Bloodrush (The Scarlet Star Trilogy Book 1) (10 page)

Within seven years the wood had swallowed up the well and the darkness between the trees had become thick and impenetrable. A rumour spread that the copse was cursed. This reputation stuck. Even a century later, it still had the power to rattle teeth. Nobody ever went near the copse nowadays; not even waifs or strays slept nearby. This was a wise decision to make.

*

Dawn was starting to claw its way across the bruised sky. Jekyll Park was empty. The air was dead and silent, and not a single breath of air stirred the trees. And yet, at the foot of one infamous copse, the grass was shivering, writhing to and fro as quick feet sought a bit of rest.

It had been a long walk—a very long walk, in fact. From the misty Bodmin moors into London is not a jolly in the country by any stretch of the imagination. These faerie feet were worn sore and blistered. They were tired of flitting about and using their magic. It was time for a fire and some nectar, by their master’s reckoning.

One by one the faeries reached the base of the old well, and one by one they materialised out of thin air, hooded and hollow-eyed. Thirteen altogether. The tallest one waved a hand in an upwards motion and without a word they began to ascend the crumbling face of the old well. The faeries didn’t make a sound as they grabbed the old granite. Their wings didn’t even twitch beneath their cloaks.

The rope was there, as they’d been promised, hanging from an arch of wood and pointing down into a deep chasm. It was completely out of faerie reach. The tall fellow, their leader it seemed, looked about for a bucket, platform or lever, but there was nothing. So, he shrugged and leapt into mid-air to catch the fine, silver rope.

‘Onwards,’ he hissed, and his crew followed suit.

Soon enough they were all sliding down the rope using only their bare hands. Had they paused to sniff, it might have smelled like burning rubber. For what seemed like an age they descended, hand over hand and with ankles pressed against the rope. The darkness was soft at first. The rope could still be seen as well as felt. The little coin of morning light still hovered above them. But then the darkness became absolute, and all-consuming. It lasted so long they began to wonder whether they had been cursed with blindness, but then the first outpost appeared.

Built straight into the walls of the well-shaft, the outpost glowed a greenish-blue thanks to its myriad glow-worm lanterns. It was a fuzzy sort of light, the kind that looked like you could stroke it if you tried hard enough. Dark eyes and grim faces peered out at them from between arrow slits.

As soon as the first outpost had faded into the darkness, the second appeared, chased by the third. Soon enough, garrisons and guard houses encircled the whole circumference of the well shaft, so that the faeries descended through hoops and rings of glowing blue.

And then they saw it: the fortress of Shanarh, capital of Undering, last Fae stronghold of London. It glittered like a thousand burning sapphires on a thick dark carpet of stone and black faerie steel. The silver rope held them high over its sharp ramparts and pointed turrets. A lesser creature might have wailed and come to a scrabbling halt on the rope, but not these. As they descended, the faeries silently and calmly noted their destination: a wide courtyard set deep into the twisting spire that was the Coil of Cela’h Dor, home of the Fae Queen.

It was only when the thirteenth pair of feet graced the brown marble that the doors at the far end of the courtyard were flung open. Three shadows emerged from the bright blue light of the spire’s innards, becoming faeries as they marched into the half-dark of the courtyard. The upper world, now drenched in morning, was nothing but a speck in the darkness. Undering’s Lonely Star, for that is what the people of Shanarh had come to call it.

The lead man was shouting before he was even halfway to reaching them. ‘At long last! The White Wit and his Black Fingers finally decide to answer our call. It has been two weeks since—’

Finrig Everwit, infamously dubbed the White Wit, leader of his crew, the Black Fingers, stood even taller than normal, and beneath his cloak his wings buzzed angrily. His hair was white as snow, and long, so that it curled out from underneath his hood and hung against his neck. Finrig cut the faerie’s sentence off coldly. ‘Listen here, Magistrate. Two hundred and thirty-eight miles it is, to this hole in the ground from Bodmin country. Two days it’s taken us. Two days for your messenger to get to us. Four days for us to prepare. That’s eight days by my count, Magistrate, just over one whole week, nothing like two weeks. Hear that!’ he said, in a deep voice for a faerie. Rumours had it this Finrig Everwit had a smidgeon of dwarf running through his veins, from long ago.

