Watcher of the Dead

by J. V. Jones

“No. She’s had it since she was a chick. It’s normal to her, but bits of hardened resin aren’t.”

  Bram took it in. He was hungry to know more about the Phage but had learned that Mallin never revealed anything before he was ready. “How will she know where to go?”

  “She’ll home.” Mallin’s yellow-green eyes narrowed and Bram guessed he wouldn’t be learning where home was anytime soon. “And then we wait on a reply.”

  Bram thought about this. “Will the same bird be sent back?”

  Mallin crossed his legs. He was sitting on a bale of hay, leaning against the dusty red-stained boards of the stable wall. “No.”

  “How will the new bird know where to go?”

  “It will fly directly to this hayloft.”

  “How?”

  Mallin smiled, his lips paling as he stretched them. “No need to ask why?”

  Bram shook his head. This was a stovehouse. It was a place where people met, drank, talked, slept. Neutral territory in a land of warring clans. It made sense that the Phage kept birds here. “No.”

  “Good.” The ranger took an apple from one of his pouches and bit on it. “Check the resin. If it’s set take the bird to the window and release her.”

  Bram checked. “Is it meant to be rubbery?”

  Mallin nodded

  Taking the bird in both hands, Bram rose and crossed to the small triangular window at the end of the loft. The window faced southwest and Bram wondered if he could see the Dhoonehold in the distance.

  “Throw her.”

  Bram did just that, tossing the raven into the cloudy afternoon sky. She opened her wings immediately and beat hard to keep aloft.

  “Ravens home to where they were raised,” Mallin said, surprising Bram. “When they fly from this stovehouse they are homing to the Phage. That bird was brought here overland in a cart and caged until needed. Now it’s been released it will home. The person who receives the message will send a reply with a bird who was raised here, in this stovehouse.”

  Bram counted five major stovehouses in his head, and there had to be a dozen lesser ones. “That’s a lot of birds . . . and a lot of carts back and forth.”

  Again there was that smile from Hew Mallin. Standing, he leant forward and fed the apple core to the magpie. “People work for us every day without knowing that they do so.”

  Hearing the low and pointed tone of the ranger’s voice, Bram decided they weren’t talking about birds anymore.

  Mallin’s gaze was surprisingly frank. Yes, it confirmed. Everything you imagine is correct.

  Bram hardly knew what he imagined. He had an image of hundreds of tentacles reaching out and spinning things . . . and the spinning things did not realize why they spun.

  The sun broke through the clouds sending a prism of light streaming through the window. Feathers and haydust stirred in the warm air as Mallin let his silence speak real and vital truths about the Phage: the scale and reach of its connections and resources, the subtlety and longevity of its plans.

  “Let’s get some food,” Mallin said abruptly, ending the lesson. “Nothing makes me hungry like knowing I must wait.”

  Five days passed before the reply arrived. Mallin had spent the time grooming—he’d had a local woman rebraid his hair—bartering goods, extracting information from stovehouse patrons, eating well and often and bedding whores. Bram spent time with the birds. Hannie May let him feed them. It was a revelation. They were continually mounting one another and even the pigeons ate meat. It was Hannie who informed Bram the message had arrived.

  “Got a live one,” she told him as he was sitting by the stove, breakfasting on scrambled egg and trout. Mallin wasn’t around. He’d spent last night with one of Hannie’s girls. Bram decided to head to the hayloft without him.

  The new raven was on top of the corvid cage, goose-stepping from bar to bar and screaming up a racket. Bram had learned a little about handling birds by then and bundled her in a blanket to calm her while he retrieved the message. Using his handknife, he broke the resin seal on the collar and winkled out the small roll of parchment. Ink had run through the paper and Bram could clearly see letters on the other side.

  “I’ll take that.”

  Hew Mallin climbed through the loft hatch. His expression was blank as he held out his hand. Bram had not heard him coming. Aware his cheeks were heating up, Bram handed over the paper and caged the raven.

  Mallin read the message, rolled it back into a cylinder and fed it to the raven. “Get the horses ready,” he told Bram. “We leave within the quarter.”

