Raven s Strike

by Patricia Briggs

  “Tier,” said Phoran, as the thing closed the too-little distance between the stairway and their huddled group.

  Jes stalked around until he stood between it and them. As he growled louder, the stench of rotting meat filled the library.

  Tier grinned fiercely, and his fingers moved on the lute strings.

  The thing mewled at the first note, fading from sight just as the foul odor lessened. But Seraph could feel them waiting.

  Tier played a mournful song first, a song about a girl wed to a sailor who left on a ship and never came back alive. It was melodic and slow, and Tier’s fingers never faltered. Nor did his voice.

  Toarsen sucked in his breath once, but when Seraph glanced quickly at him, she couldn’t see anything wrong. He hunched over and bowed his head, but he didn’t look like he was ready to run.

  The immediate crisis seemed to have been put on hold by Tier’s music. Seraph worked the spell that allowed her to see spirit again—and the library lit like a field of bonfires in winter. The dead were there, a ring of shapes made of spirit and something else she could see but not define, a haze of red alternating with gold. She managed to pull her eyes away from them long enough to make certain Tier’s Order was behaving itself, then returned to her watch, making certain that the dead stayed away from them.

  When Tier was finished with that song, he glanced around at his audience—the one he could see. Then he began a soldier’s marching song Seraph had never heard before. It had a catchy chorus, and as he started into it for the second time, Tier said, “Join in if you’d like.”

  Lehr and Jes both did, and Rinnie sang a soprano harmony. Seraph found herself humming along. At the top of the fourth verse, Tier said her name, instead of the word that should have been there, and she realized that he was fighting.

  “Seraph,” said Tier again.

  She pulled her gaze away from the dead and saw his Order had pulled almost entirely away from him, held only by a few lonely strands of his spirit and the last threads of her magic. She grasped the cord that ran between Tier and the gem and pulled hard toward Tier.

  “Better,” said Tier, before throwing his voice into the chorus again.

  She held on. She might be able to help Tier better if she knew how spirit and Order interacted on a healthy Order Bearer. She’d been too busy watching the dead before Tier called her to pay much attention to anyone else.

  She looked up, intending to study Lehr—but her gaze stuck on the Memory first. She could see the Memory’s form, but with her seeing spell its form was deep purple rather than black. Crouched beneath the shelter of Order was a sharp-featured Traveler who gleamed a soft spirit-blue. He met her eyes, looked startled, then whispered in her head, “Have him tell The Fall of the Shadowed as he told it for me.”

  “Tier,” she whispered so she didn’t interfere with his song. “The Memory told me to have you tell The Fall of the Shadowed the way you told it for him.”

  Tier looked a little surprised, but he nodded. As he sang, she noticed Tier’s spirit had steadied and grown more solid where it attached to the tattered grey-green bits of his Order. Seraph wondered if, once the Shadowed’s spell was restrained, Tier’s music helped fight the drag of the spell.

  Tier finished the song, then, striking a minor chord, began an ascending scale that built to a haunting arpeggio, the music forlorn and plaintive. His clever fingers flew over the gut frets of the lute, and the notes fell into a less disturbing tone as he began the story of Shadow’s Fall.

  “It happened like this.”

  Seraph had heard the story dozens of times before, so she paid little heed to the words. She surveyed the dead, but they seemed to be content with the lute-accompanied story, because they stayed where they were. The upper courses of Tier’s lute wove bits of heroic ballads and festival songs into a single melody over a subtle throbbing bass that gradually began to take on the rhythm of a heartbeat.

  “This young man was a good king, which is to say that he promoted order and prosperity among his nobles and usually kept the rest from starvation.” Tier’s voice blended into his music.

  When she was certain the dead were satisfied with Tier’s storytelling, she resumed her interrupted task of looking at Lehr to see how the Order was supposed to look in relation to spirit.

  The smell didn’t startle her at first, though if she’d been paying attention, she’d have realized there was no reason for the library to start smelling like horses.

