The Black Hawks

by David Wragg

  ‘What about yours?’ Lemon had a pattern of dark bruises staining her face, the result of Hurkel’s crushing grip. He wondered what damage she had taken from the punch. She gave no sign of pain or discomfort.

  ‘Ah, bollocks to that, bear-man. Nothing that fat bastard could do to me I haven’t already done myself. Now, let’s see how that arm’s doing.’

  He let her strip his bandage, shivering in the chill air as she moved his damaged arm around, testing its range of movement. As Lemon worried at him, Chel looked over at the grumpy conference at the stream’s edge and said, ‘What are they talking about?’

  ‘Well, I couldn’t say for certain, but it’s probably relating to the fact we’re miles from where we’re supposed to be, down on manpower, we’ve lost or abandoned a load of supplies and the seasonal storms will be breaking any day. Now hold still while I— Sweet mercy!’

  The arm did not smell good.

  ‘You’re going to need to start using this again now,’ Lemon said, nose wrinkled from its flaky stink. ‘Or you’ll be a shrivelled cripple-bear for years to come. Just elbow down for now, we’ll get to the shoulder in another couple of weeks. Make sure you can see your hand at all times. And give it a fucken wash!’

  ‘How do you know all this?’

  ‘Like I said, an education. A real one.’ She began to re-sling his upper arm, leaving the elbow free.

  Chel watched Whisper say something in her hand-language to Rennic and Loveless, then stalk off into the woods, her bow in her hand. She seemed to leave only the faintest impressions in the snow.

  ‘Does she ever talk?’

  Lemon followed his gaze. ‘Oh aye, she talks plenty. Right gobby, she is.’

  ‘But, you know, with her mouth?’

  Lemon said nothing.

  ‘Why doesn’t she speak? What’s her story?’

  Lemon finished the sling and began to pack up her satchel. ‘A person’s story is their own, wee bear. You want it, you ask them, and if they want to, they’ll tell you. And if they don’t, they won’t, and you’ll have to go on living your bear-life.’

  ‘So I’m supposed to ask her?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘But I won’t understand the answer!’

  ‘Aye, right. Well, that would be your problem.’

  Chel frowned. ‘Then what’s your story, Lemon?’

  ‘Aha, clever Trevor. I’ll tell you this much, if only for persistence: I’m from over the waters, south-easterly, originally.’

  Chel sighed. ‘Say it isn’t so.’

  Lemon grinned. ‘I know, shocking, eh? Most folks is stunned by that revelation.’

  Whisper reappeared, two braces of mountain wildlife dripping blood from her grip. She passed them to Foss and Spider, who set about plucking and dressing the meat, then setting it over the now-roaring fire. The crew ate in exhausted silence as the sun dropped below the peaked horizon, their bedrolls already laid as close to the fire as safety would allow.

  ‘What happened back there, Chel?’ Tarfel was right beside him, pale hands to the fire. ‘What did they want, do you think? That church fellow and his hirelings.’

  ‘I think they wanted you, highness.’

  ‘How flattering. Although their manners were rather rough, eh?’

  ‘I think they’re trying to finish what they tried at the winter palace, highness. We’re loose ends, and they’re looking to trim us.’

  ‘But who? Who wants me trimmed?’

  Chel bit at his thumb. He hardly dared voice his fears. ‘Someone with the command of some senior prelates.’ Someone at the top of the Church. That could only mean Primarch Vassad. He thought of Balise da Loran, the messages at the League’s camp, how she’d plucked the correspondence from Prince Mendel’s table. He thought of his sister, travelling with the court. Travelling at the prelate’s mercy.

  ‘Are you all right, Chel? You look unwell.’

  ‘I was thinking … that I left my sister with the Star Court. I worry for her safety.’

  ‘I worry about Mendel, ever more so since the attack those years ago, since our brother Corvel died. He was the same age as I am now, you know? Mendel was lucky to escape with his life.’

  Chel nodded, offered a sad smile. Of course he knew. Everyone did.

  ‘Who do you think they’re taking us to, highness?’

