A King Of Crows

by T L Drew

  Nora thrust the dagger forward with all the strength her small body could muster – she slipped forwards in the snow and the thick mud, finding strength from the ring, and the pointed end of the knife lodged into the centre of Hakon’s cold, grey left eye, his own ring betraying him. She could feel the metal sliding into him, wedging itself there, and he began to scream. Nora let her hand slip from the blade, stuck in his eye, and Hakon raised his hands to the handle, trying to pry it from himself, bloodcurdling screams escaping his lips that echoed through the night over the resonance of war. As she watched, a crimson waterfall cascading down his gaunt, pocketed face, she almost couldn’t believe what she had done, and Nora stood frozen in place, watching as he writhed in agony.

  ‘Run!’ Nora heard one of her dying soldiers screaming to her, bleeding upon the soil, before a blade was thrust into his back by one of Hakon’s soldiers, a fellow man with one remaining eye and a greying dark beard.

  ‘Don’t move,’ the one-eyed man commanded Nora from a short distance, spying his lord, a blade ripped from his eye. The man was no soldier – he was a mercenary. Mercer, she thought Jorgen had called him. Nora could see from his armour, his blade, his tiny tattoo upon his face, scarcely seen in the darkness of the night that it was Mercer, the mercenary. Quickly she spun on her heel and ran, her eyes finding the dark forest, desperate to find Erik, to find Jorgen, and to escape with her life from the people who wished her harm. Nora broke past the first row of trees, the darkness growing ever darker, daring not to gaze behind at the carriage, where her lover’s men were dead or dying, and where the Grey army set ablaze to all that had been there.

  ‘Find her!’ Hakon shouted, blood cascading down his gaunt cheeks like a crimson waterfall – she could hear him as she ran deeper and deeper into the forest, wondering how close they were behind her, but Nora was fast, and she knew it. She ran with her hands filled with the hem of her dress, over the broken branches and the wet mud which was coated in a thick blanket snow. ‘Don’t let her escape! I want her dead!’ Hakon shouted into the night, flailing in agony.

  The sounds of Hakon’s screams still resonating through her ears as she ran deeper into the forest. Nora was alone in the dark as she ripped the ring from her finger, still running, leaving nothing but burnt flesh from where it had been, and Nora ran for her life.

  JAKUB

  The young boy watched as his father’s frozen body swung before him from his swollen neck, his still face purple. Amund Krea had been dead for hours, his neck broken, his body swinging in the light air as battle continued to wage around him.

  He did not notice Jorgen Black in the snow, several feet away from the wooden stage, lying among other dead men, those Jorgen had killed as he had tried to desperately save his late father’s life.

  Jakub wiped the tears from his eyes and stood painfully, grasping his blooded blade in his wintry hands and left his father’s body dangling from his neck, the battle continuing to wage outside of the courtyard walls despite the Grey army beginning to flee back to where they came, a battle won, and a city left in fiery ruins. The Grey solders were victorious, yet few remained alive in Solvstone, continuing to fight until every last western man had been slain. The battle had been lost to the westerners with the fall of their king and the disappearance of their heir, but Jakub would not stop fighting until all the Grey’s that remained in Solvstone lay dead in the dirt.

  Jakub Krea feared the creatures of the forest, but he did not fear men like he feared the monsters. His cowardice was all but gone as the images of his dead father plagued him, an anger controlling him, driving him forward. He ran from the courtyard, bodies all around him, swinging his blade in anger and mourning.

  He was barely fifteen-years-old, but Jakub was strong and powerful once his fearfulness has been pushed away, his swung deadly to all who met their blade with his. He lost count of how many men he cut down, killing all who wore the House Grey sigil upon their breastplates, walking past their butchered bodies without guilt. It was then that he saw his older sister, Elinor Krea, her sword cutting through the bitter air, having been thrown from her horse, like Jakub had been. She swung with little strength, her first fight, her first battle, barely a woman and facing against a man twice her height and strength. Her swing missed, cutting past the man in steel. Her head bled, her eyes stung and her body ached, but she continued to fight, to fight for honour, for the Black family, the family her father stood behind.

  ‘Elinor!’ Jakub shouted as he saw his sister fighting in the distance under the shadows of the ruined stone houses, thrashing her sword without skill. She was a lady with a warrior’s heart, not a true warrior, the first moon that she had picked up a sword in her small hands, and yet she fought with all the strength she could muster.

