Watcher of the Dead

by J. V. Jones

  Take it and we will feed.

  Watcher hesitated. He wanted it and did not want it in equal measure. The sensation of looking out through a thick layer of armor was strong. He recalled Raven Lord, headless under the ice.

  History had not remembered his name. Had he even been able to remember it himself?

  “Pick up the sword, Mor Drakka. Your friend needs to be saved.”

  Watcher heard the lie. The queen forgot who she spoke to. He had seen Addie Gunn’s face, smelled him and kissed him.

  He was Watcher of the Dead.

  He picked up the sword, felt the shocking heft of it, and fought.

  The moon rose toward its zenith as Moonsnake finished her circle.

  The coven has formed.

  Watcher struck in the margin where the white light of the Sull fire and the blue light of the moon met. The sword was hard on his wrists. It was perfectly balanced but heavy at both ends and it required more control to wield it. The Sull had shown him mercy with his first opponent. A quick and savage child could have slain the aging Trenchlander. The man had the muscle and gut of a tavern brawler, and he barely knew how to hold live steel. Watcher used him to learn the reach of the sword, killed him as an experiment in the sharpness of its blade.

  The second and third opponents were better but he was already becoming capable with the sword. Loss’s weight could be used, he learned. The sword had a downswing like the chop of an ax. Set in motion, it almost killed by itself. Loss’s reach created new possibilities. There was so much vacant air around the third man, Watcher plunged into it like a diver into water. By then he had learned the keenness of the blade and he gave the man a swift end.

  “You do well, Mor Drakka,” the queen said as he freed the sword. “Win the next bout and we will bring medicine to your friend.”

  Watcher was breathing hard. He moved toward her, Loss trailing behind him in a one-handed grip. “Show me Addie Gunn.”

  The queen dared not move her face.

  He lunged at her. A barrier of swords fell between them like a gate. He pressed into them because he wanted her dead. He stopped before the points took veins because he had to stay alive to kill her.

  Bleeding from a dozen puncture wounds, he backed away. The queen’s eyes were carefully blank. Watcher looked and looked but she would not acknowledge the challenge in his gaze.

  Watcher turned his back on her. Addie was dead. The Sull had killed him.

  Fancy a journey east. Got a hankering to see trees—real ones, not pissthin bushes. I imagine I’ll set off soon. ’Magine when I do no one will try and stop me, it being a free world and all and a man being free to travel where he pleases.

  The words came from a different life. Watcher heard Addie speak them. The cragsman had been throwing in his lot with Watcher of the Dead. I’m with you, the words said.

  Taking Loss in both hands, Watcher walked to the center of the fight circle. The enemy entered and it was Sull. The queen had sent in her consort.

  Spinebreaker, that was its name.

  Watcher hissed. A hundred twenty moon snakes heard him.

  Meteor steel met the hard and unforgiving metal of Loss with a grinding clash. Edge squealed against edge, throwing sparks. The consort was fast and solidly strong. Raining strike upon strike, he forced Watcher back. Steel hacked Watcher’s ear and the top of his hand. The consort, sensing the advantage, kept pushing. He was moving swiftly, varying his strikes. The space around him was rarely open.

  Watcher glimpsed lines of strike, and followed them with his sword only to be met with blocks. For the first time he realized it was possible for an opponent to see the same lines as he did, perceive a vulnerability and close it. The consort was the better swordsman. He was quicker and stronger, and decades’ worth of experience moved his hands.

  Their gazes met. The consort was focused, not yet struggling for breath. He touched his swordpoint to Watcher’s neck roll to prove it.

  Watcher warded the blow. He was thinking of Addie, recalling the meaning of the last look the cragsman had shared with him from the stretcher, the force of the message in Addie Gunn’s eyes.

  Do not forget who you are.

  Watcher heard goodness and caution, and pushed it aside. It interfered. The words themselves though had use. He was Watcher of the Dead. No one could match him at finding hearts.

