Spectred Isle (Green Men Book 1)

by K.J. Charles

“It mentioned Temple Church too,” Saul said reluctantly. “It does seem to have focused on Geoffrey de Mandeville.” The noise came from under them, and around them. It was deep and throbbing; it might have been a laugh, or a cry, or a call; it was not so much loud as everywhere. Saul could feel the vibrations in his feet.

yeah, maybe don't invoke the name of the thing in a place that's aligned w their power names have power; take a care

the smell of ivy around him was very strong. Ivy, green growing things. Trees. That was what this blasted landscape needed, Saul thought. He wanted solid earth under his feet, great oaks wrapped with ivy, graceful birches, the protective hawthorns and rowans of Camlet Moat. He brought the memory to mind again, making himself see the dappled sunlight, gold and green; feel the water on his face and in his throat. That was his England: not the brown peat-water and rank grass of a landscape that at best tolerated humankind, and had been broken because it would not be tamed. He made himself think of woodland that might stretch for miles, and birdsong, and thick foliage through which bright eyes glanced and darted away again.

The sky was dark grey, shot with red and purple lights that looked more like blood poisoning than sunset, and the plants and scrubby shrubs were no more than dim black shapes.

the bedraggled thing, humanoid, weed-drowned and waterlogged, that rose from the fens like a growth, its too-long arms ending in a ragged, jagged tangle of branchlike fingers that held his foot. The stench of something rotten on the bottom of a pond was all around him, and the joyless laughter was all around him too as the thing dragged him sliding on his back, inexorably down into the marsh. Something caught his collar and pulled back with startling force against the creature’s grip. The fen-monster shrieked with rage, its open mouth revealing an eel’s chaos of needle teeth, white in the dimness.

“Forthlaede!”

something about strong striking

“Fen-grendel,” Randolph said. “Watery wodewose. A monster of the marshes.

except dark shapes, certainly no buildings. If they were at the castle site, either it hadn’t been built yet, or it had long fallen down.

There were no stars above, no moon, no fires or windows in the distance, no sign that any thinking thing existed or ever had in this bleak waterland plain, and in a moment he couldn’t see at all, no matter how he strained.

This was bad enough for them both without him making a fuss, but he was sickeningly afraid in too many ways, memory and reality and the dreadful unknown all at once. He wanted comfort, or connection, or another human being in this abyss.

“How can you possibly see anything? It’s black as the armpit of hell!” “Imagine my shrug. I can see in the dark, I promise you.”

“Imagination is a marvellous thing, particularly off the beaten track as we are.”

Of all the ways one might recline against a grassy bank with a beautiful half-naked man in one’s arms, Randolph reflected, this was perhaps the least satisfactory he could imagine.

And brave, painfully so.

Heart of oak, as the song said, enduring whatever might assail it.

Saul wasn’t equipped to fight off nightmares from the waterland, nor should he be. That was Randolph’s job.

that kept the outside firmly out,

All of it limned in moon-silver, translucent, the spidery image of what once was or might have been.

the illusion that builds the city in sunbird

They’d be safe here, probably. The monster whose legend haunted the fens had taken a mortal wound on this ground, and that couldn’t be forgotten. He’d taken a mortal wound, and been carried back to Temple Church and hung off a tree like a side of beef. Randolph would put money he’d been trapped that way, the Master of London’s foul soul eternally enslaved to the city’s good. He didn’t approve of that sort of thing as a general rule, but de Mandeville had clearly had it coming.

The ghastly man had been Custodian of the Tower, too, all too close to anot...

All cats are grey in the dark.”

There wasn’t much to be done about that now, although Randolph made a vengeful resolution to put an extra few nails in the coffin of whoever or whatever was behind this charade once he got it under control.

Ah...a number of things but dear God, I’d like to find the places that make you moan. You seem to me a man who could be usefully lavished with attention, and also tongue.”

well, that's a direct come-on if ever there was one good on you, lad