by Ben Galley
‘Who were they?’ Lilain whispered into the darkness.
‘Bandits. Must have seen the fire and fancied their chances,’ Lurker told her, contempt dripping from his voice. Merion wondered if they reminded him of his wife’s murder in some way, recalling the story Lurker had told him at the edge of the Buffalo Snake’s fires, all those weeks ago. ‘Just a small crew, probably watchin’ the road.’
‘Got what they deserved,’ Rhin said.
Merion shut his tired eyes for a moment and grimaced. The image of the bandit raising that knife seemed to be etched into his eyelids. He could not stop playing it over and over again in his mind. What could he have done? What should he have done? Yet every time, that knife rose, poised to plummet down and bury itself in his heart. Merion felt his teeth began to chatter, and told himself it was the breeze. The exposed bones of weakness are always cold.
Seven dead and not a word traded with any of them. A simple, raw transaction, it seemed. But survival always makes murder a little easier to swallow. They had all rolled their die and the bandits had come up short. Merion just could not shake the feeling that the margin had been too narrow. Whether it had been over-confidence, or simple outnumbering, Merion could have died at that man’s hand tonight, and had been a sliver away from doing so. Had it not been for Lurker, it would have been Merion lying out there in the sand, unburied and unblinking, staring blankly up at the stars with a knife through the skull. And that, Merion swore to himself, would simply not do at all.
As the boy felt the tiredness begin to ferry him off to sleep, as his eyelids sagged and his body grew heavy, he made himself a promise. He would train, and train hard, and he would never let this happen again.
‘Merion,’ Lurker whispered to him. The prospector was dangling in the clutches of sleep himself. His hands rustled in a pocket. ‘I forgot I had this,’ he said. ‘Found it a few days back in the fort, and brought it thinkin’ it might cheer you up. If we run into it, that is. It ain’t good to focus so much on one thing all the time, and I should know,’ Lurker rumbled. There was a crackle of paper as he found what he was looking for. ‘My father took me to a circus when I was just a boy, and I never forgotten that day. Lions. Elephants. Pretty girls spinnin’ on ropes and wires. All sorts of things. It was one of the things that used to keep me going when I was in chains. Seein’ another circus again. Yes Sir. First thing I did after the war.’
Merion looked down and found a half-ripped poster in his lap. He turned it over and squinted at the words in the dappled starlight. ‘Cirque Kadabra’, it said. Merion turned around to thank him, but Lurker was already snoring. Lilain was taking the first watch.
Merion traced the lines of the words and the gaudy images of wild beasts and grand tents filled with all sorts of strange wonders. ‘Heading east,’ he mouthed the words along the bottom of the poster. Merion read them again, and again. Thoughts of the morning after the Serped fire came and insinuated themselves into his mind. He remembered the words he had spoken, as he stood bloodied and beaten under a grey sky, with Fell Falls burning in the distance. Head east … Earn a wage and travel till we hit the coast.
Merion closed his eyes, a little idea beginning to blossom in his mind as those old words lulled him to sleep.
He would rush in circuses if he had to.
*
Two hundred miles behind them, the cold light of the half-moon shone down on a small shack nestled in a gully of red rock. A tallow candle burnt at its only window. From its tiny chimney, fashioned from scraps of beaten iron, a thin trail of wood-smoke bothered the speckled sky. A tall pen made of sun-bleached wood and stolen railspikes sat outside its lopsided door, where a dozen goats slumbered peacefully.
Inside the shack, somebody was whistling. It was a tuneless sort of whistle, a sort of whistle to pass the time, or fill a lonely silence.
But for once, Barnamus was not lonely, and tonight his whistle was something else entirely. He warbled a jaunty tune of satisfaction as he ground his pestle and mortar together, clearly content with himself for some reason or another.
Barnamus paused to lift the mortar to his nose and sniff. It smelled about right, he thought. Resuming his whistling, he got up from his stool and walked to the back wall. He knelt down by his prize, tied to a bent pipe in the wall, and rested the mortar on the rough wooden floor.
‘Time for more medicine, girly,’ he whispered, dipping his finger in the pungent mixture and waggling it under her nose.
