Free Bloodfeud (The Scarlet Star Trilogy Book 3) by Ben Galley Page B

the top of their lungs. Armour clanked as two hundred rifles were cocked.
    ‘Hold!’ cried the generals, but not a soul could not take their eyes off the Queen.
    She was enshrouded in a black veil. It tumbled from her head, enveloping her shoulders and waist before spilling to the floor. It obscured all her features and yet it still could not manage to hide her shape, her form, which stole the breath from their throats. Victorious was as misshapen as pummelled dough, over seven foot tall and, clearly, far from human. Two ravens sat on her shoulders, one each side, and their eyes roamed the soldiers’ faces. Something beneath the foot of the veil slithered and scraped on the marble floor.
    Victorious raised a hand, also cloaked in black cloth. Five fingers of mottled skin snuck out of its folds. They were long, almost claw-like. She wiggled them in the air, as if scratching at a ghost.
    ‘You dare to look upon your Queen?’ Her voice was abnormally deep, and tinged with a furious whine.
    Dizali took a step forward. He glanced at the nearest of her guards. A thin stream of drool was trickling down the stubble of the man’s chin.
    ‘ I dare! Your reign is over, old witch. The world has passed you and your kind by!’
    ‘Our kind have trodden on the skulls of whelps such as you since the first dawn. And we shall be here at your sunset!’
    Her queensguards burst forth without order. Like clockwork men, they rose up without a sound and charged outwards, captured by Victorious’ spell. Bullets peppered them but they did not flinch. They fought like demons, with no care for their lives or flesh.
    A dozen arms and hands pressed Dizali back into the ranks as the fighting erupted. He shrugged them off.
    ‘See to your soldiers, generals! Give them no quarter. These men are already dead. Do not let her escape!’ They bounded back into the fray, rapiers drawn.
    Dizali was like an island in a mad sea. Arms crossed and face impassive, he stood alone, steady in the chaos. In front of him, Hanister thrummed with energy, the skin on his fists rippling as he clenched them. He was rushing hard; Dizali could sense it.
    One of the queensguards made it through the clamour of soldiers and lordsguards and charged at the Lord Protector with a broken spear-head. Hanister broke his face before he had taken three steps. Dizali began to walk, slowly, purposefully, towards the Queen. The chaos whirled around him.
    By the time he had crossed the curtain line, the last of the queensguards had been shot, stabbed or beaten into pieces by Hanister’s fists. Even now, splayed and torn on the floor, they writhed and twitched. The queen’s hand shook, as whatever magick she was spinning died. She hissed as if in pain.
    Dizali moved to stand before the Queen. She seethed in ragged gasps, veil shifting. Her spell had drained her. He pointed an accusatory finger at her face and took a breath to finish his speech. He would see this monster in chains.
    ‘I hereby pronounce you a traitor to this great Empire, unfit to wear its crown, ineligible to sit on its throne, and no longer its rightful ruler. On behalf of the people of the Empire of Britannia, I say we are tired of your madness, outraged at your treachery, and sentence you to imprisonment in the Crucible, until your dying day.’
    A hush fell on the throne room. All was silent except for the harsh caw of a raven. The queen looked to be shuddering with outrage, though Dizali longed for it to be fear. He spied a general glance at him out of the corner of his eye. They were fools if they thought he had come simply to yell at her.
    Dizali waited for the insults, the raging and screaming, but they never came. Victorious simply let her ravens flap to the rafters so very high above, and then shifted under her veil, rasping against the marble. Half of Dizali wanted to rip it aside and stare at her unholy face; the other half shivered at the mere thought of it. The Queen reached behind her, where her immense