A Blight of Blackwings

by Kevin Hearne

  “What? What is this for?” I asked the longshoremen. But they just shrugged and bade me a good morning.

  I opened a jar of Kaurian orange marmalade and slathered it on a toasty slice of the fresh bread, and it was a good morning.

  The refugee kitchen was abuzz with talk of the bard’s tale and speculation about the source of the Seventh Kenning and the possibility of destroying it, as well as the happy prospect of sailing to lands across the ocean and meeting people there like Koesha’s, who weren’t Eculan and intent on destroying us.

  And Fintan was all smiles when I met him.

  “Slept well?”

  “I did. Completely exhausted. And glad to have gotten that story out of me. Plus, I got a tremendous gift basket this morning from the pelenaut.”

  “Me too.”

  “On behalf of a grateful nation?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I’ve been informed I’m to broadcast him before the tales today, so that will be instructive, no doubt.”

  And it was.

  When we got to the wall, Rölly was there, beaming at me, and he gave me a hug and said thank you in person.

  “Did he talk?” I said in low tones, knowing he would understand the pronoun.

  “Yes. A little, anyway. I’ll have to fill you in a bit later, but when they heard that Lorson was dead, they suddenly wished to talk to us. This means you don’t have to keep the Wraith a secret anymore.”

  “What about Nara?” I still hadn’t heard anything since she’d been sent to Fornyd to fetch Gondel Vedd.

  His smile faded somewhat. “That will definitely have to wait, I’m afraid.”

  “Is she all right?”

  “She’s alive,” he said in a tone that implied we should be grateful.

  “Oh, shit.”

  He patted me on the shoulder. “We’ll talk soon. I need to do this and get back.”

  “Okay.”

  He shook hands with Fintan and said a few pleasant things while I worried about Nara, then the bard broadcast him to the city.

  “This is Pelenaut Röllend. I have good news to share with you all. The traitor, Vjeko, has been caught, along with one other.” He had to wait for a roar of approval to die down. “We have had them in custody for some small while, and you heard yesterday that his co-conspirator, Lorson, was destroyed in early winter by Olet Kanek.

  “The architects of the Bone Giant invasion have thus been rounded up, for the most part. We still do not know how the letters from Vjeko were getting to Lorson, and we do not know why the Seven-Year Ship never sailed this time, unless it was perhaps to provoke the invasion. We will continue to search for answers, and Vjeko will pay. But we know this much: We were wronged, and targeted, for no legitimate reason but the hatred of these men. And soon we will strike back at Ecula to make sure they cannot target us again!”

  He paused there for applause, and when it was finished, he named Gondel Vedd, Fintan, Gerstad Nara du Fesset, and me as instrumental in making the conspiracy plain. The pelenaut assured everyone that we’d all been thanked and given gift baskets and he was also going to ship one to Olet Kanek on the nation’s behalf.

  I was surprised at the reason for the gift basket; as far as I knew, Nara and I hadn’t done much except get used as pawns. Yet I knew people would ask me how I’d helped expose the conspiracy. Was there a heroic way for me to say I deposited a letter underneath a garbage bin?

  I noticed that Rölly neglected to mention that the Wraith was an actual wraith possessing the body of an old Brynt soldier, and he hadn’t named Ysabel du Köpen at all. I’m sure he had his reasons for that, and I looked forward to learning what they were.

  But he left the audience in a fine mood for Fintan to begin the day’s tale. He had a gang of musicians join him for some happy dance tunes, and that had everyone feeling even better.

  * * *

  —

  “I have a long tale for you today from the hivemistress. As she expected, the monarchy of Ghurana Nent would not let their rebellion stand. So here is what happened in Khul Bashab not so long ago.”

  I am happy for Jahi, because he figures out pretty soon what blackwings are good for: spotting trouble. We hear about the force coming upriver about a day before they get here, thanks to him, because blackwings tend to follow large sources of food moving on the plains in hopes that some of it will die and become delicious carrion.

  Like me, Jahi can see through the eyes of his animals, but he can’t hear or smell much of anything, which is probably a blessing, considering how often blackwings hang around dead stuff.

  He counts a couple thousand soldiers coming from Batana Mar Din on a large fleet of riverboats. The viceroy’s cousin has sent significant reinforcements.

  “We don’t have a couple thousand fighting dudes, do we?” I ask Tamhan and Khenish Dhawan over a cup of tea. Tamhan’s the city minister now, having soundly defeated his opponent in the election, and Khenish is the watch commander. Tamhan called this hasty meeting after I informed him of what Jahi saw.

  “No,” the minister admits. “We have walls and thirty-one beast callers, counting you and Adithi. The city watch is effective at keeping the peace in the streets, but they’re not what I’d call a loyal fighting force at the moment. Tough to convince them that our rebellion is really a thing to fight for. Especially since they’d be outnumbered ten to one or more.”

  “They’re not going to open the gates for the monarchists, are they?” That is what Tamhan says we should call people loyal to the king now: monarchists. Making it clear that they are loyal to a person instead of a republic.

  “No, we’ll have people we trust at the gates. I think much of what the city watch will be doing is making sure we don’t get defeated from within.”

