Crowfall

by Ed McDonald

  ‘No idea,’ Nenn shrugged. ‘I’m stuck here with you, aren’t I?’ She flicked her head towards the silent stone doorway. ‘What do you reckon that’s all about?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Never heard of it before. Maybe it’s new.’

  ‘New or old,’ Nenn mused. ‘Don’t you want to have a look at what’s on the other side?’

  ‘Not even slightly.’

  ‘But you’re going to anyway, aren’t you?’

  I scowled, but it seemed my guilt was more honest with me than I was with myself.

  ‘I don’t think she’ll let us pass until I do,’ I said. ‘The Misery isn’t speaking to me. But she’s bringing me back here. What do you think she wants?’

  ‘What do any of us want?’ Nenn asked. ‘To live. To endure. To make something our own. So you’re going in?’

  ‘Not yet. If I’m going to walk in there, I want something in return.’

  Amaira and Dantry sat close together around a small, private campfire. Even here, amidst all the poison, the monsters, the endless shifting of the world, they remained together. The way that she laughed at his joke, which probably wasn’t funny. The way that he reached out to push back a strand of hair that probably didn’t need moving. That look that said that they understood one another somehow, that they had opened their souls and found something of themselves there in the reflection. For a moment, the beauty of it stopped me dead.

  ‘Enough to make you want to throw up, isn’t it?’ Maldon asked, but his words lacked their usual venom. He was toying with something long, black, and slightly curved. It took me a moment to realise what it was.

  ‘You shouldn’t have taken that,’ I said. It was a stinger from one of the Shantar’s tails. At one end, a venom sack throbbed like an obsidian testicle. I felt the tug of longing for it, tried to fight it down.

  ‘Figured it might be useful as a weapon,’ he said. He made little jabbing motions in the air.

  ‘Get rid of it,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to be around it. Valiya’s right. I may be twisted all to the hells, but who knows what changes that thing would make to me.’

  ‘You wouldn’t want to eat it, that’s for sure,’ Maldon said. Just being in its proximity, I could smell the toxicity of the venom. ‘Maybe you can use it on Dantry if his hands start wandering. Or I’ve a garrotte you can get him with if you want to do it quiet. At least that would stop him reciting that awful poetry to her.’

  I sat rigid for a moment. Cold rose through marrow, through stiff muscle.

  ‘A garrotte?’

  ‘Somewhere,’ he said, running a finger along the back of the stinger’s curve. ‘I think you knew, deep down. You just didn’t want to.’

  Maybe he was right. Maybe I’d chosen not to look at those deaths all too closely.

  Linette, her throat sliced through with a wire, a report of a Darling at the scene. Josaf, a knife in the back. Klaunus, locked alone in a tower, protected with Smother-wards. What was it that Kanalina had said? There’s no other way out of that tower unless someone killed him and then jumped out of a five-storey window. Which, I realised, was exactly what the indestructible little bastard had done.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You know why,’ he said. ‘For the endgame. To be the last pieces left standing when the time comes. They would have tried to stop us. You’re many things, Galharrow, but you don’t have a murderer’s soul. You know it was necessary. But you don’t have the stomach for raw-blooded murder.’

  He was wrong. I’d murdered Silpur on the Duskland Gate.

  Maldon pointed the stinger towards me. ‘She has to understand. Amaira. She has to be willing to let everything else go. You need to tell her. And Dantry needs to be reminded of his role. I didn’t throw myself out of a tower for nothing.’

  It was brutal. It was true. Amaira had become an unknown quantity. She served Crowfoot, but she served me too. Our purposes had been tightly bound, tighter than the close of a wolverine’s jaws. I thought that I could have predicted her every move, but Dantry had taken away the surety that I’d held about her.

  I sighed. What I had to do wasn’t fair, but they’d made the decision for me. I rose.

  ‘One more thing,’ he said. ‘Winter.’

  I turned back to him.

  ‘Valiya? What of her?’

  ‘You and Amaira are not the only captains out here.’

  ‘She knows the plan,’ I said. ‘And so did Nall. Now he’s gone. She’s not fighting for the Nameless anymore. She’s fighting for the rest of us. When the hour comes, she won’t be standing in our path.’

