The Crow God's Girl (20 page)

Balafray stared at the brothers, and then walked off into the darkness. A second later they could hear him answer nature’s call. Grigar let out his breath and then turned on Ivar.

“Just shut up,” he said viciously. “Hold your tongue, you useless creature! Or I’ll see to it we leave you on the road. Crow god, Ivar, you need to show some spine for once.”

Ivar continued to make excuses and Grigar finally hauled him to his feet and dragged him into the woods in the other direction. He threw him hard, and Ivar stumbled and fell in the mud.

“Stay out there then!” Grigar shouted. “Stay out there all night! I’m sick of you, you useless bastard!”

Biting off a curse, Arlef went after his brother and Grigar went off in another direction in a huff.

Alone, Ossen and Kate looked at each other. She wrapped her hands around the cup, enjoying the fast fading warmth. She took a sip.

“Wow,” she said finally. “I think I’m grateful that my parents didn’t give me a little brother or sister, like I wanted.”

Ossen half-laughed, half-groaned. “Sometimes I just want to kill them all.”

“Oh come on, all of them?”

“Depends upon the day, the hour–yes, all of them.”

“Ossen, why am I your fortune?”

Ossen poured herself some vesh, and dolloped in brandy from a crudely blown glass flask, corked it, and sipped. The crow girl coughed a little.

“Well, let me ask you–why are you traveling with us?”

Subdued now, Ivar and Arlef came creeping back. Grigar sat down on his haunches, the only way to keep somewhat dry, and gave his brothers a quelling look. With them all settled down, Ossen handed out the jerky and flatbread that had been their every meal since they took to the road. Kate felt the presence of Balafray looming behind her and her neck prickled. She answered lightly.

“It’s not like I could stay at Terrick.”

“You could have married that merchant from Saraval,” Ossen said. “Or Lord Terrick would have found another husband for you.”

It was sounding good right now. She’d at least be warm and dry and safe. But Lord Terrick would have won, and Kate grew stubborn just thinking about it.

“It wasn’t good enough,” she said. “I want–I deserve–better.”

It was the first time she said it out loud. An arranged marriage would have disposed of her neatly, tied up the loose end that was the foster daughter of Terrick.
I’d rather be a monkey wrench than a loose end.

“So do we crows,” Balafray said. At first she thought he was responding to her unspoken wish, and his gravelled voice sent a spike of fear up her back. “What Aeritan gives us, we crows must take, for we are her true inheritors. But the lords have given us little these many years; their share has grown niggardly, and when we take our rightful portion from their fields and their stock, they bring out their armies and punish us.”

“Except when they need us to fight their wars,” Grigar said. “They prey upon the weak among us, those under malcra, and use them.”

“The malcra is our birthright!” Balafray said, swelling with rage against his brother.

“It’s our curse.” Grigar’s voice was flat, bitter.

It had the sound of an old argument. Kate swiveled between the two of them. The twins and Ossen were doing the same.

“You’ve never submitted to the malcra, so you have no understanding,” Balafray said.

“I see what it’s done to us crows.”

“Us crows?” Balafray inquired, almost silkily.

Kate looked over at Ossen, but she was focused on her brothers. Grigar stood. Whatever Balafray had meant–and she had an inkling that she understood–Grigar had not liked it. He balanced himself, feet wide, in a fighting stance.

Another fight was brewing, and it would take place right on top of her. Kate held up a hand. “Stop. Stop. I don’t know what a malcra is, but just stop this. You can’t fight all the time.” Soldier’s god, what was with these people?

“You know what malcra means. You saw it when the crows chased you down in the war camp.” Ossen’s voice was sulky.

Kate felt the color drain in her face. She had never told Ossen that. “How did you know?” Her voice was very quiet. The crows all looked at each other, and away.

