The day broke with a hollow, leaden light, the sort that seemed to weep for things undone. A heavy stillness hung over the battlements of the Well of Justice, sour and thick with the presage of death. Daker stood upon the high stone, his eyes turned toward the south where the jagged teeth of No Man's Land bit into the horizon. Only yestereve he had walked among the blackened ruins of the ancient keep below, yet now he was drawn back to the high walls like a moth to a dying hearth.
Far beyond the gaze of the crows, word had reached the Great Keep of Evergard that the bastard boy was gone from the Well for good and all. It was a lie Argus swallowed right willingly, for the King saw only what pleased him, blind to the shadows that crawled along his borders.
Northward, where the hills grew sharp, King Argus brought his wheel-house to a halt before a manor house—small in measure but rich in its appointments, a fine estate fit for a favorite concubine. The King stepped down from his carriage, his boots crunching loud upon the gravel. About him stood his personal guard, knights in heavy plate with steel swords sheathed in boiled leather. They formed a wall of iron before the outer pale, their visors down, their tongues silent. Only the King passed through the iron gate.
Within the high hall stood his new-made bride, arrayed in samite white as winter snow. A sweet, honeyed smile parted her lips, and the scent of rare myrrh and heavy oils rose from her skin, thick enough to turn a man's head and make the very courtyard smell of summer blossoms. King Argus dropped to one knee, the joints of his greaves groaning with the weight, and pressed his lips to the back of her soft, white hand.
A child's laughter broke the solemn air. A lad of few summers came toddling forth from the rushes, and Argus gathered him up into his great arms, kissing his wet cheeks with a father's rough pride.
When they came forth—the King, his new queen, and the babe of his loin—the knights outside fell to their knees with a great clatter of steel. Swords were raised in solemn salute. The three into the wheel-house clambered, and the drivers lashed the team, turning the heavy wheels back toward the high towers of Evergard.
Upon the stone walks of the Well of Justice, the air was thick with the scent of brine and sweat. Daker trained amongst his Blind Crow brothers, the heavy practice blades ringing out like anvil-strokes. Master Khyber stood by, his ancient eyes tracking the play of iron until he raised his staff to call a halt.
"Hold thy hand, lads," the old man called, his voice deep as a mountain cavern. "Suffer your bones a spell of rest, and give the young one his breath."
The knights dropped their points. Some slinked off toward the narrow cellars built into the thickness of the wall—the Crow's Nest, they named it—to wet their throats with flat small-beer.
A tall brother neared Daker, turning his scarred, blind visage toward him. "Me name be Gabriel, little brother," he said, his tongue thick with the rough, broken speech of the gutters. He spat upon the stone and laughed a dry, rattling laugh. "Bless thy stars, boy, that thou hast eyes to look upon this bloody world. Our own be plucked from their sockets whiles we were yet babes, or ever we knew the weight of a sword. 'Tis well Master Khyber spared thee the red iron when he took thee into the fold. Aye, thou'rt the only Crow amongst us what sees the sky."
Daker looked upon the man's ruined face, his throat tightening. "My thanks to thee, Gabriel," he said softly.
Gabriel tilted his head, his ears tuning to the lad's voice. "Wherefore thank me, young'un?"
"For thy kindness," Daker said. "For thy care, and for dragging my broken carcass from the ditch when the breath was nigh gone from me... for all of it."
Gabriel's mouth twitched into a hard grin, and he laid a heavy gauntlet upon Daker's shoulder—a glove of blackened iron wrought into the likeness of a crow's talons. "Think naught of it, lad. When a rogue loses all he owns to become a Crow, we be kin by blood and bone. 'Tis the law of the older sort to pass what wit they have—be it the sword-turn or the way to find bread in winter—to them what come after, so the line don't break."
Daker bowed his head in reverence. "I must return to my ruined keep beneath the wall, brother. We shall meet when the sun rises Rhodes."
Gabriel patted his shoulder with his heavy iron talon. "Go on then, little brother. Thy work is done for the day. Look to thy skin."
