The Queen of Crows

by Myke Cole

  Heloise pointed to the empty tent. “The Emperor may have a test in store for us yet.”

  Barnard shaded his eyes with a hand, grunted. “No matter,” he said, “whatever wickedness they had in there, we will meet it as we have met—”

  But the shouts had already started, from the front gate this time. “S’pose I better see what the fuss is.” Wolfun was already racing down the ramp. “What is it?” he shouted up to the terrified sentries in the watchtowers overlooking the front gate. “What do you see?”

  “Wizardry!” they shouted back to him. One of them had a leg over the rampart and was beginning to climb down.

  “Stand your ground!” Wolfun shouted back at the man. “We’ve wizards of our own!” But the man ignored him, reached the ground, and ran from the gate as if it were a portal into hell. Wolfun reached for the fleeing man’s shoulder, missed, then cursed and ran for the ladder, racing up it nearly as quickly as he moved running on flat ground. He froze at the tower’s edge, looking out past the gate, then turned to where the defenders still stood on the wall.

  “Bows!” Wolfun shouted. “Throwing knives! To me!”

  Heloise’s stomach twisted, and she leapt over the rampart and down to the common for the second time. The squat-leap was easier now, and Heloise reached the watchtower top, vaulting the rail. The machine thumped down beside Wolfun, startling the Town Wall.

  He rallied quickly, grabbing the machine’s frame and tugging Heloise toward the railing. “It is some manner of wizardry, though I cannot say what yet.”

  A knot of figures was approaching the front gate. Heloise immediately recognized the Song, his golden armor gleaming so brightly she had to squint to look at him. Another Sojourner rode along beside him, as well as a knight whose chain of office marked him as a commander. Beside them was a simple Pilgrim, hood thrown back. The sight of Tone’s bright blue eyes and feral smile made the anger rise hot and sour up the back of Heloise’s throat.

  Farther in front of them were six Pilgrims. Three of them held long iron tongs, their ends clamped around the necks of two women and a man, heads shaven, wrapped in bloody rags that had once been clothing. Their limbs were scarcely thicker than the tongs’ metal arms. Their heads were down, and they stumbled, their half-starved bodies barely able to keep upright if not for the tongs around their necks. The first three Pilgrims held the tongs as far away from their bodies as they could, their faces turned away. The other three swung jeweled censers, the brass drowned by gouts of thick smoke. Heloise could smell the sweet scent of spice all the way from the watchtower.

  Onas and Xilyka came clattering up the ladder, with Giorgi puffing up some moments later. He was still sweating, his face pale. He leaned hard on the railing, panting. “Had to see with my own eyes,” he said.

  “Can you do anything?” Heloise asked.

  Giorgi shook his head. “Maybe tomorrow I can, but not now. The Talented know their limits, if they are any good. Leahlabel and Florea are blown too. Don’t expect to fight Talent with Talent now.”

  “Is it wizardry?”

  Giorgi jerked his chin in the direction of the bedraggled prisoners, the tongs driving them ever closer to the gate. “Aye,” he said, “those are wizards. I can feel it.”

  “Do you know what they will do?” Wolfun asked.

  Giorgi shook his head. “Nothing good.”

  More of the defenders were arriving now, clambering up the ladders to pack the towers. A few of them tried ranging shots, but the Pilgrims were careful to keep their charges out of bow range. They stopped their advance, halting their prisoners with a savage jerk of the tongs. The priests with the censers stepped as close to the prisoners as they dared, swinging the canisters at the end of their long brass chains, clouding all in spiced fog.

  They chanted, and Heloise’s jaw tightened as she made out their words.

  “What in the name of the Great Wheel are they doing?” Onas asked.

  “Cleansing,” Heloise said. “They’re chanting prayers to protect them from the corruption of wizardry.”

  “That … it doesn’t work like that,” Onas said.

  “No,” Heloise agreed, “it doesn’t. And they know it. At least the Order must. This is for the benefit of the soldiers. For us. It is a mummer’s show.”

  “The Talent is no show,” Giorgi said, “as I expect we’re about to find out.”

  “Liars,” Samson spat, “hypocrites. ‘Suffer no wizard to live.’”

