Voice of Crow (4 page)

Filip surfaced from a dense gray mind mist. A man was dying. Lights bobbed into the room and fixed themselves near the screamer, on the wall to his right. Pain and fear infused the shrieks, but Filip found neither of these feelings in himself. The gods had blessed him with fog.

Other voices mingled with the screamer’s, shouting something about breathing or not breathing. A yellow glow flared like a ball of sunshine in the middle of the night.

The fog enveloped him, dimming the noise to a distant, meaningless cacophony.

When Filip woke again, light sifted through a nearby window. Birds chattered. He wanted to go back to sleep but couldn’t remember why. Something waited for him there. Something good.

The sound of labored breathing came from his right. The man hadn’t died, not yet. They were alone.

“Awake?” Filip whispered with dry, tight lips. No response. “Who are you?”

The breath changed rhythm and turned into a wheeze. “G-G—” The man’s throat choked on his own name.

“Never mind. Sleep.”

Filip tried to move his fingers. As they brushed the blanket to touch his hip, the light pressure sparked an itch that lay all over, everywhere and nowhere. When he scratched his nose, the skin felt rubbery, as if the nerves lay far beneath it.

Numb. Good.

Dark again.

In his dreams he ran—sometimes across fields, but more often in back alleys, through markets, dashing home in time for dinner to avoid the lash or racing his brother from one side of LetusPark to the other.
Loser gets a punch in the arm.

Before the fog, what was there? Fire, he remembered. A fever inside him, raging up the left side of his body. Then came the sweet, damp cloth that held blissful release, and now…

He was awake, knew his name and knew he was staring at a white stucco ceiling with wooden rafters. He knew his older brother had died facedown in a flood of blood and bile, yet the memory did not skewer him today as it had before. A cloak of what must be opium cushioned his feelings.

His left foot itched. A great weight seemed to sit on his chest, keeping him from reaching down to scratch, so he tilted his right foot to rub the itchy spot.

Which wasn’t there. Why? Curiosity followed him into his dreams. He ran.

That night the other man died in his sleep. One moment he was breathing—the next, not. Filip knew he should call out to alert someone, but his throat was too dry and sticky to utter more than a whisper. Instead he lay there, marveling that one who had struggled so fiercely should end his life so peacefully, like an old horse lying down in the pasture.

Sleep again, and when he woke the man was gone. Filip’s stomach growled, a protest itself against death.

“Awake, I see,” said a woman’s voice from what appeared to be a door. He remembered now; this was Zelia, the Asermon healer who had treated him after the battle.

The battle.

“I’ll bring you breakfast in a moment,” she said, “but first there’s something I need to tell you. Something hard.”

Filip’s mind flooded with memories of pain and fever—and the place they came from.

“No…” he said, in a voice too much like a child’s.

“You’re going to live.” A blurry face appeared over him, framed by loose strands of brown-gray hair.

With effort he bent his right leg, angling his foot into the space in his bed where
it
should be.

He began to quake. “You should have let me die.” He clutched at the blanket, wanting to tear it in half. “Why didn’t you let me die?”

“You wouldn’t be alive if your Spirit didn’t want to stay. I’ve seen stronger men than you give up.”

“Like him?” He jerked his chin to the right. “Why couldn’t you save him?”

“He’d taken a sword to the stomach. Things inside were too mixed up to ever be put right again. It was a matter of time.”

“Why couldn’t you use your precious magic to save him? Why couldn’t you use magic to save
this?
” He hurled off his blanket to see a scarred stump, all that remained of his left leg below the knee. He stared at the blunt monstrosity, laced with hideous black stitches that looked like sleeping spiders. He stared at it as if it belonged to someone else, someone he would spit upon in the street. “Where were your Spirits?” he whispered.

Zelia picked his blanket off the floor and held it in her hands. “I assure you, I did all I could, with Otter’s help.” She clasped the small carved otter hanging around her neck.

“Not as much as you would have done for one of your own.” He couldn’t blame her; an enemy’s life wasn’t worth much. “Your Otter Spirit is either weak or vindictive. Or both.” Just like our gods, he thought.

“Otter loves all people under Her care equally.” Zelia’s brow lowered. “If only the same could be said for me.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, though he could guess.

“Your people killed my nephew, my first cousin on my mother’s side, my second cousin on my father’s side, my brother-in-law, my neighbor two doors down, my best friend’s oldest son—shall I go on?”

He tore his gaze from her harsh face. “I didn’t kill anyone in that battle. It wasn’t me.”

She leaned closer. “I didn’t kill anyone, either. Remember that, my boy, before you accuse me of negligence, and maybe we’ll get along until you can walk out of here.”

“Walk?” He yanked the blanket from her hands and covered himself. A lock of filthy blond hair fell in his eyes. “I’ll never walk again.”

“Not true. We can fit you with a substitute made of steel and leather. If you decide to stay, that is.”

Decide
to stay? A sea-size emptiness gaped within him. Everything he knew, everything he was, had been ripped away in one moment.

He could never return home.

A door slammed in an adjoining room. Heavy footsteps roamed the wooden floor, and Filip’s defenses went on the alert.

A lanky, sandy-haired young man stomped into the room. “Are you one of them?”

Zelia stood between the bed and the door, arms crossed over her chest. “And who might you be, barging in here without my permission?”

“This is the Descendants’ hospital, right? Then he must be one of them.” His thin lip curled at Filip, who suddenly realized how weak the opium had left him.

“They have sanctuary here,” Zelia said, “until Galen and the rest of the Council decide what to do with them.”

“How about this—tie rocks around their ankles and dump them in the river.”

“And who are you?”

“Adrek the Cougar. I’ve come from Kalindos to report the latest Descendant slaughter.”

