Kal Moonheart Trilogy: Dragon Killer, Roll the Bones & Sirensbane (39 page)

PART FIVE

THE ELECTION

V.i

Vote of Confidence

On the night Felix Firehand died, Kal didn’t go and join Will at the Thermalore as promised. Instead, with Gwyn sitting on the crossbar of the velocipede, she pedalled straight back to Ben’s mansion. She found Ben and Zeb toasting their court room victory with yet more leftover frizanti. Kal unceremoniously dumped Gwyn in their care and went up to bed, exhausted.

The adventures of the past five days had left her shattered in both body and brain. She craved sleep and rest, but her dreams were haunted by a kaleidoscope of images and scenes: an armoured knight looming ever closer out of smoke-filled gloom … Gwyn screaming and Firehand raising a whip, blood spraying from his mouth … Viola Witchwood dragging her cat’s claw up and down Kal’s body, even as Will Straightarrow’s fingers trace the line of the wound, the pleasure of his touch mixing with the pain of the torture … a glowing fist engulfed in raging flames … Ganzief Greatbear and Nim dancing maniacally at a party while skeletons jiggle all around them … Zeb holding a knife drenched in the blood of the husband she had been accused of murdering … a deafening clatter as giant carved dice tumble on the Field of Bones like hail, smashing the statues there to pieces … General Cassava licking blood off her obscene axe … and Kal’s own hands reaching out to the ghostly knight and lifting the helmet …

Kal jerked awake. In the dark silence of the room, she voiced the name of the murderer out loud. As if saying it somehow made it true, she was suddenly certain she was right.

It was election day, and to mark the occasion the elements had conspired to throw up a new backdrop to the city. It was dawn, but the sun was cloaked behind an army of storm clouds that filled the eastern horizon. For the first time in weeks, Kal felt a chill as she climbed out of bed.

She attempted to perform a few stretching exercises to warm her body up, but her sore limbs protested so she gave up. Kal dressed in black, as if for a funeral. If she made it through another day without somebody’s death, then it would be nothing short of a miracle.

She was hungry, so at least her appetite was still working as normal. She headed down in search of something to fill the hole, but paused on the stairs when she saw who was lurking in the dimly-lit vestibule.

‘I’m looking for a missing child,’ Silas Dogwood said, rising from the bench where he had been waiting. ‘Have you found one, Moonheart?’

Luckily, Kal had a story already to hand. ‘Gwyn came home with us after the trial,’ she explained. ‘Felix was upset, so I offered to look after him.’ She held the fat captain’s stare. ‘You can go ask Felix yourself if you like.’

Dogwood made a snorting noise that Kal suspected might have actually been a laugh. ‘Felix Firehand was murdered last night,’ he told her. ‘His body was eventually found locked
inside
his bolt-hole in the cellar. We had to break down a wall to get in. I imagine the murderous ghost had no such problems.’

Kal shrugged. Last night, she had found a spare key in the basement, so she had locked up as they left, and dropped the key down a well on their way home. ‘You
really
think a ghost killed him?’

‘No,’ Dogwood admitted, ‘but putting the blame on a ghost is easier then admitting that I don’t know. Firehand wanted me to keep the story about the ghost a secret, lest it hamper his chances in the election. Well, I guess that doesn’t really matter anymore.’ Dogwood gave Kal a stiff nod. ‘Good day, Moonheart,’ he said, and let himself out the front door.

Kal was suspicious. He didn’t want to grill her this time?
Pin the blame on a ghost to hide the real killer.
She still suspected that
someone
had bought Dogwood’s loyalty. Now that Felix—the Commander of the Senate Guard—was dead, Dogwood was free to follow someone else’s agenda without compromise. Kal made a mental note to avoid anyone in a blue Senate Guard surcoat today.

She went down to the basement and turned on the gas lamps in the kitchen. After finding a stack of charcoal in one store room, and a supply of eggs and bacon in another, Kal soon had the brazier hot and breakfast underway. When the goblin cook turned up for duty, Kal waved him away.

She heard voices above, so she loaded a tray with food and a jug of grapefruit juice (and a beer for Ben, which she thought he deserved) and carried it all upstairs. Ben, Zeb and Gwyn were all sitting at one end of the long table that stood in the corner of the open-plan living area. They made a perfect little tableau of a family gathering.