  As Bram saddled the horses on the stovehouse’s hard standing, a party of Wellmen rode in from the south. Bram’s mind kept slipping from its task and he was having trouble latching Gabbie’s belly strap. He kept thinking about the message, wondering what it said and where it was sending them, and worrying about what Mallin thought of him. Had he concluded that Bram was about to read the message?

  Was I?

  Bram’s thoughts were interrupted by shouts from the Wellmen. They were sworn warriors, road-weary with a heavy complement of arms and armaments, and they made the assumption Bram was the stable-boy. They were anxious to get inside to rest so Bram took their horses from them. The groom was out exercising Hannie’s mare and would not be back for a couple of minutes.

  The senior warrior threw Bram a coin for his trouble. Bram caught it and opened his fist to look at it.

  “It’s only a copper,” the warrior said, mistaking Bram’s silence for disappointment. “But I’ll give you a gold coin’s worth of news to top it. Robbie Dun Dhoone has taken the Withyhouse and crowned himself a king.”

  Bram couldn’t recall much for a while after that. Gabbie’s belly strap must have been successfully fastened and both horses saddled and loaded but he couldn’t remember doing it. He hadn’t even mustered much surprise when Mallin had informed him they’d be heading north.

  Kingmaker, Bram kept thinking. Bram Cormac had helped Robbie Dhoone become king. He still wasn’t sure what he felt about it. Mostly it didn’t feel good, but there were moments when he felt small thrills of triumph. Power had shifted in the clanholds because of a message he had delivered.

  To become king, Robbie had needed his brother’s help.

  Bram sat down by the campfire and strung his bow. It was dark now and the wind had dropped. Mallin was turning over the quartered ice hare with his knife. The juices were running clear.

  “There’s no need to unsheathe the sword.”

  Mallin was always watching him. Bram nodded toward the strung bow and half dozen arrows he’d taken from their case at Mallin’s request. “I thought we had to be ready for attack?”

  A sound came from Mallin’s throat. Leaning forward, he speared the hare and set it on his plate to cool.

  Bram was busy thinking. Why only a bow? What if they were surprised at close quarters? They’d need swords then.

  Mallin transferred one of the hare pieces onto Bram’s plate and handed it to him. “Why was the Morrowhouse built here?”

  Morrow, the name of the Lost Clan. No clansmen worth his salt would speak it. Bram cleared his throat. “Good defensive position.”

  “And?”

  “The river?”

  “Eat,” Mallin said. He might as well have said, Don’t speak.

  Bram ate. By the time he’d reached the bone he’d worked it out. “Good hunting.”

  Mallin wrapped the remaining hare, turfed the fire to extinguish it, and grabbed his bow. “Let’s see what we can bring down.”

  It was a long night. They took up position by the river and then did a slow circuit of the meadow. Mallin, who was an excellent shot by day, compensated for poor nightvision with stealth. Bram was glad to have something useful to contribute: he’d always been known for his eyes. They brought down a goat, and a sheep without markings that Mallin said was probably part of a wild flock that had been founded by strays. By the time the carcasses had been split and bled the sun was up and it was another day.<
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  Bram ran his hand knife along the whetstone, honing the edge. He was anxious to get the butchering done so he could bathe in the river. He was tired and he stank of goat.

  “No skinning,” Mallin said. “We’re loading them onto the horses.”

  “Whole?”

  Mallin threw his tent canvas over the back of his stallion. “They’re gifts,” he explained lightly, “for the Maimed Men.”

  Bram managed to close his mouth about an hour later, as they walked the horses through a pass in the Copper Hills. The Maimed Men. He had never imagined a future where he visited the world beyond the Rift. What was Mallin up to? What had that message said?

  Excitement stopped Bram feeling weary for half a day. Mallin kept his own counsel, but Bram knew the ranger well enough to sense that he was anxious for the journey to be done. They stopped briefly at midday to rest the horses and reposition the carcasses. Both tent canvasses were stiff with blood. In the afternoon, the land began to descend and Bram spotted the thin black line on the horizon. He knew it instantly. The break in the continent, the Rift.

