Crowfall

by Ed McDonald

  The tidal wave reached the island – and with a deafening crack, stopped, churning with white foam, cascading sheets of water. Iddin and Balarus had risen from their places, and pitted their will against hers. The wave was held back. I sensed the Lady’s rage, her fury at being denied. She poured her energy into it, expending magic in a flurry, and the Deep Kings did the same, battling to keep the vast force at bay. They did not fear for themselves. Not even this great torrent could unmake them, not even if it broke the bodies that they currently dwelt in, but the relics that they needed, the power that they drew on to rouse The Sleeper would be destroyed or lost. And that, they could not allow.

  ‘They hold us,’ Shallowgrave whispered. ‘It awakens.’

  The Sleeper’s eye, one of hundreds, opened. As though an engine had kicked into life, thought began to process behind it for the first time in thousands of years. Consciousness blossomed like fireworks in the night.

  ‘Attack The Sleeper directly,’ Ezabeth said. ‘While it is still weak. You have no choice.’

  ‘Silence, ghost,’ Crowfoot snapped. Blood ran from his eyes as his body began to buckle under the strength of will required to maintain the battle. A bone in his arm snapped. ‘We are too far to strike that way. Half the world away. Even had we the power we have no avatar to wield it.’

  ‘Then use me,’ Ezabeth said. ‘I am nowhere, but I am everywhere that there is light. Channel your power through me.’

  I felt the thrumming communion between the Nameless, thoughts so rapid that they had no words as new plans rose and fell between them.

  ‘She would take our power,’ Shallowgrave hissed.

  ‘No,’ Nall said. ‘She will not.’

  ‘How can you know?’

  There was almost sadness in Nall’s blood-filled eyes.

  ‘Because she is not one of us. She still has a name.’ Muscles that had been frozen solid for months flexed, turning Nall’s head to look at the Bright Lady in their midst. ‘Go, Ezabeth Tanza. We strike through you.’

  The wall of water raged half a mile high, restrained by invisible forces, but it was diminishing. The currents that the Lady had manipulated rebelled, trying to reassert nature’s rhythms and streams. Even against her will, the oceans of the world sought to reject their new, unnatural, pattern.

  Ezabeth vanished from one place of power to reappear in another. She floated, a flickering, insubstantial mote of light high above a roiling ocean, a great whirlpool surging below as The Sleeper’s many, curling limbs began to churn the water. The flames that ever sought to consume her played around her feet. Nall could feel the power that had grown within her, still a tiny thing compared to that of the leviathan below.

  ‘You may not survive this,’ Nall told her.

  ‘All things come to an end,’ Ezabeth said. ‘And I died a long time ago. I am ready.’

  I wanted to cry out, to scream at her to stop. But I wasn’t there, and this was only a replaying of things that had happened years ago.

  Somehow, she knew what to do. They all did. Ezabeth dove towards the ocean, summoning every shred of power she had managed to gather and retain since the day she saved me from Saravor’s minions, and rushing flames surrounded her. She blazed, brighter than summer sun, hotter than the seventh hell as the Deep Kings below sensed the new attack, Nexor and Philon rising and turning their will against it. Their wave of power struck up at her, but in the heartbeat before they made contact, the Nameless poured their own magic into her, abandoning their efforts to keep The Sleeper restrained now that four of the Deep Kings were engaged against them.

  Nall’s essence was trickery, cunning, deceit, and illusion. I caught a glimpse in that outpouring of power of the man he’d once been, a man so down on his luck, so bereft of friendship that he had abandoned all pretence at the truth. The lies had swallowed him, had remade him, and he had become Nameless.

  Shallowgrave was the veil of mortality. He was caught between two worlds, both living and dead, the uncertainty in the moment when one becomes the other. There was too much madness swirling around him for me to know his origins.

  And I saw a young man, torn and twisted by fate to do things which he had never wanted nor intended, to abandon all pretence at humanity and to accept his place amongst the carrion birds.

