“Only a higher order Fey is capable of such an easy task, if I may say so myself,” Mordred says in a self-satisfied tone.
My eyes narrow. “You attacked Camaaloth?” I say, more a statement than a question. I cast my mind back to all those knights slaughtered during the party, none of them prepared for battle. “You monster,” I say, hugging myself tight.
Mordred’s mirth dissolves, replaced by a disdainful mask. “Depends on where you stand,” he says at last. “In our eyes, I was on a holy mission, to deliver our kind from evil. In fact, you should be thanking me as well.”
I open my mouth to say a few choice words, but snap it shut again—Mordred is right, things weren’t too peachy for me over in Camaaloth either. But that doesn’t excuse his actions.
“So where are we now?” I ask, looking around the dark plain, stunted trees and spindly bushes growing about in sickly clumps, extending pleading fingers towards a dark, moonless sky.
A hyena-like laugh echoes around us, raising every hair on my body. My eyes dart about, in search of its source. Then I notice some of the shadows have pooled together on the ground and are rising from the soil to coalesce into five large, spiky carapaces from which dart out wide, scaly heads at the end of long necks.
One of the figures is taken with seizures before another loud, screeching cackle erupts, making my skin want to crawl off my back.
“Our escort’s arrived,” Mordred says.
One of the large Fey throws itself forward then runs on all fours towards me in an uneven gait. At a sign from Mordred, however, it lumbers to a stop a foot away and starts sniffing the air.
“Smells…familiar…,” it grunts. “Tasted…blood?”
I push the cold snout away from my legs and regret it immediately as my hand comes away caked in slime.
“I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure,” I say, wiping my hand on my tattered dress to hide its shaking. “Mordred, can you call your dog back?”
The creature snaps its jaws at me with a loud clack and I jerk backwards. “No…dog!” it growls.
Keeping it well in sight, I inch around the creature towards Mordred. “Nice puppy…” I say in a conciliatory tone.
“No…PUPPY!” the large Fey barks, lunging at me.
I drop all pretense of bravery and duck behind Mordred who snickers before finally motioning for the monster to stay at bay.
“What do you want with me?” I ask when the slobbering beasts are a safe distance away, trying to regain my composure.
“I just wanted to show you a little more of Avalon,” Mordred says, “give you a taste of what you were made for. You see, you and I are not so different from each other.”
I snort. “You and I are nothing alike,” I say. “I don’t go around killing people for the heck of it, while you…you’re just some crazy sociopath with superpowers.”
Mordred’s face grows somber and for a second I fear he’s going to strike me. But he just herds me forward. “Let’s get going, we’ve got a schedule to keep,” he says, his voice brooking no argument.
We march over wide, empty hills, the brittle grass cutting the soles of my feet, and though I know I can heal quickly it doesn’t make the pain any less sharp. Finally, the endless plain of rolling hills comes to an end at the edge of a wide forest of burned trees.
“This isn’t Avalon,” I say through my constricted throat. “You’re taking me to hell, aren’t you?”
Mordred’s smile is sharp, as if carved with a knife. “Trust me,” he says, “you’ll soon know the difference.”
He pushes me forward, into the forest’s charred remains, raising little clouds of ashes with every step. A soft nicker greets us further down and we stop before a tall, dark horse, the creature’s eyes burning scarlet in the obscurity. It shakes its mane, spraying me with salty sweat.
“Are Dark Sidhe all as disgusting as your dogs and this horse?” I ask.
“Nessie’s a kelpie,” Mordred says matter-of-factly, drawing close to the demon horse.
“It looks the same to me,” I retort.
“But horses don’t eat people for breakfast,” Mordred says. “Now hop on.”
Reluctantly, I draw closer to the creature, grabbing a fistful of its moss-like mane that reminds me of my early mornings spent sifting through Lake Geneva’s waters. But as I make to pull myself up, Nessie blows loudly and tries to bite me.
“I don’t think your horse likes me,” I say, skittering away immediately.
