The Crow

by Alison Croggon

  Hem blinked as he sat, panting, on the edge of the gorge. His first instinct was a panicked impulse to go back down the way they had come; he was now on a level plain of grasses punctuated by low shrubs and trees, and the starry sky stretched infinitely high above him, filled only by drifts of vapor. He felt totally exposed.

  "The Plains of Nazar," said Saliman quietly in his ear. "This is herder country. The Alhadeans once lived here, with their horses and cattle. They are not valley people, though there are gorges everywhere through Nazar, like cracks in an old face, where there is always running water." Saliman smiled.

  Hem nodded, swallowing down his panic. Saliman's words made him think of tears, of the land itself weeping. No one lived here anymore.

  They began to walk, Hared guiding them by the stars. Hem knew, from what Hared had told them before they left, that they were now around sixty leagues northwest of Den Raven. The land around them seemed silent and huge, stretching away into the haze farther than their eyes could see. The horizons were marked by irregular clots of red fire: the campsites, Hared said, of the guard the Black Army had left behind to keep watch over this empty land. Every now and then they disturbed some night animal that scuttled away into the grasses and made them tense in sudden alarm, reaching for their swords.

  Hared had warned that more than human eyes watched these empty places, that Imank's Hulls set vigilances, ensor­celled snares that their steps might trigger from a distance of a hundred spans, and as they went they sensed out the landscape for any hint of sorcery. Saliman and Hared hid all their move­ments with muffling charms – shadowmazes, glimveils, mage-shields, footwards – some little more than glimmerspells, but most of them deeper mageries to fox the cunning of Hulls.

  Toward midnight they passed what had once been a village, and here, for the first time, they saw the scars of the war that had passed through this region. They could smell the burn and rot from a distance, almost before they saw the edges of wrecked walls jutting out of the plains. Hem's skin became clammy as he sensed old sorcery; it was like the smell of scorched metal, a bitter taste on the wind that dried his tongue. Hulls had been here, but even Hem could tell that what he smelled was only the remains of their presence, a cold scent. Ire, sleepily riding on Hem's shoulder, shuddered and drew closer into his neck.

  It had been prosperous, a village called Inil-Han-Atar, the Place of Six Herds, and the low mud brick houses had been lined, walls and floors, with brightly dyed carpets made from the wool of the goats its people herded. The belongings of the people who had lived here were scattered outside their homes: broken instruments, cooking pots, splintered weapons. There was no sign of the people themselves. Around the remains of the houses were some ruined corrals, and inside them the dried and skeletal carcasses of animals – goats, kine, a horse – humped, distorted shapes in the darkness, limned faintly by starlight. The travelers passed by the houses warily, fearing they might trigger a vigilance.

  "Do you know what happened here?" whispered Zelika. She was staring at the ruins, her nose wrinkled against the smell of death and burned wool. "Did everyone die?"

  "Here they had little warning," said Hared flatly. "Inil-Han-Atar was unlucky; they were attacked by Hulls. Some stayed to defend their homes. Others fled toward Turbansk. Those who lingered or were too slow had no chance." He paused and then said, "We managed to bury those killed here, although it was risky. They lie beyond the village, under the clean stars. In many other villages in Nazar and Savitir, the bodies are left to rot like carrion, and we can do nothing for them."

  Hem looked curiously at Hared, who had turned his face away. There had been a slight catch in his voice, which sur­prised Hem; he had thought the Bard beyond such feeling. Perhaps he had known this village well; perhaps friends of his had lived here. But if so, he did not say.

  They walked on and on into the cold night, until the village disappeared behind them. By now Hem was so weary he could barely lift his feet, and he felt cold to his very bones, colder than even the night could explain; what he had seen under the faint starlight at Inil-Han-Atar had chilled his soul. He thought of Cadvan, killed in the mountains; had he been buried, or did he too lie abandoned under the stars?

