The Crow (15 page)

"So few," whispered Hem, exchanging a glance with Zelika.

"Many friends fell and will not return," said Soron. "But look. You will see why. And yet more come."

Hem and Zelika stood on their tiptoes and peered over the parapets of the Red Tower, and their breath stopped.

The Fesse of Turbansk, which they had last seen empty and deserted, now pullulated with masses of figures that looked from this distance like a huge swarm of ants. At first it just seemed chaotic, but as Hem stared he began to see an order emerge. The army was not milling around randomly: every part of it was busy. To the west, stretching down to the gentle shores of the Lamarsan Sea, rows and rows of brown tents were being erected, making a city that seemed almost as big as Turbansk itself.

Closer to the walls, great numbers were digging trenches; and structures of wood and iron, the siege engines of Imank, were already being built by teams of soldiers. Before the West Gate some hundreds were involved in furious activity. Hem squinted, trying to see more clearly what they were doing: it seemed to him that they were probably building a ramp, like the one Saliman had spoken of at II Dara. He looked along the East Road and saw that Soron was right: although the Fesse already seemed full, yet more marched along the road, as far as the eye could see, rows and rows of soldiers interspersed with great ox-wains dragging in supplies, and larger animals he could not identify. Where they had been, columns of black smoke rose into the sky.

The only area that was clear of the Black Army was immediately before the city walls, which was empty for the space of a bowshot. And from the Red Tower, Hem could see the city walls bristling with archers, standing behind the zigzag battlements, and the sun banner of Turbansk unfurled from the top of every tower, glittering in the clear light.

Hem turned and looked down to the harbor, and then over the Lamarsan Sea. A haze lay over it, but then, with a throb of fear, he thought he saw a blur on the water in the distance: was that the fleet from Baladh, which Saliman had spoken of? He leaned forward, squinting, but could not be sure.

Hem thought of the slaughter at II Dara, and a lump formed in his throat. Ire gave a subdued caw, and wiped his beak on Hem's hair.

"We are too few," said Soron, echoing Hem's thoughts. "We have two score thousand. I cannot count how many stand there before the walls, but I do not need to count to know that if each fighter here killed three enemies, they would still outnumber us."

"Saliman doesn't think we will stand," said Hem.

"No one thinks we will stand," said Inhulca, a tall Bard with a weather-roughened face and a nose that looked as if it had been much broken. He had the light skin of a Baladhian, and he looked on Zelika with open curiosity, although he was too polite to comment on her presence. "But we stand here, all the same. It is the calm before the storm." He smiled; Hem thought it a savage smile, and it sent a strange thrill down his spine. "But I am due at the Ernan. I will see you, Soron."

"Until later, Inhulca," said Soron.

The Baladh Bard left, and Soron glanced again over the parapet and then looked at the children. "Well, no one can fight without eating," he said, stretching. "I had to see for myself, but for the moment my part in this war is in the kitchens. Are you staying here, then?"

Hem had seen enough, and looked inquiringly at Zelika.

"No, I've seen what I wanted to see," she said. Her face was hard and closed.

"We'll come down with you, then," said Hem to Soron. "If that's all right."

"It's all the same to me, young Bard," said Soron. "If you have time to come to the kitchens, I'll give you both some seedcakes and a dish of tea."

Hem brightened: Soron's seedcakes were a rare delicacy, and were especially delicious with mint tea. But it was the kindness underneath the offer that counted more. It was one thing hearing about the Black Army, and quite another to see it swarming on your doorstep. He felt more shaken than he had expected.

The calm before the storm,
Inhulca had said. The streets of Turbansk did have a strange calm – a tense, still expectancy. The three of them hurried. Although there was no reason to hurry everyone they saw was walking quickly as well, and nobody was speaking. Hem thought it was eerie. The marketplaces were completely deserted; even Boran the coffee seller had closed his stall. Hem wondered where Saliman was.

They were close to the buttery when Ire let out a sharp caw, and jumped off Hem's shoulder into the air.

Fly!
cried Ire.
They are coming!

What do you mean?
asked Hem, turning around wildly. He couldn't see anything. Zelika and Soron stared at him in puzzlement. But almost before he had finished speaking, a shadow fell over the far end of the street. They all looked up involuntarily.

