The Bastard from Fairyland

by Phil Parker

  ‘You are a hybrid and your skin colour makes you easy to identify. You would be easily traced. No, if you go, it must be secretly and without my support.’

  Once again Master Sidwell’s voice filled my head. ‘Face your fear, Keir.’

  I’d spent my life being afraid, I’d always seen danger, sometimes when it wasn’t there. I always hesitated, waited until things were certain and never took a risk, just in case. Look where it had got me. It was why morons like Irvyn chose to abuse me.

  ‘I’ll go.’

  She smiled. It looked like her facial muscles weren’t familiar with those positions because it soon vanished. She stopped pacing but there was an energy about her now, a commander-in-chief giving instructions.

  ‘I’ll help you prepare. Are you familiar with the human style of speech?

  I shook my head, I hadn’t even considered it.

  A brief nod, I assume she’d expected it and she was moving on.

  ‘I’ll have someone teach you. Now…’

  ‘But I’m made to work every hour of the day. Master Sidwell…’

  That impatient hand waved him away. ‘I’m promoting you.’ She rubbed her chin, such a masculine gesture. ‘You will be my page. Come with me.’

  She strode out of the library, her cloak catching the chair and knocking it over, she paid it no attention. My supervisor had returned and waited timidly in the corridor. My new employer paused, glared at her.

  ‘Go tell Sidwell this young man is now my page.’

  The woman’s jaw dropped at my unexpected promotion.

  ‘Why are you still here? Move your arse woman!’

  The woman scuttled along the dark corridor like a frightened mouse. I smiled. It was good not to be the one getting reprimanded.

  Chapter 7

  I woke from my dream instantly, wide awake, ready for anything. Just one more habit forged in the white-heat of my training and which I hadn’t been able to shake in the intervening centuries. Tendrils from the dream slithered from my waking mind but its more vivid moments remained behind briefly; memories of Oisin and I in a similar barn one summer evening where the smell of hay and sex merged as we held each other close.

  A gentle nudge in my ribs.

  ‘There’s something outside.’

  The rose-red light of dawn could be seen through the warped wooden slats of the barn door which creaked as pressure was applied to it. On the other side I could hear a snuffling sound, it had the depth and reverberation that told you it wasn’t anything small either.

  ‘Keep still. It’ll go away,’ I whispered.

  Oisin’s body was pressed against mine and it reignited the sensations from my dream. Despite what my brain might say on the subject, my cock had its own ideas of where this moment was going. I could feel Oisin’s breath on my neck as he spoke.

  ‘It can smell us. Or the horses.’

  They decided to nicker just at that moment, softly pounding the ground with their hooves. Oisin hurried over to calm them, I suspected with the cubes Amelie had given him. With Oisin gone the pounding I was experiencing in my groin went with it.

  Whatever was outside gave the barn door a hefty thump, it bent inwards and wood and rusty metal creaked ominously. I spotted Oisin tiptoe across the floor to the barn door.

  ‘What are you doing, come back!’ I said in my best stage whisper.

  He ignored me and knelt so he could peek out of an empty knot-hole. I didn’t intend cowering behind bales of hay so I joined him.

  ‘What can you see?’

  He looked at me with that expression that poses the question, do you really want to know? He gestured at the knot hole.

  I couldn’t see anything other than the clearing filled with pink light from the rising sun. Not until a leg appeared, covered in tightly packed scales. It moved away from the door so I got to see more of the leg, which thickened as it moved upwards to the thigh then it stepped out of sight.

  My brain tried to process the sight, to place the creature into a category I understood. I confess it took me a few painful seconds to arrive at the conclusion Oisin had reached instantly.

  ‘It’s a fucking dragon!’

  I didn’t care for his patronising sigh and nod of his head.

  ‘What’s a fucking dragon doing in England?’ I asked, my stage whisper turning a little hoarse.

  ‘Llyr introduced a breeding programme. He’s using them in battle.’

  I wasn’t interested in the history, my interests were more urgent.

  ‘But why is it here?’

  Several heavy stomps brought the creature back to the door, I could see its snout as it pressed against the door and inhaled deeply. It whined softly.

