by Ben Galley
The blood slid down his throat with all the speed of cold honey. Merion desperately tried to swallow it down as the bullets flew.
The Mistress sung out again, and the gunfire halted for just a moment. ‘Go!’ Lurker hissed.
Merion seized his chance. As he leapt from the tree and dashed for the desert, he felt the magick bite. He tensed as it began to flow with his blood. This was a fierce little shade. He could feel it coursing up his spine already, eager to get to work.
Another bullet zipped through the branches, spinning splinters in its wake. One of the guns had been turned on him. The boy pushed the magick down into his legs and found himself zig-zagging through the low bushes like a burst of lightning through cloud. It felt like his muscles had just awoken from a long sleep, and he finally knew how to use them. He gritted his teeth and powered on, bursting out of the copse and curving around to come at the attackers from behind.
Merion saw the muzzle-flashes a dozen yards from the treeline. There seemed to be seven, maybe more. Every time a gun crackled, Merion caught glimpses of a glowering face, the brim of a hat, or a threadbare jacket. Bandits indeed, he inwardly spat. Common thieves, come to kill and steal. Merion’s nervousness slunk away. He had no love to spare for thieves or murderers.
The young Hark scurried low between the boulders, holding his rock as tight as he could, twitching with every gunshot. The Sand Rabbits were spread out in a line, diagonal to Merion. Speed would be the essence. Fortunately for Merion, speed is what chipmunk blood is famed for.
The boy darted forwards as the nearest man stopped to reload, cursing to himself as another of Lurker’s bullets ricocheted off the rocks. The resounding thunder of Long Tom could be heard now as well. Merion raised the rock high and before the bandit could react, he brought it down hard against the man’s temple. He went as limp as a dead snake, relinquishing his gun and bullets to the sand.
‘Over here!’ came the startled cry of the next man along the line, already swinging his pistol at Merion. But the boy was faster, ducking just in time. The gun fired at nothing but darkness. Merion spun as he rushed forward, swinging the rock upwards into the man’s groin. The bandit howled and folded in two. There was a dreadful, muffled bang as he fired a round into his own stomach in pain and panic.
The other five were now all bringing their guns to bear. Merion gulped and blindly hurled himself to the side as their muzzles burst with fire. Though his mind may not have willed any finesse into the dive, his muscles had plenty to spare.
Merion rolled agilely to his feet and darted from side to side, puffs of sand exploding around his feet. Not a single one seemed able to touch him, though a few came perilously close. Merion just grimaced as he lurched from side to side, ducking and dipping, never in one place for more than a whisker of a second.
Before he knew it, he was swinging his rock again, swiping another of the guns aside. A blade flashed, and Merion skipped back. A muscle in his stomach spasmed, and for a moment he thought he was done for. But it was Rhin, pouring further chaos on the dwindling pack of bandits. Fae steel slashed through leather and cloth, sliced at calf muscles and tendons. One man went down with a bloodcurdling scream, clutching at the backs of his legs. A sword to the back of his skull silenced him. Rhin, still only half-visible, wrenched his blade free and shook the blood from it. It was hard to keep up the spell in the midst of battle, but Rhin was more practised than most. He held his blades out to the side and began to jog forward. The remaining bandits were now shooting madly at the desert. Far too high, and far too wide.
Nobody ever suspects a faerie can do so much damage. Rhin raised his knife and threw it hard, catching a bandit in the chest. The blade may have been small, but it was as sharp as a winter wind, and hurt like the depths of hell when it caught bone, which it had. While the man clutched his chest, his face crinkling into a wail, Rhin bounded to the top of a nearby rock and lunged at him, his wings buzzing loud and strong. Rhin sailed through the air, slicing the man’s throat as he flew past his head.
A few paces away, Merion found himself being grappled from behind. Even while rushing the chipmunk blood, it caught him off-guard. He managed to roll instead of pitching onto his face. A brawny bearded man with wildness in his eyes stood over him. He had a small knife in one hand, and was jabbing it at the boy.
