‘Yes…And what better distraction could we ask for?’ I said. ‘If the graynes are fighting in earnest among themselves they are not going to be looking out for us. There will be
no
faerie hunt.’
‘No? Our escape is as good as made then,’ said Lowly Crows.
‘Men will be too busy lopping off each other’s heads to worry about
how
this deceit came about,’ I said, warming to my cause. ‘And if they come to that conclusion afterwards, well, it will be too late…’
‘Ha…’ The brief mark of a real smile upon Norda’s face could not hide her deeper pain, and was quickly gone. ‘Then I have only one more question for you, Rogrig. How do you intend us to escape? I am in no condition to outrun old men, let alone a grayne at arms…You gained this house with persuasion, the wit of your tongue…bribery. Now, most men here believe you foully poisoned and surely dead. You could not pass through its locked gates unchallenged. And, as you see, there is no fight left in me…’ She lowered her head, stood before me, decrepit. Her point was proven without further debate, or description. ‘Or perhaps, like your unusual companion here, we could all sprout wings and simply fly away?’
Lowly Crows was suddenly pecking at my shoulder.
Now there was a good idea.
‘It was a feeble woman’s jest, Rogrig. I was not being serious. Do not make me do this thing.’ I was holding on to Norda Elfwych. In truth, I was forcibly dragging her up the stone steps of the tower of Carraw Peel. That she was racked with pain was obvious. I could not help that. I saw no other way for us to gain our freedom.
I could tell you that I knew how I would get us out all along, or I could tell you that the idea came with Norda’s gentle faerie slight. Either way, I was resigned to it, and Lowly Crows, eager to play her part.
Movement inside the tower was relatively easy. Though the house was far from empty, nobody expected to be attacked from the inside. The greater defences were on the outside; in the courtyard and along the outer defensive wall before the great doorway – where, no doubt, Wint-the-Snoop still kept a weathered eye – and in the armed men of the bastle-houses that stood at points all along the valley, within eye and ear of the peel tower. It required little thought. If we intended to escape with our lives, we needed another way out: a route that did not involve us going back the way we had come.
For the most, the servants of the house we came upon stood rigidly afraid at our approach. Those still with their wits about them quickly withdrew and without raising the alarm. They had no wish to choose sides. And I had not the stomach or the desire to dispatch them, and let them flee. Even the few men at arms recoiled – I was still a Wishard, after all – uncertain of my intent until I levelled my sword in their direction. There was death then, I will not deny it. One man took a cracking blow to his head and the point of my sword skewered his gut, though not before he had made a flailing run at us first. I left another man to bleed out – a member of the Old-man’s Council – sprawled upon the stone stairs, the dagger’s arse pinned to his back.
The tower of Carraw Peel was built to a common pattern and a simple construction. It was a square stone tower with a wooden stair from the ground floor to the Great Hall (which could be broken up in a storm) and then a stone spiral staircase all the way to the roof. There were chambers, mostly bed-robes on each floor, with The Graynelord’s finest apartments at the very top.
We climbed ever upwards, wanting only the roof – where there was a platform below the parapet, wide enough for men to stand guard and keep a watch across the wide open valley in front of them. As it turned out, the Old-man, or perhaps his Council, had been a confident leader: when we came upon it, at last, the roof was deserted. There were no men keeping the watch this day.
Lowly Crows knew what she was about. She took flight, leapt from my shoulder the instant she saw the first hint of blue sky above her, and before we were fully through the trapdoor that opened onto the roof. She flew directly towards the sun and was quickly a tiny black scratch, difficult to find there.
Beside me Norda Elfwych began to pull herself free of my supporting arm. Though she was ever an unwilling accomplice, breathless at the climb and sickening with it, she was determined to stand her own ground. (Do not measure courage by strength of arms alone, my friend.) I let go my grasp, if a little reluctantly.
And then, after what seemed to be only the briefest pause, Lowly Crows was returning to us. The sky above the tower had been almost clear blue. Suddenly, a brooding, rolling storm cloud engulfed the rooftop of Carraw Peel, blocking out the sun. There was no sound yet; only a vast movement of air, as perhaps a thousand pairs of wings silently beat in perfect unison. Not a thunder cloud then, but birds: countless black birds. This was a great murder of crows.
Then, together, as a single body, they came clattering down upon the roof of the tower, each bird seeking its perch at the exact same moment, and landing perfectly. I will admit, the racket of raking claws upon the stone roof, the sudden shriek as, in unison, they each let go a terrible cry, had our hands upon our ears and a cold shiver running down my spine.