  “I smell flowers,” whispered Lehr.

  Once he said it, Seraph did, too. She looked up, but none of the dead had come closer.

  Ah, she thought, returning to her examination of Lehr, no wonder the Path’s Masters had such a difficult time retrieving just the Order, no wonder it took months to separate spirit from Order—spirit is woven between the threads of Order like warp and weft.

  She heard the sound of sword meeting sword, but when she looked up, she could see nothing that would account for the sound—or for the sudden smell of the sweat of combat.

  “None of his guardsmen or nobles could stand against him with sword or staff,” said Tier.

  Seraph looked at him incredulously, and she realized that even as she had restricted the magic she used for most of the two decades she and Tier had been married—so had he.

  “He established libraries at every village,” said Tier, and the scent of dust and mildew overwhelmed that actual scent of the library they were in, which smelled only of leather, parchment, and preservation spells. “And in his capital he collected more books than had ever been assembled together then or since. Perhaps that was the reason for what happened to him.”

  She was so in awe of what he was doing, it took her a moment to realize the cord of the Shadowed’s magic she’d been holding steady, the one binding Tier’s Order to the gem, was trying to pull away from her—and before she pulled it back, she realized it was pulling the wrong way. It was pulling back toward Tier. She released it.

  “Time passed, and the king grew old and wizened as his sons became strong and wise. People waited without worry for the old king to die and his oldest son to take the crown.” Tier stilled his fingers for a moment, so that his silence waited like the people had waited for the old king to die.

  Two beats of silence . . . three, then he began a run of minor chords, echoing the melody he’d used to begin the story. “One evening the king’s oldest son went to bed, complaining of a headache. By the next day he was blind and covered with boils; by that evening he was dead. Plague had struck the palace, and, before it left, the queen and every male of royal blood were dead.” The familiar melody twisted with a weight of sorrow. An occasional plucked harmonic rang like a widow’s wail.

  Then, Lehr’s startled gasp made her look away from Tier, where she’d been caught by the magic of his words and music.

  She saw Hinnum and the Memory, so different from the others who huddled at Tier’s feet. She saw the dead. She saw her children, Phoran, and his guardsmen. She saw Gura. She saw them all in glittering lights of spirit, Order, and the dark core that she had decided might be soul.

  And before them all, untouched by Seraph’s magicked sense of sight, stood the Unnamed King’s daughter, Loriel. Seraph didn’t know how she knew who it was, just that the woman who discovered what her father had turned into stood before them all. Brought before them, real as life, by Tier’s power. Seraph watched in awe as Loriel fled the monsters who now filled her father’s castle.

  The music became momentarily militant, sharp percussive taps of the lute’s face evoking drums and marching troops as Tier told of the army Loriel formed, one whose core would go on to fight to the end. Abrupt, discordant, wild strains starting and stopping suddenly followed by a cacophony of strident squeaks and slides, as Tier told of Loriel’s death. Always, throbbing steadily beneath the other sounds, was the rhythm of the Unnamed King’s heart.

  It was hard to keep her attention on the reality of the Shadowed’s spell when Tier’s rich baritone
called for her attention. Still, she watched him as the power of his music slowly forced the Shadowed’s spell to yield its prey. Seraph pulled the gem out of the belt pouch where she’d put it, and it was warm in her hand.

  A man’s scream pulled her attention back to the battlefield the library had become. She couldn’t tell if the noise had been made by one of their boys, the dead, or by some quirk of Tier’s storytelling magic.

  Seraph recognized the wide field they’d ridden across a few days ago, but this time there were bodies lying everywhere, and the stench of death made Seraph’s gorge rise.

  The bass courses of the lute continued to measure the steady pulse of the Shadowed, but the melody faltered, quieted. She saw Red Ernave fighting the Shadowed King, who was even more frightening than she’d ever thought he could be. Tier’s fingers played a melody that stuttered and strained, falling a bit behind the beat, as if too exhausted to continue, the proud strains of military airs made aching and painful by their very slowness.

