A Dirge for Princes

CHAPTER THREE

Cora was more than grateful when the ground started to level out again. It seemed as though she and Emeline had been walking forever, although her friend didn’t show any of the strain of it.

“How can you just keep walking like you aren’t tired?” Cora asked, as Emeline continued to press forward. “Is it some kind of magic?”

Emeline looked back. “It’s not magic, it’s just… I spent most of my life on Ashton’s streets. If you showed that you were weak, people found ways to prey on you.”

Cora tried to imagine that, living somewhere where there was the chance of violence any time anyone showed weakness. She realized that she didn’t have to imagine it, though.

“In the palace, it was Rupert and his cronies,” she said, “or the noble girls who thought they could abuse you just because they were feeling angry at something else.”

She saw Emeline cock her head to the side. “I would have thought that it would be better in the palace,” she said. “At least you didn’t have to dodge the gangs or the slave takers. You didn’t have to spend your nights hunkered down in coal cellars so that no one would find you.”

“Because I was already indentured,” Cora pointed out. “I didn’t even have a bed in the palace. They just assumed that I would find a corner to sleep in. That, or some noble would want me in their bed.”

To Cora’s surprise, Emeline put her arms around her in a hug. If there was one thing Cora had learned on the road, it was that Emeline wasn’t usually a demonstrative person.

“I saw some nobles once, out in the city,” Emeline said. “I thought that they would be something brighter and better than one of the gangs, until I got closer. Then I saw one of them beating a man senseless just because he could. They were exactly the same.”

It seemed strange, bonding like this over how harsh their lives had been, but Cora did feel closer to Emeline than she had at the start of this. It wasn’t just that they’d been through a lot of the same things in their lives. They’d traveled a long way together now too, and there was still the prospect of more miles to come.

“Stonehome will be there,” Cora said, trying to convince herself as much as Emeline.

“It will,” Emeline said. “Sophia saw it.”

It felt strange, putting so much trust in Sophia’s powers, but the truth was that Cora did trust her, absolutely. She would gladly trust her life to the things that Sophia had seen, and there was no one she would rather share the journey with than Emeline.

They kept going, and as they headed west, they started to see more rivers, in networks that connected like capillaries leading to bigger arteries. Soon, there seemed to be almost as much water as land, so that even the fields in between were semi-flooded things, people farming in mud that threatened to turn into marsh at any moment. Rain seemed to be a constant, and while occasionally Cora and Emeline huddled down out of the worse of it, for the most part they pressed on.

“Look,” Emeline said, pointing to one of the riverbanks. All Cora could see at first were reeds rising beside it, disturbed here and there by the movement of small animals. Then she saw the coracle upturned on the bank like the shell of some armored creature.

“Oh no,” Cora said, guessing what Emeline intended.

Emeline reached out to put a hand on her arm. “It’s all right. I’m good with boats. Come on, you’ll enjoy it.”

She led the way to the coracle, and all Cora could do was follow, silently hoping that there would be no oars. There was a paddle, though, and it seemed to be all Emeline needed. Soon, she was in the coracle, and Cora had to jump in beside her or be left walking along the bank.

It was faster than walking, Cora had to admit. They skimmed down the river like a pebble thrown from some giant hand. It was as relaxing as it had been sitting on the cart. More relaxing, since they’d spent half the time on the cart jumping off to help push it up hills and out of mud. Emeline seemed to be enjoying piloting it too, navigating the changes in the river as it went from rough to smooth water and back again.

Cora saw the moment when the water shifted, and she saw Emeline’s expression shift in the same instant.

“There’s… something there,” Emeline said. “Something powerful.”

What have we here? a voice asked, sounding in Cora’s mind. Two fresh young things. Come closer, my darlings. Come closer.

Ahead, Cora saw… well, she wasn’t quite sure what she saw. At first, it seemed like a woman made from water, but a flicker of light later, it seemed like a horse. The urge to go toward it was overwhelming. It felt as though there was safety ahead.

No, it was more than that; it felt as if it was home waiting for her there. The home that she’d always wanted, with warmth, a family, safety…

That’s it. Come to me. I can give you everything you want. You will never be alone again.

Cora wanted to urge the coracle forward. She wanted to dive from it, to be with the creature that promised so much. She half stood, ready to do just that.

“Wait!” Emeline called out. “It’s a trick, Cora!”

Cora felt something settle around her mind, a wall rising up between her and the promises of safety. She could see Emeline straining, and knew that the other girl had to be the one doing it, blocking the power pushing at them with her own talents.

