The Scarlet Star Trilogy

by Ben Galley

  Lilain peered into every nook and cranny the room had to offer. ‘What is it this time?’

  Merion paused his hopping to point at his foot. ‘Stubbed my toe.’

  ‘Are you ready?’ she asked. ‘It’s almost seven.’

  Merion shot a glance under the bed before he answered. ‘I am,’ he replied. ‘Let me just comb my hair.’

  Lilain wore a suspicious look, but she said nothing more than, ‘I’ll be on the porch.’

  Merion nodded and let her leave. He ran his fingers through his hair before kicking the frame of the bed. ‘I have to go. You do this, and you’re dead to me.’

  ‘If I don’t do this, you’re dead anyway,’ Rhin grunted. ‘Simple as that.’

  Rhin’s words put a chill in the boy’s chest. ‘So be it,’ Merion whispered. He did not need this thief of a faerie, this liar. He could fend for himself from now on. Merion had his rushing now, and Lurker, and Lilain. And the Serpeds, Almighty willing. He would be the master of his own destiny, not a selfish, twelve-inch tall beast with moss for brains. To hell with him, Merion told himself.

  ‘Tonmerion, the coach is here,’ came the shout from the porch.

  The young Hark sucked in a deep breath. He took one last moment to pinch his collar tight and check his shoes before leaving Rhin to his madness.

  The darkness, ushered in by the advancing clouds, was slowly sucking the light from the day. It was still hot but a breeze had come to stir the dust on the porch and to make the weathervanes rattle. Merion sniffed it cautiously, and was glad to find it was not as bitter as the last breeze he had tasted. The coach sat awkwardly in the middle of the street, one wheel halfway into a rut. A lordsguard sat on the cab, and the driver was waiting at the open door. Merion glimpsed shoes inside, and the telltale frills of evening wear. He would not be riding alone, it seemed.

  Calidae appeared in the doorway. ‘It seems you owe me yet another favour, Master Hark. My father will have you to dinner,’ she said, as if it were casual chit-chat in the street. It was then that she turned her attention to Lilain, as if only just noticing her. ‘Madam Rennevie.’

  ‘Lady Serped,’ replied Lilain, without a single hint of a curtsey or bow. She did not bother to correct her on the title.

  ‘The pleasure is all mine,’ smiled Calidae. ‘Merion?’

  Merion made for the steps, but Lilain caught him lightly on the shoulder. ‘Be careful,’ she whispered, before letting him go. Merion nodded, not quite sure what to make of that, and headed for the open door of the coach.

  ‘Your hair has grown far too long,’ said Calidae, as he sat down opposite her on the plush seats.

  ‘I heard it suited me,’ Merion could be heard saying, before the door cut him off and the coach stole him away to dinner.

  *

  ‘Get up, Rhin,’ whispered grey lips. ‘Get up.’

  If the sword hilt was a neck it would have been snapped long ago.

  ‘You can do this.’

  Rhin counted down from ten, but seemed to get stuck around five when another wave of emotion washed over him. He was sweating in places he did not know he could sweat, and there was a dangerous tremble in his legs. The sort of emotion he had not felt in several hundred years. Not since his very first spear had been pressed into his soft hands. He swiped the sweat from his forehead. Now those hands were rough and weary, shaped from murder and battle. Was this murder, or battle, he was going to tonight? Both, he realised. They seem very similar when compared side by side. It was the battle for his own safety, to save the skin of his only friend. And yet it was the murder of that very same friendship. Rhin rocked back and forth as the guilt came again.

  ‘I owe him,’ Rhin snapped at himself, chiding the doubt away. ‘And that is why I have to save him.’

  With a snap and crackle of his wings he was up and ducking under the frame of the bed. One hand was still firmly glued to his sword, the other to his chest, to marvel at how fast his heart was beating. He was halfway across the floor when he heard the almost imperceptible squeak of a door-handle.

  *

  Lilain stayed on the porch until the coach had disappeared behind a row of houses. After a hearty sigh, she went inside and closed the door with a click. The door to Merion’s room was shut, as always. An idea sprang up to bite her, and before she knew it, she was creeping across the hallway, pressing each heavy boot to the floorboards as if it were a feather being rested atop a house of cards. She narrowed her eyes as she reached for the door-handle. She knew what she was hoping for, what her wildest suspicions were taunting her with, but she also knew that she was most likely being absolutely delusional.

