Far to the north, the Deadsingers’ heads snap to the belly of the clouds, and the refugees following them make a space. A clot of crows plummets to the ground in alpine grass, black against the white flowers. The mountain-witches push to the fore, watching through eyes like burnished stones as feathers shudder, reform, and retract. The discarded pinions are left where they fall. Amid a circle of dark feathers, two confused young men huddle on the grass. The Deadsingers step closer, old eyes wide, old hearts wary, but in their hands are blankets, bandages. Quickfish andRoofkeeper stagger to their feet, and are drawn into the mass by strong hands. The column turns and heads north, losing itself against the white slash of the horizon.
Crowkisser feels them leave the flock and allows herself a brief flicker of triumph at one more piece set in place. She takes a circling moment to look beyond the Stump to the distant north, the forever green hills, the bright flowers and the blue ice; then further still, slant through the sky, at spires in the ground like the teeth of an old god, an ancient hunter.
Perhaps, she thinks, perhaps she’s needed there. But she’s heavy, the weight of the minds she carries scratches at her like grit in the eye.
The flock comes in low over the torn barrows, fewer and denser with every fall and plunge. The survivors see her coming and her battered, brave fisherfolk raise a cheer. Thell’s people cheer a little too, confusedly.
The earth spreads itself riven and broken before her. The cairn flags snapped and charred, scorched with lightning scar. The ground newly sown with bones. For a moment, her mind shies from it all, and she feels the flock start to scatter. Then she focuses, hauling the scraps together. Further south, she knows the Midlands are wearing the last colours of summer. She falls towards the scent of flowers, letting it call her body home.
As the first few birds hit the ground, Crowkisser feels herself coalescing. Bright scraps of spirit are stitched around hollow bones. Marrow shudders into sinew, spears, spits and scaffolds. Wings stick to scapula that swing wetly. Muscles are strung with nerves. Suddenly she has one body, alive with electricity, convulsant. She grows raw down into the mud. Feathers settle on her scraped flesh, binding the red to the bone.
She squirms. Tiny bodies fill her, deliquescing, blossoming into lungs which shudder huskily. Small black claws tear a space for a stomach which swims with bile. Rows of hollow skulls slot together, punching upwards into a spine which straightens her back in a yell. Her chest is strung with open wings that sink back into the meat and become heaving ribs. The ends of beaks rattleover shins, becoming solid, and sticky as they scuttle down into the mud, straightening in small wet pops, congealing into toes, missing the sky as they root themselves into fingertips.
As she comes to, Crowkisser becomes aware of a space around her, hand-lengths of wariness, while she wiggles her wet feet, muddy and raw. Unexpectedly, her chest heaves and she vomits a scuttering of tiny bones and filth into the damp grass. The remainder of the brood slumps writhing onto the ground, shuddering as it shucks out bodies with umbilical, placental tearing. Crowkisser spies one in particular, and limps over to it. The final piece of her plan.
Behind her, the flock pulls itself into more recognisable configurations, familiar faces emerging from the mess of bone and feather. Shipwright staggers to her feet first, casts about, and runs to Shroudweaver’s side, clawing feathers off him in globs and pressing him to her chest. She covers his sticky hair with kisses, ignoring his muffled protests, his fingers fluttering against her sides. ‘You, you b— you …’ Her breath is a collection of catches. She pulls him tighter, trying to shift his bones into her body, to wrap herself around him to keep him safe.
He pulls away gently, coughing over her outstretched arm, softly at first, then sliding into a hack that pushes him over at the hips. Red strands fray from around his hands as the last scraps of thread unwind. There’s a shadow of blood under his nails, purpling the skin like wet ground. Shipwright rubs a broad hand along his back, waits for the worst of it to subside as she feels again every notch of his spine, thin and getting thinner. Awkwardly, her brain flashes forth a recipe for soup, something worn and stained and pinned to a wooden wall; she remembers a brassy cookpot, the soft rocking knock of a ladle. Rooks in the trees.
