Before the Crow

by Aaron Bunce

  He was moving back. Any control he had previously exercised over his movement had flown away, now he felt like he was falling from a very high place and all he could do was watch. Julian screamed out to her, every ounce of pain and desperation fueling his words.

  “Julian?” Tanea whispered and rose to her feet, her head turning as she looked between every shadowy corner in the simple room. She reached out and searched the air as Julian was sucked back out of the room and into the hallway. The Chapterhouse, Bringenhald Square, and then Craymore, shrunk from view, and in a blur, Julian was ripped back towards the cold and the pain.

  “Keep still!” someone growled as his face was shoved forcefully into the snow. Julian gasped, his head buzzing and his lungs burning, as if he was breathing hot ash

  How did you do that? HOW! The voice rang out in his mind, its frantic tone threatening to tear the tender fabric of his consciousness. Strong hands wrapped around his arms and legs as he was rolled over onto his back.

  What did you do? How? The voice rang out again, but it was already growing weaker, diminished somehow.

  He was pulled to his feet but he still couldn’t pull his hands apart. His shoulders sagged and his knees quivered beneath him. His head felt so horribly heavy.

  The smell of burning incense and polished wood hung in Julian’s nose as he tried to untangle the warped and twisting images. He felt like he had awoken from a bad dream, unable to rationalize his memories and sensations, or distinguish whether they were real or not. There was an awful taste in his mouth, that of sick, or sour wine.

  “I needed to see her,” Julian managed amidst the chaos. Although he said it out loud, the thought bounced around amongst the maelstrom plaguing his mind.

  The Nymradic considered him as a blurry face appeared before him. The warrior chattered incoherently.

  “I need to see…I need to get back,” Julian started to say, but a cloth was smashed against his face and then roughly pulled away. It was a heartbeat before his vision cleared, but as the cloth came into focus he could see that it was covered with blood. He bent low and spat into the snow as his knees went week and everything started to spin.

  Julian awoke to a flash of stars, the world spinning around him. For a few terrifying moments, everything was confusion and panic. He was only faintly aware of snow against his face, and couldn’t immediately remember how he had come to be face down on the ground. With enormous effort, Julian turned his head. There was blood in the snow, thick, dark blood.

  His head was pulled to one side, the mid-day sun reflecting off the snow and barren trees, instantly forcing Julian’s eyelids shut. The hulking warrior lifted him to his knees, and up to his feet, the man’s grip crushing his arms. Julian felt like a child in his grasp. His strength was truly staggering.

  He slid back in the snow until his back collided with a tree. A hand slid up around his throat, thick fingers wrapping clear around his neck.

  “Zingee chu ara masa eezeis, ut chela…eezeis!” the warrior hissed in his ear.

  The words sounded foreign, but quickly shifted within his mind as the uncomfortable pressure returned, now much more lethargic than before.

  The words jumbled and flexed, taking on new significance, as if the revelation of their meaning had been hovering just out of reach until that moment, but were now firmly in his procession. The voice didn’t have to whisper their meaning into his thoughts; he simply understood that the warrior wanted him to open his eyes.

  With a slight hesitation, Julian pried his eyelids apart, and accepted the burn and glare of the bright sun. As he did, he felt the hand around his throat tighten. He gagged and tasted blood.

  Why am I bleeding? Why do I taste blood? He thought, confused.

  The figure holding him against the tree was just a blurry shape at first. Dark and indistinct, but as he blinked away the tears and his eyes adjusted, everything came into focus.

  With the sun to their backs, the two warriors were little more than shadow and form. A twinge in his gut brought his gaze down and he realized that the points of two swords hovered before him, one above his navel, and the other just over his heart.

  “Why do you move so?” one of the warriors asked in a deep and melodic voice. Julian had to force his breath in and out to focus and clear his mind.

  “I… ” Julian started to say, but then the voice rang out in his mind. Tell them you were captured by the gnarls…say nothing of me!

  Why should I trust you? He shot back, but the voice didn’t have an answer.

