Monstrous Races (21 page)

'Good. Of course, assuming that you do retain both stones then you're bound to stay here under my instruction.' She surveyed them both evenly and dipped her head back behind her, her body arcing as she swam backwards and under in a perfect circle. She bobbed back up facing them, and a slash of red open flesh was visible on each side of her neck.    

'And what if he wins?' asked Elli, her hand still clenched tightly around the stone. Sarah smirked and moved her head slowly from side to side, looking at them intently.

'Then I'll have to re-evaluate our little agreement,' she said, her large tail splaying the water into the air behind her. 'It would be better by far that he doesn't.'

Elli
tapped her fingers on the ol
d wooden table listlessly, hearing the sound of the rain beating against the window. Half a deep-fried pig's trotter sat on a plate sadly in front of her, with crumbs of cheese and pastry dotted around it. Rufus continued to add to the crumb collection, chewing and gesticulating with abandon until she felt a particularly heavy and hairy pork-scratching hit her in the middle of the forehead.

'Oh, you can hear me then,' he said as she flicked it back in his general direction. 'Are you going to eat that trotter?' She shook her head and he licked his lips, pulling the plate towards him. 'So, as I was saying, Sarah's just being Sarah, and a fat lot of good that did us. Riddles and threats and the odd pearl of wisdom. I tell you, she put me right off of su-she,' he added, before tucking his napkin into his shirt and biting into the crispy trotter. 'You should never believe what she says you know. Her truth is different to everybody else's. And it's what she doesn't say that's normally interesting,' he added, his mouth shining with a greasy layer of oil.

'She said that we sort this out ourselves, which means that gendarmes and anyone else won't be helping, have I got that righ
t?' she asked as a group of
nuli
s and dog-heads behind her erupted into laughter. Rufus nodded and licked his fingers. 'And am I tied into a
contract with her if we do
have both stones?'

'Oh nothing that formal,' he answered, sitting back on his stool and looking around at the group behind him. 'But she will expect you to undertake certain shadowy and secretive tasks for her, or as she'll say, for Brayston. That's part of the deal if you stay, and that's a big
if
.' He shrugged, struggling in vain to remove a piece of gristle from his teeth. 'Look, if you have both stones then you could be a pretty formidable opponent. Surely it's better for her to keep you on side and useful,' he muttered darkly, plucking out the offending item and staring at it quizzically. 'It's win win for her as always.'

'Well why not help us then? If she wants me as her lack
e
y, which I'm not agreeing to by the way, why isn't she sending in everything she can to help us?'

'Oh, you can't try to second-
guess that weird fish, she of the glassy eyes and snaky head moves. And revolting table manners. Honestly, who eats like that? It's enough to put you off,' he added, wiping his oily muzzle with the back of his hand. 'I believe the gist is that we're on our own if it goes badly, but if it goes well then we're working for her. Whatever happens, you can bet your cream cracker that she'll be fine. She always is.'

Lord Lansdown adjusted the cuffs of his tunic and stood at his full height inspecting his troops. All were primed and ready, with strong sinewy arms clutching
various sharpened weapons. There were knives, cudgels and axes, something that managed to fire flames from a spout and an ugly mace held by an enormous troll who twisted his mouth into a macabre grin as Lord Lansdown passed by. He noted with satisfaction that the troll had sharpened his tusks to fine points, and that the vicious-looking dog-head next to him (with one ear that appeared to have been partially torn off) held an enormous crossbow between his lumpen fist, the veins standing out in hard leathery knots.

Over a thousand males, females and miscellaneous stood to attention, or at least their approximation of it. At their head stood Captain Briggs, his back perfectly straight and his black eyes peering intently at his army. He wore a threadbare red jacket with shining buttons, and his curled dark hair gathered in clumps around his temples. His eyes were his most striking feature; alert, watchful and dark as raisins, they looked into the very heart of you said the men. He held a large dirty blue sock weighed down with a heavy ball inside of it, and he swung it gently to and fro in front of them. Some of them had seen the damage that sock could do when a grizzled human, Ned 'Impaler' Harris had tried to make off with the chest containing Lord Lansdown's last payment to them, and each averted their eyes from it now as it rocked gently backwards and forwards.

