Pagewalker (23 page)

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The Nomad queen invaded Grimm’s Traveling Fair and
claimed it as her own, breaking all vows she made to the Owners.
She had offered herself and her siblings and security detail to the
fair, in what she called the, `dangerous shores of Northland’ Once
she stepped into the big tent’s center circle everything changed.
Her dark witchcraft tainted the camp. The light stopped shining,
the birds stopped singing, the rains came and all colour was
stripped from the fair. Crowds stopped coming as darkness shadowed
over the once happy affair.

All Love, All hope…

The Queen knew of prophecies and welcomed
herself as the ring leader by publicly burning the owners. She
threw them into the scout cart with the `Grimm’s Fair’ name on the
side. She set them alight and promised the same fate to any who
uttered words of contest in her authority. As the sands of time
slipped slowly away and the colour from the Fair faded from the
easel, so was the life dripping from the carnie folk.

To strengthen her dark witchcraft, was to
drain the life-force from her new subjects. Over the seasons the
once bright and hopeful fair, filled with lively, loud and
colourful attractions, turned greyscale. A sorry congregation of
slow, shuffling, lifeless shells. Working to a single end. Creating
sacrifices out of all the possession’s and worldly goods they
owned. People no longer eat, let alone feasted. The skin hung loose
over their once fat faces. Hair like dirty wire hang eerily from
their balding heads. No more children filled the paddock. The
stalls lay dormant, empty. No games, freak shows, competition
stands or food stalls. All had been striped, carved and burnt as
offerings. Same for many of the shops and the meeting hall. All lay
as empty tents with a rich carpet of black dust and ash.

The Queens focus, firstly was to wipe the
bloodline of Grimm clean, sever the head from descendants and nail
them to the family tree. She knew of me and kept me as a trophy, a
plaything to be disposed of when she became bored. She forgot about
me for many years as her focus was fixed on growing in power. Her
vision of a Northland striped of colour and stories. Just tales of
her house of horrors where performers would die almost every night
attempting stunts so dangers the reason they were not attempted
before were quite clear.

Every now and then her attention returned to
me. The last remaining Son of the Grimm family. Once a small child,
when her reign over the Fair was claimed. Now I am a man, a fool,
but a man.

For the amusement of her cabinet and close
aids she dressed me up as a throne room jester. Humiliating me in a
most degrading role. She put me under the apprenticeship of a
circus master she had forced into slavery under her ownership years
before. A lifeless man, without hope or passion and wished only for
death each evening he performed.

My late childhood and teens were spent
learning cheap tricks like juggling, high rope walking, cheap card
tricks and obvious illusions. I think I took well to the illusions.
They were simple. The fire breathing however was my favourite. I
had always dreamt of the glory days my father spoke of and the
dragon shows they once performed. Still on the inside of the Queens
Chamber wagon were Large, pretty and detailed murals. Effigies
stretching the entire circumference of the room. I would follow it
from the beginning to the end when I could sneak in. Running my
hand along the smooth material as I studied the paintings in the
circle around the old dusty books. I felt I was part of the
history. An observer watching the great spectacles and feeling the
heat of the dragons flames from a safe distance, detached from any
harm.

One evening we were called to the big tent,
in front of the Bitch. She was in a particularly blue and wicked
mood that night. I remember her eyes glowing, burning as she stared
with disgust towards me. She called us all to the throne room and
demanded a new show. A showcase of nothing but fire. We tried to
juggle flaming swords and batons but repeatedly burned ourselves.
The Queen had the guards beat anyone who dropped their props or
slipped from the ropes. The cast of fools quickly dwindled through
the injuries given by the guards. We were so angered by this but we
could do nothing. Who were we but disposable prisoners? We had no
military training. Even the bouts of wrestling or fencing that she
often forced us to display were choreographed. Our weapons were
fake or wooden. We truly were no match for her heavily armoured
guards. I only had a few skills but I knew them well. I couldn’t
overpower the guards with strength but I could confuse them with
tricks. I could not prize the armour from their chests but I could
cook them within it!

