The salted sceptre, p.1
The Salted Sceptre, page 1
The Salted Sceptre
THE THRILL OF THE HUNT
BOOK FOUR
HELEN HARPER
Contents
Series recap
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Acknowledgments
Coming Soon
Also by Helen Harper
Series recap
Tattered Huntress
Daisy Carter is a low elf living in Edinburgh, eking out a living as a delivery driver. She is dispatched to Neidpath Castle to deliver a parcel to Hugo Pemberville, a celebrated high elf who is famous for treasure hunting. When she hands him his parcel and waits for his signature, he recognises the silver ring in her eyes that indicates she is a user of spider’s silk, a dangerously addictive drug that Daisy takes to control the wild magic inside her. Hugo’s demeanour changes instantly and, with considerable rudeness, he tells Daisy to leave. Before she does, she spots some notes about the location of a special, long-lost locket necklace.
Upset at Hugo’s attitude, Daisy suggests to a belligerent troll named Duchess that she leaves her current habitat in favour of a more pleasant one under the bridge at Hugo’s ancestral home. When Hugo discovers that Duchess has taken up residence there, he calls Daisy’s boss and ensures she is fired because of her drug addiction. To retaliate, Daisy uses the information from the notes to find the necklace before Hugo does.
Daisy takes it to a man called Sir Nigel. Impressed that she found it, he offers her a place in a treasure-hunting competition to find some chests of Jacobean gold. Daisy later realises that the locket on the necklace was enchanted; having opened it before she handed it over, she is now supposedly the boss of two very annoying brownies, Hester and Otis.
Daisy and the brownies join Sir Nigel’s treasure hunt to find three parts to a magical key which, when combined, will reveal the location of the treasure chests. There are numerous other competitors, including Humphrey and Eleanor, a friendly couple who are somewhat lackadaisical about the hunt.
The first key part is located in northern England. Daisy would have found it first, but she is delayed when another team is attacked by a giant snake. She saves them but in the meantime Hugo and his team of Primes find the key part. Hugo initially thinks Daisy engineered the snake attack in a deliberate attempt to harm her competitors, though he soon realises the truth.
The second key part is located in the north of Scotland, in a concealed chamber behind an underground cavern called Smoo Cave. The entrance to the chamber is unlocked by another competitor, Gordon, a sorcerer who appears to have an uncomfortable relationship with Hugo.
Daisy discovers she is claustrophobic and panics when she is underground. Unable to continue searching for the key part, she falls through the ground in the cave and is knocked unconscious. When she awakes, she is challenged to a fight to the death by a one-eyed creature known as the Fachan. The Fachan eventually decides that she is not a worthy opponent, but he gifts her a sentient sword called Gladys and shows her the way out of the cave.
Suffering from spider’s silk withdrawal, Daisy starts hallucinating. Hugo finds her and helps her recover, and his attitude towards her softens considerably. She re-joins the treasure hunt for the third key part, which is located in one of many houses owned by a rich man known for his unpleasant behaviour. With the help of Hester and Otis, Daisy discovers that the man has been keeping magical creatures captive. She releases them, sneaks into the house and finds the key part. Before she can retrieve it, though, Humphrey appears and takes it.
With no key part, Daisy can no longer participate in the treasure hunt and only Humphrey and Hugo remain in the competition. She is suspicious about Humphrey and spies on him when all three key parts are put together and the location of the treasure chests is revealed. They are on the tidal island of Cramond, near Edinburgh, and Daisy quickly heads there to wait.
She witnesses Humphrey attack Hugo with a terrible power known as blood magic and steps in to save him. Humphrey escapes, while Hugo and Daisy are trapped on the island as the tide comes in. They are forced to shelter there for hours, during which time Hugo reveals that his best friend died as a result of a spider’s silk addiction and Daisy confesses that she takes the drugs because otherwise her magic will overwhelm her.
