by K. J. Parker
All in all, he decided, as he gave the knife blade a few last touches with the stone, he'd had worse days. Which wasn't to say he was reconciled to this absurd system, whereby he was being politely frogmarched into a life and a line of work that he didn't like and wasn't good at; but when he compared this existence with what he'd been through on the other side of the ocean, there wasn't really any need to stop and think before choosing. Quite apart from the comforts and the security, he hadn't had to kill anybody since he'd arrived. That was the sort of thing he shouldn't get into the habit of taking for granted.
'I think I'm calling it a day,' Asburn said. 'How about you?'
'I think that'll-' Poldarn began, and got no further. Three bangs, absurdly loud, shook the floor and filled the air.
'What the hell-?' Asburn muttered; but Poldarn knew exactly what it was. Rook had mentioned them last time, he remembered distinctly because he'd been in the forge when they happened, and they'd been drowned out by the sound of his hammer. Well, he'd heard them all right this time, no question about that.
'The mountain,' Asburn said.
They ran outside and looked over the house roof. The first thing Poldarn noticed was how dark it had become. It took him rather longer to figure out why; the cloud of ash billowing out of the mountain was now so huge and thick that it was blocking out the sun.
'Not very good,' Asburn said.
Apparently he wasn't the only one who thought so; a mob of crows who'd been sitting on the middle-house roof flew up with a chorus of furious screaming and shrieking, and swirled in a barely controlled spiral over the house roofs. They're lost, Poldarn was shocked to realise, they don't know where they are or how to get to where they want to be. Somehow, that was almost more worrying than the sight of the volcano itself. He had no idea why they were having such problems, or even whether it was to do with the ash cloud or the mountain at all; but he'd been watching rooks and crows all his life (he could remember watching them) and he'd never seen anything like this before.
'Bloody stupid birds,' Asburn said, as a group of six or more sailed right over their heads, almost close enough to reach with a pitchfork or a long rake. 'It's like they can't hear their friends over in the long copse.'
The colony in the long copse was almost certainly where these birds were from; but the copse was an hour and a half away to the west. Then Poldarn realised what Asburn was talking about. Well, he thought; takes one to know one. 'You think so?' he said.
'It fits in with the way they're carrying on,' Asburn replied. 'At least, it's not the dark, because they fly home at night in darker than this; not the noise, because it's stopped; could be all the ash and shit in the air, I suppose, but if rain and snow don't bother 'em particularly, I wouldn't have thought flying through ash was so totally different as to spook 'em out completely' He frowned, wiping black grime off his forehead-something of a waste of time, since he was already black and filthy from the forge's dust and scale. 'I think the noise pushed 'em out, and there's something about the ash that means they're suddenly out of touch with the others. It's like the body's still moving around, but the brain's dead or asleep or something.'
Poldarn wasn't paying attention. He was too busy watching the birds, as if he could somehow interpret the crazy patterns they were weaving in the air. He'd been wrong; he had seen them like this once before, years ago, the first time he'd managed to outwit them with his decoys. He'd been proud of the achievement, and rightly so; it was the day when he'd finally identified the scouts, the singletons who go in front of the main mob and check for signs of danger. Instead of opening up on them with his slingshot as soon as they pitched, he'd let them land and strut about on the ground, no more than fifteen feet from where he was lying, until the section leaders got up out of the roost trees and dropped in, putting their wings back, banking into the slight wind to slow themselves down. He'd spared them, too-it was torture, not moving for so long, hardly daring to breathe-and after they'd walked around for a while like they owned the place, in came the rank and file, tens and twenties at a time. And then he'd jumped up and started slinging, handfuls of stones to each release, so that he was killing and stunning them by threes and fours, so closely were they packed in their arrogance. They'd flown up at once, of course; but they couldn't understand, because there hadn't been an enemy in sight twenty minutes ago and they hadn't seen one come up, so there couldn't be any danger, could there? And while they debated and tried to figure it out, they swooped and circled and turned and banked and braked and fluttered, like drunks in the dark, while he crammed gravel into the pad of his sling and hurled till he felt the tendons in his forearm twang with pain, and each time he let fly it was a victory of unsurpassed sweetness; until quite suddenly the sky was empty, and the ground in front of him was littered with black objects, hopping and thrashing, twitching and fluttering broken wings, somersaulting bodies with brains already dead (it takes them a long time to stop moving after they die), cawing and screaming and struggling in their extreme pain; and black feathers floated in the air like volcanic ash, gradually drifting down to settle on the bare earth.
