by Ben Galley
In the space of a blink, the carriage came down hard on its side, spraying the pavement with glass and snapped iron. There were yells from the cabin as it began to slide sideways. The driver was pitched to the cobbles as the horses broke free.
Calidae brought their steeds in hard, their hooves skidding on stone. The carriage beneath them pitched upwards, back wheels skittering on the street, almost lifting. They came to a stop with an inch between the horses’ snouts and Dizali’s broken carriage.
Merion was on the ground in an instant, brandishing another vial. The Belle swung close, scaring the streets clear of people. More men had joined Lurker at the airship’s door, brandishing all kinds of weapons. Red waistcoats ruffled in the stiff breeze.
‘Come out slowly, Dizali!’ Merion warned, flicking the stopper from his shade.
‘Curse you, Hark!’ came a yell.
Another crack of a gun split the air and something ricocheted into the carriage’s door. There was a muttered round of obscenities before it was kicked open, and an armoured body slumped to the cobbles, dagger in its neck. A dishevelled and furious Dizali came next, blood streaked across his cheek. The man named Rolick followed, knife in hand.
‘Deal with him, Captain,’ said Dizali, crouching behind the shattered ruins of his carriage.
‘Drop it!’ Merion ordered, but Rolick wasn’t so keen on the idea. He marched forward, pure murder flashing in his eyes.
‘I owe you an injury after Harker Sheer, don’t I?’ he spat. ‘Finest swordsman in the guard, I am. Don’t need no magick in my veins to beat you.’
Merion sank his vial, stepping back. A bullet flew past Rolick’s ear, but still he kept coming, ducking and weaving; his blade a blur of steel. Merion pulled at the magick with all his might, dragging it up to his head as quickly as possible.
Then, Rhin was between them, ducking the whirling blade to trip Rolick. The knife, which had been aiming for Merion’s heart, dug into the stone at his feet instead. The magick finally kicked into life, surging and throbbing through his muscle fibres. The world became crystal clear; each tiny moment stretched out and slowed. He could feel every shiver of the air.
Merion stood tall and waited for Rolick to take another swing. The man did him the honour almost instantly, kicking the faerie aside and lurching forward. To Merion, it came as slow and lazy as a yawn. He watched Rolick’s blade sailing through the empty air above his head, and stepped aside before it had even finished its arc. He threw a fist into Rolick’s side, then brought both fists down on the man’s arm. Awkward, youthful blows; but they did the job. The blade skittered over the cobbles. Rolick had just enough time to fix Merion with a bemused look before a bullet caught him square in the back.
Almighty be damned if that aunt of his wasn’t a fine shot.
Rolick groaned, slumping to the floor. His legs seemed slack and useless.
With wobbling knees and thumping heart, Merion walked over to Dizali. Calidae stood by, brandishing the dagger she had pulled from the lordsguard’s neck. Merion moved past him, meeting his hateful sneer, and stopped at the edge of the river.
‘GUN!’ he yelled to Lurker, catching a few muted screams from further down the street. In the immediate vicinity, they were practically alone; but, judging by the whistles of the constabulary and the drones of approaching airskiffs, they would not be for long. The city was taut with chaos.
Lurker roared something to a crew member and moments later The Cloudy Belle moved closer to the riverbank, making the lanterns shake. Lurker tipped an imaginary hat and thew down the Mistress. Merion caught it deftly, the shade still blessing him. He bowed to the prospector with a smile. ‘You’re a crazy fool!’ he yelled.
‘That makes two of us!’ Lurker bellowed back, even gruffer than the engines. ‘And don’t forget this!’
Something shiny followed the gun. Merion caught the little vial with both hands. It was the kelpie blood.
‘Now, Lord Dizali,’ Merion said, stuffing the shade under his shirt before turning around. He fixed his nemesis with a piercing glare, speaking around a smile. ‘I believe Lieutenant Constable Pagget would like a word with you.’
Dizali was about to speak when Calidae butted in. ‘No. We should take him to the Crucible. Have him confess to the crowd.’
Dizali growled. ‘I will do no such thing!’ Calidae waved the knife in his face and he fell silent again.