  ‘I don’t know. But something’s wrong. Plus, I don’t think it’s a dragon.’

  ‘Whatever it is, it looks big and scary and I don’t want to be its breakfast.’

  Oisin turned to me and shook his head. ‘The heroic Robin Goodfellow, scared?.’

  ‘Yes!’ I turned down the volume of my confession as the creature butted the door hard and wood began to crack. We scuttled backwards, I scuttled a lot further. ‘I’d say it’s a good idea to be afraid of something huge and ferocious with enormous jaws.’

  ‘This is why you need me around you see?’

  Oisin held out his hand and whispered for me to give him my horse cubes, he stood up and, before I could say or do anything, opened the door of the barn and stepped outside. He held his hand out, palm flat, just like you do to a horse. The dragon was even bigger now I could see it properly, all jaws and sharp teeth. I held my breath and the animal looked Oisin up and down, clearly wondering how tasty he might be. The thing had to be nine feet high at its shoulders with big, powerful hind legs, smaller forearms that sprouted from a pair of wings, smaller than its body and so useless for flight. Its body was covered in crimson scales which caught the early morning light and made them gleam.

  Over the head scaly ridges stretched from powerful jaws to the serpent-like neck, sharp enough to eviscerate Oisin if it chose to nudge him like it had the doors. He appeared to show no fear as he stood perfectly still, making soothing noises. Except they weren’t noises I realised after a few seconds, he was speaking to the animal and it appeared to understand him as it flicked its head from side to side. It craned its neck further forward and with greater care than I’d thought capable, it snuffled the cubes from Oisin’s hand, without chomping off his wrist.

  ‘Get some of the animal feed from the back of the barn.’

  Oisin issued the command without taking his eyes off the creature. I hurried to obey, in case the monster got peckish and decided to eat the hand that fed it. As I scurried into the barn to scoop up the brown-green pellets we’d fed to the horses earlier, I marvelled at Oisin’s courage.

  I stepped as nonchalantly as I could towards Oisin who was still cooing at it. I tipped some of the pellets into his waiting hand and instantly black lips snuffled them into its mouth with astonishing delicacy.

  The creature kept emitting a quiet whining noise which I thought was satisfaction, it appeared hungry but I noticed Oisin stroke the animal’s head and move his hand along its neck slowly, on the opposite side to where I stood.

  ‘Keep feeding it,’ he said. ‘It’s wounded. There’s a knife stuck in its neck.’

  ‘Don’t!’ I whispered with every bit of urgency I could muster. I was ignored.

  Left with no alternative but risk letting the animal feast on my arm rather than kill Oisin, I held out my pellet-filled hand and hoped its shaking wouldn’t affect the monster’s delicate table manners. Oisin stood at its side now, stroking its sinuous neck, speaking soft reassurances. I kept feeding until my pockets and my hands were empty and got ready to run.

  With a high-pitched shriek the animal craned its head round to Oisin. I wished I’d brought my sword, though I wasn’t sure it would be much use against the scaly hide. It turned out there was no need to worry. The animal made a low groaning noise, like it was
relieved. Oisin kept talking to it as he moved around it’s body, stroking its scales the whole time.

  I was instructed to get more pellets and returned to find Oisin stroking the creature’s nose just like he had the horses. We kept feeding it until contentment meant the animal gave a deep-throated groan. Oisin kept stroking the thing, telling it how beautiful she was and how he’d look after her.

  ‘So if it’s not a dragon, what is it? It looks like a dragon to me.’

  My apparent ignorance earned me a look of disdain. ‘It’s a female wyvern.’

  It rang a few discordant bells in my memory. ‘Didn’t your sister do some research on dragons and stuff?’

  Now I got a shake of the head. ‘Sibeal is widely recognised as the foremost expert on the species. It’s why Llyr went to her at the start. Most of them had been hunted to extinction but she managed the breeding programme until she realised what he was going to do with them and refused to cooperate any further.’

  ‘I imagine that must have annoyed Llyr.’

  Suddenly Oisin’s eyes filled with his eyes. ‘Sibeal is in prison. She was another lever Llyr used to force me to join him.’