  “Are you so surprised?” Giorgi asked. “Did you just now learn the nature of men?”

  As if on cue, the Pilgrims opened the tongs and the prisoners dropped to their knees, rubbing their necks where the iron had stripped them raw. They raised miserable faces to the wall, and Heloise wasn’t certain if they saw her or not.

  “Do it!” One of the Pilgrims shouted, but the prisoners only sagged, swaying drunkenly on their knees. At last, the Pilgrim set down his censer, unlooping the chain and flicking it out to rattle in the dirt. Then, as expert as a cattle drover, he sent the brass links clinking and whistling through the air, to fall like a lash across the prisoners’ backs. “Do it!” he repeated.

  They flinched, but did nothing. The woman’s head lolled, and Heloise saw a strand of bloody drool stretching its way slowly from her mouth to the road. “Do it! Do it!” the Pilgrim repeated, sending the chain raking across them again and again, until Heloise saw it coming away bloody.

  “They won’t.” Heloise felt hope blooming in her chest. “They won’t do it.”

  The prisoners’ reaction was sudden. One moment they were slack and empty, flinching under the strokes of the chain, and then the next moment the man shot upright, arching his back, arms spread, screaming. An instant later, the other two joined him.

  Heloise saw Giorgi jerk back as the wood railing, the support beams, the floor beneath them turned suddenly slick, as if it were coated in river slime. A stink arose, the smell of rotten river mud, of places with too much water and too little light.

  “Run,” Giorgi’s dry-mouthed whisper rose quickly to a yell. “Run! Get down!”

  He vaulted over the tower’s edge, catching himself on the ladder rung, the wood grown green and slippery. His grip slipped, but he managed to cling to the wood even as he slid down it, his body banging off the rungs until he sprawled on the ground, groaning. He only lay there for an instant, than was up and limping away as fast as he could. Others followed, some not as lucky as Giorgi, plummeting down the ladder to sprawl at the bottom.

  Heloise heard a creak, a wet, ripping sound. The tower lurched beneath her feet. She heard the groaning of stone, saw puffs of gray dust blooming out from the wall’s edge. She turned to the railing, jammed now with defenders scrambling to escape. There was no way to go over it without crushing them. “Onas! Xilyka!” But her guard were already scrambling up the machine’s sides to flatten themselves across its massive shoulders. The tower slewed like a drunken man, and Heloise gathered her father to her chest, and leapt.

  She cleared the people clustered by the railing, easily vaulting out over the common. Onas and Xilyka were silent, but her father groaned like he’d been punched in the stomach, and let out a yell when the machine landed with a thump.

  She looked down at him, eyes squeezed shut, the corners wet. He had thrown a thick arm across his face, clinging to the machine’s frame with his free hand. Heloise held her father as she knew he had held her so many times. The surge of love came so suddenly and so strong that she choked on it. They are coming through the wall. They are coming with an army, and I have already lost Mother and now I will lose you, too. There was no time to tell him this, no time to take his face in her hands and smooth his forehead. So Heloise instead took a moment to fix his face in her mind, to remember him in her arms as he was now. Whatever was coming, they couldn’t touch that.

  At last, his eyes opened, and she looked away before meeting them could make her cry.

  “You’re all right, Father,” she rasped, setting him down a
nd turning to look behind her.

  The entire front wall of the town, stone and wood, its gate and towers, slumped in on itself like the mouth of an old man who’d lost all his teeth. The stone was slick and shot through with veins of ochre illness. The wood had turned gray-green, the beams flexing like spider’s legs, trembling before collapsing under their own weight. The whole structure shuddered, shedding bits of itself, slime pooling at its base. As Heloise watched, the tower lurched again, the top shearing off with a loud ripping sound, as if a rotten melon had been torn in half. Heloise could see the defenders making a last desperate leap, arms and legs kicking as they plummeted through the air to bounce on the ground before they lay still. At last, the wall deflated, like one of her mother’s oil-breads after the steam pocket had been burst to let out the damp, sweet-smelling air. It settled, shrinking. She made out Wolfun, limping, moving among the defenders who’d made it to the ground, trying to help them up and get them clear.

