Gavin Smith - The Age of Scorpio

The tears and the fear only kicked in when the warband gave away their armour and shields and it became apparent they were to leave the fort. Shame was written all over the tear-stained faces of the men and women of the Cigfran Teulu. They could not even look at those they had sworn to serve.

There would have been panic among the folk except for their king. They loved their king. It surprised nobody when he refused to leave.

Before they sneaked into the night, Rin spat in Britha’s face. Anger coursed through her – she came close to running him through with a spear – but in the face of her anger, despite the demonstrations of power that he’d witnessed, Rin held his ground. ‘That’s for your mother,’ he told her. Britha managed to control her anger.

They slipped over the darkest part of the walls at dusk before the Corpse People closed on the fort. A long drop by rope into the ditch, down to the treeline and then they crept away. Every one of them bar Britha, Teardrop, Tangwen and Fachtna felt like the basest betrayer and coward. Though Fachtna understood them and felt a little of what they felt.

They pushed hard, skirting west to avoid the Corpse People’s pickets. Then they turned south-east. They pushed hard because they did not want to hear the sounds of battle, though there wouldn’t be much of one. They weren’t quick enough to escape the screams.

They saw its head first. Morfudd told them that she had never seen such a thing before and that it had not been there when last she had been this way.

‘It’s too big,’ Britha said, appalled.

‘Things of that size cannot be built,’ Morfudd said firmly. It had to be more than five hundred feet tall and stood in the channel between two smallish islands close to the coast. Much further out was a third and considerably larger island. They had been cresting a large hill that ran parallel to the coast for some time now, walking through acres of what had once been woodland. Most of the trees had been felled. Britha couldn’t imagine how many people it must have taken to remove this many trees. But the trees were quickly forgotten when she saw the small fleet of black curraghs surrounding the structure in the water.

‘And yet…’ Teardrop said. Britha did not like the sly smile on the face of the stranger wearing her friend’s form.

‘It’s a wicker man,’ Fachtna said, no life in his voice.

Beth spent the night on the streets just outside Waterloo Station. She woke up the following morning feeling fine, no aches, no pains and aware of her surrounding to a surprising degree. She wasn’t sure what was happening, but she felt different. She was worried that the insane old woman in the interrogation room had infected her with something. Or maybe du Bois had, and the bag lady spitting blood was a hallucination. Whatever it was made her feel stronger, faster, much more aware and very, very hungry. Of the money that du Bois had given her, she’d spent a surprising amount on food.

On the train from London to Portsmouth, Beth was impatient. She wanted to deal with McGurk. If he knew anything about her sister he was going to tell her this time. After all, how many monsters could he have?

She walked quickly from Portsmouth Central across the common to the garish plastic and concrete of the amusements. Without all the light and the noise there was something distinctly depressing about them, even on a fresh and sunny day like today. She waited. It was still early. It would be a while before anyone turned up. She watched a ferry make its way through the Solent’s mild chop, the wind blowing her hair. The Isle of Wight looked far away today.

The main thing on Ted’s mind as he cursed the old key refusing to turn in an old lock was having a nice sweet cup of tea. He didn’t feel like he could face the day, and he certainly couldn’t cope with punters, until he’d had his second cup of tea.

‘Ted?’

The voice made him jump, and he didn’t like the way his heart felt in his chest at the fright. He’d been on edge since McGurk had come to visit. McGurk had been right: it was a long time since Ted had been someone in this city. He turned to look at her.

‘Thought we’d seen the last of you.’

‘I need to know something,’ Beth said.

‘Be a love and pick that up, will you?’ He nodded to where he’d spat his cigarette. Beth bent down and gave it to him. He took another drag. ‘Well, you’d better come in and have a cup of tea.’

They sat up in the concrete saucer above the arcades. The cafe might have been nice in the 60s. Still, it looked out over the Solent towards the Isle of Wight. She watched as the hovercraft left its nearby terminal and headed out over the water.

Ted shuffled over to the table and gave her a cup of tea with far too much sugar in it and a chocolate bar that she devoured almost immediately.

‘Hungry?’ She just nodded. ‘So? You looking for your old job back? Because I know I don’t pay much, but I need reliable people.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said through a mouthful of chocolate.

‘You had trouble?’ She nodded. ‘McGurk?’ She nodded again. He sighed. ‘Maybe this ain’t a good city to live in?’ Beth finished her chocolate and took a sip of the tea. It was so sweet she was mildly worried about getting diabetes if she drank it all.

‘I need to know where I can find him.’

Ted gave a short bark of laughter devoid of humour. ‘You fancy yourself as someone who can look after themselves, don’t you? For a bird, I mean.’

Beth could see where this was going. He was going to try and impart some chivalrous for-her-own-good, street knowledge to her.

‘Look, I know how it looks, but I know what I’m do—’

‘No! You really fucking don’t. Beth, he runs the drugs and prostitution in this town. He’s supposed to have his grubby little fingers in human trafficking, dog fighting, bare-knuckle boxing. He rapes anyone who comes to work for him so they know the score.’

‘He thinks I’m too ugly to rape.’

‘Then he’ll carve you up, and if he doesn’t he’s got boys with fists, big boots, clubs, knives and even shooters. Stay the fuck away from him.’

‘He’s got my sister,’ Beth said quietly.

Ted stared at her. ‘Shit,’ he finally said and looked down. Suddenly he wished he was thirty years younger or even had just looked after himself properly. You messed people up, you had to if you wanted to carve a piece for you and yours, but McGurk didn’t know when to stop – no decency, too greedy. The hard girl in the leather looking at him from across the table, eyes full of emotion, made him feel guilty. ‘He got her hooking?’

‘I don’t know.’

Ted leaned in close, not quite willing to believe what he was about to say, pleased that nobody else was there. ‘Look, you ever say that I told you this then I’ll deny it, but go to the plod.’

‘They get close to him, he’ll cut his losses, deny it. They can’t do the things that I’ll do to him to find out where she is. Besides, I think there’s someone else after her, someone bad, fucked-in-the-head bad.’

‘Beth, before you even get close to him he’ll have one of his lads shoot you. And they’ll do it and go inside for him without even mentioning his name. I’m sorry for your sister. I can make enquiries – see if she’s on the streets – but I’m not having your death on my conscience.’

She sat back in her chair. He could see how desperate she was.

‘Ted, pick three of the hardest guys here and I’ll fight them…’ He jumped when she slammed an antique bayonet down on the table.

‘He’s fucking tried carving me up before. It got him nothing. They’ve got shooters, they best use them quick, and frankly I don’t give a fuck if they do. I went inside for beating some cunt to death for what he did to my sister. I nearly did it again to… some monster he chose to do for me. I fucking promise you, Ted, it’s him who’s got to be scared now.’