  Under his red beard, Ernave looked like Tier a little, and Seraph thought that might have been why she cried when he died at the end of the battle. Or maybe it was because the garnet in her hand had shattered into minute shards, and Tier was covered head to toe in the grey-green fabric of his Order.

  CHAPTER 18

  “Well,” Tier said, his fingers picking out bits of melody that seemed to be keeping the dead away from them all while he caught his breath. “That went better than last time.”

  He looked at Seraph. “Something’s different. What did you do?”

  “I should be asking you that question,” Seraph said. “You told me you learned a few things while you were alone in the Path’s dungeons, but that was extraordinary. I know Bards are supposed to be able to make their stories feel real. I suppose I never realized what that meant.”

  “I’ve seen a Bard or two who could build pictures, sights, or sounds with their power,” said Hennea. “But I’ve never seen any of them build truth from their stories.”

  Tier grinned. “I don’t know about truth. But it’s pretty disconcerting, isn’t it. When I saw I’d gotten the details right on where Red Ernave died that first time I told the story this way—it fair made my heart stand still. I could have warned you, I suppose,” he said. “But I haven’t tried anything like that since the first time it happened. I wasn’t certain it would work as well.” He looked at the Memory. “What did you think?”

  “Your control is better,” it said. “You didn’t leak power all over for anyone to feed upon.”

  “And I didn’t get caught up and need rescuing.” Tier’s fingers found another song, something instrumental that was light and airy that seemed to clear the depressed atmosphere left by the death of Red Ernave. “Maybe it was adding music to the mix.”

  “Kissel, where are you going?” asked Toarsen.

  Sure enough, Kissel was up and walking slowly toward the rows of shelving. “She needs us,” he said. “Don’t you hear her crying?”

  Jes darted forward and stood in Kissel’s way, growling at something in front of them.

  Then Seraph heard it, too. A woman’s brokenhearted weeping.

  Seraph climbed over Tier’s table since it was the shortest route, waving back the others, who all started to get up to help.

  “Play, Bard,” suggested Hennea. “Sing something. Something cheerful.”

  Tier started a common drinking song.

  With Jes blocking his path, Kissel had stopped moving forward, but tears were flowing down his cheeks. “She’s so sad,” He told Jes. “Why can’t we help her?”

  The thick ruff of hair down the black wolf’s back was standing straight up. Seraph moved slowly to Kissel’s side, not wanting to startle him into doing something. He was fighting the enchantment, or else he wouldn’t have stopped, Jes or no Jes.

  With her spirit sight she could see one of the dead stood a few feet from Kissel, she thought Jes saw it, too, because his attention was focused on just the right place. Either Tier’s music was keeping it back, or something about the way it fed required its victim to come to it. Either was possible from the little Seraph knew about such things.

  Seraph slipped her hand into the crook of Kissel’s arm. “It’s like a painting,” she said quietly. “It makes you sad or moves you, but you can do nothing to change it. The woman who weeps died a long time ago. There is nothing you can do for her.”

  “She will weep forever unless someone helps,” he told Seraph, but he sounded more alert, more like his usual self.

  “No one can help her, Kissel,” Seraph said, tugging a little on his arm. “Come sit down.”

  He turned and shuffled back to his place, with Seraph guiding him and Jes guarding their backs.

  “She was so beautiful,” whispered Kissel as he sat down. “So sad.”

  “I know,” said Jes.

  Toarsen put an arm around Kissel and gave him a quick hug before releasing. He nodded once at Seraph—either telling her thanks, reassuring her that he would watch out for Kissel from here on out, or both, she wasn’t certain.

  Seraph released the sight magic with a sigh of relief; it was giving her a throbbing headache. She glanced down at Jes. “Did you see her?”

  He nodded, curled up next to Hennea, and rested his snout on her knee. “She was beautiful.”

  Seraph bent down and rubbed him behind the ears, taking the moment to look over the others. They looked a little shaken, but Tier’s drinking song—a silly, slightly risqué piece—was doing its job. Lehr and Phoran were singing along, and after a few verses Toarsen joined in as well.

