by Ben Galley
More booing erupted as the figure was directed onstage, led by a portly sheriff and two lordsguards. He was in full view now, standing in the crosshairs of the town’s rage. A few pebbles clattered against the wooden boards of the stage. A handful of lordsguards moved in to hold the lines back. Merion was shoved sharply in the back as the crowds shifted.
‘Calm yourselves!’ the sheriff shouted. His uniform was fancier than his subordinates’. The bright eight-pointed star on his chest glinted in the sun. ‘I said calm yourselves! Justice’ll be served to this one by a rope, not by rocks and angry hands, you hear me?’
There were a few shouts, but the crowd settled. The mood was like a bow at full stretch, ready to cast an arrow deep into the Shohari’s chest. This crowd wanted blood, and it would have it.
Muttering now, as Lord Castor took to the rickety steps. The Shohari was hissing strange words under his hood, straining against the ropes around his wrists. A dig in the ribs from an armoured gauntlet put an end to that.
As if to spite the sun, Castor was wearing a fine leather jacket and draped in a dark green cloak emblazoned with the sigil of his house. Merion tried to creep forward.
‘You see before you an invader, an intruder, vermin!’ Castor yelled, his voice loud, clear, and harsh.
Cheers came from the crowd. Castor was playing them like a fiddle. As the rope was brought up and slung over the top of the scaffold, Castor continued. ‘His kind would have the railway we’ve toiled so hard to build ripped up and left to rust.’ There were more boos and curses. ‘His kind would have this town razed to the ground. He would have us left rotting in the sun with blue-fletched arrows in our backs!’ There was shouting now. Fists punched the hot air. Merion had begun to sweat.
Castor turned to jab a finger at the Shohari’s chest. ‘His kind will fail miserably,’ he said, and his audience clenched their fists and jaws and nodded even more. A hush fell once again as the noose was lowered over the Shohari’s head. The condemned struggled and cursed in his foreign tongue. His rage and fear turned to nought but gurgling as the knot was pulled tight. It could have been the heat-haze, but Merion swore he saw his bound hands shaking as the Shohari was pushed towards the edge of the stage.
‘Let this one be a message to any other Shohari that think Fell Falls is for the taking. We will not be so easily removed from our businesses, from our homes. We have a future at the shore of the Last Ocean!’ Castor raised his hands and his lordsguards stepped forward. ‘Captain Orst,’ he nodded to the nearest man, ‘put an end to this vermin.’
Then came a shove, a gasp and a snap as the rope cracked taut. The poor Shohari halted with a sickening crunch. He swayed back and forth while his legs kicked. Not a sound came from him. It would have been drowned out by the cheering and yelling of the crowds. He swung like a gruesome pendulum as life ebbed from his reach. Merion did not take his eyes off of him for a second. He could not. He stood like a statue in a roaring crowd.
Three full minutes it took, for the Shohari to stop twitching, and for the crowds to slake their thirst for justice. When they finally began to trickle away, like an angry, swollen lake spilling over its own shores, Merion was left standing on his own, staring at the body dangling from the knotted rope. Life was a strange thing, he thought. All the miracles of the Almighty, swept away by a long drop and short stop. Nothing was left of hopes, dreams, fears, and hates but a bit of meat hanging for the vultures. It was such a fragile line that Merion could not help but be terrified by it.
It was only when he heard the deep voice of Lurker behind him that he turned away from the spectacle.
‘Never been one for hangin’s,’ he said. He touched the brim of his hat, and Merion shrugged.
‘I’m not sure if many people are,’ the boy replied.
‘Watching it I mean. Seen enough hangin’s in my time. Your first?’
Merion unfortunately had to nod. ‘When they caught the Southmoor Strangler, father delivered the sentence personally. Half of London turned out to see him hang. Sixty-two murders tends to make you quite notorious.’
‘I imagine so.’
Merion turned back to the makeshift stage and spied Castor Serped marching southwards with a train of lordsguards in his wake. Gile was there, in his bowler hat. A smaller figure walked beside him, her long blonde hair flowing out from beneath a bonnet.
