The Queen of Crows

by Myke Cole

  “The Emperor will sustain us,” Barnard laughed right back. “You are welcome to wait, but I am guessing you will give up come winter.”

  “We shall see,” Tone said.

  “You may as well give it a go,” Barnard said. “Take us by storm. Though I think you’ll have a tough time of it, a squadron of cavalry with no bows and no ladders. You could throw your flails at us, I suppose.”

  “We’ll keep them, thank you,” Tone shouted back, “but even without them, I don’t think it would be too hard a task. How many of you are up there? Three? Five? Perhaps we will send our horses against your walls while we rest.”

  “There are more than enough to deal with you,” Heloise said, her stomach sinking. Tone knew. He had seen them scurrying along the walls and he knew how few they were.

  “So says the great Palantine in her tinker-engine. We are all very impressed down here, your eminence. How is your eye?”

  “The one left to me sees clear enough. Come on up here and I will show you.”

  “I will be there sooner than you think.” Tone reined his horse around and, shouting orders, galloped toward the front gate. A few other Pilgrims went with him, but most of them stayed where they were, their horses bending their necks to crop the grass. Even from this distance, Heloise could see the confusion on the Pilgrims’ faces. They were armed only with their flails, horsemen outside a thick stone wall.

  “Well, they’re here,” Heloise said. “Now we have to keep the walls.”

  “We’re keeping them so far,” Wolfun said. “They’ve not the numbers to try for an escalade. We’ll put everyone over the gates, and I’ll leave a lookout on the other towers just in case they try to surprise us. I think we’re all right for now.”

  “For now,” Sigir agreed. “Tone may be proud, but he’s no fool. He’ll have sent word. We don’t have much time. Such plans as can be made must be made.”

  “Wolfun, will you join us?” Sigir asked the Town Wall, turning to go back to the town common before remembering to turn to Heloise. “If it pleases your eminence.”

  Heloise shook her head, making the machine’s shoulders rock. “You have forgotten more of war than I will ever know. Lead the way.”

  Sigir bobbed his head and led the way back down to the green, where Wolfun had ordered the foodstuffs piled in view of all and kept under guard. “Houses got shadows,” the Town Wall said. “Easier for a man to take an extra potato or a joint of meat in the dark. Having stuff out in the light is the best defense against our worse nature.”

  “Light is the Emperor’s blood,” Heloise recited, “it burneth away the dark, and the sins of man besides.”

  Wolfun nodded piously. “Aye, but the Emperor smiles on a well-formed plan, so I’ve still got Arley in the south tower looking down on it, such as there is.”

  There wasn’t much. A few bins of ground corn and a dozen sacks of vegetables. Dried meat hung from a brace of poles pulled from their smoking houses. “How long will this last us?” Heloise asked.

  Wolfun tipped his iron cap back and scratched at his thinning hair. “A fortnight at longest, your eminence. Fighting men need more vittles than most.”

  “And if we ration?”

  “That is if we ration, but I reckon nothing makes a man more surly than an empty belly.”

  “We need to eat the perishables first,” Sigir said, “the apples, cabbages, things that’ll rot.”

  “Precious little of that,” Wolfun said. “Most of the winter gardens are due for harvest. Would have taken it all in maybe a day or two after you arrived. Bad timing, that.”

  Heloise looked up at this. “Why can’t we take them in now?”

  Wolfun shrugged, giving a half smile. “Well, you can if you want to fight through them Pilgrims. Gardens’re not far outside the postern gate.”

  Heloise thought of the confused looks on the riders’ faces, their thin numbers. “We should go out and take the harvest in.”

  Wolfun’s smile vanished. “You can’t be serious.”

  “We go now, right now, before they get their bearings. Before more of them arrive. We can go out the postern, drive them back, and fill a few sacks with cabbages.”

  “Goat pens, too.” Wolfun stroked his beard, thinking. “We could drive them in.”

  “It won’t be long before the Order starts their own foraging. Once that happens, it’ll be too late,” Heloise said.

