by Ross Turner
Encouragingly, Reaper nodded again and his hands spurred into motion once more.
He congratulated Marcii and confirmed for the both of them that she was right. The horse looked on with half concentrated interest, knowing he had needed to follow Reaper, but knowing not what he was doing with these two humans.
With one of them though, the girl he thought, he could feel a connection similar to that of Reaper’s.
From the boy there was nothing.
He was ordinary.
But from her there was definitely something.
The horse wasn’t entirely sure what it was, but nonetheless, it was there.
Soon enough, as the day wore inexorably on, Kaylm was well fed and rested. Soon enough he readied himself to depart.
He had yet another long journey ahead of him and he and Marcii both knew that it would be some time before they saw each other again.
If at all.
Marcii’s heart grew heavier by the moment and she felt a pit of longing opening up inside of her. The void had always been there, but never quite so infinitely deep.
“Stay safe.” She urged of him quietly, her voice barely a whisper as the words quivered off her tongue.
“I will.” Kaylm promised, though truth be told he had not the ability to make such statements. “You too.”
“I will.” Marcii replied. Indeed, her promise, though no more or less sincere than his, carried much more weight behind it, for she had a monstrous demon who would stop at no end to protect her.
Kaylm had nothing of the sort.
Within what felt like only seconds, though truly it was much longer, for she couldn’t bear to let him go, Marcii watched as her Kaylm rode off and into the distance.
She tried to stay sturdy, but the sight of him leaving was too much to bear.
Suddenly Marcii faltered and a shaking cry escaped her grasp. Her legs churned beyond her control and carried her forward.
“Kaylm!!” She cried desperately, chasing after him one last time.
He pulled his horse up to stop and turned and jumped down. His feet touched the floor only just in time for Marcii to reach him.
The young Dougherty threw herself at Kaylm and locked her arms tightly around his neck, burying her head into his shoulder.
“Come back to me.” She insisted, her voice thick with emotion.
Kaylm nodded but could not speak for he too was laced with love.
Pulling back, but not once releasing the lock of her arms, Marcii gazed into Kaylm’s bluey orange eyes for a moment. Her ever glorious yellow gaze held the sight of him, locking onto that image and hoping it would last forever.
She kissed him.
Marcii felt his warm breath inside of her as his lips traced fiercely along hers.
And then, in yet again what felt like a mere moment, Kaylm was gone.
The sight of him disappearing into the distance and off towards the east, fading away between the rolling hills and the trees, made Marcii’s heart turn to stone.
He passed between shadows and silhouettes like a ghost, wandering alone through the world without direction, or at least without a hope.
Reaper looked upon the sight with unreadable, jet black eyes, as ever, dark as coal.
As it always had done for those two, absence would forever make their hearts grow fonder.
But this time the odds were stacked heavily against them.
Reaper could quite clearly see the encroaching danger.
As much as they might not want it to, it seemed that now Marcii and Kaylm’s long separation would be bridged by much more than merely time.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Malcolm Evans had thought on this for several days now from a hundred different angles, and each time he always eventually came back around to the same conclusion.
His younger brother had defected.
Kaylm was in league with the witch and her demon.
There was no other way about it.
He cursed to himself as he stormed through the narrow, crisscrossing streets of Newmarket, bustling with life and activity as they always were.
He should have known.
The biting air was cold and sharp and stung at his exposed skin.
Where people should have been resting and eating and drinking, making the most of Winter’s Dew, they were not.
Instead, as he passed by markets and homes and stalls there came to his ears the ever continuous sound of grindstones and blacksmiths’ hammers, forging always new weapons and armour from fresh steel.
Had he an ounce of gentleness in his heart, Kaylm’s older brother Malcolm would have seen the wretchedness in all this.
But, sadly, he did not.
And even if he had done, his Lord Tyran would undoubtedly have ripped it from him without a moment’s notice, just as the cruel man had done to so many others.
Nonetheless, it was he whom Malcolm was searching for, as he patrolled through the harsh streets.
There were enforcers on every corner. By this point they were an army of huge, unstoppable, armour plated brutes. They all bore the same emblem, somewhere or other, on their brutish weapons and armour. The symbol depicted still the same scene of a person tied to a stake whilst flames licked up all about them.
But the sight of it did not disgust Malcolm.
This was simply what Newmarket had become.
Or, as Lord Tyran constantly assured them all, what Newmarket was made to be.
They could no longer live in fear of monsters hiding in the shadows, attacking and slaughtering innocents in the night.
Malcolm, just the same as everybody else, was only making a stand to protect himself, and his family.
That had included Kaylm, no matter how pathetic he was.
But now, without even any real evidence, Malcolm had decided that Kaylm no longer deserved such protection, and he was about to turn the entirety of Newmarket against him.
In reality though, nothing that had happened in Newmarket of late had been done based on even the tiniest scrap of truth, so this was nothing new.
This was simply the result of Tyran’s evil and cruelty seeping out to his underlings, without them even realising it.
Nonetheless, it had worked.
Tyran was in control.