She snaps to. Here amid the mud and grass and stones, there’s a murmuring. The people of Astic gather around her like damp dogs, their fingers running over clubs and hooks, buttoning cloaks and strapping helms against the cold wind which continues to blow. Crowkisser is at their head, doubled over Icecaller’s body, retching blood and bone as she works. Shipwright shakes her head sadly, struggling to see the point in it. Ice was long gone. She’d seen theruin Steelfinder had made of her body before the poor girl died.
The crowd draws closer as she watches and Shipwright tenses briefly. She can’t take a scrap more fighting. She’s so damn tired. Underneath her shaking hands, there’s a thin, metallic whine like a squashed wasp, as her spinner shatters and the last pulses of its febrile energy fade from her muscles like spit on skin. Exhaustion hits her like a drowning wave.
She staggers against Shroudweaver, eying the crowd as they draw closer.
It’s not just Crowkisser’s lot, there’s others among them. Thell’s people, leaning on broken spears, strapped to shattered shields, black and red and black again. Astic’s folk seem to have changed their minds on a few things. She watches incredulously as they gather around their injured enemies in quiet, careful shoals. Heaving shoulders are pinned by grey cloaks. A rough cloth is smeared across a crying face. Poultices of dune herbs and fish-scales are placed on the worst wounds, the saltwitch dance of glass and octopus beaks.
Astic and Thell, or the scraps of both, together. Perhaps it’s not so strange. Wasn’t that always the way? Blood and knives and murder and then after, meetings and reconciliation. Even in normal wars, the killing brought some sanity, in the end. Enough slaughter always made the survivors weary, on any side. Here, the dead themselves had risen against them. No wonder they were clinging to anything with a pulse and a smile. It wasn’t perfect, of course. They were still too close to the mountain to relax, scant hours from the horror that had unfolded. The greycloaks look a little nervous still, their hands torn between hilts and helping.
Best not to make any sudden moves Shipwright thinks, turning to the crowd. She spreads her arms deliberately, tilts her hands forwards, back. Nice, clear empty palms. See? No reason to murder her.
She finds a jut of rock and sits down with a sigh. Everything aches. The hangover of spinner magic is cracking her skull like a hauler’s hammer. The crowd hover at the edges of their circle, held in uncertainty, watching and murmuring as Shroudweaversettles next to her, legs stretched. He rubs at his calves, glancing anxiously back over his shoulder at the smoking mountain, which remains mercifully still and quiet. The churned earth is full of potsherds here, scraps of bone and colour thrown up when the land spasmed, and slicked clean by the storm. Just waiting to be joined by the fragments of bodies which now strew the Barrowlands.
He picks up a triangular piece, and thumbs the rough edge, turning it to brush off the mud. The design is simple and bright, blue and white in looping curls depicting the tip of something that might have been a dog’s ear or bird wing. He pops it in his pocket.
The pair turn to watch Crowkisser. She’s pulled herself together a little. Still busy with Icecaller’s corpse, her hands moving like a musician, the thinnest strands of blood threading their way from her fingertips and down into the hideous rents in the girl’s flesh, pulling them tight.
Shipwright nudges Shroudweaver, leaning her chin in close. ‘What do you think she’s doing?’
He shrugs, watching his daughter’s fingers dance. ‘The spirit’s long gone. I felt it go.’ He knuckles at his eyes, sighs. ‘There’s nothing left to save.’
Shipwright rubs her cheeks, winces. ‘Awful. I think I could have started to like her.’
He laughs. ‘Well, then she was doomed anyway.’
She digs, swishes, spits a piece of tooth into the soil. ‘Hey. Not nice.’ She slides a bit closer and puts a protective arm around his shoulders, fingers absently working at knots in his neck. Lowering her voice, she asks, ‘What are we going to do about your daughter?’
He shrugs. ‘I thought I’d have to kill her.’
She kisses the side of his head. ‘And now?’
His words are slow. ‘I’m not sure. I need answers. She’s not what I expected. She’s a lot more …’
‘Human?’ Shipwright finishes.
He nods wearily.
She scratches the nape of his neck gently. ‘That’s the trouble with the real world. We’re all human.’