'You know,' Poldarn said, looking at the mountain, 'you may well be right. Screw this, let's go indoors.'
But a single crow swung over them, jinked away in terror as it saw what it was flying over, and sailed straight through the forge doorway. 'Bugger,' Asburn said. 'I hate it when that happens.'
'What?'
Asburn's shoulders drooped visibly. 'Bloody birds getting in the forge. They peck at the chimney hood and shit all over the tools and the scrap, and they're too stupid to leave when you try and shoo 'em out. Panic,' he explained. 'Would you mind-?'
Poldarn nodded, and followed Asburn back inside. It was even darker than usual, of course; the only light was red, bleeding out of the subsiding fire. At first there didn't seem to be any sign of the crow, and Poldarn wondered if it had flown under the hood and straight up the chimney. But no such luck; it had pitched on a cross-beam, and when they walked under it, the stupid creature erupted in a flurry of wingbeats and shot between them before either of them could react.
'Where the hell did it go?' Poldarn shouted.
Asburn shrugged. 'Too quick for me,' he replied.
And for me, Poldarn admitted, in shame. But it won't be the next time; he grabbed the poker from the hearth and held it down at his side, like a sheathed sword ready for the draw. Come on, he told himself, I thought this kind of thing was second nature to you.
'Right,' he said. 'You go up that end, I'll stay here. The thing about crows is, they're smart as anything, but they can't count.'
Asburn hesitated, as if he was having extreme difficulty with the idea of being told what to do. 'Yes,' he said eventually, 'I'll go this way' He advanced down the workshop, clapping his hands over his head; and sure enough, the crow materialised as a burst of black movement out of a shadow and accelerated, flapping desperately, like a man learning to swim as he drowns. It passed Poldarn so fast that he didn't really see it; but the poker in his right hand lashed out, and he felt the shock of impact travelling down it and jarring his hand. He'd hit the crow like it was the ball in a game of stickball; it shot through the air, smashed into the tue-iron and rebounded onto the hearth, wings still pumping but not having any effect. With one long stride Poldarn was onto it. He slammed the poker down diagonally across the bird's outstretched wings, crushing it into the glowing embers, while his left hand fumbled for the bellows handle. The crow was strong, arching its body, thrusting with legs and neck and wings against the strength of his wrist and hand, but he held it there-as the bellows blasted air into the fire and made it flare up, he could feel the terrible heat frizzing the hair off his arm and scorching his skin, while the stench of cooking meat and burning feathers made him feel sick. Three more pumps on the bellows, as hard and fast as he could work it, and the bird's feathers were crackling, all full of fire; the force of its body against the poker was wrenching the muscles of his arm, tearing his sinews, but he
was past caring about that, all that mattered now was the victory.
Poldarn was shocked at the suddenness of its death. It died in the middle of a frantic shove, and the cessation of resistance against his hand made him stumble forward, almost lose his balance. At the same moment, the remaining feathers ignited in a sudden flare that singed his face and made his eyes smart. He hopped back two steps, dropping the poker on the floor with a clang. Then he was aware of Asburn, staring at him.
'What did you do that for?' Asburn asked.
It was as if the man who'd killed the crow had stepped out of his body; he'd gone, and Poldarn couldn't remember a thing about him, who he'd been or why he'd done what he'd done. It didn't make sense. He'd never do a thing like that.
'Bloody thing,' he answered awkwardly, trying to sound like his grandfather hating the mountain, and the blaze of feathers died down, leaving a black cinder in the heart of the fire. 'Serves it right for coming in here in the first place.'
Asburn looked at him, then looked away without saying a word. Poldarn felt he owed him some kind of explanation, even if it was only a lie, but he couldn't think of one.
