Crowfall

by Ed McDonald

  I was lying, of course. We all knew that I was lying. Even if he didn’t bleed out, even if by some miracle the lead ball hadn’t mangled his insides, we knew he wasn’t going to make it home. Amaira and I carried a weight far greater than his body, and he knew it too.

  Up, and up, and up. The creatures that had cut these steps had made them even, precise, every one the same. This had been a holy place to them, the tomb of a great and terrible enemy. The destroyer. The ice fiend. I’d heard stories – ridiculous, nonsensical stories – about the world serpents, snakes the size of castles that were said to drive the magic of the world, turning in everlasting circles, far away on some other landmass across seas which only braggarts pretended to have sailed. Perhaps they were true. If they were, I’d have liked to have seen one.

  Or, having felt the presence of the ice fiend, maybe not.

  At last, the stairs ended. My legs were roaring at me, the old spear wound was sending whips of pain up and down the bone. A fall of broken ice obscured part of the entrance, and we had to climb up over it, but then we emerged out into the freezing wind. I could see the epicentre beneath the crack in the sky, could see the Duskland Gate a half mile away, a pale patch of dark stone, oddly apart from the jumbled, shattered ice plateaus. If we’d only known about it, we’d have saved ourselves a horrific ordeal and things might have gone faster and easier. If we’d been there sooner, maybe Vasilov wouldn’t have torn pieces of cloth holding his insides inside. It was our destination, and it was our only option, but my heart hung heavy at what we had to do.

  Silpur stalked on ahead of us, leaving us to carry Vasilov the last of the distance. The ice wasn’t so badly broken here, but it still wasn’t easy going. We slipped and slid our way over to the dead mule’s body. As we drew near to the stone platform, I released Vasilov and went to Valiya. She looked as tired as I was feeling, but I suspected that I looked a damn sight worse. The further we went from the blue light, the worse I felt. I put an arm around Valiya’s shoulders, leaned in, and whispered into her ear.

  ‘Don’t interfere,’ I said.

  ‘We have to get home,’ she said through chattering teeth.

  ‘We will,’ I said. ‘Leave it to me.’

  ‘The world has asked too much of you already,’ she said. ‘And you’ve asked more of it still. When does this end? The loss, the pain – when does it all become worth it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I’ll tell you when we get there. But we will get there.’

  We walked onto the dark stone of the Duskland Gate. Birdlike shapes looked up beneath the film of clear ice that glazed it. The Duskland Gates had always been an awful place to tread; even the first desperate time that I’d sought out Crowfoot and asked him to give me a deal, the gate had filled me with dread. This time, it was worse.

  Death. It was the Long Men of the Barrows that caused the magic, the trapped, screaming, evil souls of the spite-filled dead that let the world flex and bend and transported us from one gate to the next. The platform was like a beacon, blasting death out like a trumpet, calling to them. The first time I’d crossed through, I’d tried to use a rabbit. The Long Men hadn’t cared for it. Horses worked, and I’d read in one of the annals that pigs were even better. Perhaps the soul of a horse was worth more than that of a rabbit. The Long Men seemed to think so. When they answered, when death surrounded us entirely, we crossed over. Death is the great displacer. It is the same everywhere, and thus all places are one to death. Or something like that. On every previous journey I’d done the smart thing and brought animals for the journey out and the journey back. But the sacrificial mule had already fallen over dead, and I didn’t have anything else left to sacrifice.

  Vasilov was glad to collapse onto the hard platform. His bandages were soaked through with blood, his dark skin had taken on a greyish tinge, and there was growing fever in his eyes. He looked up, past the floating blocks of hanging ice, to where Rioque was reddening the sky as the light began to fade. Dusk was upon us – appropriate. He squinted hard at the moon and began to draw power. Threads of red light trailed his fingers. I’d seen Ezabeth do something similar once, but where she had drawn dozens of threads, one after the other as fast as she might comb her hair, Vasilov drew each one as if with great effort. I still had the Talent’s goggles that I’d used to hide the glow from my eyes, and I gave them to him. He grimaced through a thank-you, and his efforts sped up.

  ‘Prepare to leave,’ Silpur said. He turned his back on the rest of us and looked out towards the crack in the sky.

