Summer of Crows Read online

  Summer of Crows

  A World of Calliome Novel

  Hans Cummings

  VFF Publishing

  Copyright © 2020 VFF Publishing

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-944999-07-3

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Acknowledgements

  About The Author

  Books By This Author

  Chapter 1

  “Look out!” Aveline heard the man’s voice moments before she noticed the cart rumbling toward her on the cobblestones of Curton’s town square. She leapt to the side as it sped past, witnessing it crash into a vegetable wagon. Spewing from the wreckage in a fountain of foodstuffs, fruits and meats mingled. Aveline groaned as the head of her mace dug into her thigh. That’s going to leave a mark.

  “Terribly sorry, m’lady!” The vendor helped Aveline to her feet. She recognized the one-armed man, but she did not know his name. “The brick I was using as a wheel chock crumbled.”

  “Time for a new brick.” She brushed dirt off her armored skirt, then adjusted her belts.

  “I suppose so. Are you hurt?”

  “No, I’m fine. See to your goods.” Aveline pointed at the tangled mass of destroyed food carts.

  The vendor turned away to check on his merchandise. He shooed away scavenging street urchins who already picked at the fruit scattered across the town square. Aveline left him to sort his business on his own. Technically, she could have arrested the children for stealing from the overturned cart. However, she had no desire to detain hungry orphans for claiming bruised apples and dirt-covered sausages from the street. From her perspective, it was a more grievous crime that so many orphans in town were hungry enough to scavenge for food.

  It was a problem best left to those in authority. Knight-Captain Aveline Durant was a keeper of the peace, not the solver of Curton’s economic problems. She heard the vendor scolding the children as he attempted to salvage his merchandise, but his admonitions seemed intended toward keeping them out of his path as he righted the cart rather than preventing them from taking the fallen food.

  By the time Aveline reached the Temple District, also known as Hillside, the sun shone high in the sky. Its radiance burned away the chilly morning air. Already, she felt uncomfortable in her armor, and the wispy clouds crossing the blazing sun offered no relief from the coming heat. A light breeze carried the aroma of incense.

  A shrine to Aurora, goddess of love, proved to be the source of the fragrance, but whoever lit the offering was gone. Aveline approached the shrine, ensuring no open flames persisted before she moved on toward Cybele’s church.

  Since most of the mines had closed, people turned increasingly to agriculture to sustain them, and, thus, to Cybele. Aveline remembered the church’s renovation just over twenty years earlier. Few people claimed to dislike Cybele even before they needed her, but the goddess’s message of hope for the future played a big part in the church’s growth.

  Aveline remained unconvinced Cybele could solve the city’s problems. In her experience, the gods did not make a habit of meddling directly in the affairs of mortals. She couldn’t honestly say whether any existed in the corporeal sense.

  As long as people treated each other well, she supposed it didn’t matter. Most people needed—or at least wanted—a guide for their lives, someone to look up to. Whether they found their answers from Cybele, Hon, Tinian, or each other did not matter to her.

  She entered the sole large room on the first floor that served as the main worship area. Benches formed two rows of pews leading to the altar in the center of the sanctuary. Rich tapestries hung behind the altar depicted the blessings of Cybele—healthy crops and babies. Atop the altar stood a bronze statue of the sacred cow led by a voluptuous woman wearing a crown of wheat and a simple gown.

  Sunlight streamed in from windows high on the walls. A door on the left side opened to a stairway leading to the second level where Mother Anya and her priests lived. A door on the opposite side led to storage rooms below the altar. Aveline noticed Mother Anya seated in a pew, talking with a golden-haired girl.

  Mother Anya smiled when she saw Aveline. The priestess’s wrinkle-lined face told of a hard life working under the sun, and she had her dull grey hair pulled into a bun. The young girl curtsied as Aveline approached.

  “Good day to you, Lady Aveline.” Mother Anya remained seated as she greeted the knight-captain. Long ago, they’d established rising was neither necessary nor desired.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting anything. I wanted to see how you were getting along.” Aveline checked on Mother Anya several times a week. The matriarch had proved to be a good friend during her formative years after Aveline’s parents died.

  “Not at all, child. I was just advising young Innya here as to the best flowers to gather for her father’s naming day.”

  Innya curtsied to Mother Anya. “Thank you for your help. I’m sure Mother will be happy with what I bring home now.” Once again, she curtsied to Aveline.

  Aveline watched the girl leave. “Polite young lady.”

  “Yes.” Bowing her head, Mother Anya’s eyes glistened. “I wish there were more young people like her here in town. So many have given over to despair.”

  “Many people have difficulty seeing hope when there are children starving in our streets.” All too often, Aveline found herself among the most affected.

