Marcii (The Dreadhunt Trilogy Book 1)

by Ross Turner

  Marcii’s father appeared, his face white and blanched so much so that he looked decidedly ill.

  His name was Marcus Dougherty.

  He was of a slight build and was shorter than Marcii’s mother, and in fact slightly older than her too. He had light brown hair and attractive blue eyes, though they seemed aggrieved at that point and Marcii could see quite clearly he still wasn’t well.

  Her father had always been a weak, sickly man. He coughed groggily and his eyes looked bloodshot and were streaked with red.

  Smiling warmly at his youngest daughter, he crept into the room and came to sit beside his wife, though he daren’t sit too close, for her tongue was sharp, and her temper sharper.

  She did not greet him and shot him only the briefest of glances. It was a look filled with solemn regret and disappointment, tinged with the resentment that always follows confinement.

  “And my coin?” Amanda questioned immediately, even before Marcii had placed the last item from her list upon the table.

  Her daughter dove again into the deep pockets of her coat and scrabbled about for every last penny, knowing full well her mother would count them more than thrice to check she hadn’t been swindled.

  Though her father was a cooper, and a skilled one at that, Marcii’s family were not wealthy.

  They did not live in poverty like some.

  Like Vixen, Marcii thought to herself.

  But times were often tough.

  Suddenly, and in fact thankfully, for Marcii always felt the tension between her parents most keenly, there was a heavy knock at the door. The sharp rap of knuckles upon wood echoed in Marcii’s ears and she turned automatically to answer, knowing if she moved too slowly she would feel her mother’s wrath.

  She always did her best to please; she had little other choice. But more often than not she found that she couldn’t do right for doing wrong.

  The door creaked slowly inward as Marcii yanked it back.

  Accompanied by a rush of cold air came the sight of a priest. He was garbed in dull, unkempt brown robes that began in a hood and reached all the way down to his feet, revealing only the tips of his equally grubby, brown leather shoes.

  His red hair was thick and scruffy, sitting in haphazard curls jutting off in all directions atop his head, and his face was freckled more than reasonably.

  “Alexander!” Marcus cried, rising as swiftly as he could manage to his feet.

  But before their guest could reply, Amanda cut in.

  “Come inside before you let all the heat out!” She instructed.

  Alexander did as he was bid.

  Marcii complied too and instantly closed the door behind him, catching his wry smirk that made her chuckle inwardly.

  Alexander Freeman had always been something of a fool. He’d grown up with Marcii’s father, right here in Newmarket, and had often been caught out stealing from the market stalls.

  His parents had forced him to join the Priesthood in the hope to straighten him out. However, aside from just about managing to keep his head above water, including baptising Marcii and her older sister, he was, at best, an average servant of the good Lord.

  He much preferred to simply live in the moment, and rarely considered the consequences that might perchance play out from his actions.

  Whether that is the best way to be or not, will likely never be decided.

  “I’ve just come from the square…” Alexander informed them immediately, rubbing his hands firmly together. “Tyran was on top form as ever…”

  “Yes…” Amanda replied for her husband. “She mentioned something about that…” She said, indicating uncaringly towards Marcii. “Though she wasn’t very specific…” She shot her youngest daughter a brief, accusatory glance and Marcii ignored her mother’s gaze as best she could.

  Alexander’s kind eyes were sympathetic. He smiled at Marcii once again in a manner that offered his condolences without the need for words.

  “Yes…” He continued, standing a little awkwardly between the door and the table, for he had not been offered a seat.

  He much preferred visiting when Amanda was otherwise occupied.

  “Tyran’s influence is spreading…” He explained. “And quickly at that…”

  Amanda listened, though her expression was sombre and her eyes were hard, betraying the all too obvious fact that she didn’t care what he had to say. Marcii’s father, Marcus, seemed much more concerned by Alexander’s words.

  But, it seemed, Amanda didn’t really care about that either.

  “What has that got to do with us?” She questioned demandingly, as if on cue.

  Marcii sighed inwardly yet again, but let not even the slightest hint of her thoughts show in her body language, or her expression, for that would likely have been fatal.

  “It’s even making its way through the Priesthood…” Alexander went on, ignoring her. “Many of the priests are starting to believe what he’s saying…”

  But Amanda cut him short again.

  “Well just because those old fools believe him doesn’t mean we have to!”

  This time though, Alexander’s expression hardened and he fought back.

  “That’s not the point.” He replied firmly, shooting Amanda down. “What he’s saying is bad news, and worse, it rings with the sound of truth…”

  Chapter Five

  Within a week Mayor Tyran’s addresses were no longer just daily, but every morning and every afternoon without fail, and the number of followers to his cause was growing exponentially.

  Marcii paced down a cobblestoned street towards the square, somewhere in between the morning and afternoon gatherings, with her sister, Eleanor Dougherty, at her side.

  Ellie was nineteen years of age and quite a lot taller than Marcii, like their mother. Similarly, she had blonde hair and blue eyes, though hers were more full and lush and not quite yet filled with the same sharpness that Amanda wielded so casually.