The magistrate stopped so close to Finrig that their noses almost touched. He waved a sharp-clawed finger in his ear. ‘Hear this: Sift is livid. She is beside herself with rage, I will have you know. The job wasn’t done right, Finrig.’

‘Come again?’

‘The job wasn’t done right, I said!’ The magistrate was brave for a short faerie. He stood over a whole head shorter than Finrig. From his height, Finrig could stare right down at the magistrate’s bald little head, and imagine cracking it against the side of a hot pan to make an omelette. These cave-dwellers were paler than a sheet of parchment, that was for sure—almost as pale as he was.

Finrig folded his arms, conveniently nudging the magistrate back a step. The shorter faerie responded by ruffling his long black coat and adjusting his collar authoritatively. He glanced at each of his guards, and they took a step forwards, standing at the magistrate’s shoulders. It only made him look smaller.

Finrig was not one for shouting. ‘Calm down,’ he said, ‘before I lose my temper. What exactly are you accusing us of?’

The magistrate shook his fists. ‘He’s gone, Finrig. Gone, I tell you. He did not return with the …
item
as you yourself assured us he would. We wanted him marched back here, not given an option! Now he’s gone, and the item with him.’

‘By the bloody Roots! Gone where?’

‘Over the bloody sea is where! America.’

‘His boy took him?’

‘Of course! His father? Murdered. Human problems by the looks of it. The boy was sent to the Endless Land, or so our spies tell us.’

‘So you know where he is?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you have spies?’

‘Yes, of course, but …!’

Finrig slowly bent forwards until his eyes were perfectly level with the magistrate’s. He couldn’t help but relish the way the other faerie recoiled. ‘Then why the fuck have you summoned us? Surely you have other Fae that are capable. We were right in the middle of another job.’

The magistrate bared his sharp teeth and held on tightly to the collar of his long coat. ‘Don’t you dare use those filthy human words in my presence, you hear me? You’ve spent too long on the fringes, dallying with
them
. You’re in danger of becoming like Rhin.’ The magistrate narrowed his eyes until it almost looked as if he was asleep, in the midst of an angry dream. ‘You are here, Finrig Everwit, because
she
demanded it. You are still Fae, are you not? Then you answer to Queen Sift! You and your men. You left the job half done, took your gold and left. It’s time to set it right!’

Finrig raised a hand, but one of the guards batted it away, his armour clanking. The faerie growled, and said no more.

‘Take them inside,’ ordered the magistrate, in a voice a little higher-pitched than he would have liked. The Wit brushed past him, nearly knocking him to the floor.

Inside the Coil, the halls were blindingly bright. There was a glow-worm lantern every five paces, and together they painted the inside of the twisted spire a deep, electric blue, the sort of colour that would play havoc with human eyes.

The faeries did not even notice it. Such were the habits of an underground race. They had learnt to live with the glowing, the slithering, and the scuttling, and whatever else the dirt kept as its own.

The Wit and his Fingers were marched up a spiralling set of steps and ushered into the very peak of the Coil. The guards made sure not to step too close. They had all heard the rumours. They didn’t dare poke their guests, didn’t dare hurry them. Feeling more like captives than guards, they were entranced by the mere reputation of this giant of a faerie they followed up the endless steps.

At long last, they came to the Queen’s quarters, and the magistrate barged his way through the crowd of gathered courtlings to knock on Sift’s door. He did so with great ceremony, waving his hand about in a circular motion before knocking once, twice, thrice. There was a brief pause, and then a shrill voice commanded them to enter. Finrig took a breath, and pulled his hood down, as did his men, and the guards gawped on.

When the door was shut, and the whispering guards locked out, Queen Sift of the Fae emerged from behind a desk piled high with scrolls and walked with long slow paces to a small, but regal chair made of stag beetle horn. It sat very much alone, compared to the other furniture in the grand room. As the Wit, the Fingers, and the magistrate shuffled forwards to bow, she waved a hand, and took a seat upon her thorny throne.