  Finally, the wall spasmed, heaved, and collapsed, falling inward to splatter across the common. Some of the defenders who’d survived had managed to get clear, pushed farther into the common by Wolfun, but most of those who remained disappeared in the wall’s wet shadow to be crushed or smothered. Heloise shuddered to think of either.

  Barnard reached her now, with Leahlabel and the rest of the defenders, abandoning the west wall at the sight of their northern defenses ripped entirely open.

  “What is to be done now?” It was Poch. Miserable, traitorous Poch, who wanted nothing more than to live, than to be left alone. Like the boy in the ram. But she could see the blood streaking his shirt and the cuts on his arms and knew he had fought. Perhaps he would keep fighting.

  “We rely on the Emperor.” Barnard hefted his hammer, watching the plume of greasy, heavy dust kicked up by the wall’s collapse slowly drift apart, leaving a clear view of the wreckage, flat and low and no obstacle to the columns of armed men waiting just beyond.

  “We rely on ourselves.” Heloise raised her shield. “And make the Emperor proud.”

  Onas and Xilyka scrambled down from the machine’s shoulders, fanned out in front of her, knives drawn and ready. Samson spat in his hands and leveled his spear.

  There was nothing else to do. There was nowhere to run where the mounted enemy wouldn’t catch them. There was no way to restore the fallen wall.

  It was a field battle now, between the enemy in their thousands and the defenders in their dozens, wounded and exhausted, milling about in no particular order, many with empty quivers and snapped blades.

  The Pilgrims advanced first, waving their censers across the wreckage, wafting the spiced smoke in great gray billows. “Theater,” Giorgi panted. He hefted a great club he’d retrieved from the ground, but his hands were trembling. “Performance.”

  “Time.” Samson shrugged. “Time to get ready.”

  Her father began bellowing in his sergeant’s voice, pushing the spearmen into a line. Giorgi stationed knife-dancers on the wings. They both ignored Heloise and her guard, happy with their placement behind the protection of the spearwall, such as it was.

  It was as much theater as the scented smoke. This tiny band of exhausted refugees would have as much effect on the enemy army as the swinging censers would on the magic that took down the wall. And yet, it had to be done, if only to give her people the grit to fight a little harder. Because if they had nothing left to live for, they might as well sell their lives dearly.

  Heloise thought of her mother’s pale face, Basina’s confused smile as the light faded from her eyes. She thought of Clodio and Gunnar. She even thought of Sigir, as he had been before all this had started, kind-eyed and gentle. I’m sorry, she thought. I would have liked to win this for you.

  But her people didn’t need to hear apologies now. They needed to hear encouragement. They needed a reason to stand and fight.

  “The Throne knows we are right,” she shouted to them. “The Emperor sees all. His heart can feel those who cleave to the Writ and those who break with it in His name. He will grant us victory, or He will judge us kindly.

  “Either way, we have already won.”

  She turned from them, then, trying to ignore the exhaustion on their faces, to stop her ears to the absence of cheers. She punched her knife-hand against the edge of her shield, listening to the ringing peal that sounded like a shrine’s bell, low and booming. She shouted a war cry, high and loud, sounding tiny and alone, for all its strength, in the wide open space of the common.

  The enemy charged.

  Heloise watched the horses pick up speed. The knights lowered their lances, fanning out into a wedge. Over their shoulders, she could see uhlans coming singly, finding their mounts and charging in as word reached them that the way was open. A dust cloud rose from farther back where the infantry were finally rounding the wall and racing to end what had been an unexpectedly hard-fought assault.

  But out in front came the Order, flails raised, iron heads whipped to a blur. The Pilgrims gave no battle cry. Their eyes did their shouting for them, lit as if from within with blazing fury, with certainty. Heloise envied them that. It would be easier to die if she could have been sure that it meant something, but no matter how much she searched her heart, she only came up with the unshakable feeling that she was no more than a little girl in a stolen machine, having tricked this tiny, ragged band to follow her to their deaths. She had thought she had changed things, even in some small way. But she looked at the rushing tide bearing down on her, outnumbering her own troops one hundred to one, and she realized that she hadn’t changed a Throne-cursed thing.

