Crowfall

by Ed McDonald

  ‘Where have you been, Galharrow? What have you been doing? They all ask; the other captains, the citadel, even the Office of Urban Security. They all want to know where you went. Nobody’s seen you in half a decade and now here you are. Stranger than a blue robin, sounding like you’ve swallowed a toad. Davandein wants you arrested for working with the mad count.’

  That was news to me, but I wasn’t surprised. I ran it through my mind, but I didn’t think that North was working for the citadel. He’d not been trying to take me in. He’d been looking to put me down.

  ‘Where did Crowfoot send you?’ Klaunus asked.

  His assumption was wrong, and he was breaching etiquette by asking, if he thought I’d been on a mission.

  ‘Working towards the greater good. I’m sure you’ve been doing the same here.’ I made a dismissive gesture towards his papers and strings. Klaunus’ eyes lost some of their welcome, and I regretted doing it. Klaunus wasn’t my enemy, and I’d been the one to seek him out.

  ‘Someone tried to take me out, up at Four-Four. A southerner calling himself North – he was quick, skilled, and professional. Linette and Josaf are already down. We’re being hunted.’

  ‘A concerted effort against Blackwing?’ Klaunus said. His brows drew in. ‘Two dead captains is suspicious. A third attempt leads towards conspiracy. North is not a common name. I’ll look into it.’ He squinted at his wall of papers and strings.

  ‘What have you heard about Linette and Josaf? Any leads?’

  ‘The citadel passed me information about them.’ He frowned. ‘Josaf took a dagger in the spine, Linette took a wire across the throat,’ he said. ‘Not shot, not stabbed. That’s a hit, not some kind of random accident. I believe you’re right. Nobody carries a garrotte without meaning to use it, and she wasn’t the kind to let her guard down. There was one lead to Linette’s killing. A description of a stranger.’

  ‘That’s more than I heard,’ I said. ‘Anything useful?’

  ‘Not really. One of the staff claims she saw a Darling skulking around the night Linette died.’

  ‘Darlings don’t garrotte people. They tear them apart,’ I said. ‘And there hasn’t been a Darling on the Range in a long while. More likely just a child.’

  ‘I thought the same, but you asked what I’ve heard. I put a Smother-ward on the door before you came in, just in case you were lying about your identity to my doorman. It pays to be careful.’

  In a way I was glad that I’d not known about the ward. Klaunus was a Mute, and I know fewer details about a Mute’s sorcery than I do about the detail of my own arse, but suffice to say that they could kill with silent precision. Crowfoot liked to indenture sorcerers when he could: Captain Vasilov was a Spinner, and I had no fucking clue what Silpur was, but nobody ought to be able to move as fast as he did.

  ‘I figure I have a new lead for you,’ I said. I shared the story about the dark-haired man up at Fortunetown but Klaunus just wrote the information down and pinned it to his wall without any semblance of enthusiasm. He was drained, depleted, and I was disappointed. Had his tower room not indicated a fastidious need to clean, I might have wondered if his lugubrious mood could have pointed to a Sapler taking hold of him, but hiding places for the little shits were few. I’d hoped he might have had some idea who’d set the attack dogs on me. Only he didn’t seem to know much of anything, alone and isolated in his tower. He’d had no news about Vasilov, Silpur, or Amaira in a long time. The resident captain in Valengrad was supposed to be the focal point, to keep track of where Crowfoot’s hands were and what they were gripping onto. I’d done it myself for the best part of twenty years. Now that there were only five of us left – assuming that the others were all still alive – it seemed more important than ever to coordinate. I had to find someone who had real intelligence to share.

  ‘Another name came up. Winter. You know who that is?’

  ‘Doesn’t mean anything to me,’ Klaunus said. I nodded. I only knew of Winter’s existence because Nall had named him in the Misery. It had been a long shot, but I had so little to go on, every avenue had to be explored.

