Marcii (The Dreadhunt Trilogy Book 1) (3 page)

Chapter Four

              As Marcii wandered home, head down against the cold wind that had spurred into motion, she pulled her heavy jacket, laden with the fruits of her expedition, more tightly around her neck, and thought on Tyran’s shallow words.

              Though she may have disliked him, were his intentions genuine when he hired those mercenaries?

              Was he just trying to protect the people of Newmarket?

              Or was there something else afoot?

              She didn’t know.

              She wasn’t even sure if she wanted to.

              Tall, thin houses that heavily contrasted the vibrant markets filled the town and rose up about the young Dougherty as she walked. Looming on either side of the narrow, cobblestoned street along which she scurried, the grey buildings hovered with a grim and uninviting air all about them.

              Lodged between houses here and there at irregular intervals as she passed them Marcii stole wary glances down dark, dank alleyways that wound between the heavy set, thick stone structures.

              They were cold, dark, often damp, and smelled of all things putrid and disgusting: if not rats and vermin, then instead faeces and urine.

              Shuddering slightly, her pace quickened.

              Soon, approaching a relatively square, squat building, set at the very end of a row of small, terraced houses, Marcii finally looked up at the slightly mouldy wooden door in her path.

              She was home.

              Reaching out and grasping the cold, black ring of iron that was the stiff door handle, she forced the door inwards and, with a loud, creaking groan, it reluctantly complied.

              Cold air rushed in behind her and she shut the door quickly so as to keep as much heat in as possible.

              Inside, the house was dark and the single room that made up the entirety of downstairs was plain and poor. Only a rickety wooden table and four chairs sat in its centre, and the all but vacant space was lighted mainly by candles.

              Admittedly a little light filtered in through the two windows set in the one wall, on Marcii’s left hand side: the greatest benefit of being at the end of the row of terraces. But the thin glass in them was filthy enough to leave a decidedly gloomy feel hanging in the air, and as the young Dougherty looked upon the place which she knew only as home, her mother glanced up at her from her seat at the table with a peevish look in her eyes.

“What took you so long?” Came her irritable greeting, her tone accusing and disapproving.

“Mayor Tyran was speaking in the square…” Marcii replied by way of explanation.

Her mother just huffed and sniffed rather loudly.

Amanda Dougherty, though she was of course Marcii’s mother, and the young girl loved her dearly, more often than not upset her youngest daughter’s calm with just the simplest of mannerisms, or most minor of comments, for she did not think before she acted or spoke.

Or, if she did, she didn’t care.

Amanda was thirty-nine years of age, with thin, unhealthy looking blonde hair and blue eyes that were more than a little grim. She was tall for a woman, taller than Marcii, and had been attractive, to a certain degree, when she was younger.

But now, as she’d grown older, she looked gaunt and, quite frankly, unappealing.

Aside from all of that, needless to say, she looked nothing like her youngest daughter.

Marcii sighed inaudibly, wisely keeping her thoughts to herself, and began to unload the fruits of her efforts upon the table under her mother’s scrutinising gaze.

Thankfully though, before her mother had a chance to comment, thudding footsteps began their slow descent down the aged wooden staircase over towards the back of the room.

The stairs always seemed to shake and wobble whenever anybody made their way up or down them, even though they were supposedly secured to the stone wall of the house.

Marcii’s father appeared, his face white and blanched so much so that he looked decidedly ill.

His name was Marcus Dougherty.

He was of a slight build and was shorter than Marcii’s mother, and in fact slightly older than her too. He had light brown hair and attractive blue eyes, though they seemed aggrieved at that point and Marcii could see quite clearly he still wasn’t well.

Her father had always been a weak, sickly man. He coughed groggily and his eyes looked bloodshot and were streaked with red.

Smiling warmly at his youngest daughter, he crept into the room and came to sit beside his wife, though he daren’t sit too close, for her tongue was sharp, and her temper sharper.