  She leaned forward, bracing herself behind her shield. She could withstand one charging horse, maybe even two. She would make their riders pay.

  A trumpet sounded in the distance.

  It was an unfamiliar call, a long, low blast as if from a hollowed-out horn. It sounded like a growling giant, and it was answered by a similar growl, this time from the throats of many men. She could hear the distant pounding of hooves.

  A second army. The Order wished to make their victory complete. They could have crushed Heloise with half the men they had to hand, but she supposed they wanted to be sure. Or perhaps it was a garrison force, meant to hold the remains of Lyse while the other army ravaged the land as a warning to other would-be rebels. It didn’t matter, the end was here, just a few hundred paces away and coming on fast.

  A shout went up from the enemy infantry. Heloise took a step back, squinting past the shoulders of the charging Pilgrims. The infantry had stopped their run, turned to the side, were rushing to form a line. Some of the uhlans were wheeling off the charge, riding to their dismounted brethren.

  The horn sounded again, closer and louder. The shout answered once more, and Heloise thought the accents unfamiliar. Not Traveling People, and not the Emperor’s subjects either. She looked down, noticed her father had lowered his spear. She glanced at him and saw his face slack with wonder. “It can’t be…” he was saying.

  And then the second army came careering past the ruined wall, and Heloise’s jaw dropped.

  Many were as well armored as the Imperial knights, save they wore no wings, and their shields were simple squares, undecorated and banded with iron. Their mounts were dressed in flowing red cloth, their armor painted with what must have once been a red as brilliant as the Sojourners, but which time and service had dulled to a soft brown the color of old blood. Pennants flickered from their lances, bright banners waved aloft. All were simple red, plain and untouched.

  “It’s Ludhuige,” Samson said. “It’s the Red Lord.”

  Signal trumpets sounded to form the Imperial ranks and the charge splintered. The knights turned their horses, cutting across the Pilgrims’ path, who reined in desperately. Within moments, all were a tangled mess, shouting and shoving. Here and there, knights and Pilgrims broke off in ones and twos to gallop back toward the infantry.

  “Ludhuige’s dead,” Barnard said, “five winters past, at least
.”

  Heloise scarce heard him. She realized with a start how tense her body had been, how certain she’d been of impending death. And now, suddenly, the wedge of men arrowing toward her was a confused jumble, no threat to anyone at all.

  “Not his bannermen.” The shock was fading from Samson’s voice. “They never forgot their grudge against us.”

  “And praise the Throne they did not,” Wolfun sighed.

  The troops beneath the red banner crashed home before the Imperial infantry could form their line. There was a brief and terrible moment where the two masses surged against one another, and then the Imperial soldiers splintered apart, throwing down their weapons and making for the tents. Heloise could see the levy among them, at last having the excuse they needed to say they’d fulfilled their vows and that they could not be faulted if there was nothing more to be done. Go, she thought after them. Run home. Go back and live your lives. Be free and be safe.

  The infantry were a panicked mass, but the knights and Pilgrims would be another matter. The red troops were in pursuit of the fleeing infantry now, whooping joyous war cries as they gave chase. Heloise’s heart clenched at the sight of the Pilgrims and knights finding their bearings and charging toward them.

  And then the red infantry came into view. There was an endless stream of them. Not levy, but soldiers in red surcoats and pot-shaped iron helms, waving simple swords and spears, carrying plain red shields. They rushed out into the field, too quickly to form a line, but in enough numbers that the knights and Pilgrims were forced to rein in and fight them in detail.

  “What in the name of the Throne are you waiting for?” It took her a moment to realize that the gruff voice belonged to her father. “The enemy gives us their backs! It would be impolite to refuse the gift!”

  And then her father was racing toward the enemy, shouting, and Heloise thought he looked ten winters younger than a moment ago. It still took an instant more for the shock to subside, and then they were all running after him, shouting an array of battle cries. The names of loved ones, vows and oaths in the tongue of the Sindi and the Hapti and the Empire. Heloise alone was silent, too in awe of the sudden swing of fortune to say much of anything, unable to register the joy for fear that it might yet be snatched away. Her father was charging into danger, and that meant she had to protect him, and that was enough to guide her for now.