Summer of Crows

by Hans Cummings

  In the vestibule, Valon and Brana offered their captain casual salutes as she entered, yawning. She returned their hails. “Is there any good food, or just what’s in the larder?”

  “Meat and veg hand pies from the bakery.” Valon gestured toward a covered tray on Aveline’s desk. “Plus, I have good news.”

  “That’s a switch.” Aveline reached under the towel, helping herself to a pie. It still felt warm. Bits of flaky crust fell to the floor as she bit into it.

  “The magistrate arrived late last night, and he said he’d be here after breaking his fast.”

  Aveline shoved the food to the side of her mouth. “Finally. Has anyone seen Tasha yet today?”

  Valon shook his head. “We’ve reports that her hut moved last night.”

  The news made Aveline’s heart skip a beat, but she forced herself to remain calm. Tasha won’t abandon you. She’ll be here. “Probably nothing to worry about.”

  “There was a lot of howling going on in the forest last night.” Brana unsheathed her sword, then sat in the chair by the cellblock door. She ran the blade along the whetstone.

  Full moon last night. I hope everything went all right with her. “A wolf pack on the hunt, most likely. Did anyone report any disturbances?”

  “Nothing out of the ordinary. Certainly nothing related to the wolves.” Valon hooked his thumbs into his belt. “Just noise.”

  Just then, the door opened. Tasha entered the vestibule. She greeted everyone. “Am I late? Is the magistrate here?”

  Swallowing, Aveline shook her head. “Not yet. He’s in town, and he’ll be here after eating.”

  “Oh good. I was worried.” Tasha slid the tray of meat pies to the side, taking a seat on the edge of Aveline’s desk. “Another late night?”

  “Is everything all right?” Aveline kept her query vague in the presence of Valon and Brana.

  “Yes.” Smiling, Tasha nodded. “Everything is fine. I’m looking forward to ending this business with Koloman.”

  “So say we all.” Aveline flipped back the cloth on the tray. “Hungry?”

  “No, thank you. I already ate.”

  “By the grace of Anetha”—Brana polished the hilt of her sword—“we’ll be done dealing with that raving madman today. Honestly, Captain, his ranting is getting to me.”

  Aveline sympathized. Despite almost a weeklong respite, the previous night’s harangue ignited all her anxieties. “It’ll be over soon.” I hope.

  Valon moved to answer a pounding at the door. The magistrate, a middle-aged silver-haired man who wore a formal silver-trimmed blue tunic over black breeches pushed his way past the lieutenant. “Knight-Captain Aveline, care to bring me up to speed?”

  Aveline summarized the events leading to Koloman’s arrest. “Now, we have no direct evidence he caused either death, but we have witnesses placing him with both victims just prior to their deaths and saying he fled both scenes.”

  “Some sort of madness?” The magistrate’s gaze settled on Tasha. “Who is this? Why is this… witch here?”

  “Tasha is the Crow Queen.” Aveline gestured toward her friend as Tasha slid off the edge of Aveline’s desk. “She may be of help if Koloman becomes uncontrollable.”

  The magistrate raised an eyebrow at Tasha. “I thought the Crow Queen was dead. Or, at least, she left decades ago to never return.”

  “Crow Queen Annika died. I succeeded her.” Tasha bowed her head toward the magistrate. “Aveline is my friend, and I’m ready to help in whatever way I can.”

  “Fine. Let’s see what Koloman has to say for himself first, eh?” The magistrate gestured toward the cellblock. Brana hopped off her chair, sheathing her sword, and pulled open the door. Aveline led the way down the hall toward the cellblock.

  She glanced over her shoulder at the magistrate. “Be aware, he’s quite agitated and volatile.”

  They arrived at Koloman’s cell to find the Lord Mayor pacing, conversing aloud with himself. When he noticed his audience, he lunged, leaping onto the bars. Sneering, he pressed his face in the spaces between them. “Ah, Magistrate. It’s about time someone came to release me. Throw this woman in here, instead.” His face contorted.

  His voice raised in pitch, becoming shrill. “Oh, no, it’s nice in here.” He shook his head. “We get free food. It’s warm, and there’s no mud.”

  Koloman snarled. “Silence. The lady knight will be ours, perhaps the servant of the goddess too. Ooh, her power will taste sweet.” He smacked his lips.

