The Black Hawks
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‘Shepherd’s mercy, what is it now?’
A figure strode into view from behind a dark-wood cart that stood at the plaza’s rough centre, its sides and rear caged with iron. She was slight and sharp-featured, her silver hair cropped close to the skull, and was swathed in robes of white and rich vermilion. A long, hook-headed staff tapped the stones in time with her steps. Chel recognized her immediately. He’d seen her at the winter palace, being treated by the servants with a deference that bordered on fear: Sister Vashenda of the Order of the Rose. No wonder the plaza had emptied so fast. Chel grimaced. A set-to with the Church on a hangover was about as far away from ideal as anything he could imagine.
‘One of the heretics, Sister,’ one of the tufts grunted. ‘Fell short on her repentance.’
A sigh. ‘And the other?’
‘Interfered. Says he’s from the palace.’
Her head tilted. ‘Does he now?’ She waved her free hand, urgent, exasperated. ‘Go, find the rest, get them to the croft. Clean this place up.’
The tufts departed, leaving Chel and the two women in the otherwise empty plaza, except for the cart. From the look of it, there were people inside, peering gloom-eyed from behind the cage bars. Chel swallowed.
Sister Vashenda was staring directly at him. ‘Brother Hurkel,’ she called toward the cart. ‘Would you join us, please?’
The cart moved, shifting on its axle, then settled as its front lowered to the ground. The hulking figure that lumbered into view was clad in a rust-coloured tunic, a milk-skinned beast of a man with a shock of blond hair crowning a too-small head the colour of beetroot. An intricate steel necklace jangled at his beefy chest, and at his belt his stubby fingers rested on a short, heavy ball mace. Its head was stained dark.
‘Yes, Sister?’ the giant rumbled.
‘Brother Hurkel, do you know this young man? He claims to be from the palace.’
‘I do not, Sister. Perhaps he has hit his head. Perhaps he wishes to.’
Chel stood his ground. A sickly fire burned anew in his innards. ‘I’m a sworn man in the service of a lord under the grand duke’s aegis. I’m protected as his guest and servant.’
The sister walked toward him, her face curious, as if he were the most interesting turd she’d stepped in that day. She looked him up and down. Behind her, Hurkel had advanced, drowning them in his shadow. ‘Do I know you, sand-flower?’ Vashenda asked, eyes narrowed. ‘Are you Sokol’s brood?’
‘By marriage, not blood,’ he snapped, then cursed himself.
She offered a smile that contained not a jot of amity. Her teeth were so white. ‘Between chosen people, a word of advice, perhaps?’ She stepped close, a silver flower gleaming at her chest, bright in his eyes. ‘Sand-flower or not, a lucky traveller keeps from the Rose’s path,’ she whispered, then clacked her teeth so hard in his ear he shied away, certain she’d bitten off his earlobe.
‘Brother Hurkel,’ she said, stepping away from him. ‘How high does Lord Sokol rank?’
The beast-man waggled a slab hand, palm-down, his bottom lip protruding. ‘Middling, if friendly with his grace the grand duke.’
‘Of little consequence, then. Sand-flower, are you, perhaps, in need of some spiritual re-education at the croft? I doubt Lord Sokol will miss a “relative by marriage” for a few days, especially for the betterment of his eternal soul. Hmm?’
She was shaking her head slowly at him. Chel felt himself shaking his along with her.
‘Good. Depart.’ A brief, bright smile. She turned back to the rag-clad preacher, who had remained on her knees. ‘Now, what have we here?’
The meat-pile growled. ‘Heresy, Sister. Godlessness. Abomination.’ His thick fingers tightened around his mace. Chel heard its wooden haft creak.
The box-preacher’s head was up; Chel saw a fierce gaze, clear and defiant, that bore into the robed figures looming over her. When she spoke, her voice was cracked but strong. ‘Your godless church is the abomination! Lo Vassad sits atop a festering dung-heap of corruption. Your type act not for the people, but for avarice, venality – how plush are your robes, false prelate.’
Sister Vashenda cocked her head and raised an eyebrow to her colleague, a hand to her mouth in mock-horror. ‘Truly are evil days upon us, that such profanity be uttered before the Shepherd’s humble servants. That the poor townspeople should have been so assailed.’ She crouched in front of the kneeling box-preacher, lifting her chin with a finger, and trotted out her words with tired practice. ‘Very well. Will you repent of your madness and ill-speech, and be welcomed back to the good Shepherd’s mercy?’