‘Well,’ Zeb said as Kal dished up spoonfuls of fried mushrooms, ‘you didn’t tell me you had such
pretty
goblins, Ben.’

‘I gave your staff the day off,’ Kal told Ben. ‘It’s election day—everyone gets the day off today. Even those people who don’t actually have a vote.’

Ben looked slightly uncomfortable. ‘I can’t imagine Cassava extending the franchise to monsters any time soon. Greatbear would love it, of course, but with two diametrically opposed consuls, I imagine they’re going to veto each other into ineffectiveness over the course of the next year.’

‘Is there any point in even having a vote today?’ Zeb asked. ‘There are only two candidates left, and two consular seats up for grabs.’

‘Well,’ Ben mused, ‘there is the remote possibility that one of the candidates might not gain the vote of any centuries at all. The law is unclear what the outcome would be in that case, though. And of course there’s the more likely possibility that neither of the candidates will survive the day, what with the ghost of Feron Firehand still on the loose!’

Gwyn, who had been eating quietly, spoke up: ‘Kal will stop the ghost!’

‘Hush now, darling,’ Zeb said. ‘Kal’s done enough this week, for both of us. She needs to rest.’ Zeb stood up and beckoned for Gwyn to follow. ‘So come on, let’s go for a walk. If Greatbear needs votes, then I may as well go and make sure he gets mine.’ She took Gwyn’s hand in a motherly fashion—he was never to be carried around anywhere again—and left the table.

Kal watched Ben as he finished up his breakfast. True to form, he dropped a tomato down his tunic while trying to pile too much food onto his fork. He tried to rub the stain away with his hand, which he then licked clean. He burped, tilted back on his chair, put his feet up on the table and looked at Kal. There was a mischievous smile on his lips. He cracked open his beer and took a long swig.

‘Are you going to go and vote, too?’ he said, wiping his mouth with his sleeve.

‘I might,’ Kal said. ‘What are you so happy about?’

‘Oh, nothing,’ he said. ‘I’m just pleased that everything turned out for the best at the trial. Shame about what happened to poor old Felix though.’

Kal gave him a weak smile. ‘The killer’s still out there, Ben. No one in the city can relax just yet. I have a theory, though. Want to hear it?’

‘Of course,’ he said eagerly. ‘I knew that you wouldn’t be able to drop this case, even after Zeb was cleared. She’s an incredible woman, by the way!’

‘Oh, shut up,’ Kal said. ‘She’s far too good for you, and you know it.’ She moved closer to Ben and sat on the end of the table—a move she always made when she wanted him to stop joking around and take her seriously. ‘I know why the killer targeted Firehand, Witchwood and Grey.’

Ben raised an eyebrow. ‘Go on.’

‘Last night at Felix’s, I read through Feron Firehand’s journals. Did you know that when he was young, Feron had a brief fling with a young merchant’s daughter called Lucia Witchwood? And when he joined the Senate Guard, he formed a relationship with the captain at the time: Rian Grey.’

Ben considered Kal’s words. ‘Are you saying that … Witchwood and Grey—
our
Witchwood and Grey—were Firehand’s
descendants
?’

‘I think so.’

‘But … Jarole Grey was black!’

Kal sighed. ‘It’s been five hundred years, Ben! I don’t think you’ll be able to recognise Firehand’s descendants just by looking at them!’

Ben took another swig of his beer. ‘So … what, the ancient hero of the revolution has returned from the grave to punish his kin for corrupting his vision of a pure republic. Well, let me buy the man a drink!’

‘The Lord Protector was anything but a hero, Ben. Read his journal. He was a murderer and a torturer, not to mention a womaniser who was, shall we say, very forceful in his advances. Almost anyone in the city could be Firehand’s spawn … and so almost anyone could be his next victim. Although, it looks like he’s starting high up in the Senate and working his way down.’

Ben looked serious for once as he took in the picture Kal had painted. ‘So, you think you can stop the murders?’

‘Maybe,’ Kal said. ‘I need to go out and recruit some help first. I’ll see you later.’

Ben nodded as she turned to leave. He drained his bottle. ‘Thanks for the beer, Kal,’ he said. ‘Where did you find it?’

She turned on her way out. ‘Oh, in a cupboard in the kitchen that was labelled
Snarky
.’

Ben’s eyes widened and he paled visibly. ‘
Goblin beer
!’ he spluttered.