  The Lord Mayor’s expression changed again, and his eyes widened. “You see? She has me locked up in here with these creatures. I’m the Lord Mayor of this town. I am above the law, no matter what this bitch says.”

  The magistrate leaned toward Aveline. “Yes, I see what you mean.”

  “Lies!” Koloman rattled the bars of his cell door. “It’s all filthy lies!”

  Tasha crossed her arms. “Something plagued his dreams a few weeks ago. I don’t know if this is a manifestation…”

  Snarling, Koloman stuck out his tongue. He jumped off the bars and fell to the ground. “Time to end this.” He gurgled. Grabbing at his throat, he gagged between screams. “Do… do something. Help me!”

  Aveline and Tasha restrained the magistrate as he lunged toward the Lord Mayor. “Let me go.”

  “No, stay back.” Aveline strained. Despite the magistrate’s age, he remained a strong fellow. “It’s not safe.”

  The Lord Mayor, thrashing on the floor, writhed in pain. “It burns!”

  His screams intensified into high-pitched wails. Continuous shrieks of agony assaulted their ears. They witnessed his skin churn, bubbling. It turned first blue, then green. Finally, it turned orange. His body swelled, bloating.

  “By Hon’s Hearth”—the magistrate clutched at Aveline’s arm—“will you do nothing for him?”

  “Like what?” Aveline pushed the magistrate farther away from the cell, interposing herself in front of him.

  “Make it stop! I’ll do anything! I’ll give you any—” Koloman’s cries garbled. The Lord Mayor’s orange skin stretched, and his eyes bulged.

  The magistrate stopped struggling, his jaw hung agape with horror.

  Koloman burst.

  Recoiling, Aveline suppressed a gag as ichor and blood sprayed like a fountain, splattering the walls of the cell. Skin and muscle sloughed off the Lord Mayor’s bones until a ragged, blackened skeleton lay in a puddle of rainbow goo. Rattling and dripping, it rose. Flesh coalesced, swirling like a whirlpool, onto the skeleton. A high-pitched wail pierced the room as a reptilian head emerged from the torso and another head, a human one, sprouted at the top of the oozing mass of flesh.

  The reptilian mouth opened in a groaning scream. Hair sprouted, grew, then sloughed off in clumps. Twisting, the torso hunched, and arms erupted from its side. The arms flailed until they cradled the snarling reptilian head.

  “By the gods…” Tasha recoiled from the monstrosity, pulling the magistrate even farther away from the cell.

  Aveline readied her mace. The creature lurched away from them. It spun. Quivering, it glared with four black eyes, two from a fully formed drak head and two from a fully formed human head. A grin appeared on the face of the human head.

  “Time to go.”

  Aveline recognized the voice, a harsh rasp, as belonging to the wizard they encountered in the mine.

  Shrieking, the magistrate fled the cellblock. Before either Aveline or Tasha acted, the fleshy creature liquefied, splashing a perfectly circular hole through the stone floor. Aveline fumbled with her key, unlocking the cell. She flung the door open. Gawking, she peered into a smooth-sided tunnel that descended straight before veering to the right.

  Tasha came up beside her. “Before you ask, I have no idea what just happened.”

  “I wasn’t going to ask.” Swallowing, Aveline shuffled her feet. She pulled Tasha away from the creeping edge of the goo puddle leftover from the Lord Mayor’s transformation.

  B
lack smoke wafted from the hole. It grew thicker and more concentrated with each passing moment. Tasha seized Aveline’s arm, intending to pull her away, but the knight-captain needed no encouragement. They fled the cellblock, urging all the guards into the vestibule. Aveline locked the door behind them.

  To her relief, the smoke seemed confined to Koloman’s cell. She slid her chair out from behind her desk with trembling hands and sat.

  Tasha leaned on the knight-captain’s desk. “We have to go back to the mine. We must seal that rift. Now.”

  * * *

  Aveline tossed the key to Valon. “No one goes in there.” He nodded as he attended the magistrate retching in the corner.

  Brana stared at them. “That sounded horrible. What happened?”

  Aveline glanced at Tasha.

  The Crow Queen shrugged. “Koloman… well, I think he’s dead. And whatever that was, it’s gone now.”