“Kelpie,” Mordred says, annoyance peeking through his mask of command. “And if you keep pissing her off, she’ll find the first opportunity to drown you.”
Mordred’s hands come around my waist and he hoists me up. I hear the heart-wrenching rend of my dress tearing further as I swing my leg over the beast’s wide back. Then, with one practiced move, Mordred hops on behind me and we set off at a trot, the other Fey creatures easily keeping pace with us.
We wind our way in and out of the trees, the acrid smell of long-gone fires growing thicker in the air. Occasionally, one of the beasts strays off to the side to snap a burned tree trunk into splintered halves.
“There’s no need to bring the whole forest down, boys,” Mordred says to the monsters after a while. “I said we should make the way obvious, but they’ll definitely smell a trap if we make it that conspicuous.”
The hyena laugh erupts once again and I wince. Then, out of the corner of my eyes, I see the creatures dissolve into our surroundings, only the shifting shadows betraying their presence.
Finally, after what seems like hours upon hours of horseback riding and a completely raw bum, the forest grows sparser, the trees opening up onto a wide valley covered in swirling mists.
Despite the poor visibility, Nessie accelerates to a canter, obviously familiar with the area. I repress a shiver as the sound of a distant howl reaches us, eerily familiar.
“Seems like you have a friend,” Mordred says in my ear.
I make to turn around to ask him what he’s talking about, but stop when I feel myself slipping off Nessie’s back.
“Steady,” Mordred says, his hold tightening around me. “There’s no point in trying to run away. Our escort might seem friendly, but they’re quite feral. We’ve arrived anyway.”
I don’t bother to contradict him and he jumps off the kelpie before helping me down, then smacks Nessie’s rump. “Go eat!” he tells it.
The kelpie’s pupils thin into slits. She lets off a shriek, rears, then storms off in a cloud of ash.
I peer into the thick fog in a useless attempt to see what’s waiting for me, but can barely see past my arm.
“Enough dawdling,” Mordred says, ushering me into the waiting mists.
But before we’ve made more than a couple dozen steps, I stop.
“Can you hear that?” I ask, cocking my head at the light hum that seems to be saturating the air, as if we’re surrounded by high-powered electrical towers.
“Don’t stop,” Mordred says.
I’m forced to continue walking for fear of finding myself alone and lost in these strange mists. As we make our slow progress forward, the buzzing morphs into distinctive voices, and I find myself reaching for Mordred’s arm, when the ground suddenly vanishes. I feel myself topple forward before my foot hits a stone step and I let out a string of curses.
“Watch it, there are stairs here,” Mordred says.
“You could’ve told me sooner, I mutter as I carefully follow him down.
As we reach the bottom of the cliff, the fog finally parts, and my toes curl in the rocky path with relish at knowing I haven’t met my demise just yet.
“Should we raise the alarm?” a voice asks in a deep and rumbling bass.
“Don’t be stupid,” another one cackles. “It’ll be AC, for sure. I heard that stupid horse of his.”
“Or it’s that other creature,” a third voice says. “She’s been howling all over the place tonight.”
“Yessssss,” a fourth, raspier voice say
s. “It can sense the change happening….”
I bite back a gasp as a long wall of spears emerges from the shadows, decapitated heads firmly planted on their spikes. Each and every one of them has had its eyes and mouth sewn shut, as if body-less heads could still see and talk.
Then, as I’m about to pass the lugubrious fence, the nearest one smiles at me, as if it knows I’m there, and I leap back in shock, smacking my head against one of Mordred’s bodyguards. A sinister laugh rises at my reaction.
“Ooooh, she’s a pretty one,” a deep voice says.
The voice belongs to the round head of a bald man, the threads through his eyelids and lips pale against his decaying skin. Its mouth stretches wide, pulling at its sutures.
“Are you going to let us have her?” another one asks.
“Don’t be foolish,” Mordred says, who appears quite used to having disembodied heads hold conversations with him. “I still need her.”
“But it’s been soooo looooong,” an old man’s head whines. “Even Martha’s getting hungry.”
The first woman’s head seems to shake on its spike in agreement.