  Her hands wrapped around the handle, silencing any rattle that would betray her. Gently she twisted it. She was almost at the full turn when the blasted thing squeaked at her. Not loud, just the coughing of a mouse, but still enough to make her curse. Lilain lunged through the door, springing into the middle of the room with her hands wide and eyes even wider. Nothing. Just as she had suspected. The room was dead and empty, just as Merion had left it.

  Lilain rolled her own eyes at herself and shook her head. She was being fanciful, silly even, to suspect that Merion had been hiding something strange in his room all this time, something he’d brought from London that caused him to shout and argue…

  ‘Nonsense,’ Lilain told herself, before chuckling.

  Rhin had to smirk at that, as he crept through the door which Lilain had conveniently opened for him. His boots tread softer than wind blowing. His armour was silent, its edges muffled with cloth and magick. His spell was strong. It always was at twilight; a time that human eyes have never grown used to, despite being born to it, all those thousands of years ago. Lilain was utterly unaware. He had to smirk. It kept his mouth from quivering.

  Chapter XXIX

  THE HEIST

  ‘Another year, another birthday. Merion is thirteen now. It snowed today. Early, even for London. He played in the snow until his face turned blue. Karrigan had the servants give him some of his best brandy, and for a moment I thought a little differently of him. But then he bellowed at the boy for staying out too long in the cold. Made my blood boil. A son should never be scared of his father.’

  6th June, 1867

  It was cold under the charcoal clouds, far colder than a desert should rightfully be. The advancing storm had torn the heat from the day and used it selfishly, building and building itself until a colossal anvil lurked on the skyline, bound due south to come soak the scorched earth of Fell Falls. Rhin eyed its brutish, bubbling shape, clear as it was against moonlight and stars. Ash streaks of cloud spread their fingers across the sky, like furrows in a field. Or messengers of the approaching tempest, Rhin thought. If there was one thing Wyoming did well, it was a good storm.

  He flicked a nail against the track once more and listened to it sing. He wished it would sing longer, anything to distract him from his impending task. A faerie, robbing a train. Even when size difference was taken out of the equation, the idea was still laughable. Hysterical, some might say, the stuff of fairy tales. Rhin rolled those words around in his head until they dragged him to his feet. His knees ached from kneeling for so long. His fingers ached from constant wringing.

  ‘Come on, Rehn’ar, you’ve stolen bigger hoards than this,’ Rhin chided himself, trying to work the knot out of his throat. ‘What’s the plan?’

  Rhin’s week spent under Merion’s bed had not been spent in vain. Yes, there had been many long hours of staring at doors, sharpening swords and biting lips, but the rest had been spent poring over schematics and pictures and maps.

  Faeries may have been of the old world, but their minds worked just like the scientists of the new. They can see patterns just as easily as you can say the word. They can absorb information like a sponge, and most importantly, if there is a weakness in something, a faerie will find it. Rhin had been studying maps and plans for centuries. A good soldier always does, after all. Those who do not quickly find themselves in a ca
ge with a rabid mole, or dead.

  It had taken him a week to find it, that little gem in the crown that was his scheme. The secret of mastering technology is not to examine the alignment of gears and valves, nor the ingenuity of its torque and thrust, nor its multi-chamber boilers and cow-catchers. All that is needed is to master the man who already masters it—in this case, the driver and his brakeman. All Rhin had to do was make them do his bidding. The edge of a sword and the sight of a faerie might just do it. Humans. They were technology’s perpetual shackle.

  Rhin sniffed, tasting the night air. There had been one other problem of course: boarding a train travelling at around forty miles an hour. One schematic had put the weight of the locomotive alone at almost one-hundred thousand pounds. Rhin weighed about two. Solving that had taken far less than a week.

  Rhin spied the light on the horizon and felt his stomach begin to churn. The faerie took a breath and uttered his plan, blow by blow. Somehow it calmed him, set his mind straight and clear.

  ‘Last bend, five miles.’

  Rhin drew his sword with a flourish and held the blade low.

  ‘Light the fire,’ he told himself.

