Bloodrush (The Scarlet Star Trilogy Book 1) (25 page)

‘We’ve caught a rat, Kawn,’ said the creature, in the Queen’s common. Juspin began to howl again, but the steel tapped him sharply. ‘Easy now, rat.’

Another creature loomed out of the shadows, and poked something bloody at his ribs. Juspin whined. ‘And what are we going to do with this rat, Wit?’

‘Can’t have this
caelk
squeaking, can we?’ said the Wit, cocking his head to the side to get a better view of his prey, sweating profusely as it was, its tears mingled with its sweat.

‘Take him below for the Fingers. See if he gives any sport. If not, throw him in the bilge,’ the Wit ordered, calm and cold as an iceberg. It was then that he lent forward, and offered the poor boy a consoling shrug. ‘Sorry, my lad. Looks like you boarded the wrong ship,’ he said.

As the other faerie clicked his fingers, just before the bag was thrust onto his head, Juspin found himself wholeheartedly agreeing with the murderous little beast.

*

‘And the two onions, that’ll be fine,’ Lilain smiled and pointed at the last surviving onions on the market stall. The deliveries had been sparse. Trouble on the line, they said. Though that didn’t do much to stop the shoving and yelling earlier that day.

‘No fish today, ma’am? Got sardines in.’

Lilain’s ears pricked up. ‘Fresh?’

‘No ma’am, in brine.’

Lilain frowned. ‘Spoils the meat,’ she said.

‘Yes ma’am.’

Lilain paid and cast around for her next objective: the sheriff’s office, to see if there had been word of that damned Merion. The boy would not have gone far. He must be hiding in the town somewhere. Lilain couldn’t wait to give him a hiding when she saw him. She didn’t trust herself to dally with the other thoughts, the dark alternatives. Lilain put a little more kick in her urgent stride, eager to weave a little faster through the crowds. The streets were choked and excitable. Lilain slowed a little, watching how the tide of townspeople moved against her, surging slowly yet inexorably towards the railway line.

Clutching her bag of vegetables and dried meats close to her chest, Lilain decided to follow the flow, and let herself join the rank and file of the curious crowds. Together they kept moving until they reached the platform, and found it already awash with crowds and clumps of people. Green and yellow pennants fluttered here and there, twitching with anticipation. Lilain bent her ear to some of the surrounding gossip, and soon found herself frowning.

‘Lord Serped and his whole family!’

‘Come to sort this wraith nonsense out, I hear.’

‘For once and for all.’

‘I’ll drink to that.’

‘I’ll believe it when I see it,’ said the last, a sullen-looking worker.

Lilain found herself slowing to a crawl, and letting the others nudge and brush past. There she waited. Slowly but confidently, the whispers began to grow and grow. Lilain stood on her tiptoes to see, but the press on the platform was too thick. As the thick-knitted crowd on the platform began to cheer, others surged forwards to catch a glimpse. Whether they were there to grin or to glower, everybody wanted to see the Serpeds up close. Even Lilain crept forward, partly because it was futile to push against the flow of the crowd. Soon enough, she glimpsed a pale hand waving above the crowds, stiff and stoic. Lilain raised herself on tiptoes to drink it all in.

Lord Serped stood tall in his open-top carriage, decked with silver and painted coat of arms: a green wyrm, coiled casually around a silver spinning-top. The ladies Serped sat upright and prim on either side of their lord and master, surveying the dusty crowds with carefully drawn smiles. The mother, Ferida, and her daughter, Calidae, were copies, mere decades apart.

Their clothes were fine enough to draw some grumbles from a scattering of workers in the crowd. The lordsguards, trotting proudly on their horses and decked out in black cloth and mail, kept a watchful eye for any trouble. Sheriffsmen walked between the gaps in the crowd, their narrowed eyes vigilant.

Lilain sneered.
Pomp and ceremony, purely for the inflation of the bastard’s ego,
she thought to herself. It was then that she caught it; the space between the elbows and waving arms, forging a clear channel for her to stare down, straight into Castor Serped’s eyes. Lilain froze for the briefest moments, and then made sure to glare right back as his gaze locked on hers. For all the shortness of the moment, the space in the crowd, enough silent words were said. Then Serped’s eyes were lost in the throng of hands and faces, and Lilain turned away, to glare at the dust instead. As she waded her way out of the crowd, she could not help but shiver at the chill that ran down her spine. The boiling sunshine failed to warm her.