  ‘What did the blue girl say? Someone who can bring me back from the dead? Let’s hope it’s not another stalwart of the cloth …’

  Despite the dispatch of their pursuers, Rennic ordered a two-man watch overnight. Chel and Tarfel were excused, for which Chel was both relieved and a little insulted. Spider was paired with Foss, and Chel made sure his and Tarfel’s bedrolls were on Foss’s side of the fire. He watched Spider from the corner of his eye, but the bald man never looked at him, never repeated his threat from the night before. He didn’t need to.

  ‘This is no surprise,’ Rennic said as they finished their meal in the twilight, ‘but we’re not where we’re supposed to be. After that fuck-up, we’ve gone further off course. We don’t have the time to retrace, even assuming we wouldn’t run into more red bastards.’ Those around the campfire nodded, including Tarfel, to Chel’s wry amusement.

  ‘We were aiming for Lizard Pass. That’s shot now. New plan is to cut all the way to the High Passes, get up, round and down before the storms hit.’

  Mutters and tuts filled the air. ‘That’s Nanaki territory,’ Foss said.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘They’re … unpredictable.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Especially with people who look like him.’ Foss nodded to Tarfel, who looked blank.

  Chel spoke up, his defensive instincts prickled. ‘What’s the Nanaki’s problem with the prince?’

  ‘Come on,’ Lemon said, ‘milky skin, yellowish hair? Looks like a fucken Horvaun to them.’

  ‘They’re not fans of the Horvaun?’

  ‘Aye, no – who do you think drove their people out of the southern coastlands, eh?’

  ‘Reavers did? I didn’t know that.’

  ‘Not like they were welcomed elsewhere, was it? Hence their remote habitat and general lack of amity.’

  ‘What about you? You’ve got pale skin.’

  ‘Aye, fuck off, wee bear. The noble Clyde is friend to all.’

  Rennic offered a grim smile in the firelight. ‘We’ll just have to keep the princeling’s ugly mug under wraps, won’t we? Besides, this late in the year, they’ll all have moved beneath the snow-line. We should have a clear run.’ He stood. ‘Make the most of those bones. We’re on half-rations until further notice. Whisp and I have first watch.’ He turned to walk away.

  ‘Wait, no circle, boss? We lost—’

  ‘Not from me. Ask Spider what he wants.’ With that he strode away.

  ‘Spider? Want me to—’

  ‘Fuck off, fatso. All your weepy gibbering won’t make a sloppy shit of difference. She’s good and dead either way.’ Spider glared after Rennic, then stalked off into the twilight in the opposite direction. Chel watched him go with a mixture of relief and lingering unease.

  ‘Ignore him, Fossy, friend Spider’s taking his lack of vengeance a little personally, I’d hazard.’

  ‘I realize, but—’

  ‘And could have been a little more perilous for us if boss-man hadn’t met his wee friend among the Mawn, eh? Those buggers don’t take prisoners – or leave survivors.’

  ‘Not true,’ said Loveless, gaze distant.

  ‘Oh aye? You know better, Ell?’

  ‘They take prisoners all right.’ Loveless spoke with a cold detachment that Chel found unsettling. ‘They use them. On their recruits. On their children.’

  ‘Use them how?’ Even Lemon sounded unnerved.

  ‘They whip the kids up into a frenzy, then give them a blade and set them on their prisoners. Over and over, chanting, wailing, cheered on by all around them. They’re promised all the delights of adult existence as a reward – booze, sex, adul
ation, independence. So they stab, and they keep stabbing, until it’s normal, natural, wonderful. Then they wheel in another.’ She paused, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them, speaking only to the crackling fire. ‘They train their children to exalt in the act of killing.’

  Nobody spoke. Lemon slowly replaced the stopper on a wine-skin. Somewhere distant an animal screeched.

  ‘And tomorrow it’s the High Passes on half-rations. Twelve hells,’ Foss sighed, and those around the fire sighed with him.

  ‘Twelve hells? There’s only five, right?’ Chel said.

  ‘It’s nine,’ Loveless said, preparing her bedroll, her reverie passed. ‘The Foss is double-counting.’

  ‘Nonsense, friend, it’s twelve.’

  ‘You’re all correct, really,’ Tarfel said, his voice quiet. The company turned to look at him. He cleared his throat. ‘Different churches have counted the hells according to different scales, but even within the New Church—’

  ‘True Church,’ Foss corrected.

