Reign of Beasts (19 page)

‘What are you —' Crane started to say, and fell silent.

‘Shh,' she said unnecessarily, and untucked his shirt, brushing her fingers over the bare skin of his stomach. He was young, but he wasn't that young. If Velody was going to be all fussy about it, that was her problem. Delphine was far more inclusive in her tastes.

Crane stood very, very still as she explored him with her fingertips, up his chest and then down over the taut muscles of his stomach, to the line of his belt.

‘If it'd make you feel better,' she said softly, ‘you can still keep a lookout while we do this. I'm not precious.'

It was warm, very warm, in the nest. Delphine lifted Crane's hands under her own shirt and he got the idea right away, tugging her breastband up and groping her gently. A little too gently, perhaps, but she could work on that.

They made the touching last longer than she had intended. A frig like this should be fast and frantic, a swift transaction, but they had time to kill. She lingered once she had his trews open, stroking and tugging him into hardness.

Crane was good at staying quiet. Muffled sounds only, when she did something he liked. He gave as good as he
got, too. Young though he was, this wasn't his first time. Delphine found herself twisting on his fingers, gasping and muffling her own cries against his cloaked shoulder as he curled into her.

Breeches. Why had she worn breeches? She wasn't even a proper sentinel, and one of her own frocks would have been so much easier to slide up over her hips to let him inside. Obviously the sentinel uniform wasn't designed for knee-tremblers. A shame, really.

They managed, peeling clothes back just enough to allow access, and taking the necessary time to get the angle right. Then he was fucking her, harder than she'd expected, against the rough wall of the nest, and neither of them was paying the remotest attention to keeping watch.

It was her turn to muffle his cry as he came inside her, and she kept her hand pressed against his mouth as the heat surged through her all over again. Damn. She had needed that.

They stayed quiet for a long time afterwards, just breathing and touching, before they began to reassemble their clothes.

‘Still quiet out there?' Delphine asked.

‘No sign of anyone,' said Crane, shifting around so he could see out of the thin patch again.

‘Good,' she said, buttoning up her trews. ‘So let's go and steal our swords back while the going's good.'

He looked at her in astonishment, and then grinned like the sun emerging bright and fierce from behind a cloud. ‘That is an excellent plan.'

I
t wasn't going to happen at the fecking lake, Macready was certain of it. The place was full of revellers celebrating the Neptunalia. The water was covered in lanterns and paper boats, and its shore crowded with families, sailors and hot-bean sellers. Daylight folk all, and no room for the Creature Court.

‘Freezing our balls off, and for what?' he grumbled.

Kelpie solemnly placed a paper admiral's hat on his head. ‘Enjoy yourself, Mac. How often do we get to come to something like this?'

‘Fecking waste of time.'

She tossed a bag of hot chestnuts at him. ‘But it's not. We know it's not. The daylight festivals have a purpose — they keep the city strong so it can heal from the battles every morning. Without them, we'd be royally screwed, so suck it up and eat a damned nut.'

Macready hated chestnuts. Bits got stuck in his teeth. ‘We'd be better off joining the others underground. Garnet's not going to sacrifice the lamb in front of all these daylight folk.'

Music burst across the lake. A parade of children dressed as fish danced along the pier, following a boy who carried a shining pearl on the end of a fishing rod. Flute-demmes
and drummers heralded the arrival of the Sea-father, decked out in gleaming blue robes and a false silver beard.

‘I think,' Kelpie said faintly, ‘we need to stop making assumptions about what Garnet is capable of.'

The Sea-father stood up, shaking a staff from which hung many strings of shells. ‘Happy Neptunalia!' he roared, and the crowd hollered at him, throwing ribbons and sweetmeats into the lake.

Holy fecking saints and devils, Garnet was playing the Sea-father, right here in front of the whole mother-fecking city.

‘Call Velody,' Macready hissed.

