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Black birds came out of the west.
The scent of death came with them.
They flew into the woodland behind Inkeri’s cottage and invaded the pines with raucous cries. They fluttered from tree to tree, branch to branch, crows with their sharp claws, the deeper croaks of ravens, the bitter complaints of jackdaws. Unable to settle, they lifted into the air, swirled about then returned to the pines. Their noise drove away the songbirds.
With their coming, Inkeri stopped weeding her garden and sat on her heels to watch. Black bodies burdened the pine branches. Silhouetted against green needles and blue sky, they spoke of blood and pain, well feasted on danger and death.
She didn’t sense anything more—nor anything close.
Inkeri gathered up the pulled weeds and carried them to the compost pile. Her garden with its healing herbs and vegetables was her livelihood, and the bounty required constant work.
Yet she knew omens. This one demanded attention.
Drawing a bucket from the well, she watered parts of the garden with wilted leaves. The last bucket she drew, she carried beyond her garden fence, to the shallow depression lined with rocks, mottled brown in these dry days of late summer. In wet winter and early summer, the creek ran sparkling fast, the rocks clean and dark. Now they were dusty dry, imbedded in the dry river mud.
Inkeri poured the water then dove her fingers into it before the thirsty soil absorbed it. A flash of power, and the water increased to a freshet spate as strong as a winter stream. She kept the power churning more water, her elemental magic feeding on itself.
And the black birds responded. They rose in a rush, their wings a gust as they swooped to the water. A few fluttered around, but most avoided her, soaring downstream to land in the water and dip in their sharp beaks to drink.
When she withdrew her fingers, the rushet died. Her movement drove away many birds. Others left as the stream vanished, the last trickle sinking into the thirsty soil.
She searched along the rapidly drying streambed until she found a black feather. Crow’s, still awake and alive from its connection to the black bird, a droplet of water still clinging as she lifted it from the drying rocks.
The droplet of water fed her power. She opened her senses to the feather’s fading memory.
Crow’s perspective was strange, angled away from what a person would view. Rush of black wings of other birds, rapacious and restless. The piercing jab into pale skin. Flickering flashes as bright as the sun swept across sight, blinding intensity that quickly vanished. The raking of talons to reach cold flesh.
Engorged on death, too heavy to lift, the crow strode across sand. The sun blazed, heating the pale grains, paler than greying flesh. A red rock bluff loomed—.
The memory died before Inkeri snared its meaning. She dropped the feather. Then she shielded her eyes from the late afternoon sun and squinted at the scores of birds roosting in the pines.
The birds watched her.
They had fed on the dead. She didn’t know how many had died. Or where.
Inkeri carried the bucket back to her well and drew water for her evening. One bucket into a basin for her ablutions, a second into a ceramic ewer for her cooking, a third into a jug for convenience. Then she continued with her last chores.
Only as she poured out the soapy water onto the rosemary beside her door did she identify those strange flickering flashes.
Metal. Swords. Armor.
Soldiers had fought and died in the desert.
The red rock cliffs—she recognized them. Deep in the desert, the red rocks of Madriger Head loomed over the flat sands. Flanking on the north was the striated bulk of Helmed Forsis. To the south was the cleaved mass of Saet’Idros Archais. Old places, old memories, rarely used now by the humans but stolid and fixed in the memory of Faeron.
Beyond Madriger were the Shifting Lands, the enchanted border to the Wastes.
The abandoned fortress of Archais had once housed Lucent Fae, wizards, and human soldiers, an outpost that monitored a crossing into the Shining Lands and thence to the Wastes. There, the defeated of the Dragon Dark were banished. Fae Magic had locked the entrance generations ago, before Inkeri’s Fae father was birthed, long before Rossik had fallen for a human healer and impregnated her, long before Inkeri opened her eyes to a world that no longer welcomed Fae intervention in human lives.
The Fae had retreated inside the realms of Faeron to the north.
The old outposts and citadels were abandoned.
The dangers of Dragon Dark became legends and myths to entertain humans and scare their offspring.
Yet at the broken gates of Saet’Idros Archais, a battle had waged.
Fae against humans?
Fae with humans against a common foe?
Inkeri had heard nothing on her last venture into Olheim. The village had likely heard nothing in these past ten days.
The black birds had.
A journey from here to the Archais was three days’ steady walking, half that on horseback, a half day’s flight by well-fed birds.
Idros Ahdreide was arid desert with few waterholes between here and Madriger Head. Not only must she guard her water for drinking, but she must always hoard some to serve her elemental power. Without that, she had only the defenses of any Naught, her wits and keen steel.
