Crowlord

by Michael Wallace

  Abelard grabbed her hand and gripped it with surprising strength. “No, don’t. I’ll be all right. Only help me onto my side. I need to let the blood out.”

  “But your sowen. . .”

  “I can master it. Help me. No, not like that. Other side.”

  Even as she got him rolled over, she felt him regaining control. Or so she thought, at first. There was something strange in his sowen.

  It must have been the demigod, she told herself. The chaos left in its wake, combined with the wound, had made the destruction of Abelard’s sowen seem greater than it was. What she was seeing wasn’t so much battered sowen, but the torn auras all around them. Now he would gather his sowen and heal himself, and they would shortly be discussing whether or not to go after Volfram.

  Yet as Abelard pulled his sowen back together, an unusual discordant note entered. It was tight enough, yet the shape was different, and there were strange marks that felt like scabbed-over wounds that would shortly turn into unsightly scars.

  “There,” he said. There was a pale quality to his voice, but it didn’t tremble. “The bleeding has stopped.”

  “Are you really going to be fine?” she asked. His sowen was still churning.

  “I’m not sure, but. . .yes, I think so. The bleeding is stopped, I’m feeling better.”

  Katalinka decided not to mention his sowen. He was still trying to gather those tangles, all spilling in different directions, and he would sense her prodding at it. Let him figure out the flaws and bring them together without her meddling. Instead, she got up and gathered Volfram’s wood, scattered in the fight, and banked the fire. Soon, there was more light and heat.

  “Did you kill him?” Abelard asked. He propped himself on one elbow as she stretched their cloaks next to the fire to dry.

  “No.”

  “Your blades touched him. Twice.”

  “Not enough to stop him escaping. And firewalkers are great healers.”

  He shifted again and winced. “Aren’t they supposed to fight to the death? That’s their reputation.”

  It wasn’t fighting to the death, precisely. Not as Katalinka understood it. More that their resistance to pain and wounds kept them in the action long after another opponent would have withdrawn. Firewalkers would fight on in a relaxed, careless state, often too long. Often until it was no longer possible to disengage from an otherwise survivable fight. That’s what her father had told her, anyway. Nobody had put that theory to the test during her lifetime, at least.

  “The weather will complicate his recovery,” she decided at last. “He won’t heal so easily out there in the cold and snow.”

  “I’ll count myself lucky to be inside, then,” Abelard said. He leaned back with a wince. “Some food would help. How about you roast that rabbit and see what you can plunder from that bastard’s supplies?”

  The tone was more demanding than Katalinka was used to, but she was glad to help. And relieved that he was giving himself time to heal. Abelard could be stubborn sometimes, and likely to drag himself about, seeing to his own needs and delaying his recovery.

  She spitted the rabbit with a whittled branch taken from the kindling. Once the animal was roasting, she turned her attention to the firewalker’s bag. Here she found cooked beans, which she put in a tin bowl along with some snow, and she warmed them at the edge of the fire. She brought Abelard the bottle of rice wine from her own satchel and watched as he drank it from the jug. He was a careful drinker, and his pain seemed to be passing, so she expected him to take a few sips and put it down.

  Instead, he drained the entire bottle in long chugs while she looked on, astonished. When he was finished, he tossed the jug to one side. She went to pick it up, and again resisted asking him about the strange churning in his sowen. Was he angry? Maybe ashamed at having been bested? Whatever, it was affecting his recovery. Better to get him thinking about practical matters.

  “What now?” she asked. “Back home or on to the firewalkers anyway? Or if that’s too dangerous, we could bypass them entirely and see if the warbrands are more reasonable. What did you make of that story about Miklos, anyway? Was he really a sohn? He fooled Narina, that’s for sure.”

  “Forget Miklos and the warbrands for now. After what Volfram pulled, we’ve got to confront the firewalkers.”

  “Why would one of their sohns attack us anyway?” she asked. “They’d better have an answer.”

  “I’m not interested in talking.” Abelard glanced at the fire. “Bring me those beans—I’m too hungry to wait for the damn rabbit.”

