"What does the lieutenant wish us to do?" Johnrey asked, hoping to awaken some kind of confidence in the handful of people who had hidden here in the cellar.
"He has scouts combing the borough as we speak, passing the word to whomever they can find." The archer looked to the old officer. "Marcum says to stay hidden, to stay quiet until the raven storm passes-"
"That is ridiculous!" Keily demanded in a whisper. "Why should we cower like rats in the cellar, waiting for a storm to pass? You and I both know that it will do little good at all!"
"What good will it do for us to waste our lives for a battle that is already lost, my lady?" Johnrey said with saddened compassion to the fiery barmaid.
"I know this borough better than any of the guardsmen!" Keily protested. "I have memorized its streets and I know the back alleys like I know the lines on my own face. I can be an asset, I can help!"
"Help to do what?" Johnrey asked softly, his eyes pleading the question that none of them could answer. Tension filled the earthen-floored basement as the pull to do something, anything, competed with the prudence of remaining safely hidden.
"Dispatches have been sent to the Citadel," the runner explained. "The invaders march without hesitation towards the Capital, and I pray," he said as he kissed the flint that still hung to his neck, "that the THREE who is SEVEN will give them speed enough to warn the Citadel before it is too late."
"My lady," Johnrey whispered in an effort to calm Keily's unrest, "the Priest King, he will know what to-"
"What good are flints going to do when dragons rain fire upon the other boroughs?" she interrupted heatedly. "Tell me that, Johnrey!"
The white-bearded corporal winced at her flippant disrespect, but did not correct her. Instead he nodded to the archer, dismissing him to carry out his orders without further delay. The young guardsman saluted him and then turned to climb the rough-hewn ladder back up into the kitchen of the Gnarly Knob.
The weight of the barmaid's questions hung thick like a suffocating fog that had all but overtaken the root cellar, and no one dared to oppose her. They too had nervously asked themselves the very same questions and reasoned the very same troublesome answers. The group waited in the thickness, listening to the endless, rhythmic sound of marching boots and guttural signal horns, the underlying orchestral music of this nightmarish tragedy. The invading Raven Army advanced through the northern borough destroying both order and peace with a devastating and relentless fury.
Then the enemy war horns sounded once again, only this time, unlike all the other times before, the blasts were not deep-toned and infinitely resonate. The signals that issued forth from the ungodly instruments were sharp, staccato, high-toned bursts, and their melody gave a whole new perspective on terror. In an instant the marching army halted. Their boots fell silent on the dirt and stones as if they were waiting for the arrival of some great general or perhaps a mighty king.
"What is it? What is happening out there?" a young girl asked, frightened and curious. "Why have they stopped?"
"Shhh now, lass," Johnrey begged her. "I don't quite know."
"Why won't they just leave us?" she continued.
Keily came and put her arm around the freckle-cheeked little girl, and as she did the beautiful albeit hardened lines on her face softened ever so slightly with compassion for the little one.
Thunder roiled off in the distance, like the sound of a northern storm racing down from the Hilgari to pummel the already battered people of Piney Creek.
"What is that?" the young girl asked. She looked up to the curly-haired barmaid for guidance. When Keily placed her slender finger to her lips, she reluctantly obeyed and listened, terrified of what new hell would come for them.
Johnrey stood atop a barrel of Shameus' amber ale, peering out through the lone, muddy window, hoping to see whatever it was that he could see happening on the streets of the borough. The thunder grew louder by the moment, though its rumblings did not come and go like northern storms were known to do; this tempest was constant and ever-increasing. The tavern above began to moan and creak as its stone and timber became subservient to the rush of howling wind. The wood floor above them began to shift and shake. Dust unsettled itself from within the cracks and rained upon their frightened heads. The small group collectively held their breaths as the sound of rushing wind grew louder and louder.
"What is that sound?" said the old tailor as he strained to listen to the layers within the rolling thunder.
"Are those screams?" asked Johnrey.
"Some kind of brass ... some kind of signal?" Keily proposed.