Eventually they make it safely back to the mainland where they recover the treasure and ensure that Humphrey is arrested. Daisy is offered her old job as a delivery driver – but she decides to become a full-time treasure hunter instead.
Fiendish Delights
Daisy is working as a freelance treasure hunter, but most of her commissions so far have involved little more than lost-and-found searches. That changes when a young girl, Sophia, manipulates her into searching for a doll she had recently lost. Daisy tracks the lost doll to a witch called Mud McAlpine, but he will only return it if she gives him a freshly cut toenail from a troll.
Daisy, Hester and Otis travel to Pemberville Castle where Duchess the troll is living. Daisy reconnects with Hugo and he agrees to help her retrieve the doll. With one of Duchess’s toenails in their possession, they return to Mud McAlpine. Starstruck by Hugo, he breaks the ward on his flat so they can enter.
Once they are inside, he conjures up a magic scroll that will lead to one of the mythical thirteen treasures of Great Britain. Almost as soon as the scroll appears, Sophia shows up and reveals herself to be a fiend called Zashtum. Daisy learns that fiends are evil beings created through the misuse of blood magic, whose ultimate goal is to gain more power for themselves. They cannot be killed, only banished by powerful witches.
Zashtum fights Mud, Daisy and Hugo for the scroll. Eventually Mud manages to banish her, but he is critically injured and the scroll is destroyed. However, Daisy saw enough of the words on it before it burned to start hunting for the treasure.
Daisy, together with Hugo and his group of treasure-hunting Primes, travel to a rural cemetery in Wales where they believe the treasure is buried – but they uncover nothing more than an old dragon’s tooth.
Daisy manages to interpret more of what she saw on the magic scroll and they return to Wales with the sorcerer Gordon Mackenzie, who agrees to help them. Gordon and Hugo have a long-standing disagreement resulting from Gordon’s search for Lady Rose, a high elf who vanished thirty years earlier. The elvish community has long suspected that Hugo’s parents had something to do with Rose’s disappearance.
The team locate the treasure, a gold and silver chess set, but before they can remove it from the cemetery a dragon appears and snatches it away. Aware that the dragon could be in danger from fiends that are still hunting for the chess set, Daisy and Hugo resolve to retrieve it.
When they travel to a nearby town to find the dragon’s lair, they are confronted by a fiend, Baltar, who seems to think he’s met Daisy before. He has the opportunity to kill Daisy but chooses not to; Daisy does not understand why.
Daisy and Hugo discover several potential locations for the dragon’s lair. Their relationship is deepening, but Daisy is losing control of her magic and having to take more and more spider’s silk to stop her powers from spilling out. Because of this, she chooses not to act upon her feelings for Hugo; however, she does agree that once the chess set is safe, she will spend three months with Hugo and his team to learn to control her magic properly. Once she has achieved that, she can start weaning herself off her addiction.
There is no dragon at the first lair. Daisy is separated from Hugo and the brownies and meets the Fachan again. They are attacked by three fiends, including Baltar. Using Gladys, the sword that the Fachan gave to her when they first met, Daisy kills Baltar. She assumes that Gladys has special powers that forced him to die.
At the next lair Daisy reconnects with Hester, Otis and Hugo and they find the dragon who took the chess set. Daisy realises that a fiend has used magic to impersonate Hugo and fights him. The fiend reveals that he is Athair, the most powerful one in the country. He could easily kill Daisy but he lets her go, whispering to her that she is his daughter.
Hugo and Daisy turn the chess set over to Sir Nigel at the British Museum. He tells them that it is possible for a fiend to kill another fiend; because Daisy killed Baltar, she starts to believe that what Athair told her might be true.
Skullduggery
Daisy and the brownies have been living at Pemberville Castle for several weeks while she trains with Hugo and his team and attempts – unsuccessfully – to develop control over her magic. The side-effects she is experiencing from her addiction to spider’s silk are increasing day by day.
