Crowfall

by Ed McDonald

  ‘She bloody well can’t,’ he said. He had that pricey sword at his belt, more pistols, and we had shit all except a heavy metal box and whatever strength the climb across the ice planes had left us with. ‘If I wanted you downed or even winged, I’d have done it already. You’re a tough old thing, neh? Do you have the fiend’s heart?’

  ‘What do you know about it?’ Amaira snapped.

  ‘You’re not the only ones with connections to those above,’ he said, a sardonic smile hovering over a pointed chin. He stood a dozen paces away and put his pistols through his belt. They weren’t any less dangerous where he’d just put them. ‘You must be Captain Amaira. And this must be Winter. A pleasure to meet you all. My name is North. You’re to accompany me.’

  ‘Not trying to end me, this time?’ I asked.

  ‘What can I say? I’ve mellowed. The Lady of Waves perceived you as a threat to the Range. Nobody should be out there soaking up those toxins, or helping the mad count destroy phos mills. She’ll get to you later, but for now, the Nameless seem to want us to work together. Nobody gives a shit about Dantry Tanza anymore anyway, and Marshal Davandein would be furious if I killed you.’

  Do not trust the Nameless.

  ‘You’re one of the Lady of Waves’ captains.’

  ‘At your service. Well, not exactly. At your back, maybe? I know what you have there. I’m to convey you to the citadel.’

  ‘My last trip there didn’t go well,’ I said.

  ‘I can imagine,’ North smiled. ‘But it’s not really a request. If you refuse to come with me sensibly, I’ll shoot your knees out and send some men to carry you. The marshal thought that a greeting party of one would be better than a few dozen men to march you there.’

  ‘If you go back there, it’s the rack,’ Valiya said. She was right, although I wondered if they had a big enough one to pull me apart. I’d survived worse.

  ‘Times have changed in the month you’ve been gone. The Lady doesn’t care about a few exploded phos mills anymore. It’s all about Adrogorsk now, and she needs you to find it.’

  ‘She wants me to find Adrogorsk for her?’

  ‘That’s the size of it.’

  ‘Tell her to get a navigator,’ I said.

  ‘They’ve tried,’ North said. ‘But they can’t find it. It’s moved. Or gone. But you – you could find it, couldn’t you, Galharrow? Crowfoot wants you to take the fiend’s heart there. Yes, the Lady of Waves has explained the Nameless’ plan to me in magnificent detail. We’re all on the same side. Funny how things work out, neh?’

  ‘So that’s it? We’re supposed to be friends now?’ I said. North inclined his head towards me.

  ‘Friends might be pushing it. I won’t shoot you right now though, that will have to be a start. Shall we be getting along? We’ll have to walk, and rain’s due. None of us want to be caught out in that.’

  I conferred with Valiya and Amaira. He was right that he could shoot our legs out, and there wasn’t much that any of us could do about it. He wasn’t going to let any of us close enough to rush him. And the heart did need to be delivered. North was one of the Lady of Waves’ captains. That made him ruthless, competent but ultimately, maybe, our side.

  ‘The truth is, without the citadel’s help, Crowfoot’s weapon isn’t going to be deployed,’ Valiya said. ‘If it’s to stop King Acradius, then we need a Spinner.’

  ‘Not just a Spinner,’ Amaira said. ‘Vasilov said it would take a phos loom big enough to handle the sudden rush of power. The kind of lenses they have in the floors of the Grandspire. We can’t get that stuff out there without Davandein’s help. We need her on our side.’

  ‘You really think she’s forgotten about Dantry?’ I asked.

  ‘No, not for a moment,’ Valiya said. ‘But this is bigger. This isn’t just a few broken mills. This is the Range we’re talking about. She’ll see the bigger picture, for now at least.’

  ‘I wish that I trusted Davandein’s decision making as much as you do,’ I said. But I didn’t see that I had a whole lot of choice in the matter.

