All that was a consequence of their breeding. “The Grand Spire Mountains tribe was isolated and rarely left their home. Only when the Raven Queen truly needs them do they gather in companies and raiding parties and journey to the south,” said Erak. They spent most of their time training and worshiping the frozen peaks of the Grand Spire, the deliberate turns of fate, and the end of life brought about by the shadowy goddess. “They refuse, even, to learn the languages of the southern lands,” said Erak, “and speak a willfully obscure dialect of their own language.” On the rare occasions when other kenku would encounter the tribe, it was always tense. The Raven Queen’s tribe viewed all with suspicion, but none so much as members of their own race who had assimilated into the world. They would often obscure their dialect more in those situations, using words and an accent that sounded old to the other kenku, making the tribe appear out of time, ancient. “But this is only when the tribe deigned to speak to outsiders of their race. They just as often ignore them outright, or take up arms against them,” said Erak with admiration. “They feel no allegiance to the creatures they see as imperfect versions of themselves, and see no reason to stay their blades.”
The Raven Queen’s tribe were as cold-eyed as their home, and as merciless as the blizzards they brought with them.
“They have been preparing the battlefield for weeks now. Haven will be overcome with an unnatural winter in days. Then, they mount a siege and you follow behind. When the village is occupied, and the old man is attempting to regain control of it, you enter, track him down, and kill him.”
“He will be mine,” said Temley simply, directly.
The cold within the tent became too much for Temley and Erak, so they closed the flap. The sound of the kenku chant was muffled by the hide, but it rung in Temley’s ear. A language he did not know, certainly, but perhaps one close to the natural speech of the Raven Queen herself. Was it his goddess’s words he had heard? Was it the voice of his mistress? His spirit stirred at the thought.
“This way,” said Erak. “Let us show you the face of your oathsworn enemy.” Temley’s reverie broke, and his resolve hardened. The one—he would soon know the one intimately. He would soon stare upon the one’s visage. His heart lifted at the thought of it. His task. His target. His prey.
Erak walked, Temley in step behind him, to the camp’s largest tent. Around it were racks of short blades and small barbed spears. Kenku fenced and flocked around one another in pairs, in trios, and in quartets of mimed combat. Three holding the barbed spears spun like grounded vultures around an unarmed kenku who remained perfectly still, small black eyes closed, in the center of the whirl. They appeared to be picking their moment. The dance was long and tense for Temley. Longer, it seemed, than needs be with the unarmed focus for the others. He was large, and his stillness seemed to indicate a great, terrifying confidence. That thrilled Temley.
One circling kenku lunged forward impulsively. The large kenku made a hop to his left, and the lunger’s spear fell past him. The large kenku avoided the barbs by grabbing the other kenku’s arm with his left hand, pulling him closer, and using his free right arm to direct a hard blow to the lunger’s neck. It cracked loudly. The lunger’s body wilted. The large kenku held fast though, and pivoted, lifted the stunned creature by turning the backhand blow into a neck lock, and tossed him behind into a second circling kenku. They tangled together and fell prone. That left the large kenku facing the final adversary, who had lost concentration while watching his target dispatch two of his allies in mere moments, in a mere gesture. It was clear to Temley that the large kenku could’ve used the hesitation to his advantage, but instead, he gathered himself, crossed his feathered arms over his chest, and stood straight and tall again, closing his eyes. His last standing opponent lowered his head and his spear, conceding to the superior foe.
“Great discipline on this one,” said Temley, marveling.
“Some kenku are gifted with that quality,” said Erak. “Most others, though, simply wait for a sign of weakness to surround and overwhelm their enemies. The kenku are crafty warriors. And brutal to the weak.” Erak indicated the flap to the largest tent. “Here,” he said. He reached into the pouch at his side, and rubbed a little sage on both sides of his neck. “The kenku’s chief and his warmage are waiting for us here.”
Inside, the two crow men stood over a poorly crafted table, looking at an equally poorly drawn map of the area and the village of Haven. Erak greeted the two with a gesture. They returned the greeting with a quiet squawk. Erak made additional gestures, which the kenku appeared to understand. One, who wore what looked to be a garland of long, silver hair—human or elf, perhaps—beckoned Temley closer and pointed to what Temley assumed was Haven. He passed his hand over it and then held a finger up before the pious human. With a deliberate movement, he twirled the finger down—like a bird circling down to catch a hare—and dropped it on a building at the edge of the village farthest from the kenku camp. It was round and above what looked to be a ridge line. “This is the old man’s home,” said Erak. “An observatory. Its roof is flat and open, allowing him to watch the movements of the stars.”