  Khenish nods at this but makes no comment. I remind myself that I really should think of him as Commander Dhawan now.

  “So, Hivemistress: What can the thirty-one members of your clave do to defend from without?”

  “Well, not all of them have affinities that can help us. I mean, that one guy with the moths? Not a devastating military asset. Unless tactical moths are a thing I didn’t know about.”

  “They might have a psychological effect, but otherwise you’re right. So what can we use? Let’s lay it out so we can come up with a strategy.”

  The short version of what we come up with is that I need to get the clave together and start calling some beasts from the Hunter Gate, while Tamhan works to get the food supplies in from the Farmer Gate right away so that these military dudes can’t snack on our victuals once they find the gates closed.

  It’s a close thing, getting all the chaktu into the city with a ton of provender before these barges full of bad guys show up. But when they do, it’s pretty obvious they were sent upriver with sketchy information. They are super surprised to find all the gates closed and people on the other side refusing to open them. They thought they were going to reinforce the city watch and go home after a few days. Instead, their demands to be admitted are rebuffed with invitations to fondle and/or provide suction to various body parts of our guards. They don’t believe us when we say we’re independent from Ghurana Nent now.

  At least, not at first.

  It takes them a while to figure out that, besides closing all the gates, we’ve brought in the animals from the walled-off farms and tater beds and stripped them down as much as possible. We’re really, really not going to let them in, and the viceroy is not in charge. Neither is Captain Khatagar, because he’s dead, see?

  That’s when they ask to speak to whoever is in charge now, and that’s what gets Tamhan talking to them through the bars. They don’t believe he’s in charge, though.

  “You’re a kid,” the captain of the force splutters.

  “I’m the elected minister for the city, sir, and I spe
ak with full authority.”

  “Ministers are appointed by the viceroy or the king.”

  “Not here. They’re elected.”

  “Look, kid—”

  “You may call me Minister Khatri.”

  “Whatever. You need to let me speak to the viceroy or there’s going to be trouble.”

  “I demand that you return to Batana Mar Din and tell the viceroy there to recognize our independence. You are not welcome in Khul Bashab.”

  The man blinks a few times. “You’re not entirely sane, are you? Look, I know your garrison is depleted and there’s no way you’re keeping us out. If we have to break in there, you’re not going to like what happens next.”

  “Captain—are you a captain?”

  “Tactician Varman.”

  “Ah. Tactician Varman, this city is protected by the Sixth Kenning. All the animals of the plains are ours to command. You are quite literally surrounded. Should you fire a single arrow or draw a sword in anger, you will find our defense is quite robust. We will respond gently at first, with some insect stings, perhaps, just as a warning. I hope you will take heed of our warning and depart before it’s necessary to take a life. But should you press us, you won’t like what happens next.”

  “All right. Have it your way, kid. I tried to warn you.”

  “Likewise, Tactician. Since you will not leave, please note that the rebuke you are about to receive is not an accident, nor is it the sum of what we can do.”

  That is my cue. I throw some hornets at the tactician’s face. Figuratively, anyway. Tamhan keeps talking while they fly in.

  “Please remember that you were rude and dismissive first, and I sincerely hope you won’t escalate things from here.”

  “Shit, kid—”

  That’s when the hornets hit him. Five stings to the face allow us all to appreciate the tactician’s surprising vocal range.

  He hollers a lot and then, when he can use his words again, he promises Tamhan that he will personally flay him in the city square.

  “Don’t escalate, Tactician. Just walk away and let everyone live. Hornets are only the beginning. Think of what else is out there. All the animals of the plains!”

  He doesn’t think about it very much. He staggers away and starts shouting orders. They’re going to tear up the docks and use the lumber to make ladders. Or at least that’s the plan at first. Burrow wasps quickly teach them that if they pick up a hammer, they’ll be stung. They don’t have a lot of cavalry or archers and absolutely nothing in the way of siege equipment, because this is all a surprise to them. So the plan is to bug them with one kind of bug or another and make their lives gross, squirmy, and occasionally painful but mostly nonlethal.

  I say mostly because there are some things we don’t let slide, like scouts and hunters.

  The tactician brought some horses with him upriver, and he sends several mounted pairs of scouts around to the other side of the city to see what’s happening, but they haven’t yet absorbed the idea that they’re surrounded. It’s just not real to them.

  Jahi is watching them from the sky with his blackwings, so we know exactly where they are. When they get near the Hunter Gate, Adithi has their horses dump them in the grass and run for the gate to join our fine stables. And then the sedge pumas and wheat dogs we have hiding in the grasses take care of the scouts. The tactician simply never hears back from anyone he sends to scout the far side of the city.

  He sends three pairs spaced out over half-hour intervals before he thinks to try a large group of twenty, which represents all his horses.

  “That’s nice of him,” Adithi says. “Now that I have all his horses, I can go to sleep.”

  I don’t get to join her, dang it. I’m still fulfilling my role as a harrier and making sure they don’t get a ladder built out of dock planks.