‘I will never bow to you, idolater. I have heard the voice of truth, felt the touch of the real Mother of the earth.’ She rubbed at the odd scars on her arms, livid whorls shining in what sunlight escaped Hurkel. ‘I have been chosen by the storm.’
Vashenda sighed. ‘I will never understand you people.’
‘You are dirt in the Mother’s eyes! You are—’
‘Yes, yes, dirt and damnation and such, very good.’ Vashenda stepped away with a wave of her hand. ‘Brother Hurkel, the heretic is yours. Have your fun, in God’s name.’
A grin split Hurkel’s beetroot face. He began to advance, the mace gripped in his meaty fist.
Vashenda’s eyes fell on Chel. ‘Sand-flower, you are still here.’ When he said nothing, she continued, directing her attention away from whatever Hurkel was about to do. ‘You know, people speculate on why the red confessors of the Brotherhood of the Twice-Blooded Thorn carry blunt tools on their divine business. Many believe that the Articles forbid the Shepherd’s children from carrying weapons, or from spilling blood in divine service.’
Hurkel towered over the kneeling preacher, weighing the mace in his grip. He was chuckling to himself.
Vashenda gave a rueful smile. ‘Nonsense, of course. God’s will must be performed by whatever means necessary.’
Chel’s heart was galloping in his chest. He looked from preacher to Hurkel and back again, light-headed, mouth dry.
‘Sand-flower, what are you doing?’ Vashenda’s tone was low, warning, as he moved toward Hurkel. ‘Sand-flower! Do not be foolish!’ His breath coming in shallow gasps, fingers trembling, Chel stepped between Hurkel and the kneeling preacher, who was chanting something to herself in a low, urgent voice. He looked up into Hurkel’s porcine eyes, staring back at him with a hot mix of incredulity and outrage.
‘Sand-flower! Why in God’s name must everyone …’ Vashenda leaned her head against the crook of her staff, eyes clenched shut. ‘I suppose we’ll find out how much you’ll be missed after all, you stupid boy.’
Chel didn’t move. He couldn’t. His gaze was locked on Hurkel. The enormous confessor was grinning again. Chel’s vision was twitching in time with the thump of his pulse, a taste like burning at the back of his throat.
The distant peal of bells carried on the sea breeze, from somewhere out past the headland. They were joined by others, closer at the harbour’s edge, then a moment later the plaza rang with the clang and jangle of churches, chapels and watchtowers.
Chel blinked. It couldn’t yet be ten bells, surely?
Hurkel looked at Vashenda, who looked back at Hurkel, eyes narrowed, brows low. His expression matched hers. ‘That’s an alarm,’ Vashenda said slowly. Hurkel grunted, his attention dragged away from Chel.
Shouts followed the bells. Suddenly the plaza was full of people again, running this way and that, their shouts and calls vying with the cacophony of bells.
Vashenda grimaced. ‘We’ll have to take the heretic’s confession later. Brother Hurkel, put her in the cart with the others.’
Chel stood his ground. Already the plaza was thick with motion, the sound of the bells sporadically near-deafening. ‘Leave her alone,’ he shouted over the noise.
Someone was bellowing Vashenda’s name from across the plaza, another red-robed, tufted type, his features animated with alarm. Vashenda exhaled in exasperation, then leaned forward and fixed Chel with a fearsome glare as the chaos enveloped them. ‘This is not over, sand-flower. You may yet enjoy the chance to regret your choices.’
She growled at Hurkel and jerked her head for him to follow. Hurkel gestured at the cart, but she shook her head. ‘They’ll still be there when we come back.’ The two of them stalked away, leaving the cart with its whimpering cargo locked at the plaza’s centre. Chel felt his insides unclench as they passed from view. He needed to get back to the palace.
Heali was pushing his way through the crowd, his fleshy face waxy and pallid. ‘God’s breath, Master Chel. That’s pushing your luck, even for someone of your blood.’ He shook his head. ‘Why would you get yourself involved in all that?’
Chel had stilled his breathing, although the light-headedness remained. ‘You saw? I could have used some moral support there, Heali. Besides, I’m sworn. They couldn’t have touched me.’ I hope, he added to himself.
‘I’m sure that knowledge would have been a comfort once they had you strung up by your ankles in the croft. You want my advice, young man, you stay—’
‘Beating the poor wasn’t in any Article I ever heard.’
