As for the people in the mountain? Thell’s “Republic”? They’ve been ruled before. And she needs bodies. And supplies. It would be a waste to kill them, and she doesn’t waste anything.
The solution is to make them bow.
She just doesn’t know where to start.
The wind rises to a shriek, driving her into the lee of the Teeth, down onto the trade road.
The name itself is something of a joke now. The carts and drovers that used to come from the north have stilled to a trickle, and the ways from the south are empty of anything beyond the villages she’s brought into the fold.
Every mile or so, the road rises briefly to black spars of wood. Old ship timbers and the like, strung up to form sturdy gibbets that even now creak and bend in the wind.
Over those black crossbeams, black rope, and hanging from those ropes by the neck, the corpses of the last idiots to get in her way.
She never wastes anything.
As she draws near the closest spar, its inhabitant turns to watch her approach. The green light of its eyes bright within its hollowskull, shining through the drawn skin of its temples like parchment. Its neck creaks gently, the withered flesh straining as it patiently follows her approaching feet.
Those eyes could see for a mile, two on a good day. Nothing moved on this road that they didn’t catch.
One of her better ideas, she thinks.
The corpse’s jaw clacks gently as she stops at the base of the gibbet, its teeth nut-brown from rot, knocking together softly, curiously.
The common folk called them gallowswatchers, a little grim, but not inaccurate. Nice, tangible reminders of what happened to anyone that threatened her, and her people.
This man had been a raider, one of the opportunists that had come calling after the burning of the south, thinking the Rim villages were easy pickings, stunned by the devastation that lingered over the horizon. Perhaps the first few villages had been, those that had turned her away, their headmen and women full of bluster and propriety, denouncing her heresy, her arrogance. Her lip curls a little at the memory of those self-important little towns, filled with self-important little people. Once she tore the names from their leaders, their villages became home to nothing much except bleached bones, rotten fruit, and, ironically, crows.
Not many had kept their names after she’d cleansed the south. A few hardy souls, that drew followers to them like a lodestone, like flies to shit. Dangerous, the lot of them. Every holdout she found, she dealt with herself, with as much mercy as you’d give to a rabid dog. For most, the process was also the solution. There weren’t many who could survive the stripping of a name. Crowkisser had a lot of respect for Fallon’s wife, much as she’d lingered on. For the rest, it was over quickly – a mess of beak and feather down the throat, and the name plucked free like a struggling worm, torn apart and thrown to the sky.
It only took a few, public, examples for the rest of the Rim to come to their senses. Those that accepted her in Dryke, Vantage and Fallow soon found that their highways were watched by the dead. The men who had once stalked their roads now danceda blackwood jig that kept their glowing eyes fixed for any new idiots with knives and ideas beyond their station. When more bandits had rolled down the old approach roads that winter, the Rim villages had known for days ahead. The ambushes had been merciless, the pits deep, and the stakes sharp. And in the spring, the highway had sprouted another crop of vigilant, dangling watchmen.
Nothing was wasted. She idly spun the gallowswatcher by the dried sinew of his legs. Her fingers lingered on the scars at his ankles, the tattoo of a bird that skirted his shoulder. She’d killed this one herself. She remembered the rolling whites of his eyes, the desperate pleading spilling from his lips, even as the barn he’d burnt kindled higher and brighter.
She pats the withered leg consolingly. He didn’t seem to hold a grudge. As he spun, his lambent eyes occasionally lilted towards the sea, the bones of his neck grinding quietly in the wind as he turned. So much more useful in death than life.
A slight smile of satisfaction flits across her lips. Raising the watchers now felt like the simplest cantrip. Just the start of the vast whisper of power she’d been given. But it was undeniably effective. Sentries with no need for sleep, no fear in their hearts. Only the salt wind eating away at their flesh, day by day.
She pushes again, watching the twirl of leather, skin and bone. Try to pull one of these down and it would scream to high heaven. Try to hood its face and its weathered hands would pull you close and hold you tight until the long men arrived, faces weary and grim, sad to have been pulled from their dinner tables but glad for a chance to keep their children safe.
The wind gusts as she watches the gallows turn, sending the dead man’s thin legs dancing in ungainly spasms, his neck whipped back and forth.
The voice, when it comes, hangs on the edge of the wind, brushing the edges of the corpse’s lips like a bird’s wing, ‘… kisserrrrr.’
Her head whips around, the spike of adrenaline in her heart setting her pulse racing.
The gallowswatcher’s glowing eyes are steady, the dry skin drawn back from its brown teeth in a forced grin. Its head regards her for a moment or two, then tips to the side with a curious rattle. ‘Kisser.’
She recognises the voice now. She’s heard it before, in the temple, hissing from a mess of meat and bone.
‘Again, unclean corpse?’ She fingers the knife at her belt, the handle heavy and reassuring. ‘I thought I’d sent you out with blade and binding.’
The gallowswatcher laughs, an impossible sound, its frayed vocal cords scratching together like chafer song. ‘Oh, you got rid of me just fine. Jointed me up and parcelled me out.’ A bony finger digs between its ribs, pulls a maggot out speculatively from under paper skin.
‘It’s not the first time I’ve been sundered, crow-witch. I hold no grudge.’
Crowkisser narrows her eyes. Breathes deep, from the belly, counting her heart down into steadiness. ‘The dead rarely mean well. What do you want? Who are you?’
The light in the corpse’s eye flares like a struck match.