Merion felt the blade whistle past his ear. He smacked his rock against the man’s ribs, but the other just wheezed and barged forward, pushing Merion off his feet again. They fell as one and the boy felt the breath driven from his lungs. Magick rushed into his arms and hands, wrenching them upwards before the knife plunged into his heart. One hand grabbed the man’s throat, the other his wrist. They writhed and strained, wordlessly, muscle versus magick, with the only prize being life.
The bandit broke Merion’s hold by ramming his forehead into the boy’s brow. Sparks exploded behind Merion’s eyes and he reeled. Out of the corner of his vision, he saw the man raise the knife high for the final strike.
But whatever luck he’d scraped from the day stayed with him. Lurker loomed from behind, grasping the man’s knife hand with two of his and driving it hard into the man’s forehead as he turned in shock. He was dead before he hit the dust. Lurker raised the Mistress and fired, once, twice, and the desert fell silent.
Only panting and the ringing in his ears filled the vacuous absence of gunshots and yells. Rhin was busy retrieving his knife from its temporary home.
‘Thank you,’ Merion panted, still regaining his breath.
‘Don’t mention it,’ Lurker rumbled, his dark eyes roving the rocks around them, watching for any further trouble. The desert offered none, at least for now. A few shapes could be seen, hurtling towards the distance. ‘Nice job,’ he said, helping the boy to his feet. The magick was wearing off now, leaving Merion trembling and short of breath. He swore silently never to doubt chipmunks again.
Once they had washed the blood from their hands and blades, and stamped the fire out, they all huddled up, leaning their backs against each other. The only light they had was that of the bright stars above and the fat half-moon in the south. Rhin sat between Merion and Lurker, his black sword on his lap. Even though he appeared to be relaxed and lounging, he was a coiled spring, ready for more should the night offer it.
‘Who were they?’ Lilain whispered into the darkness.
‘Bandits. Must have seen the fire and fancied their chances,’ Lurker told her, contempt dripping from his voice. Merion wondered if they reminded him of his wife’s murder in some way, recalling the story Lurker had told him at the edge of the Buffalo Snake’s fires, all those weeks ago. ‘Just a small crew, probably watchin’ the road.’
‘Got what they deserved,’ Rhin said.
Merion shut his tired eyes for a moment and grimaced. The image of the bandit raising that knife seemed to be etched into his eyelids. He could not stop playing it over and over again in his mind. What could he have done? What should he have done? Yet every time, that knife rose, poised to plummet down and bury itself in his heart. Merion felt his teeth began to chatter, and told himself it was the breeze. The exposed bones of weakness are always cold.
Seven dead and not a word traded with any of them. A simple, raw transaction, it seemed. But survival always makes murder a little easier to swallow. They had all rolled their die and the bandits had come up short. Merion just could not shake the feeling that the margin had been too narrow. Whether it had been over-confidence, or simple outnumbering, Merion could have died at that man’s hand tonight, and was a sliver away from doing so. Had it not been for Lurker, it would have been Merion lying out there in the sand, unburied and unblinking, staring blankly up at the stars with a knife through the skull. And that, Merion swore to himself, would simply not do at all.
As the boy felt the tiredness begin to ferry him off to sleep, as his eyelids sagged and his body grew heavy, he made himself a promise. He would train, and train hard, and he would never let this happen again.
‘
Merion,’ Lurker whispered to him. The prospector was dangling in the clutches of sleep himself. His hands rustled in a pocket. ‘I forgot I had this,’ he said. ‘Found it a few days back in the fort, and brought it thinkin’ it might cheer you up. If we run into it, that is. It ain’t good to focus so much on one thing all the time, and I should know,’ Lurker rumbled. There was a crackle of paper as he found what he was looking for. ‘My father took me to a circus when I was just a boy, and I never forgotten that day. Lions. Elephants. Pretty girls spinnin’ on ropes and wires. All sorts of things. It was one of the things that used to keep me going when I was in chains. Seein’ another circus again. Yes Sir. First thing I did after the war.’
Merion looked down and found a half-ripped poster in his lap. He turned it over and squinted at the words in the dappled starlight. ‘Cirque Kadabra’, it said. Merion turned around to thank him, but Lurker was already snoring. Lilain was taking the first watch.
