Ravencry

by Ed McDonald

  Nenn and I shared a look, Nenn’s brows arching in hostility. That was dangerously close to seditionist talk, inciting public discord against the ruling elite. I glanced at the clusters of nobility and saw that they nodded along. I noted, with even greater concern, how many of those small clusters were attended by high-ranking officers. Old, small Colonel Koska stood alongside a countess, enraptured by these advocates of his new god. Lieutenants, a few majors and plenty of lords and ladies stood shoulder to shoulder with newly arrived farmers, coffeehouse workers, thatchers, teachers. My father would have spat his port across the plaza to see it.

  But maybe, just maybe, there was a hunger for something slightly less corrupt. The people grew quiet, watching. They’d heard the calls to abandon the Spills, broadcast by citadel officials throughout the day, but faith was proving stronger than their fear. It must have been comforting to trust in something so strongly that they were willing to risk their lives for it. I’d never had that kind of faith in anything, except maybe Ezabeth. The irony of that was not lost on me.

  Neither Thierro nor any of the Witnesses spoke, concentrating instead on whatever they were planning.

  The song of the falling sky began, a distant, beautiful cadence rising far across the Misery. A ripple of fear shot through the crowd, children crying out. They knew what followed. Hands were linked, children clutched to breasts. But the Witnesses had their attention.

  ‘Do not be afraid!’ Thierro proclaimed, though he sounded breathless. His message was stark in contrast to the blood-neon letters on the citadel that flickered and changed to read TAKE COVER.

  As the song grew in volume, the Spinners began to glow, phos smoking from their skin in incandescent wisps. Sparks and crackles of blue-gold lightning spat around the phos drums as they grew brighter still. I needed to see this for myself, but I couldn’t look directly at them as they grew hotter, brighter, filling the whole plaza with flat white light. And then the phos surged along the wires and into the Grandspire, a stream of brilliant white-gold rushing upward, blazing out through the windows and rising floor by floor.

  Atop the Grandspire, the Iron Sun began a harsh, mechanical roar of its own, a dry-mouthed answer to the beautiful death song that brought fire down upon us. A glittering sky of stars erupted from the Iron Sun, rushing out over the city. They were joined, bright golden points of light, by blue-white threads of power, high above us. A net of energy.

  Every eye stared skywards. I saw the missile coming in, and felt the fear rise around us, an enveloping death shroud across the assembled believers. Faith suddenly seemed a misplaced defence: the sky-fire was aimed right for the fucking Grandspire, just as Valiya had said. It drew in fast, trilling its nightmare song –

  – and exploded, shattering into a cloud of twinkling sparks, high above our heads. The shield projecting out from the Grandspire held strong and that first missile disintegrated into nothing.

  ‘Holy shit,’ Nenn said, barely audible over gasps from the crowd. ‘They’re protecting us.’

  The net of sparkling light, conjured in the name of the Bright Lady, glowed over the city.

  The Spinners had to force their hands apart and attendants came forward to unwrap the wires from their wrists. As the crowd began to chant their praise for the Bright Lady, I watched the Spinners move. There was nothing holy about what they had just done. They’d focused their energy into a web and then sent it through the Grandspire, using the Iron Sun to magnify their power. I had to wonder, if the Grandspire could let them do that when it wasn’t even operating as a phos mill, what power would it command when it did? Could Thierro really try to break Ezabeth’s shadow from the light that bound it? I suddenly understood why the drudge were so determined to bring it down, even from such colossal range. If the Witnesses could do this, what else could they do?

  I should have listened to Valiya. Always, I should have listened to her.

  There was joy in the air, all around us. Real, palpable joy. The people had been losing hope, terrorised for days, and as death had hung over them, Davandein had sealed them up like kittens in a bag. They had placed their dwindling faith in the Witnesses, and they had appeared right before them, their saviours, glowing and steaming with power as a bright net of stars held back the night’s terrors. It wasn’t long before a second missile came arcing in, heading off target toward Wicks this time, but it also met the star-net and detonated harmlessly.