  They walked toward it for the rest of the day and into the night. When they reached level headland the wind picked up, blowing hard into their faces. Bram began to notice lights in the distance and then, as they drew closer, he saw how heat venting from the Rift distorted those lights and the stars above them. A low current of fear kept him alert.

  “What’s that sound?” he whispered as they turned on to a well-maintained path that headed straight for the edge.

  “Rift music.”

  It didn’t really clear things up, but Bram could tell from Mallin’s voice that no further explanation would be offered. Bram had never seen the ranger so alert. His hands and eyes were never still. As they approached the edge, Mallin slid his hat from one of his coat pouches and put it on. It was his badge, the means by which people identified him from a distance. He was the man in the bearskin hat.

  It meant they were being watched. Bram dusted down his cloak and pants. It seemed to intensify the smell of goat. They were very close now and Bram could see the Rift spread out before him. It was the darkest object on a dark night, a gap that held nothing to please or rest the eye.

  Yet something was moving across it. A light appeared to be suspended above it. As Bram watched he realized it was a torch. Somehow, someone was crossing the Rift.

  The path ahead suddenly turned and they were there, on the ledge. Bram could smell the center of the earth.

  “You’re lucky,” Mallin said, coming to stand by him. “A night crossing’s always best first time.”

  Bram’s gaze was on the torch. It was very close now and he could see the figure carrying it. He could also see that figure was walking on a rope bridge, not air.

  “Take the kills off the horses and spread some feed by the rocks.”

  “Gabbie and Strife stay here?”

  “Horses won’t cross the Rift.”

  Bram found nothing reassuring about that statement. As he untied the sheep carcass from Gabbie, Mallin called out a greeting to the figure on the bridge.

  “Welcome, friend,” came the response. “I’ll send a boy over to watch the horses.” The figure stepped from the bridge onto the suspension platform and looked with interest at Bram. “And who else do I greet?”

  “Bram Cormac,” Bram said, acutely aware of the space after his name where of Castlemilk or of Dhoone should have gone.

  It seemed to him that the stranger from the Rift heard the space too. “Welcome, Bram Cormac,” he said, raising the torch to reveal his face.

  “I am Thomas Argola, Rift Brother. Once of Hanatta . . . in a different time and life.”

  Seeing his features and hearing his voice, Bram realized the man was from the Far South. He was slightly built, with olive skin and clever features. A speck of blood floated in his left eye.

  “Keep your gaze on the horizon,” he told Bram, turning, “and don’t forget to breathe.”

  Crossing the Rift with a sheep carcass slung over his shoulder after two days without sleep was something Bram would never forget. The rope bridge swung and some of the treads were gone and the light from Argola’s torch was fitful. Bram’s cloak filled with air and as he tried to flatten it he dropped a glove. Before a man could blink it was swallowed by the darkness. Bram stared at the spot where it had disappeared. He had an impulse to chuck away Robbie’s sword, and let it fall for a very long time.

  By the time they completed the crossing, Maimed Men had gathered in the landing area to inspect them. They didn’t look friendly. Bram watched Mallin closely, following the ranger’s lead.

  “Meat,” Mallin said, shucking off the goat carcass and letting it fall to the ground. “Brought down yesterday.”

  Bram copied the maneuver with the sheep carcass. He was glad to have it gone. A fire was burning on the ledge and the flickering flames made the Maimed Men look like ghouls. None of them made a move toward the carcasses but Bram sensed that some vital requirement had been met.

  Argola led the way through them. “Stillborn will want to see you,” he told Mallin. “He calls himself the Scar Chief now.”

  Mallin nodded tersely, and Bram followed him and Argola into the city on the edge of the abyss.

  CHAPTER 18

  Lost Men

  THEY WALKED FOR an hour through the darkness. A group of Maimed children followed them. The eldest, a girl with stringy blond hair and missing teeth, threw a stone. A single look from Mallin prevented any further missiles from being loosed. The ranger cut quite a figure, Bram realized. Tall and lean in his long saddle coat, he moved like a man who knew what to do in a fight. Bram tried to follow his lead, keeping his chin high and his back straight. This was his first proper mission with Mallin and he didn’t want to make any mistakes.