  The tactician sends a hundred men around on foot to check out the Hunter Gate, and we let them go. They freak out just fine all by themselves when they see the remains of the scouts, blackwings feasting on them since the sedge pumas and wheat dogs have had plenty by then. They stick together and return to report, finally, that everyone’s dead and the horses are gone.

  That’s when the tactician realizes he’s been losing this whole time and he’d better withdraw and have a good think. We assume that, anyway, since he orders everyone off the docks and upriver into the walled farm paddocks. They have the ability to make camp, since they had to do so to get here, but they don’t have a lot of food left, since they assumed they’d be guests of the viceroy. They make fires and the ground’s already safe from flesh eels, so they feel relatively safe and we’re content to let them stay out there and pillage whatever they like from what we left behind. But hunting parties never come back. They get hunted instead.

  Once they’ve made their fires, I let my hives rest and I leave to get some rest myself. We have other plans for the evening.

  About three hours before dawn—when most everyone is asleep—the spider queen goes to work.

  She targets one soldier per tent; most of them sleep four. Poisonous sickle spiders sneak in, silent as the grave, and sink their fangs into a bit of exposed leg. The soldiers don’t even feel it at first, but the toxins will hurt like nothing else after about twenty minutes and they’ll want to cut off their legs to make it stop. They’ll be fine if they stick it out. They just won’t be walking on those legs for a few days, and a good portion of the remaining force will need to take care of them.

  Tactician Varman’s swollen face is much more polite the next time I see him. He’s at the same gate, and Tamhan makes him wait. During that time, he remembers to call Tamhan by his title.

  “Minister Khatri, I have come to ask if you have taken any prisoners.”

  “I haven’t. Anyone you’re missing is not coming back.”

  We’ve taken their horses, of course, but I think he’s letting Varman assume they’re dead too.

  “What you’ve done is unforgivable.”

  Tamhan shrugs. “I haven’t asked for your forgiveness. You were warned and you’re trespassing. I think you should be thanking me.”

  “Thanking you?”

  “Think of all the many ways you could have died yesterday, Tactician, but didn’t. We didn’t have to send sickle spiders, you know, or have them bite only a quarter of your men. We could have sent face jumpers. We could have sent one to your tent, because, yes, we knew where you were sleeping. We could have wiped out every one of you as soon as you arrived, but instead we have shown you restraint and mercy.”

  That last phrase is another cue for me. I bring down a small cloud of hornets to buzz over Tamhan’s head. The tactician flinches at the sight of them.

  “So let me state again, because I am merciful, that you are not welcome here as an agent of the monarchists. You and your men need to leave by noon, without damaging our farms, where we let you sleep free of charge last night. If you do not, then my mercy will be at an end. The animals of the plains will feast, and let me be very clear that they will start with you, not your men. The choice here is yours, and if you make the wrong one, you personally will pay for it.”

  The tactician seethes, and I can tell he wants to get shouty and call Tamhan a stupid kid and threaten him, but he takes a few breaths, having learned a thing or two, and says instead, “You caught us by surprise. But I’ll be back with an army that’s prepared to deal with you. I’ll be back with Tactician Hennedigha.”

  “You could live here in peace instead,” Tamhan offers. “Join us. Bring your family or start one, and live in harmony with the animals of the plains.”

  The tactician sneers. “What? And be ruled by—”

  “Duly elected representatives of the people? Yes. It’s far better than becoming a meal for something hungry. I think the choice before you is pretty clear: You can f
ollow this violence in your heart right now and die outside these walls either today or when you return, or you can put down your sword and live inside these walls in peace and prosperity. I want that for you. I want that for everyone. Please think about it.”

  The tactician scoffs and walks away, and his men are sailing down the river before noon, many of them wailing at the searing pain in their legs.

  They will be back—of that we have no doubt—but it’s an important visual for the city. The district council, the ward councils, and the clave council all watch them go from on top of the walls, and they’re ebullient afterward. Word spreads: We defeated the monarchists without losing a single man of the watch. Plus we scored about two dozen really nice horses.

  The farmers go back to their places, herding out the animals they brought in; Tamhan has a meeting with the farmer clave, where he explains that it’s not over and in fact they might lose their farms when the monarchists return.

  “But we’ll rebuild,” he tells them. “And after that I don’t expect we’ll have trouble again. They need to come after us with everything and be convinced they can’t win. Then we’ll be safe.”

  The handsome greensleeve Mak Fin ben Fos bids us farewell and good luck in the Red Pheasant Teahouse. He has to return to Talala Fouz to inform the head Fornish ambassador what we’re up to and announce to the king that he’s failed spectacularly to “take care of us.” He gives me a hug before he goes, during which I realize that I’m a bit taller than he is, because the Fornish are kind of short people, and he smells like silverbark, grass, and wood mushrooms.

  “I want one of those handsome menfolk when I grow up,” I whisper to Adithi as I watch him depart.

  She rolls her eyes at me. “We have plenty of them here. You just never bothered to look around before.”

  “Well, I’m looking now. How do I get one?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, usually it’s a thing your parents work out with the boy’s parents, but that’s a skyboned way of doing it, if you ask me.”