  Nenn rode beside us. Or at least, she kind of drifted alongside us as if there were a horse underneath her. Nobody else saw her. She chattered on about putting chillies into beer and how she was planning to climb the Obsidian Mountains at the Misery’s northern edge. She stayed for longer than she had before and was quite content to gabble on to herself. I did my best to ignore her, and instead examined the black veins under my skin. They’d grown thicker, harder since I fell down the chasm shaft. They ran across my palms now, bled into my fingernails. I was tired. So damn tired that I could have used a week in bed. My stomach hadn’t forgotten how hungry I was, either, and I drifted in and out of the conversation.

  North filled us in. He kept a good distance to be certain that none of us were going to make any sudden moves, but we were ragged, dotted with scrapes and scabs and at the end of our strength. I wasn’t doing any better than Valiya, and only Amaira’s youth kept her striding along easily. Kids are indestructible, never-ending energy letting them blaze ahead no matter what.

  The drudge had raised a new army on their side of the Misery, and it was ready to start moving. Our scouts never went that far, but we had it from the Nameless. The Lady of Waves was awake for once, risen from her usual slumber and passing us information. They were all putting their gamble on empowering the fiend’s heart at Adrogorsk before Acradius could get close enough to Valengrad to take out Nall’s Engine. All of that was being kept from the populace, but North seemed to assume we were as well informed as he was. It seemed all too reminiscent of the Heart of the Void for my liking. Crowfoot’s last ultimate weapon had shattered the sky and brought the Misery into the world. Nobody could be feeling good about that, and I didn’t like to think how the sky would take a second impact of that kind, or of the results for the world if it had to.

  As we drew closer, I could feel the Misery, away beyond the horizon. She reached out to me. Her presence quested into my mind, spreading through the black veins beneath my skin. She urged me to return, longing, morose. I was a piece lost from the game board, and the game wasn’t as much fun without me. She loomed vast, full of promise, and part of me quested back towards her, searching for her embrace. I would change and change again, she told me, and I would welcome it.

  An army was camped out beyond the walls. Davandein had raised troops, a huge force. I’d never seen so many men in one encampment. Good. We’d need them.

  I tried to get a better read on North. We didn’t mention the fact that he’d tried to kill me, or that he’d badly mistreated people that I cared about. I considered asking if he’d been the one to take out Linette and Josaf, but there was no point to that kind of discussion: he had no reason to tell me the truth, and I had no power to pull it from him. That he was one of the Lady’s captains was troubling. Had his decision to strike at me been his choice, or her order? He talked cheerfully enough, though, confident, relaxed. All in a day’s work for a captain. I toyed with the idea of taking him out now, because I knew that one day I was going to have to, but I was in no condition for it. Every part of me found a way to ache as we made the slow journey back to the city.

  ‘Red geese,’ North said after the walls came into sight. The brickwork was still pitted and scarred from the cannon fire that Davandein’s army had put into them. Overhead, a V of scarlet birds passed by. North drew one of his pistols, squinted, and fired it off with a crack. One of the geese fell away from the formation and spiralled downwards. An impossible shot, really, but we were all impossible people in one way or another and I’d given up being amazed by pretty much anything. Maybe he was showing off, or maybe it was a warning.

  We stopped at the gates. North told the sergeants to fetch an escort, and shortly after we were led to the citadel.

  Suffice to say, I did not like the escort that came to meet us.

  Sixteen oversized,
bone-white figures in thick black robes advanced silently down the street, red-eyed, hard-boned and staring. They didn’t seem to have any more interest in us than they did in the other people on the street, which meant that they noted everyone, appraising them the same way that I would look at spits of meat on a street vendor’s grill.

  Spinner Kanalina rode at their head.

  ‘Back again,’ she said. ‘I didn’t think you’d be coming.’

  ‘Pleasure’s all mine,’ I said. Kanalina looked to the box in Amaira’s hands.

  ‘Is that it?’ she said, a new reverence in her voice.

  ‘It is,’ Amaira said.

  ‘It’s so small.’

  ‘You try carrying it,’ Amaira answered. Kanalina nodded.

  ‘Captain North, if you could take it from here. The Lady will be pleased to know it has arrived safely.’ We didn’t have any capacity to argue the point. Amaira pried the cold lead away from her palms and North held on to it like he’d been given a box containing eternal life rather than the long-frozen heart of a nightmare.

  ‘Welcome back, Captain. And Winter, if I’m not mistaken. The marshal is waiting for you. Let’s go.’