Merion traced the lines of the words and the gaudy images of wild beasts and grand tents filled with all sorts of strange wonders. ‘Heading east,’ he mouthed the words along the bottom of the poster. Merion read them again, and again. He remembered his own words, standing bloodied and beaten under a grey sky and Fell Falls burning in the distance. Old words came and insinuated themselves into his mind, spoken to a grey morning and a burning town. Head east … Earn a wage and travel till we hit the coast.
Merion closed his eyes, a little idea beginning to blossom in his mind as those old words lulled him to sleep.
He would rush in circuses if he had to.
*
Two hundred miles behind them, the cold light of the half-moon shone down on a small shack nestled in a gully of red rock. A tallow candle burnt at its only window. From its tiny chimney, fashioned from scraps of beaten iron, a thin trail of wood-smoke bothered the speckled sky. A tall pen made of sun-bleached wood and stolen railspikes sat outside its lopsided door, where a dozen goats slumbered peacefully.
Inside the shack, somebody was whistling. It was a tuneless sort of whistle, a sort of whistle to pass the time, or fill a lonely silence.
But for once, Barnamus was not lonely, and tonight his whistle was something else entirely. He warbled a jaunty tune of satisfaction as he ground his pestle and mortar together, clearly content with himself for some reason or another.
Barnamus paused to lift the mortar to his nose and sniff. It smelled about right, he thought. Resuming his whistling, he got up from his stool and walked to the back wall. He knelt down by his prize, tied to a bent pipe in the wall, and rested the mortar on the rough wooden floor.
‘Time for more medicine, girly,’ he whispered, dipping his finger in the pungent mixture and waggling it under her nose.
Calidae stirred, the stiff rope around her wrists creaking as she awoke. She breathed in, caught one whiff of the medicine, and thrust her face away from it. ‘No,’ she croaked. ‘I don’t want any more.’
‘But you’re almost healed,’ Barnamus cooed, running the finger along her bare shoulder, where the sackcloth did not cover her. The mixture was cold, and the skin still raw in places. Calidae bit her lip and shivered, trying to shrug herself away from the man. Barnamus grabbed her by the chin and hissed in her face. ‘I got to fix you up first, otherwise nobody’ll want you. Now you stay still, you hear?’
Calidae glared daggers at him, but she stayed still enough for him to slather the disgusting-smelling paste across her shoulder, neck, and the side of her face, where it hurt the most. She cursed under her breath as he smeared it across her cracked skin. After two weeks, she was beginning to heal.
‘Such a foul tongue, for a young girly like you.’
Calidae bared her teeth at him, half in pain, half in anger. ‘I told you! Nobody will pay anything for me. I’m just a maid!’
‘And I told you that if’n you came from that boat, and you got yourself an Empire accent, then somebody’ll want you. Maids are like goats, see, they’re for the ownin’. You’re property. And property that’s returned is rewarded,’ Barnamus told her with a grin. ‘And if not, I’m sure I could find you a little brothel somewhere, with an owner that’s lookin’ for somethin’ different.’
‘You disgust me,’ Calidae whispered, and then winced as Barnamus pressed a little harder on her scalp.
The goatherd whistled away until he had used up all of his mixture, and Calidae’s skin glistened with the oily, greenish medicine. She glared at him as he sat back, like a painter admiring his handiwork. ‘Another week, I reckon,’
Another week of being cooped up in this hole. Another week of his hands on her. Another week of pain and enduring his rambling nonsense. Calidae raged inwardly. She had already tried to escape once. She knew the price of disobedience. Her ribs still hurt.
Barnamus’ gaze wandered over her, from her scars and bruises, some faded, some fresh, down to her sackcloth coverings. The scrap of material could not cover all of her, even though she had her knees tucked under her chin. Barnamus, his wrinkle-bound face devoid of any emotion, reached out a hand and touched her foot, sliding his fingers across her filthy skin.
Calidae stayed as still as a skeleton, and her eyes glazed over with a look to match. Barnamus’ fingers wandered higher, leaving a trail of green across the top of her foot and up her ankle. Onto her leg, they crept, and still Calidae did not move. Barnamus shuffled closer, and as his hand reached her thigh, he leant forwards to hold her bound wrists. He would not have a repeat of last time. The bruise around his eye still looked tender to the touch.
