The Crow

by Alison Croggon

  He sat down by the fire and wrapped his cloak around him­self. Reaver came up, grinning.

  "Goromants!" he shouted. "We bloody showed 'em. We gave it to 'em!"

  Hem tried to look as excited as Reaver and punched his fist into the air. But the boy had already passed him by, to whoop at another snout.

  Goromants. Hem had heard the name. He had hoped never to see the reality. It was much worse than any rumor.

  He closed his eyes, letting the fire's warmth take away the chill of aftershock. He had never thought he would be glad to be around snouts; but maybe only that kind of frenzy could defeat creatures as fearsome as goromants. Even mutilated as they were, they were not dead. The horrible sounds of their dying ran on endlessly beneath the snouts' celebrations of vic­tory, and colored what little sleep he had the rest of that night.

  The goromants were still alive the next day, when the snouts marched on. Passing snouts kicked the twitching bodies, or spat on them. Hem averted his eyes.

  It took three days to get through the Glandugir Hills. There were several more attacks, always at night, but they saw no more goromants: once, a swarm of the winged things that Hem and Zelika had killed, another time a pack of wild pigs with two heads. These were driven off with less difficulty than the goromants; when one or two were killed, the others retreated back into the trees. Several more snouts were injured. The walk­ing wounded made their own way, more frightened of being left behind than of their own pain; those too badly hurt to march were quickly killed by Hulls.

  In the very middle of the hills, in the darkest places, there were trees that cried out at night, strange mouthless calls that sent shivers down their backs and made even the Hulls anx­ious. Once a snout cut down a branch for firewood, and the tree shrieked and thrashed its limbs like a beast, and the snout was drenched in a downpour of blood. Hem saw another snout caught by a vine that seemed to lie harmlessly across the path; unwisely he had trodden on it, and the plant had lashed itself around his foot. The snout, screeching and writhing, clutching at branches and tufts of grass, was dragged out of sight with appalling swiftness: the snouts halted, aghast and fascinated, as the boy's cries turned into a high, bubbling scream and then abruptly stopped.

  Hem witnessed everything with a growing sense of numb­ness. He no longer even felt afraid. He needed all his energy simply to stay alive. Now, with no prospect of any respite in Nyanar's enchanted home, and without Ire, he was truly alone. In the black depths of the Glandugir Hills hope sank deep within him, where he could barely touch it.

  He struggled to stay alert, to keep looking for Zelika among the snouts, but his perceptions narrowed to his immediate surroundings. His hunger was constant and only abated by severe cramps in his belly; a lot of the time he didn't want to eat at all, and forced himself to chew his pitiful rations, reminding himself that he could not afford to become too weak. He eked out his supplies so they would last the journey, but even so there would not be enough to get him to Dagra. He would have to begin thieving again.

  When they emerged from the forest, Hem stared incuriously, blinking in the sudden light, over a dun landscape that stretched out from the lower hills. The forest shrank into iso­lated stunted trees, and then into the low thorny shrubs that studded the sparse grasslands. The track meandered over arid plains toward a smudge on the horizon that might be a small town. Dagra, he knew, was far in the north.

  Hem felt only a dull relief. At that moment, he never wanted to see another tree in his life.

  XXII

  DAGRA

  If it had not been for Ire, Hem might not have survived the next seven days. There had been times in the hills when he had thought that he could not go on, when he fiercely regretted that he had not escaped Sjug'hakar Im when he had had the chance. With the bleak clarity of despair, he examined his plans and justifications – his idea that he would be assisting Hared and the Light against the Nameless One, or that he had any chance of finding and rescuing Zelika – and realized that they were the purest folly. He had been insanely arrogant to think that he could enter Den Raven and not only survive, but escape and return to his friends. His death, he thought, was only a matter of time.

  And now it was too late to turn back.

  The first night out of the Glandugir Hills he was trying to sleep, twisting and turning against the hard ground, when something inquiringly stroked his mind. He started, looking wildly around him, thinking that a Hull had discovered his presence; but then he realized that no Hull could feel like that. Only one creature in the whole world had that particular touch: Ire, the White Crow, Lios Hlaf, his friend.

