Crowfall

by Ed McDonald

  ‘You address me with such disrespect? You, fresh-born and barely part of the world?’

  ‘Respect must be earned,’ she said. ‘You are weak. Drained. In time, perhaps you will be useful as an ally. But you have nothing I need. Be grateful that I see future potential in you.’

  ‘What?’ Crowfoot snarled. His outrage was echoed through a billowing squawk. More and more of the carrion birds were trying to alight on the wall, but there was far too little space. The rest of them circled the platform, cawing and screeching.

  ‘Eternity is a long time to live,’ the golden figure said. ‘It makes us forget that we are but parts of the greater whole. Even you, Crowfoot. There is so much power in me right now, so much potential. I would hate to have to waste any of it on unmaking you as well.’

  The raven took a step back.

  ‘Who do you think you are?’ it squawked. ‘You don’t know what I’m capable of.’

  ‘I am the Bright Lady,’ she said. ‘And I know exactly what you’re capable of. Nothing.’

  The furious bird rounded on me. Valiya’s arms went tight around my chest. I placed my palm over her hand.

  ‘But you,’ Crowfoot snarled. ‘My own captain. You bound yourself to me. You took my mark, and in return your children lived. Your torment will be legendary. Your name will come to mean suffering. Children will cut off their ears rather than hear the things that I’m going to do to you. I’ll spin your life out over a hundred years. You are mine, and—’

  ‘Yours no longer. And I will not permit harm to come to my captains, or those they care for,’ the Bright Lady said. ‘They wear my mark now.’

  I didn’t grasp what she meant at first, but then I looked down at my arm. The raven tattoo was gone. In its place, a brilliant phoenix lay white and silver against my skin. I was suddenly aware of the gentle warmth of it against my arm. It was bright, and cool, and made of her fire. Valiya placed her arm against mine. An image that mirrored my own stood stark upon it where Nall’s last message had been.

  ‘Impossible,’ Crowfoot snarled. But he looked from me to her and I saw how little there was left to his threats. It would take him years to amass his power again, decades if he wanted to challenge the Bright Lady before him. She glowed with newborn energy, brimmed with it.

  ‘Retreat to your lair, Brother,’ the Bright Lady said. ‘I have work to do. Trouble me not until you are useful to me. And carry the message to the others too. We still have need of them.’

  In a frustrated snarl of billowing feathers, the birds launched into the air, a black cloud rising around us. One of them took a swipe at my head with his claws as he went past but there was no heart in it. Only for show.

  ‘Well done,’ the Bright Lady said. She looked to Valiya and then to me. ‘I am pleased with all outcomes.’ I almost thought the slightest twitch of a smile reached her smooth, ageless face. ‘Now I will bring the apocalypse against the Deep Emperor and drive him back. He is old and strained, and I am fresh-made. It will be no contest. I do not advise looking to the east. The light will be bright.’

  And with that, she vanished.

  Valiya and I stood alone on the platform in the new quiet. A piece of tangled iron fell from the remnants of the loom to clatter against the tiles.

  ‘It’s done,’ she said.

  ‘It’s done,’ I agreed.

  ‘What of us now?’ Valiya asked.

  The phoenix on my arm seemed to warm a little more and gentle flames flickered along its length. I heard a whisper through my mind.

  The Misery sleeps, for now. The war with the light has drained its potency and the way back to the west will be stable. I will call on your services if I have need of them.

  ‘Indeed,’ I said. ‘What of us?’

  ‘It’s all changed,’ Valiya said. ‘The Nameless. The war. Everything is different.’

  ‘We’re still us,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ Valiya said. ‘We’re different too.’

  ‘Maybe different is better?’

  ‘I think it is.’

  A light began to rise in the distant east, far away across the Misery. The Bright Lady was as good as her word. She had wasted no time in committing herself to war with the Deep Kings. She had been waiting to engage them for a long time.

  The streets were silent. The battle beyond the walls was over, and looking out I saw a field of the dead, but only the true dead. Nenn had done her work well. The ghosts were resting now, or maybe gone. Maybe I just didn’t see them anymore. I would miss them, in my own way. But, as with Ezabeth, their time had come, and they had moved on to something else.