Daker stepped back to the edge of the parapet and, without a glance below, leaped from the seventy-meter height into the grey mists of No Man's Land. The wind whistled shrill in his ears until his boots hit the earth with a dull thud. He turned and waved his arm to the high wall above. Far up on the stone, Gabriel's senses caught the vibration of the air; the blind knight smiled and raised his iron hand in answer.
No sooner had Daker gone than Daki came clambering up the spiral stairs, her breath short, a covered trencher in her hands. Her eyes found Gabriel. "Where be the lad?"
"He's taken the long drop, lass," Gabriel said, wiping his brow with his sleeve. "Gone back to his holes."
Daki's mouth fell open, her face souring. "Gone so soon? And me with a strawberry cake I baked with me own two hands for his belly!"
Gabriel sniffed the air, his tongue darting over his lips. "Since the lad's cleared out, hand it over. My belly's growling like a chained hound."
"Nay, thou great beast!" Daki snapped, pulling the trencher back into her apron. "'Twas meant for Daker's mouth, not thy greedy gullet!"
She turned to go, but with a thief's speed, Gabriel's arm darted out. A cold gust seemed to pass her, and the trencher was empty. Daki stared at her bare fingers, her teeth grinding until her jaw ached. Far down the walk, Gabriel was already running, stuffing the sweet red cake into his maw with both hands.
"Cross me path again, thou blind raven, and I'll have thy liver on a spit!" she screamed, her face red as a boiled lobster as she stamped away.
Beneath the shadow of the wall, Master Khyber moved like a specter across the barren flats until he reached the broken keep where Daker made his bed. He found the youth sitting in the deep, ink-black shadow of a collapsed tower.
Daker rose, his brow furrowed. "Master Khyber? What brings you into this waste? I have only just left the wall. Had you commands, you might have spoken them there."
The old man did not answer at once. He sat heavily upon a fallen stone, his face drawn in lines of deep sorrow. "Daker, my child," he said, his voice cracked and thick with unshed tears. "I bring a burden that will break thy heart to hear."
A cold dread crept into Daker's chest. "What is it, master? Your words freeze my blood."
Khyber looked down at his gnarled hands. "Thy mother... Queen Isabella... her breath has fled. She is gone from this world."
The world went dark before Daker's eyes; his limbs grew cold as winter ice, and he fell to his knees in the dust, sobbing like a wounded beast. "Who... who speaks this lie to you?"
"General Valerius sent word before the dawn," Khyber said softly.
"When did she pass?"
"Ere the first light broke today."
Daker buried his face in his hands, his tears turning the grey dust to mud. It seemed the gods had stripped him of the last kindness he knew. Seeing the lad so broken, Khyber's grief turned to a hard, cold fury, and the truth he had kept secret for years came bursting forth.
"Daker," Khyber hissed, his eyes burning. "The blame lies at the feet of thy father, King Argus. It was his hand that mixed the cup. For many a year now, he hath fed Queen Isabella a slow, wasting venom to rot her from within."
Daker stared at him, his face wild. "What say you? Master, you speak madness!"
"'Tis the black truth, boy."
"But why? Wherefore would he do this deed?" Daker cried. "I know he hated me... I was no blood of his, and he cast me into the red meat-grinder of the Dire Dirge because he claimed my birth brought a demon's curse upon his house! But my mother loved him! She gave him her worship, and he... he seemed to hold her dear. What of that love?"
"A player's mask!" Khyber spat. "Argus loves naught but his own ambition. He sent thee to die in the Dirge to clear his slate, not for any curse. He gave his Queen the venom because her womb was dead; she could never give him a son of his own blood. She took thee in out of her own loneliness, but Argus would never suffer a beggar-woman's changeling to sit upon the throne of Evergard. He played the pious king before the smallfolk, hoping the gods would reward his 'charity' with a son. When they gave him naught, he took a secret wife in the north, and she brought forth a boy. But by the laws of the realm, while Isabella drew breath, that northern woman was but a whore and her son a bastard. So he cleared his path—he threw thee to the crows in the Dire Dirge, and he murdered his Queen with slow poison."
The old man let out a long, ragged sigh. "Poor Isabella... she died blessing the very dog that cut her throat. And now, Argus intends to host a great Royal Feast this very night, before her body is well cold in the tomb."
