A Flight of Ravens

by John Conroe

  “The rest?” I asked. “Surely you don’t speak of the Western Lands. That’s just myth.”

  “Every myth contains at least a kernel of truth,” Andru said. “This one has a whole boulder.”

  I glanced at Kassa. She pulled her eyes from the Nuk and gave me a nod. “He believes it.”

  Then I glanced at Jella and found her watching me, her face blank. Drodacians rarely do blank, and Jella is as emotional as the rest of her people. Maybe even more so. I raised one brow in question. A frown flickered across her face. “You asked the question,” I said. “However, we have moved away from our goal. So let me cut to the quick—do all the Nuk support your cause, or just some?”

  He frowned, his shaggy brows coming almost together, but it was more of a thoughtful frown than an angry one. “Perhaps as many as a quarter of my people favor seizing land in the northernmost portion of Mandrigo. But most are too proud of our history to seek what they consider an easy and dishonorable answer to our problems. They want to fight for survival using the old ways. They also worry about war with men. But they miss the bigger picture.”

  “And what’s the bigger picture?” I asked.

  “We’re dying off. Once, not that terribly long ago, we were numerous. Maybe not like you breeders, but we were thriving,” he said.

  “Until the wars,” Jella said.

  He looked at her, his face a mask of anger, but it didn’t seem directed at her. Finally, he nodded.

  “What wars?” Cort asked.

  “I think they’re talking about the War of Founding,” Trell said, bringing up a piece of history that more than a few in Montshire thought to be only fiction.

  “That was just one of several,” Jella agreed. “In the first century after the Punishment, when the countries of Nengled were sorting themselves out, there were numerous upheavals, conflicts, and attempts at empire building. My people stayed in our mountains, watching the carnage from afar, knowing that nobody had the sheer numbers required to dig us out. During that period, there were several times that the Nuk chose to attack what was to become Montshire and Mandrigo, usually when they appeared to be weak. Instead of inflicting a knockout blow against wounded foes, they only enraged the two kingdoms, which forged them into an alliance. The resulting battles made the Great River run red. Thousands from the kingdoms were killed, fewer of the Nuk. But the Nuk were always fewer to begin with.”

  “Had we done it just once, it would have been all right,” Andru said. “But we tried it three times, killing almost a third of our people before our most hotheaded and ambitious leaders were all dead and we could retreat to our lairs. But the ice is an unforgiving mistress. We never recovered those numbers. And the loss of so many young men and women left us with too many elders and young. So much so that many elders took the Ice Walk to spare their lairs more mouths to feed. Unfortunately, they took their wisdom, knowledge, and skills with them.”

  “Why not trade in metals and then just buy your food?” Cort asked. “From what you say, the Nuk must have a tremendous amount of steel to salvage.”

  Andru grimaced. “Some of us have suggested as much. There is a cultural bias against purchasing our own food. Much of our identity is tied to self-sufficiency. It is a grave insult among my people to suggest that one must trade, borrow, or beg food from another.”

  “So your people will just die out rather than find a way to live?” Kassa asked.

  He didn’t answer, instead just offering a shrug.

  “Enough,” I said. “We aren’t here to solve another country’s problems… just our own.”

  “You won’t be able to stop what I’ve started,” Andru said.

  “You might be wrong about that,” I replied.

  Chapter 29

  Two days later, I stood in the shadows of a doorway that opened out onto the market square. The vendors I had seen before were all there, as were the barrow boys, musical buskers, goodwives, commercial buyers, city guards, street children, and the rest of the normal citizenry of Porye. But I was watching a new booth, one placed almost in the center of the market, possibly the most desirable of all retail locations in the square. It hadn’t been easy to get, either, requiring me to meet with the city’s mayor and requiring way too much excitement for a simple market booth.

