The Man with the Golden Torc

I walked over to him, grabbed him by the shoulder, and slammed him over onto his back. He cried out miserably at the pain, and then cried out again in shock and horror as he saw the golden armoured form standing over him. I’d overridden the stealth function. I wanted him to see me. The whole of the front of his tunic was soaked in his blood. I placed one armoured foot on his stomach, just lightly. Not pressing, not yet. He lay very still, looking up at me with wide, frightened eyes. Like a deer brought down at the end of the chase.

"Talk," I said. "And I’ll let you call for help."

"I can’t…"

"Talk. You don’t have to die here. You don’t have to die slowly and horribly…"

"What do you want to know?"

I’m pretty sure I was bluffing. Pretty sure. But the Drood reputation goes a long way. I pressed my foot down a little, and he yelled, blood spurting from his mouth.

"What the hell do you think I want to know?" I said.

"All right, all right! Jesus, take it easy, man. Fight’s over, okay? Look; we just wanted the Soul of Albion, you know? We got directions, all the details, everything we needed on where to find you, and a guarantee that no one would come to help you. The information came from…inside the Drood family. Don’t hurt me! I’m telling the truth, I swear I am! We got the word from someone high up in the family. I don’t know why, exactly; I’m not high enough in the organisation to be trusted with information like that. I’m just a pilot!"

I considered this, while the pilot lay very still under my armoured foot. He was breathing heavily, sweat soaking his colourless face. Too terrified to lie. Someone in my family wanted me dead, wanted it badly enough to sacrifice the Soul of Albion itself…Why? I’m not that important. I looked down at the pilot, ready to question him some more, but he was dead. I couldn’t bring myself to feel bad about it. He would have seen me dead without a second thought.

I went back to the Hirondel. It was scorched and blackened from fire and smoke, riddled with bullet holes, and most of the paint was gone from the bo

I’d never had the Soul of Albion. Somewhere along the line, someone had worked a switch. And the only way that could have happened…was with the Matriarch’s sanction. She would have known immediately if anything had happened to the Soul. And if she knew about the homing device, she knew about everything. It all made sense now. Only the Matriarch could have arranged for this much motorway to be sealed off and be sure of clearing up all the mess afterwards. The Matriarch had sent me off on a wild-goose chase, sent me out here to die. My own grandmother had thrown me to the wolves. But why? Why would she do that?

I armoured down and gasped as the smoky air hit my bare face. I looked at my left arm hanging limp at my side. Blood soaked the whole length of my sleeve and dripped from my numb fingertips. I studied the arrow shaft protruding from the meat of my shoulder. The metal was a brilliant silver, shimmering and shining even in the bright sunlight. There were no feathers; an arrow like this wouldn’t need them to fly true. I had to tell the family: the Fae had found a weapon that could pierce our armour. Only I couldn’t tell them. The moment I called home, the Matriarch would know I was still alive and send more people to kill me. I looked at the arrow shaft again. Strange matter, from some other dimension. Probably poisonous. Had to come out. Oh, shit, this was going to hurt.

I pulled a handkerchief out of my pocket, wadded it up, and bit down hard. Then I gripped the shaft firmly and pushed it farther in, so that the barbed head punched out my back. The handkerchief muffled my scream, but I still nearly fainted at the pain. I reached up and around and awkwardly pulled the shaft all the way through and out. Blood was pouring down my chest and back by the time I’d finished. My face ran with sweat, and my hands were shaking. It had been a long time since I was hurt this bad. I spat out the handkerchief and took the arrow shaft in both hands. It seemed to squirm in my grasp. I broke it in two, and it screamed inside my head. I dropped the pieces on the ground, and they tried to turn into something else before falling apart into sticky smears of something that couldn’t survive in this world.

I sat down in the driver’s seat before my legs collapsed under me. After a while I pulled out the first aid box, opened it, and took out a basic healer. Just a blob of preprogrammed simple matter, full of all kinds of things that were good for me. I said the activating Word and slapped it against the wound in my shoulder. The blob sealed it off immediately and pumped some wonderful drug into me, cutting off the pain like a switch. I groaned aloud at the sudden relief. The blob penetrated the wound with a narrow tendril, repairing as it went, and emerged to seal off the wound in my back. I could feel all this, but only in a vague and distanced way. I was sort of interested. I’d never had to use one before. But I had other things on my mind.

I needed to know why my own grandmother had betrayed me. Why she’d sent me to my death with a lie on her lips. I couldn’t go back to the Hall for answers. Even if I did get past all the defences, she’d just call me a liar, declare me rogue and apostate, and order the family to kill me. And everyone would believe her, and no one would believe me, because she was the Matriarch and I was…Eddie Drood. Whom could I still talk to, whom could I still trust, after everything that had happened? Maybe just one man. I took out my mobile phone and called Uncle James on his very private number. He cut me off the moment he recognised my voice.

"Stay where you are. I’ll be right with you."

And just like that, he was standing before me, his mobile phone still in his hand. The air rippled around him, displaced by the teleport spell. We put away our phones and looked at each other. Concern filled his face as he took in my condition and the blood still soaking my left arm. He started towards me, but I stopped him with a raised hand. He nodded slowly.

"I know, Eddie. It’s always hard to learn you can’t trust anyone. You look like shit, by the way."

"You should see the other guys, Uncle James."

He looked beyond me, at the carnage and wreckage I’d left stretched down the length of the motorway, and he actually smiled a little.

"You did all that? I’m impressed, Eddie. Really."

"How did you get here so quickly, Uncle James?" I said slowly. "Teleport spells need exact coordinates. How did you know exactly where to find me on this long stretch of motorway, when even I’m not entirely sure exactly where I am? What’s going on, Uncle James?"

"The homing device told us where you were, before you destroyed it." Uncle James’s voice was calm, conversational. "The Matriarch sent me here, Eddie. She gave me specific orders…said that if somehow you had survived all the ambushes, I was to kill you myself. No warnings, not a word; just shoot you down in cold blood. Why would she tell me to do that, Eddie? What have you done?"

"I don’t know! I haven’t done anything! None of this makes any sense, Uncle James…"

"You’ve been officially declared rogue," he said. "A clear and present danger to the whole family. Every Drood is authorised to kill you on sight. For the good of the family."

We stood looking at each other. Neither of us wore our armour. Neither of us had a weapon. His face was cold, even calm, but in his eyes I could see a torment I’d never seen before. For perhaps the first time in his life, James Drood didn’t know what to do for the best. He was torn between what he’d been ordered to do and what was in his heart. Remember, this was the Gray Fox, the most loyal and dependable agent the family had ever had. Uncle James. Who’d been like a father to me. Who in the end wouldn’t, couldn’t, kill me.