Chapter 3

Liam ceased his retreat, returning to the shadow of the big tree. He did not know why, but his intrusion had not been reported. Maybe the woman decided he was of no consequence. She had held an expression of amusement – perhaps he was just being toyed with, not even considered a threat to whatever they were doing. Looking back out at the women seated around the fire, he saw that all of those present seemed focused entirely on the discussion.

“The only convincing that needs to be done,” the woman facing away from him said in a thin voice, “is convincing these rebels to cease this foolish standoff. Such rabble has no business occupying my demesne.”

He had never seen or heard the woman speak before but, by her words, she should be Countess Jacqueline Fassett. He had not heard of any rebels, either – there was nothing of the sort mentioned around the town, though it could explain why times had become harder over the past few weeks and why they were looking for fighting men.

Countess Fassett took a sip from her golden chalice as another woman from the trio spoke.

“Can’t you just resolve this amicably and put the past ways of your family behind you, Lady Fassett?” Her higher tones were measured as she attempted to persuade her host, “The future holds such incredible prosperity for everyone that I can’t imagine that either of you would be dissatisfied with a reasonable settlement. This dispute over the succession only continues to bring further ruin upon your people and your house for no worthwhile benefit.”

“The ringleader of this rebellion will not be satisfied until he has cast me from my seat and banished me from my lands or worse, Lady Wagner.” Lady Fassett said, “I must put this animal down and all of his collaborators. I need not remind you that enforcing justice in my own lands is my right – and you have none to interfere.”

“Oh, for the gods’ sake!” The last amongst the women gathered spoke, “Lady Fassett won’t even call her brother by name any more. How can you even refer to him like some sort of beast?”

“My dear Campbell died at Katze,” Lady Fassett replied with a sniff. “Whoever it is leading these rebels claiming to be him is no brother of mine.”

“At least you still have a brother!” The other woman nearly yelled, “All of our brothers actually died in the battle that you pretend to have claimed yours!”

Silence filled the night following her outburst, punctuated by the sounds of the fire and the distraught noblewoman’s sobs.

“This is getting us nowhere,” the first woman – the lady sitting between the two – said. “Lady Fassett, do you truly understand the consequences of your decisions here?”

“Do you presume to threaten me, Countess Corelyn?” Lady Fassett’s voice rose.

“I do no such thing, Lady Fassett,” Countess Corelyn sighed. “We are trying to help you. The entire House of Lords does not wish to witness the result of this destructive course you follow. Since both you and your brother have chosen to shun our words, we have no choice but to enact our sanctions on your entire demesne.”

Countess Corelyn rose to her feet, and the two ladies to either side rose with her. The woman standing behind them – the one who had spotted him – prepared their things to leave.

“Not that it will matter,” Countess Corelyn said in parting. “The whole realm has returned to their duties, so it’s only a matter of time before the Royal Court reaches the limits of their patience and turns their attention to the growing eyesore that is your fief. I’m afraid you will not survive this, Lady Fassett; I can only pray that your people are not made to pay for your folly.”

The visiting ladies made their farewells and made their way out of the garden and through the courtyard of the manor. After the sound of carriages receded beyond the bounds of the estate, Jacqueline Fassett abruptly rose and aimlessly hurled her chalice. With a screech, she swept the untouched food and drink on the table into the flames.

The boy backed away and lowered himself to creep out of the hedge: it was time to leave.

A rebellion. The Royal Court. Nobles from the east, delivering a warning from the other lords. They mentioned the old Count’s son being alive, but the Countess denied it. If Campbell Fassett was alive, he would be Count and living in this manor, not his sister. No one in the town talked about anything like this, and the town was where all the information in the county eventually found itself. The more he tried to make sense out of it, the less it did.

Liam shook his head. What mattered was what it was worth. He was the only one with this information, so he would be able to get plenty enough for a meal. Safely escaping the estate, he returned to the town below and went to locate several brokers to sell his findings to.

In the end, he had earned twelve additional copper coins for his trouble.

He dared not hold onto his windfall, so he had instead bought what amounted to a feast and headed straight home. Liam ran through the alleys with the full meal in his arms. He lightly skipped over the pools of standing liquid as he navigated the bowels of the town, both proud and excited that both he and his sister could enjoy a filling meal for the first time in far too long. He turned one last corner, into the secluded cul-de-sac where they had found a place that was sheltered from the rain by a small overhang and high enough to not become flooded in the spring torrents.

“Saye!” He called out.

Liam came to the end of the small section of alley, standing over the corner that had become their dwelling for the last few weeks.

“Saye?”

He checked for the thin, ragged fabric that they slept on every night, folded and stuffed into a crack in the wall. It hadn’t been disturbed since the morning when the both of them had gone out to look for errands to be done. There were no new footprints or any signs that anyone had been here, either. Saye knew that young girls that went to the wrong parts of town had the tendency to disappear, so he was reasonably confident she would be as safe as one could call themselves by staying well away. He turned around one last time in the silence before heading back out the way he came, towards the ways where her sister should have come from.

Along the way, a muffled curse and the sounds of sporadic scuffling sent him into a run. Not far away, he found a group of three men trying to drag the same number of girls away somewhere. A middle-aged woman holding a thin, lacquered pipe between her fingers stood behind them, watching the struggle.

“Hey, don’t damage them,” she warned the men in a low voice. “These are the best ones we could find here.”

Smoke from the pipe trailed through the air as she gestured towards them, but the men were having a hard time trying to keep the girls quiet as they twisted about. He saw a flash of dirty blonde hair drift out from behind one of the ones facing away from him.

“Saye!” He shouted.