  Ezabeth’s light magnified a thousandfold as the Nameless poured their energy into her. They emptied themselves, and the world groaned with that outpouring. The Deep Kings that opposed her were brushed aside, their barriers shattering like glass. She tore down through the water, the heat of her passage evaporating it in a tunnel around her as she streaked down, down towards the ocean bed where the light had never reached, down where the pressure would have broken every bone in a man’s body, and crashed against The Sleeper.

  And stopped. The beast was not just flesh and stone, but was something more primal, something that had lived long before there were mammals and birds and fish. Only the barest part of its mind was working, but even that part had the magic to resist the combined fury of the Nameless. The blazing energy drilled against The Sleeper. The physical was unimportant. Only power remained.

  ‘I will not lose!’ Crowfoot roared. ‘I will never lose!’

  The Nameless screamed in unison. Their power was at its limit, every last drop draining into this final, desperate assault. In their place of power, the sky howled and cracked, a shuddering wail emanating across the plain. The ice buckled, breaking apart in deafening crunches. Chunks of glacier spiralled up into the air as the depth of their anger howled around them.

  ‘It’s not enough,’ Shallowgrave whispered.

  ‘We need more power,’ Crowfoot said, and the desperation in his voice revealed his own fear. He had bound himself to the malice of crows, because no matter who lives or dies, the crow never sees defeat, only another opportunity. And now he saw it slipping from him.

  ‘Give everything,’ Nall gasped, ‘everything!’ His avatars around the world began to drop, collapsing one by one as he siphoned every shred he could take.

  ‘Not enough,’ Shallowgrave whispered.

  Crowfoot glowered, blood leaking from rents in his skin. One arm burned away in a rush of flame. The wrinkles on his face smoothed, and then the skin split apart, sharp black feathers jutting through the tears. His eyes fixed on Nall. His anger had diminished and there was only steel and determination within them.

  ‘There is always more power,’ he said.

  Crowfoot, Nall realised in those last moments, had held something back. He, the Lady of Waves, and Shallowgrave had committed their all, but not the raven. The corvid succeeds because it adapts, takes what it needs wherever it finds it. Nall would have done well to remember that.

  The Nameless before him were utterly exposed.

  ‘No,’ Nall hissed. ‘You need me. Without me the Engine will not fire and even you are defenceless.’

  ‘Your Engine has already failed us,’ Crowfoot said. ‘But I will endure.’

  Crowfoot’s spell tore Nall’s heart from his chest, ribs exploding outwards, and consumed the power. He sent it rushing through the void, into Ezabeth, their instrument. The force of a wizard’s death is a terrible thing. I’d seen the aftermath at Cold’s Crater, and again when Shavada’s heart powered the Engine. It was not the first time the Nameless had betrayed one of their own.

  The surge of magic ripped through the world and Ezabeth burned through The Sleeper’s defences, a missile of blazing energy that punched a hole straight through it both in the corporeal world and through the infinite, impossible strands of magic that held it into being. It glowed from the inside as she raced through, lighting up the ocean, scattering the eyeless things that groped in the darkness. But Nall was barely paying attention. He met Crowfoot’s eyes as his own essence wavered, dissipating, broken, fleeing to shelter in those few bodies that remained. There was no remorse in Crowfoot’s expression, only a lo
ok of hollow, empty victory as the avatar disintegrated, charring and turning to ash on the wind.

  I opened my eyes.

  I knew whose tears lay on my face now.

  I was the Misery.

  I was Ryhalt Galharrow.

  34

  My mind had not felt so clear in months.

  I knew who I was. I knew what had to be done. I felt the Misery-guilt like a weight in my chest, but in facing the truth I had driven it back into itself. I was not the body, polluted and corrupted by years of imbibing the toxins of the Misery: I had existed before, and would exist beyond, if we survived.

  Everything was clearer now. I saw the flow of sunlight, the depth of stone. The Misery had clouded my mind for so long, I’d not seen the true paths. She was still within me, part of me, of me, but I was lighter now. I floated through the world. Much of the Misery’s influence had burned out of me as I hurled Amaira and Dantry back across the desert, and the black rain had scoured away the crust of mould that had grown up around my thoughts. There was more to it than a simple equation. I’d needed the truth, and finally, I had it.