Soon enough Malcolm had found his Lord. As ever, Tyran was surrounded by a host of enforcers, acting more like bodyguards than police.
But Tyran recognised Malcolm as a loyal supporter, for he had never once missed a speech or a hanging or a hunt. Such was Kaylm’s older brother’s support for his Lord’s cause that the dreadful Tyrant even knew him by name.
“Malcolm! My dear boy!” Tyran greeted him from over his enforcers’ shoulders. At the dreadful man’s mere word, the ominous wall of steel melted from Malcolm’s path.
“My Lord.” Malcolm greeted Tyran most formally, bowing his head slightly and prostrating himself in every manner short of dropping to his knees and grovelling.
Tyran did not expect that from his subjects.
Not yet anyway.
Such domination was an affliction that Tyran indulged in most willingly and his delusions of grandeur grew with each passing day.
“Enough of the formalities!” Tyran exclaimed, waving his hand as if they mattered not. Of course, he didn’t mean what he said, but he wanted to appear at least slightly humble.
Though his body was stout and potbellied, his mind was sharp as a knife and his keen gaze had detected a troubled look in Malcolm’s eyes.
The hunt for Marcii and her demon seemed to have dried up.
It was altogether most likely that she was lying face down in a ditch somewhere, having succumbed to the bitter cold weeks ago.
Nonetheless, that was irrelevant, for now Tyran needed something new to satisfy the thirst he had instilled within his lesser people. Simply by the look in Malcolm Evans’ eye, he detected that he might have found it.
The disgusting man, cruel though he was, hadn’t risen to such realms of we
alth and power without having his wits about him, for there is no greater weapon than control of the masses.
“I’m afraid I have troubling news, my Lord.” Malcolm stated immediately, his face flickering with grief at what he was having to do.
Tyran’s eyes glinted with the promise of bad news, but he did not let it show in his tone, feigning instead deep concern.
“Oh my…” Tyran offered, keeping a straight face, though most insincerely. “What in the world has happened? Come! Sit my boy!”
In an instant, from seemingly nowhere, yet two more enforcers appeared, carrying two chairs between them. The chairs were wooden and handcrafted, each with velvety red cushions sewn onto the seat and up the back.
Though they were in the middle of the market, it mattered not. Tyran simply sat down with Malcolm while his army of enforcers ensured that they were not disturbed.
Curious eyes peered in from this way and that, but the people knew not to get too close, save suffering the heavy blow of a fist or a club to the head.
Tyran’s enforcers afforded them almost complete privacy, and of course their own discretion could surely be trusted, for Tyran was lining their pockets endlessly.
“It’s my younger brother, Kaylm…” Malcolm confessed. “He never returned from the last hunt…”
“Was he killed?” Tyran asked, narrowing his eyes shrewdly, wondering whether he had misjudged the boy.
But alas, he had not, and Malcolm continued.
“I don’t believe so, my Lord.” Kaylm’s older brother went on. “He hasn’t yet returned, but I believe he will…”
“Why do you believe that?” Tyran pressed, cleverly skipping around the real issue of Malcolm’s confession, forcing the boy’s allegiance to be buried only ever deeper.
“I know him.” Malcolm insisted. “He is my brother, after all. And I know he won’t want us hunting him.”
“And why would we hunt him?” Tyran breathed, unable to help the cruel smile that played across his lips as he spoke, for he could wrap these stupid people up so easily that it was simply too much fun.
“Because he’s helping her.” Malcolm stated.
“The witch!?” Tyran hissed, faking shock, whilst secretly revelling.
“I’m afraid so…” Malcolm confirmed, nodding solemnly. “He’s always been friends with her, no matter how much my parents and I discouraged it…”
“I see…” Tyran noted, nodding his head slowly and seriously, though inwardly he was barely able to contain his excitement. “So…Malcolm…” The cruel Lord continued. “What would you suggest we do?”
He had Malcolm in the palm of his hand.
“Well…I…” Malcolm struggled, searching for the words he thought his Lord wanted to hear. “When he returns, we have to bring him to justice. We can’t let him destroy what we fight to protect.”
Tyran smiled cruelly.
Malcolm’s words sounded as though they had come from his very thoughts.
“I couldn’t have said it better myself.” Tyran praised the boy. “You are a fine example of a man.”
“Thank you, my Lord.” Malcolm replied.
“Now…” Tyran pressed. “You have proven to me that you are brave and unfalteringly loyal, Malcolm…”
The young man who was Kaylm’s older brother looked up and held his Lord’s gaze firmly, knowing that he had condemned Kaylm. But at the same time he was safe from guilt in the knowledge that he had done the right thing.
“Even in the face of your brother’s awful defection you have remained on the path of the just and righteous…” He went on.
“Thank you…” Malcolm repeated, though his words faltered somewhat.
Tyran’s, however, did not. His voice grew only more grave and more serious.
He made his instruction as plain and as clear as he could possibly manage. He didn’t want this idiot misunderstanding his orders.
“When your brother returns, like you said he will…” Malcolm’s Lord began slowly, and very purposefully. “I want you to bring him to me. Alive.”
