Crowlord

by Michael Wallace

  Miklos kept himself and his horse at a distance from the goat’s horns. “We should go before the fire cuts us off.”

  “You can travel with us,” Narina said. “Not that you asked properly—but I’ll accept that as implied. But first things first, I need to wash up properly.”

  He blinked at this. “You want to take a bath now?”

  “There’s a stream next to the road about five minutes back the way we came. The stream takes a dip through a gully. We can block it downstream with stones to make a little pool, then take turns. We’re all filthy, even you, warbrand. Washing up will do us good. It’s fresh, clean mountain water.”

  “The source of the water isn’t the point,” Miklos said. “We don’t have time to mess around taking baths.”

  To his surprise, the elder sohn took Narina’s suggestion seriously. “The best thing for Narina is to clean herself, change her clothes, and meditate for a stretch. We have a long road ahead of us, and I don’t have to tell you the challenges we’re likely to face.” Kozmer cast a quick glance at the woman, the significance of which wasn’t lost on Miklos. He was studying her for signs of the curse that had taken hold of her. “Another hour of delay isn’t going to alter matters, and we’ll be stronger, we’ll move faster in the end.”

  “Fine, go on then, get started,” Miklos told Narina, then turned to Kozmer. “Can I show you something up the road?” Without waiting for an answer, he took the old man by the arm and led him away from the others.

  Kozmer glanced over his shoulder. “Stay by her side,” he told Gyorgy. “Don’t let her out of your sight. Oh, and take the goat and the horse. We can’t have the animals running off.”

  Miklos and Kozmer pressed deeper into the billowing smoke, using their sowen to push it aside enough to breathe.

  “What’s this about?” Kozmer asked when they’d gained separation from the others.

  “You’re not trying to turn us around, are you, and send us the northern route through the mountains? Because if it’s the fire you’re worried about, I can get us through.”

  “And the lava? The fire demons?”

  “We can fight fire demons with our swords if needed. But first I’ll try to drive them off. There are certain old magics one can call on. Symbols of power and the like.”

  “Ah, so that was you on the road above Hooffent,” Kozmer said.

  Miklos frowned in confusion. “How do you mean?”

  “The circle and triangle on the road. Drawn with some sort of pitch or bitumen. It called demons out of the lava. What were you doing, trying to stop us from coming down the canyon?”

  “That wasn’t me,” Miklos said honestly. “I don’t have the ability to call them or control their actions like that. Only turn them aside—little tricks and games to put them off their destruction for a moment or two.”

  “Hmm. Never mind, then. You can turn them, though? You’re confident of that part?”

  “Aye, it’s an old warbrand trick. There are volcanoes near our temple, and they pose a threat from time to time. We’re not firewalkers—we can’t survive that kind of heat.”

  “Which is exactly the point here,” Kozmer said. “What happens if the lava has breached the post road?”

  “It wouldn’t destroy the post road.”

  “It doesn’t have to destroy it, only cross the road and block our path. If it’s crossed the road already, the canyon will be closed. The only way home would be to go north, come in through the back way past the firewalker temple.” The old man shrugged. “That was my plan, such as it was. Narina is in no shape to lead, obviously.”

  “I gave the problem of the road a lot of thought, before. . .” Miklos fingered the crystal feathers at his neck. “My mind and sowen weren’t where they should be, but I was certainly capable of scheming. I thought about how to get through to your temple to. . .well, you understand. They were violent thoughts, I’m afraid.”

  “Go on.”

  “There’s only one or two low spots where the lava could sever the road. If I’m right, there will still be a way through even if it has. We’ll leave the road before the breach and continue for a stretch along the edge of the river gorge. If we stick to the cliff face, we can climb above the lava and bypass it entirely.”

  “Treacherous footing along the cliff wall, if I’m not wrong.”

  “That’s true enough,” Miklos conceded. “Is your balance up for it?”