  Gibson Macklin had been mayor of Porye for almost as long as I’d been alive. As a result, he had a pretty high confidence in the security of his position and hadn’t been all that interested in meeting with me at the drop of a hat. His personal secretary kept me sitting in the waiting room for over an hour, which the oily little man spent either ignoring me or giving me the side-eye. That changed when I asked for paper, pen, and ink as well as the schedule for the royal raptor delivery to Haven. After writing out a note and sealing it in a secure delivery vial that bore the royal emblem, I had dropped it in the outgoing courier bin and left.

  I made it down the second-floor hall of the municipal building and halfway down the stairs before the surprisingly fast little secretary caught up to me. “Captain DelaCrotia! The mayor will meet with you now,” he yelled as he came rushing down the stairs.

  I’d stopped and frowned at him, then scratched my head absently. “I’m just about out of time,” I said.

  “Please, Captain. Mayor Macklin was unavoidably detained, but he certainly has time for the holder of the Kingdom Cross,” the unctuous little man replied, eyes darting around nervously.

  “Alright, let’s go,” I had said, following him back up the stairs.

  Mayor Macklin was a large man, half a hand taller than me, with a powerful build that was now running to fat, as evidenced by his protruding gut. Despite his secretary’s sudden deferential treatment, the mayor stayed behind his desk in front of a row of windows when I entered the office, his body language and facial expression dismissive. Two large men stood on either side of the room, both with the look of ass kickers. The one on my left was huge, bigger and heavier than the mayor and most of it pure muscle. The one on my right was tall, slim, and wiry with the whipcord musculature of a bladesman.

  “Captain,” he said. “You demanded to see me?”

  “Yes, Mayor. I need to procure a specific site in the market square, and the city’s economic director indicated that he was unwilling to help me without your order.”

  “A prime selling site in the market? Why? What do you plan to sell?” he asked, his tone patronizing.

  “Nothing. We’re setting up an exchange.”

  “We?”

  “My team,” I replied.

  “Exchanging what, exactly?” he asked, head tilted in mild disbelief. “And what team?”

  I sat back and studied him for a moment, crossing my legs at the knee. “You have a problem in Porye, Mayor Macklin, and I’m here to solve it.”

  “A problem? Listen up, Captain DelaCrotia, this is my city and I’ll decide if there’s a problem or not, not some retired veteran with delusions of grandeur. And what is the meaning of this?” he asked, holding up my sealed Royal vial.

  I frowned. “First, Porye is His Majesty’s city—not yours. Second, that is a sealed, secured royal message for transport by fast raptor immediately. The fact that you’ve pulled it from the royal courier service bin is technically a crime against the crown.”

  The big man to my left shifted slightly while the thinner one to my right just kept a death stare locked on me.

  “Captain, I’ve been mayor here since you were suckling at your mother’s teat. If you think I’m intimidated by you, you’re sadly mistaken. I decide what’s important here and I decide what’s a crime.”

  I felt my head tilt slightly, almost on its own as my senses expanded and my body came alive at the prospect of imminent action. I uncrossed my legs and leaned forward as if to make a point. The real reason I moved was to shift my weight over my feet, which were now closer to the legs of my chair.

  “King Warcan decides what is important everywhere in this kingdom,” I said, reaching into my jacket pocket, which
immediately made both bodyguards tense. I slowly pulled out a folded and sealed writ and tossed it on the mayor’s desk. “The king sent me to settle the civil unrest here by any means I deem necessary. You will render me all aid or you will be arrested for obstruction of royal order.”

  His face went red and his eyes locked on mine in a contest of wills. I waited, my attention really on the men to either side of me.

  Mayor Macklin held his death gaze on me for a handful of seconds, then reached for the writ, his eyes never leaving mine until the packet was in his hands. He studied the wax seal before taking a knife-bladed letter opener from a drawer and slicing through red paraffin. His eyes roved over the contents and then he dropped it on his desk.

  “What did you put in this?” he asked, picking up the royal courier vial.

  “That’s between me and the king.”

  He held the bottom of the vial in one hand and his other reached for the top.

  “Open that and I will execute you for treason on the spot,” I said evenly, smiling just a little.