  People were actually laughing.

  I was not laughing.

  I was looking at Thierro.

  He’d spotted me, standing out from the crowd on the back of a massive black horse. He gave me a self-satisfied smile and tipped two fingers to me, a little salute. The same I’d given him when I stole that girl from him at a dance so many years before. A salute that said, ‘I’m winning.’ I stared back. Winning at what? Our methods might have differed, but we fought for the same side.

  Didn’t we?

  ‘People of Valengrad, loyal citizens,’ Thierro said. ‘The Bright Lady has loaned us her gift. We are merely witnesses to her power. It is she, not we humble servants, that protects you.’

  A bugle called from the back of the crowd, high and insistent. People were crammed in. They shuffled around, trying to see. I turned in my saddle to see a column of heavy cavalry on dark horses forcing their way down the Rain Boulevard. Their helmets bore rampant-dragon crests, Davandein’s Drakes. She rode at their head, decked out in her fancy armour, her dark hair bound up tight. One of her own Spinners rode alongside her with a hand against the small of her back, unobtrusive but putting his power through her. When Davandein spoke, her voice boomed across the crowded plaza, echoed from the Grandspire.

  ‘People of Valengrad. I am Range Marshal Davandein, first daughter of House Davandein. You are all under my authority. Make way.’

  Nenn and I exchanged fearful glances. Davandein had moved a lot faster than Nenn’s tip-off had suggested. Nobody made way. They glowered and gritted their teeth.

  Her timing could not have been worse.

  ‘Shit,’ I said. ‘She’s going to do something stupid.’

  Davandein had misjudged the situation, badly, and I had to stop her before this turned volatile. I began to wheel Falcon around in the press. It wasn’t going to be easy to get through to her, but Falcon was a biter and his hooves were the size of a child’s head, and even the most faithful observers didn’t want to get their feet crushed.

  People shouted, started yelling abuse as part of a general rush of noise declaring their dissatisfaction, disgust, frustration. They weren’t afraid of men on horses tonight. They’d just seen their worst fears shattered harmlessly overhead.

  ‘Range Marshal, you are welcome here,’ Thierro said. His voice was even louder than hers, augmented by his own power. I kicked at Falcon’s flanks, urging him to knock people out of the way if he had to. Davandein was blind to the public anger, and the resentment all around her, assured of her invulnerability as Range Marshal. Secure atop her fine horse.

  Range Marshal Davandein did not see herself as a politician. She had been raised to understand that the spirits had ordained her right to rule by virtue of her blood. She could trace her mother’s family back for nine generations. They had been coastal lords, taxing fisher fleets to the north of Ostermark. Her father’s family could count back seven patriarchs, and they were sea captains and men of the Range. Soldiers. Her bloodline counted counts and more than one unsuccessful bid for a princedom. She’d lost an uncle to assassination as he strove for control of Ostermark, and a famous feud had caused her grandparents to wipe out a would-be royal household in a pitched battle.

  There was no way in seven hells that she was going to take being welcomed by Thierro well. This was her city, and she was its absolute master. But she kept her composure, the straightening of her back the only sign of her anger.

  ‘Witnesses. Good people of Valengrad. I am your Rang
e Marshal.’ She looked up toward the sky. ‘We thank you for helping the city in its time of need.’

  ‘What have you done to help us?’ an angry voice came from the crowd. Davandein’s self-control was tight as she kept her focus only on the Witnesses. I kicked urgently at Falcon’s flanks.

  ‘You are my people. I am ordained by the spirits of Justice and Mercy as your protector,’ Davandein said. The words were meant to soothe, but to the crowd they were salt in a wound. ‘Witnesses. You have done great work tonight, all can see that. Undoubtedly, you have saved many lives. But, good people, you must disperse. The Spills is not safe. The Grandspire draws the fury of the drudge. I cannot keep you safe here.’

  ‘You can’t keep anyone safe anywhere!’ a heckler shouted.