  His shoulders heaved as his sobs made his chest convulse. The animal looked at him, again twitching its head from side to side in bewilderment. I ignored it and grabbed hold of him and held him tightly against me. By helping me escape he’d sacrificed his sister’s life if Llyr returned to Tir na nÓg.

  ‘I’m sorry Oisin. You should have told me.’

  For a while he didn’t speak as he slowly regained his composure. We stood like that for a moment until he gave me the look I’d imagined he’d used during the night when he’d cuddled up to me. I let him go instantly. My need for escape registered on his face.

  ‘I hoped you might be the person to stop him.’

  I shrugged self-consciously and hurried back into the barn to feed and water the horses. I felt Oisin’s eyes on me as he kept stroking the wyvern. We needed to get away from barns and all that they represented, besides, we didn’t have time to reminisce. Time was against us. During the night I’d woken up when I realised Amelie knew the location of the Knights and Llyr wouldn’t think twice about torturing the old bird to get the truth out of her. The bastard meant it when he’d screamed his intention to hunt us down, he needed the Knights and she was the only other person with that knowledge.

  I needed to find somewhere else to hide them, except I was running out of locations, these days newcomers got treated with suspicion and hostility and discreet hideaways were hard to find. All the same, Oisin’s earlier comment rankled, I was running away from a fight and Robin Goodfellow didn’t do that kind of thing. It had me kicking inanimate objects in frustration. That dark pit at the bottom of the spiral had returned and Oisin’s discreet glances in my direction told me he’d realised it too. I resented those looks and the overtures he kept making. Anger bubbled away inside me.

  ‘We need to leave. Get your horse.’

  ‘Of course.’ He saddled his animal but kept watching me. ‘Why not tell me why the darkness has descended again.’

  I explained how Amelie could lead Llyr to the twins in fairly terse statements and the urgent need to get to them quickly. Oisin had his horse saddled and ready before me, he was more familiar with the process while mine kept glancing outside at the red monster and nervously dancing about, hindering me even further. It only made me angrier, Oisin walked over and calmed the animal with a rub of its nose.

  ‘Llyr will need to find horses and he wouldn’t travel at night. We’re still in front of him. Don’t worry.’

  That fucking rationality again. I nodded and calmed myself until I couldn’t fasten the billet straps. He abandoned the horse’s nose, bent down to take the leather straps from me, giving me a warm smile in the process.

  Bloody horses.

  ‘But that’s not the issue, is it?’

  If I was to climb out of my pit I needed help. He was the only with a ladder. I held his eyes that were still directed at mine.

  ‘I don’t know what to do with the twins. They can’t stay where they are. I don’t know where to keep them that’s safe. It’s all so fucking unfair.’

  With the billet straps fastened he straightened up and patted the horse affectionately.

  ‘Unfair how?’

  ‘People. They didn’t know how, for centuries, the Knights had led secret crusades into Tir na nÓg as mankind’s champions. When they found out, after the invasion, the kids faced a barrage of resentment and hostility.’

  ‘But why? They’ve maintained the peace since Gawain was humanity’s first champion and, beyond that, because of the Knights’ Protocol. That’s admirable courage and devotion. Why would anyone criticise it, just because they didn’t know about it?’

  ‘For that reason. The government said they had a right to know, the secrecy led to humanity being completely unprepared.’

  The nod and shrug of shoulders didn’t help my temper, I didn’t want rational arguments about the rights or wrongs.

  ‘You can see their point.’

  ‘Of course I fucking can! What’s so unfair is that the ones who faced the fallout were teenage orphans. Their appearance makes them stand out, you can’t hide them. Every time people saw them they knew instantly who they were and the blame would get recycled.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘That’s it?’ I bellowed at him. ‘How’s that going to bring light into the darkness?’

  Perhaps if he’d got angry with me that would have helped but all he did was nod and smile at me, I wanted to punch his smug face.

  ‘There’s one solution, I don’t understand why you’ve not used it.’

  I threw my hands into the air. ‘Then do please enlighten me!’

  He’d returned to the horse’s nose, my animated behaviour was making the thing nervous.