  It wouldn’t be long before that changed though, Marcii imagined. In fact, already for most of their lives Ellie had always been very curt with her, for indeed their mother’s charms had rubbed off on her.

  Their father had never put a stop to it in the way he perhaps should have done, for he did not have the will to face down his wife, and besides, he was not one to handle confrontation well.

  As they strode, flitting around corners and up and down narrow streets, the air was chill and the clouds above were foreboding. They stepped aside now and then to allow horse drawn carts and carriages to pass, transporting goods and people of all kinds, trundling along ungracefully as they bounced harshly on the uneven stones.

  Ducking to one side and into an alleyway, the foul stench of sewerage hit Marcii’s nostrils as they allowed a carriage to pass on a particularly narrow street. She wrinkled her nose in revulsion and stepped immediately back out onto the street as soon as the carriage had passed.

  But what she was met with in the carriage’s wake shocked her, and it was all she could do to keep from looking more surprised than she imagined she should have done.

  Three of Mayor Tyran’s police stood before Marcii and her sister, tall and broad and menacing.

  She recognised them from that morning at the square, when Tyran had first introduced them in all their glory.

  Although now, just as enormous and just as intimidating as they still were, there was something else that sent a chill crawling up and down Marcii’s feeble spine.

  Their armour was no longer mismatched and unique to each of them. They no longer stood separately as three hired mercenaries. They were no longer just hands reaching out for coin.

  They stood before her with terrifying uniformity.

  United.

  The armour they all bore was highly polished with a bronzed finish to their chest plates. Each carried a sword at their belt and a crossbow on their back.

  And, most chillingly of all, each of their breastplates bore an unmistakeable emblem, seared irreversibly into the metal with
razor precision. Somehow Marcii even saw, with eyes that trailed over the three burly men before her most keenly, for her gaze was laden with fear, that each of the hilts of their swords bore the same markings, collective and awful.

  The emblem disgusted her.

  It was burned black and outlined only a silhouette.

  Yet, though there was little more definition than that, it depicted perfectly the image of a person tied helplessly to a tall stake, driven into the ground. And, hauntingly, at the person’s feet, reaching up their body, flames licked all about them.

  It was an emblem that spoke of suffering and control and dread.

  It was the work of Tyran, without a shadow of a doubt.

  “Ladies…” The man positioned in the centre of the three soldiers greeted them, startling Marcii from her petrified wonderings.

  “Good day Sir…” Marcii replied, fighting with all her might simply to keep her voice level and to stop it from quivering, though she hadn’t really any idea why she was quite so filled with dread.

  The thick set man had enormous shoulders and arms that actually looked most cumbersome. He shifted the weight of his armour slightly and grunted in response, eyeing Marcii somewhat suspiciously, as most did.

  Then, gesturing with a slight movement of his head for his men to move on, they obliged without a sound. The three of them passed by toweringly, leaving Marcii’s heart racing and her mouth dry.

  “What’s wrong with you!?” Ellie hissed under her breath to her younger sister. “What the hell are you gawping at!?”

  “They…I…” Marcii tried, though she could not speak for following the three men with her eyes. “Their emblems…”

  “Oh stop being pathetic!” Her sister demanded. “They’re police! They’re here to protect us!”

  Marcii didn’t reply. Instead she drooped her head slightly and fell back in beside her older sister as they continued on their way.

  But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t for the life of her shake a single, dread filled thought from her mind.

  They didn’t look like police.

  They didn’t act like police.

  Regardless of how hard she tried to convince herself otherwise, Marcii knew they weren’t protectors.

  No.

  They were enforcers.

  Chapter Six

  As the days wore on, cold and gloomy and filled with rain and uncertainty, it soon came to light that Marcii wasn’t the only one who had taken such a disliking, albeit a silent one, to Mayor Tyran’s so called police.

  Whilst his followers seemed to multiply in number on an almost daily basis, there were still many folks in and about Newmarket who were not convinced by his shallow words.

  But undoubtedly his enforcers were paid most highly for their duties, for they executed them with swift and steady and assured hands, their wills unfaltering.

  Initially, it seemed that anyone not loyal to Tyran’s cause was a target. Especially those who were more vocal about such things.

  But that was only the beginning.

  Eventually, once he had bent all of their wills to his words, he would make frightened followers of each and every one of them. Only then, with his iron grip of fear, would he unite them. He would give his people new targets all of their own, and they would continue to bend to his domination.

  But, of course, no one was to know that but him.

  Not until it was far too late.

  First came the raids.

  With no word of who or what they might have been looking for, in fact, with no warning whatsoever, enforcers began turning people’s homes upside down, from the very top to the deepest bottom.

  They never turned up anything of any significance.

  Not yet, anyway.

  The only thing they did manage to do was to leave people’s homes in such a devastated state that it took them the best part of a week to put their lives back together.

  And how strangely coincidental it seemed to be that the only houses that were ever raided belonged to those whom had not been frequently attending Tyran’s evermore regular addresses.