No, come to me, the thing urged, but it was a distant echo of what it had been.

Cora looked at it, really looked at it, now. She saw the swirling water there; saw the currents around it that would drown anyone foolish enough to pass through them. She remembered old stories of river spirits, kelpies, the kind of dangerous magic that had turned the world against all of it.

She saw the water start to shift beneath the coracle, and only realized what was happening as the current started to drag it forward.

“Emeline!” she yelled. “It’s pulling us in!”

Emeline remained still, shaking with obvious effort as she fought to keep the creature from overwhelming them both. That meant that it was up to Cora. She grabbed for the coracle’s paddle, aiming for the shore and paddling with all the strength she had.

At first, it seemed that nothing was happening. The current was too strong, the kelpie’s pull too total. Cora recognized those thoughts for what they were and pushed them aside. She didn’t have to paddle against the current, just to its side. She pulled at the water with it, forcing the coracle to move through sheer strength of will.

Slowly, it began to shift off course, moving closer to the bank as Cora paddled.

“Hurry,” Emeline said beside her. “I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up.”

Cora kept going, and the coracle moved by what felt like inches, but it did move. It grew closer, and closer, until finally Cora thought that the reeds might be in reach. She grabbed for them, managing to get hold of a handful of them and using them to pull their tiny vessel close to the shore. She dragged the coracle to the riverbank, then leapt out, grabbing for Emeline’s arm.

She pulled her friend up onto the riverbank, seeing the coracle pulled in by the current. Cora saw the kelpie rear up in apparent anger, smashing down on the small vessel and reducing it to splinters.

As soon as they were on dry land, Cora felt the pressure on her mind easing, while Emeline gave a gasp and rose to her feet under her own power. It seemed that, off the water, the kelpie couldn’t touch them. It reared up again, then plunged down, disappearing out of sight.

“I think we’re safe,” Cora said.

She saw Emeline nod. “I think… maybe we’ll stay off the water for a while, though.”

She sounded exhausted, so Cora helped her away from the riverbank. It took a while to find a path, but once they did so, it seemed natural to follow it.

They kept going along the road, and now there were more people than there had been in the north. Cora saw fisher-folk coming in from the riverbanks, farmers with carts full of goods. She saw more people coming in from all around now, with loads of cloth or herds of animals. One man was even herding a flock of ducks that ran ahead of him as sheep might have for someone else.

“There must be a traveling market,” Emeline said.

“We should go,” Cora said. “They might put us back on the road for Stonehome.”

“Or they might kill us as witches the moment that we ask,” Emeline pointed out.

Even so, they went, making their way along the paths with the others until they saw the market ahead. It was on a small island amidst the rivers, the route fordable at any one of a dozen points. On that island, Cora saw stalls and auction spaces for everything from goods to livestock. She was just grateful that no one was trying to sell any of the indentured today.

She and Emeline made their way down to the island, wading across one of the fords to reach it. They kept their heads low, blending into the crowds as much as possible, especially when Cora saw the masked figure of a priestess wandering through the crowd, dispensing her goddess’s blessings.

Cora found herself drawn to a space where players were performing The Dance of St. Cuthbert, although it wasn’t the serious version that had sometimes been put on in the palace. This version featured a lot more bawdy humor and excuses for sword fights, the company obviously knowing its audience. When they were done, they took a bow, and people started to call out the names of plays and skits, hoping to see their favorite performed.

“I still don’t see how we can find someone who knows the way to Stonehome,” Emeline said. “At least, not without as good as declaring ourselves to the priests.”

Cora had been thinking about that too. She had an idea.

“You will see if people start thinking about it, won’t you?” she asked.

“Maybe,” Emeline said.

“So we get them thinking about it,” Cora said. She turned to the players. “What about The Stone Keeper’s Daughters?” she called out, hoping that the crowd would block any sight of her.

To her surprise, it worked. Perhaps it was because it was a daring, even dangerous, play to call for: the story of how a stonemason’s daughters proved to be witches and found a home far from those who would hunt them. It was the kind of play that could get someone arrested for performing it in the wrong place.

They performed it here, though, in all its glory, masked figures representing priests chasing after the young men playing the women’s parts for fear of bad luck. All the while, Cora looked at Emeline expectantly.

“Well, is it getting them thinking about Stonehome?” she asked.

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean… wait,” Emeline said, turning her head. “See that man there, selling wool? He’s thinking about a time he went there to trade. That woman… her sister went there.”

“So you have a direction for it again?” Cora asked.