  Klaunus scanned a bunch of his lists and came away shaking his head. ‘The citadel is looking for you, but I doubt that Davandein would resort to murderous hirelings. She likes to wave her banners about too much. It’s more important that she has her name paraded around in victory than it is to win the victory in the first place. Word on the wind says she intends to marry Grand Prince Vercanti and has designs on succeeding him as the first Marshal-Prince. She just might do it as well, if she can win one big victory. She’s talked about retaking Adrogorsk.’

  Even after all this time, the name made me flinch.

  ‘Idiocy,’ I said.

  ‘I thought you might feel that way,’ Klaunus said. Even that didn’t bring a smile to his dour face. ‘Sometimes I think I’m running an empty mission here. I have little by way of resources. That boy on the door is all I can afford from the pittance the citadel throws me – just enough to keep a foot in the door in case Crowfoot ever returns. But he won’t, will he? He might not be dead, but he’s done. I can feel it.’

  ‘It never pays to count Crowfoot out,’ I said. Something had tugged at my mind. ‘That boy on the door. How much do you pay him?’

  ‘Two hundred a week,’ Klaunus said bitterly. ‘Barely enough to keep him housed. He’s got less intuition than a chicken and half the agency. Sitting at the door is about all he’s good for.’

  ‘And you didn’t give him a timepiece? Or a jewel for his ear?’

  Klaunus seemed perplexed by the questions. It had never even occurred to him to see the details. The cream barely take notice of those swirling in the drains below.

  ‘Of course not. He’s not my lover, if that’s what you’re asking. I don’t turn my sheets that way.’

  ‘I wasn’t. But if you aren’t paying him well, and you aren’t, then you aren’t his only income source. Damn it, Klaunus. He’s in someone else’s pay right under your nose.’

  Klaunus frowned, then took out a piece of paper and began to write down exactly what I’d just told him. He pinned it to the wall, frowning at it as though it were a piece in a greater puzzle. He might be going through the motions, but he was spent. He was no use to me. But that was good, for both of us; he wasn’t going to oppose me when it came time to throw back the curtain, either.

  I was out of the door in a matter of seconds, clattering down the unstable staircase. Klaunus called something after me but I was already gone. So was the lad, when I got down to the ground. He’d no doubt run straight to Davandein the moment I was through the door. I pushed through the ring of fog that circled the clock tower and found them waiting for me.

  9

  Two men had just dismounted and tethered their hard-ridden horses to an iron rail. They were the kind of men you notice when you don’t want to be noticed yourself, tough, wiry men with short hair and hard eyes. Serious men with serious swords, enough scars between them to show they’d been in a few scrapes, few enough to say they’d come out of them well. They saw me emerge like a revenant through the fog.

  ‘It’s been a long time, Captain,’ the taller of the two said. He was in his thirties, hair receding into a widow’s peak. His shorter friend moved out a few paces.

  ‘It has. Good to see you, Casso,’ I said. He’d been on my payroll once, my top Blackwing enforcer. I hadn’t seen him since I got lost in the Misery. He’d gone over to the Bright Order and I’d assumed he’d died in Davandein’s attack. ‘Looks like you found yourself a new line of work.’

  ‘I work for the Office of Urban Security now,’ he said. He’d always been a terse, serious man, seldom wearing a smile. That hadn’t changed. ‘The marshal wants to see you.’

  ‘If I wanted to see the marshal, I know where to find her,’ I said. ‘Do the smart thing, Casso. Don’t make me tell you to fuck off.’

&nbs
p; He was calm despite my antagonism. Urban Security are a step above the street watch. Where the latter dealt with petty gangs and swept the beggars off the temple steps, the Office of Urban Security played the long game, pushing and pulling on behalf of princes and the military. Casso had never had a problem dealing with dangerous men getting tetchy.

  ‘Won’t take long,’ he said. ‘The marshal can be pretty generous. She’s mellowed out, isn’t that right, Tate?’

  ‘Sure has,’ the other man agreed. He was a lumpy sort, hard to tell where flab came to an end and the muscle started. He watched me, arms folded.

  ‘If you ever thought that money motivated me then I guess you weren’t paying attention,’ I said. ‘I’ll thank you not to patronise me. We both know that wouldn’t end well for anyone.’