  “Speak soft-skin, or we will bleed you here and now,” the warrior cut in, impatience clipping his tone.

  “Tell me who you are first. On what authority do you hold me?” Julian spat defiantly, before the voice could rattle his thoughts yet again.

  There was a long pause, in which neither Julian nor the warriors spoke. Even the slithering presence in his mind remained silent. The warriors backed away a half step, yet the tips of their blades did not waiver. The foremost warrior released his grip on Julian’s throat.

  Then he reached up and pulled back the heavy cowl shadowing his face. Julian audibly took in a breath, although not consciously.

  The sun fell upon rough, scaly skin that shone gray in the warm light. The warrior’s eyes were almond shaped, with large and distinctive hazel irises. His hair grew thick and straight, sweeping back along the crown of his head. But it looked like no hair Julian had ever seen, more like the spines of a porcupine. It was gathered together by a large gold and rose-colored ring.

  The same coarse hairs grew on the warrior’s chin, although it was clipped and shaved in a stylized fashion. When the warrior opened his mouth again to speak, the tips of two elongated teeth appeared before the rest. They looked strangely like tusks.

  “We found you in the King’s Way. We found the bodies of those you slew. Then you attacked. We felt the power you used against us. We have heard of such things, but not for many life ages,” the warrior said. His accent was heavy and foreign.

  “I found them dead, I didn’t kill them. I am from Craymore…Craymore, to the south,” Julian said frantically, nodding in the direction he hoped was home. “I am a soldier there. A man in a mask ambushed us in the old dwarf settlement…” Julian retold the events frantically as the smaller of the two warriors leaned in.

  “There are secrets hiding within his words,” the hooded warrior said coolly, interrupting Julian’s tale.

  “No…I, there is something happening, beneath the city. I need to get back to warn them before it’s too late!” Julian looked into the eyes of the warrior as he pleaded, desperately seeking some sign that the strange figure understood him.

  “We know not of what is, or is not. There is something happening, something stirring in the heart of this land, but it is not for us to judge. We, like all Yu before us, have watched this place…the dead mountain. And so we do. Let none enter, and take any that exit from within to the Jah’rei. That is our way,” the warrior said evenly, not breaking eye contact with Julian.

  They will not help you…nor will they understand you. They are no better than mindless beasts, the voice chimed in angrily as Julian’s eye started to burn and itch.

  Why, because they might help me? Why should I trust them over you? Julian thought, but the pressure in his mind was slipping away.

  “We must go, a long way to walk…many steps north through the mountains,” the hoodless warrior said, abruptly pulling his sword away.

  “Wait, I need to get home. I have…” Julian protested, but the warrior’s hand snapped back up to his throat and cut him off with a single powerful squeeze.

  “We will take you to the Jah’rei, as is our way. The Jah’rei will present you to the Whispering stones, as he is the only Yu capable of hearing their wisdom. They will look inside of you, and see the truth of your words. They will decide what you are, and what you are not. He will see if you are the one we have been watching for,” the warrior said slowly, articulating each word precisely.
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  “But, wait. What are you waiting for? I’m just a soldier from Craymore…” Julian tried to argue but the large warriors were through talking, and wrestled him around. They didn’t bother with the blindfold this time.

  Julian’s head was filled with frantic thoughts and ideas as the warrior’s words soaked in. He could feel the Nymradic moving and considering him, testing his control like a prisoner banging against the confines of its cell.

  Images and memories started to roll softly through his mind, but whether they were intentional, or simply unable to be held back any longer, he didn’t know. The ‘Whispering stones’ as the warrior called it, had significance to the Nymradic, and although it tried to hold it back, he could feel its fear.

  Their connection, which seemed to further sap his strength and resolve, caused that fear to become Julian’s as well. His heart raced, and despite the frigid bite to air, his skin grew warm and clammy.

  They started marching through the trees. A single look back and Julian instantly felt lost. The camp they had just departed vanished, cleverly and completely concealed by the warriors on either side of him.