Merion turned to the girl. ‘This was not the plan, Calidae. We have not done enough!’
‘We can hang him there and then, instead of the Queen,’ she said, prodding him in the chest. Dizali turned a darker shade of red.
Keeping his gun trained on Dizali, Merion took her aside and whispered sharply in her ear.
‘No! He will have a public trial, like all criminals. I will not make him a martyr!’
‘I will not speak a word!’ said Dizali.
Merion turned back to him and cocked the Mistress.
‘Go ahead!’ Dizali snarled.
The boy squeezed off a shot, punching a hole in the wood a foot from Dizali’s head. It was enough to shut him up, even though his eyes still burnt with rage.
Rhin stumbled over, clearly hurt by Rolick’s kick. ‘I would agree with her, Merion. Don’t put your trust in those politicians. Don’t give him a chance to squirm.’
Merion bit his lip, looking over his shoulder at the towers of the Crucible, barely a few miles away. If he listened carefully, he could hear the muted roar of a mighty crowd, gathered to watch a queen hang for the first time in history.
‘It would be perfect,’ he murmured. ‘A confession. No hanging. A public trial.’
Merion turned back to Dizali. ‘In the carriage, now.’
‘I will not,’ he snarled.
Merion levelled the gun at Dizali’s heart, if he truly had one. ‘I will shoot you here and now.’
Dizali raised his chin. ‘But the problem is, Hark, you cannot.’
‘You’re ruined, either way. Get in the carriage!’ Calidae jabbed him with her blade.
‘A knee, first?’ Rhin suggested.
Dizali’s eyes flickered. His angular cheeks, burning red with anger, momentarily paled. ‘You would not dare.’
The Mistress angled downwards, pointing at his left knee. The boy’s words were like shards of flint, flying from a chisel, so low and dangerous he almost shocked himself.
‘I count five more bullets in this gun. That means one for each knee and elbow. As long as you can speak, I do not care if I have to drag you on to that gallows stage.’
That brought a quiver to Dizali’s eyelid, and yet still he refused to move. Merion stared down at him. It was a thrill to be in that moment, with a gun trained on the defeated lord. But with the magick thudding through him, it felt woollen and dreamlike; as if it would all slip away with a twitch too vicious, as if he needed somebody to tell him he had done it to realise for himself. He drank in the detail: every dribble of blood from Dizali’s nose; every misplaced, oiled hair; every shining glass fragment wedged in suit fibre. He crushed it all down into something solid, to be wedged in his memories like a diamond pressed into a ring. Merion could not tell if it was the exhaustion or the adrenaline or the shade fading. Perhaps this was simply what success felt like. It was rather new to him, after all.
It took a while for Dizali’s words to find their way through the vice of his jaws. ‘I will haunt you from the grave if that is what it takes to see your end come. Painful, brutal, and early. You will know my vengeance, Tonmerion Hark.’
‘Not if he knows mine first,’ said a voice.
Merion’s gun whirled to its source.
Fae Queen Sift stood in the centre of the street, hands on armoured hips and a cocky smile on her pallid face.
‘Sift…’ Merion echoed the faerie at his side. It had all the venom of a curse.
‘Tonmerion Hark, the thief. Rhin Rehn’ar, the traitor. And Lord Dizali, the liar. What a fortunate Fae I am to have stumbled across you all.’
&n
bsp; Rhin and Merion took a step forward. The boy was already reaching for his next vial. Sift spied his movements and raised a warning finger, sharp as a dagger.
‘I wouldn’t, if I were you, boy,’ she said.
‘What do you want, Sift?’ said Merion.
Sift picked a nail. ‘I would have thought that obvious, Hark. I am here to claim what is owed to me.’
Rhin spat. Dizali seethed. Calidae looked around for something to break a tiny skull with.
‘We are not yours to claim,’ said Merion. He eyed The Cloudy Belle, which had drawn level again. They all heard the snap and click of weapons over the thunderous engines. ‘As you can see.’
Sift’s golden eyes flashed. ‘I strongly disagree,’ she yelled over the roar of the airship and the closing police whistles. Shouts echoed through the streets around them.