I prepared myself for the finale. There was
a larger than usual crowd in this evening. We were nearing Shann.
There were many small towns not on the maps and plenty of eager
onlookers. We always ended our shows with fire breathing. Caitlin
was my dearest friend. She was the daughter of my father’s
assistant and bodyguard. Her bloodline was strong also. Ancestors
of warrior’s blood flowed through her veins as did it in mine. Now
we both had to grovel for scraps from the tables we once sat at. We
cleaned the privies we once used. We were the scum on the boots of
the queen’s men and treated as such. Through our shared hardship we
bonded. We shared everything and even though it was not spoken, by
either of us. We were in love. A true love, the kind of love that
was not forced. We knew what each other was thinking. This love is
what saved us that day.

During the preparations one of the guards
threw an empty bottle at Caitlin. We were finishing a routine
involving high ropes and the guards loved to disrupt things. It
gave them more pleasure to see us fall and in pain. Over the years
we had perfected the ability to dodge the objects thrown and
continue. In fact it was almost part of the act now but this time
Caitlin was caught on her blind side. The bottle hit her head on
the temple. The mixture of surprise, fright and pain knocked her
from the ropes. She hit the stone with a thud and a crack. Her arm
was broken on the impact and she was not moving. I could see that
she was breathing but other than that, motionless. The Tent erupted
in laughter. All but myself and the queen. A Rage filled my eyes, I
felt the palms of my hands warm and felt my face flush red. I hated
that woman more now than ever. Even to look on her face filled me
with disgust. I looked on her with such disrepute I almost gagged.
Her eyes locked with mine. She did not laugh at Caitlin or even
flinch when the body cracked on the floor. She simply kissed her
lips, lifted her hand to look at her nails, without lifting her
eyes from her hands she ordered her men.

“
Kill her”

She was content that she had stripped
everything from my father and I but after locking eyes with me she
knew there was still one more thing to take. Again she ordered

“
Kill her, then Devlin Grimm, the son of a
coward and a whore. The bloodline ends here. A sliver of hope is a
keyhole for rebellion. Stamp it out before the lock is turned. Kill
them both”

The guards moved instantly and began to beat
and strip the Caitlin. I had never lost control before. I could
keep everything inside to the most part but not then. All the rage,
anger, emotion, lust and passion burst from me. Before I had any
time to assess my actions I was already leaping to her aid. I had
prepared the fire breathing trick before the juggling. My mouth
full of oil. I turned to the guard approaching me, to his surprise
I blew oil in his face. The pipe in the mouth of the guard exploded
in flame throwing us both the floor. From the sand beside me I
lifted a burning juggling pin, aimed it at the guards beating
Caitlin and threw it into the middle of the scrum. Before it hit, I
blew the largest lick of flames I had to that day. On reaching the
Pin it exploded into a cloud of flame throwing the guards high into
the air and crashing fatally onto the hard, wooden steps of the
main event tent.

The Queen screamed in rage as I lifted
Caitlin and a guard’s shield. She was light, I threw her over my
shoulder and rose to my feet. I took another swig of the oil pouch
and spat more flames onto the shield, it burned bright a blue fire,
stripping the painted Sigel on the front until is dripped and bled
paint on the sand below. The exit was guarded by another two of the
queen’s soulless bodyguards. We ran toward them with the shield
held in front, smashing through them and breaking the shield in two
as we burst through the entrance flap into the paddock.

The fairground was empty as we ran from the
tent but quickly filled as more guards and infantry were summoned.
We knew the layout. This was our home. When you survive on the
scraps you find on the ground and drink the rainwater dripping from
the ropes and stall canopies the place does truly belong to you. We
weaved in and amongst the slow moving guards, ducking under axe
swings and dodging spears thrown.

The training we had both received from the
ring master was second to none, agility was our ally and we quickly
lost the pursuers. Hiding in an abandoned repair workshop, I
remember scrambling on the floor and shelves for anything I could
find as a weapon. All I could find however was some wood and
coal.