  ‘—there’s disagreement between the Articles over the precise number. All that’s certain is that it’s more than one.’

  Loveless arched an eyebrow. ‘And how do you know that, princeling?’

  Lemon chuckled. ‘Didn’t you hear? Yon princeling has hattended the Hacademy.’

  Tarfel coloured and looked at his feet.

  ‘Anyway,’ Lemon continued. ‘Doesn’t matter, right? It’s all the same old, same old.’

  ‘How can you say that, Lem?’ Foss looked more animated than Chel had seen previously. ‘The hell of usury is very different from that of infanticide or simony.’

  Loveless jammed another branch onto the fire. ‘Funny how these old priests have such a clear and vivid picture of the punishments on offer for whatever they’ve decided doesn’t suit the Church that week. No wonder the hell count keeps rising.’

  ‘Aye, right,’ Lemon said over the top of Foss’s objections. ‘Not real, though, are they? I mean, hells as physical places, like.’

  Foss’s expression had darkened. ‘You’re saying there are no hells, Lemon?’

  ‘Aye, no, they’re a whatsit, metaphor. Like, the concept of eternal punishment, it’s a … a … metaphysical construct, so it is.’

  ‘What in His name are you talking about, Lemon?’

  ‘Aye, never mind. Night night.’

  ***

  Chel slept as close to the fire as he dared, on the hard, moist ground where the snow had melted. Tarfel was a lump beside him, Loveless a sighing bundle beyond. Spider lay opposite, his gaunt features exaggerated by the lick of flames, sneering even in sleep. Chel slept fitfully, struggling to find comfort. He woke in the death of night, the frigid air chilling his marrow, stinging his swollen face like a slap. Spider crouched beyond the subdued fire, glittering eyes fixed on Chel and a long, curved blade swaying in his hand. Chel blinked long and slow, the rest of his mind some way behind his eyes. A moment later, when they snapped open with grim unease pricking his innards, Spider was gone.

  It took him a long time to go back to sleep.

  TWELVE

  ‘Get up! On your feet!’

  Sharp pain in his shoulder dragged him from sleep. Rennic stood over him, firm hand on his weak shoulder. Around him, the world was white.

  ‘Move your hide, boy, or you’ll die on this mountain.’ With that, the big man was gone, vanished into the blankness that surrounded them.

  Chel struggled to his feet. The fire still burned, reduced to ember glow, but the mountainside had been transformed. The air was the colour of the snow, the horizon and surroundings impossible to discern. Delicate flakes drifted through the air, settling with a feathery touch on his shoulders.

  Foss loomed out of the white, a dark tower. ‘Come, friend, stow your roll and grab your prince.’

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Dawn. Or what should be.’

  ‘What’s the rush? We can’t travel in this, you can’t see a thrice-damned thing!’

  ‘We can’t stay out in the open.’

  ‘It’s hardly snowing. We get far worse down south.’

  ‘Not this, friend, but what follows.’

  ‘And what follows?’

  ‘Aye, fuck, what’s the yapping?’ Lemon was beside them. ‘Let’s get a wiggle on, tubers.’

  She dragged them on, scooping up Tarfel as they went.

  ‘What’s happening?’ the prince asked. His hair was dusted with snowflakes, and for a moment in the dazzling white he almost looked like his brother.

  ‘Storm’s coming, princey. One that might kick the arse clean off us.’

  ‘Oh. Oh dear.’

  ***

  Whisper was off, bounding into the haze as the others stumbled along in her wake. Chel concentrated on his feet, his weakened hand clinging to the bundled bedroll pressed against his body. Nobody spoke, not even Lemon, although the light snow continued to drift on a gentle breeze. The dread suffused them. Every time the wind picked up, Chel felt the others around him tense.

  They slogged for hours, although time was lost to them. From instinct more than a reading of the swirling grey-white, Chel guessed it was noon before they paused, sheltering beneath a thick cluster of trees at the apex of what might once have been a goat-trail.

  ‘Are we nearly there yet?’ Loveless said with a giggle, bent double as she recovered her breath.

  Rennic’s face was grim. The snow that stuck to it made him look like the broken old beggar that Chel had first sighted in Denirnas, and he shivered.

