The Scarlet Star Trilogy

by Ben Galley

  The man sketched a little cross over Lilain’s head with his fingernail. ‘And once she’s dead … Your point?’

  The lawyer scowled. ‘My point is that the law will respect the line laid out in Karrigan’s will, until its end. Then it will become the property of the law, and Karrigan’s empire will be disassembled as per his contingency testament, and auctioned off. Most of it to charity. Classic Karrigan. No lord will want that.’

  ‘Then correct me if I am wrong, Witchazel, but aren’t you the end of that line?’ the man asked, raising a bushy eyebrow.

  Witchazel’s scowl deepened. ‘If you’re trying to scare me, it is not working.’

  ‘I’m not trying to scare you, I’m trying to warn you. Get out of London. Get out of the Empire if you have to. Whoever is behind this will need to make it legal in the eyes of the Emerald Benches. That means they’ll need you once their dirty work is done, to stop it being dissolved.’

  Witchazel leant back in his chair and crossed his arms defiantly. ‘Then the best of luck to them, I say. Whichever lord is behind this, they will need more than my signature to make anything legal. We both know the deeds are safe and sound in the Seed, and without them, the Emerald Benches will never accept it. Greed is not satisfied so easily.’

  There was a pause as the man scratched his beard and mulled that over. ‘A small victory if we’re all dead,’ the man muttered. ‘Maybe we should both leave London.’

  Witchazel hummed deep in his throat. ‘Would Karrigan have quit so easily?’

  ‘I don’t know. He didn’t make a habit of it.’

  ‘Well, then.’

  ‘Almighty curse it. You’re a brave fool, Witchazel.’

  The lawyer leant forward, spreading his fingers over the table like cages. ‘You just might be the only hope that boy has of making it back alive, of stopping this farce.’

  ‘I gave that up.’

  ‘Nobody just gives it up. I may not be like you, but I know that well enough.’

  The man muttered something incomprehensible.

  ‘Are you telling me that your loyalty died with Karrigan?’

  Witchazel’s question was met with a fierce fire in those dark eyes. ‘Careful now,’ the man warned, getting up to leave.

  The lawyer rose with him, and turned his fingers to fists. ‘Gunderton,’ he whispered. ‘Tonmerion needs you. I need you.’

  ‘You need to be far away from here, is what you need. If you’ve got any sense in you,’ Gunderton replied. ‘The boy …’ But his words failed him, and he hoisted up his hood and headed for the door.

  ‘He’s his son!’ Witchazel hissed, but to no avail. He sighed, and sat back down.

  Even though it was already beginning to give him heartburn, he stayed to finish his wine, swilling it around the cup as he mulled over the words he had just traded. Somewhere outside, deep in the stinking docks, a ship’s horn rang out. Witchazel looked at the door and pondered Gunderton’s warning. Maybe he should run, he thought, and protect the Hark estate that way. He tapped his teeth in thought, playing out all the possibilities in his head.

  A battle cannot be won from the hill above, but must be won on the field below, with swords and rifles. Karrigan’s words echoed in his head. They had a habit of doing that.

  Witchazel gulped down the last of his wine, wrinkling his nose at the sediment, and left. After slamming the tavern’s door behind him, he began the winding walk through the gloomy capillaries of London’s dockland streets. The sunlight seemed reticent to touch the filth of the world trapped between those tall, close buildings. Witchazel felt the same, and his quick steps lead him north, away from the grey river full of ships and hulks and into the bustling centre of the biggest city on earth.

  Had the lawyer not been immersed so deeply in his thoughts, had he spared a moment to listen to the world instead of his mind, he might have heard the echo in his footsteps, the clacking of boots on cobbles a score of paces behind, following his every twist and turn.

  *

  Elsewhere in the Empire’s core, far out of reach of the eager summer sun, where darkness holds sway and tree-roots tangle, where humankind has never dared to tread, a different kind of footstep rang out. Impatiently, irritably, they echoed against marble and black steel walls as cold and as harsh as the footfalls themselves. Queen Sift was being kept waiting, and she did not like to wait. Fae had been beheaded for less.