Calidae stirred, the stiff rope around her wrists creaking as she awoke. She breathed in, caught one whiff of the medicine, and thrust her face away from it. ‘No,’ she croaked. ‘I don’t want any more.’
‘But you’re almost healed,’ Barnamus cooed, running the finger along her bare shoulder, where the sackcloth did not cover her. The mixture was cold, and the skin still raw in places. Calidae bit her lip and shivered, trying to shrug herself away from the man. Barnamus grabbed her by the chin and hissed in her face. ‘I got to fix you up first, otherwise nobody’ll want you. Now you stay still, you hear?’
Calidae glared daggers at him, but she stayed still long enough for him to slather the disgusting-smelling paste across her shoulder, neck, and the side of her face, where it hurt the most. She cursed under her breath as he smeared it across her cracked skin. After two weeks, she was beginning to heal.
‘Such a foul tongue, for a young girly like you.’
Calidae bared her teeth at him, half in pain, half in anger. ‘I told you! Nobody will pay anything for me. I’m just a maid!’
‘And I told you that if’n you came from that boat, and you got yourself an Empire accent, then somebody’ll want you. Maids are like goats, see, they’re for the ownin’. You’re property. And property that’s returned is rewarded,’ Barnamus told her with a grin. ‘And if not, I’m sure I could find you a little brothel somewhere, with an owner that’s lookin’ for somethin’ different.’
‘You disgust me,’ Calidae whispered, and then winced as Barnamus pressed a little harder on her scalp.
The goatherd whistled away until he had used up all of his mixture, and Calidae’s skin glistened with the oily, greenish medicine. She glared at him as he sat back, like a painter admiring his handiwork. ‘Another week, I reckon,’
Another week of being cooped up in this hole. Another week of his hands on her. Another week of pain and enduring his damn nonsense. Calidae raged inwardly. She had already tried to escape once. She knew the price of disobedience. Her ribs still hurt.
Barnamus’ gaze wandered over her, from her scars and bruises, some faded, some fresh, down to her sackcloth coverings. The scrap of material could not cover all of her, even though she had her knees tucked under her chin. Barnamus, his wrinkle-bound face devoid of any emotion, reached out a hand and touched her foot, sliding his fingers across her filthy skin.
Calidae stayed as still as a skeleton, and her eyes glazed over with a look to match. Barnamus’ fingers wandered higher, leaving a trail of green across the top of her foot and up her ankle. Onto her leg, they crept, and still Calidae did not move. Barnamus shuffled closer, and as his hand reached her thigh, he leant forwards to hold her bound wrists. He would not have a repeat of last time. The bruise around his eye was still tender to the touch.
What a human bite lacks in sharpness, it makes amends for in rage and ferocity. The animal may have been filed out of our teeth, but not out of our soul.
Calidae wrenched herself forwards with all her might, opening her mouth as wide as possible and sinking her teeth into the mottled skin below the curve of his jawbone. She bit down as hard as she could, feeling his skin break under her teeth and the warm blood on her tongue. The taste drove her on, harder, deeper, until she could feel her teeth touching again. Only then did she pull away.
Pain replaced confusion as she ripped the chunk from his neck. Barnamus’ scream was piercing, and as he reeled backwards, and fell flailing on the floor, blood flooded from the gaping hole in his neck.
&nbs
p; Calidae had hit an artery, just as she had hoped. Blood dripping from her mouth, she scrabbled away from the dying, thrashing man, watching every one of his last moments with wide eyes. She was enraptured, half-horrified, half-fascinated by what she had done.
Barnamus clutched at his throat and strained to stop the blood from flowing, but it was no use. The girl had sunk her teeth deep.
In the end, he died staring up at the rotting ceiling, and at the girl standing over him, wrists still bound yet free of the pipe. Her face was a mask of blood and gore, and there was a defiant spark in her eyes. She licked her lips, feeling more than a shiver of magick, and looked at the door.
‘Tonmerion Hark,’ she spat blood. ‘I’m coming for you.’
Chapter VI
THE DEEP TUNNELS
25th June, 1867
‘War in the east! Ottoman Empire set to fall!’
