Bloodrush (Scarlet Star Trilogy #1)

Chapter 24 - A Long Drop and a Short Stop

Merion did. Shame was piled onto confusion and worry. He bowed his head.

'First, you're going to clean this room. Then you're going to wash yourself. You reek of alcohol and other things I don't want to mention. Then you're going to help me with the two Shohari bodies I've got on the table downstairs. Any questions?'

Merion was too sick to argue. 'No, Aunt Lilain.'

His aunt stormed from the room and slammed the door. Pain erupted behind his eyes.

*

Merion turned around to stare at his mess. The young Hark scratched his head. Books? Why would he, even in his drunken state, pilfer a score of books from his aunt only to throw them about, as if they had displeased him. What could he want with books?

A telltale rustling came from under the bed. Merion bent down slowly to find Rhin sitting lord-like atop a pile of books, twitching back and forth between flea-bitten pages and folded corners.

'What,' Merion sighed, 'are you doing?'

'Reading,' Rhin replied curtly. The faerie was still in his odd mood, albeit a little more frantic than before. Rhin looked nervous and worried, yet driven by something. Merion had never seen him like this before.

'You never read.'

'No, you never see me read.'

'Well, what are you reading?'

'Locomotive schematics.'

'Locomotive what?'

Rhin growled. 'Don't you have cleaning to do?'

Merion scowled at him. 'I'm not in the mood, Rhin. What on earth is this all about?'

Rhin looked up sharply, and it was a look that told the boy that arguing was not on the cards. 'You're not the only one with problems, Merion,' came the sharp reply.

Merion abandoned his line of questioning and began to tackle his mess. While he cleaned, he stewed over what had happened to his faerie, trying to figure the little beast out. But his mind was drenched in treacle and busy tripping over itself.

'Ugh,' Merion gulped as he trod in the puddle of dark red liquid in the corner.

This hangover lark was despicable.

*

Simply put, the Shohari stank. By the look of their ripped and ravaged shoulders, and the frayed rope still tied around their bony ankles, they had been dragged back in to town by horses. Merion's eyes roved over their colours, and not just the bruises and bloody gashes. Their metallic war-paint accentuated the contours of their lithe arms and long legs, made their skin shine blue, purple, and shimmering green.

Merion regarded the two Shohari males with a heavy heart. His time in the desert with them had shown him their humanity. He knew they were not the savages the Serpeds and the townspeople thought them. The boy looked at the filed teeth poking out through the broken lip of the taller Shohari. There had been some anger, some feral, human outrage, behind the blows that rained down.

'First, railwraiths. Now Shohari war parties,' his aunt was muttering as her scalpel flicked back and forth.

'Are they getting closer?'

'Bolder and angrier,' his aunt corrected him. 'They believe this is their land. We believe it is ours. This is how wars begin.'

Merion raised an eyebrow. 'It isn't our land, then?'