  She brought them over and watched as he ate them with his fingers. He finished them off and glanced down at the empty bowl with an irritated expression.

  Katalinka couldn’t hold back any longer. “Are you sure you’re all right? You’re acting funny.”

  “No, I’m not all right. Another inch deeper and that ugly brigand of a firewalker would have run his sword right through to my spine. If you think I’m sitting down for a little chat with that brute. you’re mistaken. I’m going to cut off his ugly head, wipe that leering smile off his face.”

  She was still dealing with this unpleasant turn of phrase when he pointed at the rabbit, whose skin was starting to turn golden as she turned it on its stick, but was far from crispy.

  “Stop messing around with that thing and bring it here,” Abelard said.

  “It’s not done yet.”

  “I don’t care if it’s raw and bloody inside. I’m starving, and you’re sitting there gaping at me. Hurry up, will you.”

  Katalinka obeyed, giving him the rabbit on the stick, and he tore into it.

  She opened her mouth to snap something at him. Remind him that whatever he was dealing with in the aftermath of the battle, he needed to get command of it in a hurry. Clean up his sowen and find some bit of calm so he’d stop acting like an idiot. Oh, and if the raw rabbit gave him worms, it would serve him right.

  But even as she thought this, she felt his sowen. It was intact now. The scarring was mostly gone. Yet there, at the center, was a thread she’d never felt before. Long and thick, it coiled tightly in on itself like a snake crushing a mouse in its coils. She had no idea what it was, or what aura it belonged to.

  But it wasn’t Abelard’s.

  Chapter Three

  The thin man introduced himself as Pongur, captain of the Transriver Third Spears. Lord Balint, it seemed, had named his invasion force for the territory he meant to conquer from his southern rival.

  This might have seemed aspirational, as to Narina’s eyes the crowlord had barely managed to seize a thin strip of land on the south bank of the Vestonovul, and was still ferrying troops, horses, and supplies across the river in a makeshift flotilla of rafts and barges. But Narina herself had killed Lord Zoltan, and there would be little to prevent Balint from devouring the man’s fiefdom in chunks until his army met Lady Damanja’s army somewhere to the south.

  Don’t worry about that. Deliver the weapons, find Andras to give him his dog, and get out of here.

  She’d be sorry to see Skinny Lad go. He had a starved look about him, and if she’d come across the dog in the hill country, she would have thought him the canine equivalent of a brigand. The sort who’d bitten his master and run off to live a semi-wild life preying on the weak. But in reality, the dog was well-behaved, seemed attuned to their commands, and was wise enough to stay clear of Brutus’s horns and hooves. When Gyorgy wasn’t tugging at the goat’s rope to keep him moving, the boy tossed sticks to burn off Skinny Lad’s endless energy and scratched at the dog’s ears while they walked.

  Pongur and his riders escorted the trio of bladedancers east along the riverbank, where they caught sight of burning villages, smoldering watchtowers, and the ruins of a great stone bridge. The bridge foundations on either bank were still intact, but the center had fallen into the swift current, leaving only the pillars behind.

  Narina didn’t know who had destroyed it, but she couldn’t help but think of the towns on
opposite banks, each of which had relied on trade across the river. That bridge wouldn’t be repaired anytime soon—not in a fiefdom torn by war—and its loss, even more than the fighting, would surely lead to the abandonment of both towns.

  This wasn’t the first time war had touched the south bank, either. The land they were traveling through was a mixture of higher hillocks and waterlogged terrain between. There was evidence of ditches and other efforts to drain the land, and the ruins of abandoned farmhouses rising from the mire attested to previous success, but any reclaimed farmland had been largely abandoned. It was given over these days to rushes and reeds and clouds of mosquitoes and biting gnats.

  “These fiefdoms could be rich beyond measure,” she told Kozmer. “Well-watered, with two navigable rivers. Stone quarries, mines. Access to the sea. The crowlords could earn more from taxes than plunder. Why not settle their differences and let their subjects farm, fish, weave, and trade?”

