by K. J. Parker
Poldarn knew, or remembered, that it was no good expecting birds to come in for at least half an hour after set-up – it was set down in the rules as a fundamental principle, unshakeable as the orientation of the rising and the setting sun. During that time, it was absolutely essential to keep perfectly still; you could just about get away with blinking so long as you had a first-rate hide, but anything more energetic than that and you might as well go home. After that, if you were really lucky, you’d hear the screams and squawks of the advance scouts, gliding slowly over at double-treetop height. You wouldn’t see them, of course, because one thing you had not to do when the scouts were overhead was lift your head, or even raise your eyes; the flicker of the whites of your eyes would be enough to send the scouts into a scrambled, flustered turn, followed by a fast and noisy retreat, after which you might as well go to sleep for an hour for all the good you were likely to do—
He’d only just got himself into position when he felt a patch of darkness flicker across his forehead, the shadow of a crow hanging between himself and the sun. He caught sight of it a few heartbeats later as it crossed the bare patch in his line of sight; a T-shaped pattern of dark grey, unnaturally elongated, distorting as it dragged over humps and dips in the dirt. The first scout was over him already – impossible, unheard of, but there it was. A mere twenty years, and already they’d forgotten even the most elementary basics of their craft. He’d have to set them straight on a few points.
He held his breath until the shadow passed. First there’d be the singleton scouts, two or three of them flying high, cautious solo runs over the decoys. Next would come the corps of observers, describing two circuits at extreme range before closing in and pitching. They had to be spared, at all costs; they would be the unwitting traitors, his best friends and most valuable collaborators, because once they’d dropped in and walked up and down for a minute or so, the first detachment of foot soldiers would follow them up, and the battle could start. At that point, he knew or remembered, the crucial thing was not to miss . . . A crow rapped on the head with a stone as it drifted in to pitch would drop the last foot or so and land, quite dead, but looking to the rest of the army as though it was snuggling in to feed, and the sight of it would draw in another in its place, and so on. A crow missed, squirming round in the air and thrashing its wings in terror, would clear the air for a mile in every direction, leaving him with the whole miserable job to start again.
When the moment came and the first target presented itself, he found himself on his feet before he knew what he was doing. Is this right? he wondered helplessly as his throwing arm brushed his ear; then the crow’s wings clamped against its sides as it died, and it bounced just a little as it hit the ground, and he knew it was going to be all right.
Don’t be greedy, he told himself as he reached for the next stone; one at a time, let each one take its proper place, even if there’s a dozen others in range to shy at, keep good order at all times. Sure enough, the fall of the first bird drew in another like a pawl lifting a gear in clockwork. He threw again – how very good he was at throwing stones, he realised, but he knew better than to stop and think about how he was doing it – and number two hit the ground, six yards to the left of number one. Number three was further out and for a heartbeat he thought he’d missed; the stone caught the back of the wing, shattering it, and the crow dropped on its feet and hopped about (excellent; live, moving decoys on the ground were the best sort) as number four spread its wings into the breeze and slid down into the path of a stone. By the time he missed, and the sky was suddenly empty and quiet again, he’d brought down nine birds; seven dead, one runner and one flapper.
Poldarn flopped against the tree-trunk, exhausted by the tension and the effort. His right shoulder was savagely painful and his knees were weak, but he hardly spared them a thought, so angry was he with himself for missing an easy mark. But when he looked up a moment or so later, he saw two more crows, one already on the ground, the other just pitching. With a heart full of love he thanked them for their kind forbearance, and picked a stone out of the bucket. Almost immediately a third crow began its glide, and he hit it beautifully on the side of the head, an exemplary throw at a full ten yards, but he knew before he let fly that he couldn’t miss. The dead body plumped down and the machine started again, feeding crows into the slot as fast as he could pick up stones, until his tally reached fifteen. At that point there was a lull, for no cause that he could see (but he knew or remembered that such disruptions were in fact quite normal; there was probably a perfectly good reason, and maybe one day he’d figure out what it was). Without moving his body he craned his neck to see if there was anything in the air. Nothing coming in; so he stood up, being careful to keep his head down below the level of the weeds in front of him, and took stock of the field, with special reference to the pattern that was beginning to build. This would be a good time to consolidate – stake out the dead, tidy up the killing zone, do a little general housekeeping; but the pattern turned out to be good, the flapper had died of its injuries, the runner was still in play, there wasn’t really anything that needed to be done. That was a slice of luck. If he left the hide now and walked about, it’d be half an hour at least before business could resume. He sat down again (his knees and thighs were hurting badly now) and chose a good smooth flint for his next throw, whenever it came.