“I said no,” Mordred says, pulling me after him. “Don’t worry,” he adds to me as we leave the morbid wall behind, “that’s just our alarm system.”
I let out a nervous giggle, probably a result from my lack of proper sleep, food, and those numerous glasses of alcohol I’ve consumed. That, and the nightmarish place I’ve ended up in, and from which I can’t wake up.
“Here we are,” Mordred says, motioning towards a dark mound.
As we draw closer, the mound turns into the crumbling ruins of an old fort. A single sentry sitting before the entrance stands up at our approach, arm-length quills sprouting on its back in warning.
“Easy, Badass,” Mordred says, and the Dark Sidhe’s quills retract slowly.
“Badass?” I ask, as we pass by the Fey, the creature’s round eye following me watchfully.
“Technically his name’s Ysbaddaden,” Mordred says, “but it’s kind of a mouthful, don’t you think? So I came up with the nickname.”
He looks at me uncertainly, a tentative smile playing at the corners of his mouth. I nod hesitatingly and his smile widens.
“Come,” he says eagerly. “Let me show you your new home.”
I shudder at the implication but follow him inside.
A rush of cold air sends a chill down my spine as I step into the empty entrance hall, the sounds of excited shatter spilling out from a bright room straight ahead along with the insidious smell of sulfur. I repress another shudder as, for a terrifying second, I think Carman’s waiting for me inside, but when we emerge into the wide common room, I find it is filled to bursting with regular, old Dark Sidhe. A few near the doorway look up at our arrival, sniffing the air curiously before returning their attention to the other end of the room where a large fire is crackling brightly.
“Ten pieces for the fat one!” a deep, guttural voice shouts.
“Twenty for the girl,” another says.
Mordred makes his way to the back of the room, elbowing and kicking Fey out of our way. Despite most of them being at least twice our size, and certainly looking twenty times more dangerous, they all seem to defer to the blue-tattooed Fey and let us through with barely a grunt.
“Are you their king?” I ask, watching a giant frog-like creature bounce straight up onto a rotting beam at a kick from Mordred.
“Not exactly,” Mordred says.
The frog-man’s mouth gapes open as we pass beneath it and a large glob of greenish mucus falls out. I squeal as it lands next to me, burning through the wooden floor like superacid.
“What are you boys up to?” Mordred asks as we reach the front of the crowd, the smell of sulfur stronger here.
“Thought we’d make the wait a little more interesting,” a spindly creature with skin as black as charred wood says.
“So we’re betting on who’ll make it back up alive,” a sinuous Fey adds, its skin blindingly white.
Mordred struts up to a perfectly circular hole in the floor, squats at its edge and peers down into it. “Anybody make it out yet?” he asks.
The white Fey shakes its head. “This is the first wave. Care to do a little betting of your own, AC?”
A gust of heat belches out of the hole, blurring Mordred’s features. He seems to be listening intently for something, then finally breaks into an eager smile. “Thirty pieces on the child,” he says.
The other two creatures’ faces melt in annoyance.
“A child?” the black Fey asks.
“That’s cheating!” the other one retorts.
Mordred shrugs. “Not my fault you didn’t see it,” he says.
The hole at his feet suddenly seems to catch light, turning his blue pectorals purple as if he’s been mortally wounded.
“Care to have a look?” Mordred asks me, his eyes twinkling.
Curiosity makes me itch to join his side and see what it is that’s gotten all these monsters excited about, but caution tells me I should probably stand as far away from the pit as possible.
“You’re not gonna push me in there, are you?” I ask, unable to forget the hole they fed all those innocent people to back in Menasha.
The black Fey laughs softly. “What a tempting thought,” he says, sidling up to me and placing his deathly-cold fingers on my face.
“It would work if she didn’t have so much Fey blood,” the white creature says, prowling around us. “But I’m sure we can find other uses for you, my dear.”
I shrink away from their touch, knowing full-well that by ‘other uses’ they mean ‘food for Carman.’
“Urim, Thummim,” Mordred drawls, “leave Morgan alone, you’re missing the show.”