  He paused, parsing my words and tone. I hadn’t told him not to open it, just indicated the consequences of his actions. Nothing in my demeanor indicated that I would be unhappy with that result.

  He paused and looked to each of his men then back at me, his eyes flicking down to my elbows resting on my knees, my hands folded right over left. I saw the moment he made his decision. My right hand slid into my left sleeve as his fingers tightened and began to twist. A royal courier vial is sealed with a glue that is impervious to solvents. Opening one of these secure containers takes real effort and destroys the vial in the process. Mayor Macklin’s big shoulders bunched as he started to exert force.

  The single-shot bolter in my wrist sheath came free as I turned and triggered a steel bolt into the knife fighter’s forehead, rising from the chair even as I was shooting. He dropped like an empty sack as I stepped one pace in his direction before turning and facing the big man. For someone his size, he moved way too fast in my opinion, but I was still a smidge quicker.

  My left foot kicked the chair I had occupied into the guard’s path, which threw him off-balance. My right hand shoved the empty bolter into his bare throat while my left blocked his cudgel swing at my head. He pulled his head and shoulders back, raising his left hand to block my strike, which only partially landed. I stepped forward and kicked his left thigh, which combined with his own reflexive jerk and sent him stumbling backward. I followed, pressuring him even more.

  My left arm was pressed against his right forearm, and now I slipped it up, over, and then around, locking the cudgel in my armpit, then lifting my arm to lock and hyperextend his elbow.

  He was reasonably well trained because he crossed his other fist over and smashed it against the inside of his right elbow in an attempt to break my lock. But not that well trained, because his move was to my benefit. Instead of fighting that move, I simply stepped my left foot back, twisting at the hips, while my right hand, still holding the steel, brass, and wooden bolter, smashed into the elbow of his now crossed left arm and pressed with force. His shoulders were uneven by his own action, the left higher than the right, and when I turned and twisted, my shifting center of gravity overcame his raised and off-center mass, tilting him and pulling him further off balance till he fell forward, onto the floor. I continued stepping back and twisting, shifting my left hand as the club slipped back through my armpit. The result of all that torque was simple physics—his hand was unable to hold the haft of the baton and the cudgel came free, the weighted head still tucked in my pit. I threw the bolter into his face, pulled the club free with my right hand, and immediately hit him in the temple, forearm, throat, and side of head seven times as fast as I could.

  Turning back to the mayor, I found him pointing a small crossbow at me with one hand while holding up the still-sealed vial with the other, a victorious smile on his face.

  “I hereby arrest you for the murder—” he started to say, but my thrown club hit him in the face.

  His little crossbow went off and I felt a line of fire on my left biceps. I ignored it as I vaulted onto the desk, one foot kicking out to hit the mayor in the chest. He toppled backward, dropping both the vial and the crossbow in an attempt to catch himself. It didn’t work, as his ass hit the window behind him, the sound of shattering glass mixing with his terrified yell as he fell back and out. He caught himself by the window frame, halfway out. I kicked him again and he flew backward, his terrified eyes locked on mine.

  I stepped right up to the broken window and glanced down. The mayor was lying on his back, eyes wide open and unseeing, arms and legs akimbo. A quick glance across the street found Drew, Soshi, and Cort watching for my signal. All three ran for the door of the municipal building. I dropped down to the floor, found the vial, and twisted it fully open, dropping both halves onto the desktop just as the office door opened. The secretary rushed in, two more men behind him, his expression changing from a glare to shock as he took in the bodies. The new guards stopped and evaluated the situation, eyes locking on their dead fellows. They glanced at each other and pulled short swords from sheaths. I took the time to pull a matched set of fighting knives from my own sheaths and waited calmly. Before they could work up the courage to take me on, my Shadows came rushing up the stairway, their own blades bared and ready.