RAILWRAITH

‘The boy’s name is Merion, for short, and today he officially welcomed me to his home as a permanent guest. I’m not sure the boy’s father would be so welcoming. He’s a powerful man. You can tell just by the way he walks. And men of power don’t have time for flights of fancy. He’s stern, but he seems wise. There’s a scent on him I can’t figure.’

15th May, 1867

I
f you have ever been roughly or rudely awoken, you will know exactly how unpleasant and jarring it is to be dragged from the soft, amorphous haze of your dreams and thrown into the light of day without so much as an ‘excuse me’. Panic and confusion, both at once, do not a joyous experience make.

Tonmerion found two rough leather hands grabbing at his shirt collar, shaking him violently. His eyes snapped open, and he instantly wished they hadn’t. Lurker’s weather-worn face was an inch from his. Merion could almost taste his stale, tobacco-stained breath. So very different from the smell of fresh bread and spitting sausages wafting up the stairwells of Harker Sheer that he had been dreaming of.

‘Get up!’ Lurker hissed, voice strangled with urgency. Merion had never heard Lurker so panicked, and that kept the boy’s mouth shut and his body obedient. Something really must have been wrong.

‘An’ tell that bloody faerie of yours to back down, afore I make him,’ Lurker snapped, eying Rhin, who was hard-eyed and hovering by Merion’s side, blade half-drawn from his grey scabbard.

‘Rhin,’ Merion croaked, and Rhin shoved the blade away.

‘Follow me, fast and quiet. No shoutin’, no arguin’, no questions. Lest you want to end up as dead meat for the vultures.’

Merion didn’t speak a word as Lurker pushed his head low and led him in a scrambling run over the lip of their hollow and down onto the hillside. He did not take them far. He found them a boulder to hide behind and shoved Merion up against it. Merion desperately wanted to know what was going on, but he was too scared to talk. Lurker was rattled, and seeing him so fidgety and wide-eyed kept Merion’s lips tightly sealed. He watched the big man creep to the edge of the boulder. A dull bang echoed through the crisp morning air. It was barely an hour past sunrise, and already the heat was beginning to creep into the air. Merion flinched as another thud shook his still-sleepy bones.

‘Am I the only one who wants to know what the hell is going on?’ Rhin whispered, his words barely audible. Lurker waved a hand at him to be silent.

Rhin’s question was soon answered. After several more ominous bangs, the stomach-clenching form of a hulking railwraith emerged at the foot of the slope, and paused to scratch its face. Even from half a mile away, they could hear the screeching of ragged claws on iron cheekbones.

The railwraith was quite the monster. It must have been ten feet tall, and even then it was hunched over, glaring at the wasteland. Twisted iron rails formed its bones and frame. Greased bolts and shards of wood gave it tooth, skin, and sinew. Railspikes gave it claws and spines to decorate its shoulders. Its eyes were simple: black and empty holes bored in the tortured iron. It was a monster from the darkest of nightmares. By the backside of the Almighty did Merion want to run! Only fear pinned him down.

The three of them froze as the railwraith turned its hollow gaze to the higher hillside. Sunlight flirted with its sharp features, danced on its dusty claws.

Rhin was the only one who dared to move. He reached out and touched both Merion and Lurker with his hands. Then he began to shake. His eyes became tightly-scrunched whorls of grey skin, and his sharp nails dug at their clothing. Merion had to bite his tongue to keep himself from yelling. Gradually, they began to fade. Not completely, for that would have made Rhin’s eyes bleed, but enough for them to look like rock and pebble rather than two quivering humans. It worked a charm. The railwraith’s gaze passed them by, and the creature looked to the east instead. With a screech of metal, the monster lumbered off, its footsteps thundering across the desert.

