Reign of Beasts (Creature Court)

27




It 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.’