  Jakub’s voice was inaudible in the heat of the battle. Jakub ran towards his sister as the man’s strength overpowered her, her body falling backwards into the thick mud and snow, the sword still branded, ready for his next strike. The soldier was grinning down at his victim cruelly. Jakub watched as Elinor bore her sword forward and trust it into the man wearing steel, into a crevice in his shining armour. Blood poured from it, staining the silver armour red. He fell heavily, his sword clashing to the floor, and Jakub quickly ran to her aid with trepid haste. ‘It’s you, brother, thank the gods!’ Elinor cried as Jakub helped her to her feet, a relief washing over her that her brother was still very much alive. ‘Where is father? Have you seen him, Jake?’

  ‘He’s dead,’ Jakub uttered under the low sunrise, almost shouting over the sounds of war, his eyes watering. ‘I am Lord of the Emerald Isles now.’

  Elinor Krea said nothing, words catching in her throat and her gut twisting. Her heart was heavy, but they continued to fight, to fight for their lost father and the Black family, for those they had fought beside for generations. Eventually, after hours of battle, all the Grey army had disappeared with their mercenaries, leaving the ruins that remained of Solvstone and back to their snowy southern home once the Balfold men burned in defeat, only groups of survivors left alive.

  Elinor cut down another man in front of her younger brother, a man who was yet to leave the burning city, and his body fell into the shallow waters of Lake Solvstone, blood seeping into the water. After he was dead, they saw no other southerners left in their burning city. ‘We must hurry now,’ Jakub said to Elinor as sweat beaded down her forehead. ‘Reidar Black is dead, and Jorgen Black will need our help. He is the King of Balfold now, and what is left of the west.’

  ‘And what if he is dead, like father?’ Elinor asked painfully.

  Jakub did not answer his sister, yet ran through the rubble and blooded streets to search for their king with desperation.

  ‘Find Jorgen Black!’ Jakub Krea shouted to his men who had survived the bloody battle as he scanned each body, each face left alive. ‘We do not leave Solvstone until our king is found!’

  JORGEN

  Jorgen regained consciousness in a pile of ashes, rubble and dirt, tiny feet walking over his body. He could feel hard beaks pecking at his skin. His head throbbed and pounded like he had spent the long night drinking, only to fall in a drunken state, his head colliding with the hard floor. It would not have been the first time it had happened to Jorgen either; many a night with his little brother Erik had ended the same way, but Jorgen knew with a foggy mind and eyes sealed tightly shut that the pain in his head was not caused by drinking, but something more sinister – the surrounding screams confirmed it. Yet Jorgen lay still, face in the dirt and snow, blood clinging to him, his wounds open and sore and eyes tightly shut, unable to move his body, riddled with a callous pain, the likes of which he had never felt. The little feet continued to walk over him as dozens of crows tried to awaken him. Jorgen could hear Verath’s squawking in his ears, desperate to wake his master.

  Footsteps approached, yet still he could not move nor could he open his painful eyes.

  ‘Elinor, is this him? Is this Jorgen Black?’ A boy’s voice
coursed through Jorgen’s head, muffled and painful, his face half pressed into the dirt and blood-stained snow. The crows took to the skies and left his body. Arrows were ripped agonisingly from his shoulder and his leg, but he could shout or scream. He felt icy hands pushing at his agonizing body, flipping him from his torso and onto his back once the arrows had been torn from his flesh. Jorgen could hear the crows in the sky screeching at the boy as he touched Verath’s master. Jorgen let out a quiet sound of pain from his cut lips.

  A familiar voice responded as he felt hands brushing dried dirt and blood from his face. ‘Yes, it’s him, thank the gods!’ Hands brushed at the dirt on his cheeks. They were Elinor’s hands, he was certain. They were a small woman’s hands, but rough from training with blades.

  ‘Quickly, find someone who can help him; he’s wounded badly.’

  ‘I will return with water and aid,’ said the familiar voice of a young woman. ‘Do not leave his side; he is not safe yet.’

  Footsteps ran away from Jorgen’s still body. His throat was dry and his lungs were tight as the young man pulled Jorgen’s body into his arms and wiped what blood he could from his battered face. Verath flew back onto his master’s body, pecking him, trying to wake him. Jorgen could not muster words, barely awake from his unconscious state, but he could hear everything; the young man’s comforting whispers and reassurance, the screams of his people and the flames that still burnt wildly over his city. He had lost a lot of blood, he knew; it was blanketing him like a second skin.