At a party she is approached by the sorcerer, Gordon Mackenzie. He asks her to hunt for a tiny magical golden skull that he believes will unlock the secret behind the disappearance of Lady Rose thirty years earlier. Aware of Hugo’s wariness about the matter, Daisy says she will think about it.
The f ollowing day Daisy breaks into Assigney mansion, the abandoned home that belonged to Lady Rose. Once inside she discovers a letter addressed to her from Athair in which he encourages her to search for Lady Rose.
Back at Pemberville Castle, Daisy and Hugo share a close moment, although it ends abruptly when her wild magic gets the better of her. Hugo admits that he thinks his parents might have been involved in Lady Rose’s disappearance, and eventually they decide to hunt for the golden skull together. Despite experiencing some setbacks with a local will-o’-the-wisp along the way, they locate it beneath a cursed stone near Doncaster.
They return to Edinburgh to hand over the skull to Gordon. Daisy and the brownies enter his house but their meeting is interrupted by Athair, who has disguised himself as a postman. Daisy loses control of her magic and there is a blinding flash of light from the skull. Somehow, both she and the brownies are magically transported back in time to 1994.
Realising that she is penniless and trapped in the past, Daisy takes advantage of a vampire infestation in the city. For every vamp she kills, she can earn £500. She engages the help of a young homeless witch, Tracey, who uses her skills to concoct an anti-vamp spray. When Daisy tracks down a group of vampires, however, it becomes clear they are being controlled by a fiend called Vargas. The vampires are dispatched while Daisy and Vargas fight. Daisy tells him that her father is Athair; in return, Vargas tells her that she can learn to control her magic if she expels all her power out of her body in one go. Daisy then kills him.
She and the brownies leave Edinburgh and travel north to Pemberville Castle and the Assigney mansion. Daisy meets two-year-old Hugo and his parents. Athair is also visiting in the guise of Rose’s doctor. He asks the Pembervilles to encourage Lady Rose to leave her home for some fresh air. Fortunately, he does not yet recognise Daisy so she follows him when he leaves the castle and tracks him to Culcreuch Castle. Hiding in some bushes to spy on the castle, she realises that she isn’t the only person lurking around: Hugo has also travelled back in time.
Now they are reunited, Hugo and Daisy go to the Assigney mansion. Although it is heavily warded against intruders, Daisy manages to get inside. She meets Lady Rose and tries to explain the situation and warn her, but she is thrown out of the house. Soon afterwards, the fiend Baltar appears. He directs a sorcerer to break through the ward and appears desperate to get hold of something inside, which Rose is hiding from Athair. Daisy and Hugo battle Baltar and, in the process, Daisy expels all of her magic and collapses just as Hugo’s parents appear. Eventually, with Baltar still alive, the entire group – including – Rose manage to flee.
Daisy wakes up in Edinburgh after a long period of unconsciousness and realises that she finally has control of her magic. Lady Rose presents a baby girl and reveals that she has given birth to Athair’s child – and that child is Daisy. Before they can escape Edinburgh and travel south, however, Athair confronts them. Unfortunately Rose is compelled to resort to blood magic whenever he is near. Daisy manages to delay him enough for the group to escape again.
Deciding that the only way to keep baby Daisy – and therefore also adult Daisy – safe is to draw Athair away, Rose and Hugo’s parents abandon her and Hugo at a petrol station. They are initially upset but eventually understand. They declare their love for each other then return to Edinburgh and leave baby Daisy at a local hospital, knowing that she will soon be adopted into a loving family.
They set a trap for Athair, fight him and reveal the truth about his relationship to Daisy before they are forcibly ejected from 1994 back to 2024.
Rose has been hiding in France for thirty years. Daisy travels there, together with her adoptive parents, Hugo and his parents, for a reunion with her birth mother. She reveals that she is a drug addict and promises to start rehabilitation – but she knows that Athair will continue to pursue her.
Chapter
One
One month. I heaved myself further up the side of the steep hill, my thigh muscles straining with every step.
