Chapter Fourteen #3
He knew it the same way he knew he had to hold down what he’d consumed. He made a soft noise through gritted teeth, raised the hand with the bitten heart in it.
“Do you see? Do you see—what is done?” Words tripping over themselves in their haste to be out of his mouth. “Let the Forest see, come and see, the whole fucking Forest witness this, it’s done, tell what’s done is done…”
The post combat relief, the surge of victory chemicals in his veins, a kind of black hilarity, and whatever the fuck this, the flesh and blood of a Faerie heart, was doing to him—he felt the way he had when they jabbed the morphine into his arm that first time at Delville Wood, as if some arcane warm wind blew right through him, swept his limbs out of existence, the way a brusque sketch artist erases unwanted lines on a parchment page…
He grins, beatific, pivoting effortlessly around to take in all their gaping faces in a ring. Somewhere, he thinks he hears Wolfbane Sally’s ribald laugh.
“Go!” he bellowed at them. “Go tell Mebhuranon! I come for the child! I bear the given word of the Final Isles! Who will deny me?”
One of the taller Huldu peeled lips from fangs, made a half step toward him—
Duncan growled low in his throat, a wolf at bay over its kill. He dropped the mutilated heart to the ground, raised the trench knife like an offer, like a libation. Skinned his teeth in a grin.
The Huldu thought better of it.
“Go!” Surprised at how low his voice was now, how cold and dismissive. “Go and tell what is done!”
He stood over Stordalen’s wrecked corpse and stared them down.
Watched as, one by one, they turned and walked away, fading into the Forest gloom like lamp flames turned slowly down.
He realized he’d been holding his breath, huffed and blew, working to cope.
Heard whispers through the trees, looked down at the blood on his hands…
A hard hand, grabbing him by the shoulder—
He whipped around, trench knife rising to guard.
Saw Garner gaping at him, not much less horrified than the departed Fae. One hand out, warding. “Whoa, lad! It’s me! It’s me! Put that down!”
Duncan swallowed. Tasted the blood in his mouth.
Blinked. He lowered the knife. He’d forgotten Garner was there—forgotten, if he was honest, that Garner even existed.
He swayed a little, looked at the trench knife and thought vaguely he’d probably better clean his blades sometime soon. And look at his wounds. And—
He drew a deep breath.
“Listen to me, Garner. There’s not much time.”
“Lad, tha’re bleeding—”
“It doesn’t matter. Just listen. You get out of here. Get home. They won’t touch you tonight. This dead fuck”—jerking a thumb at the gashed and smoldering ruins of Stordalen—“gave his word, and it’s good till dawn. Tomorrow morning, you take the first train to Erlsley—”
“Bloody Erlsley?”
“Just fucking listen, will you? Erlsley, yes. You go to the Forestry Commission on Albion place. Albion place. There’s an ex-Guards colonel there, Martin Hardy.
You tell him from me he’s right about the new war, and if he wants to strike an early blow, he needs to get some men to Maltby Ferry for midnight tomorrow night.
Tell him I’m bringing out a high-value hostage, and I’ll likely have half of fucking Fairyland on my heels when I do! ”
Garner gaped. “A high-value hostage? Miriam Rush? She’s a four-year-old wean! Have you been at the bloody pipe? Tha’re talking like a—”
“Garner!” The snap in his voice brought the other man up short. “I don’t have the fucking time! Just do it. I’ll see you paid, or Niamh will, if I don’t make it out.”
“It’s not the bloody money!” Garner lunged across the small gap between them, grabbed him by both shoulders with bone-crushing force.
“It’s thee, Duncan. Take a look at thisel, lad!
Tha’re a bloody mess! Tha’ll not bring Miriam Rush home like this.
Tha’re in no fit state to bring a pork chop home from market.
Tha conner go up against Old Meb! She’ll eat thee alive! ”
Echoes off the shout, departing among the trees.
Garner, perhaps only now aware that he’d actually grabbed Duncan, let go as if the other man was hot. Duncan, wanting only to cackle like a lunatic and lash out, worked up a small, measured smile instead. He looked at the ground.
“Don’t worry about me, old man,” he said gently.
“Just get yourself home safe, and carry that message tomorrow. That’s all I ask.
I’m not going up against Mebhuranon. That’s not what this is anymore.
Whole set of relationships in this fucking Forest just…
changed. There’s not a Huldu in England going to deny me what I want right now. ”
Garner took a step back from him, perhaps to turn more easily and go for his gear, perhaps…not. Something had shifted in his face. It took a moment for Duncan to peg the expression for what it was.
Fear.
Garner went back to the farmhouse, clambered awkwardly over the dresser barricade to get his pack and the Woodward.
Duncan looked down at his own gun where it lay on the ground with his coat.
For long moments, it seemed to him like an artifact dug up out of the ruins of some other time and civilization, a tool whose use you’d have to guess at.
The trees hushed around him, and he felt, distantly, dizzyingly, the wheel of the stars in a sky he mostly couldn’t see, high above the canopies that hemmed him in.
He teetered a little, almost had to catch himself from falling…
“Lad?”
He blinked again. Garner was back, rough and blunt as any human in the whisper and lull of the Forest. Duncan summoned the small smile again.
“Told you, I’m fine. Now get moving. Remember what I said.”
“No, lad—listen. Before I go. Tell me the God’s honest truth, and tell me right now. Who the bloody blue blazes are tha, Duncan? Really.”
Duncan stared away past him, into the gloom beneath the trees. Vaguely aware that the small smile was still on his face.
“Who am I?” he said quietly. “I’m the biggest fucking mistake they ever made.”