Bloodrush (The Scarlet Star Trilogy Book 1)
BY BEN GALLEY
Book 1 of The Scarlet Star Trilogy
“This book is a work of fiction, but some works of fiction contain perhaps more truth than first intended, and therein lies the magic.”
Copyright © Ben Galley 2014
The right of Ben Galley to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be edited, transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), or reproduced in any manner without permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews or articles. It may not be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s permission.
Permission can be obtained through
www.bengalley.com
.
Ben Galley owns the right to use all images and fonts used in this book’s cover design and within the book itself.
All characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
BREB1:
ISBN: 978-0-9927871-4-1
Kindle Edition
1st Edition – Published by BenGalley.com
Cover Design by Teague Fullick
Original Image by John Harrison
Professional Dreaming by Ben Galley
Edited by Kevin Booth
THEN TELL SOMEBODY
Reviews and shares are really important to indie authors, so if you enjoy Bloodrush, let somebody know, so they can enjoy it too.
Thanks for your support!
Ben Galley is a young indie author and purveyor of dark fantasy from rainy old England. Harbouring a near-fanatical love of writing and fantasy, Ben has been scribbling tall tales ever since he can remember. When he’s not busy day-dreaming on park benches or arguing the finer points of dragons, he works as a self-publishing consultant, aiding fellow authors achieve their dream of publishing. He also co-runs indie-only ebook store, Libiro.com
For more about Ben, and special Bloodrush content, visit his site:
Simply say hello at:
Or follow Ben on Twitter and Facebook:
The Written
Pale Kings
Dead Stars – Part One
Dead Stars – Part Two
This book is for the readers, as always.
A special mention also goes out to comedy trio the Sleeping Trees, my friends and fellow mischief-makers, who were the inspiration behind Akway, and will be making an appearance in the second book of this trilogy.
T
here are many places in this world where we humans are not welcome. Antarticus, for example, has slain explorer after explorer with its wolves and winds so cold and fierce they can cut a man in half. Or the Sandara, plaguing travellers for millennia with its fanged dunes and sandstorms. Or what about the high seas, and the Cape of Black Souls, where the waves swallow ships whole, and never spit them back out? But there are darker places on this earth. Much, much darker places.
These are places that time has forgotten, that
we
have forgotten, now that we’ve turned our attention to industry, to business, and to science. Our steam and our clockwork may have conquered the globe, but we have built our cities on old and borrowed ground, a ground that knew many creatures and empires before it felt the kiss of our own feet. These were the ages that spawned fairy tale and folklore, dreams and nightmares, the world that we trampled in our march for progress, burying it beneath cobble and railroad.
But stubbornness is a trait of victors, so they say. The vestiges of this old world are still clinging on, hiding in the dark places, lost in the shadows, glaring at us from behind their magic. Oh, they are very much alive, friends, hiding in the cracks of reality, the spaces between your blinks. And woe betide anybody that dares to go hunting for them. You would have better luck in the Sandara.
Of course, you have known this all along. If you have ever felt the hot rush of fear in your stomach when a twig snaps in the twilight woods, then you have known it. If you have ever felt that chill run up your spine every time you cross the old bridge, you have known it.
We humans remember the darkness very well, and how its monsters prowled the edges of our campfires and snatched us into the night. We simply refuse to acknowledge it is anything other than irrational fear. Ghost stories. Boogeymen. Old wives’ tales. Nonsense, though we secretly know the truth. So much so that when we read in the newspapers that a man was ripped to shreds by a mysterious assailant in the old dockyards last Thursday, we do not think psychopath, we think
werewolf
. Maybe we would be right.
There are dark things in the shadows, and they are far from fond of us humans.
“TO THE LOST”
18th April, 1867
‘T
o the lost.’ The surgeon raised his tiny glass with a gloved and rather bony hand.
Tonmerion Hark did the same, though he could only summon the wherewithal to raise it halfway. He let it hover just beneath his chin, as if he were cradling it to his chest. The liquor smelled like cloves. Sickening. However he tried, he couldn’t tear his gaze away from the pistol, that sharp-edged contraption of humourless steel and stained oak, lounging in an impossibly clean metal tray at the elbow of his father’s body.
‘The lost,’ he murmured in reply, and flicked the glass as if swatting at a bothersome bluebottle.
A pair of wet slapping sounds broke the sterile, white-tiled silence as the liquor painted a muddy orange streak on the milky vinyl floor. So that was that. What precious little ceremony they must observe was over. Lord Karrigan Bastion Hark, the Bulldog of London, Prime Lord of the Empire of Britannia, Master of the Emerald Benches and widower of the inimitable Lady Hark, had been pronounced dead. As a doornail.
Tonmerion could have told them that from the start, but such was tradition. His gaze inched from the gun to his father’s pallid skin, bruised as it was with the blood settling, or so the surgeon had told him as he worked. Tonmerion had decided he did not like surgeons. They were rude; being so bold as to poke around in the visceral depths of other people. Of boys’ dead fathers.
His gaze moved to the neatly sewn-up hole in his father’s chest, directly above his heart. The oozing had finally stopped. The puckered and rippled edges of white skin around the black thread were clean. Not a single drop of corpse blood seeped through. Not surprising, thought Tonmerion, seeing as so much of it had been left on the steps of Harker Sheer’s western garden.
For a brief moment, the boy’s eyes flicked to his father’s closed eyelids. He thanked the Almighty that those sharp sapphire eyes were hidden away, not bathing him with disappointment, as was their custom. Even then, in the grip of cold death, Tonmerion could almost feel their gaze piercing those grey eyelids and jabbing him. His own eyes quickly slunk away. Instead, he looked at the surgeon, and was somewhat startled to find the man staring directly back at him, arms folded and waiting patiently.
‘And what now?’ Tonmerion piped up, his young voice cracking after the silence.
‘The constable will be here in a moment, I’m sure.’
‘Is he late?’ asked Tonmerion, biting the inside of his lip.
The body was so grey …
The surgeon looked a smidgeon confused. He pushed the wire-framed rims of his round glasses up the slope of his nose. ‘I beg your pardon, Master Hark?’
Tonmerion huffed. ‘I said, is he late?’
‘No, young Master. Simply finishing the paperwork.’
Tonmerion scratched his neck as he tried to think up something clever and commanding to say. Gruff words echoed through his mind.
Get your chin up. Stand straight. Look them straight in their beady little eyes.
Words from dead lips.
‘Then he must have been late earlier in the day. Why else would he not be here, on time, when I am ready to leave. Instead I am forced to stand here, stuck looking at this … this …’ His words failed him miserably. His tongue sat fat and useless behind his teeth. He waved his hand irritably. ‘This …
carcass
.’
For that was what it was.
A carcass
. So callous in its truth. Tonmerion could see it in the surgeon’s face, the condemning curl in that hairless, sweat-beaded top lip of his.
The surgeon took a sharp breath. ‘Of course, Lordling. I shall fetch him for you.’ And with that he turned on his heel, making to leave. The leather of his shoe made a little squeak on the white vinyl, but before he could take a step, the sound of heavy boots was heard on the stairs. ‘Ah,’ the surgeon said, turning back with another squeak. ‘Here he comes now. You shall have your escape, young Master Hark.’
‘Yes, well,’ was all Tonmerion’s tongue could muster. He folded his arms and watched the barrel of a constable emerge from the stairwell. The constable’s bright blue coat strained at the seams, pinning all its hopes on the polished buttons that glinted in the sterile light of the room.
Now here’s a man who has seen too much of a desk and not enough of the cobbles
, his father would have intoned. Tonmerion almost felt like turning and shushing his dead father.