Hawkspit’s eyes are wide as he digs feverishly in pockets which overflow with the dregs of prophecy, talons, bear claws, last spring’s leaves. His palms are tattooed with thick black rectangles, their hearts lined red – geometrics that warn that he has seen forbidden things and been caught in the act. His eyes flick from his hands, to her face, and back.
‘Icecaller. The chief sleeps?’
She laughs despite herself. ‘Probably. My dad’s an old bear in winter.’
She puts her palms against the side of his face. ‘What do you want, Hawk? I love you but I’m in kind of a shitty mood.’
Hawkspit’s hands twitch. His pupils drink in the light. The rings in his lips clack nervously. ‘I had a dream, Ice. A dream all crows.’
Her hands stay on his face, her fingers against his jaw. A flicker of excitement runs electric down her spine.
She keeps her voice level. ‘Tell me about it, Spit. Tell me clear and I’ll see you don’t have to cast chants for the rest of the week.’
Hawkspit’s head bobs, his hands dipping into his pockets, fingertips trailing small white blossoms, dried and crushed. ‘Really Ice? That’d be good. I don’t sleep since. Can’t sleep since. I dreamt a dream all crows. In all the land beyond, coming up against the walls of the mountain. And the steel in the mountain was swallowed in shadow. And the shadow grew teeth from inside itself. And then the crows were the shadows and the mountain was a nest.’
Icecaller lets her fingers drift from his sharp cheekbones down to her hips, pouting sceptically. ‘That’s it? Hardly inspiring as visions of doom go, Spit. You’ll need to do better than that.’
Hawkspit dances back, his feet twisted inwards. He stretches his arms out to either side and, for a second, he looks like more than a scrawny, sleep-deprived kid.
‘I dreamt a dream all crows, Icecaller. Crows in the heart of our mountain. Riding in on smoke and ghosts. And beneath the crows a sleeping tooth. And beneath that even, a dreaming lamb, all golden, lost and soft and bloody. And in the land outside all crows. And on the shore by the sea, a shining seed. A sea of feathers. And I cried like a baby. There was a ship on the sea, Ice. A ship that smelt of smoke and saltpetre and smoke again.’ His voice grows thin, desperate, the whites of his eyes roll loose in his head. ‘How can a ship sail to our mountain? How can crows live in its heart?’
Icecaller quiets her hammering heart and tips a hand at one ofthe stallholders. Obediently, they fill a mug with water and crush rinds between their palms, let them fall into the brew and pass it to her. She cups Hawkspit’s hands gently around it.
‘Here, it’s OK. Sit. Drink.’
Hawkspit lowers himself into a tiled alcove like a hunted animal. His fingers are tight on her wrists. ‘How, Ice? How how how how?’
She presses her forehead against his. ‘It’s OK, Hawk. What do we do when we’re scared?’
He sips, swallows. ‘We go to the still water.’
‘That’s right,’ she says and places her lips against his. ‘Breathe.’
His mouth parts and she lets air slide from her lungs into his.
He quiets quickly, the fluttering rhythm of his chest stilling into something steadier. Her heart aches for him.
She sits back with the taste of him on her mouth, tongue against teeth. ‘It’ll be OK, Hawk. There’s a lot happens before a war. It’s bound to bleed out into your dreams.’ She puts a hand on his shoulder. ‘I have to go see my sis. You gonna be alright for now?’
Hawk nods slowly. ‘Yes, Ice. Sorry to lose it. Sorry, sorry.’
She kisses a cheek. ‘We’re all losing it, Spit. You’re the only one who admits it.’ She looks back over her shoulder as she leaves. ‘Love you.’
Hawkspit smiles back at her as she heads off. He knows she’s right. Knows Ice knows best. Knows his head is stupid stupid stupid full of fret and knowing and crows now, crows crows crows. Maybe he should have told her. Maybe he should have told her what happened when the seeds hatched, or when the lamb bloomed into golden light. Of the eyes that opened in the darkness below the mountain.
Maybe the eyes mean something, he thinks. Maybe the eyes are worse than the crows. He should tell Icecaller. He slips down from the alcove and starts to follow her but there are sharp things in his pockets and he needs to sort them because the order is all wrong.
As he starts laying them out, he thinks there was something that he meant to do, but he can’t remember.
It doesn’t matter as long as he stays still water. As long as the sharp things are nice and straight.
Keep the fret and the knowing quiet. And the mountain just a dream all crows.
60
There are no monsters, of course. Only wild things that we fail to fully comprehend. It is simply unfortunate that the further we go from civilisation, the more our comprehension fails us.
—Memories of a Poacher, Beyond the Lickstone Wall