Malcolm nodded, but he did not speak.
“Bring him to me.” Tyran repeated. “And I promise you his evil ways will not endanger a single soul here. He will be brought to justice.”
“Yes my Lord.” Malcolm confirmed, fully understanding his task, knowing that it was for the good of the people.
He could not allow the evil witch Marcii to claim any more innocent lives, no matter if that meant dealing with his brother in order to do so.
“Good.” Tyran breathed. “Very good. Now, in the meantime…”
His words pressed on menacingly, driving, and his eyes glinted dreadfully.
“Prepare for war…”
All those who heard Tyran’s orders, as far as he was aware, were enforcers.
They belonged to him.
He had nothing to worry about.
But what he did not know, for there was absolutely no way he could have done, was that a certain little girl, posing as a poor, homeless, helpless orphan, overlooked by all, was listening to his every word. With twigs strewn through her light brown hair that fell down haphazardly to cover her tawny eyes, Vixen stood in the background, hidden amidst the shadows.
She listened to Tyran’s orders with grim determination.
Marcii was about to lose everything.
The girl who looked to be a young orphan set immediately into motion.
Vixen could not warn Kaylm; that was not possible.
But she could warn Marcii, and warn her she would.
Without such grace, Marcii, Kaylm, and indeed Reaper too, would surely all suffer the same fate.
Though Kaylm might have been returning with the hope of misdirecting any future hunts, little did he know how drastically different his own family’s agenda was, and that his efforts would be all but futile.
It was down to Vixen to intervene.
But then, that was nothing new, for that was her entire purpose in life.
Besides, just as she wasn’t what she appeared to be, the task that lay now once again at her feet wasn’t all that great of a burden.
It was not with her that the heaviest weight lay.
No.
Truly, that lay with the young Marcii Dougherty.
Chapter Thirty-Five
There was an entire network of tunnels that ran endlessly beneath the abandoned streets of Ravenhead, crisscrossing at a hundred and more intersections in the darkness.
Rails that used to ferry innumerable carts ran through the thick dirt, buried beneath many years of sediment and decay. But then as the rails descended deeper into the tunnels, pervading the mines as they went, the dirt turned swiftly to cold, hard rock.
Odd, abandoned carts decorated the tracks here and there randomly, unused for so many years.
They had been so heavily relied upon that the metal rails had been pinned into the very stone with thick, foot long bolts, and remained there even still, unchanged after all this time.
It was nearly pitch black as Marcii navigated her way slowly through the never ending tunnels, only able to do so because by now her eyes were so well adjusted to the veil of darkness. Nonetheless, Reaper still walked with her. The tunnels were so enormous and so ingrained that for the most part he barely even needed to duck.
There were one to two points however, as they passed through the limitless blackness, where even Marcii was forced to stoop, and Reaper had to drop to his hands and knees and crawl.
It was the first time Marcii had been down in the tunnels since coming to Ravenhead. Her breath steamed out in front of her in the cold of the shafts in steady, nervous billows.
Marcii placed her feet in her soft leather shoes as deftly as she could manage either side of the thick, metal rails, and occasionally found herself walking along them, her arms outstretched as if she were walking a tightrope.
They had found a whole new world down there. It was a place where the air was perpetually cold. Where sound echoed round in ci
rcles forever, unable to escape. Where you could flee from the horrors of the world above and quite easily never again be found.
But, hard as she tried, and deep as she and Reaper ventured, Marcii could not escape.
All the while her mind swam with thoughts of Kaylm.
No matter what she did, or how fast she moved, or how deep she went, she was ceaselessly distracted.
It had been not even three days since Kaylm had left Ravenhead.
Marcii imagined that, although he would have had to make his way around the canyon, because Kaylm was on horseback, he would more than likely arrive back at Newmarket that very day.
She hoped with all her might that he would be well received.
Undoubtedly his family would have something to say about his disappearance.
Little did she know of the harsh reality Kaylm was yet to face.
They continued through the pitch black of the mining tunnels and eventually Reaper began to lead her back towards the surface.
Without Reaper’s perfect eyesight, or his unique connection with the earth that allowed him such flawless navigation, Marcii would surely have been lost forever down there.
After what felt like a lifetime they emerged back into the cold, bright day. Though the sky was clear and perfect blue, it was much colder out here than it had been down in the mines.
Regardless of the weather outside however, the temperature in the tunnels was forever constant.
Nonetheless, Marcii couldn’t imagine the thought of living down there for the rest of her life. On the contrary, Reaper had taken quite a liking to them, whilst the young Dougherty had begun restoring one of the homes that still had a standing roof.
To say restoring was perhaps generous.
She’d spent some time clearing rubble from the floor, making it more comfortable to sleep on. She’d also emptied the fire pit in the centre of the room to make space for it to be used properly.
If Reaper was to sleep in the mines and she was to sleep here, she would most certainly need a fire.
Much was changing it seemed.
The only thing that remained constant were Marcii’s endless thoughts of Kaylm and how she missed him so.