  Seraph worked her way back through the crowd to Tier’s table. She patted Ielian then Phoran on the shoulder as she passed because they looked as though they needed it. She sat down on her bench and leaned her cheek against Tier’s knee and let the melody his fingers coaxed out of the battered old lute sink through her like the knowledge of everyone’s safety. Tier was safe.

  She had a good idea now of how the Orders caught in the Path’s gems might be cleaned so she and Hennea could release them. They knew who the Shadowed was—and that he awaited them in Redern. Hinnum and Hennea, for all their arguing, were pretty sure they’d come up with a way to destroy the Shadowed, so Phoran could be free of his Memory. All they had to do was find a Lark, and Hennea knew of a young man who would be willing to come though it might take her a few months to find him.

  “Seraph,” Tier said, as his clever fingers finished the song he’d been playing and began his between-song chord playing. “I feel better. Tell me you managed to do something more with the Shadow’s hold on me.”

  She smiled at him. “Ravens are arrogant,” she told him. “When there is a problem, we tend to believe we are the only ones who can solve it.” She opened her palm, where she still held the remnants of the garnet. “You broke the spell yourself while you told the story of the Fall of the Unnamed King.”

  “Huh.” He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Just the same, I think I’ll stick to more mundane music for the rest of the night.” His prosaic words didn’t cover the relief she saw in his eyes.

  He picked a sweet ballad written by a young man to his love, who was supposed to wed another. It suited his range, and the song was soothing, the perfect foil for the press of fear the dead still raised.

  She slid off the bench and made her way to Rinnie. On the way she glanced at the Memory, but without the spell that let her see spirit and other things, it looked just as it had when it had come into the library.

  Rinnie was curled up asleep on Gura, who was still watching the dead Seraph could no longer see. But the dog didn’t look upset, just watchful. His alert pose mirrored the wolf settled comfortably next to Hennea. Seraph yawned and curled up on the floor next to Rinnie, found something soft and warm to lay her head upon, and let her eyes close while Tier’s music kept her safe from harm.

  Phoran must have fallen asleep sometime not too much after Seraph had. He woke up to the smell of something wild a
nd sweet, and opened his eyes to see Seraph’s hair and realized the light drumming he heard was her heartbeat. Hastily he straightened and took a quick glance around to see if anyone had noticed.

  Not that waking up with somebody else’s wife was a unique experience for him, and this was much more innocent than those instances. But still, her husband and children were in the room.

  Jes, a human Jes, stretched out on his side next to Hennea, gave him a friendly smile, and lifted his finger to his lips. He was the only other one awake.

  “Did you stay up the whole night?” asked Phoran, in a near-voiceless whisper.

  Jes nodded, though he looked none the worse for wear. Phoran lifted and shifted and wiggled and finally managed to untangle himself from Seraph. He got up and stretched out most of the kinks in his back.

  Tier slept on the table, the lute resting on his middle. Phoran smiled, then realized that the pile of sleepers was short a few people. He remembered the Memory leaving after Tier’s incredible song. Ielian and Lehr must have awakened already. Hinnum, he decided, was none of his concern.

  He waved at Jes and walked outside. By the angle of the sun, he could tell it was no later than midmorning. Who would have thought it, we survived the night.

  “Morning,” said Lehr, who was leaning against the wall of the library next to the broken door. “I heard Ielian get up, but by the time I could make myself move he was gone.”

  Phoran nodded. “Probably headed back to camp. He’ll be hot that he was the only one who tried to run.”

  “Except the dog,” said Lehr.

  Phoran grinned. “That fool dog wasn’t running; he was trying to attack.”

  The others began stirring not long after. When everyone else was awake, Jes woke up his parents, and they all trudged back to camp.

  Phoran hadn’t noticed it so much last night, but in the clear light of day, both of the Ravens looked drained, and Tier wasn’t much better. Seraph caught his concerned look and smiled at him.