The Minstrel Angel Read online



  The Minstrel Angel

  By Shenoa Carroll-Bradd

 

  Text copyright © 2013 Shenoa Carroll-Bradd

  All Rights Reserved

  I am the Magician’s favorite pet. He’s told me so as we’ve hunched over maps, as I’ve fed him, as he’s stroked my wings. He tells me I am beautiful, and I know it is true, for I have seen myself in the polished armor of our foes, and reflected in their dimming eyes. The others he made out of beasts and broken men, but he made me from nothing but his power and his will. I am his wrath made feather and flesh. I am his war angel, and when I descend from the skies, strong men weep.

  I sang this song to myself as cool drafts smoothed back my dark hair, my own words pouring strength into me like molten gold. Evening air rushed against my bare chest as I pumped my wings harder through the gloaming sky, fanning each pinion to the joyful freedom of flight. The stench of horseflesh and campfires prickled my nose long before the enemy camp came into view. The men had packed themselves into the narrow valley like worms in a wound.

  I landed on an escarpment overlooking the camp and set to work memorizing the layout, the smoked silk of my waist-wrap whispering whenever I shifted for a better view. Fewer horses than expected, and not a one meant for war; they were all dreary pack drays hauling wagons of tents and supplies while the soldiers marched holes through their boots.

  I’d watched their progress for days, reporting back to the Magician whenever I could, but I’d never gotten this close before. A breeze brought their scent to me and rattled the bracken at my back, assaulting me with the stink of unwashed desperation.

  The men below skittered like insects, scurrying, jostling, their lives worth nothing.

  The wind shifted and I smelled unwashed soldier once more, stronger this time. Nearer.

  I crouched to launch myself aloft, but the ambush was quicker.

  A net sailed over my head as the soldiers' cries of triumph pierced the air and they fell upon me with cudgels. I saw the soldiers' sweating, sneering faces between blows, and committed each to memory before the darkness took me.

  I awoke in a creaking crow’s cage sometime after the sun had fled, my black wings compressed around my shoulders, my head throbbing an arcane war song. The heavy, bloody scent of iron pressed close around me, and I thanked the Magician that my feathers kept me insulated. Beneath my feet was a rough plank floor, damp and splintery, but a blessing to my bare soles.

  My prison hung a scant meter off the ground, and through the bars I could see the ugly, unshaven faces of men glaring up at me, soldiers illuminated orange by the flickering torches they carried. Three of them I recognized as my attackers. All of them reeked of exhaustion and malice.

  “So,” a hoarse voice sneered. “The spy awakes. Welcome to the righteous side, angel.” A meaty face bristled into view, sweating triumph and stupid pride. The tattered sash over his armor marked him as their captain.

  My grimace of pain curled into a smile. The Magician would be delighted by a gift of this ugly morsel’s head, and, without their leader, this ragged army would crumble like goat cheese.

  Though my head ached, I smothered the pain and made my face carry the lie of wide-eyed innocence. “Thank goodness you found me, I thought I was going to die in that demon camp!”

  A few of the soldiers glanced at each other, my lie probing their minds for a toehold.

  “Don’t be fooled by my appearance,” I pleaded. “They made me into this. Do you think I was born with wings?” I pitched my voice up to the range of the desperate, and more of them shuffled their feet, their faces uncertain.

  All but their captain.

  I bit the inside of my cheek, bringing the dark taste of ichor into my mouth. I used the sting to force tears into my eyes. “They sewed these onto my back,” I said in a choked whisper. “They made me into a monster, like them. Please.”

  Sympathy marked them all as won, except him. Why did my lies slide off his mind?

  “Please,” I tried again. “Free me. Have your medic cut these unholy things off me, and let me join your side. I’ll tell you everything I know…everything I’ve seen.”

  The captain had remained quiet throughout my performance, but now he shifted his weight, and drew closer.

  I bit back a smile. I thought that last lie would snare him. The offer of a military advantage was just too tempting.

  “What were you, before they turned you into this?”

  “A humble potter,” I lied. “I had a wife, Lyann, and a daughter. We were trying for a son. But then that demon army came, and they took me-”

  “Your daughter’s name?” The captain interrupted.

  If he thought he could catch me out in a lie, he was the saddest fool. “Mia,” I said. “Just three years old. She had Lyann’s eyes.”

  The men behind him softened. I could almost hear the thoughts of their own children, their own sweet wives left behind for this life of terror and death.

  “What village were you from?” The captain pressed.

  My mind darted back to the map I’d made as we advanced. What was the name of the last town we’d crushed? Neiman, I thought. Neiman was the last village we left blackened and smoldering.

  “Neiman,” I said, trying again to light my eyes with tears. “I’d given up all hope of seeing it again, until you found me-”

  “Neiman’s gone,” One of the soldiers said. “Torched.” He shuffled his feet like a child in trouble. “We found no survivors.”

  We'd left no survivors. I pretended to choke back tears.