  ‘Our working tonight has indeed saved many lives,’ Thierro said, his voice echoing from the stonework. The other Witnesses, the scarred man, the beauty, the crone, stood alongside him. A formidable group, even drained as they were. Enough Spinners to make anyone back down. ‘The people need no longer fear the night. They are safe beneath the Bright Lady’s shield. The Grandspire will not fall. We will not fall. But we welcome you among us, if you seek her protection.’

  Something snapped inside Davandein. I heard it in my soul. Born too high, the air too thin, for years she had been surrounded by yes-men who told her that she deserved power, that she was born to command, that others had to obey. Her growing failure to control the city had challenged that belief. She sought to reassert it now in a moment of blood-deep fury. Davandein thrust her finger forward like a lance.

  ‘While I command the Range, my orders will not be questioned. I am the Range Marshal, and this is my city. This gathering will disperse!’

  She urged her horse forward, her Drakes moving with her, just as Falcon persuaded the last of them to get out of her way.

  ‘Back down!’ I shouted, uncaring of the disrespect, forgetting her title in the sense of black panic that had welled within me. ‘Back down and get your men out of here. There will be blood.’

  Davandein looked at me, her fury contorting her face to match a gargoyle’s glower.

  ‘I will not cede control of my city to these zealots,’ she snarled. One of her Drakes moved forward to block me, a man half my age, just as tough.

  ‘Don’t do this,’ I said, but she was already pushing on into the crowd as it struggled to part, her Drakes forming a wedge around her.

  ‘The city belongs to the people, Range Marshal,’ Thierro said. ‘It always has.’

  ‘Marshal,’ I hissed. ‘Please. You can’t win here.’

  Davandein teetered on the edge. Her pride was battered, her control fraying into the wind. She glanced in my direction, and in her eyes I read the years of sycophancy falling away, the dawning realization that she was just one more body among the crowd. The circumstance of birth and capability had built her a tower on which she’d gazed out over the world and had begun to believe the legend that had grown in her mind.

  The crowd trembled. Emotions were high, balanced for a week on a blade’s edge. People had been burning and dying, and here was the woman who had done nothing about it, the woman who had trapped them, suddenly threatening the only people to have offered hope. Individual people can be highly intelligent, but put them into a mob and they change. They become something else. Something really, really fucking stupid.

  Everything went to the hells.

  A flarelock went off in the crowd, and one of the Drakes clutched at his neck and went down. Thierro tried to bring order, shouting for calm, but it was no use. Soldiers respond to threats as they have been trained and, under fire, their instincts flared. Their captain rose in his stirrups and yelled the charge. Angry, afraid, Davandein and her men spurred forward against the crowd in sudden panic as though they faced an enemy battalion instead of one idiot. Sabres rose, bright and gleaming beneath the web of stars, then sabres fell. Screaming, loud and shrill. Men, women, children. The Drakes got fifty yards into the crowd, ploughing toward the Witnesses, before they met resistance. The Bright Order’s militia flocked to the steps, formed up around their leaders.

  ‘Enough. Withdraw! Don’t fire!’ Thierro cried. But the militia’s blood was boiling and half of them only heeded the last word of his command and unleashed a volley of flarelock fire into the Drakes. Men and horses screamed, and the soldiers spurred harder. The threat they had to reach was clustered around the Witnesses and they drove a path toward them, Davandein borne along in their midst.

  ‘Spirit of Mercy,’ Nenn breathed. The Drakes had left a trampled mess of wounded and dead civilians in their wake. They were taking casualties, but they were heavily armed and armoured, rode heavy chargers, and body by body they cut a path toward the Witnesses. They didn’t seem to care whether those bodies were men, women or children. Only that they were in the way. The Drakes were as protective of their commander as the Bright Order were of their prophets.

  ‘Stand down!’ Thierro screamed, but it was no longer clear to whom he was giving orders.

  The Drakes’ captain reached the steps, his warhorse bloody, his sabre rising high.

