A Handful of Men: The Complete Series

by Dave Duncan

  Cheering broke out once more.

  The ruins of the town still burned, but of the Imperial Army nothing remained at all on the smoking black wasteland where the blaze had ravaged.

  Death Bird began making a speech, screaming gutturally to his horde and waving his arms. The cheering kept drowning him out. The chiefs were embracing one another, almost dancing, making the platform rock and creak alarmingly. Kadie sat down and straddled the log she had been standing on. She felt sick. She was still alive. Thousands of men had been charred to nothing before her eyes and she was still alive.

  Blood Beak knelt to speak to her, teeth showing in a ferocious mad grin. “Can hear?” he said. “Are going home! Sorcery on our side! Wardens help! Going back to taiga!”

  “It’s a long way to the taiga yet.”

  He leered. “Marry you tonight! Waited too long.”

  She turned away. He grabbed her chin and twisted her head around, thrusting his head so close to hers that she could see every black dot in his tattoos and the wispy hairs around his mouth and even the shiny drops of sweat on his forehead. “Will have you tonight!” he said furiously. “No magic sword tonight! Will tame Krasnegar girl tonight!”

  “No, you won’t.”

  His glee made his lips curl back, revealing his tusks. “Good, good! Enjoy struggle!”

  “You’re leaving,” Kadie said. She felt quite calm, almost sad. It was all over. “You’re leaving. You have to leave. There’s no food here. You must find a way across that river, to somewhere you can loot, right? And I can’t come. I have no horse now.”

  His face darkened, confirming what she had suspected about poor Allena. The horde would start to move as soon as the king had finished his speech. She could not follow.

  “Run!” Blood Beak said menacingly.

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Will have men carry you.”

  Breaking free of his grip, she tossed her head angrily. “That’s pretty stupid, too, isn’t it? What will you offer them? Do you plan to let them join in the wedding celebration?”

  He flushed olive, furious. Obviously he could see no solution, either. “Then do it now and leave you!”

  Which is what she had been expecting him to say. The goblins were saved, but Kadie was not. Fear was a sick throbbing in her stomach.

  Death Bird had finished his oration. The platform rocked and bounced as the chiefs scrambled down to the ground. Blood Beak jumped up to intercept his father, doubtless planning to explain the Kadie problem.

  He never even began. Something hid the sun. Men screamed. She looked up in time to see an enormous blackness in the air above her. She recoiled in amazement and lost her grip and…

  6

  “It’s the legions!” Rap sobbed. “He’s set them on the legions! Oh, Gods, Gods!”

  Pain and terror flooded the ambience in lurid color, burning nerves, crushing senses. A ship full of sorcerers, Dreadnaught rang like a bell. Anthropophagi had become screaming madmen. Trolls howled like dogs.

  “The legions?” Jalon grabbed the wheel Rap had released. “Why would he do that?”

  But Rap could spare no thought for the mundane minstrel. He stumbled to his knees with the effort of wrestling, reasoning, shouting in the ambience, struggling to control his pitiful little army before it rushed into futile rescue. If just one sorcerer broke away and was captured in consequence, then all would be betrayed. Waves of maddening pain poured out from Bandor Field. Five legions! Five times five thousand deaths.

  Why? Just to demonstrate the Covin’s power for the benefit of the sorcerers of Pandemia?

  * * *

  “You all right. Rap?” Jalon asked, kneeling down beside him and laying a cool hand on his sweaty brow. Rap unrolled. He was conscious of a bitten tongue, and the hard planks of the deck under his back, still cold from the night. He stared up at the concerned jotunn face above him, the blue eyes an exact match for the early-morning sky behind, so that a fanciful man might assume the minstrel had two holes through his head and the sky was smiling through…

  “Yes,” he mumbled. “Yes, I’m all right.”

  The battle was over, the suffering had ended. No one on Dreadnaught had broken ranks.