In the courtyard below us there was instant commotion. Armed men were running aimlessly about the walls, pointing at us with drawn swords, calling to their fortunes, to their fellows, to their Graynelord, but helpless to act. A pair of bowmen loosed a string of arrows towards us. It was a futile gesture. The best of their willows clattered harmlessly against the wall of the stone tower, a good body length below us; struck like feeble fell-flies trying to break the leather-hard skin of a seasoned hobby-horse. At my back there was a vacant iron bar bell, swinging aimlessly in the wind, waiting to be rung out. I took a hold of it, held it still. There would be no alarm raised.
Lowly Crows was once more resting on my shoulder.
‘Just exactly how many birds are you?’ I said.
‘Exactly?’ she replied, enigmatically. ‘All of them. Shall we go?’
Norda Elfwych was beginning to make some dreadful noises of her own; pitiful wild shrieks that skewered the air, now that she was certain of what we were about.
‘How far do you think you can take us?’ I asked the crow. From the top of the tower the ground looked an awfully long way down. A man’s body is a feeble package. Dropped bones break easily.
‘Far enough, I think…’ she said. Only she paused, and gave me her rook’s eye. ‘We can probably carry you out of this valley and across the banks of the River Winding. After that, we shall have to see…’
‘Probably…’ It was not a retort; I was musing to myself. ‘All right then…’
The birds fell upon us, engulfed us. All at once, and in a single motion, rising from their rooftop perches. It felt not unlike the fierce smack of a frigid ocean wave. They picked at our clothes, tugged at our hair, tore at our skin, let go again only to search for a better grip and to take a firmer hold. It was a violent rescue. It was desperate. There was no part of my body that did not feel the hurt of their intrusion. Common instinct made me reach for my sword as if I were attacked. It took all of my wit to stay my arm.
I heard Norda’s feeble crying, lost it again among the squeals of the birds. Briefly, I saw her raise her arms as if to protect her eyes and face from the onslaught. I saw the lines of fine cuts open up upon her skin where countless agitated claws – in all innocence – took a hold and left an accidental reminder.
I felt the same incisions upon my own skin. I tasted a sweet run of blood upon my lips.
Suddenly I was lifted up; my feet were over my head. My arms were pulled out before me, and my fingers taken up as if the birds were lifting up the branches of a young tree. I felt my body hauled across the stonework of the tower-house roof. Damaging both, I feared, pulling loose stones free, sending them clattering to the ground, far below me. Then there was the sudden emptiness of open air; the brutal slap of the wind.
I was carried. I was dropped. Then diving, tipple-tail…Down. And down. And down again.
Frantic wings were beating, thrashing the air into turmoil.
And all the while the urgent squeals, the involuntary cries of the birds resounded, drowned out all else, as they took the strain, and felt the agonising weight of my torpid body – that was doing its best to drag them all to the ground and a certain death.
I closed my eyes against it – I admit my cowardly failing – only to feel myself rising through the air again. The cries of the birds grew louder still, as they gained the measure of the flight and at last carried me upwards and onwards; far beyond the great tower of Carraw Peel and out across the valley.
I was flying.
I was flying!
And the whole of my world was laid out before me.
For one glorious moment I could see all the way to the Great Sea; and to the rim of the distant mountains at our country’s heart, with the black-headed mountain, Earthrise, at their centre. I could see green fells, and the white of snow, and the yellow of a shoreline. I was dazzled by a sun reflected in the broken, surprisingly watery, face of the Wycken Mire. How strangely beautiful it all was. No danger there now. All was safe. I saw scatters of black stone, little more than tiny pebbles; no doubt the tower-houses and the bastles of the graynes, picked out perfectly against the green earth, and here and there among the first of the winter snow. How I envied the birds for this; their private world view…And I began to understand a little more of our Lowly Crows.
Then, of a sudden, the flight was over. The rescue was done with. The birds brought me back to earth. Where I fell, the birds fell with me. I hit the ground hard and landed in an awkward manner. My head caught a glancing blow against rock. I was gashed and I was winded, and a little broken, no doubt. My breath was stolen away. It caught in painful snatches, a long while after.
The birds let go their grip of me. They scattered themselves across the green sunlit fells, appearing to cast a dark shadow there so great was their number.
