Eyes of Crow

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  Even in the darkness the golden oak shone forth, a reminder both of Arcas’s love and the death that awaited his uncle Dorius. Though Butterflies weren’t considered warriors, Dorius’s powers of transformation and rejuvenation meant that he could withstand many blows before being mortally wounded. Besides, in a situation as desperate as this one, the army needed any man strong enough to swing a poleax.

  She had considered warning Dorius to avoid the battle, but knew that he would fight regardless. For all she knew, Crow was determined to take the man’s soul on this day. To stand in the way of His will felt wrong. But knowing that someone she had cared about since childhood was about to see his last sunrise made her own insides feel dead.

  “You should eat.”

  Elora stood next to her, holding out a plate of bread and cheese, along with a flask.

  “I’m not hungry.” Rhia actually meant it.

  “I don’t care.” She nudged the plate into Rhia’s shoulder. “If you pass out today, it’ll be one more body for me to step over. Now eat.”

  Rhia took the plate with a guilty look of thanks. Elora sat and twisted her long ash-blonde hair into a tight braid.

  As Rhia sipped from the flask, Elora said, “I put a restorative in the water.”

  Rhia lowered the container from her mouth. “What kind of restorative?”

  “To keep us all awake and full of energy.” She turned to Rhia. “If we win, our work will go on long after the battle is over. If we lose—” she shook her head “—maybe we’ll wish for a more permanent sleep.”

  Rhia shuddered. “I wish I were out there with the soldiers. So many of them will die alone.”

  Elora’s shoulders sagged. “My older son wanted to fight, but he’s only sixteen.” She held up a hand to ward off Rhia’s nonexistent protest. “I know, he’s old enough. It was selfish to make him stay, but he reminds me so much of his father. I can’t lose him, too.”

  “Your sons will be safe in Kalindos.”

  She turned a wary eye on Rhia. “But for how long?”

  The sky was turning from black to darkest indigo. “What if they don’t invade today?” she asked Elora. “What if they decide to wait until the horses have recovered?”

  “Then we attack them in their camp tonight.”

  “Why not just attack them now?”

  “It’s always easier to defend, to fight in a place of one’s choosing. This ground is good.”

  “Will they know we’re waiting for them? Won’t the horses’ sluggishness tell them we know they’re coming?”

  “They might think it a sickness, unless—” Elora hesitated. “Unless they captured Marek.”

  Rhia turned away. He should have returned by now. His bow waited for him next to Alanka. He had taken only a hunting knife on his mission; it would prove a poor defense against a sword—or several dozen swords—but for stealth purposes he wanted to remain unencumbered.

  She rubbed her hands together, full of nervous energy now after the tonic. Elora reached over and grasped them in her own. “Be still,” she said. “He’ll be all right.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I’ve known him his whole life. He’ll survive anything.”

  Rhia looked into Elora’s vivid green eyes, full of Otter kindness like her own mother’s, and tried to believe.

  The twang of a hundred bows snapped the silence.

  Rhia and Elora moved outside the hospital tent, joined by Coranna, Pirrik and the three other Asermon healers. The arrows whistled over the field, far above the heads of the soldiers huddled within the wheat.

  “Are they there?” Rhia stood on her tiptoes, straining to gather a glimpse of the approaching enemy. “Can anyone see?”

  “I should go out now.” Pirrik grabbed his healer’s kit and a short sword.

  “Wait.” Elora held him back with a hand. “Wait for our soldiers to charge, and stay far back.”

  The arrows sang again, and this time a distant chorus of rage and pain reached Rhia’s ears. She shrank back into the shadows.

  War had begun.

  The sky turned a pale purple, light enough that she could see across the field where the enemy was marching.

  Marching. Not riding.

  “He did it!” She clapped her hands like a child. “Marek got to the horses before the battle.”

  “Then where is he?” Pirrik asked.

  A great cry rose up from the clearing beyond the wheat field. The enemy charged, straight for the field, swords glittering even in the faint light of dawn. Perhaps they thought the archers were the Asermons’ only defense and they were oblivious to what awaited them among the swaying grasses.