  She strode to the window at the far end of her throne room to stare out at the gloom of the fortress of Shanarh. The Fae capital sparkled with countless blue lights: glow-worms and fungi caught and trapped in crystal spheres. She could see the shadows of her subjects on the spiralled and winding streets below, going about their business. Sift scowled. She did not care for any of them. She cared only for one, and he was far from the streets of Shanarh, and the corridors of the Coil of Cela’h Dor.

  Rhin Rehn’ar.

  Sift wanted to spit that name onto the marble.

  There were few animals in the world that the Fae trusted, but birds often had their uses. News travelled fast on their wings, even across the Iron Ocean. It had been a week since the network of pigeons, sparrows, and other feathered beasts had brought the news of the Wit’s broken body to the Fae Queen, and since then, her thoughts had been consumed by the traitor. His grinning face had taunted her in her dreams. His audacity had stoked the fires in her black heart. Not in all her ancient years had any Fae dared to defy her as Rehn’ar had.

  It was not just his defiance and betrayal that filled her with rage. The Fae are covetous creatures, and Rhin’s theft of her Hoard angered her just as much. A Hoard can take decades to build, whereas skinning a faerie alive only takes days at the most, depending on how skilful the torturer was, of course. Sift would see Rhin sing before she put an end to him. Revenge always tastes sweeter when it’s laced with gold.

  And she would have hers, even if she had to march across the ocean to get it.

  There came a knock at the door, timid though it was loud, and rightfully so. Sift swept to the centre of the throne room, her black gown rustling against the marble floor. She crossed her wiry arms across her chest and barked for the knocker to enter.

  The grand doors swung open and a dozen soldiers marched into the room, holding their heads as high as they could. Sift let a contemptuous smirk curl on her lips. Even the most hardened soldiers quailed in her presence, especially when they were late.

  Sift waited for them to arrange themselves in a long line in front of her, their short spears and black boots tapping on the marble as they marched into place. Her golden eyes stared at each and every one, daring them to match her glare. Only the captain satisfied her. Sift prowled around him, looking him up and down, regarding his intricate grey plate armour with its silver trim, and the emblem of the Coil Guard etched into his breastplate and back. The faerie stood stock still, trying to calm his breathing.

  Sift prodded a finger into his armoured chest, her sharp fingernail making the metal chime. She spoke to the soldiers either side of him. ‘Take this one away. Throw him to the wranglers. Perhaps he can redeem himself in the eyes of the Hollow’s crowds.’

  There was not an iota of hesitation. As the captain’s mouth hung agape, and panic filled his expression, his two comrades seized him roughly by his arms and dragged him from the throne room. Despite the horror of the sentence, he let himself be removed. To have protested would have meant death, right there on the marble. In the Hollow, against the blind moles, with the cheering of the bloodthirsty crowds, at least he had a chance—albeit the slimmest of chances, but perhaps the Roots would favour him. That was the only solace he could muster.

  Sift watched him until the doors swung shut before turning to the other soldiers. They looked straight ahead, unflinching. None of them particularly thirsted for a similar fate.

  ‘You,’ Sift prodded the next soldier along, the swirls and runes on his pauldron marking him as a sergeant. ‘Your name?’

  ‘Caol Cullog, My Queen,’ came
the quick reply, accompanied by a smart bow.

  Sift nodded. ‘Congratulations are in order, Caol. You are now the captain of my guard. And if you do not want to follow in your predecessor’s footsteps, and join him in the Hollow, I suggest you never make me wait again.’

  ‘Yes, My Queen,’ Caol replied. He clearly had no desire to do anything of the sort.

  Sift prowled around them, weaving figures-of-eight between the remaining soldiers. ‘I summoned you here for a very specific purpose. You’re to escort me on an excursion, one that no Queen has undertaken in many years.’

  Caol nodded for his men, his eyes riveted on the far wall.

  Sift continued. ‘You’re to escort me into the Deep Tunnels. I have business there, and I don’t wish to be delayed by anything.’

  If the other soldiers were taken aback by the Queen’s wishes, they did not show it, to their credit. Nobody had business in the Deep Tunnels of Undering. Not even a Fae Queen. They were long abandoned, shunned and locked behind stout Fae steel doors so thick that even a troll couldn’t gnaw through them.