Closer and closer came the ruinous gale, its thunder a rumbling cacophony of noise and wind. As the ground began to tremble beneath their feet, the sounds of the storm began to come into focus.
"Ravens!" shouted the little girl. "That is the cawing of the black birds!"
Keily knelt down and took the little girl by her small shoulders. "Where, girl? Where are the black birds?"
"In the storm ... the ravens are in the storm," she whispered.
Keily's eyes went wide. She leapt to her feet and climbed atop one of her father's ale barrels, determined to see this squall that was now swiftly and loudly upon them. What she beheld through the muddy cellar window made the very blood inside her veins run cold with terror. At first it looked like nothing more than a fast moving storm cloud. But as this mass approached the heart of the borough, the invading army's soldiers bowed their heads in an unsettling homage to whoever rode upon the loud, black winds.
Soon it became quite clear to Keily, as she did her best to swallow back her fears, that the thunder was no storm and that the black wind was no cloud; rather, this tempest was a murder of ravens that numbered at least five hundred strong.
The black-winged horde was driven by an unnaturally malevolent force; each of the birds' glowing, green eyes burned with a powerful hatred. It seemed as though the vile creatures were domineered by something much more sinister than their own evil strength. The enemy soldiers kneeled effortlessly in the wake of the storm of ravens, seemingly unaffected by the brutal winds. Not a feather in their black plumes rustled. Not a strand of their long, gangly hair moved. However, the thatched roofs and watch fires in the borough did not fare as well underneath the ravenous force of such evil.
Keily could hardly contain her horror as she beheld what came upon the heels of the storm. The closer it came to the Gnarly Knob, the more she could make out the details of this eerie and terrifying spectacle. The green-eyed birds flocked tightly and dangerously together, flying roughly thirty hands off of the ground. Hundreds of tightly wound leather thongs streamed out from behind the black brood and came to an end in the hands of a well-muscled, ashen-skinned driver.
The driver sat atop a black carriage, whose very shape resembled the flayed, feathered wings of the same murderous birds that drove it onward. The wings of the carriage fanned out until the tips of its iron-scaled feathers met at a peak; forming an ominous covering over a hidden passenger. Its four large wheels looked nothing like wood and iron. Instead, they had an obsidian quality to them, a shiny, onyx-like stone with a craftsmanship that did not show a single tool mark or imperfection; rather, these otherworldly wheels seemed to have been formed by a magic spoken into the black stone.
The dark carriage came to a rest in the center of the borough's square, and the kneeling soldiers of the invading army rose to their feet. Their black-feathered helms made the monstrous men seem like giants, while their unpolished chainmail caught the flicker of the burning city and caused their frames to glow with a muted green reflection.
"Who are they?" Johnrey heard the barmaid whisper.
"Shhh, quiet now," the old officer hushed back. "I do not know."
The world was silent there in the ruined center of Piney Creek, almost as if the very tongue of the place had been cut from its once-jovial mouth, rendering its voice paralyzed by fear and with no means by which to speak it.
The most decorated of th
e green-eyed soldiers approached the raven-drawn carriage. His glowing green eyes did not waver, nor did he lower his head to hide his gaze. Rather, he seemed devoid of emotion altogether, reverence or otherwise, and it was this detached nature that disturbed Keily most of all.
"As you commanded, my dark queen," the Raven General reported in a vacant voice. "The city of the dead tree has been breached, their warriors have been broken, and even now Abaddon and Angrah wreak their fiery havoc upon the infidel citizens."
The general stood fully erect at the edge of the carriage. His large, mailed shoulders were adorned in a dark charcoal cape, and his head was crowned with an intricately inlayed helm. Its prominent, beak-like shape and menacing eyeholes nearly covered his entire face save an angular section over his silver-bearded, ashen-colored mouth.
"This is very ... pleasing to me, General Aius." A woman's voice spoke out from within the winged safety of the raven-drawn transport. "Very pleasing to me, indeed." Her words cut through the moment with a luxurious edge, like a battle-sharpened blade wrapped in the finest Abondalian silk.