The garlanded kenku—Temley assumed him to be the chief—turned to the other and trilled. The crow man had two mirrored scars under his eyes, and they were painted white to stand out against his black skin. He raised his arms and crossed them over his head. Then with his left hand he pulled a feather from his right arm. He rubbed his right fingers together, and an orange glow sparked. He kept rubbing and the glow got brighter. He dipped the end of the feather into the glow, and held it as a scribe holds a quill dipped in ink. In the air in front of him, he drew a face. The orange glow floated before him, the face of an old man hovered there. The kenku lowered his quill and blew at his drawing. It went from flat to three dimensions as the breath passed through and floated over to Temley. It seemed to come alive, its eyes moving, its mouth parting slightly. “This is the Old Stargazer,” said Erak. “This is the man you must send to the Raven Queen.”
“A lucky man,” said Temley. “Would that our roles were reversed.”
“Seems blasphemous to say, Temley,” said Erak. “You must not fail, you know. Your time is not now.”
“Of course not,” said Temley, bristling. “I was suggesting nothing of the kind.” Temley, at the suggestion he might fail, had become irritated with Erak and hard with resolve. Temley was a powerful man, a dangerous man. But he had never betrayed that danger until that moment, when Erak had suggested he saw something other than perfect faith from him. Something in his aspect changed, and changed in an instant. The kenku, too, noticed it, and ever so slightly retreated from Temley. The four creatures in the tent were, without question, the four most formidable warriors in the camp. But Temley, with a mere change in posture, had intimidated them all. Had shown each that he was the greatest threat.
Something else: When Temley tensed at Erak’s words, it seemed that his face changed. His eyes narrowed and darkened. His face sharpened at the nose and his mouth sunk. Striations appeared in his skin. In other words, in very subtle ways, he looked a little like a bird.
There were implications in his transformation. The Raven Queen had favored the man with a bit of her great power. He was revealed as hers. He was the sharpened tip of her talon. The old man would fall easily before him.
CHAPTER TEN
After the first day of climbing up out of the foothills and onto the mountains, it was obvious to Sten why he had never heard of the village of Haven. Already remote, it had also been carefully hidden from discovery, with warding circles and illusions masking the path upward from any who were not already from Haven. Nergei and the other villagers could see through them, and pass through the various wards without fail—they did not even seem to be able to see the illusions, even when pointed out—but the others were not so lucky. Once Spundwand had gotten caught in a slowing ward that reduced his movements to a crawl for a half an hour, necessitating a break from climbing in which the
dwarf slurred curses at everyone else, especially those who found it as funny as Sten had, considering how little harm was being done. Another time Imony had failed to believe that the path forward led across the air over a seemingly empty gorge, even after the villagers had turned to encourage her from the halfway point, their feet only appearing to be walking on air. Eventually, she closed her eyes and walked across, displaying a monk’s resolve outwardly even as she muttered her doubts under her breath.
Sten had not been immune, either. For a mile of switchbacks the only thought in his head had been to turn back, to flee, to forget every desire to climb to Haven, even to forget Haven ever existed. Only concentration on the most mundane of details could keep him moving forward, distracting him from the traitorous thoughts between his ears.
There was a rock, and a rock, and a bigger rock, and a smaller rock, and a wetter rock, and a colder rock, and a rock you had to climb over, and a rock you had to duck under.
There was a tree, and a tree, and a tree, and a bird, and a stream winding beside the path, and then there was no path, and there were pine needles, and fallen leaves, and the spoor of an animal Sten could not identify and did not want to meet.
There was ice, and there was snow, so much snow, falling from the sky in bigger, thicker flakes as he walked higher and higher, until he felt the need to try to quantify, to try and count each one, and if he made a mistake, then what was there to do but to retreat, to start over from the bottom of the mountain, an urge that persisted until he found himself turning around, walking downward until Spundwand or one of the others caught him and pushed him forward.
On and on like that for an hour, and then the feeling was gone, control restored with no lasting effects, except the laughter in Spundwand’s voice when he told Sten that not only had he been cataloging the forest, he’d been doing so aloud.
Magla and Mikal suffered less than the others, perhaps due to their elf blood, and so Mikal walked up front with the villagers while Magla guarded their rear, ensuring that the dwarf and the two human warriors would remain relatively safe, even as new illusions and magical roadblocks presented themselves. As for the villagers, they were completely unaffected by the magic, and even their roan pony did not seem to notice anything untoward, not even when it was seemingly suspended above the gorge. Only the outsiders felt the aggression of the mountain toward them, or rather, the aggression of the old man who sat atop it, high in his observatory.
Sten wondered: Why send the villagers for help, only to set them at odds with the path to the village? What if the mountain wiped out the five of them before they reached Haven? Was it a test, meant to prove his strength, the strength of the people he had gathered on their behalf?
Perhaps it is, he thought. Or perhaps these wards have been here so long that the old man who put them here has forgotten them altogether.
Or—and this was a thought Sten did not like, although he knew it might be closest to the truth—perhaps the old man, this Old Stargazer, no longer possessed the strength to undo these impressive wards. Perhaps he was as failed as the teenagers’ stories seemed to suggest, all their stories except Nergei’s, the boy who wanted to believe in the lasting strength of his master above all else.