  ‘Keep the twins with you. That way you can protect them, be more of the guardian Amelie talked about.’

  ‘Are you serious?’ I shouted the words in disbelief. There spoke a man who’d never had kids. So much for the ladder out of the pit. ‘We need to get moving.’

  I led my horse nervously past the wyvern. The sun poked its yellow disc just above the trees, making the creature’s scales shine. Oisin nodded at the wyvern that watched our imminent departure with interest as he led his own steed past it.

  ‘What do we do with her?’

  ‘Leave her here. I don’t give a fuck.’

  I mounted and took off.

  The noise of Oisin’s horse told me he was following not far behind but a minute later it was obvious we weren’t on our own. Heavy thuds and loud cracks from breaking branches left us in no doubt the wyvern had no intention of being left behind. She spooked our horses who thought the monster was chasing them, their jittery behaviour quickly exhausted me and did nothing to diminish my bad mood. I halted at a bend in the road where a swollen river gave the horses a chance to drink, albeit very nervously.

  The wyvern, oblivious of the chaos it was creating, chose to do the same thing. Somehow, as the creature dunked its head in the swirling waters and paid them no attention, the horses relaxed a little.

  ‘You need to get rid it,’ I snapped. The bloody thing provided a trail for Llyr to follow he couldn’t miss.

  ‘How do I do that?’ The reply just as bad tempered now.

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps if you hadn’t fed the fucking thing.’

  ‘Yeah. I should have let it eat you, shouldn’t I?’

  I pulled my horse’s rein, spoiling its enjoyment as it tugged at lush grass, and took off again, quickly followed by a horse and a red menace.

  A long time ago, when the land had last been flooded, our route had been called Arthur’s Hunting Causeway, defined by a narrow ridgeway that remained above the water level. Except now human habitation had complicated everything.

  We arrived at a small village which had grown up on either side of a narrow bridge which stretched over a river swollen now
to a torrent of brown flood water that fed a lake half a mile away.

  ‘What have we stopped for?’ Oisin asked. ‘It looks empty’

  ‘Looks are deceiving.’

  I pointed to the edge of the village where poles protruded out of a swamp, on two of them dangled the remains of bodies. I explained how these remote places survived on one thing, travellers that were made to pay a toll.

  ‘Is that what we’re going to do?’ Oisin’s expression told me he doubted it.

  ‘Often the ones who stay to negotiate, if they happen to have things the locals want, decorate those poles as well. Horsemeat is scarce these days.’

  Oisin frowned and patted his horse’s neck. Behind us the distinctive snort of the wyvern made us both look over our shoulders, Oisin tried a smile with me.

  ‘Our travelling companion might ease our passage through their toll.’

  ‘True.’ I dug my heels into my horse’s flanks and galloped towards the village.

  Four men and a fat woman in greasy overalls, wielding hoes, axes and a rusty sword, hurried to their positions in front of an array of furniture, branches and general rubbish stretched across the road. I lashed out with my sword at the man with the pitchfork, forcing him to stagger backwards into the others. One of them reacted fast enough to grab the reins of my horse, he realised his mistake when I booted him hard in the face and heard bones break. He screamed and fell to the ground. My horse leapt the barrier and I waited for Oisin to follow. Two of the men, recognising the mistake of their colleague, attacked on both sides while the fat woman hurled objects with alarming accuracy at Oisin. His horse reared up, if he hadn’t been such a good rider he’d have been unseated, I readied myself to go back and help but the fat woman’s screams halted everything.

  Stupefied beyond disbelief, the villagers stared at the sight of the wyvern barrelling towards them, roaring its fury. They immediately gave up their attack in a desperate bid to get out of its way. Oisin’s horse, still nervous and skittish, cleared the barrier but the wyvern made no such attempt, she demolished it and roared her defiance in the process.

  The villagers screamed their fury as we cantered along the road on the other side of the river. When we were far enough from the village Oisin dismounted and patted the wyvern on its neck and fed it some of the pellets he’d brought with him. The animal appeared to recognise it had done something good and made a noise like a cat purring; only about three octaves lower.