Kelpie spoke urgently to the mouse she held, before sending it skittering off into the city.

‘Bring forth the fish,' the Sea-father boomed. Several daylight folk dressed as sailors carried a large platter on which a huge moulded-paper fish lay as if ready for a feast. It was traditional to slash at the fish with a sword until it emptied its belly, scattering more ribbons and sweetmeats and nuts into the crowd.

As they watched the fish being winched up to the roof of the floating pavilion, Macready noticed that it was, in fact, large enough to hold a small person.

And it was twitching.

 

Velody reached the edge of the crowd at the Lake of Follies at about the same time as Livilla. ‘Perhaps we got it wrong,' she said, seeing how many daylight folk were about. But, no. She could feel Garnet nearby, his animor alight and pulsing with energy.

Livilla smiled viciously. ‘Trust him to make a spectacle of himself. Silly boy. He does so like to be the centre of everyone's attention.'

Macready and Kelpie ran over to them, looking like a couple of Neptunalia revellers with lopsided paper hats perched on their heads.

‘The pavilion,' Kelpie got out.

‘He's using the festival for his own games, sick bastard that he is,' Macready added.

Velody didn't see it at first, but then heard Livilla suck in a breath as she looked at the floating pavilion.

It was just like every other Neptunalia. The pavilion was hung with blue and white ribbons and paper fish. Children were dancing in costume. The Sea-father held his staff and sword, playing up to the crowd. But the sword gleamed in a way that was seductive and familiar.

‘That's a skysilver sword,' Velody said.

‘It's my fecking sword,' Macready said grimly.

Delphine and Crane came running up, out of breath and grinning like idiots.

‘There was no one in the Haymarket,' said Crane.

‘We got the blades,' Delphine added, half-crashing into Velody as she came to a halt.

‘We couldn't find your sword, Mac,' Crane said apologetically. ‘Or mine.'

He handed Kelpie's sword and knife to her, and she slid them into their empty sheaths.

Macready gave Crane a hard look. ‘Are you wearing the Silver Captain's blade?'

‘We're at war, aren't we?' Crane said, looking abashed. He handed Macready's knife to him, and an unfamiliar sword with the hilt wrapped in white leather. ‘I found Ilsa's for you. You were about the same height. It's better than nothing, isn't it?'

Macready grumbled, but took the sword.

Livilla let out a cry and ran towards the lake.

‘Oh, hells,' said Velody, and followed her.

‘Garnet!' Livilla screamed.

The Sky-father turned and waved cheerily. ‘Hello, lover.'

‘Stop this right now!' said Livilla, sounding more in control than ever before. Velody hadn't known she had it in her.

‘But it's the Neptunalia,' said Garnet from behind his beard and blue hood. ‘Have to have the Neptunalia.' He waved and smiled and flourished Macready's sword. ‘Makes the crops grow, and the rain fall, and the fish bite.'

‘Kill the fish,' the crowd started shouting. Because they were idiots.

‘This is it, then,' said Livilla, her voice dripping with disdain. ‘This is the kind of Power and Majesty you chose to be. You would murder children for your own entertainment. What happened to you, Garnet? Do you hate us all so much?'

He tilted his head to one side, as if she had said something terribly quaint. ‘Did you only just notice, sweetling?'

‘You take everything and give back nothing in exchange,' she yelled at him. ‘You dared to make me think that I couldn't take power, that I was unworthy of you. You think you are so much better than all the others who went before you, but you're not. Just another paper soldier making children cry and bleed.'

‘Pretty words,' Garnet said, and the air around him seemed to grow colder. ‘I'll enjoy making you regret them, Liv.'

Velody joined Livilla at the lake's edge.
Don't do this
, she sent directly to Garnet.
Don't make me stop you.

Garnet laughed and grinned around at the crowd.
Go ahead and try, little mouse. You haven't seen a fragment of what I can do.

Nor you, me.

You don't have Ashiol to hold your hand any more.