  “But to where?” Aveline flung open the vestibule door to look both ways down the street. “I want everyone on alert. There’s no telling what’s going to happen now. Brana, go to Miners’ Gate and tell them to watch out for… I don’t know, some abomination with multiple heads. Valon, you take Mudders’ Gate.”

  “Yes, m’lady.” The two saluted her before rushing out of the citadel.

  The magistrate stumbled into Brana’s chair. “That was horrific. What did I just witness?”

  “Tasha?” Shutting the door, Aveline glanced over her shoulder at the Crow Queen.

  “I’m just guessing, but I believe it was the manifestation of some manner of chaos beast emerging into this realm through Koloman.”

  “I’m sorry I asked.” The magistrate removed a cloth from his pocket to wipe his forehead.

  “The good news is we no longer need a tribunal.” Aveline entered the larder, soon returning with three bottles of ale. She offered one to the magistrate, who, nodding his gratitude, opened it. “Magistrate, can you inform the City Council they’ll need to request an appointment for a new Lord Mayor from Almeria?”

  After downing its contents in several gulps, he nodded. “That wasn’t nearly strong enough. What are you going to do about this… creature?”

  “We’re going to find it and end it.” Tasha refused the drink from Aveline. Instead, she took her friend’s arm. “I’ll find him. My hut is just north of town, in a clearing over the hill. The one that used to have that big oak before lightning hit it a few years back. Do you know it?”

  “I do. I’ll gather volunteers, horses, and supplies.” Swigging her ale, Aveline rubbed her neck. “We’ll be light on people. I don’t want to leave the town unguarded, but I’ll find some diggers. I hope.”

  Tasha shared her plan. “We’ll go through the cave. We should be able to expose the rift more easily that way. Yun’s a good fighter, if you don’t want to bring too many of the city watch. We’ll have Torben too.”

  Narrowing her eyes, Aveline lowered her voice. “Is he safe? With the rift and chaos and all that…”

  “Yes.” Tasha gave a curt nod. “I’d stake my life on it.”

  “Fine. I wish there were a way to get your wizard friends here quicker.”

  “Wizards? What wizards?” The magistrate raised his head.

  Tasha held up her hand. “It’s a long story. There’s a problem at a nearby mine. It’s related to what happened to Koloman. Aid is on the way from Muncifer, but they’re still weeks away on horseback. We can no longer wait for them.”

  “Can you do it alone?” Taking Tasha by the shoulders, Aveline searched her eyes.

  “I have no choice. If Annika could end a plague alone, then I can do this. I’ve studied the ritual. I have to try.” The cost Annika incurred to end the plague wormed its way into Tasha’s thoughts, but she pushed the concern aside. The people of Curton were worth more than her vitality.

  Aveline clicked her fingers. “I have an idea. You can get to Dawnwatch and back by the time we’re ready to go. Have Maxim get his best fighters together, then march on the mine. They should be able to get there about the same time as we do.”

  The magistrate rose from his chair. “I see you two ladies have things well in hand here. I’ll speak to the council.” He bowed. “Lady Aveline, I know you’ll do as you have always done and see to the safety of Curton. Crow… Tasha… thank you for your help.” He hurried away, leaving the knight-captain and Crow Queen alone in the vestibule.

  “Aveline, I’m taking the hut. It won’t take us long to get there. It will be much quicker than on horseback.”

  The knight-captain raised her eyebrow. “All the diggers, too, and their equipment? How much space do you have in there?”

  “I can make it bigger.”

  “How taxing is that? I want you at full strength.”

  Tasha could not answer Aveline’s question with any degree of certainty. “I didn’t feel any different after making a proper bedroom and bathing room.”

  “No.” Shaking her head, Aveline held up her hand. “You need to keep an eye on whatever that thing is that came out of Koloman. You’ll have your hands full with that and moving the hut. Don’t push yourself too far. I know you’re still getting a handle on this whole Crow Queen thing.”

  Tasha forced herself to concede Aveline’s point. “I’ll get Yun and Torben and wait for you at my hut, then.”

  “If we’re going to the mine, doesn’t it make more sense to move the hut to outside of Miners’ Gate, then?” Aveline filled a pack with food from the larder.