  His striking stone rasped across the blade and poured sparks on the kindling splayed across the tracks. He thanked the Roots and all their gods for keeping the storm at bay. Fire had been his only option, besides building a house on the rail.

  His kindling was dry as a week-dead bone. It took to flame in seconds, and it was not long before Rhin had to step back and cover his face. He had built a fire that no train driver could miss. It had taken him an hour, but in the end he had covered the area of a sizeable dining table with sticks and brush and twigs. It was well and truly ablaze now. Rhin shimmered into nothing and stepped aside.

  ‘Twenty-six and a half feet, and ten for luck,’ he ordered his legs.

  Rhin hopped from boot to boot as he counted out the steps in sharp breaths.

  ‘Six … seven … eight …’ Each hop was a foot, more or less. Moments couldn’t be wasted on having to catch up or to run, not at times like these.

  ‘Eleven … twelve.’

  Past the bogie now, and its cow-catcher. Their diagrams were etched into his mind, and now he could almost see them drawn against the night and the dully-shining rails.

  ‘Eighteen … nineteen.’

  Past the second axle now, in the shadow of the engine’s bulbous boilers, all wrapped in iron, with valves jutting into the sky in a trio. Never mind the humongous smoke-stack, standing proud and over-sized on the locomotive’s nose.

  ‘Twenty-six…’

  Now here he was at the back half of the engine, with the bigger wheels and their multi-cogged centres spinning madly.

  Now the cab, where the driver and his brakeman took shelter from the soot and steam of the iron beast, and shovelled coal. They were the brains of it, and Rhin couldn’t wait to meet them. Rhin jogged on.

  ‘Thirty-six,’ Rhin hissed. He could spare the half, he decided.

  He heard a screech in the far-off night, and not of any owl or dying thing. They’d seen his fire. The locomotive was breaking now, gentle and curious of the blaze in its path. Rhin could see the wake of its lanterns and fire-grate glowing against the sand. It was barely a mile away now and closing fast.

  More screeching, and a stammer in its heavy chuffing. Even the clatter of its iron changed. It was not about to risk the Lord Serped’s gold by charging through a fire.

  ‘Just as planned,’ Rhin smirked, as he rested his sword blade on his shoulder.

  Now for the hard part.

  *

  Nobody offered but a scrap of talk over dinner. The food may have been piping hot and as delicious as before, but the atmosphere was even colder, and the expression on Lord Serped’s face nothing short of terrifying.

  Merion placed his spoon and fork neatly in the crystal bowl and chanced another glimpse at his host. There he was, stern as a statue, as he had been for the whole meal. His face did not speak so much of anger as it did intense scrutiny, as if Merion were being sized up for the final course.

  With a cough, Lord Serped broke his vigil and got to his feet. It was as if he had heard Merion’s thoughts as clear as a bell.

  ‘I think we shall retire to the sitting room tonight. We have much to discuss,’ he stated, his voice rough and deep, as if sleep had escaped him the past few nights. ‘Gile?’ he nodded to his servant, who bowed. He had been standing in a corner, quiet as a rock. One blue eye, one green eye, both staring.

  ‘Yessir,’ he said, before scurrying off into another room.

  ‘Come,’ ordered Castor, and Ferida, Calidae, and Merion all stood up as one.

  The sitting room was warm thanks to the fire. Merion pulled at his collar as he walked into the room, already feeling the heat. Nothing like stewing your prisoner before you question him. Merion took a breath to steel himself. His destiny, his hands.

  Merion was pointed to an armchair right by the fireplace, a deep red thing that looked like a yawning throat. Merion perched on its edge to avoid being swallowed.

  ‘Brandy, Merion?’ asked Castor, and there it was: the test.

  ‘Please, Lord Serped,’ replied Merion, without a moment’s hesitation. Although his stomach churned, his face remained a mask of utmost politeness. He caught Calidae’s eye and smiled. She barely returned so much as a pout, much to his dismay. ‘I must thank you, first of all, for your help in keeping my friend Lurk … John, from the gallows,’ Merion said.

  ‘I have spoken to the sheriff,’ Serped commented as he poured. ‘Your friend shall be kept locked up for now. Until I say otherwise.’

  ‘He is no traitor, my Lord,’ Merion urged.