  Lights bobbed among the charging soldiers. “Why are they carrying torches?” Rhia asked. “It’s easier for the archers to see them.”

  Coranna gasped. “They’re going to burn the field.”

  “No!” Rhia strained to see. “My brothers are in there.”

  The Descendants had reached the edge of the wheat now. Torches dipped into the grain, and the dry grasses began to burn, just as the Asermons leaped from their hiding places to swarm the oncoming enemy soldiers.

  “They’ll all be trapped.” Rhia heard the panic in her own voice. “Why would they burn the field?”

  “To create a smokescreen. They didn’t know our soldiers were there,” Elora said. “Now they can’t get out, either.”

  Without a word, Pirrik shouldered his healer’s kit and dashed toward the fray.

  Smoke rose from the far end of the field, along with the clash of metal on metal. She gaped at the strength of the Wolverine attack—each one battled three Descendants, whirling and jabbing, occasionally hurling a heavy-bladed dagger into the throat or chest of an oncoming opponent. The Wolverines’ knives should have been no match for the longer Descendant swords, but they had the training and courage to swoop close enough to the enemy soldier to stab between the plates of his armor and feel his last rattling breath. When their blows struck home, they roared with what could only be described as glee. The longer they fought, the more energy they seemed to possess.

  Other warriors were holding their own against the Descendants. The Wasp women, armed with light, whiplike flails, fought with less strength than the Wolverines, but with twice the speed and evasive capability. Several times Rhia thought one of the women would fall under an enemy attack, only to see her roll or leap away at the last moment. Sword-wielding Bears roamed the outskirts of the field, shouting orders and picking off Descendants who tried to escape to the surrounding woods. Then the wind shifted, and smoke obscured her view.

  The wounded came. A young Wolverine arrived first, supported on either side by his comrades. His right leg left a trail of blood. They passed her as they brought him under the tent, and she stilled herself with a deep breath and a quick prayer to Crow.

  “Over there,” Elora said to the soldiers, who carefully placed the wounded man on a raised platform, then dashed back into the battle. The healer beckoned to Rhia as she slit the side of the soldier’s trousers to uncover his wound. Rhia approached the man—scarcely more than a boy, younger than she was by at least a year. She had seen him around the village but didn’t know his name or family.

  The boy recoiled at the sight of her, which seemed to cause him more pain than the wound itself. She reached for his hand. He squeezed her wrist so hard she feared it would break in his grip. She smoothed dark hair from his soot-and paint-smeared face, enough to gaze into his eyes, pale blue orbs that shone under the dirt and sweat.

  Beneath the distant shouts and clangs of the battlefield, she heard…

  Nothing. No wings.

  “What’s your name?” she asked the soldier.

  “Sirin.”

  “Sirin, you’re going to be fine.”

  He leaned his head back in relief, then cried out as Elora flushed the wound. Rhia looked down at his leg, which was sliced nearly in two above the knee, and realized that “fine” was a relative term when it came t
o battle wounds.

  Another Otter gave the wounded boy a drink infused with a painkiller, and he relaxed, his eyes unfocusing. She left him to the healers and rejoined Coranna.

  “I heard nothing,” Rhia told her. “Felt nothing. He’s nowhere near death.”

  “Savor the silence while it lasts,” Coranna said, “for Crow flies low over this battlefield.”

  They stood side by side and watched the flames devour the wheat field, leaving nothing behind but blackened earth. The fire propelled the fighters to the outskirts of the field as well as back toward the hospital and the wall of archers. It spread too quickly for some to escape, and soldiers on both sides fell, choking and flailing. Rhia’s own eyes burned, though the wind now blew the smoke away from her.

  A hand gripped her shoulder.

  “Distance, Rhia,” Coranna murmured. “Each man and woman who falls must be a stranger to you. Though they are within arm’s reach, they must seem as if they are standing on the other end of this field. Tell yourself you don’t know them.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “If you are to do your duty—”

  “Doesn’t my duty include compassion? Understanding?”