‘Finrig,’ she spoke his name as if weighing it. Her voice was deep for a female, even for the husky tones of faerie women. It had an echo to it, a strange quality that Finrig, much to his annoyance, had never been able to fathom. But it was her face that never failed to make his wings shiver. He raised his head to meet her bright golden eyes, and found words to say.

‘Your Majesty.’

The only splash of colour to mar Sift’s pure ashen skin were the thin veins of dark crimson that circled her ears and temples. Her frame was tall and long yet wiry, like a coiled fangworm, always ready to strike. Her ears were devilishly pointed, and her teeth, when she smiled, were needle-like daggers. Finring, a faerie who had successfully fought and killed almost everything the wild had to throw at him, could not help but quail slightly in her presence.

Sift drummed her sharp nails on the antlers of her throne for a moment, while she thought. It was an uncomfortable sound.

‘Do you know why I have called you back here, Finrig?’

Finrig cleared his throat. ‘I have just been informed, your Majesty …’

Sift flicked her gaze to the magistrate, who quailed also. ‘Did you tell him everything, Rinold?’

Magistrate Rinold nodded feverishly. ‘Yes, your Majesty.’

‘Then you know where he is, Finrig?’

Finrig nodded. ‘I do, Queen Sift.’

Sift drummed her nails some more. ‘Now please, Finrig,’ and here she paused to pick a little something from under her nail, ‘could you be a dear and tell me exactly
why
Rhin Rehn’ar is currently residing in the Endless Lands?’

‘It appears that he didn’t take our threat very seriously, your Majesty.’

Sift leant forwards and the throne creaked. It was a sound as ominous as the creaking of a gallows. ‘It appears that he didn’t take it very seriously at all, Finrig. What, pray, made you so damn confident that you thought a simple threat could do the job? Are you that smug in your reputation?’

Finrig swallowed. ‘He keeps a boy, your Majesty, the son of a wealthy lord. Rhin was bound to him, loyal as a dog, and hence easy to find. We threatened the boy, and painted a very …
vibrant
picture for him.’

‘Not vibrant enough, it seems.’

Finrig did not like what he had to do to, but he knew it was the only way to walk out of that room with his limbs still attached. The faerie bowed again. There would be laughing around the campfire later if they managed to keep their skin on. ‘I sincerely apologise, your Majesty, for this mistake. If there is any way I could be of ass—’

‘Leave us!’ Sift shouted, making her audience flinch as one. ‘Rinold, Finrig, you stay. The rest of you Fingers, even the guards, leave now.’

There was a nervous scuttling that didn’t achieve much. The queen soon hurried it up. ‘NOW!’ she screeched, and the scuttling became a stampede towards the door. It was hurriedly locked and barred.

Now that they were alone, Sift got up from her throne and began to walk slow circles around the two faeries. It was so intimidating she might as well have taken out a set of carving knives and begun to sharpen them. It was as if fear leaked from her pores and enveloped them, like some bewitching perfume. Whatever it was, it worked. Finrig shuddered as she spoke.

‘We never told you what Rhin stole, did we?’ Sift asked.

‘No, your Majesty, I don’t believe you did.’

‘Perhaps if we had …’ and here Sift’s eyes darted to stare at the magistrate. Rinold felt like a mouse in her shadow. She was even taller than Finrig. ‘… told you more of the details, you might have realised beforehand that a simple threat was nothing short of a preposterous solution.’

Rinold shuddered.

‘However, I am prepared to enlighten you now.’

Finrig had never longed for a chair so much in his entire life. ‘I’m listening, your Majesty.’

‘Rhin stole the Hoard, Finrig. The
Hoard
.’

Here we shall briefly digress, as the ways and words of the Fae can be confusing on the first encounter. Let us allow a few moments for an explanation. The Hoard, or the
Haor’n
, as it is known in the very old tongues, is the Fae’s fortune, the gold at the end of the rainbow, so to speak. For some reason or other, in human literature this has been attributed to the hole-dwelling leprechaun instead. This is yet another reason why the Fae dislike us, but actually the misunderstanding has worked to their advantage. Nobody goes looking for creatures who don’t possess pots of gold.