She saw Emeline nod. “I think we can find it.”

It wasn’t much of a hope, but it was something. Stonehome still lay ahead, and with it, the prospect of safety.

CHAPTER FOUR

From above, the invasion looked like the sweep of a wing enfolding the land it touched. The Master of Crows enjoyed that, and he was probably the only one in a position to appreciate it, his crows giving him a perfect view as his ships swept in to shore.

“Perhaps there are other watchers,” he said to himself. “Perhaps the creatures of this island will see what is coming for them.”

“What is that, sir?” a young officer asked. He was bright and blond-haired, his uniform shining with the effort of polishing.

“Nothing you need to be concerned with. Prepare to land.”

The young man hurried off, with the kind of spring in his movements that seemed to long for action. Perhaps he thought himself invulnerable because he fought for the New Army.

“They’re all food for the crows eventually,” the Master of Crows said.

Not today, though, because he had picked his landing sites with care. There were parts of the continent beyond the Knifewater where people shot at crows almost as a matter of course, but here they had yet to learn the habit. His creatures had spread out, showing him the spots where defenders had set cannon and barricades in preparation for an invasion, where they had hidden men and fortified villages. They had created a network of defenses that should have swallowed an invading force whole, but the Master of Crows could see the holes in them.

“Begin,” he commanded, and bugles blared, the sounds carrying across the waves. Landing boats lowered, and a tide of men swept into shore in them. Mostly, they did it in silence, because a player did not announce the placing of his pieces on a gaming board. They spread out, bringing in cannon and supplies, moving swiftly.

Now the violence began, in exactly the ways that he had planned, men creeping around the ambush sites of his enemies to descend on them from the rear, weapons pounding the hidden knots of foes who wanted to stop him. From this distance, it should have been impossible to hear the screams of the dying, or even the musket fire, but his crows relayed everything.

He saw a dozen fronts at once, the violence blooming into multifaceted chaos as it always did in the moments after a conflict had begun. He saw his men charging up a beach into a knot of peasants, swords swinging. He saw horses disembarking while around them, a company fought to maintain its beachhead against a militia armed with agricultural tools. He saw both points of slaughter and hard-fought bravery, although it was hard to tell the two apart.

Through his crows’ eyes, he saw a group of cavalry gathering a little way inland, their breastplates shining in the sun. There were enough that they could potentially punch a hole in his carefully coordinated web of landing sites, and although the Master of Crows doubted they knew the correct spot to strike, he could not take that risk.

He extended his concentration, using his crows to find a suitable officer nearby. To his amusement, he found the young man who had been so eager before. He focused, the effort of making one of the beasts carry his words far greater than simply looking through their eyes.

“There are cavalry north of you,” he said, hearing the croak of the crow’s voice as it repeated the words. “Circle to the ridge to your west and take them as they come for you.”

He didn’t wait for a response, but instead sent the crow into flight, watching from above as the men obeyed his orders. This was what his talent gave him: the ability to see more, to spread his reach further than any normal man could have. Most commanders found themselves mired in the fog of war, or hamstrung by messengers who couldn’t move fast enough. He could coordinate an army with the ease a child might have shown moving tin soldiers around a table.

Below his circling bird, he saw the cavalry come thundering in, looking every inch some elegant army out of legend. He heard the blare of the muskets that started to cut them down, then saw the waiting soldiers charge into them, quickly turning their storybook charge into a thing of blood and death, pain and sudden anguish. The Master of Crows saw man after man fall, including the young officer, caught through the throat by a stray blade.

“All food for the crows,” he said. It didn’t matter; that small battle was won.

He could see a more difficult battle around the dunes that led up toward a small village. One of his commanders hadn’t been fast enough to follow his orders, which meant that the defenders had dug in, holding the route to their village even against the larger force. The Master of Crows stretched, then clambered down into a landing boat.

“To shore,” he said, pointing.

The men with him set to their work with the speed that came from long practice. The Master of Crows watched the progress of the battle as he got closer, hearing the screams of the dying, seeing his forces overwhelm group after group of would-be defenders. It was obvious that the Dowager had ordered the defense of her kingdom, but clearly not well enough.

They reached the shore, and the Master of Crows strode through the battle as if he were taking a stroll. The men around him kept low, muskets raised as they looked for threats, but he walked tall. He knew where his enemies were.

All his enemies. He could already feel the power of this land, and sense the movement in it as some of the more dangerous things there reacted to his arrival. Let them feel him coming. Let them know fear at what was to come.