  “It’s done?” the minstrel asked, helping him sit up.

  “It’s done. The legions are dead. The worms are heading home.” Every muscle shivered independently.

  Five times five thousand men… for what? But at least the Covin had held the blaze together and prevented widespread disaster. The power required for that was appalling—which was why it had been done, of course.

  SORCERERS, YOU HAVE SEEN! NOW WATCH AGAIN THAT HIS STRENGTH BE MADE KNOWN TO YOU!

  “Rap? Rap, now what’s happening? Tell me!”

  Rap had reached his knees. He sank back now on his heels. No more! Please no more!

  Thrugg answered for him, in a roar that filled the ship from stem to bowsprit. “The goblins! He’s going to kill the goblins!”

  Rap thought then of Death Bird, who had been Little Chicken—a very old friend and yet never quite a friend. They had adventured together, almost died together, almost killed each other… Long ago.

  However Death Bird had led his horde to Bandor, he had made history and probably very bloody history. He was only a savage, born of savages, reared by savages, and yet he had hammered and quenched and forged until he wrought the independent savage bands of the taiga into a nation and a fighting force capable of humiliating the Impire. Had any invader ever done as much?

  The Gods had thrust greatness upon him.

  And Rap had helped, obedient to the Gods’ will for once. Was the destiny ended now, the adventure over? Remembering their last meeting, at the Timber Meet, he saw how like old men they had become, trading stories of their respective children. Death Bird had bragged about a son who had slain a bear. Was the boy there at Bandor dying with his father, or had he remained behind in the taiga to continue the dynasty? Rap would never know.

  Good-bye, Death Bird. Tell the Gods that what They find in your soul is what They decreed Themselves.

  7

  Kadie was lying in the grass, hurting. She vaguely remembered working out that she had fallen, but not the actual fall nor when exactly she’d worked it out, either. Why did everything have to be so fuzzy? Had she been there a long time, or only a few seconds?

  There was a terrible amount of noise everywhere: crashing sounds, men screaming, and alien shrieks that certainly came from nothing human. There was something wrong with her eyes, so she didn’t have to believe that the branches overhead were really, truly rocking against the sky like that. She wanted it all to stop so she could rest.

  Then someone died quite close. At least it sounded like someone dying—a terrible scream, then a gurgling screech, and a thump. More thumps. Yes, that definitely sounded like someone dying.

  She lifted her head and saw two black birds as big as horses. They had their beaks in two men, and were battering them against two trees. She rubbed her eyes and looked again. Now there was only one bird and one dead man. That was better…

  She was on her feet, reeling in a dark haze of giddiness. Another man was slashing with a sword at another bird. It stood higher than he did, and it was jabbing with its beak, snapping at him, driving him backward. She leaned against a trunk and tried to keep her legs from folding up under her like razors. She was in the middle of a battle. There were goblins everywhere and giant black birds everywhere, and half the time she was seeing two of everything.

  She watched a burly goblin swing his sword double-handed against a bird’s neck. It bounced off. The bird closed its beak on his head, lifted him bodily, and shook him. Then it stopped shaking, but his body continued to swing as if his neck was now made of rope. The bird dropped him and planted a foot on him. Then it pulled his head off.

  Kadie staggered under the platform and found another trunk to lean on. There were a dozen men sheltering under there already, and birds were trying to come in at th
em on the far side.

  They were ravens, enormous ravens.

  She laughed a little. Raven Totem. Death Bird. Blood Beak. Giant ravens! Obviously the wardens were playing jokes, and she was sure she would see how funny it was if her head would just stay still a minute. The goblins had eaten her horse. Allena the Fare?

  Dragons belonged to the warlock of the south. Mamma had said, and the legions belonged to the warlock of the east. No one must use sorcery against the legions, but today South had sent his dragons against them, so now East had sent these birds against the goblins, tit for tat. Quite obvious. Warlock Raspnex had said that the wardens had been deposed, but he must have made a mistake.