  ‘A drunkard and a brawler, from what I hear,’ he replied. ‘Be that as it may, he will stay behind bars for now.’ Castor took an own armchair directly opposite Merion and placed Merion’s brandy on a small table that sat between them. He did not remove his fingers from it. ‘So, my daughter tells me you have a theory about our beverages, Master Hark. Is that so?’

  So Calidae had told him. No secrets after all.

  ‘It is, my Lord. I believe I know a little something about what’s in that glass,’ Merion nodded to tabletop. ‘I’m not such a stranger to the practice myself.’

  ‘And what practice is this, pray Master Hark?’ Ferida queried him, two chairs to his right.

  ‘Blood, my Lady,’ he replied flatly. Might as well get it out there. ‘Drinking blood. In this case mixed with brandy, or wine.’

  Ferida snapped her head to glare at her husband. ‘So it is true, Castor. He believes us to be vampires. Savages.’

  Merion inched forwards on his seat. ‘Not at all, my Lady. I would not dare reduce it to something so crass as nonsense such as vampirism. Please, you must believe me when I say I am the same. I understand what you do and why.’

  ‘And how exactly?’ Unlike his increasingly distraught wife, Castor was calm and collected. It somehow made him seem more threatening.

  ‘Because I drink blood also. I’m a bloodrusher, like my father, sir.’

  Castor put his hands on the arms of his huge chair and leant back to think a while. He left the brandy alone on the tabletop. Stranded and masterless.

  Merion had come this far, he might as well go the whole distance, he decided. The young Hark reached for the glass and brought it slowly to his lips. It smelled as strong and as sickly he remembered. Merion took a liberal swig and cradled the glass in his lap as he swilled it about his mouth. He could feel every eye upon him, making sure he swallowed. He did not disappoint them.

  Merion felt the blood bite in an instant. It kicked him hard and made his head spin. This was far stronger than the last batch he had tasted. He winced and squirmed as the blood crept from his stomach to his head to his heart and back again. His skin tingled, as though it was trying to dance. So this was what being a lamprey felt like. Merion did not dare trust himself to enjoy it. His aunt’s words echoed in his head. Cannibalism. P
oison.

  Castor had raised an eyebrow. ‘Now, you understand,’ he said. Calidae and Ferida sipped their drinks, and to Merion’s dismay they did not bat an eyelid. Practice indeed.

  Ferida had dropped her mask of indignity, and instead now wore something of a coyer nature, as if she had just revealed a dark and wonderful secret to the room. Calidae was expressionless, staring ahead at the fire. Merion wondered what she was trying to avoid.

  ‘I do, Lord Serped,’ he replied. The blood was settling now, but the buzzing in his extremities still remained.

  ‘Come then, show us this rushing of yours, Master Hark,’ Ferida demanded, raising her glass. ‘If it is true.’

  Merion shook his head. ‘I’m afraid, my Lady, that I haven’t brought any shades with me. I didn’t expect to—’

  ‘Shades?’ Castor cut in, that eyebrow of his crawling higher.

  ‘Surely you mean shade, Merion?’ Calidae asked. ‘Electric eel?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Merion nodded. He patted his pockets. ‘But sadly I have none with me.’

  ‘Electric Eel …’ Castor mused, before shouting for his manservant. ‘Gile!’ he yelled.

  Suffrous must have been waiting behind the door. He was at the lord’s side in the blink of an eye. Merion swilled his brandy around. ‘Definitely stronger than last time,’ he muttered under his breath.

  ‘Master Gile,’ began Serped.

  Gile bowed. ‘Your lordship.’

  ‘Would you happen to have the blood of the electric eel on your person?’ asked Serped, as casually as if he had just asked for the time.

  Gile grinned, showing a few gold teeth dotted around his smile. Merion felt a little shiver of nervousness. Surely not …

  ‘Why as it so happens, my Lord …’ He paused to unbutton his jacket and pull it aside, revealing an astounding collection of vials, all sewn into little pockets that filled the inside of his jacket. As Gile wiggled his coat around to make them dance, Merion could see their colours licking at the corks; brown, red, orange, yellow, green. Even blue. Lilain would have tackled him to the ground already, were she here. Merion had no doubt.