  “I’ll cut myself a new staff, and my balance is steady enough. I could manage that part. . .under normal circumstances. Not so sure with cinders and burning rocks falling from the sky.”

  “We’ll combine our sowen,” Miklos said. “Shield the company from that sort of thing.”

  As if in response to his words, a hot wind drove smoke into them, and they spent the next few moments beating it back again.

  “What about Narina?” Miklos asked. “Can you keep her quiet?”

  The old man looked troubled. “I can’t guarantee it, no. It’s got hold of her now.” Kozmer gave him a sideways look. “You should know that as well as anyone. In fact, I have questions on that score.”

  “Am I free now? Is that what you want to know?” He let his breath out slowly, and his hand went to the feathers once more. They were cold to the touch. “I think so. But I already thought once that it had left me. And it hadn’t, not fully. There’s always a chance—I do feel better, though.”

  Kozmer glanced at the feathers. “You saw one of the demigods, didn’t you? It touched you. Were you the first, then?”

  “Aye.” Regret tore at him. “And I set it all in motion. A routine pilgrimage to the mountains started it all. I had no idea the dragon was awake, or I’d have never gone in the first place.”

  “Not sure you had a choice. They’re demigods, children of the great serpent, and they carry its essence, some of its power to command and control. If you’d resisted, it would have compelled you in a dream or found some other way. Tell me how it happened.”

  Briefly, Miklos explained how he and Gizella had gone to the frozen lake to pray, only to see one of the dragons split the frozen lake as it woke unexpectedly from its slumber. It had showered him with icy feathers, and something had taken hold of him after they’d pierced him. He’d killed his cousin, started fights with other sohns, and then gone down to the plains to take up with the crowlord wars.

  “I don’t understand that part,” Miklos added. “What was I doing? Why the crowlords? It’s like a dream now.”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “Oh, I remember well enough, and I understand my strategy. I was setting crowlord against crowlord. Saw that Zoltan attacked the lot of you, knowing Narina would kill him. I took over the man’s armies and turned them over to Lady Damanja. My plan was that she would defeat Lord Balint, and then I would kill Damanja and be the head of three realms, and from there dominate the others. See all the crowlords dead, one after another.”

  “You’re not the only sohn master taking his fight to the plains,” Kozmer said. “Tankred was there, as well. Something sent him down the same path.”

  “Right, so there was a fight on the plains, like there was a fight in the mountains. But why? That’s the part I don’t understand. I don’t understand the point of it all.”

  “The point is a struggle for power, to upset the balance,” Kozmer said. “Demon against demigod. When the serpent god finished creating the world, it left its twin creations in eternal conflict. Should one side or the other win, the world would turn to either fire or ice.”

  “Yes, I know all this,” Miklos said impatiently. “It’s why there’s a demon temple—the firewalkers—a dragon temple—the warbrands—and one that represents both forces—the bladedancers. To maintain balance. It’s why the people of the plains have churches to honor them both, to appease fire and ice.”

  “Except when a sword saint is crowned, who does he or she champion?” Kozmer asked.

  “He would be the Sword Saint of the Three Dragons. There�
�s your answer right there—the demigods.”

  “So who then is the champion of the demons?”

  “They don’t need a champion. They rise from fire and. . .” Miklos’s voice trailed off as he realized what the old man was saying. “Are you saying they do have a champion?”

  “Forget what you said about each temple representing either a different force, or both. We are all three of us in the mountains, close to the frozen lakes where the dragons sleep. As if waiting nearby to be called to defend them.”

  “Against the demons?”

  “Have you noticed that the volcanoes always try to burn their way to the sea? The lava flows toward the plains?”

  “Water flows downhill, so does lava.”

  Kozmer shook his head. “Yes, in a literal sense, that is what causes it. But it also could be seen as providing a path for the demon champion to rise from the plains.”

  Miklos thought this over for a moment. “The crowlords?”

  Kozmer rubbed at the gray stubble on his chin. “Perhaps.”