  Only their freshly appointed captain dared to repeat the queen. ‘The Deep Tunnels, My Queen?’

  ‘Did I stammer, Caol?’

  ‘No, My Queen,’ he replied quickly, before falling silent again.

  ‘Good. Because I would hate for my orders to be difficult to understand,’ Sift told him. ‘We shall leave immediately. Summon me a carriage, Caol, and be quick about it. I want to be travelling within the hour. It will take several days to reach our destination.’

  And so it was. The soldiers left the room in single file, armour clanking softly and spears tapping. Sift spent the next half-hour trying to wear a groove in the marble with her pacing, fantasising about all the different things she would do to Rehn’ar once he was caught. It had become a pastime of hers.

  Another knock interrupted her murderous thoughts. It was time to leave. As Caol and three of his faeries escorted her down the winding steps of the Coil, Sift twirled her elaborate black gown behind her, eying up any servants or magistrates that dared to pass.

  Sift’s fists were tightly clenched in anticipation. She had been nurturing this plan for several days now, shaping it and teasing out all the intricacies, rifling through the old scrolls and picking the dusty brains of her druids. Sift knew what she needed to do, the old rules be damned. The Deep Tunnels would be reopened.

  Outside the Coil, the underground air was cool but humid. A row of glow-worm lights lined a path across black flagstones leading to Sift’s carriage: a twisted cage made from Fae steel, ornate silver, and blue glass. Four giant spiders pulled it, each a milky-white colour, their eye-clusters covered with grey silk. Their bodies glowed faintly in the bluish light, exoskeletons creaking as they stamped impatiently.

  Her guard took their places on the roof of the carriage, all nine of them. Caol alone held the door open so Sift could climb in. She did not thank him, but quickly shut the door behind her. He clambered up to the driver’s seat and gripped his spear firmly as the spiders felt the whip upon their carapaces. They lurched forwards across the courtyard of the Coil, their clawed legs clattering noisily together in a strange, hypnotic rhythm.

  Caol felt a tap on his back and turned to find one of the other guards flashing him a wary look. They did not dare speak. The Queen’s bat-like hearing was legendary in the Coil. Many a tongue-wagging servant had disappeared over the years, locked behind the grand doors of Sift’s chambers, their screams their only gravestone. Caol simply tapped the point of his ear, and turned back around.

  The captain kept a wary eye on the Fae who had gathered along the streets to watch their queen rattle by. Sift was not one for public appearances, and this was the first time in several years she had ventured outside the Coil. He knew they were curious, rather than adoring. Some were even fearful, worrying that if they did not show their faces for their queen, soldiers might come knocking.

  Every monarch has their tool of command, and Sift’s was fear. There is power in it, but it is a hollow power, despite its weight. Her reign had been one of war, thirsty for dominion over the fractured Fae clans at the fringes of Undering. Perhaps at first her efforts had been virtuous, an attempt to preserve the proud, disconnected kingdom that was Undering: to keep it safe as the world dug deeper around them, to keep it united by its history and hatred of the upper world and its humans. But the years have a habit of twisting good intentions, and Sift’s distractions had left the stronghold of Shanarh hollow in itself.

  The capital was now rotten at the core. Corruption had taken hold in the echelons below royal rule. Caol could see it plain as daylight in the crowds. Fae females, dripping jewellery from their arms, necks, and wings. Armour-clad mercenaries from Bodmin, Nort, and Hafenfol, lounging against doorways and looking for work or sport. Pickpockets, weaving to and fro. Rotund traders sweating in the press of the crowds, their wings drooping from lack of use and fat. Beggars and orphans too, sat in the muck and gazed on with blank, dirty faces.

  That was the problem with a lifespan of centuries. It was always very easy to remember the way things were: better times. Caol set his jaw and felt the carriage shudder beneath him. It was not his place to fix this. That was a queen’s job.

  If one thing is true of faeries above all else, it is that their tongues move faster than wildfire. Before long, most of the city had turned out to watch the queen’s carriage rattle past. As they rolled through the streets of dark dirt and black stone cobbles, cheers, chants and confused applause began to rise up from the swelling crowds. The buzzing drone of wings grew louder with every street corner the carriage passed.