  ‘Sure you aren’t as blind about her as Amaira is about Dantry?’

  It wasn’t worth arguing with him over something he’d imagined. I left Maldon to play with his stinger and went to do what had to be done.

  ‘Figured out how to get us past that damned archway yet?’ Amaira asked as I invaded their private world. She looked tired, but hale. They had more energy than the rest of us, less affected by the Misery. Maybe just distracted from it.

  ‘I have some ideas. Come with me while I take a reading,’ I said. ‘Both of you. There’s something you have to understand.’

  I led them away from the camp, walking ahead of them. Amaira was worried about me, I could see it in the way she moved, the way she chewed her lower lip. I led them farther from the camp, up a low rise of scree. Further, down into a gully of rocks, out again and onto a broad, flat stretch of sand. Far enough from the camp that there was no chance of anyone hearing, not even the Spinners if they played their clever tricks on us. You can never be too careful around a sorcerer.

  ‘You’ve been teaching Valiya about the loom?’ I said as I turned abruptly on my heel.

  ‘I have,’ Dantry said. ‘She’s a fast learner. Why?’

  ‘I wanted to make sure we had another of our people who understands how to operate it, if needs be,’ I said. ‘We’re too reliant on individuals out here. You, me, Maldon. Too much resting on too few shoulders.’

  ‘Spreading the bets in case we lose someone?’ Dantry said. The playfulness with which he’d been teasing Amaira dissipated. ‘I understand. I’ve talked her through all of the schematics. If I wake up to find a gilling’s got to me, she’ll still be able to go on. We’re not reliant on North.’

  ‘Good,’ I said, although I didn’t think we’d see any gillings out here. ‘I want us to be able to run this show using only our people, if it comes to it.’

  ‘What do you mean, “our people”?’ Amaira asked. ‘We’re all our people out here.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘We aren’t.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Something was crawling beneath the sand nearby. My head snapped around to it, a coursing hound sensing game. I grabbed it, tore it from the earth. Something with legs, long as my forearm. Its faces pleaded with me as I tore away its heads and bit down.

  ‘Spirits above, stop!’ Amaira gasped. She moved towards me but Dantry took hold of her and held her back. She could have broken free of him had she wanted to; he was no match for her physically. But she let herself be restrained, and in that there was respect and love too. I chewed at the carapace, crunching it between my teeth, sucking at the sizzling ichor inside. It burned in my mouth, scalded my throat, but that wasn’t worse than the shame of seeing the look in Amaira’s eyes. Horror; disgust; confusion. ‘Stop it!’ she shouted again.

  I sucked the last of the grub-flesh from the carapace and let the rest fall to the sand. I met her look as I cleaned my lips.

  ‘So,’ I said. ‘Now you understand.’

  ‘This is what you’ve done to yourself? To change yourself this way? Hells, Ryhalt, why?’

  ‘Because I had to,’ I said. ‘I made a choice, a long time ago. All or nothing. But I chose both. This is what I am now.’

  ‘Is this what you brought us out
here to show us? Now, when we’re so close to the end?’ Dantry asked hotly. He knew, of course. I’d told him the plan years ago and he’d been working towards it all this time for me. Had become a wanted man to test the theory. To see if it would work. His arms were around Amaira now, comforting rather than restraining. She was a tough thing, but she leaned into him.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘This was just chance. But we’re so close to the end now. I need to take everything that I can. You can understand that, I hope.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Amaira snapped. ‘Dantry? Tell me what’s going on.’

  ‘Not yet,’ I said, before he could speak. ‘Tell her later. In an hour, maybe. But not yet. I did say “our people,” and I meant it. There are sides out here. You see that, don’t you?’

  ‘I see us, trying to get a weapon in place to stop the Deep Kings, and I see Acradius howling across the Misery towards us,’ Amaira barked. ‘You’re not thinking straight. This … these toxins are burning at your mind. We’ve all seen it. You’re getting paranoid, seeing ghosts everywhere. We’re all in this together.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘And we haven’t been since the beginning.’

  ‘What do you mean, “we”?’ Amaira said, her dark eyes bowing in a frown.

