‘I’m not dead, dearest crow. Just dispersed.’ It laughs again, mirthless and empty.
‘I’m the last person that tried to stand up to your father, before you. Or rather, I’m what’s left of them.’
Her heart starts at that, but she simply tightens her grip on the knife. ‘How do you know my father?’
The gallowswatcher’s dry tendons pull its jaws wider. ‘The same way you do, more or less. He destroyed my world.’
Crowkisser looks at the corpse for a second. The wind pushing insistently against her shaking legs. ‘I don’t have time for this.’
She turns and leaves, her feet marching her furiously up and over the wet earth of the coast road.
The scream that tears from the corpse’s throat stops her in her tracks. She turns, and the wail slithers wetly down through the gale, before coiling into a laugh that shakes the gallowswatcher on its perch.
‘You need me, little Crow. You need into my mountain.’
A spike of shock in her heart. She hides it deep and turns slowly.
The hanged man is silent as she slowly stalks back towards it. Just the faintest glimmer lights the gallowswatcher’s scoured sockets.
Her jaw juts as she spits the question. ‘How do you know that?’
The corpse twists slowly, its fingers twitching. ‘Because I listen to the dark, just like you.’ It beckons. ‘Come closer.’
Reluctantly, she steps a little further forwards, close enough to see the bones shift under frayed cloth, to hear the rip of old, rotten skin.
Its voice is a rough whisper, soft, confident. ‘Listen, child. I understand you. We are both from humble beginnings. Both blessed with incredible mothers.’ Its voice dips to a snarl, ‘Both betrayed by the weaver.’
Crowkisser watches its dry lips, its cracked teeth. How naïve does it think she is?
She raises a finger. ‘I’ll not deal with a dead man just because you’re crammed full of spite.’
‘Spite?’ it says. ‘Oh, more than that. I’ve known spite, Crowkisser. Spite, and rage, and terror, and hatred.’
She shakes her head dismissively. ‘I’m not here to help you salve your grudges.’ She unsheathes the knife and takes a hold of its leg. ‘Time to go, corpse.’
The corpse kicks out, a chipped nail grazing her mouth as she jerks her head back.
‘No!’ Its voice steadies as it collects itself. ‘No. Not yet. Listen a moment.’
Crowkisser watches it warily, her blade hovering between them like a promise.
The gallowswatcher hisses a breath through snail-shell teeth. ‘You know that your army would break against that mountain even without Shroudweaver set against you.’
It turns a palm outwards as it talks, scratching at the holes and frayed flesh. ‘The people of Thell have lived with war forever. I schooled them in it. When they died in service to the mountain,I raised them up again to fight beside their friends, their families. When their enemies fell against us, I took them, and taught them, and placed them in our ranks, to make a new accord.’
Its eyes flare green in the driving rain. ‘Alliances. Brotherhoods beyond death.’ Its voice crackles like a banked fire. ‘We knew such peace.’
Crowkisser eyes the corpse flatly. How quickly her racing nerves have subsided into curiosity.
‘Who are you?’
The gallowswatcher’s head flops in the gale, legs and spine dancing a brutal jig as the wind picks up again.
She staggers, leans into it.
‘They used to call me the Emperor of the Dead. Now’ – it laughs, and a frayed hand traces the length of its body from broken neck to salted feet – ‘Now, I’m diversifying. With a little help.’
A nail scratches idly at a desiccated finger, flaking skin down to raw bone. ‘I had such loyal subjects. Such harmony, within our mountain, our city. I would have gifted that to the world.’