The two Fey dart away from me and go to stand at his side. Despite my best intentions, I find myself stepping closer and closer to them, inexplicably drawn to the circle. It’s shining so brightly now that it rivals the fire blazing in the hearth behind it.
As I draw nearer, an unfamiliar symbol comes into view, painted along the hole’s diameter—an inverted triangle, its two legs extending beyond its apex to finish in fishhooks around a stylized V, an asymmetrical cross splitting the triangle from its base to the V’s points.
“What is that?” I ask.
Mordred glances over and catches me looking at the strange symbol.
“Lucifer’s sigil,” he says, returning his attention to what’s happening inside the hole.
“W-w-whose?” I sputter, my legs turning to cotton.
Excited shouts break out around me, making the floor shake. The circle is now an incandescent red, and I can discern shapes moving inside it.
“Push, puuuuush!” Urim shouts, his white skin reflecting the circle’s bright light like a beacon.
I let out a shout as a slender hand pushes past the hole’s entrance, followed by a thin wrist.
Urim jumps up on his toes in trepidation, shouting encouragements.
Thummim’s face is knotted in anger. “Just pull her away!” he shouts.
A woman’s head appears, her blank eyes mirroring the circle’s light. I stand frozen as she slowly emerges, as if pressing through some invisible resistance.
Then the woman’s mouth opens in a guttural cry as glowing ropes of red fire shoot out from the circle’s edge over her in a tightening net, cutting through her body.
At first, she remains inert, as if frozen in place, then a fat arm punches through her body, and she explodes outward. I shriek as pieces of flesh rain around the room, spattering against the walls and floor.
Thummim howls in joy as a man as large as a hippo hoists himself through the hole. But the man barely gets a chance to plant his hands on the floor when he too gets cut down, and his body falls in pieces back down the hole.
The dark Fey’s howl turns into a cry of despair and I see Mordred’s smile widen.
“Come on, boy, that’s it,” he coaxes.
A small, dark-hai
red head emerges, sunken eyes staring straight ahead, and a young boy no older than eight claws his way through. I shiver as I recall the Beaumont children who attacked me just hours ago.
Again, the circle grows brighter, ropes of light shooting from its circumference. But the boy extends his foot outside of the circle’s glowing edge then pulls himself out just as the net of light grows taught, and he lands next to Mordred, unharmed.
Mordred stands up, his tattooed chest puffed out with pride. “Pay up,” he says, extending his hand towards Urim and Thummim.
The two Fey grumble and slap a fat purse into his hand. Mordred shakes the leather pouch and smiles in satisfaction as it jingles. He looks at me expectantly, as if waiting for an applause, but I find myself unable to share in his mirth, staring instead at the boy still seated next to him, as still as a rock, his eyes vacant.
“It’s one of them,” I whisper.
“Aye, I believe you’ve already encountered a couple of our draugar,” Mordred says.
The boy cocks his head at the sound of Mordred’s voice and his mouth opens up hungrily, displaying a set of rotting teeth. Then, coming from deep inside of him, comes the most horrifying screech I’ve ever heard.
“Keep those things away from me!” I snarl, huddled up against the crumbling wall of the ruins where the Dark Sidhe have holed themselves up.
“It won’t bite,” Thummim says.
“Unless AC tells it to,” Urim adds.
“How long are we going to stay here?” I ask, looking over the draugar to Mordred who’s been sulking since I refused to acknowledge his betting win.
“As long as it takes,” Mordred retorts petulantly.
Standing in a line before him are the five people who’ve made it out of the pit in mostly one piece: The black-haired boy who came out first, another pair of children, a long-necked woman, and a goateed man, each and every one of them staring vacantly ahead like automatons we’ve forgotten to wind up.
“I must say, I like humans in this form a lot more,” Urim says, gauging the line of draugar. “They’re so much more pliable, and less prone to unnecessary hormonal outbursts. Don’t you think?”
I glare at the Fey’s pale blue eyes. “What did you do to them, anyway?” I ask.
Rise of the Fey Page 35
