by Matthew Ward
Pallid etravia coalesced about the arch. Empty-eyed, they drifted past Erad and the elder cousin. Gasps rippled as younger vranakin in the rafters made sense of the sight. Apara had walked Otherworld’s time-lost streets too many times to feel more than a pang of unease. The etravia lacked the awareness to offer malice.
“You see?” Krastin breathed deep of the cold air, a man savouring the finest spring blossom. “Otherworld rises. The Raven’s blessings will follow. See that nothing disturbs the work.”
Apara shuddered as another piece of herself peeled away into the mists. “Yes, Crowfather.”
“Again, Josiri? Can we not go a single day without re-treading old ground?”
Lord Lamirov’s theatrical weariness drew a thin smile from Evarn Marest. Malachi’s and Erashel Beral’s discomfort differed only in degree. Konor Zarn’s attention was given over to the statues looking down from on high, the lint on his jacket or the polished grain of the table top – in other words, anywhere save on the matter at hand. No help anywhere, but Josiri had long ago grown used to standing alone.
“I’ve neither the time nor the inclination to play games, Leonast,” he said. “Lives are at stake.”
Lord Lamirov leaned forward, wrinkled features approximating concern. “Then take the matter up with the constabulary.”
“Captain Darrow’s on the road to Torgovald, as well you know.” The request that she lend expertise to the food riots had come directly from Lord Lamirov. And her deputy refused to support a foray into Dregmeet without approval from the Privy Council. “She’s not expected to return today. This won’t wait.”
Lord Lamirov shrugged. “You’re still free to act as you wish, and without wasting the Council’s time, I might add. Set your hearthguard loose, if it matters so much.”
Rising temper swirled to a heady brew. “I haven’t the numbers for this. Some of us don’t have decades of peculation and corruption lining our pockets—”
“My father was exonerated!” Lord Lamirov lurched to his feet, face ruddy and knuckles braced against the table top. “I won’t have my name dragged into disrepute by a southwealder!”
Josiri regarded him with polite confusion. “… unlike the Kiradin family.”
Lord Lamirov wobbled like a child’s top, smoothed a hand across his bald pate and retook his seat. Josiri held his satisfaction close. Putting Lord Lamirov off-balance – pleasant though it was – wouldn’t solve the issue at hand.
“Please,” he said, now addressing the room entire. “I must have this council’s support, either to mobilise the constabulary or through pledge of your own hearthguards.”
“You’re certain your informant isn’t leading you astray?” asked Erashel.
Josiri hesitated. Altiris could be mistaken, or even lying. Desperation was easily faked, and it wasn’t hard to conjure reasons why someone might want to lure the upstart Lord Trelan into Dregmeet. “Certain enough that inaction represents greater risk. These are our people, Erashel. Help me bring them home.”
She nodded. “Of course.”
A victory, but one that was both the easiest won and carried least weight. Alone of the Council, Erashel had no hearthguard at all. As for the others… Lord Lamirov had made his position clear, and Lord Marest would follow his lead. Messela Akadra and Rika Tarev had each excused themselves from the day’s business. If only Izack had been present. He’d have gleefully offered vote, hearthguard and a body of knights. But Izack had ridden for Northwatch at dawn, not on council business, but because he’d “no bloody intention of being a dancing bear at Konor Zarn’s ascension”.
“How many prisoners are we talking about, Josiri?” Lord Zarn asked.
“It might be hundreds.”
“Or only a handful?”
“Is there a magic number at which the moral course becomes the proper one, Konor?”
“Of course not.” He swatted the words aside. “But you know Dregmeet. Full to the brim with rumours and lies. Half the Crowmarket’s power comes from this council’s failures. The vranakin feed so many of those we can’t. What happens if they’re seen to lead us a merry chase through the mists? And today of all days.”
Josiri bit his tongue. Was the man so vain he’d put his ascension ahead of saving lives?
Erashel scowled. “Afraid it’ll sour your party, Konor?”
Lord Zarn smiled. “My party, Erashel, will proceed in glorious fashion, regardless. But if we’re to deal with the Crowmarket, it must be at the proper time, and in the proper way.”