Yet she had to investigate. Now that Inkeri knew of lurking danger, she could not wait for it to choose its time to attack.
She would set out in the morning.
. ~ . ~ . ~ .
Men had fought and died. Rhodren, baron of the Bois Argent, didn’t need an Enclave wizard to tell him that.
He unbuckled his swordbelt and laid it on the small table at the window. Warmth and light from a brazier kept the desert night at bay. The height of summer it may be, yet the desert chilled at night, reaching a wintry cold.
From an inner pocket of his brigantine he drew an enameled sigil. Its colors were dull and shadowed as the room, even when he tilted it to catch the brazier’s light. When fired magically by the lord’s ring and two drops of blood, one from the lord and the other from a captain, the sigil bespoke a troop’s haleness while away from the lord. An old method, used when no other communication between a lord and his men was possible. Rhodren hadn’t expected the ancient device to work. Itt had flared when he dropped his blood into the well on the back, proving the old records correct. Captain Walsing’s blood had created a greater and steadier light.
He'd performed the ritual ten days ago, the morning that Walsing and a troop rode from the manor, off to investigate rumors of a destroyed caravan and the misadventure of another baron’s troop, vanished during full moon weeks before.
A wizard brought news of the disappearance and demanded aid.
Then, three days ago, as Rhodren tried to worm more information from the wizard, the magical sigil linked to Captain Walsing had flickered and died.
He didn’t know the wizard and owed no allegiance to the Enclave in distant Mont Nouris. He was a baron of the western Argent, loyal to the Golden Crown. The Argent king kept ties to the Enclave and to Faeron, yet he had signed no treaties of alliance.
Only fools crossed any wealth of magic.
So Rhodren welcomed the wizard, he sent out a troop, and he tried to gain more information.
Then the sigil had died.
He cursed and flung the enameled disk down, on the table beside his discarded sword.
A sharp triple-rap came on the door. “Enter,” Rhodren called and removed the knives from his wrist braces.
The door opened, revealing Marshal Gaulter. The white-haired veteran stepped inside and pressed the door shut. “Lock this, my lord. Or drop the bar,” he added since this Olheim tavern had no locks to its doors.
Rhodren drew the knife from his right boot. “You stationed two guards outside my door. They stand there now.”
“Guards can be suborned.”
He grunted and reached for the knife in his left boot. “How fares the wizard?” The man had not wanted to accompany them when the sigil failed, proof the troop was lost.
“He remains adamant that he will not journey into the Idros Ahdreide, my lord.”
Rhodren snorted. The wizard had argued that he was merely an emissary when informed he would ride with them to the Archais. He complained in the morning, when he was confronted with his saddled horse and told to mount and ride, and in the noon hour when they stopped for a break. Every evening and morning since as they rode to the verges of the border of Idros Ahdreide, he protested. He claimed the land alien to him, that he didn’t know how to fight the beasts of the desert.
Nor did Rhodren. Two days ago they left the lush pastures and forests he knew and ascended a hot, dry plateau. The eastern edge was rolling grassland with narrow strips of pine forests tucked into rocky soil. The grasses became sparse the farther west they rode, pocked with woodsy shrubs. The bird calls were raucous; the rodents, bigger and tawny; the cattle herded by the holders had thick pelts on the shoulders and curving horns as long as a sword.
None of them knew this land, and whatever danger lurked was westward, in yet stranger lands. Rhodren would not enter it without a magic wielder at his side.
Now he picked up Gaulter’s words and turned them to his use. “I remain adamant that I will not send another troop into unknown danger. Nor should this wizard wish us to have another troop confront an unknown danger. He has hinted at evil forces. I will know this evil before I risk more men.”
The marshal’s scuffed boots shifted uneasily on the worn floorboards. “Should it be Frost Clime,” he advanced slowly, expressing every human soldier’s fear.
“You think they have left their attack on Channerro Pass and come weeks upon weeks south merely to prey upon a merchant caravan and a troop?” Rhodren shook his head. “No, that didn’t happen. This isn’t a sortie far from the main battle.”
“I would not think so, my lord. Would be a waste of resources. Yet who knows how a sorcerer’s mind works? We have no doubt that was foul magic.”
“Thus the wizard rides with us.” Rhodren knew the veteran had doubts that a second troop could learn more than the first. They both had no trust or faith in Enclave wizardry, trusting to their swords more than magic they’d never seen wielded.
He had still racked his brain for a second source of power, to venture with them into the unknown danger.
“Might not be foul magic, my lord. Might be outlaws, banded together to make common cause and increase their loot.”