Heali gave a mirthless chuckle. ‘Maybe you’ve not heard the new ones. They’ll let anyone in these days, give some alley-boy a stick and a red robe and call him a confessor, I dunno, makes me question sometimes …’ He tailed off. ‘Stay out of their way, Master Chel, for your own sake. The Rose have a long memory and a longer reach.’
Chel only sniffed. His legs were trembling. He hoped Heali couldn’t tell.
The wild-haired preacher’s head emerged from beneath the rancid cart. ‘They’re gone,’ Chel said, doing his best to look reassuring.
She clambered out and fixed him with her clear eyes. ‘Mother bless you, child. You and your people shall be in her highest favour.’
‘Er, if you say so.’
She turned and began working at the cage’s bolt, trying to prise it open. Within, the sallow and frightened faces shrank back, more alarmed than ever. Interfering with the Rose’s confessionals was simply not done.
‘Hey,’ Chel called after her. ‘Hey! They’ll be coming back, you don’t want to hang around for that, right? This will make things worse!’
The preacher stopped for a moment, and looked out over the harbour as a briny gust from the coast blew dust around the plaza and the bells rang on around them. ‘A great storm is coming,’ she said, her eyes still on the harbour. ‘The Mother has shown me. There will be a cleansing flood.’
He squinted out at the sea, still glittering in the morning sun, trying to work out what she saw; her words were all too close to Mercunin’s earlier proclamation. ‘You know, there’s a porter up at the palace you should meet, you two would get on like a house on fire.’
Heali grabbed his arm, pulling him away. ‘That’s enough, Master Chel. You can’t help the touched any more than you already have. We’d better get back up the hill.’
With one last look at the struggling preacher, they made for the palace.
TWO
What seemed like half the palace’s population was crammed onto its white walls, jostling and bickering for a clear view of the bay. Above them, the lone, sad warning bell of the palace’s solitary spire tolled in fitful answer to the jangling mass below.
‘Can’t see a bastard thing,’ Heali muttered, squeezing around a gaggle of servants. He was a hand shorter than Chel, who didn’t have much of a view himself. They laboured along the crowded battlements until at last they found a space between the chattering crowds.
‘God’s breath,’ he whispered as Chel pressed in alongside.
The mid-morning sun, kept low in the northern sky over the sea by autumn’s arrival, gleamed from the gentle waves of the bay. But where sea should have followed, the neck of the bay was blocked by a giant black vessel: long, wide and low, a floating fortress of dark wood and metal, its sails and oar banks crimson and gilded with silver. A pair of smaller vessels, just as dark, trailed it like ducklings. Chel guessed even the smallest would have rivalled the largest ship currently moored in the harbour. The main ship could have sailed over the grand duke’s pleasure barge without scratching its hull.
They didn’t seem to be advancing. The dark ships sat out to sea, riding the waves up and down in place, anchors dropped, while the terrified bells rang out around the bay. A small boat, black flag of truce fluttering from its prow, had dropped from the largest ship and was rowing into the bay beneath the watching eyes of the port’s population, and the swivelling half-dozen giant skein-bows on the headland sea-fort. From the other direction came the duke’s barges, moving to encircle it, the tin hats of crossbowmen glinting from their decks.
‘What are they? Who are they?’ Chel asked, his eyes not leaving the floating fortress. Adrenaline washed through him, refreshing the fearsome trembling that had only just left him from his encounter with Brother Hurkel.
Heali’s brow was slick, his breath short. ‘Norts, boy. The black ships of the Norts have come for us.’
Others were joining them, muttering and shouting filling the air as guardsmen jostled with servants and house staff, occasionally shunted aside by the arrival of someone with a title to wield. Their hubbub filled Chel’s ears.
‘Is it an invasion?’
‘It’s a blockade!’
‘But if Denirnas Port is closed, it’ll be nothing but river traffic ferried up from Sebemir! The north will starve!’
Chel nudged Heali. ‘We’re not enemies of the Norts. Are we?’
‘I’m not much inclined to go down and ask them, Master Chel.’
In the port, the bells faltered, then one by one they stopped. Perhaps the operators were now watching the scene in the bay, or piling their worldly goods onto a mule and making for the mountains. Two fluttering objects had risen from the main deck of the giant Nort vessel, like outsize birds with wings of spider-silk. They glimmered and glistened, borne aloft on the inland breeze, anchored by thin ropes or cables to the vessel beneath. The silk-birds soared up and over the little boat and the approaching barges, twinkling beneath as if they carried lanterns.
‘What in hells do you suppose those are, Master Chel? Totems? Decorations?’