Merion started running, sparing not a moment to excuse himself from Lurker’s side. Answers were more important than manners, on this one occasion. Merion closed the distance in five seconds flat.
‘Calidae!’ he blurted as he ran. Two of the lordsguards whirled around, hands already at their sword hilts. Suffrous Gile tipped his hat with a wink of his blue eye. Merion brought himself to sharp stop and bowed low. ‘My Lord, my Lady,’ he said.
‘Relax, gentlemen,’ Castor ordered. ‘Master Hark. What brings you out into the hot sun to ogle at such a spectacle?’ There was no condemnation in his tone, just a slight quirk of curiosity.
Merion looked over his shoulder at the swinging body, buying himself time to dig out the right answer. ‘Justice,’ he replied, when he turned back.
Castor raised his chin, possibly to hide the tight smile that had appeared on his thin, pale lips. ‘And rightly so,’ he said, and then waved to Calidae. ‘The coach awaits, daughter. A minute, no longer.’
‘Yes father,’ Calidae nodded, her bonnet bobbing. Merion’s heart thumped.
After a moment full of the rattling of light armour and stamping of boots, they were alone. Calidae stepped forwards to smile at Merion. His face instantly mirrored hers, only his was a little toothier and crazed than he would have liked. He felt his cheeks begin to rosy up.
‘It was very good of you to come last night, Merion,’ she said, sketching a little curtsey.
Merion’s cheeks were beginning to ache. Stop smiling, you buffoon. ‘It was my pleasure, honestly. And I have you to thank for that. Your father sent a wiregram to London for me, to Constable Pagget,’ he said, his words rushed and short of breath.
‘Then you’ll have news within the week,’ Calidae chimed.
‘Hopefully so,’ Merion nodded enthusiastically.
‘It would appear that you are in my debt then, Merion Hark,’ she replied, a little coyly if Merion was not mistaken. He had to agree, and tried a coy smile of his own.
‘I suspect you’re right. And what exactly would you have me do?’ Merion felt the corner of his mouth tugging upwards. Something daring held the puppet strings.
Calidae looked up at the blue sky and hummed to herself. ‘I think I will wait and see,’ she replied, before fixing him with her widest and brightest of gazes. ‘You never know when I might need you.’
Merion could only bow. He would not trust his face not to betray his silly, boyish blushing. When he arose, praying he wasn’t the colour of a beetroot, he stepped forwards and lowered his voice, even though they were standing alone in the dust. ‘On another note, erm … This might sound slightly odd, Calidae, but …’
‘What is it?’ she asked, tilting her head.
Answers must be had. ‘Was there blood in the wine last night?’
A horrid, heavy moment passed where his breath hovered somewhere behind his tongue.
‘Blood …?’ Calidae echoed, her face slowly scrunching up into something very close to disgust. Merion began to sweat.
‘Not that would be wrong, of course. I completely understand. My aunt, you see, she has this theory that if you drink blood you can … I mean you … Erm. Have you ever heard of a lamprey?’
There it was. The full mask of disgust and horrified confusion. Merion’s hands began to quiver. ‘I’m sorry. Wait …’ he said, a last ditch attempt to grab onto something before tumbling over the cliff-edge of social suicide.
‘Have you been drinking this morning, Master Hark?’ No Merion this time. Almighty.
‘No, not at all! I just …’
‘Well then you must be sun-baked, because otherwise you wouldn’t ho
nestly be suggesting that my family and I are some kind of savage, blood-drinking beasts, now would you?’
Merion shook his head as fast as he could. ‘That’s not what I was implying. I know all about …’
Calidae did not bother to curtsey before walking away. ‘Disgusting,’ she said. ‘After we invited you into our home, after my father showed you such kindness …’ She sniffed imperiously. ‘Good day to you, Master Hark. Put on a hat, before your brain boils any further.’
Merion was left standing alone and drooping, his jaw hanging slack with utter bewilderment and abject horror.
‘I’ve ruined it,’ he told himself aloud, his words slow and sludgy. ‘I’ve bloody ruined it.’
He watched until the carriage disappeared behind a general store. His salvation was no more; whisked away by the crack of a whip and a clatter of wheels. That, and his cursed tongue.