  The cliffs were mined with caves. People came out of them to watch Mallin and Bram pass. A large bonfire was burning on one of the upper ledges and Argola led them steadily upward toward it. After two days without sleep, Bram’s eyeballs ached and his leg muscles protested the climb. Mallin must have been weary too but you wouldn’t have known it. He seemed focused and alive.

  “Always one for a pretty hat, Hew.”

  They’d reached the bonfire and a big bear of a man with a deep scar dissecting his face, and bullhorns wrapped around his bare forearms stepped ahead of the crowd of men to greet them.

  “Stillborn,” Mallin replied, inclining his head. “I hear you’re calling yourself the Scar Chief now.”

  The one called Stillborn took a quick glance at his men. “It’s a name. Some of us have many of them.”

  Mallin didn’t take the bait. “Are matters well here?”

  “We live by a godforsaken hole-in-the-earth. You tell me.” Stillborn’s voice was hard and his hazel eyes glittered in the firelight. Bram sensed the man felt threatened.

  Mallin made no reply and the two men appraised one other in silence. “Hew and his friend brought meat,” Argola said. “Two carcasses. A goat and a sheep.”

  For the first time Stillborn turned his gaze on Bram. “That must make you the sheep.”

  Bram felt the heat rise in his cheeks. Men with parts missing from their bodies and faces laughed at him. They were heavily and grotesquely armed.

  “I’m Bram Cormac.” His voice cracked a bit but sounded all right.

  “And what clan did you fall out of?”

  Was it that obvious he was clan? Acutely aware that Mallin was watching him, Bram said, “I fell out of a couple. What about you?”

  For a wonder the Maimed Men laughed. Bram didn’t dare take his eyes off Stillborn, but in the corner of his vision he could see that Mallin was perfectly still.

  The bonfire roared as it burned, pumping out smoke and heat. “They threw me out of Scarpe. Me very own sister did the chucking. A lovely lass.”

  Was it possible this man was brother to the Scarpe chief, Yelma Scarpe?

  Stillborn winked at him.

  Bram conce
ntrated on not letting his mouth fall open.

  He could be me. The thought filled Bram with unease so strong it was almost panic. He did not want to end up here, desperate and out of choices like these men.

  There was a tooth embedded in the scar flesh of Stillborn’s neck. As Stillborn inspected Bram’s face it began to twitch. “You lose your clan, and then you keep on losing. Next thing you know there’s nothing left.”

  Bram took a step back.

  Stillborn had taken a breath to continue speaking, but after a moment exhaled. He was shaking. So was Bram.

  “Go to bed,” Stillborn told the crowd. “Nothing to see here, just a sheep and a goat.”

  Maimed Men stirred. A handful walked away from the fire. Stillborn said to Mallin, “This time tomorrow you’re gone.”

  Mallin knew when a show of submission was called for. “As you say.”

  Stillborn grunted. “Follow me.”

  As Stillborn took a lamp from one of the Maimed Men, Mallin exchanged a glance with Thomas Argola. It looked like a promise to Bram.

  Later.

  The whirring groans and shudders of the Rift followed them as they descended to a lower ledge. Bram wondered if the night would ever end.

  He wondered about a lot of things.

  “You don’t use Traggis Mole’s old quarters?” Mallin said when they arrived at their destination, a shell-shaped ledge with a cave leading down from it.

  Stillborn threw a hand through the air. “Place is full o’ ghosts.” He was dressed in a donkey skin kilt over black wool pants. Despite the coolness of the night, the only clothing covering his upper body was a leather waistcoat. He showed an even mix of muscle and fat that made him look as sturdy as a bear.

  “Here, Cormac. Drink this.” He thrust a pewter flask at Bram’s stomach like a punch. “I’ll see what I can scratch up to eat.”

  Bram and Mallin waited in silence as Stillborn rummaged in his cave. Bram tilted the flask toward Mallin. A question. Mallin nodded. Go ahead.

  Walking to the edge of the cliff, Bram drank. Whatever stars had been out earlier had gone, and all that remained of the clanholds was blackness. Bram was dead tired and he wished he could forget Stillborn’s words. He stayed on the edge while the Maimed Man built up the fire and cooked things.