  People cleared the way for us. There were soldiers everywhere, not just in black citadel uniforms but mercenaries in garish reds and yellows, blues and greens. The army camp lay outside the city, but plenty of the recruits seemed to have found their way into the city. The last time I’d known Davandein to raise an army, it had not gone well for us. They scurried away from the eight-foot-tall warriors.

  ‘Are they all out of their eggs now?’ I asked.

  ‘Nearly. Seventeen so far, and more daily,’ Kanalina said. She didn’t seem nervous around them. Perhaps she should have been. They responded easily to her directions. I didn’t think that First was amongst them; he had been slightly bigger if my memory served, but they all looked identical except for varying degrees of ritual scarring across their sharp cheekbones and hairless jawlines.

  A man was pinning up Missing Person posters on a corner, for a friend disappeared two days before. His posters were not the only ones showing the crudely drawn faces of loved ones. When he saw the Marble Guard approaching, he paled and hurried away.

  They gave us time to take a bath and clean up before being presented to the marshal. It had only been a day to us, but the Duskland Gate had stolen time. They didn’t have any clothes that would fit me so I ended up wearing my tattered stuff, still stained from sweat and snagged from the ice. We weren’t being treated as prisoners, despite the escorts. We were honoured guests. Sort of. A servant waited outside the room with a pair of Davadein’s Drakes, her personal guard. She’d rebuilt their numbers in the years since she reclaimed power. I sent the servant off to bring me food. When I’d eaten the whole platter, I coughed up black shit, then sent him off to find me more. A few turkey legs hadn’t been enough. I could have eaten a whole flock.

  Amaira had got herself cleaned up and joined me in the sitting room. She looked well enough, other than being underfed and in need of a haircut. Her clothes had been in worse shape than mine, but they’d found her some uniform breeches, a shirt, and a jacket that fit her well enough. They’d let her have a standard-issue sword as well.

  ‘I’m sorry about Vasilov,’ I said when we sat down before the fire.

  ‘So am I,’ she said, and meant it. ‘He and Linette were the good ones. We’re running low on friends, Ryhalt.’ Her eyes took a fierce light. ‘We should have just killed Silpur.’

  ‘Maybe. If there was one bastard out there that might survive the Long Men it was probably him. He’s trapped up there, regardless. He won’t be bothering us again. Were you and Vasilov close?’

  ‘We’d been stuffed up together in that hole for nearly three days, as near as I can tell,’ Amaira said. ‘He seemed like a decent enough sort, for a Blackwing captain.’ She looked me over critically, looking at the scaly pebbling along my cheeks, the metallic sheen to my skin, and the undying light in my eyes. ‘We crossed a line, Ryhalt,’ she said.

  ‘It had to be crossed.’

  ‘Crowfoot will know he lost two more captains.’

  ‘He will. But he can’t do anything about it. You saw what came out of Silpur’s arm. Crowfoot’s power is broken. He doesn’t have anything left. Whatever happened during the Crowfall, he lost everything. Nall too. The Lady of Waves and Shallowgrave will be running the show now. Crowfoot’s just a whisper.’

  ‘Like Ezabeth,’ Amaira said.

  ‘I’m not sure she’s even that much, now,’ I said. Amaira felt the pain in my words and came to sit beside me, an arm across my shoulder the way that Nenn used to do. I’d helped to raise Amaira as a kid, but she was grown now, fighting her own battles without complaint. She’d grown up strong. Something to be grateful for.

  ‘So,’ Amaira said, changing the subject. Her eyes took on a knowing gleam that had never been there as a child. ‘How do you feel about seeing Valiya again?’

  ‘She’s different,’ I said.

  ‘Well, obviously she’s different,’ Amaira said. ‘We’re all different, aren’t we. That’s not what I’m asking you. The silver hair suits her, don’t you think?’

  I gave Amaira a frown, but she just laughed at me behind her hand and I flushed, which probably looked pretty weird through my copper skin.

  ‘It’s been a long time,’ I said. ‘I’m still glad that we have her on our side.’