She raised her hand and a small sea of armoured, grim-faced faeries shimmered into view, like a mirage of crumbling cobbles. Their swords were drawn, black as their armour. The carriage horses began to buck their reins, nostrils full of magick.
Merion swung his pistol in a low circle, turning to face Lurker and his aunt. He shook his head at them.
‘Then it truly is a day for reckonings,’ he said, turning back to her.
‘Isn’t it ju—’
Sift was no Castor Serped. She saw the squeeze of the boy’s finger halfway through her sentence and threw one of her soldiers forward as she flitted to the side. The faerie exploded in a lavender mist.
Rifles cracked, spraying shot and bullets across the cobbles. A wave of Fae were spattered to the stone, purple blood spraying and voices yelling curses in the Fae tongue. A blast caught Sift’s wing, tearing a chunk from its tip. She screeched with rage, drawing her sword and bounding forward. Merion kicked out, spinning her away.
Dizali’s feet were as quick as his mind, it seemed. Seizing his chance, he bustled through the small bodies and bullets, moving down the riverbank and towards the Crucible. He ran doubled-up behind the stone wall.
‘After him!’ Merion cursed. He ran as fast as he could, Calidae nipping at his heels, and Rhin clinging to his shirt-tails. The faerie had found a knife in the confusion, and it was now clamped between his teeth. Sift and the surviving Fae gave chase, larger legs pitched against wings and agility. The faeries swarmed like a breaking wave, flowing over the stone as bullets broke chips from the cobbles.
Sift thrust herself forward with her wings, scoring a hit on the heel of Merion’s boot. He felt her sheer will dragging him backwards, as though he trailed an anchor.
Merion cast a glance over his shoulder and saw constables giving chase now, taking aim at the airship. The Belle veered away. Gasbags and rifles don’t mix.
‘She wants me!’ Rhin shouted. ‘Let me go. I’ll lead her away!’
‘Not a chance!’ Merion said between the thudding of feet, eyes locked on Dizali. ‘I’ve lost you to her once. That’s not happening again.’
‘She won’t catch me. I have an idea!’
Merion bared his teeth. ‘If I have to shrink down again, I—’
‘You won’t,’ said Rhin, before bounding from his shoulder and pelting down an alleyway. Merion knew that glint in his eye: the faerie had a plan.
It seemed that Sift favoured her traitor over the thieves and liars. She paused for a fraction of a moment before snarling like a burnt cat and chasing after Rhin. Merion said a silent and hopeful prayer for his friend as he ran.
For two miles they ran, flat out, breathless, and thanking the Endless Land for its harsh training. Dizali stayed just ahead of them on every turn, every blasted flagstone. Calidae and Merion ran without words. They had no need for them. It was only when their prey reached the first fringes of the Crucible’s swollen crowds that they began to shout. It looked as though half of London had come to swarm, like vultures, waiting for the snap of a trapdoor and the cheers or cries to rise up from within the prison’s walls.
‘Make way!’
‘Clear a path!’
When the crowd didn’t part, they barged bodies aside. More than once, Merion had to brandish the Mistress. They were losing Dizali. He was making straight for the gates and their guards; still resolute despite the press of people against them.
‘Got anything in that blood of yours that can help?’
Merion bunched his jaw as he ran, grabbing a vial from his pocket. ‘I don’t know!’
‘Try, then!’ she yelled, shouldering a man aside. ‘Make way, curse you!’
The boy offered a prayer as he rose the glass to his lips, draining the burgundy liquid.
Please not insect.
The shade struck like a hammer, almost doubling him up as he ran. He nearly stumbled, but Calidae dragged him up. Had his head not been pounding and almost blinding him with pain, he would have found her charity disturbing.
‘Argh!’ Merion bayed, throwing hands to his skull. It felt as though his brain was going to burst as the magick surged into it. He felt the skin under his hair rippling, and growled as he brought his blood to the boil, fuelling it with every glint and grin Dizali had ever given him.
Merion tripped again, tumbling into a man hawking lurid souvenirs of tin crowns and wooden sceptres. His head struck the pedlar square in the stomach. To the boy’s surprise, the man flew backwards a good two yards, memorabilia falling like strange rain.
