‘This won’t stop us,’ she says.
Later, her people lift Crowkisser and rinse the pieces of Crabflick from her skin. They miss a few. She finds shreds of boy and bone in her hair for a while after.
In the evening, the army builds a fire to send him on, their grey backs fading into the mist rising off the land. Crowkisser talks to them of endurance, with the heat of the flames on her face. She talks to them of freedom, with the cold of the night behind her.
Eventually, they leave her for the comfort of their tents and the pyre burns low. As she watches the embers wink out, she twines a piece of charred red thread around her fingers. She barely notices when the first crow lands, but by the time the fire is cold she can no longer see the stars.
71
a face haunts me
a face haunts me
sometimes my own
sometimes lying skin
lying bones
—Inscription at the foot of the Waxward Lintel,
above the western cliff drop
It’s about a foot long, notched along the blade and the hilt worn smooth. His palm is drawn to it. The cross-guard’s light on his knuckles like a kiss.
Fallon unlocks the cabinet, runs a finger through the thick dust. The room at the top of the tower is warm, stifled in the drip-down light of afternoon. The cabinet’s glass is streaked, muddled by lazy rags. Half his face catches there, hung with scars, his moustache weird, unkempt, months of growth pushing the grey out to the edges. He runs the back of a wrist across his mouth and winces.
His head is ringing with brandy-bells; teeth furred as a cat. Outside, the endless clattering thunk of war rolls in the streets of Hesper, metal beats and bites onto metal. The whole city sweating under the sun: strong backs, worn arms, itchy balls and stinking cunts. A plague on summer wars. A plague on this one in particular.
He fucking hated wars. Hated the grime of them.
The blood never washed off, just crusted and dried and scabbed again. Beneath your nails, your gloves, your gums. Fallon had got his fill of war long ago. Days and weeks on the march, or cooped in some stone-walled rathole, skin slick with oil and fat, the smellof yourself pressing against your armour. The wasp-click of a loose buckle. A sword that smacked the back of your legs in flat, irregular slaps with every step, every stumble over rocks and sand.
A pox on summer wars.
His hands fall off the blade – let it sleep in the dust. He slumps to the desk, toes the bottom drawer open. Uncorks, pours. Peace slopping out in greedy little gobbets. Swilling the bottom of cup. He screws his eyes shut, drinks. Better.
Outside, the ceaseless, dog-breathed rasp of war. Ropes strung tight to the outer walls, lashed to the bed of the rock, thick with tar. Murder to climb, but able to be lit in a pinch, kindling fast enough to wreath Hesper’s skirts in flame on the whole landward side. Hot nests for crows; for anyone Crowkisser brought with her. Above the walls, stark, squat towers had grown blades, sharpnesses, thundering catapults. Balanced ballistae on the coastal edge, bright steel eyes scanning the waves, muttering for blood and blood and blood.
He drinks again, shuffles a hand through maps, manifests, port reports. The only problem being, of course, that she wasn’t coming. His whole city set up to crack her like a nut, and that slit had marched merrily pass on the landward side, close enough for his scouts to set his teeth gnashing, but not so close that he could risk reaching out with the marines to pull her back into the city’s grasp.
A fucking mess, and he’s a sheep-brained shit not to have seen it coming. Ofcourseshe’d sped right past them, as fast as her raggedy skirts could carry her. When had that black-feathered bitch ever not headed straight for the main prize? Thell was the real threat. For all it stung his pride, Hesper was just a dangerous afterthought, clinging to the coast like an angry barnacle.
Of course, Crowkisser would hie straight to the mountain like all the old dogs of the hills were on her heels. She couldn’t afford to stay penned in the south, and she didn’t have the numbers to pry Hesper open, on salt-side or land.
He swigs again, swishes the booze around his teeth. And of course, she’d follow wherever her father led. They all should have seen that. Instead, they’d all jumped like frogs into the pot.
So not just one sheep-brained shit. Three. That didn’t make it any easier to bear.
He’s pulled from his sour mood by a thunderous crash from outside. A cart overturned. Pottery smashed. Cobbles thick with curses. A rueful smile curdles on his face. He shoves the bottle back into the drawer. As he does, the ghost of a memory slips into his head. He regards the desk handles ruefully, remembering a small head meeting them, running too fast on quick little feet, wanting to be lifted and spun and whirled.
And oh, the tears afterwards. Barely suppressed laughter rattling in his chest at the melodrama of it all. His wife standing behind them both, mussing the baby’s hair. Blowing tiny bubbles into its cheeks until it remembered it was alive. Little Quickfish was always half a breath from tears or laughter, the dearest thing. Declan had soothed him down in an old crib that had lived in the corner of this room. It caught the sun in the mornings, let it go in the afternoon. They’d hung it with ships, spinning around on tiny red masts, forever lost on a non-sea.
He drinks again, tightens his fingers around the handle, feeling that old stiffness in his chest. A familiar heartache, wrapped like soft leather around his hopes. How many more lonely mornings with only the dust and drink for company?
Enough was enough. He could still make himself useful.
He sets the cup down and fumbles clumsily for the tools he needs. Paper and ink, hawk-scrolls to be bound tight. If he’s miserable, he’s going to make sure the rest of the world is too.