  What are the whispering stones, Julian asked the dark presence in his mind.

  He felt it calm slightly as it considered his question. Just as he thought it had gone dormant again, it replied simply, death.

  Chapter 5

  Deaf ears

  Roman came to, and nearly threw up. His head throbbed, pulsing behind his face in perfect time with his heartbeat. The room spun as soon as he opened his eyes, and he gagged as a sour sick forced its way up his throat.

  “It’s in your pack. It belongs to you, you stole it, or you carry it for someone else! The truth of ownership is what matters,” a man asked.

  “Answer him, girl, or I will have you beaten,” another man, with a considerably deeper voice, said.

  There was something familiar about the voices. He had heard them before. Roman knew that much, he just couldn’t quite place a face to either.

  “The elder…Frenin gave it to me. He wanted me to give it to him. He said the box held personal items from his parents. That’s all he told me. I swear,” Dennah said, her voice straining.

  “Do you know what this means?” the man asked.

  Silence filled the room next door. Roman closed his eyes and swallowed down the sour swirling around in his gut.

  Give who what? Frenin gave her something? Roman tried to sort out the conversation, but his head felt like it was going to split apart. None of it made any sense.

  “No! I told you, we didn’t hurt anyone. It was Banus. Banus was in the barn! It was all Banus! Roman was just trying to help me!” Dennah shouted nearby. Her voice was shrill and broken. Several voices cut in immediately, drowning her out.

  Roman tried to track the conversation, to find out what was happening, but the shouting made his head throb. One voice rose out of the din. It was the man with the deep voice.

  “If you knew what we know, you’d understand. It’s a shadow that has loomed over this land since before you were born.” The man didn’t sound distraught or angry. His tone was even, his words calculated. As soon as he spoke, the others fell silent.

  He asked a question next, but Roman couldn’t hear exactly what he asked Dennah.

  “I wouldn’t want that!” Dennah whispered. Roman could hear the fear in her voice.

  He moved to stand, to help, but something pinned his arms next to his body. He felt the weight and smelled the iron, but also the pinch of the tightly bound chain.

  “Let her…go! She didn’t do anything…let her go,” Roman croaked weakly, his own voice ringing painfully in his ears.

  “This one’s awake now,” a soldier with a scratchy voice said as a shadow fell over him. Roman tried to pull away as hands dug into him. He twisted and fought, but a fist flashed down in a blur. Roman was only partially aware of what happened next.

  Stars popped and flashed before his eyes as his head bounced against his chest. He was floating off of the ground…somehow, but only for a moment before his knees smacked against the hard floor.

  Unable to lift his head, Roman turned and peeled his eyes open again, just in time to see one the soldiers throw their weight onto Dennah.

  The other men tussled about, lashing heavy rope around her ankles, all while the other man stood in the far corner, watching. Dennah thrashed desperately, and as her head turned. Roman saw terror in her eyes as she fought, like a wild animal caught in a snare.

  “Wait, leave her alone, they,” Roman started to protest, desperate to protect his friend from further molestation. He tried to push forward, but only his legs would move. He broke loose from the ground, staggering and flopping forward, until something closed around his neck and wrenched him back again.

  “Oh no…you’re not going anywhere, little one.” The man’s chin came to rest on his shoulder, his stubble scratching Roman’s ear.

  “Let her go! She didn’t do anything. They hurt her! Just please…let her go!” Roman pleaded, but the man’s arm clamped down, squeezing around his neck with tremendous force.

  None of the soldiers spoke. They only watched as the man with the scratchy voice wrestled him back, pinning him in a stranglehold. His heart hammered painfully in his chest and the aching lump deep inside flipped and surged. He could barely hold it back. An acrid taste was already creeping into his mouth.

  Two men finished tying Dennah’s wrists and pulled her out of the chair before depositing her on the floor off to the side. A soldier appeared out of a shadowy corner, materializing like a grim-faced specter in the flickering candlelight. The other men flanked in around him.

