So, if we’re not training, what are we doing? said Shimmer. She was eyeing up his sandwich too, Caw noticed. He tore off a piece and tossed it to her.
“We’re going out,” he said.
“Can I come too?” said Pip, jumping to his feet.
Caw managed to disguise his grimace as a smile. Sometimes it was fun having Pip around, but other times he followed like a shadow, making Caw feel desperate to be on his own.
“Why don’t you stay and train with Crumb?” Caw said. “You’d just be bored with me. Crows are really dull, you know.”
Charming, croaked Screech.
Pip looked disappointed, but nodded.
Caw unrolled the blanket he used as a pillow and took out a slim, dark blade – the Crow’s Beak. He slid it inside the scabbard he’d made from old leather and slung its straps over his shoulders. Crumb’s eyes widened with curiosity. “Expecting trouble?”
Caw shook his head. “Like you said. You never know who’s out there.” He headed for the stairs and his crows followed.
Boring, are we? said Glum.
Caw waited until they were out of earshot, then whispered, “I didn’t want any eyes on us today. Not where I’m planning to go.”
Ooh … a secret mission! said Shimmer.
“Just keep a lookout for pigeons,” said Caw. “I’ll explain on the way.”
Blackstone was a city with a lot of history. Crumb had told Caw all about it over several nights – how it had begun hundreds of years before as a settlement by a swampy river, how it had grown when the river was dammed and diverted to irrigate fields for crops. How it had become an important staging post at the crossing of two large trade routes. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, buildings of wood had been razed for those of brick. The city had prospered through the industrial revolution that swept across the country. The river had been widened and rerouted further, with bridges spanning its course.
With each generation, new waves of people came and settled, bringing their cultures and ideas. Steelworks and factories had been replaced by the world of finance and technology. The population boomed and spread. Blackstone had seemed to be on an unstoppable trajectory of progress.
Until the Dark Summer, when the feral war had ripped the city apart.
Eight years had passed since then, but Blackstone had not recovered. It was like a wounded animal – unable to climb to its feet, but clinging to life.
Caw saw the city differently from the normal people – the ones who stayed on the ground, navigating by street names and landmarks. He knew the sections that were quiet and calm, and the ones that were always crowded. Places of safety and danger. Areas where he could scavenge or where the pickings were meagre. Where he could pass unseen through darkness or where security lights might reveal him. He measured distance not in miles, but in time. Ten minutes to cross from the abandoned train station, via the disused tracks, to the cathedral. Twelve if he took the detour over the rooftops of the old rubber factory.
Everywhere he went, the layers of the past revealed themselves. A church here and there, or old pilings jutting like rotten tooth stumps from the river’s shallows where a jetty had once been. And of course the sewers, threading their way in arched tunnels across almost all the city, emptying into pumping stations and sewage works, and ultimately into the far reaches of the River Blackwater.
In his early days of exploring, Caw had never gone down there. But as time wore on, and he grew in confidence, he had begun to venture underground. In the daytime, when the rooftops weren’t safe because of construction workers, or police helicopters, the subterranean tunnels offered another way of getting around the city unseen.
But the crows were never keen.
Birds don’t like ceilings, said Glum, as they descended through a shaft into a tunnel near the church.
The sky means safety, said Shimmer.
Don’t worry, I’ll look after you, said Screech, but his voice trembled slightly.
Glum gave a throaty chuckle. Please, someone pass me the sick bag.
“We have to make sure we aren’t being followed,” said Caw. “It’s the only way.”
He jumped from the bottom of the steel ladder and landed in the tunnel. It was dry, thankfully, but the air was stale and stuffy.
As Caw began to walk along the tunnel; he took a torch from his pocket and flicked it on. The birds swooped ahead at intervals. He’d never met anything down here apart from the odd rat, but still the place made his skin tingle. He wouldn’t have wanted to come below on his own.
His back itched and he adjusted the shoulder straps looped under his clothing to make the Crow’s Beak sit more comfortably. The ancient weapon wasn’t much to look at. A narrow double-edged blade about two feet long and not terribly sharp, but at least it might scare off an attacker long enough for Caw to escape. Besides, it was the sword of the crow line, with the power to open a gateway to the Land of the Dead. It was Caw’s duty to bear it.
With his free hand, Caw felt the stone in his pocket. Did that have something to do with the crow line too? It didn’t feel particularly remarkable today, but there had to be something special about it, else why would his mother have wanted him to have it? She’d been the crow feral before him, after all.
Had the strange, hairless figure from last night even been telling the truth about knowing Caw’s mother? Caw guessed he must have been a feral himself, though he hadn’t seen any animals.
Too many questions, and Caw knew only one place he might find answers.
Hello? Earth calling Caw … said Screech.
“What?” said Caw.
You’re acting really weird, said Screech. Glum’s talking to you.
“Sorry,” said Caw. “Just thinking about something. What were you saying Glum?”
I said, we’re heading west, aren’t we? said Glum. The crow’s eyes flashed silver in the torchlight. Are we going back to see that girl?
“No,” said Caw, not breaking his stride. “We’re going to Gort House.”
Quaker’s place! said Glum. Why d’you want to mix with that old coward?
“He might know something about this black stone,” said Caw. After all, he couldn’t just carry it around without the slightest clue as to why it was so special. His mother would want him to find out what it was – she must have left it for him for a reason. He was sure of it.
They trudged on in darkness, through the endlessly winding network of tunnels. They seemed to have been built by a madman. Shafts, wide and narrow, intercepted at different levels in a convoluted maze. Caw walked for twenty minutes, navigating from memory, before climbing several ladders. His feet clanged and echoed through the tunnels as he set out at the higher level.
You sure you know where you’re going? said Shimmer, standing on a jutting pipe. I don’t want to get lost down here.
We know these tunnels like the back of our wings, said Screech, nudging close to her. I’m cold. Are you?
Shimmer edged away. I’m perfectly fine, thank you.
The tunnel began to climb slightly. Caw counted the vertical shafts as they passed them, until he was sure he’d reached the correct one.
“Our stop,” he said.
Leading the way, he prised open the manhole cover from below and peered out. Just as he suspected, he was on a deserted tree-lined road that snaked upwards – the