  “That’s also a good point.”

  Tasha bade her friend farewell, leaving Aveline to her preparations. She followed the road running along the Copper Run until she reached Danica’s Den. From the outside, one would never guess what horrible events had transpired there. Inside, the smoky gaming house bustled with people intent on winning enough money to leave their life of mudding behind, despite most understanding the odds favored the house. She asked the doorman where she could find the caprikin. He directed her to the upstairs fighting ring.

  Tasha found Yun sitting ringside, his arm in a sling. Intending to slip away without approaching him, she cursed when he spotted her, waving her over.

  “Come to watch fight?” Yun raised his arm. “No fight for me today.”

  “I see that.” Tasha frowned. “I was rather hoping to recruit you for a potential battle at the old mine.”

  “I fight where pay is good, but you saved me.” Yun slapped his chest. “I fight one arm for you.”

  Tasha put her hand on his shoulder to dissuade him from rising. “No, it’s too dangerous. I won’t have you risking your life while you’re injured. You can repay your debt later. Did you see what happened with the Lord Mayor and that woman?”

  Yun shook his head, spitting on the floor. “Foul sorcery. I was… not here until after.” He flexed his free arm. “Lonely woman wanted strong one. I helped her.”

  “That’s… fine.” She patted him on the shoulder. “I have to leave. Will you check in on Ra-Jareez and Jazeera? Make sure they’re safe, will you, please?”

  “Yes.”

  Tasha thought about asking the faelix siblings for their assistance, but she decided against doing so. It would be irresponsible to expose them to danger just because she didn’t know what to expect. They were merchants, after all, not warriors. She left the smoke-filled gambling den behind and returned to her hut, ducking into a nearby alley to use her cloak hidden from passersby.

  Korbin cawed at her when she appeared in the hut. He hopped about the windowsill until she approached, then dove into the forest. Peering out the window, she saw Torben on a stump whittling a stick with his carving knife. Tasha noticed he wore clean clothes once more as well as new axes, and he had groomed himself. She opened the door and joined him.

  “Feeling better?”

  He blew wood shavings off his carving, then held it up, examining it. “Yes. I can never repay you for what you’ve done.”

  “It’s not necessary. I was helping a friend.” />
  Gone was the slump in his shoulders. Strength filled his amber eyes as he gazed at her. “Though I spoke out of fear, I meant what I said.” He slid off the stump and knelt before her, taking her hands in his. “I will guard your life with my own, for as long as I live. I pledge myself to the service of the Crow Queen.”

  “Torben, I appreciate the sentiment. I really do.” Tasha pulled him to his feet. “But I don’t need protection.”

  “Of course not.” Holding her hands, he searched her eyes. “But neither does one need a plow; yet, farmers often find it makes their work easier. Since dominating my beast, I have a greater understanding of what it all means, how it ties together. Artume, Selene, the Earth Mother. I am unnatural now; yet, I am still part of this world. I want to continue helping people, but, obviously, I will not be welcomed into most communities.”

  Tasha knew of only one city, in fact, that had ever welcomed a werewolf: Drak-Anor. She heard stories about villages in the Four Watches on good terms with local lycanthropes, but she sensed Torben preferred not to return to a land of ice and snow.

  “We’ll have to talk about this later. There’s a situation. If you want to help, if you’re willing to fight alongside Aveline and myself, we need you.”

  “I will give my life if necessary.” He bowed, bringing Tasha’s hands to his forehead.

  “I hope it won’t be.” She gestured toward the hut. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 64

  After saying goodbye to Tasha, Aveline employed parchment and quill formalizing her request to Maxim for aid. She kept the letter short and to the point. As a fellow knight of Etrunia, Maxim would be obligated to lend assistance. Whether he could actually get to the mine in time, however, remained a different matter entirely. When finished, she retrieved her triangular seal bearing an image of the owl of Anetha from the payroll vault. She rummaged in her desk drawer for a stick of wax. Upon melting part of the candle she found, she authenticated the document.

  After stowing the letter, she slung the bag over her shoulder, then took her shield and mace from the rack. Fingering the hilt of her sword, she decided against taking it. Just touching it reminded her of its last distasteful duty. Satisfied she had everything she needed, she exited the citadel.