He didn’t have long to wait. Two scouts, then a dozen, a full echelon gliding straight at him from the trees, unheard-of confidence, ludicrous arrogance – If I was a crow you’d never catch me being so bloody stupid. The stone was digging uncomfortably into the palm of his hand, but he decided to let the dozen come all the way. If they were prepared to come in so boldly, it could only be because the pattern was just right, so that the crows were seeing exactly what they wanted to see. Very well, then; indulge them, let them make their appalling mistake. The dozen pitched and started waddling around, brushing past their dead brethren and pecking vainly at the already-plundered earth. Excellent, Poldarn thought; and he was right, because the flow that started after that lasted him another ten kills before he fumbled a shot and spoilt everything. The sky cleared, the trees in the distance flushed out the reserves and the general staff, and he was left alone with his dead.
Bloody ridiculous mistake. He was mortally ashamed; still, he had two dozen on the ground now, a big enough pattern to draw them back in spite of themselves. He didn’t deserve another chance, but he was probably going to get one all the same. He wasn’t wrong, at that; an hour later they were back, and only the barest going-through-the-motions flight of scouts before they started pouring in, pitching in twos and threes instead of singly. That should have been a problem; too many birds in play at any one time increases the risk of detection. But they didn’t seem to care, and before long he was knocking down two, three, four in a row without breaking the rhythm. Somewhere around four dozen he lost count; they were drifting in like snow, and for all the notice they were taking of him, he might as well not have been there.
It was at this point that Poldarn became aware of someone sitting next to him in the hide. For a while he was too busy to do more than register the presence; whoever it was, he or she was sitting quite still, observing hide discipline, making no trouble. He guessed it was someone from the farm who’d come to see how he was getting on. It occurred to him to wonder how anybody could have got to the hide without showing himself and spooking the crows, but he only had enough spare attention to pose the question, not answer it. But then the tap turned off, as it had done two or three times already; the sun was too bright, or the wind had changed, or he’d killed all the birds in that particular detachment, and the reserves hadn’t arrived yet. He turned his head to see who was crouching next to him.
‘Hello,’ he said (noise didn’t bother the crows the way movement did, so it was all right to speak). ‘Who are you? I’m sorry, but I don’t know you.’
The boy smiled politely. ‘My name’s Ciartan,’ he replied. ‘I live
at the farm up there on the hill. Do you mind if I just sit here and watch for a bit?’
Poldarn shrugged. ‘Sure,’ he said, ‘so long as you don’t move when there’s birds in the air.’
‘Oh, I know better than that,’ the boy assured him gravely. ‘I do a lot of crow-scaring myself, every chance I can get. But I’ve never had a day like this. You’re really good at it.’
‘Thank you,’ Poldarn replied. ‘It’s just practice, that’s all.’
The boy nodded. ‘You’ve been doing it for a long time, then?’
‘All my life,’ Poldarn said, ‘since I was your age. It’s all about experience, really; that and keeping your eyes open, thinking about what you’re looking at. That – and learning how to think like a crow, of course.’
‘Exactly,’ the boy said. ‘You’ve got to be able to get inside their minds, really, otherwise you don’t stand a chance. That’s where I go wrong, of course. I can’t seem to manage it.’