"A feast...?" Daker whispered, his voice trembling. "Who drinks wine while his wife's body is being prepared for the earth?"
"A king who celebrates his triumph," Khyber answered. "At the high table, he will name his new queen before the lords. And beside him will sit Wyrald, that foul, misshapen beast of the Karatha breed. But we have sharpened our steel. Tonight, I have summoned the Crows from all four quarters of the Well. We shall move along the tops of the walls and fall upon the castle like a storm. Tonight, the old King pays his debt in blood."
Daker caught the old man's sleeve. "'Tis madness, master! If my father smells this plot, his vanguard will tear you to pieces. The Royal Army is vast, and with Commander Seraphina in chains, Wyrald leads the host. If you strike, the King will have Seraphina's head before your men cross the moat. And what of General Valerius? Does he know of this desperate throw?"
"He does," Khyber said. "The General strikes from within the keep, while we break the gates from without."
"Then I stand with you," Daker said, his eyes hardening.
"Nay, child," Khyber said, his voice softening with an old affection. "Thy place is not in the ditch tonight. I swore an oath to Isabella, to Valerius, and to Seraphina that ere tomorrow's sun goes down, thou wouldst wear the crown of Evergard. I will not have thy blood upon my hands. Tonight we turn his laughter to howling. But if the day goes against us... remember this, Daker: thou art the last Crow. There will be none else alive to remember our name."
"No... no, master!" Daker wept, his spirit breaking. "I have seen too many go into the dark. Let the crown go... let him have his victory!"
"The die is cast, lad," the old man said, rising to his full height. "This is no longer thy small grief; 'tis the realm's. He took our Queen; we shall take his life. The smallfolk look to us for their deliverance."
Daker fell back into the dirt, his fingernails tearing against the stones until they bled. He could only weep, his lips forming one name over and over: "Seraphina... Commander Seraphina... they will slay her... stop them, master, stop them..."
Khyber looked down at him one last time. "There is one thing more, Daker, though I was bidden to keep it from thee. Seraphina loved thee as her own flesh. Though thy proud tongue never called her mother, her ears hungered for that word above all else."
Daker looked up through his tears. "If she loved me so, wherefore did she let Isabella take me? Why did she not keep me to her own breast on the day I was born?"
"She wished it above all things," Khyber said. "But her duty to the crown and her love for Isabella bound her hands. Yet today, she threw her high office into the dirt and chose the iron fetters of the dungeon only to keep thee safe. General Valerius is a man possessed; he will have his wife out of that hole or die in the attempt. I know the ghost of thy father's old affection still haunts thy thoughts, lad... but the king who smiled upon thee in thy cradle is long dead. The thing that sits upon the throne now is worse than any fiend from the pit. Dry thine eyes. A Crow does not weep."
With those words, the old man vanished into the falling twilight. Daker sat alone upon the ruined masonry, his eyes fixed upon the distant lights of Evergard Castle as the tears ran hot down his face.
THE COUNCIL OF THE UNSEEING
Upon the wind-swept stone of the Well of Justice, the Blind Crow Knights had gathered in a sullen, heavy silence. They sat dispersed across the high walk, their scarred faces turned toward Master Khyber, absorbing the grim strategy of the coming onslaught like men measuring their own graves.
"Every man shall bide with his own master," Khyber spoke, his voice low, yet carrying through the bitter chill. "A single company shall strike directly at the castle's main gates, for there the enemy shall mass their thickest hedge of iron. When the Royal Guards find they cannot break our vanguard, they will summon every remaining knight in the stronghold to encircle thee. It is in that very hour, whiles they are tangled in thy lines, that my own choice men shall breach the rear postern and take the keep from within. The remaining two companies shall wait upon the heights; no sooner have they closed their net around thee, than our reserves shall fall upon their rear, grinding them to dust between our hammers."
Daki stood close within the shadow of the parados, her hand resting gracefully upon the pommel of her blade.
Without warning, a lone shaft whistled shrill through the murk of No Man's Land. It flew straight and true, aimed at the maiden's throat, but Gabriel's iron talon darted through the air. With a dull crack, his gauntlet snatched the arrow from the wind and snapped the ash-wood in twain.