* * *

Kal walked through the city, rather than ride the velocipede. She didn’t want to attract attention, and besides—the streets were busy today with people heading to and from the Field of Bones to vote. She also needed time to think, to confirm her suspicions, and decide both how she was going to act on them, and who she could trust to ask for help.

She went looking for Will in Crab Corner, but the Dead Dog was full of elderly drinkers playing dominoes; none of Will’s young gang were about. Upstairs, his bed was empty and cold. She was on her way out when Will’s friend, Dene, came out of another room. He looked tired and anxious.

‘Kal. We need your help.’

‘Where’s Will?’ she asked him.

‘He went on a job last night and didn’t come back. I think Will’s been captured!’

Kal couldn’t help but laugh. ‘What did he decide to rob this time? The treasury?’

‘No, the
amphitheatre
. We heard they had a bunker under the arena, where they keep all the prizes, as well as the proceeds of all the wagering on the fights. But it was a trap: Cassava’s got him, Kal!’

Kal clenched her teeth. That certainly changed things! ‘Well, it would be suicidal of me to rush in waving a sword and try to rescue him,’ she said. ‘But I had business with Cassava anyway. Now I
really
need to see her!’

When she left Crab Corner, though, Kal didn’t head for the amphitheatre. Cassava was likely to be with Greatbear on the Field of Bones, where the consular candidates traditionally sat upon a stage where they could watch and acknowledge the voters passing by. When Kal stepped through the city’s East Gate and onto the field, she could see the stage at the centre of a swarm of thousands of people. But what took her breath away wasn’t the massing crowds, the enormous statues, or even the vista across the wide open countryside. What made her pause was the fact that, although it was almost noon, lamps had been lit all over the Field of Bones.

It was still dark. The storm clouds had kept pace with the rising sun, and now filled half the sky, advancing from the east in a perfect north-south line like an army. General Cassava’s green-clad soldiers lined the voting arena, nervously watching the skies rather than watching the crowds, perhaps afraid that this was one army that they had no hope of ever holding back.

Kal heading on down towards the voting
pens
—a maze of temporary wooden palisades erected to coral the crowds. The voters of Amaranthium were divided into
centuries
—ancient and arbitrary divisions founded along lines of status and money. The consulship was decided by the number of centuries that each candidate won the support of, not by the number of individual votes. Kal was a member of the largest century—that of the common people—so in the grand scheme of things, her vote carried less weight than the aristocrats, who were divided up along family lines.

Kal pushed and squeezed through the throngs, taking shortcuts over the barricades to get closer to the stage. But when she finally got near enough, all she could see was Greatbear sitting alone, waving cheerfully to his supporters. Where was Cassava? A cool dread set Kal’s nerves on edge; she wasn’t having much luck finding people today.

‘Name?’

She looked around. A man at a desk was handing out ballot cards. Kal decided that, what the hell, she was here now—she may as well make her voice count, even though it sometimes felt like a small voice in a big, dark cave.

‘Kalina Moonheart,’ she said, signing her name in a ledger. The clerk checked her signature against the one he had on record, and then checked her face against a written description. Satisfied, her gave her a scrap of card and directed her to a curtained-off voting booth.

Once inside, it was almost too gloomy to see, despite the booth being open to the sky. Kal had to stare at the card for some time before she made sense of what she was seeing …

This was unexpected.

There were
three
names on the ballot card.

She shook her head in disbelief as she marked her card with a bold
X
and posted it in the slot at the back of the booth. She was still quietly chuckling to herself when she stepped out of the booth into a middle of a ring of armed soldiers.

‘Kalina Moonheart. General Cassava demands your presence.’

So they had finally caught up with her. Kal guessed that she couldn’t deny who she was this time, having just proven herself to the clerk.

‘So let’s go then,’ she said briskly. ‘I just hope the general doesn’t want to thank me for giving her my vote!’

V.ii

Caged Beasts

The amphitheatre was in the middle of the slums south of Crab Corner. It had been built to celebrate the triumph of a previous victorious general, and hundreds of tenement houses had been bought up cheap and demolished to make room for it. Thousands of poor folk had been evicted, and Kal had heard that the cabal of senators who had authorised the amphitheatre had offered the displaced citizens the chance to earn some pitiful coin working as woodcutters and carpenters for the new construction. It sickened her to hear that some of them had no choice but to agree.