  Saliman had not mentioned Cadvan since they had received the news of his death, but Hem had seen how a sadness now lived inside him, as it lived unspoken in Soron. This, thought Hem, was the way of the Dark: this wanton destruction, this murder of love, this endless mourning. He felt a deep anger stir and harden inside him.

  They reached their destination in the dark hours before dawn, scrambling down the sides of yet another gorge, which had opened before their feet without warning, and into another cave hidden in the walls.

  This was a simple cavern, hollowed into the rock face, and inside were several Bards and others – dark-faced people who welcomed them with soft voices and bade them rest on beds of skin and straw. Hem was too tired to register any names; he knew this was one of the Light's outposts, a camp deep inside the territory of the Nameless One. All he understood was that here he was hidden from hostile eyes, and that at last he could stop walking. He fell asleep instantly, and dreamed of nothing.

  The next day Hem woke late, his limbs still heavy and aching with weariness. Around him people were astir, busy examining equipment or eating or talking quietly. Zelika was still fast asleep on a pallet next to him. He swung his legs out from under the skins and rubbed his eyes. They would not leave today, Hared had said; the plan was to rest before setting off on the next part of their journey, toward the Glandugir Hills where there was reportedly a camp of child soldiers.

  A young man who said his name was Infalla brought Hem some dohl and dried fruit. He was not a Bard. Hem thanked him and ate his breakfast slowly, looking around him curiously. He had been too tired the night before to absorb anything of his surroundings. This refuge was very different from Nal-Ak-Burat: everything here was plain and practical, with little thought given to comfort. There were, thought Hem sardon­ically, no silk cushions in this place.

  Sacks of grains and pulses were stacked on stone shelves at the rear of the cavern, in between bunches of medicinal herbs and smoked goat ribs. The makings of sleeping pallets were piled next to them, to be dragged out as they were needed. Weapons, all freshly oiled, were stacked against one wall. Hem saw shortswords, bows, arrows, maces, and throwing knives, all plain weapons made for killing rather than show. Next to them was armor of various kinds. Mostly he saw the hardened ceramic plate of the Suderain, enameled in the reddish color of the earth and bearing no emblem. But there were some made of metal plates like Annaren armor, again painted in earth colors, and some that were simply hardened leather.

  Besides the five newcomers, there were about eight other people present, and the space was crowded. As Hem ate his breakfast, two left cautiously through the narrow entrance, wordlessly embracing those they left before disappearing through the spelled wall. The cavern was clearly a stopping place where no one stayed very long: a place of fragile safety where those of the Light could hide between dangerous missions against the Black Army.

  Zelika stirred and sat up, rubbing her eyes and yawning. "By the Light, I'm tired," she said.

  "It was a long day yesterday," said Hem, turning toward her.

  "And another long day today, I suppose. Aieee!"

  "Hared said we would rest today."

  "That's unusually kind of him. Where did you get that dohl? My innards are eating me alive."

  Infalla brought Zelika a bowl of dohl, and she ate hungrily, looking around with bright eyes, her nostrils flaring. Hem watched her warily, wondering what she was thinking. He could not predict Zelika's mood from one moment to the next; just now she seemed to be excited, as if they might rush out and attack the Black Army.

  Soron came over and sat next to them on the rocky floor, his legs crossed. "A quiet day today," he said. "For which I am per­sonally grateful." He stretched and smiled. "I might even do some cooking!"

  During th
e idle hours that followed, Hem and Zelika chatted with the strangers in the cavern, who asked no questions of the newcomers, although they studied them curiously, and themselves would not speak of anything specific, not even their real names. But they did tell Hem what some of their tasks were.

  Some of the Bards spent most of their time disabling the vig­ilances the Hulls had left scattered across the Nazar Plains, to permit freer movement for the Light. Finding and negating these sorceries was dangerous and delicate work, and a mistake meant almost certain capture by Hulls or dogsoldiers. Some watched the movements of the Black Army in Nazar and passed on word to other encampments and to Nal-Ak-Burat, from which it went to certain places in Annar; their main task was to provide warning of the expected attack on South Annar. Still others launched attacks or ambushes on the guard camps scattered through the plains, or destroyed bridges and roads in order to disrupt supplies to the armies farther west.