I'll cope without him. You, through — they stopped believing in you when you sent him away, you do know that, right? They didn't want you back.

Shut up. You can't hurt me. I'm the Sea-father. All powerful, all wise. The fish is going to die, wriggling on her little hook.

No. She's really not.

Velody stepped out onto the water. It held under her feet. She walked steadily across the surface of the lake, her ragged grey dress blowing around her legs in the breeze.

The crowd, knowing a spectacle when they saw it, clapped and cheered.

Garnet gave a cry of triumph and malice, and thrust the skysilver sword directly through the body of the fish.

Velody and Livilla stopped pretending at that point and flew directly at him, both their bodies colliding hard with his. Animor smacked against animor with a sound like thunder rolling across the sky. Livilla punched Garnet once in the face and he struck her back, his power lashing out in tendrils.

The Sea-father's court threw off their disguises as fishermen and mermaids, revealing Poet, Warlord, Lennoc, and their courtesi. They joined the fight, dragging Velody away from Garnet.

The sentinels crashed along the pier, swords and knives flashing, and the Creature Court turned on them with snarls and bites.

Velody swiped Lennoc across the eyes with a flash of animor and threw herself at Garnet again, knocking him to the unsteady floor of the pavilion.

Delphine swept past them both, her sword shining like a beacon, and made it to the swinging, broken paper fish. Crane was with her, helping her lift the fish down. They broke it open and lizards poured out of it, some shiny with blood, some trailing smoke behind them.

‘You really think I give a frig about the salamander wench?' Garnet gasped with laughter as he rolled on top of Velody, his power hot and vicious against her. ‘It's not a true sacrifice unless I'm giving up something that I love.'

 

Topaz couldn't breathe. The heat under her skin felt like it had to burst out somewhere, anywhere. Water pressed
around her tiny, scrabbling bodies and there was pain, so much pain everywhere. It hurt worse than the net, worse than the cage. They had forced her to swallow a potion of some kind that made her dizzy and slow. She had expected to die.

Lizards couldn't swim. These lizards couldn't, in any case. She shaped herself back into human form with the last of her strength, and hands grabbed her, pulling her out of the water.

‘She's still bleeding,' said a woman's voice, and then something hot and salty pressed inside Topaz's mouth. She only realised later that she was drinking blood. Blood! These people were crazy. Life had been so much better when she was poor and living on gruel; at least no one had ever filled her mouth with blood. It tasted good, that was the worst of it, and she found herself lapping, drinking deeply.

The burning sensation in her stomach stopped. The heat died away. Panicked, she stared at the two who had saved her. Sentinels. The sentinels who had walked away. ‘What did you do?'

‘The skysilver wound wouldn't heal without it,' said the man, taking back his bleeding wrist and wrapping it tightly with a bandage from his pocket.

Topaz had no animor. This was worse than the drug. She tried to shape herself back into salamander form, but couldn't. ‘Take it back. Take it back!'

‘It's all right,' the blonde woman said, as if Topaz was somehow stupid. ‘We have our blades, we'll protect you.'

‘But who's going to protect her?' Topaz wailed.

‘What do you mean?'

Another voice broke in over them, one Topaz would know with her eyes closed, even here in the dark with her animor quiet inside her body. Poet, the Orphan Princel. He stood on the bank of the lake, looking down at the three of them.

‘Topaz was never the sacrifice Garnet wanted,' said Poet sadly. ‘She was the bait.'

S
ome of the crowd had fled when the battle began between the Creature Court. Others still watched, as if they thought it was some kind of organised spectacle. They ate chestnuts, or drank bean syrup from paper boats.

Velody, bruised and battered from her fight with Garnet, found herself held down by Warlord and Lennoc, each of them pouring all of the animor they had into keeping of her arms pinned to the floor of the pavilion.

‘What are you doing?' she demanded hoarsely. ‘This isn't right. Did you know he meant to do this when you pledged your loyalty to him?'