  I couldn’t afford to use the blood-trail again to get myself back to Adrogorsk. I’d squandered the Misery-essence I’d hoarded so long to send my friends back to safety. A moment of weakness and now I didn’t know if I had enough power to see it through, or even to send Valiya to safety. I put a hand down into the sand, navigated the treacherous shifting land around Adrogorsk, and the Misery greeted me eagerly. I walked a day’s distance in less than an hour.

  The walls of Adrogorsk, jagged and broken, came into view. I knew that I was returning to them one final time, and the news I brought weighed me down.

  In the dawn, a solitary figure stood in a sorcery-carved breach in the wall, looking out across the sand, a spear in his hand.

  ‘This doesn’t bode well, neh?’ North said. A film of Miserydust coated his darkened lenses. ‘Should I assume the worst?’

  Even as my mind rode currents in the air, my body felt spent. My muscles, clenched tight as bow-strings, seemed to give way suddenly. I sat heavily on a chunk of cracked masonry, armour clanking. Slowly, I nodded.

  ‘The Guardians are gone. Everyone else is dead, or lost. I think.’

  ‘You failed us,’ he said, but he didn’t look at me. Instead he looked out instead towards the Misery. ‘Failed us, and lost our only hopes of defending the loom. I should put you down for what you’ve done, but what would be the point?’ He shook his head slowly, a grim turn to his lip. ‘How long until they get here?’

  ‘They’ve slowed,’ I said. ‘We may have done enough to delay them. The thing that’s guiding them took a hit, and Acradius’ link isn’t as powerful as it once was. But they’re still coming. They’ll be here tomorrow.’ I’d watched the progress of the moons as I stalked back from the failed ambush. Rioque was up and over the horizon, Eala tracked across the sky from the west. The eclipse was a day away. The few minutes in which three great lenses of crystal would be purifying and distilling, channelling the light of the world, over which we were all fighting. I thought of the wonders that could have been done with the power the heart could provide. Heat, light, motion for thousands of people, for years. And it would be wasted on prolonging a battle that had lasted for a millennium, and would last long after everyone I’d ever known was dead. Suffering and misery, waste upon waste, never ending.

  ‘You look different,’ North said. ‘Sound different. Are you back with us, Galharrow?’

  ‘I feel different,’ I said. I couldn’t explain it, not well enough for it to make any difference. Everything was cut from sharper matter now. I had it all in focus, finally. I had accepted the rain, and with it, truth.

  ‘It’s going to be close,’ North said.

  ‘We might make it by hours,’ I said. ‘Or we might be hours dead. Hard to tell.’

  I was lying. The drudge would arrive before the eclipse.

  ‘Nobody survived? Dovroi? Vurtna?’ North’s question surprised me. I’d not expected him to have taken note of their names. Maybe there was more human behind those eyeglasses than I’d given him credit for.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Everyone else is gone.’

  ‘But not you, neh?’

  I shook my head. North’s glare deepened.

  ‘What do we have left, then?’ North said.

  ‘Prayers,’ I said. ‘And not many of those.’

  North was silent. He leaned against a hunk of broken stone, staring out as though he would see the enemy on the horizon. He would, soon enough. I should have gone to the loom, to tell Kanalina and Valiya what had happened, but I would only be bringing them news of certain failure. I could leave them in hope for a time longer. It was all that I had to offer them now. Clarity was not always a gift.

  ‘Was I right about you, Galharrow?’ he asked. ‘No, don’t answer that. It’s too blunt a question. It seems that in all this heat and chaos I’ve started to lose my subtle edge. This place will do that to you, I suppose. Tell me this instead: what were you trying to do out here?’

  ‘Same as everyone else,’ I said. ‘Trying not to lose. Not to die.’

  ‘Is that so?’ North said, the snide, mocking tone settling back across his tongue. ‘Where are the rest of the Blackwing captains, Galharrow?’