One month and three days.
Wiping the clammy sweat from my forehead, I raised my head and eyed Hugo who was a few metres in front of me. He was wearing camouflage trousers; despite the loose fit around his legs, the material was straining across his arse and leaving little to the imagination. If the seam split, I knew I’d see his tighty-whities. I’d watched him put them on this morning from the comfort of my sleeping bag. I would enjoy taking them off him later this evening.
One month, three days and five hours.
Hester, who was nestled against the crook of my neck, gave a contented snore. Otis flitted in the air beside me, his tiny iridescent wings flapping as he fought against the breeze that was gusting down from the summit. He’d declined to sit on my shoulder, announcing that he needed the exercise, but I was certain that he’d been regretting that decision for the last hour. He was determined to keep going, though, as if his display of grit and resilience would somehow transfer to me by osmosis. I shrugged; stranger things had happened.
One month, three days, five hours and thirty-six minutes.
‘It’s not much further,’ Hugo called over his shoulder. ‘The gully is just ahead.’
I tightened my jaw and forced a final burst of energy into my aching limbs. It took a second but they finally responded. I caught up with him then scrambled the last few metres on all fours until we reached the rocky outcrop.
Hugo glanced at me, his blue eyes crinkling and his dimple flashing. ‘This is it. We’ve made it. You see the cairn in the bottom corner?’
I nodded and gazed down at the small stone monument nestled below us. It wasn’t particularly impressive; no wonder generations of hikers had passed it by without further investigation. But if I concentrated very hard, I could sense the faint throb of old magic pulsating from the ground beneath it. This was definitely the right spot.
Hugo swung his bag off his shoulder and rummaged inside it. ‘It’s a steep drop,’ he said. ‘We should use a rope to reach the cairn, just in case.’
Uh-huh. I watched him for a moment or two then I started forward, slipping and sliding down the rocky gully. It wasn’t that steep.
‘Daisy!’ he yelled.
‘We don’t need a rope,’ I said. ‘I’ve got this.’
‘If you slip and break your ankle, I’ll be the one who has to carry you all the way back down. I’ve told you, we need to be cautious.’
I took another confident step downwards.
Hugo was on a roll. ‘Rushing into situations without undue attention is—’
I misjudged the slope and slid on a patch of scree. My arms flailed in mid-air as I lost my balance and pitched forward. Oops.
Hester, jerking awake from her snooze, shrieked, ‘What? What’s going on?’
Behind me, Hugo muttered something. As I wobbled, I sensed the surge of magic emanating from his fingertips. In the split second before I started to tumble headfirst towards the sharp rocks beneath me, a powerful blast of air pushed me upright again. Phew.
‘Thank you!’ I called out cheerfully.
Hugo muttered again. ‘If you break your damned neck, Daisy…’
I sucked in a breath and regained my balance. ‘Then I’m sure you’ll arrange a very nice funeral,’ I told him, continuing my descent without a backward glance.
‘Where every mourner will agree that you brought your own death upon your own head because of your own foolhardiness.’
‘That’s as maybe.’ I skidded down the last section and reached the cairn before I turned my head to grin at him. ‘But they’ll also acknowledge that I beat you.’ I paused for breath. ‘Sucker.’
Hugo scowled, then stuck out his tongue at me. He was a very sore loser. To be fair, so was I.
‘I don’t want to go to your funeral, Daisy,’ Otis said. ‘You need to listen to Hugo and take more care.’ He looked at Hester, clearly expecting his sister to back him up.
She only sniffed. ‘I have a great funeral outfit,’ she said. ‘Several great funeral outfits, in fact. And I’m sure there’ll be an excellent feast afterwards. Nothing beats funeral food.’
That was more like it. I smirked and returned my attention to the cairn. If the old map was correct, the jewelled ceremonial dagger was buried underneath it. I adjusted my footing and knelt to begin the search.