  Sift watched the whole affair through the pimpled glass of her carriage with a blank expression. She stared into the myriad faces and saw Rhin in every one. By the time her carriage reached the outskirts of the city, where the rock soared upwards to form the roof of the cavern, where Undering’s Lonely Star shone with the sunlight of the world above, she was already fast asleep, dreaming fitfully of the ghosts in the Deep Tunnels—the ghosts she was intent on hiring.

  Chapter VII

  TWISTER

  27th June, 1867

  Tedium was a word Merion had never known the depths of, he thought to himself, as he stumbled over yet another lump in the terrain. Nebraskar truly put the endless in Endless Land. They had been walking for days and for all the young Hark knew, they were walking on a colossal conveyor belt that fed them the same old prairie and scorched earth again and again.

  He swore he had seen that boulder a hundred times. He swore he had seen that dry river bed before, and it mocked him now as it had mocked him then. He swore Lurker was leading them in circles. Merion clenched his teeth and soldiered on, dreaming once again of the feel of a deck underneath his feet, of rolling on the waves of the Iron Ocean, of the spatter of salt spray on his face. He longed for progress, and in the baked wilds of the west, that felt a lifetime and more away. With every aching step, his frustration grew.

  ‘Do you know where we are, Lurker?’ Merion mumbled through his parched lips, breaking the silence of their trudging.

  Lurker tipped back his hat and let his brown eyes rest on the undulating skyline. There was a dark smudge of cloud perched on it, and he eyed that warily for a moment before shrugging. ‘Nebraskar,’ he answered.

  ‘How very helpful.’

  ‘That’s the fourth time you’ve asked me today, boy. What do you want me to say?’

  ‘A couple of miles outside Boston would be brilliant.’

  Lurker sighed. ‘Well, unless you got legs taller than mountains, I ain’t goin’ to be sayin’ that for a few weeks now, am I? Stop your grumblin’.’

  ‘I’ll stop when we’re at the coast, and heading back to the Empire.’

  ‘Then let me stop and roll up some grass, so I can stuff it in my ears and block you out.’

  Merion got the hint. He was grumbling, and he knew it. But it seemed to be the only pastime in this blasted desert besides walking, and
he had already had his fill of that. He scratched his forehead and glared at the horizon, willing it to come closer. He must have been glaring for half an hour, maybe more, before he saw them.

  ‘Lurker,’ he said, tapping the man on the arm. The prospector sighed again.

  ‘What now, boy? I told you—’

  ‘Not that, look ahead!’ Merion snapped. He could hear Lilain and Rhin moving up to see what he was pointing at. His aunt was almost healed of her injuries. She no longer needed her crutch. It was strapped across her back with her rifle.

  On the horizon, shivering in the heat-haze, figures were swarming. They were black against the gathering cloud. Some objects were larger than others, most likely coaches or wagons. Even at a glance, he could see at least a hundred of them, slowly coming towards them.

  ‘Into that hollow, there,’ Lurker pointed. ‘And let’s see who and what they are.’

  After the incident with the bandits, they had become even warier of the wilderness. Without another word, the four of them scrambled down into a small hollow, wind-carved out of the rock. Lilain unslung Long Tom and put the spyglass to her eye and squinted.

  ‘What are they?’ Merion asked. By his side, Rhin was unsheathing his sword.

  ‘Homesteaders,’ Lilain replied quickly. ‘At least they look like homesteaders. Loads of ’em.’

  ‘More?’ Merion scratched his head again. The very concept bamboozled him. Surely there’s enough land in the east of this vast country, he thought, before speaking aloud. ‘What exactly are they hoping to find out here, in this Almighty-forsaken desert?’

  ‘A home, believe it or not, Nephew,’ muttered Lilain. Like Lurker, she was growing tired of Merion’s grousing.

  ‘Lincoln’s Law,’ Lurker added. ‘Grants anyone who’s never taken up arms against him and his union a chance of land out here in the west.

  ‘There’s plenty of it,’ Merion replied.

  Lilain swung her rifle back and forth, trying to count them all. ‘And it’s up for grabs. You settle it, you keep it.’