  It was then that his thoughts came back to him, memories, memories of his father’s face as he swung lifeless, clad in his own blood and guts from Hakon’s blade, images of Nora and Erik as he left them alone in the carriage on the outskirts of Solvstone whilst steel clashed with steel and fire blazed over his home. The whispers of the ring still coursed through his head, even after it was parted from him. His ring…how could he forget his ring? How could he take his sights off of it? Jorgen was not sure what was real and what had been a dream. He wanted desperately to come to a stand, to open his dark eyes, to find the woman he loved and his young brother, to retrieve his ring and meet Hakon with his blade, but he could not.

  The sounds of footsteps suddenly returned, panicked and swift. ‘Help me, Jake.’ The woman said to the familiar voice, two pairs of hands pulling Jorgen’s body upwards from the dirt, rubble and snow, and sitting his broken body upright against a stony wall of the courtyard. His mouth was carefully opened and he felt fresh water pour through his cut lips and running down his sore throat, a sweet relief from the dryness on his tongue. He could still taste his own blood.

  ‘My king? Jorgen Black?’ Jorgen heard the voice of the young man echoing through his head, muffled and painful as strong hands shook his body ferociously, trying to wake him. ‘I do not know if you recognise my voice in your current state, my king, but it’s Jakub, Jakub Krea. Elinor and I are here to help you. You’re going to be well again, I swear it.’

  Jakub Krea. Jorgen knew this name well. His father was the lord and ruler of the Emerald Isles, one of the kingdom’s under Reidar’s rule. The Krea’s had aligned themselves with the Black family for thousands of years, ever since man had discovered Balfold and Askavold, and each family had promised the other their aid in times of crisis. The Krea’s and the Black’s were sworn to the other, to fight together, to die together. They married one another, joining their families together through generations. All the memories flooded back in an instant. Amund’s body swinging next to his father’s, hung from the neck until dead, his neck broken. He wondered if Jakub and Elinor had seen, seeing as the last thing Jorgen remembered was falling in the very same courtyard he had awoken in.

  Jorgen tried to speak, tried to pry his eyes open. A pain-filled sound escaped his lips. ‘There is no need to speak, my king, save your strength.’ Jakub said, pouring more water down his burning throat. ‘Elinor and I will have your wounds tended to, and then we shall ride south and take back what was stolen from us.’

  When Jorgen opened his heavy eyes, all he saw was the sky. Blurred and grey with smoke, he watched as it moved, his body carried away upon a stretcher, struggling to process what was real and what was merely a nightmare. Birds flew overhead, hundreds of crows in the sky. He could feel his own bird at his side, refusing to leave his master. It was his only comfort. The sky swiftly disappeared as fabric suddenly blocked it from sight, carried into a tent crafted from red fabric and Jorgen was laid upon a hard bed, his body plagued with pain. He still could not move his broken body. He stared up at the red as he was tended to, his wounds washed and stitched, Jakub Krea and Elinor refusing to leave his side as men and women tried to fix his broken body. Elinor kept her hand on his while he lay upon the hard bed, his body on fire. All awhile screams echoed from where he was kept, limbs amputated and arrows removed from battered, beaten bodies. The screams were worse than the pain that coursed through Jorgen’s body, even when they stitched the wound that ran across Jorgen’s damaged face, running from the top of his left eyebrow and cutting across the bridge in his nose to the bottom of his right cheek. His face felt like fire danced upon the surface of his icy coloured skin.

  Days passed him by in a blur of pain and darkness, slipping in and out of consciousness, the screams never ending. The bleeding from his wounds had stopped, but Jorgen was weak, the wounds to his head and his face almost crippling him, his body broken. He had lost a lot of blood. They said he was lucky to be alive. By the third day he was sat in his bed, aware of what had transpired, aware of what had happened to him. He could move parts of his body again. Jorgen knew what had been real and what had been a nightmare. He knew he was still inside of Solvstone, but he had been shielded from the city by the tent that surrounded him, the fabric walls filled with injured men, screaming, missing limbs. He was aware that his father had been slaughtered by the skinny man and that Jakub Krea and his sister had made no mention of Nora or Erik. He was aware that he was without his ring, and prayed that Hakon had not found it in his betrothed’s hands. Jorgen did not know if he could live without the little black band, his brother or his lover. He found his voice as Jakub and Elinor returned to his bedside in the early hours of the morning, swords upon their hips and cuts upon their faces from battle.

