Bloodmoon (The Scarlet Star Trilogy Book 2) (34 page)

Rhin recited an ancient Fae poem beneath his breath as he slipped through the undergrowth, quieter than any mouse. His eyes flicked constantly from the pillar-like tree trunks to the glowing green roof above him. It was almost as though he walked through a cavernous cathedral made of wood and leaves. It creaked and whispered around him in the breeze.

His nose had led him true. Rhin soon found what he was looking for: a small copse of pines hiding between the other trees, dark green against the verdant emerald, standing silent and tall like knights on parade. Rhin stood before them with his hands on his hips. He eyed them from their roots to their lofty tips, quivering in the breeze.

‘Pick a pine strong and tall, alive as the day it first sprang from seed,’ he whispered to himself.

Rhin chose the biggest he could find and marched right up to its gnarled and twisted roots. With great ceremony, he drew his black steel sword with a metallic hiss and pointed it to the bark. ‘Carve to the heart, for a splinter true and strong,’ he muttered.

With a grunt, Rhin dug the sharp blade into the bark and twisted it so that a section fell away. Rhin swung his sword again and his strong blade bit deeper. Resin started to gather, like dark, viscous blood. The faerie hacked at the tree-trunk, over and over again until the steel found the hard layers beneath the bark and outer rings. Rhin wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead. With two more lunges, he cut two deep gashes, low and high. Then, pressing his palm flat against the sword-hilt, he burrowed with its sharp tip, levering out a section of wood the length of his forearm. With a splintering crack the piece was liberated from the tree-trunk and fell to the loam between the roots. Rhin picked it up and held it aloft, feeling how sticky it was with his fingers.

‘I guess it’ll do,’ he whispered.

Next the faerie built a small fire in a ring of gathered stones, a short distance away from the pines. Faeries do not like to see trees burn. Sparks flew from the edges of his sword, and the sun-dried tinder began to crackle.

Rhin waited for the tongues of flame to start licking before he added some of the resinous bark he had hacked from the tree. He sat on his heels and waited for his fire to blossom before he sat back and took out his black knife.

Holding the long chunk of wood against his leg, he began to whittle it down, heating it every now and again to make the resin bubble and harden the wood. Half an hour, it took, to carve the chunk into a sharp, pointed stake. Rhin sat cross-legged, twirling it around in his fingers, feeling the weight of it and making little cuts here and there. Then he held it over the fire to harden and dry for a final time.

There are few things in the world that
bean sidhe
do not like. Fewer still can harm them. Fae steel can only slow them, cut their rags and notch their bones. Only a pine-knife can pierce their flesh.

Before they had been cursed and bent into the creatures they now were, banshees had feared the forests, keeping to the wilds and moors. It was why faerie forts were often ringed with trees as well as stone. It was because of the resin, that was all Rhin knew. It had soured their wounds in their war against the Queens, when the Fae had wielded long spears cut from pine. Now in death and memory it haunted them still.

Short of carting around a copse with him, a pine-knife was the only true chance a faerie had against them. It was the slimmest of chances, but Rhin would take any he could get. If go he must, he would do so far from quietly.

Rhin looked down at the black cross etched into his palm and frowned. He traced it gently with the needle tip of the pine-knife. He winced as a pain shot up his arm. The faerie smiled wryly.
So the lore is not all lies and bedtime stories, then
. A little of the heavy weight that had been pushing down on him lifted, just a little.

Every day that weight had been getting heavier. It was part of the curse. The
bean sidhe
liked to take their time. The longer they waited, the more fear crept into their prey’s bones, the more their hands began to tremble, the more restless they became in their sleep. Rhin knew their charms, but it did not mean he was immune. Each and every day he waited for them to come, the more he found himself gazing off into the desert, or flinching at the night sounds, the more Merion watched him knowingly.

Rhin abhorred fear. It was weakness incarnate. After Fell Falls and the White Wit, he had sworn never to entertain it again. That added another layer to his worries: disappointment in himself that irked him deeply.
Just so long as the boy doesn’t see it
, he told himself.

Merion had sworn all sorts of trouble for the banshees in the first few days. With the murder of his father somehow behind them, the boy did not exactly relish the thought of losing the faerie. But Rhin had just nodded and kept quiet, humouring him. Rhin wanted him to forget about it, as he also longed to do. And Merion had, in a way—falling silent and falling deeper into circus life—except for his wary looks, here and there. Rhin had promised never to drag the boy into his mess again, and he intended to keep his promise. Merion had plenty to concern himself with.