  “It is true—things are difficult. But there is always hope. We will find a way to prosper again. Perhaps the caravans will bring good news when they return.” Upon standing, the old woman limped toward the sanctuary. She beckoned Aveline to follow.

  “Perhaps. I’ve left word at the
gate to send for me when the caravans arrive, which should be any day now.” Aveline followed Mother Anya to the altar. The matriarch pulled a cloth from within her robes, then dusted the pink granite slab.

  “We need them now more than ever, child. The crop outlook is grim this year, and I keep hearing of stillbirths.” Mother Anya shook her head as she scrubbed at a blemish on the altar. During her rounds, Aveline heard speculation about the increase in infant deaths, as well as low crop yields. The rumors seemed to increase from year to year.

  Slapping at it with her cloth, Mother Anya abandoned the blemish. “Would you do a favor for me, Lady Aveline?”

  “Of course, Mother. What would you ask of me?”

  After returning the dusting cloth to her pocket, Mother Anya took Aveline’s hands and searched the knight-captain’s eyes. “I would like the city to help me expand this church. Not for more worshippers, but to give those homeless children food and shelter. Surely the Lord Mayor can support such an endeavor?”

  “An orphanage of sorts?” It sounded like a promising idea to Aveline. One of the best she’d heard in years. Unfortunately, the Lord Mayor might not perceive it as such. “I think the Lord Mayor would see his approval of such an endeavor as an acknowledgment on his part that there is a problem.”

  “He does so little to help…”

  Smiling, Aveline squeezed Mother Anya’s hands. “I will talk to him. Did you have a location in mind? There’s so little space around here.”

  “There is an abandoned building just behind the church—Alina’s old fabric shop.”

  The knight-captain scratched her head. The ability to recall every abandoned building in Curton since the end of the mining boom eluded her.

  “Oh, but that was when you were a little girl. The building has a strong foundation. Alina left it to the church when Aita took her, but we’ve never had the funds to do anything with it.”

  “Well, there is no harm in broaching the subject with him. Perhaps I’ll bring Tasha along. Together, we may be more persuasive.”

  One of Aveline’s closest friends, and an Etrunian sorceress, Tasha had arrived in town about a dozen years earlier. Folk around Curton, fearful and mistrusting of sorcerers and their ilk, treated her with suspicion bordering on malice. Tasha’s sullen and dour attitude at the time helped little in the matter. Aveline recalled separating more than one mob intent on lynching Tasha for some perceived insult or threat amounting, in reality, to little more than the sorceress being antisocial.

  Aveline appreciated Tasha’s no-nonsense approach to problems. Once Aveline broke through the woman’s shell, she’d found an intelligent, strong friend.

  Mother Anya nodded. “The sorceress? The Lord Mayor fancies her, doesn’t he?”

  “Is there any woman he doesn’t fancy? Fortunately for him, she doesn’t care much for him. He couldn’t handle a woman like her.” The Lord Mayor liked his women beautiful, compliant, and uneducated. Tasha, although attractive enough for him, did not fit anyone’s definition of meek.

  “I appreciate anything you can do.”

  Aveline bowed. “It’s my pleasure to help.”

  * * *

  Tasha sat hunched over her writing desk, copying Dwarvish runes. When the caravan passed through Curton the previous year, Darrock Granitebinder paid her a thousand talons to transcribe into one codex the bundle of scrolls he carried. It proved to be painstaking work, but she understood his desire to preserve the words of his ancestors.

  Mounted above either side of her desk, two sconces ensorcelled with a spell of perpetual light illuminated her writing area. The magical candlesticks cast a warm yellow glow to her otherwise pale tawny pallor. She’d purchased them from a traveling elf enchanter when she first opened shop in Curton, and they were well worth the expense. Books and scrolls shoved into bookshelves and scattered on the floor surrounded her. A clear path through the mess led from one doorway to the other, connecting the front room to her bedroom through a veritable sea of paper.

  The bell attached to her door tinkled as someone entered. After adjusting the beaded choker covering the scar across her throat, she put her quill down and stretched. Though faded with time, the scar still made her feel self-conscious. After several years, she grew tired of telling the story of how she acquired it. Telling the tale certainly didn’t pay as well as copying words, but even that didn’t provide a daily living. Serving the town as an alchemist and herbalist did. Tasha pushed away from her desk, making her way into the front room. Hopefully, it was the order from the meadery for which she had been waiting.

  A low counter divided the room in half. Jars and vials of her alchemical concoctions, which contained mostly salves and ointments, were stashed underneath. Behind the counter, against the wall, stood an apothecary cabinet with scores of drawers in which she stored herbs, roots, powders, and dried flowers. The fragrances of dozens of different florae mingled in the air.