  ‘Where’s my brother? Where’s Nora?’ Jorgen managed to say as he lay blurred eyes upon the blond-haired siblings, his words burning in his mouth like fire on his tongue. ‘They have not come to my side.’

  Jakub looked at his older sister before Elinor spoke carefully. ‘They have not been seen, my king.’

  ‘Do not lie to me,’ Jorgen’s voice was angry and strained. ‘No one has so much as looked for them.’

  ‘I searched high and low, on the road they were supposed to take,’ Jakub interjected sternly. ‘I found the carriage, the horses and the men who protected them...they were all dead, but Erik and Nora were nowhere to be seen. I promise you, they are not among the dead.’

  ‘I want them here.’ Jorgen ordered with venom on his tongue, his mind wounded like his body. ‘I want them found, and I want them found now.’

  The siblings crouched at his bedside. Jakub’s words quiet and soft. ‘We should ride south and take them back from the Grey’s with an army. We will take what is theirs, for their betrayal.’ Jakub’s eyes were certain that Hakon had taken them in his grasp. Jorgen was inclined to believe it, especially after all Hakon had said. How could a crippled boy escape from an army of blood thirsty men without lying among the dead? It made sense to believe that Hakon had taken them as prisoners. The thought frightened Jorgen, that they were in his hands. He wasn’t certain which frightened him more; whether they were dead, or Hakon’s prisoners.

  ‘I do not want your army,’ Jorgen uttered in a monotone, staring forward at the red fabric, his eyes hollow and his face bandaged across his wound. His mind was numb and confused as he continued to heal. ‘I just want them back.’

  ‘And you can have them back when we attack Tronenpoint,’ Ja
kub Krea said with determination. ‘They’re there, I know it, I feel it in my heart. We can take an army south and strike, ambush them like they ambushed us, bearing our swords and our arrows, striking from the forest outside their walls like they did here. You can have Nora and Erik returned to Solvstone and take vengeance for your father and for ours, but now is the time to strike.’

  Jorgen pressed his lips together in a hard, straight line. He thought about the look on Reidar’s face as the stool was kicked out from underneath his feet, ridden with fear. The thought twisted his stomach, almost like he still didn’t believe it was true, that his father was dead. Nothing felt real to him. It was all a bad dream, in his state of mind. The wound to his head had been crippling. Words felt like stories and his memories were like cruel nightmares he couldn’t shake free.

  ‘I don’t want to be in this tent anymore.’ Jorgen uttered quietly and numbly, despite the pain, twisting his head to the entrance of the tent where light shone through the gap in the red fabric. He had to see it for himself, to believe it was real and not just a nightmare. He moved himself agonisingly, turning his body on the hard bed and pushed his legs out, placing his feet upon the cold floor. With all the strength he could muster, Jorgen pushed himself to a stand, his legs trembling, but quickly the Krea siblings supported him with their grasp and walked him towards the entrance of the tent. Jorgen was tall and broad, making it hard for the fourteen-year-old lord and his sister to support the new King of Balfold as he stumbled towards the exit with difficultly.

  ‘You don’t want to see this.’ Elinor said in his ear as they reached the light.

  ‘I need to see what they did to my home; none of it feels real yet, despite my wounds. I have to see what happened.’ Jorgen said with surety, taking a confident step from the tent, his mind clouded and his eyes wide open in the glare of the low sun as it peered over the tops of the mountains. The lake was still and as was the forest, calm and beautiful in the morning sun. Beyond the beautiful of Balfold, Jorgen Black saw the true horror before his blurry eyes, the smoke that rose high into the morning sky, the smell of death lingering over the ruins and the blood that bathed his home. Screams still resonated through the smoky air as more wounded men were found amongst piles of the dead, a sickening feeling rising in the pit of his stomach. Jakub and Elinor helped Jorgen move over the ash and rubble, his head pounding ferociously, witnessing what was left from the long and bloody battle, thousands of men, women and children butchered in the shadow of the Grey flags bearing the white fox, murdered callously by the men in steel who carried them and the mercenaries who followed Hakon’s every movement.