  “Your turn,” the man behind him hissed, and wrestled Roman forward before dropping him into the chair.

  “My name is Captain Markus Teague,” the man with the deep voice said, stepping forward.

  He leaned in and froze right before him, his eyes boring into Roman as the man next to him pulled a short blade. He disappeared behind Roman, as his leader cleared his throat.

  “We have learned a great deal about you,” he said, lifting the flap of Dennah’s bag and exposing a sparkling box. “Learned a great deal about you, and what has ailed this town.

  Roman twisted about, struggling against the pain muddling his thoughts as he tried to rationalize what the man was saying. The man holding him released his strangling grip, but he felt the tip of a blade slide through the loops of chain, before digging ever so slightly into his back.

  “Coke forged red-iron,” Teague said, motioning toward the heaving chain wrapped around him, “the clerics have used it to suppress dark magic for winter thaws beyond count. To suppress, whatever you set upon the elder, and my men.”

  “Wait, I didn’t…” Roman started to argue, but he faded under Teague’s glare.

  “Your elder, Frenin, told me about you, Roman.”

  Roman started to shiver, but not just from the cold drafts breaking through the cracks in the walls. He tried to work up the nerve to speak, to defend himself from their silent accusations, but words failed him.

  “You have deceived a great many people here, perhaps Frenin most of all. But why kill him? He worked so ardently to clear you,” Teague asked, tracing his beard absently.

  “I didn’t deceive anyone. I wouldn’t hurt Frenin, or anyone else in Bardstown,” Roman said, but one of the soldiers snickered mockingly, cutting him off.

  “You have no defense. Especially now that we have this,” Teague said, patting the box.

  “Plus, we saw the nightmare you spun in the elder’s house, when you were trapped. Tore out half the house you did! No ordinary person could have done that!” another of the soldiers spat angrily, breaking his sword free of its scabbard. A woman spoke next, however, and pushed past him into the room.

  “The child, the young girl you brought back from the farm. Where is she?” The young woman asked, circling around until she stood behind Captain Teague. She met Roman’s gaze, before eying the soldiers war
ily. She didn’t seem entirely comfortable.

  Roman took note of her light armor, hastily donned over a dress. She also wore a sash tied around her waist. The blue fabric was adorned with open palms embroidered in shiny thread. Roman recognized the insignia from the traveling clerics that had passed through Bardstown over the winter thaws.

  “Alina,” Roman said, but forming the girl’s name proved difficult. “She was at Frenin’s house. That is where I brought her…when we returned from Garon’s farm.”

  “Where is the girl now?! Tell us please, so that we might spare the life of an innocent and end this bloodshed,” the cleric asked, stepping forward eagerly.

  “Tilith, the girl…” Teague started to say.

  The soldier with the scratchy voice cut in, “She’s probably dead, like those poor bastards they found at the orchard, or the elder. You remember him, boy? The one we found all shriveled and wasted away, in the very room we chased you into! Or those people at the farm. Tainted scum.”

  Roman winced as the tip of his blade dug a little deeper into his back. Tainted scum? What does that mean? Roman thought, confused.

  “What about the three guards we found charred to a crisp in the barn? Or, Harrod, Quinten, Rodert, and the rest of our own that we never found. Your men, Markus! He killed ‘em, just like the others. Hell, he probably did the girl in…used her to feed his dark madness. Probably find her corpse lying in the snow somewhere. He’s no different than those fools we found in Evergreen Hollow. You remember them, the ones that sacrificed children and babies to steal their power and stay young?” the soldier came forward, his fists balled up before him.

  “Ishmandi magic, that’s what it is! They sent him here, he’s an assassin,” another soldier chimed in, a slightly wild look inhabiting his eyes.

  Roman felt the hatred mounting with each and every word and scorching look. His gaze passed from face to face, and then back to Captain Teague. The man’s visage seemed to harden, his eyes darkening with every passing moment. He silenced the soldier standing behind Roman with a look, and then turned to the cleric standing behind him.