  “It’s not about wealth,” the old man said. “It’s about power. These crowlords are mad for it.”

  Pongur, riding as close as he could without Brutus spooking his horse, turned in the saddle and glared. Kozmer returned the glare.

  “Something to say, Captain?” Kozmer said. “Some justification for this pointless war?”

  “We’ve been repeatedly provoked.” Pongur’s tone was stiff. “Nobody wants war, but Zoltan left us no choice.”

  Kozmer grunted. “Damn fools, all of you. The crowlords for starting these wars, and the rest of you for following them blindly to your doom.”

  The elder sohn had been growing increasingly grumpy with the pace demanded by Captain Pongur and his riders, who seemed anxious to get them to Lord Balint’s camp before nightfall. Pongur claimed they were expecting a counterattack from Zoltan’s forces, but that seemed an excuse. Based on low-level chatter between the other riders, Pongur’s men were hoping for recompense for escorting the bladedancers to their lord. And with them, the cache of temple-made weapons.

  Gyorgy and Narina had no trouble keeping the pace, but Kozmer was leaning more heavily on his walking staff with every passing mile, and he struggled up and down even the gentlest of the hills lining the river. Brutus grumbled to be fed and swung his horns at Gyorgy every time the boy gave a little tug at the rope tied around the goat’s neck.

  When they passed foot soldiers marching in the other direction, Pongur’s warning went unheeded, and several men poked spear butts at Brutus as they passed. Bored or malicious, Narina didn’t know. The goat bellowed, swung his head about, and sent a man flying with a single butt of the head. The unfortunate fool was still lying there, no doubt with a cracked rib cage, when several of his companions came at the goat with their spears, looking for revenge.

  Skinny Lad bared his teeth, growled, and moved to Brutus’s side. He was a loyal beast, that one. A faithful defender was more than the ornery old goat deserved.

  Narina and Gyorgy had their swords out, ready to defend the company—even the animal members counted more than these villains—when cooler heads prevailed. Pongur and the commander of the footmen shouted choice curses at each other, then the two sides separated. The injured man staggered off with the aid of his companions, giving Brutus a wary look as he departed. No real harm had come of the incident, but Narina was growing tired and short of temper.

  “Time to bed down for the day,” she told the captain. “We’ll continue on to Riverrun in the morning.”

  “You can’t stop here. We’re very close,” Pongur said. He sounded anxious. “It’s just around the next river bend.”

  “We’re tired. My friend is footsore. The goat needs to eat. And I don’t want to stumble into more of your master’s troops in the dark—there will be another incident, and it might not turn out so well next time.”

  “It’s no more than a mile. Honestly. Half an hour to the crossing. Maybe if the old man were to ride in the cart. . .”

  “The ground is too marshy,” Kozmer said. “The cart wheels are already sticking in the mud without my weight in it.”

  “What if he were to ride behind me in the saddle?” the captain asked, speaking directly to Narina.

  Narina frowned at this and glanced at Kozmer, who nodded. “I’ll ride. I’m not too proud.”

  He tossed his walking staff into the cart and let them hoist him into the saddle behind the captain, whom he gripped with bony hands. Kozmer closed his eyes, but it wasn’t to sleep; Narina felt him concentrating his sowen, gathering from the surrounding auras of the plants, the road, and even the riders and their horses.

  Shortly after, they crested another slight rise and came down onto an even swampier stretch crossed by a raised berm. Balint’s armies had laid out straw and bundles of rushes to keep the road from being churned into an impassable muck. In the lowest stretches, cut logs sat on top of the straw and rushes. The horses picked their way across. The cart rattled, and Brutus grumbled.

  Captain Pongur hadn’t lied. The large town of Riverrun was soon visible on the opposite bank. The river widened here, and at first glance it didn’t seem a good place for a city. The near bank, at least, was damp and unhealthy, and the mosquitoes that Narina had been slapping at for the last two hours descended in a cloud.