  “Look at you,” Samson said, shaking his head in wonder, “a soldier in your bones.”

  “It’s too risky,” Sigir said. “If we’re caught outside the walls, then we lose everything.”

  “If we’re trapped inside them without enough food, we lose everything,” Heloise said. “Why should Tone risk storming the walls if he can just wait for us to starve?”

  “She’s right,” Barnard said.

  “It would help with the spirits of the Lysians,” Samson said. “A raiding victory might keep a few coats from turning.”

  “Let’s go,” Heloise said, turning the machine toward the postern gate. “Wolfun, how many horses can we scare up?”

  “The Order stabled their horses out by the gardens, you eminence,” Wolfun said, hurrying to keep up, “It’s just cart horses in here, and nobody here’s good enough a rider to make use of ’em. We’re better off making a run for it.”

  “Will five fast men be enough to take in everything?” she asked.

  “Should be, depending on what we find. I don’t go out to the gardens much, especially not this late in the season.”

  “I’m coming,” Samson huffed, jogging along behind them.

  “No,” Heloise called back to him. “You’re too slow.”

  “I’ll keep an eye on her,” Barnard said, lengthening his stride, though the big tinker wasn’t much faster than Heloise’s father.

  Samson caught at Barnard’s elbow and the tinker turned to him. “We have to go now. Every moment we delay puts her life in greater danger.”

  Samson let go at that, and stood hand outstretched, as if he could reel the machine back to him by some invisible thread.

  She headed for the postern gate and picked up speed, trusting Wolfun to know his business. She heard him calling, heard men shouting in answer, the pounding of feet as they ran to join them. She permitted herself a glance out of the corner of her eye at Barnard. The man was steady off her shoulder, his huge forge hammer rocking against his own. She knew the machine was far stronger than any man, but the sight of him comforted her nonetheless.

  “Open the gate!” she was shouting as soon as she rounded the corner of the chapter house and the postern came into sight. The tower lookouts, mere boys, stared at her open-mouthed and uncomprehending.

  “Do it!” Wolfun shouted from behind her. “Quickly!”

  There was another pause as the boys processed the command, and at last they scrambled down to obey, sliding the locking bar away and throwing their slim weight against the handles, the heavy wooden doors creaking as they swung slowly open.

  “We can’t give them a moment,” Heloise said to the knot of men behind her. “We must strike them quickly. We will only have this one chance.”

  Barnard grunted, swinging his hammer experimentally. She heard swords clearing scabbards and spears rolling off shoulders behind her.

  “Put arrows into ’em,” Wolfun called up to the parapet, and Heloise saw men joining the boys now, stringing bows. “Make the bastards dance a moment until we get among them.”

  “What?” the tower sentry shouted back down. “But…”

  Wolfun’s command was clear enough, Heloise didn’t understand why the sentry had so much trouble grasping it, but then the doors were open wide enough to admit the machine, and she charged out, raising the shield high enough to cover her, just below her eyes.

  She shouted her battle cry, and Barnard joined her, raising his hammer up over his head as they burst out past the gate and onto the muddy track beyond.

  Nothing.

  There was no one t
here.

  Heloise slowed the machine, trotting to a stop. She could hear the rest of the men following suit. Wolfun let out a low whistle. “What in the shadow of the Throne…”

  She was certain the Order would have guarded both gates. Tone was arrogant, but surely not so stupid as to leave Heloise a way to forage unopposed. If he wasn’t here …

  “It has to be a trap,” she said.

  “Trap or no,” Barnard breathed, “we need to move. Either back inside, or to the work.”

  “One moment.” Heloise could feel her muscles straining, tensing with the need to do something. She held it down with a will. She had to think. The risk they were taking was too great. What was Tone playing at? For what seemed like the thousandth time, she was sharply aware of how little she knew of war. She found herself wishing Sigir had come with her. He’d have known …

  “Your eminence,” Barnard growled, “we cannot stay here.”

  And then she heard it—shouts, coming from a long way off. The clashing of metal. She tipped her head up to the parapet, pointed in the direction of the noise. “Can you see what’s happening?”