What a human bite lacks in sharpness, it makes amends for in rage and ferocity. The animal may have been filed out of our teeth, but not out of our soul.
Calidae wrenched herself forwards with all her might, opening her mouth as wide as possible and sinking her teeth into the mottled skin below the curve of his jawbone. She bit down as hard as she could, feeling his skin break under her teeth and the warm blood on her tongue. The taste drove her on, harder, deeper, until she could feel her teeth touching again. Only then did she pull away.
Pain replaced confusion as she ripped the chunk from his neck. Barnamus’ scream was piercing, and as he reeled backwards, and fell flailing on the floor, blood flooded from the gaping hole in his neck.
Calidae had hit an artery, just as she had hoped. Blood dripping from her mouth, she scrabbled away from the dying, thrashing man, watching every one of his last moments with wide eyes. She was enraptured, half-horrified, half-fascinated by what she had done.
Barnamus clutched at his throat and strained to stop the blood from flowing, but it was no use. The girl had sunk her teeth deep.
In the end, he died staring up at the rotting ceiling, and at the girl standing over him, wrists still bound yet free of the pipe. Her face was a mask of blood and gore, and there was a defiant spark in her eyes. She licked her lips, feeling more than a shiver of magick, and looked to the door.
‘Tonmerion Hark,’ she spat blood. ‘I’m coming for you.’
Chapter VI
THE DEEP TUNNELS
25th June, 1867
‘War in the east! Ottoman Empire set to fall!’
‘Tzar Alekzander makes promise to see Turks defeated!’
‘Her Majesty Victorious to send aid!’
‘Prime Lord Dizali despatches ambassadors to seek ceasefire!’
Mr Witchazel eyed the monochrome pictures with a creased frown, letting the high-pitched hollering of the scrawny paper-boys wash over him. He tipped back his hat, staring at the foreign dignitaries shaking hands, the Ottoman clockwork cannons, the locomotives crammed with troops brandishing tall fur hats and curved swords. Witchazel shook his head and kneaded his furrowed brow. The papers had spoken of nothing but war since he was a child, or so it seemed. But then again, he pondered, how else are empires to be built? Blood always follows in the path of greed.
Witchazel moved on, his gaze picking over the headlines and front pages of London’s papers. The morning was swiftly warming u
p, and the gutter-stink was rising. Behind him, the streets were filled with their usual clatter, the murmuring of people going about their varied business, and the rattling of hooves and ironclad wheels over centuries-old cobbles. Even in the shadow of the towering buildings that made a canyon of the streets, Witchazel was beginning to sweat under his blue pinstripe suit.
A shout cut through his reverie, delivering him a different headline from the others.
‘War in the west!’ proclaimed the boy at the end of the row, the place reserved for the smaller, more dubious paper companies. He belted it at the top of his lungs in a voice that had a long way to go before dropping. Witchazel manoeuvred through the milling crowds to get closer. The boy balanced on a pair of crutches, since his legs were withered and crooked. Polio, no doubt. It was rife in the poorer corners of London.
‘Say again, lad? War in the west, you say?’ Witchazel asked him, snatching for the paper the boy wafted under his nose.
The boy shuffled round to face him. ‘Indeed, Sir. King Lincoln ’as ’is ’ands full,’ he squeaked, as if he were allergic to a good old-fashioned ‘h’.
‘I see,’ Witchazel murmured, as he devoured the paper’s front page, catching words here and there, such as ‘Shohari’, ‘Wyoming’, and ‘frontier’. None of them were particularly reassuring.
‘I ’ear there was an Empire boy there when it all started, Sir. ’E escaped. Everybody’s talkin’ about ’im. Story came out last week, Sir.’
Witchazel levelled his eyes at the paper-boy. ‘Who, lad? Who?’
‘Page four, Sir,’ came the squeak of a reply.
The paper crackled as Witchazel practically ripped it open, and there he was: Tonmerion Harlequin Hark, bold as daylight, grubby as gutters, and etched in black and white for all to see. A willowy woman stood beside him, and a dark man in a hat too.
‘ ’E looks just like ’is father, says my Da,’ said the boy, hand already itching for the coins he hoped were coming his way.