Bloodmoon (The Scarlet Star Trilogy Book 2) (5 page)

‘Show me.’

Gavisham set his bag on the floor, and unbuttoned his coat. He held it wide, showing off the myriad of bottles and vials that hid within. Each sat in a pocket of its own, fastened into place with a little loop of twine, ready to break when needed. Each one flashed a different colour, mostly red, but some faint blues, browns, and yellows for good measure. Dizali’s eyes roved over them, losing count.

‘Fine,’ said Dizali, leaning back in his leather chair. ‘To the docks with you then. Have your revenge.’

Gavisham nodded, and then leant forwards to extend a hand. Dizali stared at it for a while before standing and reaching to shake it, briefly.

‘I will not fail you, Milord.’

‘I’m counting on it, Gavisham. Dismissed, and good luck.’

‘You don’t need luck when you can bloodrush, Lord Dizali,’ Gavisham smirked, flashing gold, before turning on a heel and slamming the door.

Dizali raised an eyebrow. He had to smile as he reached for his brandy. ‘No, you do not,’ he replied.

THE ROAD

20th June, 1867

M
erion lingered beneath the eaves of the shed, watching the soldiers and guards on their rounds. The fort’s mood had not lifted in the past few days. A sullen air followed the gun-toting figures like a miasma as they milled about, eyeing the refugees with mild disinterest.

Sniffing the night air, Merion took in the dust, the wood, and the stink of sweaty horses. His feet itched, eager to move, hopefully east. Hell, his whole body itched, as it had since that weary morning trudging through the desert, with the heat rising around his cracked, blood-caked shoes, the magick still buzzing in his veins. He had itched for that feeling again every day since.

Merion bit the inside of his lip. He felt frustrated, more than anything. The war further down the railroad had forced him to languish, forced him to confront the feelings that constantly swirled beneath his otherwise sullen and quiet exterior. Not just the itching for blood, but the outrage, the sorrow, and, though he disliked to admit it, the chilling fear that time was being wasted, crumbling like stale bread. Out on the road, they could be brushed aside or trampled. Here in the fort, there was nothing to be done but sit and stew in them. And he hated it. Fortunately for Merion, tonight was finally the night it would change.
Lasp’s orders be damned
.

‘Where are they?’ he muttered to himself, just to fill the boredom of silence.

A small voice piped up beside him. ‘Lurker went to fill his flask. Lilain moves a little slower these days.’ Rhin appeared a short distance away, perched on the brink of a step, half-faded.

Merion could not help but jump. A short lifetime of living with a faerie, and still it never failed. He groped for an answer.

‘I’m sorry for making you jump,’ the faerie apologised. ‘I thought you were just ignoring me. I didn’t have anywhere else to go.’ Rhin’s words sounded small, even for somebody twelve inches tall.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Merion told the dust at his feet.

Rhin attempted to flash one of his old trademark grins, but it quickly withered. ‘Excited to be getting out?’

‘Mmm,’ was all Merion said in reply.

Rhin kicked his boots together, and sighed.

Lurker soon rounded the corner, listing slightly to the left. Something sloshed in his pocket as he walked. He made no apology, and simply sniffed, rubbed his nose, and looked around. ‘Where’s Lil?’

‘Yet to arrive,’ Merion answered.

‘Think this’ll work? It’s failed the last three nights,’ Lurker grunted, looking between the boy and his faerie. ‘We’ve been lucky to get away with it so far. Now the soldiers are back, and Mayut’s drawin’ ever closer. They’re tightenin’ security.’ He was always more loquacious when he’d had a few, and Merion had to smile wryly. The mildly pickled prospector was right. They had been caught, or almost caught, three times since roasting the jackalope. Escape had been snatched from their hands like a starving dog deprived of its bone.

But tonight was the night, Rhin had promised. Tonight was none other than Brigadier General Lasp’s birthday, and there were to be celebrations in the mess hall, war be damned. With half the soldiers ordered to attend, smiles firmly plastered on their faces, escape would be theirs at last.