As he scrabbled to his feet, he caught an odd look from Calidae. They nodded in unison, and she pushed him in front of her. Merion let the magick guide him, bending his head and back so he could charge like a battering ram through the crowds. People parted like wheat before a scythe.
Dizali was already screaming at the guards, fending off those who had realised they had a Lord Protector in their midst. Cheers filled the air as the rumour spread. Merion could hear Dizali over the thwack of bones and flesh on his thickened skull.
‘Arrest those traitors!’ he screeched, as the Crucible guards ushered him inside and hauled the gates closed against the press of fawning subjects.
Merion felt Calidae’s hands on his back, driving him faster. He grit his teeth as he pushed his legs into the ground. Spears were levelled, but a shot from the Mistress made their owners waver. With a clang and a cry, Merion met an armoured breastplate, utterly shattering it with his hardened bones before driving the man beneath against the bars of the gate. He felt his neck scream in pain, but kept pushing. The gate-bolt snapped under the force. ‘Keep going!’ Calidae yelled as Merion fought off a sickly dizziness.
If they had thought the crowds outside impressive, the swarm of humanity that clogged the grounds of the Crucible was staggering. Another thunderclap of the Mistress elicited screams and a narrow channel through which to race, as they trailed in the wake of Dizali. He was racing straight for the gallows.
‘He’ll have her hanged the moment he reaches the gallows!’ shouted Merion.
‘This is no time for loyalty to the crown, Hark!’
He grabbed Calidae by the arm. ‘If he hangs her, he’s won.’ She seemed to understand that at least, nodding grimly as they barged their way through the tumult and under the prison’s yawning arches.
Every shade of the Empire had squeezed itself in to the prison’s inner courtyard, filling it to the brim: butchers, soldiers, doctors, factory workers, sailors, tinkers, lamplighters, lords, ladies, maids, and businessmen; all rubbing shoulders and jostling each other. Something seemed to have disturbed them greatly. There was a uneasy air among the shouts and cries. Whatever compassion the city once had for its fallen Queen had all but been abandoned. Cheers of, ‘Hang! Hang! Hang!’ joined the hollering of the guards still giving chase.
Merion looked up to where the colossal gallows had stood for centuries. Two stories high, built of oak and stained a dark brown, almost black. The noose, made of a pure white rope and freshly knotted for the occasion, hung from a mighty beam. When Merion spied the figure whose neck waited in its grasp, he realised why the crowd were so edgy. Queen Victorious s
tood there, flanked by four enormous Crucible guards and yet still towering over them by at least a foot. Her shape was uneven under her black cloak, her strange face bared for the first time in several hundred years. She was an ashen grey, with warped features and wattles of barbel-like skin hanging from her chin. Her eyes were far too large for a human face, and glinted even in the daylight.
Gunderton was right: she was far from human, too long a lamprey. The crowd knew it. The tail of the snake had never seen the head. Now, in the reveal, they found it repulsive. No human will suffer the rule of a monster.
‘Almighty…’ Merion breathed as he ran, lungs burning.
Lord Dizali had almost reached the foot of the gallows tower and the ring of guards that stood around it. The gunshots had reached their ears, and their halberds menaced the onlookers. Merion raised the Mistress high and let her sing again. The whole of the crowd flinched, and amid the screams and confusion, Calidae and Merion slipped between the waving blades and thrust the guards aside. It was a rash move, but it worked, and together they bounded up the wooden steps of the tower, closing the gap.
‘Hang her!’ came the shout from above: a hoarse Dizali screeching at the top of his voice. ‘Hang her now!’
Merion’s legs were pistons, leaving Calidae behind and powering him up the last two flights, careering around their curves like a wild beast. One, two, three more, and he burst into the sunlight.
‘DIZALI!’ he roared, levelling the Mistress. ‘Stop him!’ Confused by their mismatched orders, the guards grabbed their lord instead. Dizali thrashed against them. The hangman, hooded and ghoulish, stepped towards the lever. Victorious hissed, baring her filed teeth. She caught the boy in her stare and for a moment he felt as though he was wading through treacle.