Lord Tarev and Lord Lamirov nodded sage agreement. Two votes for. Three absent. Three against. Only Malachi remained. A tie would be as good as a victory, for it would bring the substantial Reveque hearthguard into the matter.
“Well, Malachi?” said Erashel.
Malachi started as if woken from a dream and brushed a greying fringe back from his brow. His gaze swept the table before settling on Lord Zarn. Watchful. A man lost to appraisal, and uncertain as to what his labours uncovered.
“I’m sorry, Erashel, Josiri,” Malachi said at last, “but I fear Konor is correct. This is the perfect bait. If we’re seen dancing to a vranakin drum, many will be tempted to accept the Crowmarket’s promises in place of this council’s authority.”
“Then we should do nothing?” demanded Josiri.
“Not without cause.” He rose and spread his hands, as if hoping to pull a more palatable answer from the chamber’s stuffy air. “Can your informant testify? So we can hear the claims?”
Josiri hesitated with the lifeline in reach. Altiris would likely agree, little knowing the verbal mauling to follow. Would a homeless southwealder not yet of age convince where Josiri himself had not? Unlikely.
He glanced around the table, at allies and opponents, and at the man he increasingly struggled to think of as his friend. What if Lamirov’s attitude wasn’t mere bluster? Or if Zarn’s was owed to something more than laziness? Did they speak their own concerns, or parrot the will of the Parliament of Crows? Were that the case, putting Altiris on display invited a slit throat.
“No. She’ll speak only to me.” A little misdirection never hurt.
“A pretty face, is it?” murmured Lord Zarn. “Sounds more like a snare all the time.”
Malachi scowled. “Konor, please. In Captain Darrow’s absence, I’ll direct Lieutenant Raldan to make enquiries. If your informant has a change of heart, Josiri, I’ll be pleased to speak with her. Otherwise, I’m afraid the answer must be ‘no’.”
The slam of the door against the wall and the accompanying trickle of plaster told Kurkas everything. Lord Trelan’s low-shouldered stride only reinforced the message, leaving his thunderous expression a necessary aid only to the very slowest of wits.
“The Council didn’t see things your way, sah?”
Lord Trelan lurched to a halt, so blinded by anger that he’d made it halfway across the carpeted landing and well past Kurkas.
“The Council—” He cast about at the curious expressions of clerks and petitioners on the floor below, their attention drawn by his shout. He lowered his voice. “The Council wishes to take no action. So we will.”
Not that there’d been any prospect of a different outcome, but a man could dream. “As you say, sah.”
Lord Trelan straightened, the colour receding from his cheeks as he gathered himself. He stared over the banister. “Are the others outside?”
“Every last one, sah. And a surprise.”
“I’ve had enough surprises today.”
“You’ll like this one.”
Lord Trelan’s eyes narrowed. Kurkas stared straight ahead and pretended not to notice as the Privy Council filed past.
“Josiri!” Lady Beral hurried over. “I was afraid I wouldn’t catch up to you. Is there any hope of getting the Grand Council involved?”
Lord Trelan’s basilisk stare slipped away. “With Malachi urging caution? None.”
“Then we’ll make do with what we have.” Her expression hardened. “I
t was always the case that southwealders should hang together.”
Malachi drained the glass and stared bleakly along the empty council chamber. The brandy did nothing to warm the chill about his heart. That last look of betrayal Josiri had shot him… The temptation remained to follow, to plead change of mind and do the right thing, consequences be damned. But temptation didn’t blaze bright enough to burn away foreboding.
Worse was the betrayal of self. Josiri didn’t make demands without cause; that truth left Malachi scant shelter from his own scorn. From the moment Zarn had spoken against the venture, he had known he’d have to. For if he didn’t…
In his mind’s eye, he saw again the fallen chandelier, and the bodies beneath. Only this time, it wasn’t Sabelle, Dathna and the luckless Proctor Sadrianov, but Lily, Sidara and Constans. In saving them, he doomed Josiri – Erashel also, if he read her mood right. The Parliament of Crows wouldn’t lightly suffer another affront in their own territory.