  It made a certain sort of sense, and Miklos talked it out to see how it sounded. “So. . .once I’d set things in motion in the mountains, the dragons sent me to the plains to take over their lands. To kill them before a champion could be raised.”

  “It is one possibility,” the elder said.

  It was a discouraging thought, because if true that meant that all of human affairs were nothing but a conflict between the dragons and the demons. That temples maintained their discipline and training and customs over generations only so they could slaughter each other when the dragons decided to wage war. The crowlords did the same for the demons.

  Yet Miklos had doubts. “I’m not so sure,” he said at last. “A crowlord makes a poor champion. What power do they have, anyway? The power to call a few birds to the battlefield? Peasants to labor under the crushing weight of taxes? And armies of frail, easily killed men and women? Zoltan and all his riders died when they tried to ambush Narina, and what did it get them? A slaughter, nothing more. And she’s not even a sword saint.”

  He glanced over his shoulder through the smoke, to where the woman and her student had disappeared. She wasn’t a sword saint yet. Imagine if she were; she could cut down an entire army with her blades.

  “I don’t know, either,” Kozmer said. “I was only thinking.”

  “Anyway, my real goal was always to kill the rest of you and declare myself the Sword Saint of the Three Dragons. Wait for the demigods to instruct me on what to do next. The crowlords and their wars were only ever a tool. They seemed powerless to stop me.”

  “So what now?”

  “I’ve told you everything I know. It’s up to you to decide.”

  “We’ll follow your plan,” Kozmer said after a moment of hesitation. “Go through the fire, if we can.”

  “And then. . .?”

  “We go to my home, first. The bladedancers. From there, gather any from the other temples who are not yet corrupted. Figure out how to stop this war before it kills us all. What other choice do we have?”

  Miklos nodded. “I hope it can be done.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  It grew hotter and hotter as the two men made their plans for getting through the fire. Soon, Miklos felt Narina’s sowen in the distance, growing restless again. She’d apparently bathed already, and they were on their way back up the post road. Kozmer said he felt her, too, and seemed anxious to get started, but Miklos had one additional concern.

  “Tell me about your friend,” he said. “Is she going to shove a blade into my kidney when my back is turned?”

  “You tell me,” Kozmer said. “You’re the one who faced the curse, not me.”

  “When it has you, it has you. Maybe she won’t mean to, but sooner or later her attention will slip, and those cursed swords will be in her hands before she realizes what she’s doing.”

  “So you had the answer already.”

  “What I mean is, can you stop her?” Miklos asked. “Use your sowen and calm her so that doesn’t happen?”

  “While trying to fight the fire and smoke, too? And picking my way along the ledge next to the river without tumbling over the edge? Doubtful.”

  “Leave the fire to me. I’ll manage. You focus on keeping Narina muzzled so she doesn’t tear out our throats. I can be more vigilant once we’re past the eruption—until then, I need your help.”

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  It was an honest answer, and a realistic one. Miklos still didn’t have a grand scheme for surviving the murderous sohns that he’d unleashed on the world, let alone know how to keep Narina from lashing out again. But Kozmer had convinced him of one thing. Their best hope was to keep hold of her and deliver her to her own people, to her own sacred ground. Perhaps there she could be cleansed.

  Miklos and Kozmer broke out of the smoke to find Gyorgy fighting with the goat, who was doing his best to break free, shake off his packs, and make a run for it down the road. Miklos’s own mare was wild with fright, her eyes rolled back, pulling at the rope where the boy had tied her off after bringing her back up the road. He was just as filthy as when they’d last seen him.

  “I thought you were going to bathe,” Miklos said to the boy. “I thought we were all supposed to wash up.”

  Gyorgy gave a little nod toward Narina. “Apparently, plans have changed.”

  “Let’s just get on with it, can we?” Narina said.

  So much for the ritual cleansing. She’d bathed, after a fashion, but wore the same clothes as before, and her sowen was swirling again. She stood off a pace with the shirt pulled up around her mouth, her eyes distant and glazed, shivering as with a fever.