“Outlaws will only follow a strong leader.” He preferred outlaws as the danger, but he doubted they had taken down both a caravan and a score of men. “If a leader has gathered them into a ragged troop, why have they not attacked the border villages? We’ve had no word of an attack on a village or an outlying hold. You asked the host, aye? Did you manage to discover what the elder knows?”
Gaulter grimaced his wealth of weathered wrinkles. “He has not yet driven in his flock, but his woman swore he would return by darkfall. I’ll see him next, my lord.” He scratched the scruff along his jawline. “The men fear that a sorcerer has built a stronghold in the Ahdreide.”
“Then the wizard should have sensed the reek of evil.”
The marshal nodded yet said nothing, merely stared at the floor.
“Or sentinels from Faeron would have ridden through both the Bois and the Verte Argent on their way to stamp out an enemy. We have heard nothing of that sort, Gaulter. Tell the men.”
“I’ll pass the word, but—.”
“Out with it,” Rhodren demanded. He wasn’t used to Gaulter’s unwillingness to speak. Never before had the man shown indecision, not once in Rhodren’s years as baron, not when his father had wielded the baron’s rod. What made Gaulter reluctant now?
“I would wish it were outlaws, my lord, but I agree with your thinking that it’s not. Nor do I believe it is sorcery, no matter the men’s fears. But what could wipe out so many armed men? A full troop. The caravan had hired guards. Did any word come from the baron Verte Argent before we left?”
“You know it did not. Only the first message, brought by the wizard, that he had lost a score of men to an unknown enemy.”
Gaulter nodded and kept nodding. “Will that be all, my lord?”
Rhodren studied him. Something had shaken the stalwart, but he couldn’t divine what it was. Yet Gaulter would not admit any weakness to his lord. “Unless you have word of another magic wielder, then that is all. Our wizard’s reluctance concerns me. Another magic wielder would settle those concerns. Ask this elder when you question him further as well as our host.”
“I will, my lord. I will continue my inquiries.”
“Make your questions subtle, man. The Argent has no law against magic wielders, but we are near to lands that do. We have no idea how this village believes.”
Gaulter bowed and backed to the door. He stopped with his hand on the simple lever that kept the door closed. “The bar, my lord.”
“Our troubles are greater than outlaws that would sneak in an assassin.” Before the veteran could argue, he added, “I will drop it in place before I retire.”
“Shutter the windows also.” Again the man hesitated, then he dared, “You have no heir, my lord. The Bois Argent depends solely upon you.”
Rhodren grimaced, for he did have an heir, just not one that his people wanted. His cousin was not well liked. Rhodren shuddered at what Jandrou would bring to pass if he ruled the Bois Argent. “I will take precautions,” he agreed.
Marshal Gaulter bowed again then stepped from the room.
As he lifted the heavy bar for the slots, Rhodren heard the marshal speaking to the guards, likely waiting for the thud of the bar into place. He dropped it hard before he went to fasten the shutters.
He stood awhile at the window, looking west, into the Ahdreide, thinking not of the lurking evil alone but of Gaulter’s last caution. You have no heir. The words tangled with what he knew of the Baron Verte Argent.
The old baron had a new wife and a new babe for heir. When the Argent king requested the Verte investigate the lost caravan, the baron claimed that he would not leave his newborn heir, yet he would send a troop. Then word came that the troop was lost. When the king requested another investigation, the baron risked his desmesne by refusing. He complained that he had sacrificed one troop; he would not send another into the desert wilderness, for that would weaken his castle defenses. Then, with sly diplomacy, he pointed out that the Bois Argent had fought hard in the war against the invading Cortes forces. The Argent king had heaped honors upon Rhodren and his men. The baron Verte argued for experienced veterans to investigate the mysterious dangers in the Idros Ahdreide.
The king had not argued with the baron Verte. He had not ordered the baron obey him. For an unknown reason, he hadn’t risked outright refusal. Instead, the king sent the wizard with a sealed scroll ordering the Bois to complete the mission.
Rhodren wondered anew at the politics that kept the Argent king from ordering the baron Verte. All his speculations mattered for naught, though. The Bois rode at the king’s command.
Before he sent the first troop to investigate, Rhodren obeyed a strange prickling instinct. He had fetched the old seal, read the document enclosed in the coffer for instructions, then fired the seal with his blood and Walsing’s blood.
He hadn’t expected the seal to turn dark.
To cross into the Ahdreide, they had traveled south. Tomorrow they would follow the path into the desert. He reckoned another day and long before they reached the Saet’Idros Archais, the old stronghold where the wizard had pinpointed the seat of the evil.
What evil would they find there? He couldn’t guess.
Yet he dreamed that night of crows.