‘If they’re sails, they’re very small and very far away.’
A further commotion ran through the crowd like a wave. ‘Oh joy,’ muttered Chel as he watched ducal guards pushing their way to the promontory. ‘The grand duke and his entourage are here. I’m sure everything will be just fine now.’
‘You sound a touch insincere, Master Chel.’
‘Call me judgemental, but if three years in Sokol’s service have taught me anything it’s that the more skivvies, flunkies and lickspittles that surround a lord, the less contemplative their decisions.’ And that’s without counting his repellent offspring, he added to himself.
Robed notables scuttled in the duke’s wash, hemmed by the brooding house-guards. Chel half expected to see Lord Sokol among them, but it was still early yet. He watched them bustle their bullish way through those already gathered, his lip curled. There was the duke’s eldest, Count Esen, pushing an inattentive kitchen-waif from his path and almost off the ramparts; only the swift hands of a watching guardsman prevented her from falling. Count Esen only smirked.
Chel felt Heali’s restraining hand on his arm.
He spat into the dust and sighed. ‘At least that ghastly prick actively blackens his father’s name.’ He watched a pale, slumped figure come trudging after the other nobles. ‘That little prince doesn’t do a thrice-damned thing, just slopes along like a kicked dog after the rest of them.’
Heali chuckled. ‘Tough job, being the ward of a grand duke. No doubt takes a lot out of him, weekly lectures at the Academy, the feasts and festivals.’
Chel froze. One last figure had come to join the ducal party: Sister Vashenda had stopped a way short of the promontory, looking out over the bay. Chel was rooted to the spot, sweat-slick, praying she didn’t turn his way.
His prayers were for dust. As if sensing him, Sister Vashenda turned, and the sharp lines of her face locked rigid. She advanced, her hook-headed staff tapping the stone, signalling to her lackeys as she came. ‘Sand-flower!’ she called, her eyes burning. ‘Impeding the work of God’s messengers is a vile crime …’
Chel tried to stand his ground again, but his legs were shaking uncontrollably. He was safe here, surely, within the walls of the palace. A sworn man, a guest of the duke—
‘… But the release of heretics is beyond contempt.’
‘What? You mean … But that wasn’t me!’
‘There will be a reckoning, boy!’
Something had happened out in the bay. One of the seneschals gasped, ‘Beneath a flag of truce no less!’ Others around him shushed and jeered. The duke’s barges had fired on the little Nort boat. Then the mutterings rose in pitch and urgency. ‘What in hells!’ a guardsman shrieked. Chel turned from the prelate and peered out over the jostling assemblage, toward the harbour.
‘Sand-flower! Do not turn your back to me.’ He heard Vashenda shout over the crowd. ‘Brother Hurkel,’ she called, ‘take the Andriz!’
The floating silken birds were spewing flame. Streams of liquid fire poured from the sky, dousing the duke’s barges. Screams filled the air as the flaming mass gushed over them, the men within scrabbling overboard as the flames roared up. Tin hats glinted on the waters of the bay, while gobbets of fire spat and hissed, burning on the surface.
‘Witchfire!’ came the cry along the battlements. Others joined it. People started to run, and at once the ramparts churned.
‘Come hither, Andriz.’ Chel turned to see Brother Hurkel come lumbering into view, his grin undiminished by the chaos around them. ‘You’re late for your lesson.’
‘He means to take you, Master Chel, Norts be damned.’ Heali was at Chel’s shoulder. ‘I’ll stall him. Make for the sea-fort!’
Chel ran, the duke’s roar to attack ringing over the thundering of his heart in his ears. He pelted off down the rampart, weaving in between hurrying guardsmen, servants and seneschals, all of whom had remembered urgent business elsewhere. Witchfire! he thought. Mercunin was right, we shall all of us burn. From behind him came Heali’s bright wheedling. ‘Ah, Brother Hurkel, if I might—’
‘Fuck off, Heali,’ was all Chel heard before the duke’s signal drums rang out from the walls, loud over the sounds of the fleeing crowd. Ahead of him, the massive skein-bows cranked and turned, while ghastly burning smells were drifting over the palace, borne by the same wind that kept the silk-birds aloft.
Chel rounded a turret as great thrums filled the air. A whistling volley of giant bolts, each as long as Chel was tall, soared out over the bay, blurs rippling through the air. He heard the distant eruptions of water and great tin booms like kettledrums where they found their mark. A ragged cheer rose from those guards still at the wall as the spray subsided.