A small knot of enemy soldiers leapt up from a hiding place behind an upturned boat, and there was no more time to think, only act. He drew a long dueling blade and a pistol in one smooth motion, firing into the face of one of the defenders, then running another through. He swayed aside from an attack, struck back with lethal force, and kept moving.

The dunes were ahead, and the village lay beyond them. Now the Master of Crows could hear the violence without having to resort to his creatures. He could pick out the clash of blade on blade with his own ears, the boom of muskets and pistols echoing as he approached. He could see men struggling with one another, his crows letting him pick out the points where defenders knelt or lay, their weapons trained on anything that approached.

He stood there in the middle of it all, daring them to fire at him.

“You have one chance to live,” he said. “I need this beach, and I am prepared to pay you for it with your lives and those of your families. Lay down your arms and leave. Better yet, join my army. Do these things, and you will survive. Continue to fight, and I will see your homes razed.”

He stood there, waiting for an answer. He got it when a shot rang out, the pain and impact of it slamming through him so hard that he staggered, falling to one knee. Right then, though, there was too much death around to stop him so easily. The crows were being well fed today, and their power would heal anything that did not kill him outright. He pushed power into the wound, closing it as he stood.

“So be it,” he said, and then charged forward.

Ordinarily, he did not do this. It was a foolish way of fighting; an old way that had nothing to do with well-organized armies or efficient tactics. He moved with all the speed that his power gave him, dodging and running as he closed the distance.

He killed the first man without stopping, plunging his sword deep and then wrenching it clear. He kicked the next to the ground, then finished him with a sweeping stroke of his blade. He snatched up the man’s musket with one hand and fired it, using the sight of his crows to tell him where to aim.

He plunged forward into a cluster of men hiding behind a barricade of sand. Against the slow advance of his forces, it might have been enough to delay them, creating time for more men to come to bear. Against his wild charge, it made no difference. The Master of Crows leapt the sand walls, jumping into the midst of his enemies and cutting in every direction.

His men would be following behind, even if he had no concentration to spare to look through the eyes of his crows for them. He was too busy parrying sword strokes and axe blows, striking back with vicious efficiency.

Now his men were there, pouring over the sand barricades like the incoming tide. They died as they did it, but now it didn’t matter to them, so long as they were there with their leader. It was what the Master of Crows had been counting on. They showed surprising loyalty for men who were little more than crow food to him.

With their numbers behind him, it wasn’t long before the defenders were dead, and the Master of Crows let his men push forward toward the village.

“Go,” he said. “Slaughter them for their defiance.”

He watched the rest of the landings for a few minutes more, but there didn’t seem to be any other major choke points. He had chosen his spot well.

By the time the Master of Crows reached the village, parts of it were already aflame. His men were moving through the streets, cutting down any of the villagers they found. Most were, anyway. The Master of Crows saw one dragging a young woman from the village, her fear matched only by the soldier’s obvious enjoyment of it.

“What are you doing?” he asked as he got closer.

The man stared at him in shock. “I… I saw this one, my lord, and I thought – ”

“You thought you’d keep her,” the Master of Crows finished for him.

“Well, she’d fetch a fine price in the right place.” The soldier dared a smile that seemed designed to make the two of them part of some grand conspiracy.

“I see,” he said. “I did not order that though. Did I?”

“My lord – ” the soldier began, but the Master of Crows was already raising a pistol. He fired it so close that the other man’s features all but disappeared in the blast of it. The young woman beside him seemed too shocked even to scream as her attacker fell.

“It is important that my men learn to act in accordance with my orders,” the Master of Crows said to the woman. “There are places where I allow captives, and others where it is agreed that none but the gifted are to be harmed. It is important that discipline is maintained.”

The woman looked hopeful then, as if thinking that this was all some mistake, in spite of the depredations of the others in the village. She looked that way right up to the point when the Master of Crows thrust his sword through her heart, the thrust sure and clean, probably even painless.

“In this case, I gave your men a choice, and they made it,” he said as she clutched at the weapon. He pulled it out, and she fell. “It is a choice I intend to give much of the rest of this kingdom. Perhaps they will choose more wisely.”

He looked around as the slaughter continued, feeling neither pleasure nor displeasure, just a kind of even satisfaction at a task accomplished. A step, at least, because after all, this was no more than the taking of a village.

There would be much more to come.

CHAPTER FIVE

Dowager Queen Mary of the House of Flamberg sat in the great chambers of the Assembly of Nobles, trying not to look too bored on her throne at the heart of things while the supposed representatives of her people talked, and talked.