A Blight of Blackwings

by Kevin Hearne

  Koesha was hopeful that the stranger might turn out to be a survivor from her culture, because apparently they had been trying to navigate their way across the Northern Yawn for a good while now. She knew that many other ships had come this way, and perhaps one of them had made it to the island.

  “But he’s a man,” I pointed out.

  “Yes.” She shrugged, not understanding.

  “Your crew is all women, though.”

  “Yes. But men sail. Men sail also.”

  “But not with you.”

  “No.”

  “Why no men?”

  She shrugged again, helplessly, not having the vocabulary to explain. She said, “Talk later.”

  “Okay.” We had plenty to talk about later, but I was willing to be patient, since the Joabeians were friendly and happy to pitch in with building the city. Koesha and some of her crew had joined Karlef and Suris in the construction of docks down by the river as well as our first fishing boat. I knew she had plans to build a larger boat to sail home eventually, but that would have to wait, and she’d need Abhi’s help to enchant the hull.

  That kid’s abilities were incredible, I thought, as I took one end of a boulder and La Mastik took the other and we lifted, using our legs. I could burn stuff or not burn it, and I never had to worry about burning myself: That was my whole deal. But what Abhi could potentially do with his blessing boggled my mind. Talking to animals. Telling krakens and gravemaws to just relax because they didn’t need to eat us today. Telling—

  I very nearly dropped my end of the boulder as the thought hit me, one of those unexpected solutions to a problem I hadn’t even known my mind was working on. La Mastik gave a tiny scream of surprise.

  “Aah! What? Olet, are you okay?”

  “Oh! Sorry! Yeah. I just. Uh.” I carefully placed the boulder with her and then sighed.

  “What happened there?” La Mastik demanded.

  “I just had a thought. I need to find Abhi. Do you know where he is?”

  “No.”

  “We need to find him.”

  “We both do?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about the furnace?”

  “That can wait. Come on.”

  We made apologies to Leisuen and Baejan and left the smithing shed in search of the plaguebringer. That title took on new significance to me as we asked around. Someone had seen him near the beach, trying to install steps down the hillside.

  “Olet, will you tell me what the matter is?” Mirana asked. “You’re doing that thing with your jaw.”

  “What thing?”

  “That thing where you kind of grind your teeth and the muscles ripple and you look really threatening because you’re going to kill someone.”

  “I didn’t know they did that.”

  “Well, they do. I’ve seen it before. So I’m a bit worried that you’re doing it while you’re looking for Abhi. What is it?”

  “Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I don’t want to say it out loud yet. But when I do, I might need to be restrained. That’s your job.”

  “You can’t be serious. I can’t restrain you.”

  “Think up some scripture about the judicious use of force. Something about measured responses.”

  “There aren’t a lot of those. Thurik usually advocates setting everything on fire.”

  “Are there any bits about not setting things on fire? I need to hear those.”

  “Well, there’s this one really strange taboo against burning frogs.”

  “What? I’ve never heard of that.”

  “I know, right? We spent a whole day talking about the frog taboo in seminary. We were advised not to talk about it with our congregations, because we can’t explain it. There’s no reason given for it but also no punishment listed, so the advice was just to keep quiet about it unless someone asked. Thurik was just a frog guy.”

  “What else? That doesn’t help.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t burn your family most of the time—there are exceptions—and you should think long and hard before burning your infrastructure.”

  “The scriptures use the word infrastructure?”

  “No, they list every damn thing you shouldn’t burn for pages and pages, but it comes down to infrastructure. So that might be helpful.”

  “How?”

  “If you’re mad at Abhi, it might be useful to remember that he’s the only reason we haven’t suffered many losses in the Gravewood. And he’s the only hope you have of sending out a fishing boat that won’t get destroyed by krakens. Or getting the Joabeians home. Or trading those nifty animal-repelling stakes of his for all kinds of supplies. He’s a vital part of our infrastructure.”