Liam moved without thought at the sight, charging towards the man that was struggling with his sister. He threw himself bodily, but the man barely budged. Liam bounced off and fell to the alley floor; the food spilled out of his arms and scattered into the pools of filmy mud. He ignored it, gaze running over the men as he reoriented himself.

The woman looked down at the boy that was suddenly sprawled on the floor of the alley before her.

“Eh? Who’re you?”

Following his wild-eyed gaze, her tone changed.

“Is this your sister?” She smiled, “Hmm…you look pretty decent too. Come with us boy: we’ll take the both of you to a better place than this.”

Liam looked to her sister, who shook her head vehemently at his unspoken question. Yeah, he thought not. Snatching a piece of old wood discarded on the wayside, he rose to his feet and swung with all his might. The rotted plank broke apart over the side of the man’s knee, and there was a sharp pain in his palms.

“Fuck!” The man shouted as he danced to the side and dropped Saye.

Ignoring the burning sensation in his hands, Liam went for another piece of wood but the man’s boot lashed out and dashed him into the wall of the nearby building. Crushing pain filled the world, and he found himself on his back. Labouring for breath, he struggled to sit up. A looming figure overhead filled his blurred vision.

“You’re dead, you stupid little shit,” the man he had struck growled as he pulled a long club from his belt.

“Hey, that’s good coin you’re throwing away there,” the woman said.

“Not coin,” the man spat. “Food for the rats.”

The boy dimly heard his sister screaming across from him: the arms and legs which had struggled so fruitlessly against her captor were equally powerless in holding him back.

The man’s arm rose, but the blow did not fall. A metallic scent filled the alley before the man fell to his knees instead. Four thin lines ran across his throat, and he dropped his weapon to clutch at his neck. Blood welled out from between his fingers as he made a futile effort to stem the flow.

“W-what?”

The woman’s voice trembled, eyes wide at the sight of the crimson stain running down the man’s greasy shirt to pool on the ground beneath him.

A startled cry came from another of the men, near the other wall of the alley. As his cries quickly turned to anguish, he dropped the girl to the floor below. All eyes were riveted to him in abject terror as they took in the sight of a dark set of talons reaching out from the shadowed wall. Whatever It was, it had grabbed its victim by the head…or perhaps grabbed was not the right way to describe it.

Each talon sunk into the man’s face: one into each of the man’s eyes, while the remaining three punctured his cheeks. His weak attempts to flail at the arm sticking out of the wall simply passed through it, no more effective than swinging at a shadow. The cries ceased for a moment, filling the air with an eerie silence before the man began to wail in panic as he was raised off of his feet. He continued swinging his arms to no avail as blood ran out of the holes gouged into his face.

The man’s struggling weakened to nothing by the time he was slowly raised a metre off of the ground. The shadowy hand squeezed, and the ruin of the man’s face detached from the rest of his skull. His body flopped to the ground with an arc of blood, spattering the girl who was frozen in terror near where he had fallen.

The final man had seen more than enough. He released his girl and fled up the alley, bowling over the woman in his path. Not five steps into his panicked flight, the dark talons reached out from his shadow and snatched his ankles. As he tumbled forward to the ground, his feet were yanked sharply in the opposite direction, and his face whipped into the ground with a sickening crunch.

The woman edged back from the fallen man, as their brutal assailant did not slip back into the darkness. Its claws seemed to grip the edges of the shadow it lay within, as if to pull itself out of the ground. The odor of her soiling herself joined the scent of blood filling the air as they saw that what rose from the shadow was shadow itself.

From the back of its emaciated torso, tattered, bat-like wings with membranes formed of pure darkness sprouted. Sinewy arms extended past its waist, from where dangled the talons still dripping crimson. No legs appeared as it continued to rise – only a wavering, translucent shadow drifting over the ground. Two gleaming yellow slits peered in their direction as it turned its attention their way.

The woman finally rose with a pitiful noise, turning to flee. She did not waste her breath to scream and her billowing skirts filled the alley until she disappeared around a corner.

“Liam!” Saye’s voice roused him from his pain-induced stupor.

He looked up and met her clear blue eyes as she leaned over him in tearful worry. He tried to speak; a groan of pain was forced out of him instead.

“We need to run, Liam.”

Saye’s hands hovered hesitantly over his body as she tried to move him. Whenever she tried to pull on his clothing or his limbs, he let out another pained groan and she flinched away worriedly. Panicked scrabbling focused their attention away again: one of the other girls had gotten up to her feet to run. She made it not two steps before the shadowy monster flickered into existence in front of her.

With a startled gasp, she immediately backed away and tripped over the other girl behind her. The shadow monster slowly advanced towards them, and the two girls untangled themselves from each other to get away. From one side to another it flickered in and out of the darkness as it blocked their attempts to escape, sickly yellow eyes leering at them in amusement. The two girls soon found their shoulders pressed to the wall of the building beside Liam and Saye.

“Liam…” Saye’s terrified voice leaked out to call his name.

Liam rolled onto his side and pushed himself upright, ignoring the agony in his side. Using the wall at his back to support him, he rose halfway to his feet before he slid back down. His vision turned white as his body was jarred against the ground.

The monster seemed content to watch his struggles, its eyes turned up in glee. After Liam fell once again, it rose to loom over them, spreading it’s shadowy wings wide. Looking to each of their gaunt faces, it seemed to savour their suffering, fear and pain. Liam already knew that they were being toyed with and, one by one, they all understood that there would be no escape. When it appeared that each of the children had resolved themselves to their fate, the monster spoke in a sibilant whisper that chilled their blood and raised goosebumps as it washed over their bodies.

“Camilla will see you now.”