  I could feel the fresh Misery-energy soaking into me from the creature that I had consumed. A hot, venomous burn spreading through my veins, moving slowly through my limbs as I absorbed it. Beneath my boots, the land exulted.

  ‘Whose mission is this, Amaira?’ I asked. ‘Is it Crowfoot’s? He sent you to get the weapon. The Lady of Waves? She’s running the show back at the citadel. Shallowgrave? He’s sent his monsters to watch over us, but he took out half the citadel to do so. There’s more than one war going on here. The Nameless are spent, depleted, divided. Weak. How long can any of them stand?’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘They will each try to claim the power in the heart for themselves,’ I said. ‘Crowfoot wants to use it as another weapon. He only cares about beating the Deep Kings. His victory is all that matters. You’ve spoken to him. You know that.’

  Amaira held my gaze but didn’t say anything. Her face was dark with storm clouds. The fingers of her right hand brushed the raven’s mark on her left forearm, maybe unconsciously.

  ‘We serve the master,’ she said. ‘We made that deal. We’ll deal with other threats if we have to, but the Nameless are allies.’

  ‘Do you think the Lady of Waves will give up her chance at this much power?’ I asked. ‘She’s vanity, spite, and little more. Shallowgrave … who in the hells knows what he wants?’

  ‘So we stop them,’ Amaira said hotly. ‘Blackwing answers only to Crowfoot. This is his plan. We’ll see it through, and they’d better not get in our way. But I think that you’re wrong. The Nameless may be petty and jealous, but they work together.’

  ‘Do they?’ I asked. ‘Linette and Josaf were murdered. North tried to kill me. Klaunus is dead. Someone doesn’t want any Blackwing captains present when the moons align.’

  ‘North?’ Amaira said immediately. ‘You think the Lady would go that far?’

  ‘She’d go further.’ I looked at Dantry. ‘But it wasn’t her. Was it?’

  Amaira looked from me, then to Dantry. She read the lines of his face, the shadows around his eyes. She saw something there that she’d never seen before. I saw the threads of creeping doubt.

  ‘There’s something you haven’t told me,’ she said. ‘Dantry? What is it?’

  ‘Tell her,’ I said. ‘Tell her where Maldon was going on his “essential tasks.” What you decided that he should do. Who he should kill.’

  ‘Galharrow,’ Dantry hissed, his eyes taking a new and dangerous fire. ‘Why do this now?’

  ‘You ran at the Shantar like an idiot. Ran straight at death.’ I turned to Amaira, thrusting a finger. ‘And you could have killed it and saved lives, but you held back. Because of him. Because you’re besotted and dreaming. Men died because you didn’t do your duty.’

  Dantry glared. I’d never seen such fury in his eyes before. The youthful energy that had always wrapped around him sloughed away. Beneath it, a tired, weary man. ‘You take this from me now,’ he said, a new edge of cold in his voice, sharper than frost. ‘Here. With nothing else. You try to take this from me, after all these years. I’m doing it for her. But I was doing it for you too.’

  The shivering energy of the Misery creature still filled me. Compassion was a distant afterthought, a kite blown away on a hard wind. There was no place for softness out here. Doubt on Amaira’s face. Anguish. I’d upended her world. Without the creature’s crackling dark flowing through me, I could not have borne it.

  ‘Get yourselves bright. Remember the task. That’s all that’s left to us. Don’t stay out here too long. The land’s going to shift again soon.’

  ‘You lied to me,’ I heard Amaira say as I stalked away. Her voice cracked. ‘Linette was my friend.’ I asked the Misery not to move too soon, left them to the hard truth. I looked beyond the camp, to where the archway hung, suspended over the sand on its impossible stair.

  I wore my hypocrisy like an overcoat. I’d broken my friends, taken something beautiful from them in the name of duty. All the while, I’d been avoiding my own. Duty to Valengrad, duty to Crowfoot, duty to the people who needed me. My duty to the Misery. She was asking something of me, and I owed it to her, to all off them, to see it done. If I could bear to break my friends’ hearts, then I had to endure this too.

  I glanced back at the busy preparations in the camp, soldiers ensuring that everything was covered and lashed down in case the rain hit us again. Valiya stood atop a box, orchestrating. Kazna left her to it.