There came the sound of voices along the thoroughfare, and their heads snapped up. Rhin shivered out of sight, and Merion stood a little straighter. Lurker just sniffed as always.

‘As I was saying, Major, he’s right here. Aren’t you, Tonmerion Hark?’

‘I am indeed,’ Merion replied.

‘Like I said, up to no mischief.’ His aunt flashed him an urgent look with her eyes, and Merion stepped forwards.

It was Major Doggard. His face was more flushed than usual, stress glinting in his eyes, a sure sign that the general had given him forty lashes with the tongue. ‘Be that as it may, Ma’am, the Brigadier wants a word with the young man.’

‘For what reason?’ Merion asked.

‘What reason?’ echoed Lurker.

Doggard looked Lurker up and down, and his grip on his rifle visibly tightened. ‘What with all the suspicious goings on, and finding you three all about the fort at night, the Brigadier’s got to wondering. Wants to set the boy straight.’

‘He lays a hand on …’

‘Not like that, Ma’am,’ Doggard hissed. He ran an exasperated hand through his hair, which burned orange in the torchlight. ‘If it makes you feel better, I’ll be there the entire time.’

‘That it does, Major,’ Lilain said, jabbing her crutch into the ground, another flash of the eyes for Merion. ‘Nephew, come along.’

‘Fine,’ Merion mumbled, and followed Doggard up the path.

Merion waited until they were out of earshot of Lilain and Lurker before interrogating the major: ‘So what is he bent out of shape about now?’ he asked, casually.

It could have been a snigger, it could have been a cough, Merion wasn’t sure, but either way Doggard suppressed something. ‘I already told you.’

‘Tough fight, was it, the other day?’ Merion found himself saying, his boyish curiosity leading the way. It is a trait that all boys of Merion’s age and older are prone to, the desire to bask in the horror of some reality they cannot touch. Yet Merion had taken one step further: he had already tasted the horror, and wanted to understand more of it.

Doggard mulled over that for a while, replaying some vivid scene behind the eyes.

‘Tough as it gets.’

His reply was gruff, full of ice. They were coming up to the lodge, and the major fixed his eyes on the door as though his gaze could drag it closer.

‘Shamans, I imagine.’ It was a question, cleverly disguised, and Doggard nodded, eyes still locked ahead.

Merion sighed. ‘You have to attack them from all angles. Surround them,’ he commented, almost idly. He remembered crouching on his aunt’s roof, staring through the spyglass at the chaos.

Doggard raised his hand to the door and offered Merion a bitter look. ‘And what would a high-born Empire boy know of magick and battle?’ he whispered, before knocking.

‘Enter!’ somebody barked. No prizes for guessing who.

Merion combed his hair back with his hands and flashed a sweet smile. ‘Oh, I have quite a bit of experience, Major. Don’t forget where I crawled out of. Fell Falls still smoulders, or so I’ve heard,’ he retorted, before pushing his way through the door and leaving Doggard standing on the step.

‘Ah! If it isn’t Master Hark, our little escapee,’ Brigadier General Lasp hissed, striding out from behind a desk swamped with papers and leather-bound reports. It was a desk of war. The general had managed to pour himself into his finest formal uniform. A bright yellow sash and a swathe of medals, some of questionable origin, splayed across his chest. All he lacked was a magnificent steed and a painter to capture it all—something for the wall behind his desk, perhaps.

Merion’s smile tightened. ‘It’s actually
Lord
Hark, General, and correct me if I’m wrong, but to be an escapee, you actually have to escape at some point.’ Both were cheap shots, but Merion was never one to waste an opportunity.

With much flapping of the jowls, Lasp drew himself up to his full height and strode forwards to stare down at Merion. But the boy was taller than he looked, and the effect was not as intimidating as he had clearly hoped. He used his belly instead, forcing Merion to step back or be knocked to the floor.

‘Twice now, my men have caught you at the northern gate, near the stables, putting your noses where they aren’t wanted!’

Merion shrugged. ‘We were simply trying to find better accommodation. The horses seem to sleep better than us. We thought they wouldn’t mind a few humble refugees sharing their hay.’ He was not in the mood for this pompous man’s opinions. Lasp was a boulder in his path, which he wanted to hammer to pieces.