Rhin sighed and looked up once more at the roof of leaves shivering far above him. The day was inexorably fading to evening. The faerie sighed and got to his feet. He twirled his pine-knife once again, pressed it to his forehead in a salute, and then thrust it beneath his breastplate, where it sat in a groove in his armour.
Out of sight
.

After relieving himself on the fire to make sure it was as dead as could be, he set a course back to the circus. He strolled casually, letting his thoughts wander onto other topics instead of banshees and pine knives. Fortunately for the faerie, his mind humoured him for once, making a mockery of the miles between the forest and the edges of the circus. He was back before he knew it.

Old habits die the hardest. Even though the circus had accepted him as one of their own, Rhin still kept himself on the fringes of invisibility. He wandered the patchwork shadows, and ducked under guide-ropes and wagons. Even after all his many decades, it never ceased to amuse him to know he was just a flicker in somebody’s periphery, a shadow that made them momentarily scratch their heads, and shrug.

‘Sneaking about again, are we?’ asked a voice, shattering his game.

Rhin froze and completely vanished. It was Nelle Neams, the beast-keeper, leaning against one of the wagons, smoking a cigarette to the bone. Nelle was a skinny sort, pigeon-chested, with a smart goatee and long, slicked-back hair down to his neck, a whitish blonde. He wore a flat-topped hat, the kind the lawyers and the accountants wore in London.

Rhin let his spell wane. ‘Evening, Mr Neams.’

‘Nelle’ll do just fine, Rhin,’ he replied.

‘Nelle it is.’

‘Coming to the fire-pits tonight?’ he asked, pushing himself off the wagon so he could step into the light and crouch down.

‘I suspect so,’ Rhin replied, wary as ever. Nelle had not stopped looking at him since the night of their performance. Rhin had kept a low profile since, happy to have a few chats here and there, but usually out of sight or with Merion. It was all rather new to him, being so open, so visible. Nelle had not spoken to him before like this. This was new.

‘That’s good, good.’ Nelle nodded, watching a few of the other folk pass by, some of the workers. ‘I have a proposition for you that I think you’ll find entertainin’.’

Rhin crossed his arms. Propositions always came with a cost. Be it in time or coin or blood they will always make a mark, hammer a dent. ‘Why not just tell me now, and I’ll give you my answer after supper.’

Nelle was already lighting another cigarette. Rhin had to wait for him to light it, twice, before the man answered.

‘Seems a good idea,’ he replied. ‘Well then, Rhin. I’ve got an empty cage with your name on it.’

‘Excuse me?’ Rhin glared, putting a casual hand on his sword.

Neams held up his hands, talking between pursed lips and his cigarette. ‘No, no, not like that. You see I got a gap to fill, and knowing that you faeries have a strong lust for mischief, I thought you might want a part in my zoo. Just some fool-play, to scare the kids and whatnot,’ he explained, clearly not eager for a taste of black steel.

Rhin raised his eyebrow. ‘What?’

‘You can sit in the cage, vanishing and reappearing here and there.’ Neams took a sift drag of his cigarette and then waved his hands about. ‘Stealing popped corn, throwing stuff. Do whatever you like. Have a little fun. Get tips too. Now I heard the Fae like coin. We could get you a little tunic. Or waistcoat.’

‘A waistcoat?’

‘And a little blow pipe and some pips.’

‘Right.’

‘Just think it over, Neams said. ‘And tell me later.’

Rhin fought not to cackle with derision. ‘That I will. Have no fear.’

‘Right. Later.’

‘Until then, Nelle,’ he said, sketching a shallow bow and then striding off, vanishing bit by bit as he walked away. Rhin kept his eyes ahead, somehow knowing Neams would still be looking.

Rhin found Merion circling the perimeter of the tent, gazing out into the distance and grumbling away to himself.

The faerie’s keen ears picked out his words. ‘Where is that little bugger?’ Merion was saying, over and over. Rhin shook his head.

‘I’m here, and you will not believe the conversation I just had with Nelle Neams,’ Rhin announced as he appeared, already rolling his eyes.