  It was simple after that. Spooling his sights, he locked on to the consort’s heart. It burned his retinas like a glimpse at the sun. The consort’s exterior concealed how quickly it was beating. Watcher took satisfaction in that. He feinted, let the consort come to him. As he accepted the blow he edged back, creating the space he needed.

  Using everything he was and everything he had learned, Watcher thrust Loss through the Heart of the Sull.

  It entered with a sigh and dimmed the light of the moon.

  The night darkened. The queen screamed. Meteor steel flashed like an electrical storm as Sull moved to protect her.

  “Kill him,” the queen cried.

  Blades rushed at Watcher as he yanked free the sword. Blood arced from the tip. Sull were coming at him from every point in the circle, cinching it closed. Watcher turned, using Loss like the arm of a sundial to mark his defensible space. It occurred to him that at least this way they would not blow-dart or shoot him. Anything fired into this circle could hit Sull.

  The first blow came to the back of his shoulder and he spun on his heels to address it. He had to get to the queen. She had to pay for Addie Gunn.

  A sword entered the back of his thigh as he parried the Sull at his shoulder. He stumbled, rotated Loss. Pain showered his visions with red dots as a third sword punctured his chest plate at the belly. He went down on one knee and the Sull closed the circle. They were grave and proud. Bringing this death did not please them, but a death would be brought all the same.

  Watcher accepted a second blow to the damaged shoulder. He watched as a single sword peeled off from the wall of steel and rose with momentum for a downstrike. It was a heartkill; he of all people knew that.

  He felt air whiffle, saw the point come for him.

  The coven feeds.

  And the night of snakes began. Pale, glistening monsters reared around the circle. They struck like wingless dragons. A white and streamlined head lashed forward with the force of a cracked whip and clamped its jaws around a Sull’s arm. Snapping back, the creature lifted the Sull from the ground and tore off the arm at the shoulder socket. A second snake immediately struck the twitching body, snatching the Sull away.

  The Sull surrounding Watcher turned in formation, swords rising, armor glittering, faces deathly blue in the moonlight. The Sull who had been setting up the heart-kill locked gazes with Watcher. He was not young; there were deep lines around his mouth. His eyes were surprisingly brown.

  “X’all sano,” he said.

  Fight with us.

  Watcher rose and slew him, coring the Sull’s heart with Loss.

  As the warriors began battle with the rearing, lashing moonsnakes, Watcher made his way toward the queen. The fight circle was a living nightmare of razored teeth and mirroring scales. Moonsnakes reared like serpents. Blood sheeted across the ground as Sull and snakes took harm. Watcher remained untouched.

  Den mates had formed a guard around their queen. Moonsnakes streaked through the trees toward her, sidewinding in absolute silence, the great girdles of muscle in their abdomens contracting in sinuous waves. The queen’s den mates were forced to step away from their queen to defend her. Watcher waited until a snake strike diverted three of the mates and moved to occupy the available space.

  The queen spotted him and screamed. She was the only Sull who did so, Watcher noted. The rest were silent in battle. Some den mates turned and heeded their queen’s cry but the coven was in full assembly now, striking with viciousness and speed. One of the den mates lost her head. Another fell and was torn into three pieces by three snakes.

  The queen raised her bow toward Watcher. Watcher wa
lked straight toward it. Behind the queen he had spotted the coven mother, his heart mate. Moonsnake. Her scales shone silver in the moonlight and her eyes were milky blue. Her jaw sprang open in greeting, and Watcher felt his own jaw muscles respond. In tandem they worked to take down the queen. She knew, Moonsnake knew, that this was his kill and she deferred to him. With her beautiful streamlined head as big as a wolf she punched the queen’s arm, knocking her forward and throwing her aim. The queen released the string and the arrow shot into one of the den mate’s legs.

  Watcher spun Loss into motion. As he came for the queen her mouth opened and she spoke some words in Sull that might have been a prayer. She dropped the bow and her gloved and malformed right hand went to her heart. He would pierce it to kill her.