  “Okay. That helps. But, still, keep an eye on me.”

  “I will.”

  We found Abhi halfway down the hill with a shovel, carving out steps with none other than Lanner Burgan. The Thayilist frowned at me but said nothing. He’d trimmed a lot of his beard to make the burn damage disappear, and he was self-conscious of the fact that the outline of his jaw could actually be seen now. Abhi’s bloodcat was sprawled a short distance away, napping, and his stalk hawk was down on the beach, eating something she’d slain.

  “Abhinava Khose. Plaguebringer,” I called. I felt my fists clench at my sides but didn’t feel them ignite.

  La Mastik gasped, “Olet, what the shit! Calm down right now!”

  I looked down and saw that my hands were on fire. I snuffed them with a thought. But not before Abhi saw them—and my face, which I guess does a little jaw-clenching thing when I’m mad.

  “Hello, Olet. You look upset and you’re not calling me ‘kid.’ Is this about your father, finally?”

  “No, it is not. I told you I didn’t mind you killing him much, and that was the truth. I’m here to talk about someone else.”

  He dropped his shovel and slapped the dust off his hands against his legs. “All right. Shall I come up there?”

  “No, let’s head down to the beach.” If I lost control, I wouldn’t accidentally burn down the forest there. “Please excuse us, Lanner.”

  The redheaded giant bowed his head. “Of course.”

  La Mastik and I followed the Nentian boy down to the beach. His bloodcat woke up and paced by his side, casting suspicious looks up at me with those red eyes. I hadn’t heard him summon the creature, but it might not have been sleeping as deeply as it had first seemed.

  Once on the beach and assured of privacy, I asked him straight out through gritted teeth, “At the Battle of the Godsteeth. Did you. Kill. Jerin Mogen?”

  “Oh, shit,” La Mastik said. She put a hand on my arm. “Your fists are on fire again, Olet.”

  I ignored her, because my eyes were locked on Abhi. He didn’t flinch, didn’t look guilty. If anything, he looked perplexed.

  “I don’t know who that is. Unless you mean Gorin Mogen? He was killed by Nel—”

  “I know who killed Gorin Mogen. I’m not talking about him. I’m talking about his son. Jerin Mogen.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said with a shrug and a regretful twist of the lips. “I don’t know. Maybe? I was sent there by that viceroy of Hashan Khek, you know—”

  “Melishev Lohmet.”

  “Right. Not what you would call a savory individual. The assignment he gave me was to kill all the lavaborn I could before his army got there. I’m pretty sure he was hoping I’d die in the attempt. But I got a boil of kherns to stampede, and they trampled a lot of giants. If Jerin was among them, then—”

  “No. The day before the battle. A lumber crew, not unlike the ones we used to make the road here, was clearing some trees in the foothills. And then, according to the reports we received,
two hounds on patrol went wild and bucked off their riders before charging the lumber crew. The hounds stopped and returned to their riders just as strangely as they began. But then a hive of moss hornets attacked Jerin Mogen and stung only him, and only his face. Their venom paralyzed and killed him. Was that you? Did you do that?”

  His eyes fell, and the flush of guilt I hadn’t seen before blazed up. He had killed Jerin. My entire body erupted in flames, my rage unable to be contained.

  Abhi leapt back and his bloodcat did too, and he edged toward the sea, I noticed, while his bloodcat hissed and spit at me. Yeah, kid, good idea to have some water to dive into. He clasped his hands together high up underneath his chin—some Nentian pose of penitence, I guess—as he kept moving.

  “Olet, I’m sorry. Melishev used me to fight off Gorin Mogen’s invasion, and I went along. I let him do it for reasons that made sense to me at the time. But the whole reason I wanted to join your party here was so I couldn’t be used like that again. I obviously didn’t know who Jerin was.”

  “So you’re saying it’s not your fault? Did Melishev tell you to kill my father too?”

  “No, I accept full responsibility for that. I watched him murder my king, though, in response to telling your father he couldn’t come after you. I felt I was in the right to retaliate.”