  But Riverrun itself was built on a bluff, perhaps a hundred feet above the river. A stone wall lined the bank below, with staircases climbing from the river to pass between towers and enter the town. A stone breakwater, with a tower on its point, shielded a small harbor at the base of the bluff. On the opposite hillside, only the tops of the steeples of the demon and dragon shrines lifted above Riverrun’s upper wall, together with a bell tower, but it was clear that an impressive town lay behind it.

  There was no permanent bridge across the Vestanovul to the swampy southern bank, but Balint’s engineers had laid out a pontoon bridge of rafts lashed together and connected to piles driven into the river mud. They’d secured the bridge to Riverrun’s breakwater with chains, and lashed it to buried tree trunks on the south bank. Men, horses, and carts moved south across the river from the town, part of an invasion army that was still hauling itself across for what looked to be a major campaign.

  The makeshift bridge was only wide enough for single-file travel, and the traffic was all southbound, so Captain Pongur rode ahead to clear the way for Brutus to pull the cart across the river against the flow. Kozmer insisted he be let down from the man’s horse first, and he groaned as his feet touched ground, one hand on his lower back, the other gesturing for Gyorgy to bring him his staff.

  As Pongur reached the riverbank, the rest of his riders took position in front of the bladedancers and their cart. This forced the crossing army units to leave the road and enter the swamp if they wanted to continue east along the riverbank. The marching soldiers made no attempt to hold back their anger, but the Transriver Third Spears stood their ground.

  Meanwhile, Pongur rode up to the pontoon bridge and started arguing with whoever was organizing the crossing. He gestured back at the cart, while his opposite number stood with hands on his hips, looking unmoved and unmovable. There was too much noise from the river, the horses, and the marching men to be able to hear what Pongur was saying, or why the other man was being so stubborn.

  Narina gave Kozmer a nod of acknowledgment as the old man made his way to her side. “Sooner we cross and get rid of this stuff,” she said, “the sooner we can return to the highlands and leave these fools to their killing.”

  “Yes, well.” Kozmer poked the butt of his staff between the logs on the road and twisted it in the mud beneath. “I’m not sure it will be that easy. Not if the rival sohn has anything to say about it.”

  “What rival sohn? Are you still going on about this sword saint nonsense? I don’t want any part of it. I want to get home, see what Katalinka and Abelard have to say about their meetings with the other temples.”

  “And then what?”

  “As far as I’m concerned, we hunker down and wait for whatever it is to burn itself
out before we set another foot outside the temple grounds.”

  “Oh, there will be plenty of burning,” Kozmer said. “That’s one thing we can be sure of.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  Gyorgy stood a few paces off, rubbing at Skinny Lad’s ears while listening to the sohns. After Narina’s latest comment, he looked back to Kozmer with a frown, waiting for the elder’s response.

  “This isn’t general advice about sohns and sword saints and fighting,” Kozmer said. “It’s specific. I’m talking about a disturbance in the auras across the river. Can’t you feel it?”

  “Of course I can feel it,” Narina said. “There must be five hundred men on each side of the bridge, queuing or already across. How many more are in Riverrun, waiting their turn? They’re all thinking about marching, about battle, about killing. The whole army is a disturbance—that’s its entire point of being.”

  “So you haven’t felt it.” Kozmer glanced toward the captain, who was still arguing to get them past the bridge master. “Go ahead and take a look, but be quick about it. Reach beyond the men and horse, past the walls and into the town.”

  She closed her eyes and sifted through her surroundings. The chaotic auras on the near bank and in the middle of the river were hard to fight her way past, but once she’d done so, she was through the town walls and into the city. Here she expected more of the same as she’d felt on the outside, together with the usual jumble of town life. Like Hooffent, but with ten times as many villagers.

  Instead, her attention was drawn to a single point cutting through the noise. Standing in the midst of the surrounding auras, it felt like a spear planted in the ground with its tip thrusting skyward. This wasn’t a mere aura, but the sowen of a master sohn from one of the sword temples.

  Narina withdrew her own sowen, afraid that continued prodding would get her noticed. When she’d returned her consciousness to her own surroundings, she stared across the river, thinking matters through.