  ‘You know where.’

  ‘I do. They’re all in the dirt. Seems strange, doesn’t it? With Captain Amaira gone, you’re the last one standing.’

  I stayed silent. He didn’t need to know what I’d done to send Dantry and Amaira back to the Range.

  ‘Tell me this, Galharrow. When it comes time to unleash the weapon, are you really the man to pull the trigger?’

  ‘I’ll be there,’ I said. ‘At the end.’

  ‘I don’t trust you,’ he said.

  ‘Should I trust you, North? You want to stand there, with the light blazing all around you and usher in another apocalypse?’

  ‘I’ll do whatever has to be done,’ North said. ‘Death holds many terrors, but to be changed, twisted, made to walk in eternal servitude to something that calls itself “emperor”? I’d rather die on my feet than live on my knees.’

  ‘We live on our knees all the same,’ I said. ‘You and I more than anyone. We belong to the Nameless.’

  ‘Perhaps that is the difference between us,’ North said. ‘You Blackwing captains serve because you’re terrified of breaking your deal and being turned inside out by your own master. But the Lady of Waves – I love her more than I would ever have believed possible. I know what you’ll say – that the Lady has compelled me in some way. But it’s not true. I went to her. I loved her before I even laid eyes on her.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why do we love what we love? I don’t know. None of it makes any sense, does it?’

  He was right, of course. We don’t know why we love any more than we know why we can’t control it. A jumble of a thousand different tiles that all combine together to make a mosaic that’s both beautiful and utterly chaotic, imperfect and full of flaws. But we desire the flaws even as we desire the whole. Had any of us been able to choose where and whom to love, the world would have been a simpler, kinder place.

  Sudden anger took him, and North slammed the butt of his spear against the ground.

  ‘Is this it, Galharrow?’ he snapped. ‘Is this truly it? Nothing left in the canister, no more bolts in the quiver? It can’t end here like this. There has to be something we can do.’

  ‘It would take an army to stop the drudge,’ I said. ‘And there’s nobody out here but you, me, and the ghosts.’

  I sat with Valiya. She was taking stock of the provisions and munitions on the wagons. Stacks of powder charges, spare ramrods and rolls of bandages were laid out in neat, named piles, one for each soldier that had remained. She’d moved on to the food. There was far more than we needed, now that we we
re so reduced in number.

  ‘You don’t like the creamed beans, do you?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘I like them,’ she said. ‘I’ll allocate you more of the salt pork instead.’ She popped open another crate and began to count packets.

  ‘Valiya.’

  ‘Or the pickled fish, if you’d rather.’

  ‘Valiya.’

  ‘What?’ She rounded on me.

  ‘Just rest. For a while, just rest.’

  She ignored me and went back to her stock-take. She counted up the jars of disgusting pickled fish, which for some reason I’d pretended to enjoy whenever she handed me one. I hadn’t needed the food from the wagons, not with the Misery-creatures that I’d hunted along the way. Every jar had been a waste. Every time she’d offered it to me, I’d still taken one.

  ‘Here.’ She passed me a phos canister. ‘The Spinners took most of them when they deserted, but they left this. Give it to Maldon.’

  ‘Valiya, just—’

  Valiya slammed the lid of the crate down. Her shoulders shook.

  ‘Give it,’ she said quietly, ‘to Maldon.’

  I hung the canister from my belt. I had nothing else to say.

  ‘There’s no rest, Ryhalt,’ she hissed. ‘There’s never been time to rest. Never time for anything.’ She rounded on me. ‘What did we do it all for? Why did we give up everything that we could have had? For this? For some dream?’

  I didn’t know what to say. I ran my fingers across the polished steel vambrace on my arm, caught sight of my reflection. I didn’t recognise myself anymore. My eyes were full of amber light, my skin threaded with black cobweb lines, scaly, pebbled. My teeth had taken on feral, Shantar-fang shapes. Maybe it was easier for me to accept. I’d already given up everything that I had.