‘Why you ungrateful …!’ Anger choked him, and for a moment, Lasp looked as though he would slap the boy around the face, but Doggard crept forwards to clear his throat. The general snarled and walked a circle around the room, like a portly shark swimming around a seal pup. ‘Ungrateful little Empire whelp. You would rather be out there with the savages than in here, safe under the protection of my soldiers? I bring you under our wing, shelter you from the fighting …’

‘Stuff us all into a shed,’ Merion interjected.

Lasp turned a darker shade of beetroot. ‘I gave you bed and board! I will not be interrupted, Master Hark,’ Lasp barked. His voice had gained an edge.

‘And I will not be cooped up in a fort, kept as a prisoner instead of walking east like the free soul I am, Brigadier General!’

Lasp had only one piece to play. ‘You are under military jurisdiction, Hark. If I find you attempting to escape the confines of my fort again, I shall have you put in the jail.’

Merion inwardly thanked his father for his tiresome lectures on the military. ‘As I’m not an enlisted man, and far too young to be so, and as I do not even belong to this country, I do not believe you have that right.’

Lasp just boiled on the spot. He had obviously not planned for such fierce resistance. Merion imagined that his men usually just quailed in his ample presence. To the Brigadier’s right, a slim man in a uniform stepped forwards to whisper in his ear.

‘Your speech, Sir, it’s almost time,’ were the words Merion caught. Lasp smoothed his hair back, baring his teeth in a strained smile.

‘If my men find you near the stables again …’ He wagged a finger.

‘Do not fear, General. They won’t,’ Merion promised him, and he meant it. He did not wait to be dismissed. He simply turned and walked out of the door, leaving Doggard standing on the threshold.

‘I want that boy followed, Major. That is your only duty tonight.’

Doggard drew himself up and saluted. ‘Yes, General,’ he replied, and swept from the lodge, leaving a blood-red Lasp to curse and moan about jumped-up lordlings and foreigners.

*

‘What did he want?’ asked Lurker, as Merion loomed out of the darkness, hands stuck firmly in his pockets.

‘To satisfy his own need to feel important.’

‘Sounds about right,’ his aunt said.

Merion pulled a wry face. ‘Though he did order us to stay within the confines of the fort for our own safety, and said if he found any of us near the stables again, we would be thrown into the jail.’

‘Ah,’ she added.

‘The key word being “if”, however,’ Merion smirked.

‘Boy’s got a point,’ Lurker sniffed.

Merion looked around their little torch-lit circle, even glancing at Rhin for the briefest of moments. ‘I say we take the chance. Lasp will be busy giving speeches and swaggering his fat arse about. We won’t get another.’

‘If you’re certain, Merion?’ Lilain looked at her nephew.

Merion’s voice was firm as a brick. ‘Absolutely,’ he replied.

Lilain nodded, thumping her crutch in the dirt. ‘Rhin? Lead the way,’ she said.

The faerie rattled his wings. ‘Right you are.’

Half-faded and just barely visible, Rhin led them down the main path that sliced the fort in two, heading for the northernmost corner. Lurker brought up the rear, sniffing quietly to himself, his boots occasionally scuffing the earth.

Rhin held them at a small crossroads as a group of soldiers passed. Two of them were dragging a drunken comrade, grumbling between themselves about how unamused the Brigadier would be in the morning, with a hangover as sharp as a fresh-cut lemon.
They’re right about that
, Merion thought, as they waited for them to pass.

With the coast clear, the four walked on. Soon they caught sight of the familiar angles of the stable, dimly lit by the torches staked along the path. Merion silently cheered to note that there was no movement, nor any lights burning nearby.

Rhin held up a hand, and the others waited by the path as the faerie crept forwards to investigate. Long minutes rolled painfully past. All they could do was stay quiet and peer into the shadows around them. None of them particularly fancied a few days in jail, and now that it had been declared the prize for failure, it made them even more nervous. Even Merion, so determined to see this fort behind him, could not help but clench his jaw tightly.