  In the end she died well, her eyes open and filled with knowledge of her own mistakes. Watcher drove Loss to its crosshilts. Blood welled over his knuckles as he accepted her dead weight. Moonsnake waited at the queen’s back, her head weaving air. Watcher’s gaze rose to meet her.

  And the world changed on him one final time.

  Kill an army for me, Raif Sevrance. Any less and I just might call you back.

  Death returned his gaze through Moonsnake’s milky eyes. She had been waiting there all along, laying her plans, biding time.

  She laughed. It was a sound so cold and gentle it could turn a man to stone.

  Did you think I was done with you? she asked.

  Watcher took a breath. He did not know what else to do.

  Death withdrew, trailing her soft laughter and claiming the last words.

  Who watches the Watcher?

  I do.

  He did not know how long he stood there with the queen impaled on his sword. Moonsnake moved into the fight circle to feed. The Sull were nearly gone now. Lone holdouts battled in the darkness, growing weary and making mistakes. It wouldn’t be long before all were gone. The air smelled sharply of snake. A raven landed on the fight wall and goose-stepped around the carnage. Watcher wondered what it was doing out at night.

  Dropping his sword point, he let the queen slide to the ground. The black body of the forest seemed the only place to go. Squatting he wiped Loss’s blade with the hem of the queen’s dress. It was not meant as a dishonor. A blade must be cleaned: simple fact.

  Rising, Watcher turned his back on the fight circle and the coven. He took the queen’s shortbow and a sheath from one of her den mates and a few other items. A moonsnake lay dead and seeping along the path. Its body stretched for thirty feet. Watcher walked alongside it, heading north. As he moved he stripped off his body armor and strapped the sword and bow against his back. Now he could travel faster.

  He ran. Moonlight lit the spaces between the bloodwoods and cedars and it was easy to see the way ahead. He kept running, faster and faster, adding more distance between himself and the Sull.

  Finally there came a time when he could run no longer. He slowed to a walk but did not stop. Gradually his wounds bled out and began to seal. When he grew thirsty he stopped at a stream, put his head in the water, and drank.

  Do not forget who you are.

  What if you wanted to forget? What if when you looked back you saw all that you had lost and all the terrible things you had done? Was that how it had been for Raven Lord? Was it a mercy when he forgot his own name?

  Watcher started running again and the moon began to set.

  He ran until he could no longer think and then lay down and slept.

  CHAPTER 32

  Strike Upon the Weasel Camp

  “HERE. LET ME dust your face with this.”

  Raina looked at the charcoal powder mounded in Chella Gloyal’s cupped hand and hesitated. “Surely the enemy will see me regardless of my brightness? Where is the stealth in a charge?”

  Chella did not disagree. “Sometimes we arm not against our enemies but against ourselves.”

  Raina had to think about this. She glanced at Chella. The young Croserwoman—no, Hailswoman—was dressed in leather chest armor, snugged close to her breast and waist, and a split and leather-panelled riding skirt that fell a mere foot below her knees. She appeared young and dangerous and Raina could only imagine what looks she must have received as she traveled across the entrance hall and up the stairs toward the chief’s wife’s chamber. Tongues would be wagging.

  Female ones.

  Which was exactly part of the problem.

  “The Hammermen of Blackhail were once famous for coloring their teeth with iron juice,” Chella said. “So unless they were smiling as they smote down their enemies it would appear not to have a functional use.”

  Raina laughed at that. Chella somehow managed to be wholly clan and immersed in clan but able to see it from a distance as well. Where did she get it from, this respectful disrespect?

  “So why did the hammermen do it?”

  “You know why.”

  To make themselves fierce. Raina inhaled. “Do it.”

  Raina Blackhail sat in front of the fancy city mirror bought for her as a gift by her first husband, in a chamber she had not used in a year, and watched as her face was darkened with charcoal and spit in readiness for her first battle.

  Chella worked quickly and efficiently, her touch light. “Close your eyes,” she bid. With two sweeps of her thumb she blackened Raina’s eyelids.

  It looked and felt strange at first, perhaps even faintly ridiculous, but as the saliva started to dry, pulling her skin tight and making it prickle she began to change the way she thought. She didn’t look like herself anymore. Dagro would not have recognized his wife.