She did not greet him and shot him only the briefest of glances. It was a look filled with solemn regret and disappointment, tinged with the resentment that always follows confinement.

“And my coin?” Amanda questioned immediately, even before Marcii had placed the last item from her list upon the table.

Her daughter dove again into the deep pockets of her coat and scrabbled about for every last penny, knowing full well her mother would count them more than thrice to check she hadn’t been swindled.

Though her father was a cooper, and a skilled one at that, Marcii’s family were not wealthy.

They did not live in poverty like some.

Like Vixen, Marcii thought to herself.

But times were often tough.

              Suddenly, and in fact thankfully, for Marcii always felt the tension between her parents most keenly, there was a heavy knock at the door. The sharp rap of knuckles upon wood echoed in Marcii’s ears and she turned automatically to answer, knowing if she moved too slowly she would feel her mother’s wrath.

              She always did her best to please; she had little other choice. But more often than not she found that she couldn’t do right for doing wrong.

              The door creaked slowly inward as Marcii yanked it back.

Accompanied by a rush of cold air came the sight of a priest. He was garbed in dull, unkempt brown robes that began in a hood and reached all the way down to his feet, revealing only the tips of his equally grubby, brown leather shoes.

              His red hair was thick and scruffy, sitting in haphazard curls jutting off in all directions atop his head, and his face was freckled more than reasonably.

              “Alexander!” Marcus cried, rising as swiftly as he could manage to his feet.

              But before their guest could reply, Amanda cut in.

              “Come inside before you let all the heat out!” She instructed.

Alexander did as he was bid.

Marcii complied too and instantly closed the door behind him, catching his wry smirk that made her chuckle inwardly.

              Alexander Freeman had always been something of a fool. He’d grown up with Marcii’s father, right here in Newmarket, and had often been caught out stealing from the market stalls.

              His parents had forced him to join the Priesthood in the hope to straighten him out. However, aside from just about managing to keep his head above water, including baptising Marcii and her older sister, he was, at best, an average servant of the good Lord.

He much preferred to simply live in the moment, and rarely considered the consequences that might perchance play out from his actions.

              Whether that is the best way to be or not, will likely never be decided.

              “I’ve just come from the square…” Alexander informed them immediately, rubbing his hands firmly together. “Tyran was on top form as ever…”

              “Yes…” Amanda replied for her husband. “She mentioned something about that…” She said, indicating uncaringly towards Marcii. “Though she wasn’t very specific…” She shot her youngest daughter a brief, accusatory glance and Marcii ignored her mother’s gaze as best she could.

              Alexander’s kind eyes were sympathetic. He smiled at Marcii once again in a manner that offered his condolences without the need for words.

              “Yes…” He continued, standing a little awkwardly between the door and the table, for he had not been offered a seat.

              He much preferred visiting when Amanda was otherwise occupied.

              “Tyran’s influence is spreading…” He explained. “And quickly at that…”

              Amanda listened, though her expression was sombre and her eyes were hard, betraying the all too obvious fact that she didn’t care what he had to say. Marcii’s father, Marcus, seemed much more concerned by Alexander’s words.

But, it seemed, Amanda didn’t really care about that either.

              “What has that got to do with us?” She questioned demandingly, as if on cue.

              Marcii sighed inwardly yet again, but let not even the slightest hint of her thoughts show in her body language, or her expression, for that would likely have been fatal.

              “It’s even making its way through the Priesthood…” Alexander went on, ignoring her. “Many of the priests are starting to believe what he’s saying…”

              But Amanda cut him short again.

              “Well just because those old fools believe him doesn’t mean we have to!”

              This time though, Alexander’s expression hardened and he fought back.

              “That’s not the point.” He replied firmly, shooting Amanda down. “What he’s saying is bad news, and worse, it rings with the sound of truth…”

Chapter Five

              Within a week Mayor Tyran’s addresses were no longer just daily, but every morning and every afternoon without fail, and the number of followers to his cause was growing exponentially.