‘That's how loyalty works,' said Lennoc. He could barely see after what she had done to him in the fight, but his hands were still strong and steady. ‘We serve Garnet, whatever he chooses to do. He is our Power and Majesty.'

‘I could tear you to pieces,' she said.

She could, even with their power so directed in keeping her down. She could go chimaera. She could make their animor burst out of their bodies. She was a King and they were Lords.

‘If you were willing to hurt us, you would have done it by now,' said Warlord in that rich voice of his. ‘You are weak.'

Velody could feel her animor uncurl within her body. It was desperate to hurt, slash, kill, to be free. It was all she could do to contain it. Maybe she should just let it go. That was what Ashiol would do. She had done it before, allowed the animor to make the decisions for her.

She had pledged never to be like Ashiol; and besides, he was a coward and he wasn't here.

Somewhere, Livilla screamed. Velody knew it was Livilla: she could feel the wolf-animor in the pain and outrage of the cry. The crowd was protesting now, muttering amongst themselves. The Sea-father's script was no longer familiar to them.

Garnet rose slowly above the lake pavilion, glowing bright like a Lord. The blue hood of his costume had fallen back and his beard had slipped away into the waters of the lake. He held Livilla by the throat, the skysilver blade gleaming as he threatened her with it.

‘What, such distress?' he roared at them all. ‘I thought you people were used to sacrifices. You love to cut the entrails out of sheep and deer and poor little birdies. The blood runs thick across the floor of this fucking city. How is this any different?'

‘He's going to kill her,' Velody whispered. There was nothing teasing about Garnet's stance, or the hold he had on Livilla. ‘I thought you loved her,' she hissed at Warlord. ‘How can you let him do this to her?'

Warlord's grip on Velody loosened, his animor fluctuating a little. ‘Garnet loves her. He's just trying to scare her into joining us.'

‘Because Garnet has been so kind in the past to those he loves!'

Garnet had loved Ashiol so much he'd almost killed him. Velody could see that memory in Warlord's eyes.

‘He will kill her,' she repeated.

‘She betrayed him,' Warlord said, but she felt another waver in his animor.

‘He took her courtesa, threatened to sacrifice her to the sky. He set Livilla up to betray him. She can't change sides with no air to breathe, even if she wants to.'

Velody sent one sharp pulse of animor stabbing out at Warlord, testing his grip, and then at Lennoc. ‘Get the hells off me. No one has to die this nox.'

Garnet laughed from far above them, a long and melodious sound. ‘Do you think I can't hear you, little mouse? You're so very wrong. Someone does have to die. It's part of the deal.'

What deal?
she sent silently at him, but he didn't reply.

‘What deal?' she demanded of Warlord and Lennoc. Both of them shook their heads, not willing to speak.

‘He's our Power and Majesty,' said Warlord.

‘He's a fucking lunatic,' declared Velody.

‘The two concepts are not exclusive.'

Lennoc snorted. ‘We're all fucking lunatics,' he observed. ‘But we swore an oath to him. We can't go back on that.'

‘You swore an oath to me,' she said furiously. ‘You wanted to change the Creature Court. Did you really want
this
?'

Delphine and Crane hurried over, half-carrying a young demme between them.

‘Topaz says she was never the sacrifice,' blurted Delphine.

Crane had wrapped his cloak around Topaz but she shook it off impatiently. ‘It was always Lady Livilla he wanted,' she gasped out. ‘Please — my animor — it's my job to protect her! You have to give it back.'

‘If the sentinels gave you their blood, there's nothing else we can do,' said Velody.

‘The sentinels were supposed to give her blood,' said Warlord. ‘Getting the salamander out of the equation was Garnet's first thought.'

Saints, Velody had been so busy trying to find Garnet, she had forgotten to try thinking like him. He really was
this crazy. She freed herself from Lennoc and Warword with a single burst of power, and took to the sky, flying towards Garnet and Livilla.