  The old woman on the other side of the counter regarded Tasha with rheumy eyes. She was not from the meadery.

  “Ah, Dobrila. What can I do for you today?”

  The woman withdrew a small leather bag from her belt, then placed it on the counter. “I need some more of that tea you mixed for me, dear.” Sniffling, she wiped her nose on her sleeve.

  Holding the sack, Tasha faced her cabinet and scanned the labels on the drawers. “Did it work for your husband?”

  “Oh yes, but now I have what he had!”

  Dobrila’s husband worked as a mudder, pulling clay from the banks of the river so potters could work it. Last week, he complained of a runny nose and trouble breathing. Tasha could not identify the cause, of course, but she prepared a combination of herbs and minerals that usually alleviated the symptoms.

  After finding the appropriate drawer, Tasha opened it. Using a small scoop, she measured the contents into the bag. She learned a great deal about herbalism from an elf lover she’d lived with in Celtangate long ago. When she arrived in Curton a few years following her lover’s death, Tasha put that knowledge to use. Now, years of experience made her the most knowledgeable herbalist in the area.

  She tied the bag shut before handing it to the woman. “Do you need me to repeat the instructions again? It’s the same as you did for your husband.”

  “I remember.” Dobrila smiled. “I’m not that old. Now then, two pennies, yes?”

  Tasha nodded. “Yes, that’s right.”

  The old woman pulled two copper coins from her pocket. She placed them on the counter. “When will you find yourself a husband? You’ve been here over ten years, Tasha. It’s time you settled down and started having children.”

  Blushing, Tasha shook her head. The old women in town often tried to marry her off. Yet, the time didn’t feel right to her. “I don’t think it’s for me.”

  “Nonsense. If my rough-and-tumble daughter can land a husband, you certainly can. There are plenty of fine young men in town. What about that potter’s boy? What’s his name? Bela?”

  Tasha suppressed a shudder. She didn’t know Bela well, but something about him unsettled her. He tended to stare at pretty girls with narrowed eyes and a grin that suggested salacious thoughts.

  “I don’t think he’s quite right for me.”

  “Oh, well. What about Bolek? Oh, now he’s a nice boy. People think he’s dumb just because he’s big and doesn’t talk much, but, you know, he’s always willing to help with anything you need done.”

  “The baker’s apprentice?” Jaromil was one of the most well-regarded bakers in town.

  Dobrila nodded. “That’s him. He’s a sweet boy. What about him? He’d make a good husband. He’s a fine hunter too.”

  Tasha stepped around the counter, ushering the older woman out of the shop. She had met Bolek. Jaromil often sent him to buy herbs to put in his breads and sweet pastries. Although the baker’s apprentice didn’t speak much, Tasha noticed intelligence behind his eyes.

  “I appreciate your concern, but I’m fine with things the way th
ey are. I’ve never needed a matchmaker to make me a match. Now, go home, rest, and drink your tea.”

  Shaking her head, she closed the door behind her customer. It’s bad enough the Lord Mayor makes crude attempts to woo me. If I had a talon for every time these old women tried to match me with a young man, I wouldn’t need to sell herbs.

  * * *

  Aveline sighed, listening to the redsmith and his customer bicker. The patron contended the redsmith tried to cheat him, and the redsmith argued the buyer placed a deposit for a copper pot, but not for the specific one he sold to another. He offered the customer a similar vessel for the same price, one functionally identical but possessing a slightly different handle. The patron insisted the curly-haired redsmith craft a new pot with a handle like the one he’d wanted in the first place.

  Placing her hand on the hilt of her mace, Aveline cleared her throat. When that didn’t stop their bickering, she rapped her armored knuckles against the side of a copper urn.

  “Gentlemen! This is not a matter worthy of my attention. I am hearing miscommunication, not malfeasance. I suggest you resolve this in a manner befitting adults of your stations instead of with this childish squabbling.”

  Aveline reserved little patience for petty arguments. She suspected none of the other members of the city watch wanted to deal with the situation, so they referred the matter to her.

  “So, you’re going to do nothing while this robber steals from me?” The irate customer poked the redsmith in the chest.

  “I’ll arrest you for creating a public disturbance. Imrus is a well-regarded craftsman who is known to be fair and reasonable. What difference does the handle design make, anyway?”

  Crossing his arms, Imrus stared at the man with his one good eye. The patron shrugged. “I like the other style better.”

  “Do you have a written contract specifying the pot your deposit was paid on?”

  The customer shook his head. “No, it was a verbal agreement.”

  “Yes, you paid a deposit for one of my copper hearth pots. You did not say which one.”

  “Well, I obviously meant the one you were working on when I made the deposit.”