Caitlin’s eyes scraped open, one eye swollen
from where the bottle had found its mark.

“
We both can’t escape, they will find us.
You need to get away” She said to me

“
I cannot leave you, we have suffered
together all our lives, it is only right that we both taste freedom
together” was all I could reply.

“
It will never work, we will be caught.
There are too many of them. I am tired as it is, I cannot run much
farther.”

I slumped beside Caitlin. We were behind a
giant forge at the back of the smithy’s hut. Rotten wooden beams
had partly collapsed above us, cobwebs grew in intricate, beautiful
patterns stretching from the celling to the floor, like a silver
blanket draped over all the abandoned tools and remnants of a once
lucrative industry, now done away with and forgotten in this hollow
souled carnival.

We lay behind the forge as still as headstones every
time guardsmen and soldiers patrolled past the shop front. For
hours Caitlin and I stayed there. I remember slipping in and out of
sleep, awoken by the slightest creak or bump that I heard. Caitlin
however slept solidly. After hours of waiting the dawn was cracking
through the darkness.

“
We cannot stay here Caitlin, when the
morning breaks we can leave by the rivers and streams. They are not
far and we could swim under the bridges and through the reeds. They
cannot swim and would not find us.”

Caitlin did not respond. Her head resting on
my shoulder. I moved forward to shake her awake but her head
dropped backwards onto the Bench we were leaning against. Her body
was lifeless and skin cold. I freed my arm from underneath her, as
I did so I noticed my hand dark in shade and my sleeve wet and
sticky. The Smell of blood turned my fear to panic. I Shook Caitlin
but her soul had left her. Nothing but an empty shell was left.
Anger took me to a place I had blocked from the front of my mind
for years. The feeling of betrayal and injustice filled me with an
rage I had not felt before. Blood pulsed through me, faster and
faster. A warm heat from my head to my toes tingled at the tips of
my fingers. A pressure filled my chest and from behind clenched
fists and gritted teeth I let out a roar or hatred that released me
from all heavy emotion. I read of the northmen of old in my
father’s books years before. The Bezerkers were the most fierce,
and hence most feared, warriors. They wore no armour and carried no
weapons. They would release a roar and charge on their enemies. No
shields or defences could hold them back. I knew then I was one of
them. I felt the soul of my ancestors beside me that day. Roaring
with me. Digging their heels into the dirt beside me, readying for
the charge. They would follow me into battle and protect me, fight
with me and die, again, with me.

No Longer would I hide in my own home. No
longer would I be a preforming fool. I felt it then, I accepted my
fate, this would end now, all the humiliation, the suffering, fear,
torment and un-certainty. No more waiting for my life to be
snatched once the queen tired of me. I was in that moment, seized
my future in fists wrapped around an iron poker from the forge. I
was in charge of my fate and it would play out the way I chose. I
would die a Northland Bezerker!

I tore the sleeves from my tunic. I threw
them in an iron bucket and soaked them in the remaining oil I had
attached to my belt. Knowing that my outburst of emotion would draw
the guards to me, I did not have long before they descended on me
and cut me down. I worked fast, taking the soaked material and
binding it tightly to the top of the poker.

Taking the remains of an old, moth eaten,
weathered and damaged canopy from the floor i wrapped myself in it
like a robe. I could hear the clank of armour and steel outside,
from the sounds of the shuffles I knew the guards were falling into
formation.

I remember feeling that this was the end for
me. The curtain would fall for a final time after this, there would
be no encore. I never had an applause before but I knew tonight’s
audience would not go home un-scathed.

Looking back one last time at the lifeless,
blood-soaked body of my best friend, I lifted her small oil flask
from her belt. Nothing can ever prepare you for seeing the body of
the person you love, lying still and cold on the ground.
Nothing.

I would avenge her with her only true
possession. I recited the prayer of Sif as I made my way towards
the door,