  Vasilov’s fingers glowed as he absorbed the phos. He could charge himself with a little. No human body could hold a huge amount, that was what the canisters were for, but he drew what he could. It was wasted effort, but it hadn’t clicked in his mind yet. Vasilov was badly injured, very likely dying. It was a shame, but there was no other way. He wasn’t going to make it anyway.

  Vasilov put his fingers against his wound and there was a bright phos-flare beneath them. He gasped and collapsed back on the plinth, panting at the pain. He’d seared his wound closed. It seemed a needless pain to go through. Even if he managed to seal the wound, infection was almost certain to kill him.

  It struck me suddenly, howling through me like the icy wind passing between the jutting planes of ice. I’d been a fool. Crowfoot wouldn’t sacrifice one of his captains. Not so easily, not if he didn’t have to, not even if one of them was dying. He’d eke out every last minute of service that he could. Amaira, Silpur, Vasilov, and I all belonged to him, and he didn’t cast away his tools.

  Valiya did not belong to him.

  Do not trust your master.

  I stood up slowly and moved to stand in front of Valiya. My rasping, Misery-burned voice dropped lower than usual.

  ‘What did Crowfoot tell you to do?’ I growled. Silpur met my stare, his wide green eyes as empty of feeling as the frozen world was empty of life.

  ‘Time to go,’ he whispered.

  ‘All of us?’ I said. ‘Or all of his?’

  I looked from Vasilov to Silpur.

  ‘Give me the box.’

  ‘Spill the blood,’ Silpur said. He was staring directly at Valiya. ‘Open the gate.’

  Valiya and Amaira understood in that instant. Amaira swung around to stand in front of Valiya, both of us blocking her from Silpur. My sword had seemed a needless weight to carry, but by the spirits I needed it now. Stupid, Galharrow! Get bright! There was no scenario in which abandoning your sword made sense.

  ‘Someone must die,’ Silpur said. His hiss was colder than the air.

  ‘He thought it would be me,’ Vasilov said, propping himself up on his arm. ‘Didn’t you, Galharrow?’

  I didn’t look down at him. I kept my eyes on Silpur and the swords at his belt. He was faster than a striking greatcat. He only needed a second to open the gate. Icy wind whistled through the broken ice around us.

  ‘We’ll find another way,’ I said.

  ‘We don’t have time,’ Vasilov said. He dragged a strand of light from the air. ‘We have the fiend’s heart. It has to be delivered to the Lady of Waves’ agent at the citadel. Acradius has been preparing to march on Valengrad ever since he merged with The Sleeper. We have to get to Adrogorsk and empower the weapon.’ He coughed, clutching at his bloody side as pain shook him.

  The sky groaned, a languid, mournful sound of despair. Silpur stared directly at me. He would try to open the gate. He would do whatever he had to. It was his way. I wondered in that moment what difference there was between Silpur’s service of Crowfoot and the drudge’s mindless subservience to the Deep Kings.

  ‘Why at Adrogorsk?’

  ‘The fiend’s heart is just a vessel,’ Vasilov said. ‘But I can empower it when the moons align. A triple eclipse will align over Adrogorsk’s ruins.’ The pain hit him again and he fought for breath. ‘The light will refract over and over, magnifying its power
. For ten seconds I’ll be able to spin more power into the fiend’s heart than all the mills in Dortmark produce in five hundred years. The ice fiend was the embodiment of pure destruction. It’s the weapon that Crowfoot needs.’

  ‘That the Nameless need,’ Valiya corrected him.

  ‘That we all need,’ I said.

  ‘One must die,’ Silpur said. ‘Gate must open. Orders were clear.’

  ‘That isn’t happening,’ Amaira said. ‘There has to be another way. You don’t get the final say on this just because the bird came out of your arm.’

  ‘You are captains,’ Silpur said, his brow creasing. Puzzled. He didn’t understand.

  Vasilov drew more and more phos from the air. He panted and gasped, and I realised with cold dread that Silpur wasn’t the only one that was armed. Lights danced along Vasilov’s fingers and ran through his veins as the power filled him again, smoking from his skin. The desire to survive is powerful.