"The way to the dead tree is clear, Raveness, for our legions have gone before you and have prepared these unenlightened souls to receive their new liege," General Aius reported.
"Well done, my nocturnal General," she gloated. "Perhaps it is time we show these pious flint-wielders just what true power looks like, and where their reverence is rightfully due."
The Raven Queen stood to her feet to survey the carnage of her army's conquest. Though her back was turned towards the watching remnant in the root cellar, the very sight of her caused the hairs on the back of Keily's neck to prickle in cold fear. Her long, braided hair was as black as the lightless sky; it caught and reflected the siege fires in a luminous shimmer that glowed with sinister origins. She wore an iron bodice, inscribed with intricately chiseled runes of an unfamiliar speech. Its very embellishments seemed somehow fluid, ever changing, shifting in the shadows and laced with dark magic. The skin of her pale arms was covered in deep, inked markings of the ancient sorcerers. The green light of the enemy torches illuminated what little of the motifs could be seen, for they were barely hidden by the cascading layers of raven feathers that crowned her armor, encircling her neck before falling down her shoulders.
The white skin of her back was exposed, a long triangle of vulnerability that began at her shoulders and revealed a small pink imperfection of a scar just below her left shoulder blade. Her gown was a deep byzantium, much akin to the sickly hues of purple that colored the inky, black scales of her two winged serpents, and she carried in her ornately ringed fingers a long, obsidian staff.
"Aius," she said with a sultry command.
"Yes, Queen Nogcwren," the green-eyed general replied as he raised his raven-helmed head to meet her gaze.
"Burn this place. Raze it to the ground," she ordered him as she sniffed the night air like a predator who has caught scent of her prey. "Either these citizens of the dead tree will pledge their fealty to me, or they will have no place to remain citizens of. Resistance," she said greedily as she turned around and faced her general, "resistance is no longer an option." The deep, sickly yellow of her eyes smoldered with a self-satisfied supremacy.
"As you command, sorceress," the general obediently responded.
Without so much as another word, the Raven Queen took her seat in the fold of the winged carriage. The driver stood to his feet and raised his ink-marked hands towards the sky, commanding the ravens by the hundreds of thinly braided thongs that issued forth from his fingers. His green eyes were aglow with understanding as he opened his beardless mouth and screeched forth a command in a nightmarish voice to the flock of bridled birds.
The black sky erupted with a tumult of violence as the ravens woke the cold, north air with the pounding of their heinous wings. A thunderous crack of the driver's whip brought the carriage to life, and it barreled with great intention towards the Capital of Haven.
"Who was that?" Keily whispered to the old, white-bearded officer. "What kind of hell makes that kind of woman?"
"I cannot say. Though … if I am honest," he said as he wiped the sweat from his brow, "I do not wish to find out."
"Do you think Marcum heard?" Keily said. "That they intend to raze the borough?"
Johnrey glanced at the dozen or so faces that looked desperately to him for some kind of guidance. He knew that hiding here would no longer be safe, not if the whole place was to be set aflame. "Gather what you can … wine skins, salt pork, those dried apples over there. They mean to burn us out, and so we shall leave before the fires are upon us."
"Johnrey?" the little girl asked the old officer. "Where will you take us? Where will we go if we have no home? Will we go to the Capital?"
Johnrey looked to barmaid. His expression pleaded for her help to find the words that might bring this little one comfort.
"No, little Sharon." Keily knelt to meet the gaze of the young girl. "No, Johnrey would not dare take us there. We will have to find a safe place to hide until this storm passes."
"What place is safe?" Sharon asked innocently, but Keily could not seem to find the right kind of answer for her.
Without warning, the dark sky began to glow. The green and orange flames began to lick the sky as home and tannery, barn and butchery succumbed to the fires of the remaining Raven soldiers.
"Burn them all!" the general shouted to his men as he mounted his green-eyed warhorse. "And when the rats flee the flames, see to it that they do not run very far." With that command he wheeled his froth-mouthed steed around and rode hard on the North Road after his Raven Queen.