Have a care you do not push us any further. Was the Emissary laughing even now?
Malachi glared at the shadowed corner of the chamber. Her favourite lurking point.
“Are you happy?”
No answer. No green eyes. And yet Malachi felt her mockery all the same.
“Answer me!”
A flash of anger sent the empty glass spinning into shadow. Shards glittered in the lantern-light as it shattered against the wall. Malachi stared blankly. What would he have done had the missile struck its target? What punishment would such an offence have elicited?
The outer door creaked open behind him. “My lord, is all well?”
“An accident, Moldrov. Nothing more.”
Somehow, he divorced the words from rising elation. But elation there was. Because if the shadows were empty, then his watcher wasn’t there. Her absence brought freedom, if he was clever enough to make use of it. Possibly even enough to buy back a sliver of his soul.
“As you say, my lord,” replied Moldrov. “I’ll instruct one of the maids.”
Malachi nodded, the words only half-heard as he considered timings and the layout of the city’s tangled streets. Yes, it would work, for only a little risk. Friendship was worth a little risk.
“Please do,” he said at last. “But first, call for a herald, would you? I’ve a message needs sending.”
Sixteen
The slaughter had become rote. A whimper. The wet rip of steel on flesh and the daub of rune. A ribbon-bound corpse cast through the warehouse arch into Otherworld’s distant fields. The muttered prayers, calling upon the Raven’s favour. The icy cold of the mist, and the iron tang of blood. Even the drifting etravia. Unremarkable, save for the shadow pulsing ever more unhappily in Apara’s gut.
With each new death, the shadow called on her to do something, anything to prevent the killing. It whispered that the ritual was not as it seemed, that the deaths were meaningless. It railed as if she herself stole the offerings’ lives, and called upon her to take action.
Only the knowledge that the shadow strove thus out of fear gave Apara strength to resist. It knew the mists were its doom. That she’d be free.
If the Raven paid heed to the labours, he offered no sign. Apara was thankful for that. One encounter with the Keeper of the Dead was sufficient. Not that he’d been cruel, or even unkind. She’d been but a mote in his disinterested sight when her cousins had pledged her to his service. Better to remain unremarked and unnoticed, lest he collected on her debt this side of the grave. Apara had seen how that ended. The darker domains of the Otherworld were thick with such fallen souls, faces gaunt and eyes burning with hunger.
But still Apara wondered why, if the Raven desired tribute – if he had to be coaxed to fulfil age old-pact – why had he not come? Again, the pressure in her gut warned her that the deaths were meaningless. And, for the first time, Apara wondered if that was so.
Josiri peered at the bodies in the gutter. Skeins of mist clung to patched and faded garb. Masks twitched to unconscious breaths. So much for the watchfulness of vranakin. He stared across the narrow alleyway to the vast dockside warehouse, now bereft of guardians.
“I’m impressed,” he murmured.
Kurkas let go the heel of a fifth body and scratched at his tangled black hair. “I have my uses. Besides, it wasn’t me alone, was it? Begging your pardon, sah, but I’ve never seen a highblood move so fast.”
Kurkas had been impressive enough, threading the mist-cloaked streets to take out both patrol and watchmen on the warehouse causeway with a flurry of violence. A timely reminder that the captain wasn’t defined by missing parts and pieces. Erashel had been something else. One-armed as he was, Kurkas would never have reached the sentries on the opposite rooftop, not without notice. Erashel had navigated the tiles like a cat. Only one vranakin had seen her coming, and she’d not had time to scream.
“It’d seem there’s more in Lady Beral’s past than toiling over crops,” said Josiri. “I’ll be more polite when next we quarrel.”
Erashel appeared in a patch of mist he could’ve sworn was empty moments before. The close-fitting traveller’s garb suited her far better than the dress she wore to council, a perfect match to boyish figure and a pauper’s cropped hair. Dark and dangerous. As if the formality was worn as a disguise. Josiri had played a similar game himself for many years. Perhaps they were more alike than they were different…
“See that you are,” she said. “I’d hate for us to fall out again so soon.”