  ‘Looks like you’ve been out in the Misery a long time,’ Casso said. ‘Looks like it’s taking its toll. Isn’t doing your skin no good, and your eyes ain’t exactly right.’

  ‘And here I thought I was entering a beauty contest.’

  Casso didn’t smile. He’d grown leaner, harder still in the days since Saravor’s attempt to seize power.

  ‘I’m asking nice for old times’ sake,’ he said calmly. He tucked his thumbs through his belt, shoulders back, confident. ‘But don’t take my friendliness for fear of you. You were something real special back in the day, but you’ve been through the hells since and we’re all on the same side here. We just need you to answer a few questions.’

  I could already imagine the shape of their questions. Where is Dantry Tanza? When was the last time you saw Dantry Tanza? Why did he destroy the phos mill at Heirengrad? At Snosk? How did he overload the battery coils? What’s your involvement with his criminal activities?

  You don’t remember? Perhaps a week in the white cells will set your mind straight.

  A coughing fit seized me and I hacked some black-and-green nightmare slime into my hand.

  ‘Maybe it ain’t fair to beat on a sick man,’ Casso said. ‘But you don’t want to come nice, then we don’t have much choice, do we?’

  ‘The moment you touch that hilt, you lose your fucking hand,’ I snarled. ‘I might look old to you, but when I say I don’t go where I don’t want to, you better believe I’m telling the truth.’

  Tendrils of the ensorcelled fog curled around my feet. Tate mustered forwards alongside Casso. He was ready to go, his hand moving slowly towards his hilt.

  ‘No,’ Casso said.

  ‘We have to take him in,’ Tate said.

  ‘No. He’s right. It wouldn’t go easy.’ Maybe he had learned something from me after all. ‘Is it true, Captain? Are you in league with Count Tanza? He’s the most wanted man in the states.’

  ‘I haven’t seen Dantry Tanza in six years,’ I said. ‘I’ve no idea where he is.’

  ‘More of us will come,’ Casso said. ‘Now that she knows you’re here, Davandein won’t stop until she has you. Bringing in Count Tanza is the win she needs to secure her place alongside Vercanti. Maybe then this talk of Adrogorsk will stop. Tanza’s dangerous and he’s a traitor. Time was, you’d have been hunting him down alongside us.’

  ‘All things change,’ I said. ‘The world’s not what it was.’

  ‘We were just the first to get the message,’ Casso said. ‘We’ll still have you before tomorrow night. You’re only delaying, which only makes it harder for you.’

  ‘I’ll take my chances.’

  Casso nodded slowly. I turned and walked away down a darkened alley. I was glad that he’d learned some sense from me. I didn’t exactly like Casso, but I respected him. He was only doing his job and he was right that upon a time I’d have been doing it too. They didn’t understand the importance Dantry’s work entailed. Innocents had been caught in the crossfire, but if Casso had learned something from me, then I’d learned something from Crowfoot in turn. You can’t save everyone.

  I headed back to Pikes and checked over my makeup disguise. Meeting Klaunus hadn’t given me much of anything, but I was worried over what he’d said about Shallowgrave damaging the citadel. If King Acradius had a new way to strike at the citadel, the last thing we needed was our own wizards doing his work for him. Shallowgrave had always been strange, even by the standards of the Nameless.

  I was hungry, so I went down to the bar and added a platter of flatbread and cheese to the tab. The cheese was hard, the bread harder, but after six months of the same three lumps of mutton and pottage, anything different was delicious. When I was done I asked for scrambled egg and bacon. My throat was sore after another round of choking up slime, and simple food seemed like a spirit-sent luxury.

  Tnota joined me and ordered a round of beers. I sipped mine slowly. I almost felt afraid of it, but it was small beer, and it would take half a dozen pints to even give me a glow.

  ‘How did it go?’

  ‘Badly,’ I said. ‘Klaunus has lost his way. I think that losing Crowfoot has cracked him. It’s a shame. He was always a prick, but he was powerful once. Remember that den of Brides that tried setting up in Snosk? He shut them down all by himself. It’s a shame he won’t be much help.’