And his cursed aunt. Yes.
This was all her fault, not his.
Merion felt his knuckles creak as he clenched his fist. ‘She ruined it.’ He said it louder this time.
‘Ruined what?’ said Lurker behind him.
Merion twitched. ‘And you wonder why they call you Lurker,’ he snapped over his shoulder.
A creak of leather as the man shrugged. ‘Why’s your face all red?’ he asked.
Merion literally growled. ‘Because I’m an idiot, that’s why, for listening to that godforsaken aunt of mine!’
‘What’s she done now?’
‘Filled my head with nonsense about lampreys and cannibalism, that’s what! And I had to go blurting it out to Calidae!’
‘Those lampreys?’ Lurker pointed in the direction the carriage had gone.
‘You too?’ Merion was glaring so hard it felt as though his eyes would seek their freedom and pop out of his face at any minute.
Another creak. Another shrug. ‘I’ve always had my suspicions.’
Merion raised his fists and held them shaking in the air. He gritted his teeth and let out a strangled snarl.
*
Lilain was on the porch when he returned to the house, sweaty and caked in dust. She had her arms crossed and was leaning against the doorframe. She looked as though she had been there some time.
‘Where did you go?’ she asked.
‘To watch something die,’ Merion snapped back at her as he climbed the steps.
‘Ah,’ she lowered her head and poked at a splinter with the toe of her boot. ‘The hanging.’
‘Excuse me, please,’ Merion said. He wasted no time bowing or scraping. He stared at the thin gap between Lilain’s elbow and the dark of the house, wishing it was wider, wishing he did not have to ask.
‘Alright,’ she replied, and moved aside. ‘I thought we could make amends.’
‘I’m tired,’ came the mutter of a reply, shortly before the bedroom door slammed.
Lilain sighed as she turned back to stare at the world beyond her porch. She wondered what exactly she had done now.
Chapter XXV
A BITTER WIND
‘Merion and I made a pact today. He said if he ever gets to be Prime Lord, like his father, that I could be his secret advisor. I almost laughed right there and then. Just the thought of Karrigan’s face.
Truly though, the boy has become my friend these last few years. He’ll be twelve in a week.’
4th June, 1867
‘You know why they say your blood boils when you’re angry?’
‘I know very well,’ Merion gritted his teeth against the surge of power he felt in his hands. It felt good, like the wood to his fire, the chorus to his raging song.
‘It’s because it does. The angrier you are, the harder you rush, boy. Now that can be a good thing once in a while, but right now it ain’t. You’ll turn your insides to a pulp if you ain’t careful, hear me? This is a tough shade,’ Lurker admonished him.
Merion was not listening. He was busy focusing all his pent-up anger, as if he were running a whetstone down the edge of a sword, as he had seen the guards do back at Harker Sheer.
Home. The blood raged within him. For a day and a half he had been left to simmer quietly in his room. A day and a half for his thoughts to tie themselves in knots and chafe themselves to threads. A day and a half of Rhin rustling and poring over maps and diagrams, and whatever else he could get his sneaky grey claws on. He had largely ignored the boy, despite Merion inviting him along to his training sessions. Merion had given up asking what the hell he was up to. It was something big, that was for sure, big, dangerous and possibly nefarious. But although Merion secretly harboured a fear that his small friend was about to get them into an enormous amount of trouble, it was buried under his boiling, bubbling anger.
Anger at listening to his aunt and trying that Shohari blood.
Anger at stabbing his chance of going home through the heart.
Anger at disappointing Calidae.
Anger at disappointing his father yet again.
‘Steady, Merion!’ Lurker broke him from his reverie.
Merion held his hands out straight and squeezed all of his power into one singular point. The air cracked like a whip between his rigid fingers. Sparks popped and snapped in his palms. Fingers of lightning crawled across his forearms, dancing between the saluting hairs and pimpled skin. Merion pushed harder. The lightning pooled in his cradled fingers, bent and crooked like claws. In each palm, a blue-white orb began to spit and crackle. Even in the late afternoon light, it was blinding. Merion closed his fingers around them, the veins and muscles straining in each of his arms. His eyes had become bloodshot, but still he pushed his fingers closer, compressing the orbs into piercing, burning stars.