The door opened, and one of the farm boys came in. 'God almighty,' he said, 'what's that horrible smell?'
'Broiled crow,' Poldarn replied. 'What do you want?'
The boy shrugged. 'Halder sent me with a message. You wanted to know when Rook got home. Well, he's back.'
Chapter Six
They found him in the hall of the main house, wrapped in six blankets and shivering helplessly, surrounded by silent, terrified-looking men and women, all keeping their distance as though he had some contagious disease. Two of the farmhands were banking up the fire, making the place uncomfortably hot. Halder was standing next to him, looking-the only word for it was frightened.
'What happened?' Poldarn asked. Everyone turned and stared at him, but he was getting used to that.
'Let him alone,' someone said. 'Can't you see he's near frozen to death?'
'All right,' Poldarn said, and as he walked down the hall he felt like a bridegroom on his wedding day, or the chief mourner at a funeral. 'Somebody else tell me what happened, I'm not fussy.'
Eyvind, who'd been sitting on the corner of the middle table, jumped up and came to meet him. 'You were right,' he said. 'In fact, the Lyatsbridge people are very grateful indeed, you probably saved all their lives.'
Well, Poldarn thought, that's nice, but I'd rather have some details. 'Was it a flood, then?' he ventured.
Halder nodded. 'Hell of a flood,' he said. 'And the devil of it was, it came down so quick, they would all have been at dinner, first they'd have known about it would've been the water smashing through the porch doors.'
'Bloody silly idea,' muttered Rook, through chattering teeth, 'building the house right in the bottom of the valley. Won't make that mistake next time.'
Eyvind put a hand on Poldarn's shoulder and gently eased him down onto a bench. 'It went straight through the middle of the main house,' he said. 'Lifted it up like you'd pick up a basket or something. Took out everything standing in the yard-barns, sheds, cider house, trap house, the lot. All the stock in the long pen, all the stores, everything; all they've got left is what they were wearing.'
Poldarn nodded slowly. 'So he got there in time, then.'
'Sort of,' Eyvind replied. 'Actually, he was on the other side of the valley when it came down-fast as a galloping horse, he said-and he just had to stand there and watch. But of course they'd known he was coming; they got out and went up the other side of the valley with only moments to spare.'
No need to ask how they'd known, of course; a useful thing, this mind-reading. 'How long did it last?' he asked.
'The rest of that day, and all night,' Halder said. 'Come first light, the water was going down, and by noon he managed to get across. Then it came down again, and he was stuck there.'
'But that was only the start.' Eyvind took up the narrative as if this was something they'd all rehearsed earlier, each of them knowing his cues. 'We thought we were getting a lot of ash down here-it's nothing compared with what they've been getting. A hand-span deep over everything, deeper in places; and sometimes it was coming down hot, like it'd just been raked off the fire.'
'Nowhere to shelter, see,' Halder said, 'they were all out in the open, so they had to lie down on their faces and hope they didn't get too badly burned. Nothing they could do about it, of course. There was one poor fool-'
'Iat,' Eyvind said, 'who worked in the dairy. He got hit with a lump of hot ash and his hair caught fire, so he ran down to the water and jumped in. Drowned, of course, the bloody fool. Too quick for anybody to stop him.'
Poldarn sighed, though he hadn't heard of this man Iat before. These things happen, he told himself; however bad things may be, human ingenuity and human determination will always find a way of making them worse.
'That was when it started raining,' Eyvind said.
Under his pile of blankets, Rook shuddered. Probably the cold.
'It happens like that,' Halder went on. 'It's because they're tight in to the foot of the mountain there; they get sudden flash rainstorms coming in off the hillside when the rest of us are having broad sunshine.'
'And all the steam,' Eyvind pointed out, 'from where the snow had melted; all that low cloud we could see from back here. Quite a downpour, even by their standards. Needless to say, it had to wait till the whole mountain was covered in ash.'
Maybe it's catching, Poldarn thought; because he knew what was coming next. 'Mud,' he said.
Halder nodded. 'That's right. Black mud, coming down off the slopes in a bloody torrent. At one point, it was actually moving faster than the flood water had done, if you can imagine that. God knows why, there's probably a simple reason. Anyhow, it filled up the valley right down as far as the lower bridge. In fact, valley's not the right word any more, it's a flat black plain.'