  The most dangerous missions were to Den Raven itself; not many of those who ventured there returned. But merely entering the plains was full of peril. The fighters said that the plains were infested with mauls – the vaporous beings Zelika had seen at Turbansk – and worse: there were rumors of wights leading bands of Hulls and wers, and flocks of deathcrows combed the skies regularly. Listening, Hem wondered how they had got as far as they had the night before without incident.

  There was much talk of the continuing assaults led by dog-soldiers on the cave networks. One woman, a dark wiry warrior with a scar across her nose, estimated that at least ten of their havens had been discovered and smashed by the Dark, and many of their fighters slaughtered or captured. "Treachery," she said, casting a narrow look at Hem and Zelika. "There are spies in our midst."

  Hem instantly felt self-conscious; but a man nearby laughed. "You need not suspect these ones," he said. "Nothing gets past Hared. He is a soulreader, if anyone is. Anyway, you forget the subtleties of the black sorceries they use against us."

  "Maybe," said the woman. "But I smell treachery. Someone knows how to break our concealment charms. Someone knows a lot about our affairs – "

  "But not everything," the man answered. "Else all of us would be dead."

  The woman sniffed. "We'll be dead soon enough, I expect, the way things are going."

  They left the next day late in the evening, and after creeping for a league or so along the relative safety of the gorge, which was, nevertheless, scarred now and then by some sorcery that stripped the trees of their leaves and poisoned the plants beneath them, they climbed up and pressed cautiously south over the plains. Tonight the sky was overcast, and soon a steady rain began falling. It was almost completely dark, and Hared was much happier. They moved noiselessly through the grasses, shadows flitting from tree to tree, but even so they felt as visible as black marks on a white sheet. The ground itself seemed to be aware of their passing, a sense that grew stronger the closer they came to Den Raven. As they walked, the Bards wove charms of concealment to fool or turn aside any hostile eyes, and sleep spells to lull any awarenesses, and spread their own senses as widely about them as they could, alert for any sign of sorcery.

  Hared was nervous about their number – even with the charms, five people were much easier to track and harder to hide than one – and he had to balance their need for swiftness with the equal necessity of caution. The fires of guard camps burned in the distance, a dim and baleful red. Hared skirted these as widely as possible. He was practiced, Hem realized, at traversing these lands, and found even in those flat plains lower ground and sheltered spaces where they had a better chance of traveling unseen. They passed several burned villages, but did not go through them, for which Hem was grateful; even at a distance he could smell the death in them.

  The constant anxiety made the journey exhausting. Hem's skin was slicked with an icy film of sweat, so he shivered even under the layers he was wearing. After the conversation of the previous day, he felt more nervous than he had the first time. But something else bothered him: since his strange encounter with the Elidhu in Nal-Ak-Burat, he felt as if another sense had opened in his mind. He couldn't give it a name, but it was an awareness that ran through his entire body, as if he were attuned to the earth itself, as if he were part of it, or it was part of him.

  He felt that the earth burned with violation, as if it were poi­soned; an increasing sense of wrongness seeped up from the soles of his feet, afflicting him with a constant, faint nausea. It was particularly strong in places where plants had been killed – in the gorge he had retched as they passed through the skeletal trees – but it never completely went away.

  The farther they walked, the more the huge, surrounding silence bothered him. Even the animals seemed to have aban­doned this forsaken land. Ire took little flights from his shoulder, and came back to whisper what he had seen or heard: he told of strange things Hem didn't understand, of clouds weeping blood, of a fear or a shadow that drove even the birds away.

  They reached another underground haven later that night, much smaller than the last. Inside was a man with terrible burns. Despite their weariness, greater than could be accounted for by their journey, Hem and Saliman did what they could to relieve his agony; but both of them saw at once that he had no chance. He had been caught in the liquid fire of the dogsoldiers, and most of his skin was burned away. He died in the night.