  As if talking about her had summoned her, Valiya joined us. She looked troubled, which was difficult for somebody with mirrors for eyes, but easy for someone who’d been through our ordeal.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. She drew back a sleeve and traced her fingers up and down the numbers. Swiped them across, aggressively, started digging her nails against the skin. I went to her and took hold of her wrist. Long red welts tracked across the numbers and lines that moved, swirling and changing. ‘I can’t control them anymore,’ she said. ‘They’re moving too fast. I can’t read them. Can’t understand them. None of it makes any sense anymore. Like this one.’ She stabbed her finger at an equation that would have baffled the professors of mathematics at the university. ‘It’s wrong. The numbers don’t add up.’

  I ushered her into a chair.

  ‘The world is reeling,’ I said. ‘Maybe that’s it.’ But she shook her head and stared at the numbers flowing together and dissipating into nothing across her skin.

  ‘Put it away,’ Amaira said gently.

  ‘But I need it,’ Valiya said desperately. ‘It was the deal. I can help with this. Nall told me that I had to be part of it, whatever was to come. That I have to see it out to the end. He gave me this. As my weapon. But it’s all wrong. There’s a key to it all. There has to be a way to win.’

  Amaira drew Valiya’s sleeve down.

  ‘You’re still you, whether you have the key or not,’ she said gently. ‘We’re going to win. Of course we are. It will all have been worth it, in the end.’

  Amaira and I shared a look. I could only think of one reason that Nall’s gift might be starting to falter, and she knew it too. Valiya must have, if she was honest with herself. The Nameless didn’t make mistakes. Not often.

  21

  The ghost that wasn’t Nenn, but thought that it was Nenn, joined me for the walk up to the roof. Range Marshal Davandein liked to meet people there, because it put her on top of things. She’d summoned us one by one, and I went last. She stood alone on the roof, her clutter of attendants unusually absent. She still dressed like she was striking a new fashion, half uniform and half ball gown.

  ‘They’d told me it was bad,’ Davandein said. ‘Should I trust you, looking like that?’

  ‘You can choose to trust me or not,’ I said. ‘It’s all one to me.’

  ‘Gurling Stracht had the same look,’ she said. ‘But he picked it up o
ver forty years in the Misery. You’ve done this to yourself deliberately. Haven’t you?’

  ‘I don’t like to leave things to chance.’

  ‘Why did you do it? What madness made you do this to yourself?’

  ‘I decided to find my own way through the war.’

  Davandein played with one of the many delicate, priceless rings that sparkled on her fingers.

  ‘You’ve been in there since we crushed the Bright Order, and you navigate the Misery alone. Whatever you’ve done to yourself, you’ve learned some new tricks.’ Her intelligence was good.

  ‘You’re planning to march on Adrogorsk,’ I said.

  Davandein was calm. I’d seen her in a rage, I’d seen her desperate, and I’d seen her make a terrible decision that had cost a lot of innocent people everything they had. But today, at the seat of her power, there was a cool stillness about her.

  ‘The Lady of Waves ordered it three weeks ago. Shallowgrave has sent the Marble Guard to support us.’

  I wasn’t convinced that that was a good thing.

  ‘You’ve spoken with the Lady directly?’

  Davandein took a deep breath.

  ‘I have. I understand now, Galharrow. I understand what they are, and I know that we don’t have a choice. She gave me a glimpse of what she can see, knowledge carried through the clouds, deposited back into the sea. The Deep Kings have amassed a new army of warriors. A new breed of drudge, stronger, harder. Many thousands of them, drawn from all corners of their empire. But Acradius holds the power of something they call “The Sleeper.” Power beyond anything we’ve seen before.’

  Davandein turned to the crenellations and placed her hands on the wall. She stared out across the wasteland, the craters that the Engine had punched into the earth a reminder of the power it had taken to stop them ten years ago.

  ‘The Engine can’t stop it.’

  ‘The Lady does not believe so.’

  ‘I know the plan that the Lady has given you,’ I said. ‘Take the fiend’s heart to Adrogorsk, and empower it during the eclipse. It’s a bold move. But that much phos causes a problem. The backlash paradox means we can’t use it. The more phos you expend, the greater the backlash – it’s how Nall’s Engine works. So what can we use it for?’