  All around her ravens were feeding, or chasing men through the trees, smashing branches and even trunks as if trees were weeds. She peered up, between the logs of the platform. The sky was dark with the monsters, still coming from somewhere. Over the low wall that enclosed the orchard, she could see them settling like starlings on the main host of goblins. Thousands and thousands of them—jet-black feathers, black beaks, black legs, bright golden eyes glittering. Their shrieks were the cries of ravens magnified a hundredfold. Arrows bounced off them, swords bounced off them.

  There were bodies on the platform, one still dribbling blood.

  “Kadie?!” A hand grabbed her.

  She looked around, and saw two Blood Beaks, both grass-green with terror. She smiled at them vaguely. Oo, what a lot of noise there was! How was she ever going to get to sleep with all this noise?

  Behind the Blood Beaks the ravens were winning the local skirmish, grabbing men and smashing them against trees. When they were dead, the birds fed on the corpses. There were only six or seven defenders left under the canopy, and all that was keeping them from being overrun was the congestion of feeding birds. The others could not pass to get at their prey.

  The goblin king was fighting like a human whirlwind, holding off two monsters. But the unequal struggle could not last forever. Even as she watched, a beak as big as two swords jabbed into Death Bird’s chest. The points came out through his back in a wash of blood. The raven backed away, carrying him. He pounded fists on its head for a moment, then went limp. Bye-bye, Death Bird…

  “Kadie, I’m sorry!” Blood Beak was yelling in her ear over the noise. “I didn’t mean what I said!”

  “Yes, you did,” she said politely. There was only one of him, which is what she expected, really. She wished her head would stop aching. This was all very interesting and if she could see properly it would be even more interesting. She wondered if the birds would attack only goblins. How did they feel about jotunn-imp-faun mixtures? Perhaps she should take her clothes off so they could see she was pinky-brown, not green. Could birds tell colors?

  She was going to find out very shortly. Only three men were left under the platform, and Blood Beak, and her. The noise was growing less, she decided, more bird shrieks but a lot less man-screams. The goblin horde was being reduced to carrion. Soon there wouldn’t be any goblins. Two whole armies wiped out without even having a fight—even if she had survived to tell this tale, no one would ever have believed her.

  Then Blood Beak yelled, and she turned. Two ravens were coming through the trees. From the way the closer one was looking at her with its beady gold eyes, it was obviously interested in more than goblins. She drew her rapier.

  “I’ll save you, Kadie!” Blood Beak waved his sword.

  “I doubt that very much.” Again she spoke so quietly that he would not hear. Her head was going round too fast for shouting.

  The two monsters rushed in side by side. Blood Beak swung his sword at the one on his side, and the sheer power of his blow seemed to knock the great head back. Eyeing her own opponent blearily, Kadie decided she would dance forward lightly and lunge at the beak itself, hoping to hit the tongue. Tongues should be vulnerable, shouldn’t they?

  Her feet seemed to move in all directions at once. She stumbled forward, almost falling. She missed the tongue. The point of her rapier struck the beak, and the whole bird vanished with a sort of plop! noise.

  Oh.

  How unusual.

  Blood Beak slashed again unsuccessfully, retreated before the next stab, caught his foot, sprawled over on his back. Fast as a whip, the raven’s head flashed down and gripped his leg. He shrieked. It began pulling and lifting him.

  Kadie lunged again, felt a hit, and the bird had gone.

  She knelt down. “You all right?”

  He stared up at her with wide square eyes in a face the color of green cheese. “What happened?”

  “My sword. It’s magical, you see. Good against magic birds. Of course I didn’t know that until recently. How is your leg?”

  “Broken.”

  She looked and saw white bones in the red stuff. It wasn’t broken, it was crushed. She looked away quickly. Blood Beak would never run again.