  ‘We’ll think of something else,’ I said. ‘You aren’t touching Valiya and Vasilov is dying, even if he doesn’t care to fucking admit it. Crowfoot isn’t in his right mind anymore, if he ever was. We’ve all seen that. We’re his captains. We have to take care of things for him until his power starts to return. That doesn’t involve killing innocent people to get what we want. Once that starts, there’s no reason for any of this. There’s nothing left to save.’

  ‘It was never about saving anything, Galharrow,’ Vasilov said. The light he was absorbing was giving him strength, raw power drawn from the sky. ‘It’s about winning.’

  ‘Not at any cost.’

  ‘At all costs,’ Silpur said.

  ‘No.’

  Silpur and Vasilov stared at me as though I’d just shat on their god. Amaira tensed. The platform began to feel very crowded.

  Silpur drew a sword and advanced. He moved fast, weaving like a snake, looking for a way around us. He was driven in his mission and he followed his orders to the letter. He didn’t want to kill Amaira or me, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t disable us. The curved blade in his hand rolled in flickering eights, little windmills slicing the air. Valiya’s fingers clutched the back of my coat tight.

  I would not let her be taken. Not by Crowfoot, not for a weapon, not for anything. I summoned up the black Misery-power, forcing it to the surface, trying to drive it into my muscles, my skin. It buzzed with welcome. Blood vessels burst and lights danced in my eyes.

  ‘Get out of the way, Galharrow,’ Vasilov coughed. Phos blossomed on his outstretched palm, a sharp, narrow dagger of light.

  Silpur came on and Amaira went in. She was fast, nearly as fast as he was and though he had a clear thrust straight into her, he held back. His orders were to keep the captains alive and he couldn’t break them. Like a fucking drudge. Amaira lunged for his sword hand, got her fingers around it, and tried to close to throw him down. But Silpur was just as tough, hard as stone and had centuries of experience to fall back on. He rolled his hand, twisted and Amaira cried out as he locked her arm. A knee slammed into her guts but she held on. Silpur struck with his knee again, and again, and then he turned her wrist and drove her face down onto the stone. But he’d lost his grip on the sword as they grappled and I stooped to grab it.

  Like a fool.

  I looked back as Vasilov saw his opening and launched his light-dagger at Valiya, no longer shielded by my Misery-tainted body.

  My arm snapped out and I caught the flaring stiletto of energy midflight.

  The Misery objected to the foreign magic. It bucked, writhed, no longer a perfect spike of energy but a twisting, hissing snake. But I held it, and it couldn’t burn me. I was bigger than this little magic. Vasilov’s eyes widened; those cocky Spinners had it too easy. No wonder they came as arrogant as the cream.

  ‘Stand down!’ I roared, but Vasilov drew up another, smaller spearhead, perspiration running in rivers onto his chest. He’d fought hard. He’d protected Amaira. He’d been given a shit hand and told to play the stooge. I pitied him. But he’d crossed a line that I couldn’t allow. He tried to cast another phos-blast at Valiya.

  I hurled the light back at him and it exploded through his chest. Blood spattered across the stone.

  Ice rose up in a storm around the Duskland Gate, circling and rushing around us. It rose higher, taking the light as Vasilov’s blood ran across the carvings, feeding the rock, summoning the Long Men. I spun towards Silpur, sword in hand, but he sheathed his. Valiya sheltered behind me.

  ‘Lost your bloodlust?’ I shouted over the roaring wind. He looked from me to Vasilov. The Spinner was already dead.

  Means nothing now, he mouthed, all interest in Valiya gone. For him, that was how easy this was. There was a task, and he’d done what he could to achieve it. He bore no grudges, didn’t even look to Amaira as she dizzily picked herself up. He looked out at the shattered ice as the swirling chaos blocked out sight of anything, the ice planes and the tear in the sky disappearing in the raging wind. Out there I saw the flickering, humanoid shapes picked out in light, crawling towards us through the flurry. They were insubstantial, glowing shapes, but from their heads a pair of stubby horns jutted backwards.

  ‘Someone had to die,’ I shouted. ‘Valiya is more useful to Crowfoot. I need her. Vasilov wouldn’t even have made it through the journey. You understand that, don’t you?’