Before they had time even to cry out, Soron had grabbed the children's arms and started running. Ire swooped around their heads, jabbering wildly in panic.

"Put your heads down!" Soron shouted, panting. He was a heavy man. "Don't look up.
Run!"

The sky was dark with birds. They flew low in close formations over the streets of Turbansk, in flocks so large that they blotted out the sun like heavy clouds. Even in that brief glimpse, Hem had seen them plummeting in groups of five or ten or fifteen, down from the flocks, to attack people in the street. As they ran, Hem could hear the singing of bow strings, and soft thumps as bodies fell to the ground, and then in the distance someone screaming, and then someone else. The birds made no noise at all. Something went past his ear, as if a sword had just missed him, a vicious swipe of air, and then another; and then something struck the back of his head as if he had been hit by a stone. He felt no pain, but panic possessed him. If Soron had not been holding his arm, he would have been running blindly with no idea of where he was going. Suddenly Ire was on his shoulder again, cawing in distress and trying to hide in his hair, clutching him so hard his claws went through Hem's tunic into his skin. Hem heard Soron cry out, and something rushed up from them with a noise like a
whoosh
of flame, and he smelled scorched feathers and before his feet was suddenly a litter of small smoking corpses. They were carrion crows, he realized in that instant; but they seemed strangely the wrong shape. He had no time to wonder.

It was not far to the buttery, although Hem's chest was burning before they reached it. Soron thrust them through the street door, slammed it shut behind them and then leaned against it, staring at the children without seeing them, his breast heaving. They waited until they got their breath back, and then they walked to the kitchens. None of them felt like speaking. Something was tickling Hem's neck, and he put his hand back to feel. He was surprised to see that his fingers were covered with blood.

The way to the kitchens led through a gallery lined with long narrow casements. Zelika paused at its entrance, and peering over her shoulder Hem saw why: some of the windows were smashed; others were cracking under the assault of the crows, which dived recklessly against them with no heed to their own hurt. Half a dozen crows were already swooping through the gallery away from them, like a hunting pack. Ire cawed again, this time with defiance and rage, and Soron cried out in the Speech. A great bolt of white light leaped from his hands and hit the birds. They burst into flame and tumbled silently to the floor in a stench of burned feathers. Then all three ran through the gallery to the kitchens, to find the heavy door locked. Soron hammered on the wood, shouting, and a frightened young Bard, his assistant Edan, unbolted it and let them in, and then bolted it fast behind them.

The kitchen was darkened because all the shutters were closed, and a lamp was lit on the table. Besides Edan there were a number of people, some of whom had clearly run in from the street to escape the birds: two were bleeding from head wounds.

Hem, Zelika, and Soron sat down and breathed out.

"They are no ordinary crows," said Hem. It was the first thing any of them had said.

"Nay," said Soron. His face was grim. "I have not seen nor heard of the like. They do not hear the Speech, as do all beasts of Edil-Amarandh. They are some foul and twisted breed of the Nameless One's, curse him."

They're no relations of mine,
said Ire huffily. Now he felt safe, he had regained his usual assurance and was sorting out his ruffled feathers with his beak. He seemed to have escaped injury.
Even my cousins, who hate me, would not do that. Those birds are not creatures – they are mad.

Zelika's eyes were dark and huge. "They're evil," she said. "Twisted."

"Was there anything like this at Baladh?" asked Hem.

"No," Zelika answered. She did not say anything more.

"Edan," said Soron. "We need some tea. I am a little out of breath: would you brew some for the kind people here? Peppermint, I think; our stomachs are all a little shaken. And there are seedcakes that I baked just this morning in the cool room. Could you get them out?"

Edan started to boil water, and Zelika and Hem jumped up to help. In the ordinary tasks of preparing and sharing food the last of their panic began to dissipate. Hem wondered what was happening outside in the streets, what was happening to the archers on the walls: surely only Bards with their mageries could drive back those murderous flocks. Despite his fear, or perhaps because of it, he thought the seedcakes tasted particularly good.