It was Balafray who responded. He placed a hand on Kate’s shoulder, pressing her down. “What one crow knows, we all know. You were the stranger girl in the camp during last year’s war and your tale was known to all. Healer, wise-woman. Mistress to the general.”

“I was n–”

“You knew ways of war beyond our world. It was your words that brought victory to our army, and blood to our weapons. You will do the same for us crows.”

She had told the general what she knew about wars and weapons, but how to translate guns, bombs, jet fighters and drones, aircraft carriers and tanks, to Aeritan? The general had taken her concept of a tank and recreated a shield wall, and with it broke Tharp’s army. But to say she was responsible was ludicrous. She almost said that out loud but held her tongue. It might be worse if they thought she had no value at all. Rock, meet hard place.

“When you came back last year, you were with the general,” Ossen said. The girl’s slender fingers wrapped around her cup of vesh, and the firelight glinted on her bone-pale skin.

“He kidnapped me.” Kate’s mouth was dry, and panic hammered at her.
I had nothing to do with it.

“He was ridden by the crow god to bring you back,” Balafray said.

No. It couldn’t be. He was crazy, for sure, but he wasn’t crow. At the end, he let her go. But maybe–she remembered the events of last summer unwillingly. When he let her go, she thought that he had come to his senses. He had looked at her and he was old and tired and even sad. Maybe he had been acting as a puppet of the crow god, and then snapped out of it.
Ohhhhh...

“Is that what malcra means?” she said.

They nodded, and she understood. Crows were mostly normal–until they weren’t. Under the influence of their mad god, they went mad.

“The general meant to raise an army of crows that would overturn the Council and lift the boot on our backs. He brought you back to be a part of this. You are his heir, and you are our fortune.” Balafray concluded with triumph.

There was a ringing silence. Oh you idiots, she wanted to tell them. That army of crows? A bunch of alcoholics and drug addicts who had been living under a bridge. Twenty or thirty of them at most. As for the general’s great plan, she doubted it was to free the crows. Rather, he meant to use them for his own ends as the crows had always been used. And as for her being heir, that was preposterous–until all of a sudden she remembered. Not the exact words because it had been almost a year ago, but he had said something like, the soldier’s god was in her.

The soldier’s god had always answered her calls for help. The grass god’s daughter had never been able to get through to her; was it because she was too independent or was it because she already belonged to another?

“Balafray, you are a great fool,” Grigar said. “She’s a girl hardly older than our Ossen. She is not the general, for all she might have lain with him. And right now, you are making a fool of yourself if you think she is anyone’s fortune. Look at her! See how you’ve scared her?” He flung out a hand at Kate. She sat frozen under their eyes.

Contradictory responses jostled one another. He’s right! Hey wait–just a girl? And once again–

“I did not sleep with the general,” she said.

Grigar laughed and she flushed. “I’m sorry, girl. That was ill-mannered of me. It must be the company.” He gave Balafray a glare, which was returned in kind.

“You don’t know anything of us and what it means to be crow,” Balafray growled. “You don’t know the malcra. You don’t know what the girl means. You are not–”

“Stop!” Ossen jumped to her feet. “Balafray, stop!”

Balafray growled, but he stopped before the words made it past his lips. Grigar glanced at his little sister and then said,

“Ossen is right. Believe what you want, I’ve had enough. Ivar, take first watch, wake me next.”

They kept the small fire going, a tiny patch of warmth in a cold, damp night. Kate rolled up next to Ossen, and she heard the men settle in around them. The bedroll was wet enough that the cold settled into the small of her back. She had grown used to sleeping next to another body, so without any embarrassment she and Ossen scootched together. Blessed warmth spread between them, and it gave her a chance to ask the question that had nagged her all evening.

“Ossen,” she whispered. “Is Grigar really a crow?”

“Half. Our father lay with a smallholder. When the babe was born, she put him out in the field. But our father knew it would happen and he took him away and saved him. That was Grigar.”