  Maldon and Kanalina waited for us at the bottom of the stairs. There would be time for questions later on. The sounds of enormous detonations were breaking the peace and quiet.

  ‘Fuck’s sake, Ryhalt. Put some clothes on,’ Maldon said. He grinned like the arsehole he was. ‘We won then?’

  ‘We won,’ I said. ‘Why are you itching at your sleeve?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It’s hot for some reason.’

  ‘Please tell me he’s not—’ Valiya started, but I cut her off.

  ‘Save it for now. I’ll enjoy telling him when we’re back in Valengrad.’

  I found some spare clothes on one of the supply wagons. They didn’t fit very well, but were better than nothing. We gathered up what we could, got some animals hitched up. I didn’t do much of the work. I felt like I’d been trampled by a herd of bullocks. I looked out to what I figured was going to be west for a while.

  ‘You know, back when I wore a uniform, my commanding officer told me that only three kinds of people enter the Misery. The greedy, the desperate, and the stupid.’

  ‘Which do you think we are?’ Valiya asked with a smile. She took my hand in hers, and it felt right there.

  ‘None of them. We were determined. And that’s what mattered, in the end.’

  Our journey back to the Range began. The Bright Lady was right. The Misery was sleeping.

  41

  A blue sky. A silent sky. Nothing but calm, dandelion clouds drifting on a spring breeze. I breathed in the lushness of the meadow. Tasted the season on my tongue, as the year turned towards summer. The river at the foot of the pasture flowed happily, my cattle bowing their heads to drink. It was all very green, here. The sun kissed my face with warmth. I couldn’t remember such enduring quiet.

  A mile away, on the road that led to the estate, a carriage approached. Not hurried, just clattering forwards with steady purpose. I eased myself to my feet, feeling every year of my half century in my lower back. Getting old did not sit well with me, but most days, I bore it without complaint. I’d sat down for too long, let too much of the gentle country air lull me. It was like that out here. Green hills, farmers, quiet lives. A vineyard, a wine press, horses to be shod, and servants to chastise when they were sneaking off under the stairs together instead of polishing the silver.

  The carriage bore no markings but I knew who was coming. They would reach the villa before I did. I started down the hill.

  ‘G’afternoon, Master Galharrow,’ one of my farmhands said, tipping his hat to me as I passed.

  ‘Looks to me like we’ll have a good harvest this year,’ I said. I didn’t know anything about farming, but it seemed like a good thing to say.

  ‘Looking so, looking so,’ he agreed through the blade of grass in his teeth. I nodded at him, smiled, and continued on to the villa. It was a beautiful old structure, white walls, red tiles on the roof, three sides forming a hook around a central courtyard. The carriage rested there, empty now, the driver reclining in the sun.

  Valiya had heard me come in, met me in the corridor. She looked flush with health, warmth in her cheeks, light in her eyes. So beautiful.

  ‘I was wondering where you’d got to,’ she said fondly, reaching out and taking my hand. A soft smil
e on her lips. I wanted to kiss her. She dodged my attempt. ‘Not now,’ she said. ‘We’ve company.’ I caught her and kissed her anyway, and for a moment she relaxed into me. Electric, every time. ‘Come on,’ she said, pulling away and drawing me towards the kitchen.

  A woman dressed all in black: high riding boots, a close-fitting tunic beneath a sword belt. She smiled at me, though her once-perfect smile was now split by a blade-fine scar that ran from ear to chin. She looked hale. Strong.

  It had been months. I hadn’t known what she would say or how this would go. Amaira and I looked at each other for several moments. How to start? What to say? I had never been skilled with words.

  ‘I got your invitation,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll just get us some tea,’ Valiya said. She glanced from me to Amaira. ‘Tea for everyone? Good.’ She stepped outside and closed the door.

  ‘Not that awful tea,’ Amaira said. She tried another smile. ‘Spirit of Mercy watch over us.’

  ‘I never told you I was sorry,’ I said.

  Amaira walked up to me, put her arms around my neck, stood on her toes, and kissed me lightly on the cheek.

  ‘You don’t have to,’ she said. ‘I know what you did. For me, and for Dantry. Thank you.’

  We sat. It was still awkward.