  “I’ll make a bandage,” she said, removing her cloak. A shadow warned her—she spun around just in time. As the monster lunged at her, she lunged right back. It vanished like a soap bubble. Another bird was right behind, so she took a step to meet it and dealt with that one, also. The men had all gone. There was only Blood Beak and herself under the platform. She glanced around and saw no goblins upright anywhere.

  She did see an awful lot of giant ravens feeding, though, tearing at the corpses, and about as many again still hunting, most of them heading for her.

  She reeled back to Blood Beak, who was whimpering and trying to sit up.

  “You had better bandage your leg yourself,” she said. “I’ll keep the chickens off.”

  Suddenly she felt a thousand years old. Her arms were so heavy she could barely lift them, and the cloak lay forgotten at her feet. If the monsters came at her from all sides, she wasn’t going to be able to get them all.

  There were thousands of them.

  8

  Cowering in her vantage on the high Mosweeps, Thaïle wept in horror. The Keeper had known, or had guessed. He plans a fiendish mischief, she had said. Thaïle had never anticipated an evil so great She could do nothing to stop it. No matter how powerful, one sorceress could not resist the Covin.

  Very soon it was over. The dragons had destroyed the legions.

  But then came the second message from the Almighty, and the second atrocity. Raw, naked power squirted out from the heart of evil in the center, enveloping the helpless mundanes of the opposing army and ripping them to bloody fragments. The illusion of black birds provided for the mundane spectators did not deceive Thaïle. She saw a single overall iniquity like a thundercloud, emitting random flashes of destruction. It was mindless and brutal and coldblooded, a callous display of the usurper’s might.

  She could not identify the victims. None of the books she had seen had described such a race, but they were human, and they were dying, rent apart.

  Again she could do nothing, and this time the butchery took longer. It ended when the horde had died and their corpses been reduced to gory pieces. Nauseated, she looked down upon the stricken terrain. All gone. She sensed others seeing and recoiling, also. Any sorcerer not alerted by the dragons would certainly have heard this slaughter. The Covin had made its point: None can resist the Almighty.

  The last few stragglers were being hunted down and destroyed when Thaïle detected a tiny flicker of sorcery—sorcery of a different hue. The distinction was so subtle that she thought no other sorcerers would notice, unless they were very close, but someone was putting up an occult resistance; one man must be still alive among the dead. That pitiful spark of defiance caught her sympathy and her attention.

  It was a woman? A girl! What had a girl been doing among so many thousand men? She was not even of their race.

  A prisoner? Thaïle wondered. Kidnapped? Kidnapped as she herself had been kidnapped from the Leéb Place?

  The spell of horror that had held her frozen shattered like ice on a pond.

  She flashed to the rescue.

  * * *

/>   Yes, it was a girl, a woman just a little younger than herself. She had taken refuge under a sort of heavy wooden canopy. She was one of the dark-haired demons, but not quite an imp. Imps did not have green eyes, or those delicate features. Green eyes were found only on jotnar, the books said, and very rarely even men. How odd that the books should be so unreliable! Perhaps the races had changed in the last thousand years.

  She was purely mundane, not a sorceress, because she did not show at all in the ambience. Her sword did. It was a minor piece of sorcery, but very cleverly crafted, and it was deflecting the stabbing flashes of power that the girl would be seeing as giant binds. It was wearing out, though. It would not last much longer.

  Thaïle conceived a bubble of protection around them both. The illusory birds seemed to peck at it angrily. The girl looked around and saw she was not alone.

  “Oh!” she said. Her face was haggard with shock and exhaustion. Then she managed a rictus of a smile. “You have come to rescue me!” She spoke in impish.

  “Yes,” Thaïle said, wondering why she was being so crazy. Who was she to oppose the monstrous evil of the usurper? If she lingered she would be noticed. She must move the child to safety on the far side of the river, and then leave at once.

  “Thank you.” The girl calmly sheathed her sword. “Can you rescue Blood Beak, too?” she asked hopefully. “He’s hurt.”