Stephen Hunt - The Court of the Air

Bonefire turned to the captain. ‘These are the people the Special Guard protects. What are they worth to you? I’d sooner trust a rabid dog not to gnaw my arm off.’

‘There’s no such thing as a pretty mob, lieutenant,’ said Flare.

Outside, the shouting had got louder. Sections of the mob were trying to pull the railing bars out. The grasshopper guns were being swivelled by their crews to face the sections of the wall that looked likely to fall first.

‘The soldiers will fire if they break the fence,’ said Hardfall. ‘It will be a massacre.’

‘There’s children in the crowd,’ said Flare. ‘We can’t allow that to happen.’

‘You have the order’s blessing to intervene,’ said the worldsinger. ‘If casualties are kept to a minimum.’

Flare looked at the sorcerer with contempt. ‘I think it’s gone a bit beyond that, don’t you?’

‘There will be no bloodshed this day!’

Flare turned around. King Julius was out of his sickbed, standing shakily in a bed robe. Crown Prince Alpheus rushed down the corridor after his father.

‘Your Majesty,’ said Captain Flare. ‘You are not well enough to be on your feet.’

‘Listen to them down there, captain,’ said King Julius. ‘It’s my head they are baying for. No republic with a king, isn’t that the old Carlist cry?’

‘It’s not a republic they’re thinking about right now,’ said Flare. ‘It’s your blood.’

The tired old nobleman collapsed onto his throne. ‘I think I have a little of that to spare, young man, before the waterman’s sickness puts me under the soil and I move forward on the Circle. Bring me my mask and open the doors to the main balcony.’

The crown prince was horrified. ‘Father! There’s no need for you to go, to humiliate yourself. Hoggstone hasn’t ordered this.’

‘My boy,’ said the King. ‘Alpheus, it is me that they want.’

‘You gutless old fool!’ Alpheus shouted. ‘Just once why don’t you stand up to them? Refuse to do what they want. Walk away from them. Did they cut your courage away when they took off your arms?’

‘Alpheus,’ said the King, ‘our circumstances may be reduced, but our duty is not. Remember the blood that flows in your veins. Our ancestors protected Jackals for nearly a millennium, they helped cast down the dark gods and watched over the people for centuries. We do what we have to, what we must . Not what our fancies dictate.’

‘I hate you,’ shouted the prince. ‘And I hate your fairytales. That’s your people out there, and all they want to do is tear you apart.’

The king had a faraway look in his eyes. ‘Bring me my mask.’

Flare sighed. ‘Bring the King’s gag. Bonefire, Hardfall, cool the mob’s appetite for blood a little first.’

Bonefire grinned. ‘Twitching time for the hamblins.’

Opening the balcony doors, the wind caught the velvet capes of the two Special Guards. Bonefire raised a fist and cerulean false-fire leapt from his arm, lashing out along the perimeter of the palace railings. Unlike some of the other burners in the Special Guard, Bonefire’s ethereal energy did not ignite physical objects, failed to even leave a mark on a victim’s skin; but for anyone caught in the witch-light, they felt as if they were burning alive at the stake, a pain more terrible than plunging a hand into a hearth.

Flare had fought to have Bonefire brought into the Special Guard. Originally the political police had illegally apprenticed the boy into their coercement and interrogation section, using his unnatural fey fire to loosen reluctant tongues. He still enjoyed his work.

As the front of the crowd fell back in burning agony, Flare nodded to Hardfall. She moved forward onto the balcony and placed her hands on her head, pressing her skull in her concentration position. Down in the square thousands of protesters began to lift off the ground, boots and shoes thrashing as they paddled desperately against the air. A brief quiet fell as the yells and abuse faded away, a silence broken only by the screams of the protesters still suffering from the after-effects of the guardsman’s false-fire.

When the mob had been lifted four feet in the air Hardfall gently lowered them back onto the cobbles. As the stunned mob’s feet touched the ground King Julius slowly walked onto the balcony, his royal face-gag strapped on. Some of the protesters — the hardcore Carlists and republicans — ran forward and started throwing fruit and stones up towards the balcony.

Without arms to steady himself, the King was quickly knocked down in the rain of rubbish and debris from the square. The stoning continued; the dazed monarch fell to his knees then slipped down in a huddle under the hail. But it was half-hearted. Hardfall’s demonstration of the Special Guard’s abilities had broken the spell over the majority of the crowd. They milled around startled, then began to drift off, shaken by their fey protectors’ powers. Eager to withdraw before they were treated to a repeat manifestation.

The major had to restrain the crown prince from dragging his father off the balcony. Tears were running down his face. ‘They’re killing him, the jiggers. Why do they hate us, why?’

‘He’s a symbol,’ said Captain Flare. ‘Just a symbol to them. Nothing more.’

Bonefire walked back into the throne room smiling. He had enjoyed his afternoon’s workout. ‘Don’t worry, boy. The architects planned the distance of the balcony from the square. Just far enough away to land a few licks without maiming His Highness permanently. You’ll see, you’ll get your turn on the balcony soon enough. Your father won’t die from a few empty jinn bottles tossed in his direction, not today.’

Alpheus looked with rage at Bonefire. ‘There was a time when the guard protected the King from the enemies of the land, protected the people from mobs and thugs.’

Captain Flare quietly led the crown prince away from the throne room. ‘I have heard your father’s stories too, Alpheus. Leave him now, I’ll bring him inside in a minute after the mob’s dregs have had their sport.’

‘They were more than stories once, captain,’ said Alpheus. ‘But now? We’re just royal geese being made plump for the Midwinter Festival, a morsel to whet the people’s appetite. You can toss the mob my family’s bones to pick their teeth with after they’ve had their fun. My whole life is little more than a fattening cage.’

Flare tapped the silver suicide torc hexed onto his neck and inclined his head towards the crow-like figures of the ever-present worldsingers. ‘Your ancestors would have been better served by trusting the fey, Your Highness. If the old kings had put their trust in the Special Guard rather than the order, Kirkhill could have been made to stay a loyal servant of the crown, rather than keeping the crown in a box under the speaker’s seat in the House of Guardians.’

‘The sorcerers are powerful,’ was all Alpheus could say.

‘When they choose to be,’ said Flare. ‘There haven’t been any serious floatquakes in Jackals this year, I grant you. But I did not see a cursewall hexed around the palace just now. A five-flower worldsinger could have dispersed that mob as well as any Special Guardsman. But they never seem to place themselves in physical danger unless they have to, do they? Far easier to stir up prejudice against the feybreed, lock away a few twisted unfortunates and pass themselves off as the protectors of Jackals. A position which pays the order handsomely, I assure you.’

‘Sometimes I think about killing myself, captain,’ said Prince Alpheus. ‘Wouldn’t that be a fine thing for the people. I could just step out on that balcony and jump over it in front of them all. That’s about the only freedom I have left. To decide when to die.’