  ‘Here,’ Nenn said, handing me my sword belt. I buckled it on, before wondering how Nenn had managed to pick it up. She was just a ghost after all, and ghosts can touch your mind but nothing else. But Nenn had disappeared off to wherever ghosts go when they’re not bothering me. Just a trick of my imagination after all.

  I blinked and shook my head to clear it. I wasn’t oblivious. I knew that the Misery’s influence was doing things to my mind. I just needed a few more days, and it would all be over. But for now, I had to do what she was asking of me.

  Soldiers gave me nervous salutes as I passed them. They were good men and women, well used to the Misery’s ways, but they hadn’t seen anything like me before. To put their trust in someone so clearly different was difficult for them. I nodded back but didn’t engage in conversation. They didn’t want me around their fires. Smiles were hard enough to come by without me interfering.

  I walked past the ring of covered wagons and approached the floating archway.

  I placed my foot onto the first step without a word to anyone and something echoed through me, a drop of water falling into an underground lake, a ripple in the silence. It took an effort to push myself up onto the next. There was weight above me, grinding down on my shoulders. It said, no. But I’d shouldered heavier burdens, and I climbed one step at a time. Seventh had made it look easy, and that said something about the power lurking in the Guardians’ alabaster bodies. I heard shouts from the camp, Valiya and North calling my name, but I ignored them and reached the top. From there I saw there was more than simple darkness beyond the archway. Another stairway led down into a cavern that couldn’t possibly exist, a tunnel that led away into the empty air beyond. The steps were rough things, scraped rather than cut, and a foul, grave-rot odour hung on dry air.

  I glanced back at Valiya, running towards me. I shook my head at her, raised a hand palm out to say Stop. She only slowed at the foot of the stairway. Captain North began yelling, others joining him. When I was sure she would stay there, I stepped through into the gloom.

  No wind. No blast back through the doorway. The cavern did not reject me as it had the Guardian. I was permitted to pass.

  The imp
ossible tunnel descended into somewhere else. There was a glow down there, a pale, cold whiteness. It reminded me of the light in the Endless Devoid, bright and flat, fluid but dead. The broken sky’s wailing faded behind me as I descended into the glare.

  The steps went on, and on into the milky glow. I began to take them two at a time.

  At first the sound of my boots on the stones were the only break in the stillness, but then I caught a murmur at the edge of my awareness. Singing. Children’s voices, caught together in careless, lazy verse.

  The night is dark, the night is cold.

  It figured.

  Down, and down, and down. I thought of the stair where I’d lost Jennin. If I backtracked now, would the dark speck of the entrance ever get any closer? Stairs weren’t to be trusted in the Misery. Too late for that now. I pushed on. The Misery had wanted me to come here, had refused to let me pass until I played her game. She had even taken my bargain to secure it.

  I drew nearer to something. I didn’t know what, but I felt it rise about me. The sensation of arms around my shoulders grew gradually, until I felt the embrace. Welcoming me, or holding me back? It could have been either, but whatever ghostly hug I’d been caught in, it hadn’t the weight to bring me down or drive me away. It was not the Misery that I was accustomed to. The same, but different. Older, maybe even stronger. Strong enough that it could put itself into my path, repeatedly, forcing itself through, even against its own changeable nature.

  The stairs came to an end. I stepped out into a busy market, shadows long at the beginning of dusk.

  The people were familiar, and they were not familiar. The fashions were nothing I recognised. The people were my countrymen, the same colouration, the same eyes, but nobody had worn pantaloons of that type for a century. A troop of soldiers marched with harquebuses shouldered, antique hand-cannons long since overtaken by matchlocks. They moved in well-ordered regiments, marching to the familiar barking of the squawks. Merchants and townspeople moved from stall to stall, taking quick steps and driving quicker bargains. Children were arrayed on a stage, voices spiralling in time to their teacher’s conducting. I had spent so long on the Range that I’d forgotten places like this existed. Places where life went on as normal, where hagglers haggled and singers sang, and life went on day after day without a cracked and broken sky. Overhead, white clouds drifted across an impossible blue.