'Listen you lot,' screeched Captain Briggs, his voice harsh and heavy.
'We have here our next payment from Lord Lansdown, and what a generous amount it is. What you do with it is up to you, but remember there is more, lots more, where that came from. We will reach Brayston in two days, so we need to be ready to go. They'll be expecting us, but we've still got a few surprises for them, hey Ronald?' He looked across at a knotted-haired gorgadon who grinned back at him through rotten teeth.

'Our mission is two-fold. First and foremost to procure the g
irl by whatever means necessary:
secondly to get in there and take control. We will need to have it secured within two days as that's when the Queen's flying cavalry are due to arrive; Lord Lansdown has decreed that anything we want we take within Brayston, and that's where our next payment will come from. Now, how about that as an incentive?' he asked, as the group began to clap and stamp their feet in time with one another. 'Who is our King?' he hollered over the rhythmic stomping and crashing noise.

'Lansdown,' they called, 'Lansdown, Lansdown, Lansdown...'

Lady Lansdown clutched at the heavy curtain with her bony fingers and pulled it aside as they began chanting. From this vantage-point high above she watched them calling in unison, their weapons at their sides and their eyes full of lust and greed. She shivered, a deep cold stab of unease that plunged itself into her skull.
This was certainly not the arrangement
she thought bitterly, pulling aside a tendril of perfectly-curled hair. Blades glinted in the dying sunlight, and breastplates and shields of dull metal hung suspended against toughened flesh.
No style at all
she thought
,
as a deep ruinous roar filled the bedroom, a hundred years of rage and hunger bouncing from the walls. She held her breath and watched as the matted gorgadon sloped to the furthest stable, all eyes
on him as he squelched through the rotten mud.

'Gerald my dear,' she called softly, as her personal Manservant pulled some unruly hairs from his ears between his yellowing fingernails.

'Yes Ma'm?' he replied, his intended low bow petering out to a nod of the head.

'You did say you were a Military Advisor, didn't you?' she asked, her hands on her hips and her dress lingering over her sagging bosoms. He licked his lips and cleared his throat.

'S'right,' he answered, nodding his head slowly. 'Best you can get. Won the Cairoo Springs Tussle, got King Julius out of a few scrapes including the Sandhill uprising and sorted Genial Slav the ever-ready when I personally engineered catching him with his trousers down and threatening to tell Mrs Slav about it. Happy days,' he said fondly, his eyes almost glistening. 'Course it's a young man's game now,' he added, scratching his nose and sniffing through one hairy nostril.

'Oh I don't know,' she said quietly, stroking her parchment neck. 'I really don't think there's any substitute for
experience
. And I'm sure Gerald, that you have that in spades.' He grinned his gummy smile and looked across at her with a fruity sigh. 'I take it that you haven't mentioned your illustrious past to my husband.'

'He hasn't asked,' he replied boldly, taking a tentative step towards her. 'Besides, something far more promising has come up.'

'Apparently so,' she said, gently biting her puckered bottom lip. 'Well if he hasn't asked...'

Elli was lying on her bed staring up at the ceiling when Rufus returned, and she heard him trip over something and hurl abuse at it downstairs.
Lucky for him Max and Alpha  Sawyre are conspicuously absent
she thought, ignoring the crashing around downstairs.  She remained on the bed for some time, thinking about her parents and her life at the Dogheadhood and wondering why the stone had come to her.

'Potential,' whispered the desiccated voice of the old man in her ear. She looked anyway, but knew there was nobody there. 

'Explain,' she said quietly, her heart beating fast now. 'Please.' There was a slight cool wind and she was sitting beneath a huge weeping willow, sunlight dappling through the heavy branches. The ground was cool and soft, and she heard crickets and birdsong in the warm air. 'Do you have a name?' she asked as the man's bare feet drew closer in the dewy grass.

