Sorry guys not an action chapter of the boatman, more of a transitional chapter, I arnt sure whether I like the first scene but oh well. Chapter 4 is a nice one, I cant wait to write it.
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Chapter 3
“Mersey…” A booming voice rushed from a glowing room at the end of the tunnel that Mersey was in “…Is that you.” The voice was harsh but familiar. Mersey went through the sewage tunnel to the warmly lit room; a burst of heat splashed his face as he went through the doorway. His father, Earl, turned his hands at work, forging a weapon on a blistering anvil, using a mighty hammer to shape his creation. The man was a beast, large, muscled and sweltering from a hard days work. He thrust down his hammer again, his muscle placing force on it, Earl was not a man to mess with. Mersey touched his arm, his skin tightened as he touched a fresh bruise, he thought of yesterday’s row: His father wanted him to work, Mersey refused, he faced the punishment for disobedience.
Mersey almost forgot about the newspaper, he placed it near the anvil turning to his father. “Constables been killed?” He asked his father curiously.
“Yes,” Earl answered simply, his fatty lips pursing each other from the heat of the anvil. “The Boatman!” Mersey was hushed instantly at the name, the most feared person within the magical ranks. His father used to tell him stories of the Boatman when Mersey was little, normally bed time stories become funny as maturity kicks in. This bed time story didn’t, Mersey had never forgotten the content of the stories, his hairs spiked just thinking about them.
“The Boatman,” Mersey whispered eyeing his father who slowed down his hammer thrust. “He killed him then?”
“YES FOR THE DEVIL’S SAKE, HE KILLED HIM!” His father roared, flashing his eyes impatiently. He threw his hammer to the side, lifting the weapon, what was now a sword, into the air, he smoothed it with his gloves then sliced through a block of wood on his work table, it cut with ease. “No one questions the Boatman” Earl said gentler. “Especially not rats like me or you.” Earl was never confident and always felt himself of lesser importance, a servant of society. His father had only used the term “rats” once or twice, it meant dirty, filthy, not of wealth or power to have a say. Which was true, Mersey and Earl had no money and little magic.
“I’ve seen Isabel--” Mersey continued.
“--That whore!” His father interjected.
“She has been ..deformed father, her face… it’s horrible.” Earl turned and raised an eyebrowe.
“Lying is a sin! Lie again and you’ll be out on your ear.”
“I aren’t lying!” Mersey cheeked. Raising his finger Earl pressed his finger onto Mersey’s forehead, his eyes yellowed. A jolt of pain shot through Mersey, he fell to the floor, writhing in agony.
“I ARNT LYING, SHES MANGLED!” Earl saw the innocence on his son’s face, he was being honest.
“The Boatman wouldn’t have.” Earl breathed in disbelief. Mersey scrambled away from his violent father, panting whilst rubbing his numb body.
“That’s what I sa—“
“—Shut it! She must have challenged him, he hates being questioned, she deserves it anyway!”
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Tea was paltry that night: scraps of chicken bone from the Noble’s rubbish bins and rotting fruit that Earl was bombarded with the previous day.
“Take your Gran this.” Mersey’s father towered over him, thrusting a plate of foiled food in his hands. Mersey reluctantly nodded suppressing a scowl to avoid punishment. He walked out of the dim kitchen, where he and his father ate, and further down the tunnel.
The tunnel grew wider. Light pushed shadows of many people onto the tunnel walls, tall and short, thin and fat. As Mersey turned the corner he stopped in awe, as he always did, before the underground city that lay before him.
Hundreds, no thousands of houses densely scattered the stony foundations, dappled in an aura of light that beamed from a lighthouse in the centre of the city. Mersey looked up at the ornate ceiling that lay above him. Picturesque rock art of battle scenes splashed the ceiling with an auburn grandeur, warm and fatherly, looking down on the city, reminding the people that lived there of their constant poverty. The houses were nothing more than shanties, small, built in haphazard formation along the sandy roads. Only the lighthouse and ceiling were trophies of wonder in the “under-slums”, as his father called them.
After moments of stillness Mersey snapped out of his series of questions: How can all of them survive down here, how come they have never been found out? Mersey took a grip of the plate again and took one of the very similar roads, house up on house passed him until he came to the centre of the road. A shorter house than the other humbly stood before him, it looked as if it had buried itself into the sand. Mersey flicked back his dirty hair before entering the building.
The scent hit him immediately, a fiery smell of lavender and spices mixed together. He cringed at this, releasing tears of discomfort. The house consisted of only one room, it was bare accept a round table laden with several candles and a burning dish in the corner, and of course the old shrivelled woman that Mersey had come to know, rocking on the floor.
Mersey observed his grandmother, rocking, crazed, dying. He placed the plate on the floor and steadily approached her.
“Grandma?” Mersey called delicately, creeping towards her. A brightness tinted her fiery eyes, amber glimmered within them, holding a secret about to burst out.
Just then Mersey felt a stabbing pain in his chest, his grandmas nails, she had him and pressed him against the wall.
“Child,” she said mysteriously whilst belching out the scent of mead. Her pupil dilated leaving nothing but whiteness in her eyes.
“Grandma, get off me” Mersey roared at her, pushing. She resisted and with some unknown strength kept him against the wall.
“Listen…” She hissed, cupping her ears, “The sound of burning, searing.”
“IT’S THEM!” She screamed at him pressing her nose against his face. “The pain…” She wailed again now crying, she fell to the floor in a fit of screams. Mersey stumbled and looked around for help: no-one.
“Stop it, grandma, stop it” He begged her. She stopped still, the silence was abrupt, she rose from the ground, levitating in midair, rotating herself horizontally. Her mouth opened and a speck of light left it.
“When the brand touches the skin, responsibility will be the new covenant, responsibility for the race oppressed. When the knife bares the blood, vengeance will be the new covenant, vengeance for the race suppressing. When the axe cuts the bone, war will be the new covenant, war battling the race suppressing.” His grandma’s voice was deep, mystical. The speck of light returned to her and she slowly fell to the floor, with her new covenant of sleep.