  One of the sentries was leaning so far out he was in danger of falling, shading his eyes with a dirty hand. “No, your eminence. Sounds like a fight.”

  Wolfun appeared at her side, nodded. He heard it too. “It’s a fight, for certain.”

  Heloise took a few steps closer to the sounds, straining to pull words out of the faint chaos. Barnard matched her steps. “Your eminence, whatever fight’s on yonder, it’s not our fight. We need to go.”

  But Heloise ignored him, squinting as she tried to pick out words. The curses were faint, teasing her, dancing on the edge of comprehension.

  And then suddenly she had it. Not a word she understood, but one she’d heard before. Enough to recognize the language.

  Before she knew it, she was off running, Barnard’s shouts fading into panting as he struggled to keep up with the war-machine’s great strides. The ground became a wash of frost-kissed green as the machine raced on, up a low rise and down the other side, where she saw them.

  The low hill had blocked some of the sound, making the fight sound farther out than it actually was. Tone’s horsemen wheeled around a line of wagons, some marked with the trefoil of the Sindi band, and others with a symbol of a pot over a campfire.

  Two of the gray-cloaked riders were at the head of the wagon train, reining their horses tightly as the Traveling People tried to drive them off. Heloise could see that the damage was already done. The team of horses pulling the lead wagon were dead, flail wounds gleaming wetly, lying in their traces. Unless they were cut free and new horses brought up, the lead wagon couldn’t be moved, and the rest were stuck behind it. The Traveling People were already cursing and trying to drive their teams into the broken ground to either side of the track leading to the postern gate, but Heloise could see that the heavy wagons would have rough going in that terrain.

  The Pilgrims weren’t risking it; their horses were already moving alongside the wagons. They swung their flails at the drovers, forcing them to drop their reins and scramble back into the wagons’ canvas-covered housing.

  The Sindi knife-dancers were just beginning to make themselves felt, leaping from the wagons. Heloise watched as one somersaulted over a Pilgrim, landing with a cross-slash of his knives that hamstrung the Pilgrim’s horse, sending the rider crashing to the ground. Another knife-dancer took a graceful step that turned into a slide beneath a horse’s belly, knife plunging upward to gut the beast from below. But there were dead Traveling People as well, facedown in the dirt, or draped across their drovers benches, all bearing the flails’ ragged wounds.

  Heloise looked for Onas, then for Tone, but she couldn’t distinguish one person from another in the chaos of gray cloaks and silver-handled knives. She shrieked, an animal cry, and then she was charging into the midst of them. Onas was somewhere in there. She had lost too many friends already.

  The gray-cloaked riders began to turn at the sound of her cry, but she was already among them, lowering the shield and slamming into one of the Pilgrims’ horses, sending beast and rider bowling sideways, the other Pilgrims scattering. But scattering did them no good, as Barnard plunged among them, swinging his great hammer at one horse’s legs, already bringing the head back up and around as the screaming animal fell, until the arc brought it back down on the rider’s gray hood.

  A Pilgrim wheeled toward Heloise … and died, gurgling, Wolfun’s spear in his neck. The remaining Pilgrims cantered away, still circling, but at a safe distance now, getting their bearings. It wouldn’t be long before they realized that they faced just five people and not an army.

  But the surprise had given the Traveling People breathing room, and five knife-dancers spun into the Pilgrims.

  And now Heloise did see Onas, twirling at the head of his people, his cheeks red, his eyes lit with rage. One gray-cloaked man steered his mount with his knees, freeing his hands for an overhead swing, and Onas ducked beneath it, quick as a snake, striking out with one blade to tangle the weapon’s chain, then jerking his arm down to pull the rider from the saddle.

  Another Pilgrim charged him, and Heloise ran for them, banging her shield against the machine’s metal fist to get their attention. The Pilgrim glanced up, reined his mount in, turned, and galloped away. Onas glanced briefly at her before racing after the Pilgrims. The other knife-dancers followed him, denying the Order a chance to catch their breath.