  “Please, let me out of this cage. I’ll tell you everything I know, just let me go back to Neiman. If I could just find some sign of Lyann and Mia, if I could give them a proper burial…”

  The captain stepped forward and spread his hands. “Of course,” he said. “We’ll happily see you off, I’ll even arrange an escort to return you to Neiman. But first, you'll have to let yourself out of that cage.”

  I tilted my head, hoping I’d misheard him, knowing I hadn’t. “Say again?”

  He gestured to the lock. “The cage is closed, but not locked. Just lift the pins and open the door, and you’re free to go.”

  I licked my lips. There was the trap. I could lie them into believing they were princesses in tiaras, but I could not lie myself into handling iron. Their eyes were all on me. I had to try. It’s not iron. I told myself, silently, in my silkiest thoughts. It’s just old steel. It smells like iron because it’s old and dirty, like these soldiers. It’s not iron.

  “Thank you,” I told the captain. “You are so kind, so generous in my time of grief.” I shoved my hands between the bars, my skin already beginning to itch and burn at the proximity. It’s not iron. I told myself, and took hold of the pins. My fingers went numb. The muscles locked down, trapping my hands in position while my skin burned and froze and felt ready to split open. I clenched my teeth and focused on the pins. It’s not iron. My brain screamed, though no one was listening. It’s not iron, just pull the pins. Think of how proud The Magician will be when you arrive at his tent, fresh from the enemy’s hearth…

  The soldiers began to murmur and frown.

  I was losing them. “Please. Have mercy. The demons tortured me in ways I couldn't bear to tell.” I withdrew my trembling hands, clutched them to my chest. As soon as I distanced them from the bars, normal sensation flooded back. I let them continue their pathetic tremble though, and held them up for all to see. “They took my family from me,” I cried, “and my livelihood. What potter can work with hands such as these?”

  “Try again,” The captain said.

  The soldiers nearest him muttered to each other and gave him questioning looks.

/>   “I...I can't,” I said miserably, gazing down at my shaking stricken hands as if I held a drowned kitten.

  “I believe in you,” He said. “Give it another try.”

  “Captain,” said the nearest man. “That seems cruel…”

  The captain cut him off with a raised hand. “For the sake of practice. Let him try.”

  I took a deep breath. It’s not iron. My hands cramped up even faster this time, locking into claws around the pins. I bit my lip too deeply the the throes of determination, tasted ichor, and realized too late that I was bleeding. I could smell it on the air, could feel it running down my chin.

  The soldiers rumbled and shifted away.

  “What is that?”

  “That’s not right-”

  “He’s not human!”

  “This is what they made me!” I insisted, but too late. The spell was broken. They weren’t swallowing my lies anymore. I yanked my hands away from the bars, defeated, and spat my black blood at the captain’s feet.

  The captain kept eye contact with me, but called back to his soldiers. “Remember this feeling, men. This creature speaks only lies, and wants only your destruction. Any kind word that passes his lips…consider it poison.”

  A young man with a patchy red beard leaned toward his commander. “Should we heat the irons, sir?”

  The captain stepped closer to my cage, appraising me. “Good question, don’t you think, misery? How quick will you be to sing for us? I’d wager we get a serenade before your pretty wings are singed bald.”

  “I do not know any barnyard lullabies,” I sneered. “I cannot oink and moo as your dear mothers did.”

  “Will you still be so proud when you’re plucked and trussed like a goose?” The captain asked.

  “Will you find me as delicious?”

  His smile vanished. The men who had been crammed shoulder to shoulder now separated, seeming uneasy. Prisoners should snivel, and beg, and make an utter disgrace of themselves. They shouldn’t be insulting.

  I moved as best I could in the cage, and they all shrank back.

  “Captain Barrett?” Gingerbeard asked again.

  The captain stayed him with a hand. “As much entertainment as it might provide…no. We’ll get no useful information from this abomination. How would we ever know what’s true and what’s a lie?” He shook his head. “We can’t risk it. Kill the thing, and dump the body in the latrine.”

  “Kill the thing?” I echoed, incredulous. “A marvel such as me? Just kill it? Like vermin?” I spread my wings out between the bars, flinging them wide, but careful not to touch the iron. “Look at me,” I commanded.

  The soldiers stared, speechless, as I knew they would. They were beasts of mud, and I a god of marble and ebony. They were more enthralled than an infant with a silver rattle.

  The captain glared at their adoring faces. “I said kill it!” He snarled. “You have your orders.”

  The two men nearest me lifted their spears without looking away, unable to tear their gaze from me.

  “I’m so sorry,” The one to my right said as he jabbed his weapon through the bars.

  I caught the shaft and tried to wrench it from his grasp, slicing a shallow gash across my palm as the spearhead lurched by.

  The other soldier’s spear darted forward while I played tug-o-war, flashing across my throat and pulling me open from left ear to right. My chest flushed black with hot ichor, slick and acrid as living smoke.

  The captain watched me bleed out, looking satisfied with himself, and I inked his face into my mind as I died, committing that look to vengeful memory. As I faded, I felt my drooling mouth pull into a smile.