A Dirge for Princes. Морган Райс
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.
He killed the first man without stopping, plunging his sword deep and then wrenching it clear. He kicked the next to the ground, then finished him with a sweeping stroke of his blade. He snatched up the man’s musket with one hand and fired it, using the sight of his crows to tell him where to aim.
He plunged forward into a cluster of men hiding behind a barricade of sand. Against the slow advance of his forces, it might have been enough to delay them, creating time for more men to come to bear. Against his wild charge, it made no difference. The Master of Crows leapt the sand walls, jumping into the midst of his enemies and cutting in every direction.
His men would be following behind, even if he had no concentration to spare to look through the eyes of his crows for them. He was too busy parrying sword strokes and axe blows, striking back with vicious efficiency.
Now his men were there, pouring over the sand barricades like the incoming tide. They died as they did it, but now it didn’t matter to them, so long as they were there with their leader. It was what the Master of Crows had been counting on. They showed surprising loyalty for men who were little more than crow food to him.
With their numbers behind him, it wasn’t long before the defenders were dead, and the Master of Crows let his men push forward toward the village.
“Go,” he said. “Slaughter them for their defiance.”
He watched the rest of the landings for a few minutes more, but there didn’t seem to be any other major choke points. He had chosen his spot well.
By the time the Master of Crows reached the village, parts of it were already aflame. His men were moving through the streets, cutting down any of the villagers they found. Most were, anyway. The Master of Crows saw one dragging a young woman from the village, her fear matched only by the soldier’s obvious enjoyment of it.
“What are you doing?” he asked as he got closer.
The man stared at him in shock. “I… I saw this one, my lord, and I thought – ”
“You thought you’d keep her,” the Master of Crows finished for him.
“Well, she’d fetch a fine price in the right place.” The soldier dared a smile that seemed designed to make the two of them part of some grand conspiracy.
“I see,” he said. “I did not order that though. Did I?”
“My lord – ” the soldier began, but the Master of Crows was already raising a pistol. He fired it so close that the other man’s features all but disappeared in the blast of it. The young woman beside him seemed too shocked even to scream as her attacker fell.
“It is important that my men learn to act in accordance with my orders,” the Master of Crows said to the woman. “There are places where I allow captives, and others where it is agreed that none but the gifted are to be harmed. It is important that discipline is maintained.”
The woman looked hopeful then, as if thinking that this was all some mistake, in spite of the depredations of the others in the village. She looked that way right up to the point when the Master of Crows thrust his sword through her heart, the thrust sure and clean, probably even painless.
“In this case, I gave your men a choice, and they made it,” he said as she clutched at the weapon. He pulled it out, and she fell. “It is a choice I intend to give much of the rest of this kingdom. Perhaps they will choose more wisely.”
He