The joke provoked grins from nearby hearthguards. Himself and Erashel included, Josiri’s small force tallied a round dozen. Enough to attempt a raid in the civilised streets beyond Dregmeet, but down in the mists? The constabulary didn’t come so deep without an army, and every one of his phoenixes knew it. But none had shirked their duty. Falteringly old or desperately young, they’d followed him onto Crowmarket territory, drab cloaks worn to hide the heraldry and muffle chainmail’s clink.
Kurkas leaned close. “You want to do this, now’s the time. I know these streets. We linger, they’ll close tight about us and squeeze us dry.”
Josiri nodded. He’d never been so far into Dregmeet, and had been prepared for neither the cold nor the emptiness of the place. Save for a huddle of beggars further up the alley – a group swathed in rags so worn and filthy as to occasion the very widest of berths – there wasn’t a soul in sight. Nor had he been prepared for the thin voices dancing on the edge of hearing. He saw unease reflected in the faces of his companions – even Erashel’s, though she laboured to hide it.
Only Kurkas remained unaffected. No. That wasn’t quite right. The one-eyed captain was still wary, but it was the wariness of knowledge more than ignorance. For better or worse, Kurkas had taken the measure of foolishness, and resigned himself to its completion.
“We’re not here to fight a battle.” Josiri let his voice carry as far as he dared, and infused the words with every scrap of confidence at his command, and a little that was not. “Thanks to Altiris, we know that there are prisoners in that warehouse. I’d rather get them out quietly, and without bloodshed. If the vranakin choose otherwise? Then it’s a fight.”
“And if that doesn’t work?”
Altiris’ fingers were wound tight around the pommel of his sword, but his voice was steady. The strange balance between fear and resolve.
“Then we do as the church teaches, don’t we?” Kurkas shot a glance at the beggars and lowered his voice. “We put our bloody faith in the divine.”
The words provoked more grins, though Altiris’ was tinged with confusion.
Josiri turned to Kurkas. “How do you recommend we do this, captain?”
“Two groups, sah. You take half round the front, I’ll take the rest in along the dockside.”
Josiri pulled Erashel aside as Kurkas set about dividing the hearthguard. “One of us should stay here. I doubt Leonast will shed a tear if we both vanish.”
“Then stay. I won’t think less of you.”
Her words left Josiri with the sense she’d purposefully misread his meaning, but he supposed the time for argument had been at the palace. Any doubts he’d had about Erashel’s ability to look after herself had vanished when the first sentry’s skull had cracked against tile.
“Then do me a favour. Stay close to Altiris,” he muttered. “He wouldn’t let me send him away either, and I worry more for his safety than I do yours.”
“Orders, is it?” Sharp scowl melted into wicked smile. “At your command, Lord Trelan.”
Kurkas was already on the move out of the alley’s mouth, four cloaked hearthguards slipping through the greenish-white mists alongside. Altiris waited with the two that remained. Merisov and Taladan, both of them grey-haired veterans of the 12th regiment, recruited at the start of Kurkas’ tenure.
Josiri set off across the grimy cobbles, feeling more than ever that a hundred eyes watched his every move. But he heard no cries of alarm, only the uneasy, distant voices trailing through the mists.
A smear in the grime marked where a vranakin had fallen to Kurkas’ fist; a scattering of black feathers and shattered bone where a crow charm had disintegrated beneath his heel. With a last glance over his shoulder at uneven rooftops and brooding grey skies, Josiri eased the warehouse gate open and slipped inside.
Nothing at Crosswind Hall had prepared Josiri for what lay within. He’d expected the steel-barred cages, but not so many. The greenish-white mist was thicker than outside, opaque to the level of his knees and scarcely less dense above. The dark stacks of crates and cable spindles were islands floating upon a sombre sea. A cluster of vranakin gathered about a bloodied archway, greys and blacks against spattered scarlet, their chant echoing beneath the empty rafters. And all about, pallid, translucent spirits, their flesh and faded clothes little different in colour to the mists in which they stood.