When at last his fingers touched, the orbs vanished with another whip-crack. Merion was suddenly and violently bent double as a pulse exploded from him, breaking like a wave from every inch of his body. The wave swept outwards. Lightning crackled across the dust, throwing rocks aside and snapping the dead shrubs from their roots. Lurker cried out as he was sent tottering. He would have fallen had he not found a boulder to hold himself against.
‘Fuck me,’ he gasped, twitching involuntarily.
‘I would rather not,’ Merion replied, equally breathless. He fell to his knees and tried to shake the tingling from his arms and chest. His heart had either stopped or was beating so fast it had become a dull drone.
‘You’re a natural-born crackler if I ever saw one,’ Lurker said as he brushed himself off.
‘A crackler?’ Merion panted.
Lurker tipped his hat. ‘That’s what they call rushers who put the red of an electric eel in their belly. Met a couple in the south, back in the old days, ’fore the war. Though I ain’t ever seen one do that.’
Merion grinned, and Lurker took a step back. ‘And it looks like that ain’t the only thing you can do,’ he said, grimacing and pointing at his own teeth.
Merion raised his tingling hands and gingerly probed his mouth. His teeth were razor sharp, filed to points. That took the edge off the rage; that was for sure. It took a full minute for the shade to fade, and for his teeth to return to their normal selves. Merion was relieved to say the least. He did not take his fingers off his teeth for a long while.
‘Rhin would have loved to have seen that,’ the boy muttered.
‘Where is that faerie anyway?’
‘Hiding underneath my bed, refusing to come out. Something’s spooked him, but he won’t tell me what it is. Another problem to add to the pile.’
Lurker sighed. ‘Look, boy, so you ain’t the Serpeds’ favourite flavour at the moment. That ain’t to say you ruined this forever, Merion. You need to calm down, or you’ll end up burning yourself out. I’m talking about you, mopin’ around, glarin’ at everything, fists clenched all the time. You’re angry. We get it. Do something about it instead of tryin’ to boil away to nothin’,’ Lurker said.
‘You don’t understand.’
‘Oh,’ Lurker wagged a finger. ‘Being shackled in a place you d
on’t want to be? I know all about that, boy.’
Merion had forgotten himself. A trickle of ice-cold guilt ran through his hot veins. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘That you are,’ Lurker nodded, before raising his head to the western sky, where the burning sun was busy sinking. ‘And look who decides to finally show up. Lazy corvid.’
Merion felt a wing brush his ear as a piebald shape flew past him. He flinched, and as he did so a spark flashed across the back of his hand. Merion winced and rubbed his skin. Jake croaked as Lurker stroked the obsidian feathers under his beak.
‘This is why you can’t get too angry. Don’t do no good, boiling blood when you’re rushing. Soaks deeper into your heart.’
Merion hadn’t a clue what that meant, but he agreed that it did not sound like the best idea in the world. For the first time in a day and a half, he took a deep breath and tried to push his anger back for a while.
‘Come,’ Lurker waved a hand, ‘let’s try another shade, before that sun sets.’
But Jake was having none of that. He hopped from Lurker’s shoulder to his arm and squawked long and loud before jabbering away. Merion got nothing from the cackled words, but Lurker was listening intently, and as he did, his face began to fall, and the muscles along his jaw began to clench.
‘What’s the bird saying?’ Merion asked.
‘Let’s get back to the house. Now,’ Lurker ordered as he reached for that cannon he called a pistol, letting it dangle by his side. Jake croaked once more and fell silent.
Merion did as he was told. He got the most distinct impression that this was not a time for discussion.
*
Darkness fell like a sheet over a corpse. Merion jogged alongside Lurker, weaving through stables and outhouses to avoid the main streets. Merion listened to the music spilling from the taverns, the yells from a dozen fights in the workers’ camp, even the shrieks of fun from the windows of a nearby whorehouse. He shot a glance at the bruising sky. No matter how hard he squinted, he could not spy a single star, not one glimmer. Even the moon was absent tonight. Something about that was terribly ominous.