  Recklessly, for it was very perilous with Hulls nearby, Hem fashioned a mageshield and sent out a summoning to Ire. The crow answered immediately, and Hem felt he was very close, not more than a hundred spans away.

  Hello, featherbrain, said Ire. Are you sorry now?

  Ire! Hem felt as if his insides were melting with relief and gratitude and joy. By the Light, what are you doing here?

  I thought someone ought to come and make sure you didn't do anything stupid, said Ire. Someone clever. Like me.

  Hem was so overwhelmed he could not say anything, but in the intimacy of mindtouching his feelings were very clear.

  I knew you'd he sorry, said Ire smugly. Hared wants to kill you, but he said you'd probably be killed before he could get to you, which makes him very regretful.

  The thought of Hared's impotent fury stopped the whirl of Hem's emotions, and he almost snorted with laughter.

  Oh, Ire, he said. You shouldn't have followed me. But I am so glad you did, so glad.

  Hared thought I should. He says I am a very clever and brave bird. Hem could almost see Ire's feathers swelling with pride.

  But – but how did you get through the forest? asked Hem, smil­ing at his friend's vanity.

  I didn't. I flew over it. Not going there again. I knew I'd find you this end. And I have a message from Hared that I must tell you. Now the snouts have left, he's going to look at the camp, and he said he is going to meet us at Sjug'hakar Im in three times four days, plus two.

  That meant fourteen days, by Ire's counting. It would cut it close, but he might just make it, if he escaped the snouts at Dagra. If he moved swiftly with magery, he could possibly avoid capture, traveling on his own. There was no doubt it would be perilous, but all of a sudden, Hem felt anything was possible. A friendly voice in this terrible place was unimagin­able, but here it was.

  Can you just follow the snouts, then? said Hem. You'll be all right?

  Yes, said Ire. I am a clever bird.

  You are. And brave and wonderful. Hem could feel something waking nearby, and added hurriedly, I must go, Ire.

  I'll be watching you, featherbrain.

  The mindtouch closed. But that night, Hem slept well, undisturbed by bad dreams.

  It was seven days' hard march to Dagra. Although the hazards of the Glandugir Hills were now behind them, their journey was not without peril. Den Raven was, Hem began to realize, a country in the grip of some kind of civil war. As they moved into more populated regions, they began to encounter groups of armed soldiers guarding bridges and crossroads. Most of the time they were waved through without challenge, but once there had been a brief skirmish, during which the Hulls had killed the guards. After that, without explanation, the snouts were marched back the way they had come, and took another road. Hem tried to eavesdrop on the Hulls to discover what was happening, but it was too difficult, and so he was forced, like all the other snouts, to speculate. He assumed that they had almost run into hostile territory – that of those loyal to Imank rather than the Nameless One.

  To Hem's surprise, most of the land was not diseased like the Glandugir Hills. He had expected that his sickness would continue all the way to Dagra, but, to his overwhelming relief, his cramps eased to a slight nausea. His physical misery was mostly limited to exhaustion and hunger and cold. The weather stayed clear, but that meant nights of frost, when the snouts would fi
ght viciously for the warmest places, closest to the fires, and they would wake with their blankets stiff with rime.

  He was too tired to risk any magery, apart from when he had to renew his disguise. With practice he had become better at the spell, and he blessed his foresight in not changing his appearance radically, but it was still draining, time-consuming, and risky. To satisfy his hunger, he employed some older skills than magery, honed when he had been a famished orphan, and stole food from other snouts while they were sleeping. The thefts were noticed and caused several violent quarrels, but no one suspected the simpleton Slasher.

  During their march across Den Raven, Hem had more of a chance to search among the snouts for Zelika. It was fruitless: he could not find her anywhere. Perhaps, he thought, she had changed out of all recognition, which was always possible; or maybe she had been left behind, or killed in the Glandugir Hills. The latter possibilities frightened him so much that, despite the danger of doing so, he attempted again to feel for her, as he had in Sjug'hakar Im. This time it was much more difficult, but he sensed again the same spark, opaque with sorcery and fear, but still present. She was somewhere among the snouts, but he still couldn't work out where. He dared not try again.