  Mirana stepped in front of me, blocking my view of him as I was about to retort.

  “Olet—”

  I craned my neck to the side to reestablish eye contact, but Mirana put herself in my way again.

  “Olet, listen to me. You’re edging toward a flameout here.”

  “No, I’m not, I’m just upset—”

  “No kidding.”

  “Don’t I have a right to be?”

  “Sure. Be upset. But also listen to my words: He has never lied to you, even now. He has done everything he said he would. And infrastructure.”

  “What?”

  “That thing we were talking about. I’m just reminding you.”

  “Blast it, Mirana, let me talk to him!”

  “Okay. Just talk. Maybe snuff out the flames here, okay? You’re scaring his kitty cat.”

  The bloodcat did look pretty out of sorts. Giant women on fire were not his favorite thing. And the stalk hawk had flown over from her meal and perched on Abhi’s shoulder. She’d spread her wings in front of his face in a protective manner. It was sweet and kind of funny because Abhi was trying to see over her wings the same way I was trying to see past Mirana.

  La Mastik added in low tones that only I could hear, “Think of what your father would do in this situation, and then do the opposite.”

  That worked, but just barely. With a supreme effort, I ruthlessly snuffed out the flames and tried to reduce the rolling boil of my anger to a gentle simmer.

  “If you’d like me to leave, I will,” Abhi offered. “But I’ll also do most anything else to make things right between us if I can.”

  “Oh, you want to make this right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you’re going to have a smoke with me for Jerin. I never got to smoke for him properly, because his parents were assholes.” I wasn’t sure a smoke would actually solve anything, but sometimes ritual can save someone who’s drowning in seas of rage or despair. Ritual is a life preserver made from ceremony.

  “Yeah, all right. But…I don’t smoke.”

  “You will this one time. If you want to make it right.”

  “Okay. I’m not sure I’ll do it correctly, but I’ll try.”

  I grabbed for the tobacco pouch at my belt and it crumbled to ash in my hands. All my tobacco—as well as the new clothing that Nentian seamstress made for me—had been burned up in my fit of temper. The pleated strips of lava dragon hide hanging from my belt preserved a bit of my modesty, at least, and my boots were fine because they were lava dragon too, but I was beginning to feel a bit of a draft.

  “Shit.” I crossed my hands over my chest as the ashes of my tunic blew away.

  “It’s fine, Olet,” La Mastik said. “It’s perfect, in fact. You go get some fresh clothes and tobacco out of our quarters and calm down, and I’ll stay here with Abhi. We’ll have that smoke when you get back.”

  I spun on my heel and stalked back to camp, burnt pieces of my pants flaking off and trailing in my wake as they crumbled away.

  “Don’t look at me,” I told Lanner Burgan, and he dropped his eyes as I stormed past, wisely keeping his mouth shut. A few others were not so wise, and I snapped, “Not now!” at them as I kept going. When I got to our lodge, I locked the door behind me and headed to my footlocker, slapping the last shreds and ashes of incinerated clothing off me as I went and releasing the flood of tears I’d kept back until now. I figured it was half grief for Jerin and half embarrassment at losing control. At least I had another couple sets of clothes waiting for me, thanks to the seamstress. I’d need to order some more from her if I was going to treat them this way.

  Cleaning myself of ash and getting dressed in fresh clothes was a meditative practice that calmed me. I buckled on all the lava dragon stuff again, including a chest piece, just in case I had another flare-up, but I resolved not to let that happen.

  “You’re going to have a smoke for Jerin with the guy who killed him,” I told myself, speaking aloud but softly. “And you’ll get past this, Olet, because your father never would have, and you’re not going to be like him.”

  Freshly garbed and needing to prove to myself that I was back in control, I let only my cheeks erupt in flame and took pleasure in hearing the tears sizzle away. It left behind a dry crust of salt, but I brushed that away. I snuffed the fires, grabbed a fresh pouch of tobacco and an extra pipe, and returned to the beach. No one tried to hail me this time. And Lanner Burgan, I noticed, had quite sensibly disappeared.