  ‘Ah, come on, it’s not that cold,’ Lemon said from beside him. She produced a smattering of rations from one of her sacks, handing out salted meat and now well-dried bread. Whisper took hers with a nod, then vanished into the darkness beyond the trees. Chel realized he’d never seen her eat.

  ‘Why doesn’t she eat with everyone else?’ Tarfel asked, looking after her. ‘Is she hoarding?’

  ‘Ever tried eating in polite company without a tongue, princeling?’ Loveless wasn’t smiling.

  Tarfel looked blank. ‘No?’

  ‘Let me know if you’d like to try it.’

  They chewed in silence, while around them the snow thickened, and the trees creaked in the wind.

  ***

  ‘We’re close now.’ Rennic was leaning hard on his staff, hair blowing across his face. The snow on the ground had reached Lemon’s knees. ‘We’d see them if it weren’t for this piss-licking cloud.’

  ‘Which are we going for?’ Even Foss was flagging. The dull burning in Chel’s legs was by now an old friend.

  ‘Whichever we can.’

  They were halfway across a steep, open slope when Chel heard the prince stumble. He turned back, wading through the snow in the direction of the fallen prince, reaching him just before Lemon who was bringing up the rear. Between them, they levered him upright, frost-dusted and spluttering.

  ‘Aye, come on, princey, we’re falling behi—’

  It was like being hit by a wall of ice. The gust blasted them sideways, whipping them with frozen shards, howling in their ears like demons. Tarfel shrieked and wailed, and all three landed back in the snow. Then it passed, leaving a strange void in its wake, a moment of eerie silence in the white before the sounds of the – invisible – world returned. From somewhere down the valley, Chel heard the wind come howling again.

  The glare shifted, and Chel saw shapes ahead, little more than dark smears. ‘Come on,’ he urged, heaving himself upright. ‘We can’t risk getting separated.’ He called away to the others but the growing wind swallowed his cries. At least they had stopped to wait. Lemon was up, her orange halo festooned, arms beneath the re-fallen prince.

  ‘Give me a hand with this, will you, wee bear?’

  They drag-stumbled along the slope, making for the shapes, as the wind rose again and scoured them with waves of ice crystals. Chel was rasped and numb, no longer able to feel the stinging of his exposed skin, his toes a memory. He snatched a
glance over his shoulder, toward the shapes, into the teeth of the storm.

  ‘Shit.’

  The shapes were trees. They’d lost the others.

  ‘Shit.’

  ***

  ‘Ancestors’ grace,’ Lemon whispered, looking down at her blue-tinged hands. ‘That fucken smarts.’

  They huddled closer against the ancient, scarred tree trunk, shivering and shedding ice. Somewhere down-valley, the wind howled again.

  ‘Is the storm over?’ Tarfel said, his skin the colour of the snow.

  ‘Don’t know, princey.’

  ‘Where are the others?’

  ‘Don’t know, princey.’

  ‘What are we going to do?’

  Lemon turned to Chel. ‘How do you stop yourself just punching him all the time?’

  The howling came again, and Lemon froze. Chel read her expression. ‘That’s not the wind, is it?’

  Lemon shook her head. ‘It is not, no.’

  Tarfel looked panicked. ‘What? What is it?’

  When Lemon didn’t answer, Chel met the prince’s gaze. ‘Wolves.’

  ‘Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.’

  ‘Still, there’s one piece of good news,’ Lemon said, cracking a bloody grin. ‘If them wolfy bastards are coming out to play, that’s probably it for this shitehawk storm.’

  ‘Oh,’ Tarfel said, his expression brightening. ‘Well, that’s something.’

  ‘Aye, right. Ain’t it just.’

  Chel squinted at the drifting haze beyond the trees. The baying echoed from the slopes around them, but it was getting louder. ‘I think the fog’s lifting. How far away do you think they are?’

  Lemon was rummaging in one of her sacks, grim-faced. ‘Hard to say. Maybe close enough to get wind of us.’

  ‘Maybe they’ve found Hurkel and his friends.’ For a moment, the image filled his mind of wolves tearing into the stricken confessor, and he felt his stomach lurch. He couldn’t be sure if it was horror or guilt. ‘We can fight them off, right? You’re the champion wolf-slayer.’

  She coughed. ‘Aye, right, well … There might have been a little, to use an Hacademy expression, hyperbole.’