Sten stopped in the path, took his eyes off from his boots and put them to the sky. The village was not yet visible, and the peak was still another mile of sheer switchbacks, at least. Still, they would be there soon enough, and then there would be some answers, he was sure. In the meantime, there was nothing to do but walk and walk, one foot in front of the other. He pulled his cloak around himself and trudged forward, as he always had, as he always would, as if there were any other way to go.
How long had they walked in silence before they realized there was no sound besides the wind, the falling snow? And then, at the top of the next switchback, a screaming voice, cutting over the sheering gusts and the dampening wet.
Or rather, not a scream, but a howl; not fear, but anger.
And then Sten and Imony were running, pushing through the teenagers, with the others following quickly behind. At the top of the switchback was at last a flatness, a more gentle slope than the side of the mountains had provided, and on that flatness was a copse of trees, dense at the edge but opening into a rock-stubbled clearing. Before Sten got that far—while he was still crashing through the trees, drawing his sword from his scabbard—he had already heard the screech of birds surrounding the howling, had already seen the ravens flapping overhead, following their path toward the sounds of birds much bigger than those flying through the sky.
Amid all the squawking and cawing, Sten was still able to hear one of the bird voices squeal and stop, and then another, and then another, and then he was out into the clearing, where there was a flock of the strange winged kenku advancing toward a lone figure, perched atop the central boulder in the clearing.
A gray-skinned woman of at least eight feet, swinging a hammer with a head the size of Sten’s own high into the air, crashing it down until it split the beak of the closest kenku. They recognized her as a goliath, a mountain race of great size and physical strength, of deep connection to the primal world, and of indomitable will.
The other bird men backed away, but only temporarily, and as they advanced the goliath warden howled again, beckoning them forward with her free hand, ready for the fight.
Imony moved to step forward to help, but Sten reached out an arm to stop her. “No,” he said. “We watch and we wait.”
“But she needs our help, Sten.”
“No,” he said, sliding his own sword back into its scabbard. “No, she doesn’t.”
Outnumbered over a dozen to one, the woman nonetheless kept the high ground atop the rock field’s central boulder, forcing the kenku to scrabble up the rocks, where her hammer or booted foot made short work of them, or else taunted them into taking the air, where without the leverage of the ground they could not swing their own weapons as powerfully. Dressed in simple leather armor, the goliath woman moved quickly around the surface of her chosen rock, kicking and striking as necessary, but still the kenku advanced even as their numbers dwindled.
The rest of Sten and Imony’s companions had gathered around them, and again it was up to Sten to urge them to stay back, to watch rather than act. He tried to explain. “The goliaths are great warriors, and resilient foes. The kenku will not find her an easy kill, as you can see. From the few I have met, down in the cities below, as a race they are eager to prove themselves and sensitive to their failures to do so. If you rush in to help her, you may save her life only to injure her pride. So we will wait, and only if it seems she cannot hope to win will we intervene.”
The others stood ready, weapons out, spells and prayers on the tips of tongues, wanting to join the fray but willing to follow Sten’s orders, as they had agreed to before setting out upon the mission. And for a time, their patience seemed rewarded. The gray-skinned goliath appeared inexhaustible, swinging the stone fist of her hammer to break beak and wing on all sides. When the kenku climbed too close, she seemed to draw strength from the rocks themselves, hardening her already thick skin from their arrows and blades. Then when they tried to retreat she called thorn-stuck vines up from the rocks to encircle the fleeing enemy, holding them still while she swung down upon them.
There were only half the number of attackers standing as there were when the party reached the fight, but for the first time they seemed to be pressing in on the goliath with enough strategy to cause her problems. She roared her battle cry again, but that time the kenku only cackled their strange laughter, continuing to climb closer or else to fly onto the long boulder upon which the goliath still stood.
“It’s time,” said Spundwand. “Honor be damned. You can’t just let them kill her.”
“Please,” said Luzhon, stepping up to stand beside the dwarf. “She’s going to die if you don’t do something.”
Sten looked out into the field, then nodded. “Okay, Spundwand. If you think the time is now
, then it is.”
The five warriors from the city strode out into the clearing, each readying their weapon or else a spell. They were only a few steps away from the tree line when the kenku at last overwhelmed the goliath, leaping upon her with their short blades and sharp talons. The party ran as the goliath bent beneath the weight of her attackers, then stopped as she stood again, all of the bird men hanging from her great limbs, which even then were changing, turning from gray to white as ice formed over her skin and armor, letting off a frost that covered her attackers until one by one they released their grip on her, falling to the surface of the flat rock.
When she swung her hammer again, it was twice as large as before, covered in spikes of ice that did not break when they hit the brown-robed forms of the kenku, tearing the flesh below even as the bludgeoning blow broke their bones. Before the party could reach the boulder, the fight was over, and the goliath stood above, sounding her victory with her hammer raised above her head, and the ice she’d called from within the mountain dripping from her armaments.
The Last Garrison (Dungeons & Dragons Novel) Page 12