  “You must learn to understand their pain without sharing it. Otherwise you will be useless.”

  Useless. The word burned Rhia’s mind like a brand that wouldn’t fade.

  “They’re coming,” Coranna said.

  Three ponies trotted from the smoke, dragging skids piled with bodies, some writhing in pain, others as still as logs.

  Crow’s wings rushed through Rhia’s mind, louder than she’d ever heard them, blotting out the screams of agony and the pleas for help. Her father led the first pony, coughing, his face already darkened with smoke. She had no time to acknowledge him, but went straight to the skid.

  The man on top was already dead, disemboweled to the point where it appeared that more of him was outside than in. When she looked at him, the roar of wings came to a crescendo, then hushed abruptly. With her hand on the dead man’s forehead, she quickly murmured the prayer of passage and signaled for Tereus to remove the body. He rolled it to the ground with a thud.

  The man who had lain half-under the corpse gasped for breath and clawed at the air in relief. Rhia gripped his hand and stared into dark green eyes, one of which was flooded red with blood from a gash in his head. It was Bolan, one of Arcas’s friends, a Horse—no great warrior, just a loyal Asermon willing to give his life.

  No, she told herself. He is no one. He has no name, no Animal, no friends. He is pure spirit, either staying or leaving. She looked in his eyes and cleared her mind.

  Wings flapped, then faded, leaving only a lingering sound that indicated they might return.

  Rhia signaled to the healer who stood nearby. “He can be saved. Quickly now.”

  Tereus and another man lifted Bolan and carried him under the tent. She turned to the third man on the skid.

  He was a Descendant. A dying Descendant.

  Crow sounded a thunder of wings, and before Rhia could wonder why the Spirit would take someone who didn’t believe in Him, she found herself kneeling beside the man. His mouth opened and closed like that of a fish on dry land.

  No blood coated his uniform or armor, and his head looked clear of contusions. What was killing him? she wondered.

  He clawed at the front of his shirt, and she pushed it open. A hideous black and purple bruise spread across his chest, which appeared caved in. One of her people must have smashed him with the blunt end of a pole or the hilt of a sword.

  The Descendant’s eyes flared with pain, and his legs thrashed as if they could run to find air. Though others needed her, she clutched his hand as his mouth begged without words.

  “He’s coming for you,” she whispered. “He’s coming.”

  There were herbs in her pocket to ease his pain, but she couldn’t reach them without letting go of the man’s hand. Her touch and words of prayer seemed to soothe him, and she felt him stop fighting. In a few moments his eyes stared through her. She forced herself to drop his hand and beckon her father.

  “He’s dead. Put both the bodies aside.”

  Tereus reached to touch her arm. She drew it away.

  “I need no comfort,” she said. “Show me the others.”

  She repeated the grisly procedure at the next skid. One dead, two injured, one seriously enough to be on the edge of life and death. No sooner had her father and the other two pony leaders disappeared into the smoky battlefield, another three appeared with more wounded.

  The bodies became a blur to Rhia—some Asermon, some Descendant, even a Kalindon or two, though all of the archers lived and fought, their task made more difficult by the thick smoke that choked the sky.

  The only Kalindon unaccounted for, as far as she knew, was Marek. During one of her brief moments of rest, she scanned the visible edges of the woods for any sign of him.

  Her father arrived then with another batch of potential patients. She went to work without hesitation, numb from the death and pain she had witnessed. Response became automatic: yes, no, save her, don’t save them, it’s too late, it’s not too late. The prayer of passage created a constant background hum in her mind, swamped only by the onslaught of Crow’s wings. It became easier to distance herself from the sight of oozing red cloths piled high in the corner, from the smell of blood and smoke, and from the sound of wounded warriors calling for their mothers.

  Then a battle roar sounded, too close. She looked up from the injured patient at her feet to see a platoon of Descendant infantry charging the wall of archers less than a hundred paces away. The twenty or more soldiers had broken through Asermon defenses in the wheat field. Half a dozen Bears and Wolverines pursued, including Lycas and Nilo, but they were too late.