Before Poldarn could say anything, a big old crow with a ragged left wing appeared out of nowhere directly overhead. Poldarn froze, holding his breath, watching the bird’s shadow on the ground as it flapped slowly away. ‘He’ll be back,’ Poldarn whispered, ‘you wait and see. He’s just taking a look.’
‘Scout?’ the boy asked.
‘Don’t think so. Just occasionally you get a loner, out of touch with the rest of ’em. Look, he’s on the turn. Keep still, he’ll come back in straight at us.’
Sure enough, the crow executed a long, wide, sweeping turn, dropped low and came in with languorous, easy wing-beats, three feet or so above the ground. Poldarn let it come, knowing that if he could manage to drop it cleanly in the right place, its fall would bring in a new wave of scouts and the brief drought would be over. He could only just see the line it made in the air through his curtain of nettles, but he’d gauged its speed pretty well. When he reckoned it had reached the right spot, he straightened his protesting knees and threw at where the crow ought to be. Sure enough it was there, and the stone cracked it on the forehead. It dropped flat, wings tight in to its body.
‘Shot,’ the boy said, deeply impressed. ‘I didn’t even see it.’
Poldarn grinned. ‘Nor me, I figured out where it was going to be. Now we should be in for some action.’
He wasn’t wrong. Three scouts came over high, shrieking harshly, and slowly drew off; shortly afterwards, four more birds hobbled in on the line the singleton had taken. More or less at the point where Poldarn had killed the loner, they put their wings back and pitched.
‘We leave them alone,’ Poldarn said. ‘Remember, for every one you can see, there’s a couple of dozen that can see you.’
‘I know,’ the boy said. ‘Right, here we go. Incoming on the left.’
Poldarn frowned; they hadn’t come from that quarter before, or he hadn’t seen them (he had a blind spot there). ‘How many?’
‘Two,’ the boy replied immediately. ‘One’s on the glide, the other one’s thinking about it.’
‘Fine. We let the front one pitch and take the other one.’
He didn’t see the second bird until it was a bare foot off the ground, but it was in the right place at the right time, so he killed it quickly and dropped back down as fast as he could. The first bird lifted, but spread its wings straight away and tacked into the wind to brake its airspeed. As it sailed over a gap he bobbed up and killed it. There was another bird in the air before he sat down.
‘That’s amazing,’ the boy said. ‘I can never get them to do that.’
‘Watch and learn,’ Poldarn replied smugly. ‘The key to this lark is patterns. Get the patterns right and all you’ve got to be able to do is throw a stone straight.’
No time for idle chatter for several minutes after that. They came in thick, almost too many of them, so that Poldarn had to keep throwing and killing just to keep the picture tight. ‘You know,’ the boy said during the next slight pause, ‘it’s starting to make sense to me now. It’s like I can actually read the patterns and know what they’re going to do. I can’t explain it, though.’
‘That’s good, you’re starting to think like them. They don’t think in words, see; so you’ve got to be like them, think with your eyes.’
‘That’s right, think with your eyes. Like drawing a sword, really.’ The boy stopped talking while Poldarn nailed a couple more crows. ‘It all makes sense when you’re doing it,’ he went on, ‘definitely what you said, patterns. You know exactly what’s going to happen; it’s almost like you’ve been here before and you’re remembering it all, so you can remember exactly where each bird’s come from and where it’s going to be. Either that, or you’re reading their minds. Or both.’
They came in again while the boy was still talking; but he must have seen Poldarn stiffen, because he abruptly fell silent and held still. Poldarn killed another three; then he reached into the bucket for a stone and found it was empty.
‘Fuck,’ he said, ‘that’s a bloody nuisance. Do me a favour, will you; nip out and get a few stones, the headland’s covered with them.’
But the boy wasn’t there any more; he must have slipped away while Poldarn was busy. Annoying; he was too stiff and cramped to want to get up. No choice in the matter, though; so he straightened his knees with an effort and clambered up the side of the ditch.