The assault by the crows seemed to last for a long time. Since neither Zelika nor Hem could venture into the streets, they helped Soron in the kitchens, one ear attuned always to the soft menacing buffeting against the kitchen shutters. Then, very suddenly, it stopped. Hem, who was chopping root vegetables for soup, paused and glanced at Zelika. Without saying anything, they both went to the kitchen door and pressed their ears against the wood, trying to hear what was happening outside, and then cautiously opened it.

The skies were clear, and the children blinked as the bright sun poured onto the warm stone walls. In the tiny alley outside the kitchen were scores of dead birds in little piles on the ground, and everywhere was a litter of black feathers. They were heaped against the walls of the neighboring buildings. Some of the grilled windows, which were wrought in intricate patterns of iron, had dead birds wedged into them.

"They must have just dived and broken their necks!" said Zelika in astonishment.

They're mad – I told you,
said Ire, and gave a superior caw.

Hem surveyed the mess silently. The sheer recklessness of the assault made his innards curl with horror. If they do that, he thought, I'm glad none landed on my head.

"We should get home, while we can," he said. "They might come back."

"They
will
come back," said Zelika scornfully. "There's no
might
about it."

Hurriedly they thanked Soron, who looked anxious but did not question them, as Saliman's Bardhouse was not far from the butteries. Then they took a deep breath and ran home, fearing all the time that another flock would blot out the sun. The city was deathly quiet: they were the only people out. Every street was littered with the bodies of crows; it was hard not to step on them, though their feet loathed the feeling of the soft bodies beneath them. Once they saw the body of a soldier in the street. Even from a distance, Hem could see it was no use going to check if he was still alive. They averted their eyes, and ran faster.

The Bardhouse was empty. They went hesitantly into Saliman's rooms, where lay the broken bodies of five crows. Seeing this beautiful chamber so violated filled Hem with a sudden fury: this was the closest thing to home that he had ever known. He bent down to pick up one of the corpses, but Zelika grabbed his arm.

"Don't touch them," she said. "They might be poison or something."

Hem saw the point of that, so they went to find some pans and brushes, and then tidied up the chamber as best they could. Hem looked closely at the dead birds: seen close up, they bore very little resemblance to crows at all. They were about the same size, and were black, but their heads were too big and their wings somehow misshapen. There were few feathers on their heads, their eyes and necks covered with naked gray skin pocked with stubble. They had the vicious stabbing beak of a crow, only again it was too big. As Hem gingerly scooped one body up in a pan, he saw that it had two heads: a second malformed and incomplete head grew out of its neck. He stared at it, overwhelmed by a sense of deep wrongness: somehow this horrified him more than anything else he had seen that day. Then he went out into the garden and was quietly sick.

After they had restored some order to Saliman's rooms, closing fast the wrought metal shutters in case the birds came back, they started on the rest of the house. Most of the rooms had been shuttered, as their occupants had long left for Car Amdridh. To their relief, there were no dead birds in Hem's and Zelika's rooms. It was better to keep busy; neither of them dared to venture out into the streets again, and Hem was beginning to wonder where Saliman was, and what was happening in the city. Behind everything he could hear the low, constant throb of the war drums outside the city, and the occasional bray of horns. The noise seemed to echo inside his skull.

Saliman arrived not long afterward. He was clearly in a hurry.

"Hem, Zelika – thank the Light you're all right. I'm sorry I couldn't be here sooner. As you might guess, I've been busy."

"We've been tidying up," said Hem. Ire, perched on Hem's shoulder, cawed in agreement. "There were some of those... crows on the floor, so we got rid of them."

"Did you touch them?" asked Saliman sharply.

"No," said Zelika. "We thought they might be poisonous."

"Good. They are. Oslar has great fears about these deathcrows, and even now ponders what we are to do with them: he thinks they were sent not only to spread alarm and fear, and so weaken our resolve, but to spread disease in the city; and I fear he is right. For all our knowledge of the Black Army, we did not expect this, and I confess it has thrown our defenses. Nor do I think it will be the last attack: calculating that now our fighters will sicken and die, Imank will be patient and hold back the siege engines. I think that is why there has been no assault yet on the city walls, and why the Black Fleet holds back beyond our reach."