  He took as much note as he could of what he saw, storing it in his memory for later. For the most part the snouts journeyed past huge farms, tilled or harvested by long rows of dark-clad laborers. Sometimes Hem saw that they worked with shackles around their ankles, and were guarded by dogsoldiers; others were not chained, but were supervised by men with whips. They passed long, low huts where the laborers lived, which looked exactly like the huts in Sjug'hakar Im. Den Raven really was, as Saliman had said, a giant prison.

  One morning they walked through a small town, marching down the center of its main street. Hem cast furtive glances as they passed through. He had seen poverty in Edinur, but this was on another scale. The houses were mean and poor, little more than hovels holding each other up, patched with scavenged bits of wood or planks or stone. The street stank of middens, and was pitted with deep ruts filled with icy water. Ragged children peered at them from behind tumbledown fences or mossy water butts, their eyes wide with fear; Hem noticed with a pang that he saw none older than about nine years. Someone had placed a flowering geranium in a pot by a doorway, incongruously bright in the squalor around it, and Hem saw that a fence a little farther on had once been painted with a picture of a white horse running free over green grass. The painting had been scrubbed out, but its outline still remained, like a ghostly flag of rebellion. But little else there spoke of cheer or hope.

  In the center of the town were two grand buildings, rising several levels behind high stone walls on large grounds. They were in shocking contrast to the miserable poverty of the rest of the town, and Hem stared at them in amazement: even the gateposts were gilded. For all their air of luxury, he thought the buildings ugly, and he didn't like the look of the carvings of weird beasts that crouched on top of the walls. Indeed, they were ensorcelled vigilances, squatting malignantly above the prosperity that breathed out of the houses.

  He suddenly remembered what Saliman had told him about Den Raven, long ago, in Turbansk: The Eyes control all supplies; they live well enough, but the people fare poorly, and are given only enough to ensure they live. Those who win favor with the Hulls, of course, can do much better; some, the Grin, live in an obscene luxury and are themselves petty tyrants. They are useful to the Nameless One, and so he suffers them to flourish... nothing there is grown or made for pleasure or beauty, and even the leisures of the Grin are stamped with foulness and cruelty...

  Perhaps these houses belonged to Grins. It seemed unlikely they would be owned by Hulls; Hulls weren't interested in opulence.

  After that, Hem was glad that the Hulls seemed to avoid towns and villages. He found them more depressing than the countryside, which was depressing enough.

  In a few days the landscape changed. There were trees, for a start, and stands of forest, although to Hem's relief they did not go near them; even from a distance he could feel an illness within them, like the Glandugir Hills. He wondered what had happened to this land, that it could be patched by such wrong­ness. At night, where the forests were, the sky would glow a dull, eerie red.

  Now they were marching steadily upward, and to the north Hem could see a ridge of mountains, jagged in the haze. They changed color under the light: sometimes they were red, some­times purple. Sometimes, on days of heavy cloud, they vanished altogether. Hem remembered his dream of the Iron Tower: it must stand in the shadow of those very mountains. They were getting close.

  The roads became busier, and were lined with dusty trees. The main routes were wide, and sometimes paved with stone, like Bard roads. On occasion the snouts were herded off the road, where they had to wait while ranks of dogsoldiers mounted on irzuk and other soldiers marched past them. If they encountered farmers or townspeople on the road, the snouts always took precedence; then they would march arro­gantly, with a swagger, sneering at the unsoldierly folk who scrambled to get out of their way. They passed several tempo­rary camps, dun rows of hide tents pitched over what had previously been farmland, and towns and villages were now very frequent, although the Hulls avoided most of them.