"Do you have what you are taking with you?" Johnrey urged. "We must move quickly now!"
The sounds of swords and screams cut through the roar of the burning fires as those who had been hiding tried to run from the flames and in turn found the spears of the invaders.
"Alright now, lads," Johnrey spoke to the six other guardsmen there in the cellar with him. "Keep a sharp eye out. We are going to make our way towards the broken gate."
"The North Gate?!" said a silver-haired woman. "Are you mad? Do you know what kind of evils wait for us out beyond the wall? We will be dead before morning!"
"No, my lady, I do not." Johnrey said with frustrated kindness in his eyes. "But I have seen the evils that hunt us here, and I would risk the morning for the chance to live another hour. We must go now."
Two of the guardsmen climbed the steps to either side of the root cellar's entrance, and positioned themselves so that they might open the overhead doors while the remaining guardsmen set up a small perimeter around the handful of frightened citizens that were in their care.
Keily drew back her bow, the sharpened iron point of her arrow trained on the entry way, ready to dispatch any who dare stand in the way of their escape.
"On my mark," said the old officer. "Quiet as a mouse now, lads." Johnrey nodded at the two guardsmen, and they slowly lifted the heavy cellar doors. The other four guardsmen padded quietly to the top of the stairs with brandished blades, eager to see if the way was clear. One of the men nodded that all was indeed safe, so Johnrey, Keily, and the half dozen citizens climbed the old steps into the darkened alleyway behind the Gnarly Knob, thick with the smoky sadness of their burning homes.
"This way," Keily ordered.
"But the North Gate is this way!" the silver-haired woman protested.
"We have to stay clear of the square; that is where most of the fires are being started. Our best chance is to head east, deeper into the borough, before we double back towards the wall," she reasoned.
"Aye," Johnrey agreed. "Let's be on with it then."
Not more than a moment later, when the small remnant had fled the cellar of her father's ruined tavern, Keily turned to see her home catch fire and go up in a torrent of sickly green and bright amber flames.
The barmaid froze for an instant, saying a sad goodbye to the place that she loved while the tears quietly rolled down her s
moke-stained cheeks. "Goodbye, Papa," she whispered into the greedy flames. "Goodbye."
"Keily?" Sharon asked as she reached for the woman's hand. "Keily, come on now, we must go."
"Aye, I hear you lass," she said sweetly as she wiped away the tears. "You lead on now."
As Keily moved to take her first step to follow little Sharon into the borough, the wall above her head reverberated with the sound of a raven-fletched arrow piercing the wood, not a handbreadth from her head.
Keily's eyes went wide with fear. "Run, Sharon! Run fast!" Three, four, a half-dozen arrows pierced the wall around her, splintering the wood and waking her from her sorrowful reverie. "Run now!"
The two of them raced as fast as they could. They turned left and cut between a row of shops, hoping that their change in direction might buy them a few more moments to put distance between them and the archers who meant to take their lives from them.
"Johnrey!" Keily shouted out as she ran, careless as to who else might hear her panicked voice. "Johnrey, they are upon us!" But the old officer did not answer her, and the walls of the shops began to feel the bite of the arrows once again.
"Quickly now!" she said to Sharon. "In here ... there!" Keily pointed to the large stone structure of an old chapel. "Over the fence!" The barmaid and the little girl burst through the alleyway and into a small, cleared field that was hemmed in by a stone knee wall. "Johnrey!" she shouted again, but all she could hear was the rushing of blood in her ears and the sound of Sharon's little, booted feet scampering upon the cobblestone pathway.
When the two of them had reached the knee wall, Keily quickly reached down and lifted Sharon up and over the stone fence before she, too, vaulted over. "Inside, Sharon, we will have to hide in there. Quickly now!"
Sharon's eyes were wide with fear, but she trusted this brave barmaid and so she nodded her childish agreement and took off towards the humble entry of the old Piney Creek chapel.
Whoosh! The sound of the raven arrows came near again as they fired past.
"Almost there! We are almost there!"
The Ravenous Siege (Epic of Haven Trilogy Book 2) Page 22