So their father had raped a villager and left her pregnant. Ossen’s matter of fact recount was almost as chilling. If Balafray’s attitude was anything to go by, he never let Grigar forget that he was only half crow. Why Grigar put up with it she didn’t know, unless as half crow he was not welcome among other Aeritans. But the way he talked, the way he dressed–someone, somewhere, had taken an interest in Grigar despite of–or because of–his heritage.

She pretended to sleep, but she had gone sick to her stomach.

The plan stays the same, she told herself. Cross the river to Red Gold Bridge, part ways with Ossen and her brothers.

The crow god would have to find himself another girl.

Five days later they stood at the riverside
harbor of the Aeritan River, the water fast and dangerous. Tangled piles of driftwood coursed down the river amid the last remaining ice. The road had turned to thick churned mud, and the docks below them tilted in disrepair. There were three ferry boats tied to the docks. Two were laden already, the decks piled high with bales and barrels, as well as humans and livestock. As they watched, a rider came galloping up, urging his horse onto the dock, the hollow hoofbeats ringing against the wood. He pulled up the horse in a sliding stop. A bit of conversation with the captain, and he and his horse were loaded onto a boat. Then the crew untied the boat and began coiling the lines, and other sailors pushed away from the dock with long poles. The low-riding boats moved sluggishly. First one, and then the other, drifted away from the docks, the rowers unshipped their oars, and the boats made their way across the river, weaving among the debris.

The icy wind from the river drove at them. Kate shivered. She ached all over, her throat was sore, and all she wanted was a warm, dry bed. She thought with longing of her bedroom at home.

“Sell the horse,” Balafray said in his gravelly voice. “We’ll need the money for passage.”

Kate thought of her stake, hidden deep in her bedroll. “No,” she said flatly.

“Crows don’t have horses.”

“I’m not a crow and I’m not selling him.” She tightened her hold on Hotshot’s reins. The horse waited with calm patience, relaxed and hipshot under his saddle and pack. Good, phlegmatic Hotshot.

“Stranger girl, do you not remember what I told you? You are one of us.”

Just
until
we get across the river
. Hotshot was relaxed now, but in his younger days he was a prized polo pony. She knew how to get speed out of him.

“I have money, Balafray. I can pay for our crossing.”

She pulled the bedroll off the horse, unrolled it, and pulled out the small sack of coin. She hefted it, then tucked it in her belt, and repacked her blanket. When she turned around, she met their eyes. Ossen had an expression that was a mix of glee and outrage. The younger brothers were annoyed. Grigar and Balafray exchanged a speaking glance, allies for the moment.

“She was holding out on us,” Arlef whined, and Ivar scowled.

“Shut up,” Grigar suggested in a soft voice that belied its menace. They did.

“Ossen,” Balafray said, but his eyes were still on Kate. “Did you know about this?”

“Balafray,” Ossen said, “You are an old, ugly fool and our stranger girl is smart. What did you want? A stupid fool like you to remake the world?”

Silence. Kate was acutely aware that the little group swayed on a precipice of power. Fall one way, and Balafray would win. Fall the other–and Ossen would become the leader. The world was changing.

And then Balafray smiled, his scar pulling his lips into a horrible leer.

“Little sister,” he said, and reached out to paw her shoulder clumsily. “Hear that? She’s smart, is our little sister. Just like the stranger girl. Smarter than everyone.”

Ossen shrugged off his hand impatiently.

The third boat was still being laden as they trailed down to the docks. To Kate’s surprise the captain was a woman, richly and warmly dressed against the weather in thick breeches, oiled boots, and an almost modern looking slicker, a canvas-like peacoat. She wore a wool watch cap and her eyes were lustrous brown.

She looked over them with amusement.

“What a ragged bunch,” she said, her voice a rich alto. “Six crows and a horse. Did you steal the nag from a lord? I don’t want any trouble.”

“He’s mine,” Kate said. “What is the price of passage, captain—?”