‘Tzar Alekzander makes promise to see Turks defeated!’
‘Her Majesty Victorious to send aid!’
‘Prime Lord Dizali despatches ambassadors to seek ceasefire!’
Mr Witchazel eyed the monochrome pictures with a creased frown, letting the high-pitched hollering of the scrawny paperboys wash over him. He tipped back his hat, staring at the foreign dignitaries shaking hands, the Ottoman clockwork cannons, the locomotives crammed with troops brandishing tall fur hats and curved swords. Witchazel shook his head and kneaded his furrowed brow. The papers had spoken of nothing but war since he was a child, or so it seemed. But then again, he pondered, how else are empires to be built? Blood always follows in the path of greed.
Witchazel moved on, his gaze picking over the headlines and front pages of London’s papers. The morning was swiftly warming up, and the gutter-stink was rising. Behind him, the streets were filled with their usual clatter, the murmuring of people going about their varied business, and the rattling of hooves and ironclad wheels over centuries-old cobbles. Even in the shadow of the towering buildings that made canyons of the streets, Witchazel was beginning to sweat under his blue pinstripe suit.
A shout cut through his reverie, delivering him a different headline from the others.
‘War in the west!’ proclaimed the boy at the end of the row, the place reserved for the smaller, more dubious paper companies. He belted it at the top of his lungs in a voice that had a long way to go before dropping. Witchazel manoeuvred through the milling crowds to get closer. The boy balanced on a pair of crutches, since his legs were withered and crooked. Polio, no doubt. It was rife in the poorer corners of London.
‘Say again, lad? War in the west, you say?’ Witchazel asked him, snatching for the paper the boy wafted under his nose.
The boy shuffled round to face him. ‘Indeed, Sir. King Lincoln ’as ’is ’ands full,’ he squeaked, as if he were allergic to a good old-fashioned ‘h’.
‘I see,’ Witchazel murmured, as he devoured the paper’s front page, catching words here and there, such as ‘Shohari’, ‘Wyoming’, and ‘frontier’. None of them were particularly reassuring.
‘I ’ear there was an Empire boy there when it all started, Sir. ’E escaped. Everybody’s talkin’ about ’im. Story came out last week, Sir.’
Witchazel levelled his eyes at the paperboy. ‘Who, lad? Who?’
‘Page four, Sir,’ came the squeak of a reply.
The paper crackled as Witchazel practically ripped it open, and there he was: Tonmerion Harlequin Hark, bold as daylight, grubby as gutters, and etched in black and white for all to see. A willowy woman stood beside him, and a dark man in a hat too.
‘ ’E looks just like ’is father, says my Da,’ said the boy, hand already itching for the coins he hoped were coming his way.
‘That he does,’ Witchazel murmured. It all made perfect sense now. The lawyer reached into his breast pocket and brought out a silver shilling. Ten times what the paper was worth. He half-expected the lad’s eyes to pop right out of his little skull when he pressed it into the boy’s ink-stained palm and folded his skinny fingers around it. ‘Keep it out of sight of the others, lad,’ he said, before turning and hurrying away across the cobbles, the paper gripped tightly in his hand.
‘Thank you, Sir!’ A squeak followed him down the street.
*
A dockside inn was a strange place to see a lawyer, all trussed up in a fine suit with a top hat resting on the table next to him. This sort of place was normally reserved for the bilge stepping off the ships—the sort of place where gruff words were washed down with cheap ale and cheaper spirits, the sort of place where rats were just as welcome as the drinkers. This sort of place was perfect for quiet whispers and keeping out of sight of watchful eyes.
Witchazel kept his eyes down and his ears sharp, listening to the grousing of shipmates and gun crews that had found themselves adrift in London’s vast docks with a calloused handful of coins and far too many months of sea under their rope belts. Witchazel allowed himself a few quick glances over his cup, spying powder-burnt fingers gripping tankards, wiry, tattooed arms scorched by the salt and sea, and hard faces, busy with the talk of different captains, the war brewing in the Meditrani, and the quality of the local brothels.