That name again,
Descendants.
Filip yearned for a dagger to slice the word out of this man’s throat.

Zelia planted her hands on her hips. “You’re in the wrong place, Adrek. You should give your report to Galen.”

“I did. He told me you were harboring the enemy here, that I could speak to one of them.”

“I’m not harboring the enemy. I’m treating patients.” She widened her protective stance at the end of Filip’s bed.

Adrek hardened his gaze on her. “They came to Kalindos, four nights ago. Killed our elders. Killed my father. Took everyone.” His breath made his words shake. “Hundred and seventy people, gone, in the middle of the night.”

Filip’s face burned, and not from lingering fever. He’d heard of Kalindos—his army’s intelligence had described it as a tiny, worthless forest village needing few defenses. It had nothing worth conquering, nothing worth stealing. Nothing but people. Filip’s commander was as brutal as he was incompetent, and had now brought shame and dishonor to all of Ilios.

Zelia gave both men a look of astonishment, then turned back to Adrek. “Why would the Descendants attack your village?”

“Because we helped you win your battle against them. Turned out to be a mistake.”

“Nonetheless, I won’t let you harm one of my patients.”

Filip almost laughed. She couldn’t stop this Adrek person from killing him, and shouldn’t. Better to die by an enemy’s hands than live like an old man at twenty-one.

Adrek stepped around Zelia and brought forth a small leather bag. Before she could stop him, he dumped its contents on top of Filip. Several small pieces of metal rolled off to clang on the floor. “What are these things?”

Willing his hand not to shake, Filip picked up the rigid red-and-yellow ribbon that lay on his chest. It seemed like an artifact from a long-lost world. “They’re nothing,” he whispered.

“Nothing?” Adrek scooped up the pieces that had fallen, then tossed them into Filip’s lap. “Your people left them behind when they massacred my village. They go on uniforms, right? They’re not nothing.”

“I didn’t mean it that way.” Subtlety was lost on this fellow. “Yes, you’re right. They signify ranks and awards and—” He folded his fingers around the ribbon, though he wanted to toss it away “—it shows where they belong.”

“So where do they belong? Where can we find them?”

Filip sifted through the medals and rank insignia until he found a silver button, the kind worn on the outside of the soldiers’ sleeves. “Second battalion.” He sneered. “Not mine.” He tossed it back to Adrek, who snatched it out of the air.

“But you know where they’re based, right?” he said.

Filip turned his head away and said nothing.

“They took my daughter.” Adrek’s voice cracked on the last word. “Where is she?”

“How should I know?”

“You know where these soldiers are from.”

“Somewhere near Leukos.”

“I know that already! Where?”

Filip stared at the cobweb in the corner of the ceiling. “I was first battalion. We wouldn’t have bothered with defenseless, insignificant people like you.”

Adrek held up the button. “These men bothered. Where are they based?”

Filip rubbed the ribbon between his fingers, contemplating what little honor he had left. “East of Leukos, not far. But they’ll bring the prisoners through the city and process them there. They might not even be brought back to the base at all.”

“What will they do with her?”

It took Filip a moment to remember who Adrek was talking about. “How old is your daughter?”

“Barely two.” His jaw muscles tightened and bulged. “They won’t take her from her mother, will they?”

He looked at Adrek’s hands, stiff fingers opening and closing, and wondered what it would take to get them around his throat. Despite the man’s overall leanness, his bare arms were well-muscled—perhaps he could snap Filip’s neck before Zelia could get help.

“She’s weaned,” Filip said, “so yes, they will separate her as soon as possible. If she’s lucky, well behaved and reasonably cute, they’ll sell her to a wealthy barren couple to raise as their own. She’ll be too young to remember her former life, and she’ll grow up thinking she’s an Ilion.” He stopped, waiting for Adrek to beg for the alternative.

“What if she’s not lucky?”

“Depends how pretty she turns out to be. If she’s nice to look at, they might raise her as a house slave or a—” A twisted impulse of compassion prevented him from finishing the sentence. The thought of the children cowering in Leukos’s high-priced brothels turned his stomach. “If she grows up coarse looking, though—” Filip raked a disdainful gaze over Adrek’s appearance “—which seems likely, it’s off to the fields, or more likely the mines.”

“Mines?” Adrek looked ready to vomit.

“Children can crawl into little spaces that adults can’t. And they eat less, so they’re cheaper to keep. Best of all, they take up less room in the burial pits.”

Adrek blinked rapidly. “The
what?
”

“Individual graves would be too labor-intensive, so they use big pits for the slaves.” He slammed the man’s gaze with his own. “Along with the other beasts.”

Adrek roared and seized Filip by the throat. Filip forced his own hands to clutch the blankets instead of fighting him off. His right shoulder throbbed—from an arrow wound he just now remembered receiving.

Adrek throttled him, slamming his head against the pillow while Zelia screamed and tried to pull him away. As the pain rippled through his neck, Filip realized the man had no idea how to kill a human. This death would not be quick.

Instinct shoved honor aside. Filip’s body bucked. His right heel dug into the mattress, while the remains of his left calf scraped and squirmed. Stitches yanked loose, and he prayed that the warm liquid under his legs was only blood. Yet a vestige of purpose kept him from grabbing his opponent’s neck.

Spittle dripped on his face from Adrek’s incoherent shrieks. Thumbs squashed Filip’s windpipe.

“Adrek!” shouted a woman too young to be Zelia. “What are you doing?” Filip couldn’t see her behind the dancing black circles. The voice came closer. “He’s a prisoner of war. You’ll go to jail.”

“I don’t care,” Adrek said.

“You’ll care when Daria comes back.” The woman was panting, and Filip could feel two opposing forces struggle over him atop his bed. Everything was going dark.

“She’s never coming back.” Adrek’s grip tightened.