Stay back, little mouse, or I'll burst her head open,
Garnet threatened.

I don't believe you. It's trick after trick. You want something from me, or you wouldn't have gone to all this trouble.

It's not always about you, Velody. This city is on the edge of falling into the sky and I'm the only one who can save it.

Talk to me. I can help you. We should be working together.

No. Look at them. They were following me until you turned up, batting your pretty grey eyes and making them distrust me all over again. I'm the only one who knows how to save us.

How? How do you know?

Livilla struggled out of his grip just enough to speak. ‘He made a deal with them,' she snarled. ‘Isn't it obvious? He made a deal with the dust devils.'

Velody didn't know what to believe. ‘Is this true?' she asked Garnet.

He laughed again. ‘Your little Seer friend isn't the only who hears voices in her head. I know the truth. I have always known. They tell me what we have to do to save the city, and it's hard, and there will be sacrifices. Real blood-draining, bodies-falling sacrifices. But we will be free.'

‘How many sacrifices will they ask for before it's not worth it any more?' Velody demanded.

Garnet smiled. ‘It's always worth it.' He looked past Velody, past all of them, to a lone figure at the edge of the lake. ‘Listen to her, if you won't listen to me.'

Rhian stood there wrapped in a heavy green shawl, looking sad. ‘Bazeppe will fall before the Ides of Saturnalis, and Aufleur will follow,' she said.

‘No!' Delphine yelled at her. ‘That's just one of your stupid futures — it doesn't mean anything.'

‘What do we do to change it?' Velody asked.

‘We can't change it,' Rhian said in an awful voice devoid of emotion. ‘That is the future; it's all the futures.'

‘But there must be something we can do.'

‘Something I can do,' said Garnet sweetly. ‘Ashiol's gone, and you walked away, Velody. I'm the one who's going to save us from our fate. Starting with the first sacrifice.'

He released Livilla, letting her hover for a moment in the air, and slashed at her with the sword faster than she could move.

There were screams. Velody felt numb as the blood arced through the air.

Livilla looked startled, a line of red across the front of her throat. Then she fell, her body crumpling as it hit the lake.

‘So much prettier when she's silent,' said Garnet with some satisfaction.

Animor washed over them all, thick and rich and real. It tasted like wolf and perfumed smoke, and Velody was giddy with the power of it before she remembered to be sickened. Saints, he had done it. Sacrificed one more thing that he loved. How long had he been listening to the voices from the sky?

Light poured from the lake in a bright burst, turning the sky blue with its intensity before the nox closed in once more. Livilla had been powerful, and the taste of her lingered in the air.

Warlord lay on the pavilion, his head down and his body very still, grieving even as he quenched the lost Lord. Velody could see the strands of power that he dragged into himself, as if wanting to keep as much of Livilla as he could.

They were all quenching her, and there was so damned much of it. How had Livilla not become a King?

Garnet's laughter fell over them all, and he took off across the sky with trails of Livilla's animor dragged in his wake.

Velody couldn't breathe for a moment. She didn't know what to feel. She watched Macready wade across the lake to reclaim his sword, and she was still numb.

Macready called to Kelpie and Crane and the three of them ducked under the water, searching. Macready came up with a string of pearls, finally, but no body.

‘There's nothing to bury,' he said flatly. ‘The lake has taken her.'

Velody still felt nothing.

Topaz started to scream. She was a small figure, sodden and wrapped in Delphine's cloak, and she had no power and presence in this sad scene, muffled as she was by sentinel's blood. Still, she screamed. Poet was by her side, and Delphine, but Topaz shook them both away from her.

‘You, this is your fault,' she sobbed at Poet. ‘You let him do this. You were supposed to protect us!'

Poet looked at her, seeming dazed, and she smacked him on the shoulder, in the stomach, crying so hard she could hardly breathe.