They soon noticed his staring and Witchazel looked back down at his paper, folded neatly into a square from which Merion stared out at him, frozen in ink. He could not help but notice how different the boy looked from the one who had sat stiff and stern in his office, barely a few months earlier, how different from the tottering boy he remembered following Karrigan from room to room, having escaped his nursemaids once more. There was now a streak of man in him, and it worried Witchazel all the more.
The door banged against its frame and another figure entered. He was tall, with a grizzled beard poking out from the shadow of his hood. Under the curious and wary eyes of the sailors, and Witchazel for that matter, he sauntered to the bar and muttered something to the landlord, who was slumped half-drunk against the wall.
Witchazel turned back to his newspaper and read its lines for the twentieth time. He checked his silver pocket watch and frowned. The man was late, as always.
A shadow fell over his table in the lamplight, and Witchazel tensed.
‘Mind if I join you?’ asked a gruff voice.
Witchazel lifted his head to find the bearded man looking down at him, clutching a wooden cup in his hand. His hood was still low, and in the pipe-smoke gloom, his face was but a collection of shadow and edges. ‘I am waiting for somebody, actually.’
But the man didn’t seem to care. He grabbed the back of the opposite chair with a scabbed gang of fingers and dragged it out, making it squeak on the wooden floorboards. ‘Strange place for meetings,’ he replied, as he sat down with a huff. ‘Almost like you were trying to hide something.’
Witchazel squinted, leaning forward. ‘Is that … you?’ he asked slowly.
The man huffed again, and shrugged back his hood. He was a bald man, with broken veins sneaking here and there across his scalp. He had a crooked nose, shattered some time long ago, and his beard was like an overgrown bush, black with a dash of grey loitering at the edges. His eyes were dark, impossibly so, and something fierce hid behind them, as if they would spew fire at any moment.
Witchazel was a little taken aback. ‘I know it’s been a while, but I barely recognised you,’ he whispered. ‘That disguise is exceptional.’
‘Necessary,’ the man grunted, tapping his temples. ‘What’s all this about then?’
The lawyer put a finger in the centre of the newspaper, right on Merion’s face, and slid it across the table. ‘Have a look for yourself,’ he replied. The man spun the paper around and hunkered down over it, as if his eyes were poor. Perhaps it was just the gloom of the tavern.
It took only a moment for the information to be digested. The man stared at the picture of the dusty, bloodied young Hark and hummed to himself. ‘Shit,’ was all he said.
‘Indeed,’ nodded Witchazel, and there was silence between them, full of the chuntering of th
e sailors, and the squeaking of the landlord cleaning glasses that were already far beyond hope.
The man lowered his voice and leant forward, dark eyes still. ‘What was his lordship thinking? Sending him out there?’
‘It was his aunt he was sent to, not the west. You know that, and you know why.’
‘Then she should bring him home, immediately.’
Witchazel pulled a wry face. ‘And this is why I called for you. It’s far from that simple,’ he said. He reached into his pocket and brought out a folded wiregram. ‘This came late last night.’
As the man’s eyes darted over the words, the odd one would fall from his lips as he read, mouthed in nothing but a whisper. There were untrustworthy ears in the highest and the lowest of places. ‘Who sent this?’ Those dark eyes flicked up.
Witchazel tapped the paper. ‘Look at the first letter of every line.’
‘Merion.’
‘The very same.’
‘So this was no accident? No attack?’
‘Not in the slightest.’
‘That means their game is already afoot.’
Witchazel sighed. ‘Karrigan’s fears have been confirmed.’
‘You would have thought the edge of the world was far enough away.’
‘Thank the Almighty the boy has his father’s stubborn streak in him.’
‘That he does,’ the man grunted. ‘Now I understand why your message sounded so urgent.’
‘If they have already tried to coerce him, then—’
‘Then they won’t waste their breath on another attempt. Not now,’ the man interrupted, stabbing a finger at the newspaper.
Witchazel ran a tongue over his teeth, tasting the residue of the cheap wine. ‘They would not dare.’
But the man shook his head. ‘You’re wrong. Don’t forget, I’ve seen more of the dark underbelly of the Emerald Benches than most.’
Witchazel drummed his fingers on the table-top. ‘Killing the heir resolves nothing. The estate would revert to his aunt.’