Quickly, gasps and oaths replaced the cheer. Chel slowed, snatching a glance over the bay. The black ships remained, unsunk, bobbing on the gentle waves.
‘Are they made of iron?’ one of the guardsmen said, incredulous. ‘How the fuck do they float?’
Something flew out from the black ship, something like a fireball, trailing bright flame and black smoke. The fireball shot over the water, faster than a skein-bolt, screaming like a demon. It smashed into the headland below the sea-fort, exploding in white and crimson flame and sending chunks of rock soaring into the air, stone splashing out into the bay.
Chel tumbled and skittered, his heart galloping up his throat in what felt like a desperate bid to escape. ‘What in all the saints …?’
Another fireball launched from the black ship, then the turret ahead of him exploded. The blast showered flame and stone across the walls as the turret’s skein-bow, arms burning, pitched over the collapsing battlement and dropped into the bay. A wall of choking smoke blew over the rampart, forcing Chel to hunch and gasp, while stone shards and pebbles rained down around him. From somewhere through the fog came the sound of Brother Hurkel’s calls.
Chel wiped at his eyes and pushed himself to his feet as another explosion rocked the stone beneath him. ‘Fuck. This.’
As smothering clouds of smoke and ash billowed over the walls, Chel ran.
***
He dropped from the wall above the stables. The palace was emptying, he couldn’t see Sokol and his retinue, and their mounts were gone too. They must have cleared out at the first warning bells. How very Sokol. Chel took a long, ragged breath to try to calm his nerves. He had to get out before the Norts razed the entire port. There were still horses left, although not for much longer: already palace staff were tussling with liveried riders over the ownership and use of those that remained. Then, of course, there was Brother Hurkel and his companion confessors to consider. If witchfire hadn’t put them off his trail, they may yet be lying in wait.
A narrow, two-wheeled cart stood just beside the stable arch, abandoned midway through unloading supplies for the kitchens from the look of it. It stood, facing the wrong way, a burly, bored-looking mule hitched before it. A dusty cloak lay across the driver’s bench.
‘Perfect.’
He jumped up to the cart and threw the cloak over himself. Sweating from the morning’s heat, the strain of Hurkel’s chase, the Nort attack and now cart-theft to boot, Chel geed the reins and drove the cart and mule forward, wheeling around the stables and toward the main courtyard and the outside world.
***
Chel couldn’t keep his hands tight on the reins. They shook and slipped with his still-thumping heartbeats as well as with each rut on the road. He’d joined the main road out to the provinces, but all around him people surged, creating a long line back to the city. He could only hope that Vashenda and Hurkel had more to worry about than his escape.
A cloaked figure poked his head out from the crates in the back of the cart. ‘Why are we slowing?’
‘Argh! Who in hells are you?’ Chel shrieked.
‘We’ve been invaded! Invaded! They’re going to kill us all! Why aren’t we going faster?’
‘Because this road is full of people, you plank. I’d rather not tip this thing and kill us and them before we get anywhere.’
Something about the way his companion stiffened when he’d called him a plank bothered Chel. ‘Who are you? Why were you hiding in this cart?’
The figure pulled back his hood and looked up at him. Chel’s insides congealed. He looked back at the pallid face of the hang-dog prince, the runt of the litter: Tarfel Merimonsun, Junior Prince of Vistirlar.
‘Five bloody, blasted hells …’
‘Why aren’t we going faster?’ shrieked the prince.
THREE
‘Your highness! I’m so— I didn’t realize. I was just trying to get out of the city and find my liege—’
‘Immaterial! I’m commandeering you.’
‘But—’
‘Listen, peasant: whoever you’re sworn to, whoever they’re sworn to, totter high enough up the stack and they’re all sworn to the crown. And who wears that?’
‘Uh, your father?’
‘Well, yes, but he’s ill, isn’t he? So while he recovers, the master of the Star Court is …?’
‘Your brother, highness?’
‘Exactly.’
‘But he’s not the one commandeering me.’
‘Well, no, you gormless pleb, but that’s why you’re going to take me to him.’
‘But your brother is in Omundi and that’s days away – I’d be an oathbreaker! I have to be released, it doesn’t work if I just walk away.’
‘In my father’s name, are all you provincials so thick-skulled? Your pestilent oath won’t matter a gnat’s fart once we reach my brother. The crown can supplant or dissolve inferior pledges, you homespun halfwit. You’ll be released the moment my brother decrees it.’