  The archer on the far left was overtaken before he could even react. They were close enough to the hospital tent that Rhia could hear his cry of agony. She stepped out to the edge of the hill to watch the horror as it unfolded.

  A Descendant soldier snatched the bow from the dead archer, then knelt on the ground while several of his compatriots shielded him from the arrows now being fired at close range. In a few moments, they parted slightly, and she saw the soldier, still kneeling, aiming an arrow wrapped in something white. A torch-bearing Descendant lit the end of the arrow.

  The flaming arrow flew—straight for the hospital. Rhia screamed as it pierced the air over her head and landed on the roof of the tent, which began to smolder. She ran back to the hospital, where the healers had already begun to stack barrels and crates and anything else they could find to reach the roof.

  Along with her father and two of the Asermon healers, she climbed the stack of crates. Buckets of water were passed up. At the top of the line next to her, her father dumped the water onto the fire, which was starting to crawl down the seam of the tent. If it spread much farther, the flaming roof would fall onto the patients and healers underneath.

  She had just dropped an empty bucket to the person waiting below when she glanced back at the archer’s wall from her higher vantage point. The soldier was preparing to shoot another flaming arrow their way even as his defenders were falling before a Wolverine assault.

  “Father, look out!” she cried.

  A moment before the soldier released the arrow, Lycas pushed aside his last shielder and seized him. The arrow shot, not toward its intended target, but straight up. Before it even reached its zenith, Lycas had torn off the man’s helmet and sliced his throat.

  The arrow took forever to fall. Like a meteor, its brightness flared as it shoved the air aside on its deadly, indifferent mission. The Descendants, distracted by the arrow’s fall and their efforts to avoid its path, proved easy prey for the Bears’ swords and Wolverines’ knives. The arrow landed harmlessly in the flaming field.

  Someone shoved another bucket into Rhia’s hands. She passed it on to Tereus, who climbed higher to douse the last few flames on the roof. With the danger avert
ed for now, her attention was drawn back to the battle.

  If ever violence could be described as beautiful, her brothers were exquisite. They fought back to back, jabbing and feinting and blocking as one unit, occasionally tossing each other weapons from the arsenal strapped to their chests and hips. The knives themselves seemed connected to their hands, like the long claws of real wolverines.

  A Descendant soldier slashed his sword at Lycas’s legs, but the natural armor of a second-phase Wolverine resisted the impact of the steel. Rhia closed her eyes and thanked the Spirits for Mali. In Lycas’s first phase, such a blow would have cost him a limb. He laughed at the attempt and dispatched the sword’s wielder with a stab to the throat.

  Alanka had climbed a small hill behind the wall, providing better aim at the attackers but leaving her unprotected. She fired repeatedly, sweeping her arm back again and again to grab a new arrow. A few Descendants broke off to attack her. Alanka cut down the first two, then reached back—

  —and came up empty-handed.

  When he saw she was unarmed, the Descendant dropped his shield to run faster. As he approached, Alanka stood stunned, unaccustomed to being the hunted instead of the hunter. Then she turned her bow over, ready to wield it like a club, for it was the only weapon she had. It wouldn’t be enough, and she couldn’t outrun him. Rhia’s knees turned to water.

  Just as the Descendant gathered himself to lunge for the Wolf woman, he halted, then tipped forward, as if his feet had caught in a snare. The hilt of a throwing dagger protruded from the base of his neck. Near the archer’s wall, Nilo drew his arm back and shouted with victory. Alanka sent him a smile of gratitude, but then her expression changed to one of horror.

  Rhia looked at Nilo, whose own face had frozen.

  “No!” she screamed, and nearly lost her balance. A hand caught her before she fell.

  As Nilo toppled, the Descendant behind him withdrew the sword from his back. Though Lycas was facing the other direction, he staggered as if he had taken the blow himself. He turned, slowly, and saw his brother writhing in the last throes of death.