  “So. . .no cleaning up after all?” Kozmer asked her.

  “With the two of you scheming against me?” She shrugged dismissively. “I did as much as was necessary.”

  “And what about the boy?” the elder pressed. “Gyorgy didn’t so much as wash his face. Couldn’t you have let him do that, at least?”

  “I didn’t tell him not to. He was free to stay or follow.”

  That was hardly the point, and she knew it, but Miklos didn’t call her on it. Instead, he spoke to Kozmer without taking his eyes off the woman, especially her hands, which were entirely too close to the sword hilts for his liking.

  “How attached are you to the goat?”

  “Brutus will keep his head through the fire,” Kozmer said, “if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  “And the edge of the cliff?” Miklos asked.

  The old man smiled. “He’s a lot more sure on his feet than we are. Might need a little coaxing on our part.”

  “We have other uses for our sowen, as you well know, than using it to calm an animal.”

  “I’ll do it,” Gyorgy said.

  “With all respect,” Miklos said, observing how the student wrestled with the animal, “you can’t even manage now. How is it going to work when we’re in the middle of the blaze?”

  “I was trying to keep an eye on my master at the same time. Brutus got wild, but he’s calming now, see.”

  “I’m going to cut loose the mare,” Miklos said, making a decision. “Let her wander off to wherever. You might consider doing the same with your own animal.”

  Kozmer looked troubled at this, and Gyorgy defiant. All Miklos could see was a big, grumpy goat, semi-wild, and more trouble than he was worth, but the bladedancers apparently were attached to it. Narina didn’t alter her gaze, but her mouth tightened as if she were working heroically to avoid losing control.

  Miklos set off to unburden his horse and release her. He took a few choice items from the saddlebags. First was a small pouch with a leather drawstring containing saltpeter. He’d been carrying it since leaving the warbrand temple, and it was what he’d been talking about with Kozmer when claiming he could drive off demons. Hopefully, it would work. In all honesty, he wasn’t sure.

  After he tied the pouch to his belt, he stuffed a bit of dried bee
f into the pockets of his jerkin, together with two hardened bars of dried berries, fish, and congealed fat that Damanja’s troops used to sustain themselves on hard marches. Not the tastiest of food, but it would keep his energy up until they were through the fire.

  He returned to the others expecting to discover that Kozmer had realized the folly of yoking themselves to the huge mountain goat. Instead, the elder was shifting about his bags and held out a hand for the warbrand’s bedroll and blanket, tucked beneath Miklos’s arm.

  The elder tilted his head at Miklos’s raised eyebrow. “If you’re worried about stamina, Brutus is nearly as strong as we are. And I believe the boy can manage.”

  “All right, friend, but if the goat tires or gives us any other trouble, you’ll have to get rid of it. And I mean cut it loose in a much more precarious situation than this one. If that happens, it will die in the fire—you realize that, don’t you?”

  “Brutus will die all the same in this strange land,” Kozmer said. “Fire will push him to the lowlands, and hungry soldiers or starving villagers will eat him.”

  “So long as we’re clear on the consequences.”

  “Tie me to Brutus,” Narina said. “That will solve two problems at once.”

  They looked at her. She pulled down the shirt tied around her mouth. Her face was white below, dark with soot above.

  “Take my swords from me, tie me down, and . . . that’s the problem, isn’t it? It’s not about stamina—you need to keep an eye on me, so you can’t fight the fires and deal with Brutus at the same time. But if you secure me so I can’t cause trouble, you can concentrate on getting through.”

  “It’s not the worst idea I’ve heard,” Miklos said.

  “Are you sure?” Kozmer asked Narina. He glanced at Gyorgy as if for guidance, though clearly this was a decision beyond the boy. Gyorgy nodded, almost too eagerly.

  “You know you have to do something,” Narina said. “I can’t be trusted. You and I both know that. The moment will come when I’ll want those swords, and I’m not sure any of you can stop me.”