He hadn’t seen the field, of course, not since he’d got down and worked himself in. It was an extraordinary sight. There were dead crows everywhere, a black mat of wings and bodies; some on their backs with their claws curled in the air, some on their sides with a wing frozen in death, some flat on the ground with their wings spread. One or two were still twitching, straining their necks like athletes striving to lift weights. As he hauled himself out of the ditch, something thrashed frantically in the tall nettles. He stood and stared for a long time, remembering various things he had seen – the ground littered with dead monks at Deymeson, the aftermath of the battle in the river, when the old women in their black shawls had come out to rob the dead, and a host of other pictures from the back of his mind that were equally vivid, though he couldn’t fit a story to them. But they all conformed to one pattern, in the alignment of the corpses, their spacing, the gaps between them. They lay just as they’d been when he’d arrived, when they were still alive and feeding (it was the picture he’d been trying to achieve, the pattern he’d held in his mind as he worked) and they covered the sprouting peas like the mountain’s black ejecta, the only difference being that he’d put them there, and he’d been doing good.
Stones, he thought; but he didn’t move. Instead, he looked towards the volcano, Polden’s Forge, and saw a thick column of black smoke billowing out of the summit, exactly like a flock of crows put up out of a knot of tall, thin trees, their castle. He could almost believe that the smoke was crows, all the crows he’d killed that day and on other good days, when he’d blackened the fields with his mess. It reminded him of one day in particular, a turning point in his career as the death of crows – he’d forgotten all about it until now, but suddenly it appeared in his mind’s sky, swooped and pitched in the killing zone of his memory, the day when a young boy called Ciartan had gone out to kill crows on a field of sprouting peas, only to find that a man he couldn’t remember having seen before had got there first and built his hide in this very ditch, under this very oak tree. The offcomer (a strange and rather frightening man with a sad face) was having a very good day, the field was covered in dead bodies, and he’d sat with him in his hide for a while and watched him at work, learning ever so much about decoying and tracking the birds in night and building and maintaining patterns – the foundations on which he’d based all his subsequent triumphs, from that day to this. It was the sheer number of the dead that had impressed him then – after the man had gone he counted them, one hundred and seventy-two – and (he guessed) it was the similarity of that picture of slaughter to this that had jarred his mind back into the groove.
He let go of the bucket and we
nt out to count the dead birds. There were a hundred and seventy-two of them. As he turned them over with his foot and reckoned up the total, he was singing:
Old crow lying on the cold brown clay,
Old crow lying on the cold brown clay,
Old crow lying on the cold brown clay–
But there’ll always be another for another day.
He remembered that he’d left the billhook in the bottom of the ditch. For a moment he was tempted to leave it there – he was too tired and aching to go scrambling about in ditches, it’d be easier to go home, fire up the forge and make a new one – but he put that unworthy thought behind him and slithered back down the slope into the mud (much deeper now, where he’d churned it up.) The hook had managed to burrow its way into the bed of the ditch and he had to scrabble for it with his fingertips. The mud felt cold and rather disgusting, it was like paunching a rabbit you’d killed yesterday and forgotten to dress out; he found the hook eventually, but while he was groping for it he came across something else. At first it looked like just another stone (could’ve done with that a few minutes ago, when the crows were coming in) but something prompted him to scour away the surface mud with the ball of his thumb, and he realised that it was iron or steel, remarkably well preserved under the coating of mud, except that it had turned a stony grey colour. A knob of mud in the middle gave way under his finger and proved to be the eye of a small axe. Once he’d found the billhook he spent a few minutes scraping off the mud and rust coating, and was pleased to see that it was salvageable; all it’d need would be a touch or two on the grindstone and a new handle, and he’d have a perfectly usable tool. He tucked it into his belt, wondering how it had come to be there, sunk in the mud and deprived of its history. But there were no clues to be found just by looking at it; its memory had long since rotted away, along with its handle. Not to worry; whoever it had belonged to and whatever it had been, it was still a perfectly good axe, and so long as it could be made to remember how to cut, that, surely, was all that mattered.