Merion looked as though he would unleash a tirade on the subject of wandering off, but instead he led the faerie inside the tent. He stood in the middle of it, yawning and stretching. ‘Go on then, spill,’ he said, a glint of curiosity in his eyes.

‘Show me a thirteen year-old boy who can’t resist a good story and I’ll give you my wings,’ Rhin chuckled. ‘So Neams wants to put me in a cage.’

‘What?’ Merion spluttered.

‘Exactly what I said. He wants me to be part of his zoo. Scare the kids by playing tricks with my magick. As if it’s some sort of party game. Says he’ll even pay me, which is about the only bonus.’

Merion crossed his arms, a trait he had picked up from his father whenever there were serious words to be had. ‘Well, when you put it like that, why the hell not?’ he asked.

It was a good question, and one that momentarily stalled Rhin. ‘Are you serious?’

‘Why not? This is probably the one place where we can get away with it. Where we can practise our magick in plain view and have people cheer and throw coins instead of fetching pitchforks. When have you ever been able to do that? When will we ever get the chance again?’ he explained, with a clever smile. He did not bother to mince his words. Merion was quickly realising that in the wild west, words did not know the meaning of mincing. And with Rhin’s black cross, well, chances needed to be taken, seized, held tight and close to the chest.

Rhin rubbed his forehead, furrowed like a farmer’s field as it was. He sighed. ‘Well, when you put it like that …’ he murmured. ‘Damn it. When you’re right, you’re right,’ Rhin cursed. Fae, like humans, did not like to admit they are wrong.

Merion beamed. ‘Don’t misunderstand me, I’m jealous, but you should say yes.’

‘But do you not find Neams a little too odd for your liking?’

‘Rhin, we’re living with a circus now. That line is drawn a little farther down the road here, I think.’

‘Right you are. Well, I’ll tell him after supper then.’

‘Maybe you’ll perform tomorrow night, for Daeven Port?’

‘Maybe I will,’ Rhin mused, already trying to think up games he could play. He tutted at himself.

‘I’ll come and watch.’

Footsteps sounded outside the tent and in walked Lilain, followed by Lurker, who had a sway in his step. Lilain seemed to be ignoring the prospector, as if he had got drunk on her words. ‘Ah, Nephew. How are we?’

Merion nodded, but then held up a finger. ‘Actually, I had a question: I can’t remember my dreams.’

‘What an odd thing to say,’ Rhin remarked.

Merion shushed him. ‘I know it sounds peculiar, but I used to have such vivid dreams, and remember them so easily when I awoke. But now, I can’t remember anything about them. And I somehow know they’re just so vivid, but fogged now.’

Lilain was cradling her chin in her fingers. ‘Hmmm,’ she pondered. ‘It happens sometimes, when you rush. In fact, Sheen and I were talking about this earlier.’ Lilain ignored Lurker’s muted grumbling, half-disguised as a cough, and continued. ‘The magick seems to burn out the part of your brain that remembers your dreams. Some letters will tell you they’re connected: the part that dreams and the part that understands, or controls magick; as if they grew up together, all those centuries ago.’

It made sense to Merion. ‘It’s just particularly frustrating.’

‘I don’t remember shit about my dreams, if I dream at all,’ Lurker rumbled from behind them. He had found a comfortable spot on Merion’s borrowed bedroll, and spoke from beneath the brim of his hat.

‘Maybe that’s it then.’

Rhin buzzed his wings. ‘Fae remember every single aspect of their dreams. Even move them around if we wish.’

‘Well, that’s nice for you, ain’t it,’ Lurker muttered. Rhin threw a tiny pebble at him, catching him on the peak of his hat. Lurker swatted at him like a fly, even though he was a good few paces away.

‘Does it ever go away?’

Lilain shook her head and patted him on the shoulder. Merion might have taken it as patronising if he had not been in a fine mood. ‘ ’Fraid not, Nephew. I think it’s permanent for you. Now come on, it’s almost supper time. And Lurker, you need some food in you.’

‘Yes Ma’am,’ Lurker replied, not moving a muscle.

Merion pulled a face. ‘Well that’s annoying,’ he muttered to himself, before reaching for a thick plaid shirt, another loan from the circus. His stomach distracted him with a fearsome growl and he patted it warily. ‘Supper sounds good.’

*