radio abruptly clicked off, and he knew for certain that this time the general had turned it off.

  “I think—I think he’s dying,” Iain said into the radio. He knew his tone, small and lost, betrayed him. But no one was present to witness his momentary weakness.

  Philip began to stir again. As carefully as he could manage, Iain gently lifted his head and placed a rolled-up cloth under his neck. He hoped Philip would be able to breathe easier. Philip’s eyes, clouded with red, opened slowly and focused on Iain. For a moment there was clarity in his eyes.

  When Philip held out his hand weakly, though it seemed like he could barely move his arm, Iain grabbed his hand without thinking about it. Philip attempted to speak, but no words came out, only faint noises. Iain knew that talking to him would be best to keep him conscious. He didn’t know what to say, what he could say.

  “I remember—I remember one summer, when you and Boyd left to visit your gran in Ireland, yeah? You came back and showed me all the photographs from your visit you took. They were great, professional-like. I’ve never been to the Irish coast, but it’s— The water’s so blue, but dark. Most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. The green hills, and the cliffs, the rocky shores…”

  Philip squeezed his hand, as if encouraging Iain to continue. Iain kept talking uncertainly until he noticed that Philip was no longer looking at him but at the sky. His hand had gone slack in Iain’s grasp. He’d gone so suddenly, so quietly, that Iain hadn’t noticed.

  “Philip?” Iain’s fingers moved to Philip’s wrist to check for his pulse. Nothing.

  He stared at Philip’s swollen, nearly unrecognizable face, and it was easy to convince himself that the body was not his. He couldn’t imagine Philip being gone. He’d just heard him laughing yesterday. He’d just been talking to him. Philip was impossibly loud in every way, in the way he spoke, his presence. His life should somehow be harder than most to snuff out. He felt like Philip should have gone out fighting, not quietly. So quietly.

  Iain wiped his sweating face on the back of his sleeve. His hands were stained with Philip’s blood. He looked at the road ahead of him, at the silent stillness of the morning. Grass blew gently in the breeze.

  Iain did not want to leave the body. It felt wrong to leave him even if he was obeying orders. But eventually he did. He was on his own again.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Deirdre woke with the sun and immediately got up, dusted herself off, checked her hair for insects, and then began to stretch out the stiffness that came from sleeping on the ground. James slept like a log until the sunlight was shining right on his face, and afterward it took him a while to even sit up. Last night he had muttered a few times about how uncomfortable his sleeping arrangements were, and his opinion had clearly not changed. He sat there, stretching half-heartedly for a while and wincing with stiffness, his eyes still half-closed.

  “We should get an early start,” Deirdre said, finishing her last stretch. “We can get water from that well as we head out and eat breakfast as we go.”

  James only responded with a light nod, but he did not seem to be in any hurry. After waiting a few minutes, Deirdre pointed out an enormous squash bug that was crawling onto his leg. This encouraged him to leap to his feet impressively fast, though he took his time wiping himself and his things off, checking for insects, before they headed off.

  After packing up, they headed down to the well. While James pulled up another bucket of water, Deirdre took out the map, looking at the course James had drawn in colored pencil earlier. It led through a stretch of woods and fields, then straight toward the orphanage, circling around the village.

  They found and stuck to that path. Deirdre led the way, as some of the terrain was familiar to her. After about an hour of relentless, brisk walking, James spoke up in a tired, half-whining voice, “Can we take a break?”

  She recognized that tone. It was often used by the girls she took on camping trips when they were getting worn out and beginning to consider mutiny, so she readily agreed.

  They were in a wide, leafy grove in a stretch of woods. At its center was a half-wrecked, rusted car, covered with vines. She slipped off her backpack and plopped it and herself on the hood. She plucked a pebble off the bottom of the windscreen and tossed it in the air, catching it each time.

  “We covered a lot of ground yesterday.” James had regained his composure and was sitting on a fallen log near her. “More than I expected.”

  After flinging the pebble as far as she could (missing her target of a far bush by several feet), Deirdre began to run her fingers through her hair, inspecting it again for anything caught in it and immediately finding a couple of leaves. After carefully placing his backpack on the log, James got up and stretched, beginning to walk at a leisurely pace around the grove.

  Deirdre was still fishing through her hair when, on the other side of the grove where the trees cleared, James called her. “Come look at this! Look! We are in a faery forest!”

  “What?” Jumping off the car, Deirdre rushed over to him, asking, “Is it a faery? Did you see one?”

  “No, look!” He pointed at a line of mushrooms that e
xtended in a wide arc out of the grove and into a grassy clearing. It looped around in a full, perfect circle, well over forty feet in diameter. The grass around and inside it was short and cleanly cut, as if it was on a lawn rather than in the middle of abandoned woods.

  Recognizing all the signs, Deirdre sucked in her breath. “This is a real one.”

  “Aren’t they all real?” James asked, a bemused grin on his face.

  She shook her head. “No, the smaller ones that aren’t taken care of are just naturally occurring. I’ve only ever seen one like this before…” A small, nervous smile formed on her face. “You’re right. There are faeries here.”

  She began to walk along the outside of it, studying the mushrooms as she went. They were Scotch bonnets, which were edible. She felt thrilled for one second, but then her elation quickly dropped away—taking mushrooms from real faery rings was strongly warned against.

  But that means there might be some others in this clearing. She licked her lips. That would be wonderful. Maybe we could pick some to take to the orphanage…

  Sighing, she glanced up, thinking to inform James about searching for these mushrooms elsewhere as they continued. He was staring inside the circle, his attention fixed intently on something. Following his gaze, she saw nothing. She looked back up just in time to see him step over the mushrooms and into the circle. The focused look on his face immediately vanished; his eyes glazed over, but he kept walking slowly toward the center of the circle.

  “James! Get out of there, now!”

  He didn’t respond; he didn’t seem to have heard her. She ran around the circle, standing on her toes as close to the circle as she could get without breaking it, hoping to grab his shirt and yank him back out. She leaned and reached, her fingers brushing the back of his shirt.