Морган Райс: A Dirge for Princes

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean… wait,” Emeline said, turning her head. “See that man there, selling wool? He’s thinking about a time he went there to trade. That woman… her sister went there.”

“So you have a direction for it again?” Cora asked.

She saw Emeline nod. “I think we can find it.”

It wasn’t much of a hope, but it was something. Stonehome still lay ahead, and with it, the prospect of safety.

From above, the invasion looked like the sweep of a wing enfolding the land it touched. The Master of Crows enjoyed that, and he was probably the only one in a position to appreciate it, his crows giving him a perfect view as his ships swept in to shore.

“Perhaps there are other watchers,” he said to himself. “Perhaps the creatures of this island will see what is coming for them.”

“What is that, sir?” a young officer asked. He was bright and blond-haired, his uniform shining with the effort of polishing.

“Nothing you need to be concerned with. Prepare to land.”

The young man hurried off, with the kind of spring in his movements that seemed to long for action. Perhaps he thought himself invulnerable because he fought for the New Army.

“They’re all food for the crows eventually,” the Master of Crows said.

Not today, though, because he had picked his landing sites with care. There were parts of the continent beyond the Knifewater where people shot at crows almost as a matter of course, but here they had yet to learn the habit. His creatures had spread out, showing him the spots where defenders had set cannon and barricades in preparation for an invasion, where they had hidden men and fortified villages. They had created a network of defenses that should have swallowed an invading force whole, but the Master of Crows could see the holes in them.

“Begin,” he commanded, and bugles blared, the sounds carrying across the waves. Landing boats lowered, and a tide of men swept into shore in them. Mostly, they did it in silence, because a player did not announce the placing of his pieces on a gaming board. They spread out, bringing in cannon and supplies, moving swiftly.

Now the violence began, in exactly the ways that he had planned, men creeping around the ambush sites of his enemies to descend on them from the rear, weapons pounding the hidden knots of foes who wanted to stop him. From this distance, it should have been impossible to hear the screams of the dying, or even the musket fire, but his crows relayed everything.

He saw a dozen fronts at once, the violence blooming into multifaceted chaos as it always did in the moments after a conflict had begun. He saw his men charging up a beach into a knot of peasants, swords swinging. He saw horses disembarking while around them, a company fought to maintain its beachhead against a militia armed with agricultural tools. He saw both points of slaughter and hard-fought bravery, although it was hard to tell the two apart.

Through his crows’ eyes, he saw a group of cavalry gathering a little way inland, their breastplates shining in the sun. There were enough that they could potentially punch a hole in his carefully coordinated web of landing sites, and although the Master of Crows doubted they knew the correct spot to strike, he could not take that risk.

He extended his concentration, using his crows to find a suitable officer nearby. To his amusement, he found the young man who had been so eager before. He focused, the effort of making one of the beasts carry his words far greater than simply looking through their eyes.

“There are cavalry north of you,” he said, hearing the croak of the crow’s voice as it repeated the words. “Circle to the ridge to your west and take them as they come for you.”

He didn’t wait for a response, but instead sent the crow into flight, watching from above as the men obeyed his orders. This was what his talent gave him: the ability to see more, to spread his reach further than any normal man could have. Most commanders found themselves mired in the fog of war, or hamstrung by messengers who couldn’t move fast enough. He could coordinate an army with the ease a child might have shown moving tin soldiers around a table.

Below his circling bird, he saw the cavalry come thundering in, looking every inch some elegant army out of legend. He heard the blare of the muskets that started to cut them down, then saw the waiting soldiers charge into them, quickly turning their storybook charge into a thing of blood and death, pain and sudden anguish. The Master of Crows saw man after man fall, including the young officer, caught through the throat by a stray blade.

“All food for the crows,” he said. It didn’t matter; that small battle was won.

He could see a more difficult battle around the dunes that led up toward a small village. One of his commanders hadn’t been fast enough to follow his orders, which meant that the defenders had dug in, holding the route to their village even against the larger force. The Master of Crows stretched, then clambered down into a landing boat.

“To shore,” he said, pointing.

The men with him set to their work with the speed that came from long practice. The Master of Crows watched the progress of the battle as he got closer, hearing the screams of the dying, seeing his forces overwhelm group after group of would-be defenders. It was obvious that the Dowager had ordered the defense of her kingdom, but clearly not well enough.

They reached the shore, and the Master of Crows strode through the battle as if he were taking a stroll. The men around him kept low, muskets raised as they looked for threats, but he walked tall. He knew where his enemies were.

All his enemies. He could already feel the power of this land, and sense the movement in it as some of the more dangerous things there reacted to his arrival. Let them feel him coming. Let them know fear at what was to come.

A small knot of enemy soldiers leapt up from a hiding place behind an upturned boat, and there was no more time to think, only act. He drew a long dueling blade and a pistol in one smooth motion, firing into the face of one of the defenders, then running another through. He swayed aside from an attack, struck back with lethal force, and kept moving.

The dunes were ahead, and the village lay beyond them. Now the Master of Crows could hear the violence without having to resort to his creatures. He could pick out the clash of blade on blade with his own ears, the boom of muskets and pistols echoing as he approached. He could see men struggling with one another, his crows letting him pick out the points where defenders knelt or lay, their weapons trained on anything that approached.

He stood there in the middle of it all, daring them to fire at him.

“You have one chance to live,” he said. “I need this beach, and I am prepared to pay you for it with your lives and those of your families. Lay down your arms and leave. Better yet, join my army. Do these things, and you will survive. Continue to fight, and I will see your homes razed.”

He stood there, waiting for an answer. He got it when a shot rang out, the pain and impact of it slamming through him so hard that he staggered, falling to one knee. Right then, though, there was too much death around to stop him so easily. The crows were being well fed today, and their power would heal anything that did not kill him outright. He pushed power into the wound, closing it as he stood.

“So be it,” he said, and then charged forward.

Ordinarily, he did not do this. It was a foolish way of fighting; an old way that had nothing to do with well-organized armies or efficient tactics. He moved with all the speed that his power gave him, dodging and running as he closed the distance.