An hour, they waited for those footsteps to die away. Railwraiths can be fast, when there are fresh rail workers to be ripped apart, but this one had been in no rush. It took yet another hour for Merion’s heart to calm itself to a normal patter. His neck already ached from the amount of times he had looked over his shoulder, praying not to see a railwraith lurching after them. Only when he felt safe did he dare to break his silence. Lurker was ahead, as usual, though today his pace was a little faster than normal. Merion did not blame him. He was happy to keep up.

‘That was a … I mean, it had to be … a railwraith, right?’

‘Strange,’ Lurker murmured, ‘for one to come so far north, where there ain’t no action to be had.’

‘Maybe it got lost?’

Lurker mused. ‘Maybe. Strong to come this far in that shape.’

‘What do you mean, in
that shape
?’ asked Rhin.

In his haste and worry, Lurker had almost forgotten Rhin was there. The prospector threw a dark look over his shoulder to confirm that yes, indeed, that
was
a faerie walking beside the child, as real as a slap in the face.

‘Thanks. For earlier,’ said Lurker gruffly, tipping his hat.

Rhin sketched a quick bow mid-stride. ‘Welcome.’

‘Railwraiths are only railwraiths when they come across some rail, see? Before we came to the desert, they just kept to the woods and the hills, building themselves up out o’ trees and rocks whenever a traveller wandered along. What do you think tumbleweeds and dust devils are? Lesser wraiths, just bored, is all. But then along came the Serped Rail Company, and gave ‘em summin’ stronger. Iron. Steel. Steam-machined wood. Railspikes. A
boofay
of hardcore shit for them to rip up and bend into bone and claw.’ Lurker sniffed. ‘Seems ironic to me, like we’re being punished for our damn brazen ambition.’

Merion hadn’t expected such a loquacious answer, but he was not about to argue. ‘So you think the Almighty, or Maker, is punishing us for trying to build a railroad across a desert?’

‘God’s got nothing to do with it, and he ain’t my Maker. If he is, then he did a horse-shit job of it, and I won’t be worshipping his craftsmanship. I don’t want to believe in a god that gives us the keys to the world, says “enjoy”, but then forgets to take the evil with him afore he leaves. We’re too much for our own selves, boy. Though we try to forget we’re animals, on the inside, it can’t help break out when it gets an excuse.’

Merion furrowed his brow. This was all getting rather a bit too theological for his liking, touching on the blasphemous. Merion tried to steer the conversation elsewhere.

‘Are you talking about the war?’

Lurker grunted. ‘I suppose I am.’

‘What was it about?’

Lurker stopped dead but did not turn. ‘You don’t know?’ he grunted.

Merion shook his head. ‘No. We had our own wars, in Indus and Ashanti.’

‘Hundreds of thousands dead, and you never heard.’

‘My father told me of the war, but only because it was damaging trade.’

‘Damaging trade. All heart, that Karrigan.’

Merion raised a finger. ‘Now see here—’ he began, but Lurker dismissed him with a snort.

‘The south wanted to be its own kingdom, separate from a united America. The north wanted the south to release its slaves as freemen. Now, at the time, as a slave myself, I found myself agreein’ with the north. But as a Karolin slave I didn’t have much choice in the matter. Deep south, boy, where swamps go on for miles and miles—that was my home, and it’s about as north as a crab’s ass.’

Merion suddenly felt very awkward indeed. He had guessed that Lurker might have had such a history. The scars and his skin certainly indicated so. Merion winced as he thought of how he had spoken about Gunderton, the under-butler, the night before.

‘You were a slave?’ Merion asked, timidly.

‘Six years. Taken as a free man, I was. Put to work in the clockwork factories near Severed Creek. Kept my head low and my manners nice. That’s when I found my knack for … finding things. Precious stones mainly, gold, silver, that sort of thing. Could sniff ‘em out.’ Lurker sniffed then, as if to prove the point. ‘Masters took a liking to my talent and kept me close. But then when the war started, and Lincoln blockaded the ports, it got tough. Several of us escaped one night, when the guards were fighting, and made off into the swamps. Miracle we made it to the border, never mind Virginia. Seven of us left the camp that night, and only two made it through to Lincoln’s blues. Me, and one man.’ There was a rasping as Lurker rubbed his chin. ‘Don’t remember his name. Didn’t say much.’