  Rain or shine, you were to attend.

  With no exceptions.

  Of course, regardless of the talk and the rumours, Tyran always insisted that his police were simply doing their jobs to help protect the innocent.

  Nobody wanted another attack after all.

  Marcii wasn’t entirely sure how raiding people’s houses reduced the chances of another attack, but nonetheless, yet more coin exchanged hands, as is always the way, and the talk soon subsided.

  Amidst the unnerving chaos of the raids and the speeches and the patrols, all seeming to loom constantly at every opportunity, Marcii stole away through the narrow streets. Slipping up and down the dark, dank alleyways that smelled of all things foul, she headed across to the other side of Newmarket.

  Her steps were light and fast and her heart fluttered just in the same way as it did every time she made this journey.

  This time, however, she was much more cautious than usual, for Tyran’s enforcers had been growing evermore suspicious and heavy handed. Their ranks seemed to be swelling so quickly that soon the young Dougherty worried that their mere presence might make this nameless journey of hers impossible.

  She did her best not to hide from enforcers when she saw them, for she knew almost anything that triggered even the slightest hint of suspicion would spur them into action.

  Nonetheless, greeting them as they passed her in their packs of at least three or four made her feel as though she was on the very brink of forcing a confrontation: something she most certainly didn’t want.

  Soon, though definitely not soon enough, in the not too far distance, above the narrow, packed in houses, Marcii could see the church spire reaching up towards the dreary sky above.

  Quickening her pace, for she had almost reached her destination, Marcii stuffed her hands into her pockets and tucked her chin behind the lip of her heavy jacket, dropping her eyes to the floor. Fortunately, no enforcers saw her as she scurried down the last two alleyways, cutting through the shadows, for she would surely have caught their attention.

  Then, all of a sudden, the church loomed directly before her, huge and grey and square, its symmetrical outline against the sky broken only by the spire at one end.

  Enormous stone blocks had been used in its construction and Marcii darted forwards immediately towards the far right hand side of its base. There, barely visible amidst the shadows and partly concealed behind vines that had been allowed to overgrow and awash that section of the church wall, was a slight inlet between the vast stone columns.

  Ducking behind the vines, parting them gently with her hands and nipping through the gap, she was greeted by a familiar sight and voice, both of which filled her with long overdue calm.

  “Marcii…” Kaylm greeted her, keeping his soft voice low in the dim light behind the vines, concealed within the very walls of the church itself.

  They could not have been better hidden, especially since the day was so sullen and grey, for the light struggled to reach their secret little alcove even when the sun shone.

  “Kaylm…” Marcii breathed in response, and before either of them said another word they embraced each other firmly.

  Marcii pulled Kaylm close, hugging him tightly, and he did the same, for they had missed each other terribly.

  Even though she couldn’t see too well in the dim light, Marcii knew by heart the look of Kaylm’s sandy blonde hair. She knew he saw her too with his eyes both blue and orange all at once, and as she leaned back, picking up every trace of him that she could with her luminous yellow eyes, she sighed contentedly.

  A friendship like theirs was hard to come by, and when such a thing is found, it is often even harder to hold on to.

  Sadly, though this is all too often the case, most thought it was more than that, and not simply as innocent as they each claimed. Consequently, Amanda did not approve of Kaylm, or anyone for that matter, and
his parents most certainly did not approve of Marcii.

  The pair had been condemned to meeting in fleeting secret arrangements such as this.

  Of course, that meant that their time spent in the other’s company was shorter than either of them would have liked, and they missed each other unbearably in between these forbidden meets.

  But, as so few come to learn, absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder.

  Kaylm was only sixteen years of age too, and though at the moment he was of quite slim build, his father and older brother were both broad and strong, practically the opposite to Marcii’s father, and it was only a matter of time before he followed suit.

  It was safe to say that he was Marcii Dougherty’s closest friend. He trusted her, even if his family didn’t, and he was one of the very few people that she trusted too.

  Whilst others had for her whole life given Marcii a wide berth, as was still all too evident, Kaylm had never wanted to leave her side.

  He didn’t care what other people thought.

  All that mattered was what they felt.

  “Are you okay?” Kaylm asked, his hands still resting upon Marcii’s arms. His voice was filled with concern for her, more so than usual, for times were changing.

  Marcii didn’t respond at first and shook her head almost imperceptibly, especially in the dim light.

  It was so hard to be as honest with anybody else as she was with Kaylm.

  “I’m scared…” She admitted, whispering her shaky words.

  “Don’t worry…” Kaylm reassured her. “I won’t let any…”

  But their hidden conversation was silenced just as quickly as it had begun, as voices from just beyond the vines cut through the damp, murky air.

  Marcii’s breaths trembled and Kaylm pulled her close again, for the voices were close and filled with fear and conspiracy.

  “I’m telling you!” The first voice demanded. “The time has come for him to join the cause!”

  “Please listen, brother…” A second voice urged, and Marcii’s breath caught in her throat as she recognised it.