  The snouts took a keen interest in the ranks they encoun­tered, and gossiped freely about their supposed destinations. Some said knowledgeably that they went toward the Kulkilhirien in the west – the desert place by the Kulkil Pass where the Nameless One gathered his armies before sending them on campaign. Hem, who thought this was likely, supposed they would be readying to march on Annar or Car Amdridh. But others were marching in the opposite direction, and he wondered what that meant. He had gathered a number of pebbles that he stored in his right pocket, and each time he saw a rank, he transferred a single pebble to his left; in this way he was able to keep track of their numbers. There were many thousands.

  Hem wondered often where Saliman and Soron were; per­haps they had even passed each other unknowingly on the road.

  On the fifth day they encountered some more snouts, also going north to Dagra, and on the sixth two more ranks, as their routes converged. The groups would greet each other with yells and whoops, and after that they marched together, swelling their number to more than five thousand. Hem cursed this chance: his efforts to track down Zelika were getting nowhere, and he was running out of time. Even though the Sjug'hakar Im snouts kept together, it made his task much more difficult. He had taken to wandering about idly in the evening, under the pretext of gathering firewood or some other task, casting about for the sense of Zelika; but so far he had found nothing.

  He couldn't mindtouch with Ire as often as he would have liked; they managed to speak only once after their initial con­versation. But once or twice a day he glimpsed out of the corner of his eye a scruffy bird with mottled gray plumage: either standing like a lump on a fencepost, watching the snouts march past, or searching by the roadside for worms and beetles. He knew that Ire was showing himself to reassure Hem he was alive, and when he saw him, Hem's heart always lifted, no mat­ter how despondent he felt. It was comforting to know he had an ally in this hostile land. Sometimes, if he caught his eye, Ire would bob his head in recognition. Mixed with Hem's pleasure at seeing Ire was a terrible fear that a Hull might notice him. On the other hand, Ire was cunning enough to stay out of sight most of the time; and if you didn't look too closely, in his dyed grayish plumage he looked rather like the large meenah, birds that were very common in Den Raven.

  It occurred to Hem also that perhaps the Hulls were preoccupied with something other than watching for unkempt birds that might be spies. Even the snouts detected a growing anxiety among their captains as they neared Dagra. It was whis­pered that the Spider had been seen arguing with the other Hulls, and two Hulls had requisitioned horses and now scouted ahead of the main party. When they returned, the Hulls would gather in a huddle, seemingly debating their route.

  Hem sniffed the air uneasily:
it was heavy with a vague menace, which grew stronger the closer they came to Dagra. It was more than the mountains now looming ahead of them, brooding and grim under a cloudy skyline; or that sometimes he could see through swathes of winding vapors the Iron Tower, a dark finger of warning against the blood-colored crags of the Osidh Dagra. The very ground seemed tense and watch­ful. He was filled with foreboding.

  Despite the Hulls' precautions, the snouts walked into seri­ous trouble a day out of Dagra. Fortunately for Hem, the Sjug'hakar Im snouts were marching at the back of the column, and escaped the worst. The first Hem knew of it was confused shouting farther ahead; the snouts around him craned their necks, straining to see what was happening, as the dogsoldiers marching alongside the Blood Block suddenly ran forward.

  The snouts began to look panicky; then there was a call to order, which Hem felt like a whiplash inside his head, and their faces went blank. With the suddenness that Hem could never get used to, the snouts instantly calmed and gripped their weapons, awaiting orders from the Hulls. It seemed that they were not yet needed. Hem loosened his shortsword in its scabbard, praying that the Blood Block would not need to fight.

  He was too tired, and he lacked the frenzied energy that sorcery gave the other snouts. He wished he knew what was going on in front, but it was impossible to see past the others.

  He could tell by the noise that the fighting was drawing nearer; then a snout suddenly burst through the rows in front of Hem, tumbling over and over on the road, clearly dead, followed by a giant man who carried a spiked, bloodied club. His naked torso and shaved head were painted in zigzags of red and white; now smeared with blood, his beard was plaited in many strands twined with small bones, and his teeth were sharpened. He wore a horned helmet, iron gauntlets, and a skirt of iron links.