  She itched to help the knife-dancers, to run the Pilgrims down, but she knew it was the wrong move. Her small party were too few to defeat the Order. She had bought enough time to maybe get the Traveling People free of the attack, but only if they acted fast.

  She turned and ran to the lead wagon. “Get the horses clear!”

  Wolfun and Barnard were already standing over the dead horses, wrestling with the traces. The Traveling People, at last given a respite from the attack, had turned their wagons back to the road and halted there, the drovers jumping down from their benches and running to help move the dead animals. Barnard fumbled with a buckle too fine for his thick fingers. “We’re trying, your eminence!”

  “Don’t waste your time with that! Cut the leads!”

  Wolfun produced a short dagger and in a few moments had parted the leather leads. Barnard and the wagon drivers grabbed the horses and began dragging the animals clear. Heloise risked a glance back toward the knife-dancers. They were surrounded, with one lying in the dirt, clutching his bloody head. She prayed it wasn’t Onas. A thin, flat blade shot out from one of the campfire-marked wagons and buried itself in a Pilgrim’s throat, sending him toppling from his horse.

  One of the drovers ran back toward his wagon. “I’ll give you one of my team, it should—”

  “No!” Heloise shouted. “You need your full teams or you’ll be too slow!”

  The man looked at her like she was mad. He pointed at the lead wagon. “That cart is loaded, we can’t pull it without horses!”

  The last horse was dragged away and Heloise stepped forward, putting the war-machine between the yoking bars, her back to the wagon. “You don’t have to,” she said.

  She reached out, curling the machine’s metal arms around the bars. The wood rose, sliding into the crook of the machine’s elbows. She pulled tighter, clamping them there, prayed they would hold.

  “Quickly now,” she shouted, and ran.

  The wagon groaned, bouncing on the rutted track behind her. She could feel the weight of it, hear the clattering as whatever was inside bounced off shelves and tables. The machine’s engine was bellowing with the effort of pulling the wagon, but it was more than equal to the task, and Heloise found herself going faster and faster, until the wagon seemed to be pushing her on into a dead run, faster than she’d ever driven the machine before.

  She could hear the drovers behind her snapping their reins, urging their teams on, the rumbling of the wagon wheels picking up speed.

  “Onas!�
� she shouted, praying he was alive to hear her. “Come on!”

  Out of the corner of her eye she could see three of the knife-dancers detaching from the fight and racing for her, the Pilgrims turning to give chase. Another thrown knife wicked out from one of the wagons, bouncing off one of the Pilgrims’ armor, but spooking his horse and turning it aside. The knife-dancers picked up speed.

  “Run run run!” Heloise was shouting, her eyes fixed on the wooden ramparts of Lyse, impossibly small and distant. More riders appeared, thundering toward her, desperately trying to intercept the column before it reached the walls.

  Heloise had never moved so fast, and the wagon teams were strong, but yoked horses pulling heavy burdens were no match for warhorses carrying riders. Heloise pulled with all her might, watching the Pilgrims close out of the corner of her eye. She couldn’t tell if the remaining knife-dancers had reached the safety of the column, and she couldn’t worry about it now.

  A Pilgrim finally reached her, striking with his flail as he galloped past. She made no attempt to dodge or strike back. That would require her to stop, to drop the wagon, all of which would mean the end of them all. The flail head rapped against the machine’s frame, spraying her face with sparks. I have been a fool. All this struggle, all this work to take the walls, and now that we have them, I have doomed us all. She heard shouts and the clashing of steel, the whisper of an arrow. The walls seemed no closer.

  Three Pilgrims cut across the path directly in front of her, their horses blocking the way. “Surrender!” one of them shouted. “We have you and—”

  Heloise lowered her shoulder and smashed right into him, batting his horse aside and sending him flying from the saddle. The other two Pilgrims reined aside, but kept on her, flails drawing sparks from the machine’s shoulders. One of them galloped ahead of her again, charged, couching his flail like a lance. It didn’t have a sharp point, but the iron ring would kill her just as surely if it slipped inside the frame and hit her at this speed.