  ‘So what’s the plan?’ Tnota said. ‘Still want to try to find this Winter character?’

  ‘I do. Whoever he is, Winter’s Nall’s captain and he managed to track me down to the Misery. He’s our best chance of finding out who’s trying to take me out.’

  ‘Davandein seems to be eager enough.’

  ‘She might want to talk to me, and she might be swollen with her own importance but her heart’s in the right place. Most of it, anyway. She needs the Range to be kept safe, and hurting Crowfoot’s people wouldn’t help that.’

  Davandein wanted to bring me in. The dark-haired man, North, wanted to bring me down, and the Deep Kings shared his sentiment. Maybe I should have been flattered. I was awfully popular.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Tnota asked.

  ‘If this Winter is as good as I think he is then he’ll find me, now that the Office of Urban Security knows I’m here. I’m going to check for word from Dantry at the drop-off. I haven’t been there in a while.’

  ‘We’ll check it in the morning,’ Tnota said. He downed the last few mouthfuls of his beer and signalled for more. Drink takes a toll over the years, and Tnota had been paying it as age crept over him. Back when we’d first met, we’d have chugged the suds until dawn and rolled down the street laughing, but those days were long gone.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ll check it.’ I took a deep breath. I’d made my mind up on the way back from the clock tower. ‘I want you and Giralt to find a caravan and head west.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  I sighed. It was going to be hard to say it. Hard for him, because he wouldn’t want to hear it, and hard for me because it meant the end of something that had mattered a lot to me down the years. But I’d thought on it all the way down from Fortunetown, and it was the only thing my conscience allowed.

  ‘You’re too old for this, Tnota. You aren’t as spry as you were, and what happened back there in Fortunetown – that was my fault. Around me you’re in danger, and you’ve not the constitution for it.’

  ‘Don’t get all weepy over me, Ryhalt,’ Tnota said. He tried to keep how offended he was from his face, but he’d never been good at wearing masks. ‘I always knew the risks that came from riding with you. I never backed out of them before, and I don’t plan to now.’

  ‘You rode with me because we got paid, and we had a job to do,’ I said. ‘But this job is mine and mine alone.’

  ‘Is that what you think?’ he said bitterly. ‘Just another common mercenary?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘At first maybe. But then you rode with us because you cared for me, and for Nenn, and we all rode for each other. But you’ve someone else to ride for now, and I can’t take you away from him. I had my chance with Ezabeth a
nd I lost it. I had another with Valiya, and I fucked that up too. You and Giralt have something worth keeping, and I can’t let that be traded for the small help you can give me. I don’t need you to navigate for me, and you don’t have any other skills that I can use.’

  ‘You need me,’ Tnota said.

  ‘I don’t. You’re not even another pair of hands,’ I said brutally. The words hung like knives between us. It was true: I didn’t need Tnota anymore. He couldn’t fight, he couldn’t charm information out of anyone, and his navigating skills were no longer even equal to my own. And at the same time it was a lie: I needed him very much. But not more than he needed to see something decent at the end of his life.

  ‘So you send us away, and then what?’

  I reached into my coat pocket and took out a small parcel that I’d been saving. It wasn’t going to be useful for much longer. Tugging open the strings, I showed him a glimpse of what lay inside. Tnota inhaled sharply as he saw the light reflect from the clear, sharp stones.

  ‘Misery diamonds,’ I said, drawing the strings tight again. I pushed it across the table towards him. ‘A small fortune, if you sell them in the next few days. Enough to get you and Giralt across the states. Enough to take you all the way to Valaigne, if you want to go that far. Giralt can start a new business. You can make a peaceful life for the two of you. But you’ve only got a few more days to spend them, at best, before they turn to sand, as they always do. Sell them for real money and get out of here. I’ll work more easily without the threat that someone might get hold of you and use you against me.’

  He was imagining it. A life far from here, leagues away from the cracked and wailing sky. A business for Giralt to run, to give him back something of the life he’d crafted for himself. Retirement from the never-ending war between the Nameless and the Deep Kings. A chance to get off the bottle and make whatever he could of the years that remained to him. He lowered his eyes.