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 th
e 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.
Ordinarily, it wouldn’t have mattered. The Dowager had long ago mastered the art of looking impassive and regal while the great factions there argued. Typically, she let the populists and the traditionalists wear themselves out before she spoke. Today, though, that was taking longer than usual, which meant that the ever-present tightness in her lungs was growing. If she did not finish with this soon, these fools might see the secret that she worked so hard to disguise.
But there was no hurrying it. War had come, which meant that everyone wanted their chance to speak. Worse, more than a few of them wanted answers that sh
e didn’t have.
“I merely wish to ask my honorable friends whether the fact that enemies have landed on our shore is indicative of a wider government policy of neglecting our nation’s military capabilities,” Lord Hawes of Briarmarsh asked.
“The honorable lord is well aware of the reasons that this Assembly has been wary of the notion of a centralized army,” Lord Branston of Upper Vereford replied.
They continued to babble on, refighting old political battles while more literal ones were growing closer.
“If I might state the situation, so that this Assembly does not accuse me of neglecting my duty,” General Sir Guise Burborough said. “The forces of the New Army have landed on our southeastern shores, bypassing many of the defenses that we put in place to prevent the possibility. They have advanced at a rapid rate, overwhelming those defenders who have tried to stop them and burning villages in their wake. Already, there are numerous refugees who seem to think that we should provide them with lodging.”
It was amusing, the Dowager thought, that the man could make people running for their lives sound like unwanted relatives determined to stay too long.
“What of preparations around Ashton?” Graham, Marquis of the Shale, demanded. “I take it that they are heading this way? Can we seal the walls?”
That was the response of a man who knew nothing about cannon, the Dowager thought. She might have laughed out loud if she’d had the breath for it. As it was, it was all she could do to maintain her impassive expression.
“They are,” the general replied. “Before the month is out, we might have to prepare for a siege, and earthworks are already being constructed against the possibility.”
“Are we considering evacuating the people in the army’s path?” Lord Neresford asked. “Should we advise the people of Ashton to flee north to avoid the fighting? Should our queen, at least, consider retreating to her estates?”