Eyvind shook his head. 'It's just like builder's mortar,' he continued. 'Same consistency, and it dries hard, not like ordinary mud. A few days of sun and that whole valley will be filled in with solid rock. Unbelievable,' he added, 'it's changed the country for ever. You should have seen the looks on their faces when they realised what it meant; they hadn't just lost their house and their animals and their stuff, their land's gone too-all the fields and meadows and orchards, buried under ten feet of black stone. You simply wouldn't credit it, outside of a fairy story.'
Quite so, Poldarn thought, the end of the world; and what we don't burn, we'll bury. His mind kept being drawn back, in spite of the atmosphere in the hall, the dead silence, the intense drama, to another issue, smaller but just as important to him personally; why on earth had he done that horrible, cruel thing to that crow, back in the forge? The more he thought about it, the more impossible to explain it became, and yet he could remember that at the time it had seemed logical, sensible, absolutely the right thing to do.
It went without saying that there couldn't possibly be a connection.
'Anyway,' Halder went on, 'soon as it stopped raining, Rook here sets off the long way round, over the hog's back, down to Callersfell and back up our river-on foot, mind, he couldn't get his horse across the flood, which is why it's taken him so long, and why he's frozen half to death, crossing the hog's back this time of year-'
'And his clothes all burned in tatters, don't forget,' Eyvind pointed out. 'It's bad enough up there if you've got a good fur coat and warm boots. But he knew we were worried about him and wanted to know what'd happened, so-well, here he is, just about. And bloody lucky too, if you ask me.'
Long silence; though, Poldarn knew perfectly well, it was only a silence as far as he was concerned. No doubt the rest of them were having a lively debate among themselves. Quite apart from everything else, it was such bad manners.
'So,' he said aloud, 'sounds like it's up to this house to do something for the Lyatsbridge people.'
Halder nodded. 'Us and Colscegsford,' he said. 'Assuming they were high eno
ugh up not to get a dose of the same.'
Poldarn frowned. 'And what about them?' he asked. 'Colsceg and Elja, I mean. If the river was right up and then the mudslides after that-'
'They're home,' Rook broke in, 'and safe. They heard what was going on, and took a detour through the Wicket Gate-'
'That's a sort of gap in the hog's back, on our side of the river,' Eyvind explained. 'They got home before the mudslides came on; and anyway, nothing came anywhere near them.'
Halder grunted. 'They've sent over blankets and sawn lumber,' he said, 'and food and beer, and a few changes of clothes. But it's more than they can spare; we'd better get something sorted out ourselves. I'm thinking it'd make more sense to bring the Lyatsbridge people here, rather than taking the stuff over to them. We've got room, and our fires get lit anyway, it'd make more sense, if this state of affairs is going to last any time. Being neighborly is all very well, but better not to waste fuel and food we might end up needing ourselves.'
Judging from the expressions on the faces around him, Halder was speaking in his capacity as spokesman for the whole farm. Not that Poldarn would've argued against the idea or the reasoning behind it, even if he'd had the option.
'There's another thing, though,' he said, thinking aloud as much as anything. 'If this mud stuff's blocked the river and filled in the valley, how's that going to affect us? What I mean is, next time there's a heavy burn and more snow gets melted, where's the flood water going to go, without that river to draw it off? You'll have to tell me, I don't know the country. Is there any danger it'll change course and come this way?'
They hadn't considered that, and in consequence nobody said anything, or had anything to say. Eventually Eyvind (interesting that it should have been him) broke the silence. 'It's difficult to say,' he said. 'I wouldn't have thought so, at least I wouldn't have thought this place was in any danger. But I'm thinking about our place; we're on the other side of the spur ridge, and lower than you are here. I'm not too bothered about floods, but what if there's a heavy rainstorm and one of these mudslides comes down? It'd only take a fall of rocks or something like that blocking the neck directly above our house, and anything that would've come down on Lyatsbridge could end up running off the other side of the spur and ending up in our yard. And if it moves that quickly-'