  It took another two hours to assert our authority, have the bodies picked up, and install the economic director as temporary mayor. His first act was to hastily give me a writ for the prime spot in the market. Altogether it was way too much drama, but the mayor’s actions and attitude told me he had been knee-deep in something rotten. I left Soshi and Cort to question the new mayor and most of the municipal staff while I took the rest of my team to the market.

  In all, it cost me well over four and a half hours and the lives of three men to get a stinking market booth in a good spot. Luckily, I have good people, as Trell and Kassa had succeeded in supervising Mr. Kazilionum as he modified the entire stock of raw chips left over in Andru’s shop.

  So now I leaned against a doorframe and watched Trell as he yelled and shouted like a barker for a travelling faire troop. Drew and Kassa were as busy as thieves in an abandoned jewelry store, taking in little golden chip necklaces and handing out new and improved versions. It had been a simple matter to have Kazilionum Impress the remaining raw chips with something like a geas that made the holder feel that little golden-hued trinket was the best, most valuable thing ever. And that was all it did. No dark emotions triggered, no inflation of mind-clouding anger, envy, or fear.

  All it had taken was one or two people to handle one of the new trinkets, decide they were superior to their existing ones, and make the trade. Then when they started to brag to the others, the floodgates were raised. Now it was just a matter of time.

  “So there you are,” a voice said from off to my right side.

  The blonde woman approaching wore the robes of the Holy Assembly, but I’m pretty sure none of her fellow clerics wore them quite so well as she did.

  “Hello, Gwen,” I said.

  “Savid DelaCrotia,” she said, stopping about two spans away. “Holder of the Kingdom Cross and agent of the crown. I had a feeling you might show up.”

  “Well, this is Montshire, after all. The real question is why would the Holy Assembly cross the border and tread upon the clear territory of the Church of the Apostle of the Punished?”

  “Find the answer to why the Apostle hasn’t shown up and you’ll have your answer as to why we did,” she said, dark eyes flashing with indignation.

  In all the rush to find the source of all this conflict, I hadn’t thought a second about the Church of the Apostle or its lack of involvement.

  “I’m a little preoccupied with ending this mess. Perhaps you could save me the trouble and just, maybe, you know… tell me?”

  She studied me, head tilted, and I waited to see which way she would go. Her blonde hair was what I would call sunny rather tha
n the color of corn, and she had very dark brown eyes, which isn’t a combination I’ve seen very often. Plain robes, unbound hair, and not a trace of powder on her cheeks or lip rouge and yet she outshone every woman in the plaza, more than a few of whom were casting her hard glances. Trell and Drew had both noticed her, as they were looking our way more than they were looking at their customers. Kassa was headed our way, and she raised one eyebrow in curiosity when she caught my eye.

  “Well, seeing as how I’m pretty certain it was your people who used proscribed technology the other night to break up that riot, which incidentally kept us alive, perhaps I will,” she said, ignoring everything and everyone around us.

  “Riot? Forbidden devices? Whatever are you talking about?”

  “Hmm, I suppose you can’t be honest about that with a church official, even if it’s a different church,” she said with a frown. “Which is just as well, because the local pastor who heads up the Apostle’s presence in Porye has decided to serve himself over God.” She turned as she finished speaking, seeing Kassa, who was now just about four spans away.

  “Not to interrupt,” Kassa said, her curious glance lingering on Gwen, “but we’re almost done.”

  “Gwen, this is Kassa,” I said. “Kassa, Gwen is a pastor with the Holy Assembly with a disturbing accusation about our own religious leaders.”

  “So I happened to hear,” Kassa said.

  Gwen gave her a nod, then turned to me with her hands on her hips. “It’s fact, not accusation.” I kept my eyes on hers, but my peripheral vision showed me Kassa’s hand tapping her leg in the sign we’d agreed meant truth.

  “Let’s see, Father Crandall is the top clergy for the Church of the Apostle here in Porye,” I said. “Who has he decided to serve?”

  “Our sources indicate he’s making three times the income of his church stipend from Turgeon Collind’s coffers,” she said, glancing at Kassa and then back to me. Kassa tapped her leg again.