  ‘Need her why?’ Silpur asked.

  You never could do the hard things, one of the Long Men whispered into my mind.

  ‘She knows things. Things that we need. Four Blackwing captains alone isn’t enough. If we’re going to win this war and stop the Deep Kings from breaking the Range, we all need to work together. I can’t beat them alone. And neither can you.’

  Silpur watched me, unblinking.

  ‘Vasilov was his.’

  ‘He was. And now there are three of us and we have to serve the master the best we can. Make peace. It was a desperate situation. And I was wrong.’

  I offered him my hand. Sparks of light, threads of black, worked beneath my copper skin. Silpur considered it.

  ‘You were wrong,’ he said.

  ‘I did what I had to. Crowfoot is the master, and he knows much. But he doesn’t see through our eyes. He doesn’t know exactly where we are and what we have to do. He chose us because he thinks we’re the ones who can get the job done. Vasilov had served his time. He was no more use. I’m many things, Silpur. I’m a soldier, and I’m a captain, and maybe I’m weak. I may not be as lethal as you are or as young as Amaira, but I serve, and I’m loyal.’

  You never keep your promises, the Long Men whispered.

  ‘Serve the master,’ Silpur said. He reached out and took my wrist and we shook.

  I did not let go.

  ‘I’m one other thing,’ I said. ‘I’m a liar.’

  I threw my weight backwards and our arms locked out. He was strong for a man of his size, but he was short and I was big, he was slight and I was heavy, and whatever power Crowfoot had given him, the Misery had turned me into something else. He lurched as I swung him around, eyes never blinking as they locked on me. I spun us around, him at arm’s length and his feet left the floor. I turned, spinning like a hammer-thrower. Silpur dug his nails in but my skin was slick with sweat between us and centripetal force is a powerful thing. I roared as I let go.

  Silpur sailed out, off the platform and out into the blizzard, becoming an indistinct shadow. The wind screamed and the Long Men swarmed towards him. His sword came out, he thrashed left and right as the glowing figures drew in, no skill, just frantic, panicked slashes in the ice blaze.

  We love you, bringer of death, the Long Men whispered. And then darkness swept in around us.

  20

  The Duskland Gate spat us back out into silence, save for the rustling of the wind through the trees. I counted us over. Me, Valiya, Amaira. Three survivors, and everyone see
med whole.

  ‘You alright?’ I asked. Valiya nodded, shaken. Amaira gave me half of a smile and a two-fingered salute.

  ‘All in one piece,’ she said. ‘Poor Vasilov. He wasn’t a bad man.’

  ‘No,’ I agreed. ‘He did his duty.’

  ‘You seem to have forgotten yours.’ She mimed Silpur’s flight out into the Duskland.

  ‘Never,’ I said. ‘I know what has to be done. But I’ll not burn the world for it.’

  She considered me, then nodded and tugged the heavy black box from Vasilov’s death grasp.

  Two more Blackwing captains, gone, and this time by my own hand. The thought left me cold. The world was no poorer place without Silpur in it, but I was doing the enemy’s work for them.

  The ravine had changed. More than a day had passed since we left – here, at least. Rows of graves had been dug, sticks serving as posts to mark where the dead lay. I counted twenty-one. One for every mercenary, and another for Sang. The bodies of dead horses and mules had been dragged to the other side of the ravine and left to rot. Carrion birds were having a feast.

  ‘That thing killed everybody,’ I said.

  There was a crack from above, and the hilt of the sword in my belt went spinning away, shot clean off. There was no cover, nowhere to run to. A lone figure sat halfway up the valley’s side, a smoking pistol in one hand, another long-barrelled weapon in the other. The dark-haired man who’d brought men to kill me at Fortunetown. North.

  ‘Thought you could hit a falcon mid-dive,’ I said. There was no point running. He smiled, his eyes hidden behind lenses of blackened glass. A coughing fit suddenly struck me, and I tried to keep my eyes on him as he began to slither down towards us.

  ‘You think I missed? Pretty good disarming shot if I did, neh?’ He kept his second weapon trained on me.

  ‘He only has one shot left,’ I said to Amaira as the coughing had subsided. ‘He’s fast as lightning but you can take him.’