My head hurt, and was still spinning from the flight. The world was turning about me, and in an odd fashion, though I was now firmly rooted to the ground. I realized I had closed my fists about a clump of meadow grass; as if, without an anchor, I was sure to fly away again. It was some time before my eyes settled and I was able to sit up; though not without giddiness.
I looked about for Norda Elfwych, mindful of the remains I might find there.
Only, it was another strange sight that stayed my eyes before I found her out.
High upon that rising fell there was a lonely stand of trees and of a truly uncommon kind I could not name.
The trees were tall and bare-branched and rubbed shoulders, groaning softly as they caught against each other in the wind. Much of their bark had been scraped away revealing bare wood. They stood like a great crowd of wild men; their naked arms held up high and wide, and they were waving. The trees were always waving…
There, at last, I saw Norda Elfwych.
She had landed a little way off and appeared to be crouched upon all fours. Her head was lolling forward, her skein of rats-tail hair, lank and matted and wet, trailed upon the ground there. I could still see one side of her battered face. She looked both ill and befuddled, but at least she was alive. (Can a man hate so much, and yet still find pity in his heart…more, a kindling of respect? I hope so.)
It was the odd behaviour of the crows that next drew my attention.
Where they had landed, they had become very quiet and very still. Only the odd wing moved, tweaked by its owner or the wind. It occurred to me then, what a great thing it was they had done for us: however many their number, they had carried the full weight of a grown man – aye, and a woman, too – for several miles across the sky. If the act had all but finished us, what had it meant for them? We were forever beholden.
How long it took I do not recall, but at last the birds began to move again. First one, and then another, roused itself and, not without a struggle, took to the air once more. Slowly, others followed…A few held themselves in flight, confident in their strength, but the most turned again for the Lonely Trees and resettled there among the branches. And as they did, the arms of the trees settled too, and became easy, even if the wind still blew. The birds had surely come home.
Only Lowly Crows came to me; she fluttered down beside me, obviously exhausted at the flight, and yet agitated and purposeful. I would have seen the woman then, only, the bird persisted. She regarded me thoughtfully and rook-eyed.
‘We will rest here only a short while, and then we must leave you, Rogrig,’ she said.
‘We?’
‘I think you will be safe here, if you are strong enough?’
I glanced towards Norda, before I answered. She had slumped forwards, and was struggling to hold her head off the ground with one supporting arm. There was a string of spew trailing from her mouth.
‘Yes…’ I said to Lowly Crows, though I knew it to be a weedling lie. ‘Go, and do what you must.’
‘There are rumours to be cast upon the wind…Have you not heard them, Rogrig? Your Graynelord is dead, his final rule a deceit, and the conspiracy of his Council is unmasked…The graynes must be told of this treachery, and a bird can more quickly spread the tale than a man’s word of mouth alone. Eh?’
‘Then, give your story wings…’ I said, forcing a smile.
Lowly Crows spread her own wings as if in response. ‘Say something often enough, spread a rumour wide enough, hear it repeated back, and it is amazing how easily – how quickly – it is believed.’
‘And if it also happens to be the accepted truth?’ I said.
‘All the better for that, my friend…Just not essential!’ She turned herself about, looking quietly between Norda and myself as if to satisfy herself of something.
‘It will be easier for our greater company to travel unnoticed behind the shadows of a rising war,’ she said. ‘When the whole world is out upon a Riding, no one is going to notice a little extra dust upon the road…Eh?’
‘Not even Faerie Dust,’ I said. Our sudden burst of laughter was real.
To her word, the birds’ respite was short enough.
Lowly Crows took off, still weary; she had to beat her wings hard to lift herself into the sky. She was quickly followed into the air by the last of her kin. The Lonely Trees emptied with a great flourish. And the fell rapidly cleared. I would have lost sight of her among the body of her fellows if I had not come to recognize the distinctive shape of her wings…and heard her voice, calling back to me. I watched the crows until they were quite distant.
Only, not all of the black shapes on the ground had roused themselves to flight. There were as many that had not moved at all, were done for. As she flew higher, Lowly Crow’s birdsong grew distant and faint, until there was nothing at all.
Inside my head, as if in sympathy, the shadow-voices too drew silent. The only sounds were the waving branches of the Lonely Trees, groaning again, and the cuss of the wind as it caught the broken flight feathers of the black shapes left behind, forlorn, upon the fell.
I gave in then, to my sorely body, and I lay my head down upon the cool grass. I closed my eyes for just a moment’s rest…for just a moment.