  But Abhi and La Mastik were sitting on the beach, facing the Northern Yawn. They’d built a small campfire, and the boy’s bloodcat was stretched out in front of it. The stalk hawk was nowhere to be seen. Knowing what Mirana would probably demand, I sat down next to her so that she was between us. The bloodcat raised his head and watched me carefully but didn’t growl or anything. I stuffed some tobacco into the extra pipe and handed it over to Mirana, who passed it to Abhi. It was comically huge in his hands.

  “Kalaad,” he said. “I’ve got to smoke all of this?”

  “The quantity isn’t important,” I told him. “It’s more about the ritual and the intent. We are here to speak of Jerin. The smoke carries our words to his spirit and makes sure that Thurik hears them as well. You do not have to be of our faith to participate.”

  “All right, but what if I cough and hack while I’m trying to say stuff? Because I’m pretty sure I will.”

  “They’ll hear that too.”

  “Great. This is going to be embarrassing.”

  I tamped more leaves into my own pipe and ignited them both at the same time. “Suck in a breath,” I told him. “Get it going.” I demonstrated, taking a draw and exhaling a fine stream of smoke.

  Abhi squinted and took a puff and immediately began to cough and wheeze. His bloodcat looked alarmed.

  “Gack! Thppt! Auggh, that’s revolting! How do you stand that?”

  “The lavaborn can’t burn on the outside. We like to feel the burn where we can. That pretty much means the throat and lungs.”

  “Hurggh. Uhh. Do I really have to do this?”

  “Yes.”

  “I might throw up.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Is this your way of getting revenge?”

  “No. Revenge is not an enterprise that leads to personal growth. I am after understanding. Reconciliation. In my culture, this is how it’s done. Now, watch and listen and repeat after me.”

  “Khaaak! Ack. Okay.” />
  I took a deep draw and let the smoke exit as I spoke. “We are here to smoke and remember Jerin Mogen.”

  Abhi drew from the pipe and coughed as he tried to speak. “Kah! Kuh. We—kaff! Kuff! Are—kak! What she said.”

  “Good enough. Now, just listen.” I puffed and exhaled. “Jerin and I were betrothed by our parents, and we hated it. Our lives and happiness were things to be traded away for our fathers’ political advantage. It was easy to despise him. Then I learned that he didn’t want to turn into his dad any more than I wanted to be like mine. This place we’re at—this dream come true—it was a dream we shared. I never told him that I wanted to run away with him for real. I never got the chance. I was trying to figure out some way to exit where my father wouldn’t do what he did—burn things down to find me. We would maybe take off to Rael, catch a boat down to Kauria, where they have that peace thing mostly figured out, disappear into the interior somewhere. Dad wouldn’t find us for years, if ever. I didn’t think he could leave his cities alone long enough to fetch us.”

  I took another drag and blew it out slowly. “I miss Jerin and wish he were still here. His death is a huge hole in my future that I won’t ever fill, and the coals of my anger about this great void in my life will never be extinguished. I’m incensed that he was lumped in with all the rest as lavaborn. Because he wasn’t like the rest of them at all.” I peered over at Abhi, feeling those coals flare up inside me but keeping my skin, at least, from bursting into flame. “Now you.”

  “Now me? What?”

  “Now you smoke and respond.”

  “What do I say?”

  “Whatever you feel. Whatever you’re holding in that you want to breathe out.”

  “Okay.” He puffed at the pipe, turned a bit green, but kept the coughing to a minimum this time. “I already regretted my actions that day, but I regret them even more now that I’ve heard about Jerin. I’m glad he was the sort to share a dream with. I’m glad the dream has been realized here and glad I could help in some small way to make it happen. But I’m very sorry I’m the reason he’s not living the dream here with you.”