  His companion, a slight woman from Baladh with startling gray eyes shrouded with sorrow, told them his birth name as she closed his eyelids. "He was called Lanik," she said. "He was a good man."

  Hem repeated Lanik's name, and bowed his head, feeling the futility of the gesture. He had not been able to save him, and all he could do for him now was to repeat his name. What was the use of that? What else could he do?

  The woman thanked them for their help, and offered to share her meager food. It would have offended her to refuse, so they did not; but the travelers brought out their own food as well to ensure that she would not be left without supplies. Her trembling thanks made Hem feel much worse; he thought he might have preferred it if she had shouted at them for their fail­ure to save her friend.

  So they went, always by night, flitting furtively from haven to haven, until Hem began to wonder if he would ever see day­light again. Hared's skill kept them hidden from the Black Army guards, although they had a couple of close shaves. Once they almost tripped over a cunningly hidden vigilance, and only Soron's quick reaction and counterspell prevented their discovery; once the luck of a sudden rain shower saved them from the deadly vapor of a maul that rose without warning from the grasslands.

  They had traveled in this way for several nights through increasingly heavy weather when they reached a hiding place Hared called, with grim humor, The Pit. They were now reach­ing the edges of Nazar, and could see in the distance the gray hills of the Glandugir at the borders of Den Raven. The Pit, two days' journey from the Glandugir Hills, was the closest haven to Den Raven that yet remained undiscovered; five others nearer had been attacked and destroyed.

  The haven was aptly named. The gorges that hid most of the Bards' caves petered out toward Den Raven, and The Pit was little more than a stone-lined hole dug straight down into the ground, protected by a complicated weave of concealment charms and a wardlock, which could only be opened by a Bard who possessed both the necessary spell and an iron key. It seemed to take a long time for Hared to find and open the haven, while the others shivered in the rain, fearfully keeping watch.

  The Pit was the grimmest place Hem had experienced: it lacked even the rough coziness of the previous havens he had seen. It smelled of stale air and mold and damp, and was as cold as a tomb. The haven was empty: no one stayed here long, unless they were forced to. The only positive thing about it, Hem thought gloomily, was that it had good sup­plies of food, which took up roughly half the cave space. There were no means of cooking – a stove here was forbid­den. Cold, miserable, and tired, Hem pulled out a moldy pallet of straw and sat down, throwing thin blankets from the st
ores over his shoulders.

  The following day their party was to split. Saliman and Soron were to strike north on a quest that Saliman would not speak of, but that Hem suspected lay within Den Raven itself. Hem had privately thought Soron, the Bard whose heart lay with the art of eating, was too soft for such a mission, but the past few nights had disabused him of such an easy judgment. There were depths and strengths in Soron he had not suspected, and he could see why Saliman might choose such a companion.

  Soron smiled tiredly at him across the narrow space, and Hem tried to smile back.

  "Not quite Nal-Ak-Burat, eh, Hem?" said Soron. "The venti­lation leaves something to be desired."

  "And the heating," Hem said fervently.

  Soron reached inside his pack. "Medhyl is the thing, I think," he said. He took a swig from his flask and passed it to Hem. The liquor coursed down Hem's throat, leaving a trail of heat behind it. He passed it on, and each of the travelers drank some. Hem stopped shivering, but his depression lingered.

  "I thought the south was supposed to be warm," he said.

  "It's almost winter," said Zelika crossly. She was damp and cold, and not in the best of moods. "What makes you think that winter comes only to Annar? I should be sitting on cushions by my grandmother's hearth, with servants bringing me hot drinks. That's what everyone here does in winter."

  "Everyone with servants, you mean," said Hem, with a sudden stab of malice. "Anyway, you don't have servants anymore; they're probably dead, and your house is a heap of ashes. You're as poor as me."

  Zelika gasped as if he had slapped her. "Only stupid urchins say things like that," she said. "Stupid ignorant boys like you who don't know anything."