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘Living quietly, trying not to draw attention. Pardon or not, there are plenty of people still angry about the mills. He helps me, where he can. There’s still a lot to do.’

  ‘And you’re doing it,’ I said.

  ‘There’s much needs doing,’ Amaira said. ‘After the Bright Lady took the war to Acradius, he lost his hold over the Deep Kings. Even though she destroyed his army and turned him back, they weren’t destroyed. They’re out there somewhere, across the Misery. Plotting. Scheming. They’ll come again, one day. It’s only a matter of time.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘But hopefully not for a while.’

  ‘And the Bright Lady,’ Amaira said. ‘Have you seen her again?’

  ‘No. But she’s out there too. Somewhere.’

  Things were better, now. The black rains no longer came, and those that had suffered from their effects had begun to recover. Whether they had blown themselves out, or the Bright Lady had done something to fix the world, we didn’t know. But for now, the world seemed to be exhaling, letting it all go.

  ‘How is Valiya coping out here in the quiet?’ Amaira asked.

  ‘Bored, mostly, though she claims to be content,’ I said. I smiled. ‘Did you ever see such a well-run estate as this? She’s planning to buy out the farms in the next valley, though she pretends that she’s not.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I read. I tell the farmhands they’re doing a good job, as though I know better than them what that would be. I listen to a lot of disputes about whose wall should go where. It’s peaceful here. I like it.’

  We talked of small things. Amaira seemed so much older than she ever had before, but then, she’d done and seen things beyond those that anyone her age should have. We were all of us changed, those that had borne the Misery, that had survived. I held off on asking about her work, but it was important to her. It had to come up eventually.

  ‘Crowfoot is very, very angry with you,’ she said. ‘But he’s sleeping, I think. There’s a new den of Brides somewhere in Valengrad, or maybe just an old one we didn’t find before. The world doesn’t stop turning for a moment, it seems. I can’t stay long. I just wanted to see if the stories I’d heard could be believed. Ryhalt Galharrow, gentleman farmer.’

  ‘Hard to believe, isn’t it?’

  ‘Much too hard,’ Valiya said as she came back into the kitchen. She gave us her horrible tea, which I drank. I always drank it now, but only because I knew she liked to make it. ‘Now,’ she said. ‘Tell me what you know about these Brides.’

  The simple life was never going to work for Valiya. I followed her back to the frontier.

  I stood on Valengrad’s walls one night, looked out into the Misery and listened to the new song it had begun to sing. It was different now. Changed. Nobody knew what it meant, but somehow, I liked to think that there was less grief in those notes now. It had gone back to its old shifting, and the things that lived there were no less dangerous than ever they had been, but perhaps, somehow, a part of it had been laid to rest. Or perhaps I was just getting wistful in my old age. Across the cracks in the sky, for a moment I thought I saw the flicker of gold, a figure of fire. But likely it was just my imagination.

  ‘Was it worth it, in the end?’

  I looked around. I was quite alone. I leaned back to rest against the wall, scratched at my arm.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It was worth it.’

  ‘It’s not over.’

  ‘No,’ I said into the stillness. A whisper from the dark reached me on the wind.

  ‘But we’ll be ready.’

  I laughed into the sky. We were never ready, but we didn’t let that stop us. The enemy were still out there somewhere, their poisoned thoughts reaching back towards us, searching for an advantage.

  Of course, they’d have to go up against me again. They were as close to gods as a man would ever meet in the flesh, but they would be up against the smartmouthed Amairas, the sharp-minded Dantrys, the Valiyas, and that annoying little bastard Maldon, who seemed likely to live forever.

  They would be up against free people under a clear sky.

  People who saw that there was a better world worth fighting for and were willing to hold on to it.

  They were up against swords and walls and powder and magic, and above them all, hope.

  Bad odds.

  Also by Ed McDonald from Gollancz

  The Raven’s Mark:

  Blackwing

  Ravencry

  Crowfall

  Copyright

  First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Gollancz

  an imprint of the Orion Publishing Group Ltd

  Carmelite House, 50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  An Hachette UK Company

  Copyright © Ed McDonald, 2019

  The moral right of Ed McDonald to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the

  prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN (eBook) 978 1 473 22212 0

  www.edmcdonaldwriting.com

  www.gollancz.co.uk