  The scarred Witness had had enough. He raised his hands and let fly. The lead Drake was torn from his horse, and then the other Witnesses joined him.A series of blinding, silent flashes detonated among the soldiers. Horses screamed as they were torn in two. Men were silenced as they became pieces of men and a warm rain fell across the scattering crowd. The Drakes’ advance was hurled back and Thierro stepped forward. His eyes were ablaze with white light, his body smoked with a Spinner’s power. His robe had burned away from his torso, revealing the massive, swirled burn scars that covered his chest, oversmooth skin framed by a circle of chest hair. ‘You gave me no choice, Range Marshal,’ he boomed, looking down on her and the men that remained to her. Her horse was dead, and there was blood in her hair, across her face. Davandein was not the only one to have been pushed past breaking point. Phos steamed from Thierro’s fingers, judgment blazed on his face. Had he wanted to, he could have obliterated them all there and then. ‘This is no longer your city, Davandein.’

  The Range Marshal saw that the game was up. Her best men were dead, her Spinner had been killed. She rose slowly, standing small and fragile amidst the wreckage. Unable to believe. Unable to accept the breaking of her power. A man pulled her up to share his saddle, and she gathered together what remained of her personal troops and fled the city, beating a trail west toward Lennisgrad.

  By dawn, a second banner had joined the Range’s emblem above the citadel. A woman’s silhouette against a field of gold. The Bright Order.

  I should have been able to do something. Anything. But I was just a man with a sword and a handful of thugs in my control, and so I sat and drank and watched as the remaining officers welcomed High Witness Thierro into the citadel and declared the Witnesses the protectors of Valengrad.

  16

  I brought my people together and told them what had gone down. How things stood in the city now. After their light show and shield, the Bright Order were the Guardians of the Range.

  The generals had remained loyal to Davandein and beat a retreat with her. They’d not seen it prudent to risk long-standing positions for a change in the wind, or to remain in a city under siege. Colonel Koska, who I’d seen among the crowd in the plaza, was the highest ranker left. He met with High Witness Thierro, and they agreed to share power temporarily while an envoy was sent to the grand prince requesting that he install a new marshal. The Order didn’t go as far as to declare themselves lords of the Range. Thierro was running his show with a diplomat’s touch.

  Outside, celebrations rang through the streets. People were dead, their bodies cooling in makeshift morgues, but somehow the populace felt liberated. They waited for the shield to rise over the city again that night, as though the Bright Order’s defiance of the drudge’s missiles were some kind of victory. Maybe it was
.

  My own little group was more realistic about the situation we now found ourselves in. Tnota, Casso, Maldon and I sat together over a few bottles of Whitelande firewater and tried to plan a new move. Valiya sipped her tea.

  ‘Our situation is unchanged,’ I said, having thought about it long and hard. ‘The Eye is still our priority, and until it’s back in that vault we’ll keep hunting for it. What happens to the city next depends on how the grand prince reacts and at a guess, he will appoint a new marshal. Probably Marshal Herrich, from Three-Six. If not, then Marshal Ngoya, down at Station Four. Either way, our duty is to retrieve the Eye.’

  ‘At least people are being allowed out of the city now,’ Casso said. He had a sweaty look about him, eyes a little fried.

  ‘That what you want? You want to get out of here?’

  ‘The bombardment isn’t over,’ he said. ‘I been thinking about it.’

  ‘You’re free to go if you want to,’ I said. ‘I won’t hold you here against your will. You aren’t sworn to serve.’

  He thought about it a few moments, looking increasingly uncomfortable.

  ‘Reckon I’ll stay for now,’ he said. I nodded, poured him another drink and whizzed it across the table to him. It’s the small gestures that we remember the most. Loyalty is more easily bought with a few cups of spirit than salary or duty.

  ‘I need to go,’ Casso said, embarrassed, shortly before dark. He’d wanted to see the gathering in the Grandspire’s plaza for himself. A yellow scarf protruded from his pocket – didn’t want to put it on in front of us. I made no comment, but my own people were starting to believe as well.

  The siren began right alongside the song and the night’s terrors had begun. We watched through the window as the shield appeared over the city again, a glowing web of stars across the night.