Delphine tried to touch the child, who slapped her hand and bared her teeth. ‘Don't touch me. None of you. You think you're so special! Not one of you is any use that I can see. What do you do but rip at each other and show off all the time? I hate you all!'

She ran away into the darkness, and was gone.

 

Velody walked into her kitchen. The sentinels trailed after her, squelching in their wet clothes. Only Rhian was dry.

‘That little demme was right,' Velody said. ‘We're useless. We can't even protect …' She pressed her hands to her mouth, not sure if she was going to throw up.

‘None of us liked Livilla,' Macready said gruffly. Kelpie elbowed him. ‘What? Afraid of the truth? She annoyed the hell out of all of us. You especially. She was a crazy bitch who didn't give a damn about any of us —'

‘Shut up,' snapped Delphine. ‘Just shut up. Is that how you'll talk about me when I'm dead?'

‘I'm sure I could think of a few more original words.'

‘No one else is going to die,' said Velody.

Macready laughed unpleasantly. ‘Do you not listen to our Seer? We're all dying. Bazeppe first; and when the clockmakers have vanished off the face of the earth, it's our turn.'

‘Why don't you just have a drink?' Delphine said sweetly. ‘Make it all go away.'

‘Oh, you're a fine one to judge,' Macready said, his voice rising. ‘A real expert on making the pain go away, aren't you, lass?' He leaned in towards her, his face hard. ‘I can still smell him on you,' he hissed.

Delphine looked as if he'd hit her. ‘I'm not the one who went looking elsewhere,' she replied.

Velody didn't have time for this, for any of it. She didn't care about the stricken expression on Delphine's face, and she really didn't want to know why Crane looked like he'd been caught stealing from the poor box, or why Rhian was refusing to look at anyone. She could feel their emotions, all of them, prickly and savage, beating against her skin, and she wanted none of it. She stretched her back, and was so tired that her body protested even that movement. More than anything, she wanted to break into a thousand pieces, run away from this rabble of sentinels and sleep the calm, unhurried sleep of a heap of mice. But there was work to do. Always work to do.

‘I'm going to Bazeppe,' she said. They didn't hear her at first, so she raised her voice. ‘I said, I'm going to Bazeppe. I'm going to find Ashiol and bring him home. And … if we save that city, then that future is broken and Aufleur will be safe.'

‘No,' said Macready, turning away from Delphine, returning to thoughts of duty. ‘It doesn't work that way, lass. You're needed here.'

‘To stand by and watch as Garnet murders the Court, one by one?' Velody asked. ‘I don't think so. We need
Ashiol
.'

‘What the hells do you think he can do that you can't?' Macready asked, his voice cracking. ‘He abandoned us. He walked away from all this —'

‘We all walked away,' Velody snapped at him. ‘We all gave up. I can't fight Garnet without Ash.'

‘Ashiol doesn't want to fight Garnet.' Kelpie spoke up from the doorway, breaking her usual stony silence. ‘He doesn't think he can.'

‘Well, he's better than that,' Velody declared. ‘We can do anything, we can survive this, we only need something to believe in. Something bigger than our own petty concerns. If you can't believe in me, then … I'll create something you can believe in. For that, I need Ashiol.'

Garnet had given her the answer. He had worked so damned hard to keep her and Ashiol apart.

‘The sacred marriage,' said Crane, and his eyes met Velody's. Her heart turned over a little at the tone in his voice — as if he was working so hard not to be hurt.

‘Perhaps,' she said. ‘I don't know. But I have to try. If Ashiol and I working together frightens Garnet so much, we have to try.'

‘I'll come with you,' Kelpie said unexpectedly. ‘If you want me to.'

Velody was not surprised. If there was a musette melodrama breaking out between Macready and Delphine, Delphine and Crane, Macready and Rhian, then Bazeppe was looking like a pretty fine option.

‘Thank you,' she said to Kelpie. ‘I would be glad to have you.'