'I do,' he answered, sitting down on a flat stone to her side and rolling up his sleeves. 'Now, you wanted an explanation of why the stone has come to you,' he said,
picking up a fishing rod and a small bag. 'I'm happy to talk it through with you, especially if we catch something wonderful for my breakfast.' His green eyes flashed with knowledge and good humour. 'Come on then,' he said, the clouds rolling lazily by in the sky above them.

Elli sat on the bank with her feet resting in the stream, gulping down fresh water greedily from her cupped hands. The man sat to her side with the fishing rod in his hands. 'We could start with
why
, although
how
is just as interesting. Do you know what the stone does?' he asked before reaching across for his cup and dipping it into the stream.

Elli looked across at him and splashed her feet in the cold dark water. 'I don't think it's as simple as just being a weapon, because if it was why would we be having this conversation in this lovely place, which I'm not sure is real or not. You said something about potential,' she offered, watching him nod languidly in the dappled light.

'Yes I did,' he murmured. 'We're really not supposed to help the wearers of the stone, we both have to remember that. Things will happen regardless and it can't be controlled in that way. But potential is the currency that we live with, and after all, a stone is just a stone,' he added, flicking the rod again over the surface of the water.

'Meaning?' she asked, watching vibrant blue dragonflies flitting and dancing over the rippling water.

'Yes,' he replied, his eyes resting on small bubbles gently coming to the surface. 'Exactly. What if the stone really is just a stone? And what if Elli really is much more than that? As to whether this is real or not, I've given that lots of thought over the years. And I've realised that it's not relevant. It just is.'

'Oh,' she answered quietly, staring down at the water. 'What about Lord Lansdown? I know you're not supposed to help one or the other but do you bring him here as well?' The old man smirked and concentrated on the water, his face in profile and his green eyes twinkling with amusement.

'You've obviously never met him. No, he's decided that bringing the stones together is his fate and there's no room for any doubt. They're the worst kind,' he added sighing. 'He forgets that even the lowliest weasel can surprise you, or at least they can if you're a chicken. Now, I think I have a nibble,' he whispered with a look of deep satisfaction.

Elli found herself back on the bed staring up at the ceiling, and she heard heavy footsteps clumping up the stairs. Her door creaked open loudly and Rufus strolled in, his fur dark and heavy with raindrops. 'I've just been to George's lodgings. Interesting landlady,' he said casually, sitting on the edge of the bed and rubbing his head with a towel. 'She must have scared the living daylights out of him, Madame de Ronne, or Doreen as she's really called. That's a little spread over a lot of woman, thighs like a dimpled fruitcake and cleavage you could sail a barge into. Not much there and she said he always paid up on time. I brought the harpsichorgan back anyway. Oh, there was one thing, a sketchbook. Look.'

He took the large book out from beneath the folds of his coat and handed it to Elli. She flicked through it, intrigued by the dark lines and subtle shadows. 'They're quite good,' she said, keeping her eyes focused on pictures of exotic creatures and sunsets.

'You haven't got to the best one yet,' muttered Rufus, as Elli turned the page and found a picture of a girl looking out at her. A smattering of freckles dotted her nose and her unruly hair was swept out of her face, her eyes burning with a question.

Elli went to speak but couldn't find the words; instead she looked long and hard at the contours of the face and the enigmatic smile. 'So,' said Rufus, watching her reaction carefully. 'Are those the daubs of a love-struck young fool or something a bit more sinister? What if I wrote the word 'Wanted' underneath it? Actually I'm not sure that would help...'

Elli looked
up, her smile just as unknowable
as the one in the picture in front of her. 'I think we need to pay George another visit,' she said decisively as Rufus began to shake his head, throwing the wet towel onto her bed which she abruptly picked up and flung back at him. 'And don't look like that. Lord Lansdown will be here in two days, we're going to need some sort of plan,' she said breathlessly as the words struggled to catch up with her frantic thoughts.