              Marcii paced down a cobblestoned street towards the square, somewhere in between the morning and afternoon gatherings, with her sister, Eleanor Dougherty, at her side.

              Ellie was nineteen years of age and quite a lot taller than Marcii, like their mother. Similarly, she had blonde hair and blue eyes, though hers were more full and lush and not quite yet filled with the same sharpness that Amanda wielded so casually.

              It wouldn’t be long before that changed though, Marcii imagined. In fact, already for most of their lives Ellie had always been very curt with her, for indeed their mother’s charms had rubbed off on her.

Their father had never put a stop to it in the way he perhaps should have done, for he did not have the will to face down his wife, and besides, he was not one to handle confrontation well.

As they strode, flitting around corners and up and down narrow streets, the air was chill and the clouds above were foreboding. They stepped aside now and then to allow horse drawn carts and carriages to pass, transporting goods and people of all kinds, trundling along ungracefully as they bounced harshly on the uneven stones.

Ducking to one side and into an alleyway, the foul stench of sewerage hit Marcii’s nostrils as they allowed a carriage to pass on a particularly narrow street. She wrinkled her nose in revulsion and stepped immediately back out onto the street as soon as the carriage had passed.

But what she was met with in the carriage’s wake shocked her, and it was all she could do to keep from looking more surprised than she imagined she should have done.

Three of Mayor Tyran’s police stood before Marcii and her sister, tall and broad and menacing.

She recognised them from that morning at the square, when Tyran had first introduced them in all their glory.

Although now, just as enormous and just as intimidating as they still were, there was something else that sent a chill crawling up and down Marcii’s feeble spine.

Their armour was no longer mismatched and unique to each of them. They no longer stood separately as three hired mercenaries. They were no longer just hands reaching out for coin.

They stood before her with terrifying uniformity.

United.

The armour they all bore was highly polished with a bronzed finish to their chest plates. Each carried a sword at their belt and a crossbow on their back.

And, most chillingly of all, each of their breastplates bore an unmistakeable emblem, seared irreversibly into the metal with razor precision. Somehow Marcii even saw, with eyes that trailed over the three burly men before her most keenly, for her gaze was laden with fear, that each of the hilts of their swords bore the same markings, collective and awful.

The emblem disgusted her.

It was burned black and outlined only a silhouette.

Yet, though there was little more definition than that, it depicted perfectly the image of a person tied helplessly to a tall stake, driven into the ground. And, hauntingly, at the person’s feet, reaching up their body, flames licked all about them.

It was an emblem that spoke of suffering and control and dread.

It was the work of Tyran, without a shadow of a doubt.

“Ladies…” The man positioned in the centre of the three soldiers greeted them, startling Marcii from her petrified wonderings.

“Good day Sir…” Marcii replied, fighting with all her might simply to keep her voice level and to stop it from quivering, though she hadn’t really any idea why she was quite so filled with dread.

The thick set man had enormous shoulders and arms that actually looked most cumbersome. He shifted the weight of his armour slightly and grunted in response, eyeing Marcii somewhat suspiciously, as most did.

Then, gesturing with a slight movement of his head for his men to move on, they obliged without a sound. The three of them passed by toweringly, leaving Marcii’s heart racing and her mouth dry.

“What’s wrong with you!?” Ellie hissed under her breath to her younger sister. “What the hell are you gawping at!?”

“They…I…” Marcii tried, though she could not speak for following the three men with her eyes. “Their emblems…”

“Oh stop being pathetic!” Her sister demanded. “They’re police! They’re here to protect us!”

Marcii didn’t reply. Instead she drooped her head slightly and fell back in beside her older sister as they continued on their way.

But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t for the life of her shake a single, dread filled thought from her mind.

They didn’t look like police.

They didn’t act like police.

Regardless of how hard she tried to convince herself otherwise, Marcii knew they weren’t protectors.

No.

They were enforcers.