  Chella pulled back Raina’s hair and braided it in a single queue. Over Raina’s simple linen chemise, she drew a padded, fitted shirt. Expertly she cinched the laces. “Stand,” she said, voice low.

  Raina stood as armor made for the Dhoone queen, Flora Dun Dhoone, and seized at the Battle of Standing Point, was strapped to her breast and spine. It was like plunging into ice water. The steel was cold and unforgiving; heavy, though Chella said with wonder, “It is so light.”

  She was not wearing it.

  The armor had been powdered so it did not reflect light. Brog Widdie had reshaped it for Raina in his forge and at some point during his hammerings he had seen fit to remove the thistle badges and blue enameled panel, center front. How must that have felt for him, she wondered, an exiled Dhoonesman defacing the artifacts of Dhoone?

  Following some instinct she could barely identify, Raina refused the armored kirtle that would have covered her hips and thighs. She was wearing the black skirt with the silver panels. Hatty Hare had cut it down from the dress that had been singed by the Menhir Fire. Hatty had cleaned up the silver panels, made the skirt beautiful and new.

  Hailsmen needed to see it. They needed to know who they followed and why.

  “Give me my helm,” she commanded Chella. It was a half helm that matched the chest armor. Raina tucked it under arm.

  “Do and be damned,” she said to the mirror. The woman looking back said the same.

  The torches were lit as she descended the stairs. Raina could not recall when she’d last seen them burn so brightly. Everything was crisply vivid. Colors were deeper, edges sharper, shadows as black as the clan’s name. People had lined the stairs and halls to view her. Most were quiet and unblinking as she passed. Merritt Ganlow’s mouth fell open and she hissed to Sheela Cobbin, “Who does she think she is?”

  “Blackhail,” Raina said without stopping. I have the guidestone in my belly to prove it.

  Sarolyn Meese, Corbie’s lovely wife, blew her a kiss. The baby was suckling at her breast. Masha Horn, little sister to Florrie, burst into tears; it appeared from fright. Raina resisted the urge to smile. Fright was good.

  The tall double doors of the Great Hearth were open. The fire was out and the chamber empty. The sight of row after row of vacant benches sobered her. Sworn warriors were waiting upon her arrival.

  She forced herself not to rush. Clan needed this. The women and ch
ildren and tied clansmen who remained behind needed to believe in their . . . chief. They needed to know she was not fearful or light-of-heart and they needed to see her pride in herself and her clan.

  Raina was shaking minutely as she crossed the entrance hall. Chella was at her back.

  “May I ride with you?” she had asked last night, after the plans for the raid had been finalized between Raina and the sworn clansmen. “Will you grant me that honor?”

  Raina had not answered then and there and had taken the question to bed with her, to her clean and refurnished wife’s chamber. It occurred to her then that she would like to better know the histories. Women were chiefs. Women had been warrior queens. Look at Wrayan Castlemilk. By all accounts she was ten times more capable than her brother. Blackhail was different though: stouter, older, more reserved. Raina did not know the names of its women chiefs. She did not even know if it had any.

  In the end she had decided she must do as she pleased. There would always be Merritt Ganlows and Gat Murdochs who did not like her. A chief could not satisfy all.

  And Blackhail needed manpower. The last scouts had mentioned Scarpe numbers past eleven hundred. Raina had already discussed with the sworn clansmen the logistics of including unsworn men in their ranks. It had been agreed that those who were able-bodied, skilled at horse and vouched for could be given positions in the rear of the van. Raina still did not know the numbers; planning and assembly had happened so fast.

  She had only been certain she would act the day after Hew Mallin’s visit. If I were you, Raina Blackhail, I’d strike that camp hard and soon. Take it by surprise and tear it down. The ranger’s words had given her a sleepless night. She did not know for certain who Hew Mallin was, and knew only a fool trusted a stranger, but she could not argue with the ranger’s assessment. He told her what she already knew. Out loud, where it counted, where it could not be ignored.