"Hold thy hand, Gabriel!" Daki cried, catching his sleeve. "Cast it not away! There is something bound to the shaft."
She snatched the broken reed from the blind veteran's grip and unfastened the coarse rag tied about the iron head. Stepping toward a flickering cresset, she read the parchment under the greasy torchlight, her voice trembling as the words took shape.
"Tis from Daker," she whispered to the council. "Sent from the teeth of the waste below."
"Read it, lass," Khyber commanded, his brow furrowing. "What writes the boy?"
"'My brothers,'" Daki read, her eyes scanning the ink, "'cast your sight across the flats of No Man's Land. Something stirs in the dark. A single shadow crawls toward the base of the Well... Nay, 'tis not alone. At the first turning of the moon, there was but one, but their numbers swell with every breath.'"
Ere she could finish, a second hiss cut the night. Another blind brother lunged outward, his gauntlet closing over a second shaft with a heavy rattle of steel.
"Master," the knight called out, "another reed from the dark."
Daki snatched it, her face turning pale as ash as she read the hurried scrawl. "'By the fashion of their weeds, they are no mortal men. Fiends, marsh-hags, and warlocks... the host of the pit hath gathered here this night.'"
A few of the senior Crows slinked over the battlements, dropping down into the lower footholds of the seventy-meter wall to peer into the abyss. Through the shifting gray mists, they beheld the horror: a vast, silent congregation of ghouls, warlocks, and pale, night-walking beasts stood shoulder to shoulder. Yet they drew no steel, nor did they offer any violence. They stood with their gnarled hands folded, their faces turned toward the stones in terrifying reverence.
Other scouts scoured the flanks of the redoubt, only to find the same silent host occupying every corner of the ditch. They clambered back to the high walk, their breath short.
"How can so many denizens of the deep stand in accord?" the scouts whispered. "They offer no siege, nor do they test the masonry. They bow their heads as if in prayer to some unseen king. They have girdled the entire Well, and their numbers multiply in the fog. Master, what sorcery is this?"
Khyber let out a low growl, his staff striking the stone.
"Daker abideth still in that collapsed keep below!" Daki cried, her fingers clutching the parchment. "If the fiends smell his blood in those ruins, they will tear him to pieces ere he can draw his dagger!"
Khyber turned to her, his voice hard. "Write to him, lass. Write this instant. Tell the boy we have seen the host. Bid him cease his arrows, lest he draw their collective fury. Tell him to bury himself deep within the stone, to stifle his breath and make no stir. They are too many, and the gates of the deep are open."
Without a breath of delay, Daki set ink to parchment. A long-bowman of the Crows drew his string to the ear, launching the reed with the full might of his hemp. Far below, within the shadow of the broken tower, Daker's hand reached out, catching the flying shaft without a sound.
"He is but one soul against a sea," Daki murmured, looking down. "We must fall upon them and hew them down."
"Nay," Khyber answered, his voice heavy with ancient caution. "If we join battle with this host, our purpose is ended ere it begins. We cannot suffer them within the gates, yet if we exhaust our steel upon these phantoms, we shall be too few to face the Vanguard, and Wyrald's scale will tip against us. We cannot risk the venture. We shall bide our time upon the walls and pray they depart with the dawn. Until this unholy business is concluded, we stir not a foot against King Argus. Let a swift runner find General Valerius within the keep—tell him to hold his hand until the path is clear. And discover, if you have the wit, what manner of ungodly master these shadows worship."
THE FRANTIC AARTI AND THE MONSTER'S RAGE
The Crows watched from their perches like frozen gargoyles. Below, hidden within his hollow of stone, Daker watched the turning of the host. As the green fires of the hags' cauldrons began to swing through the dark in wide, looping circles, a terrible realization pierced his mind.
They are not bowing in submission, the youth realized, his joints turning to water. They are offering a frantic Aarti of fire... they are invoking the doom.
Across the ridge, the Crow's messenger found General Valerius within the alchemist's cell. When the word of the ritual was delivered, the General cursed roundly. "The gods have spat upon us! Our plan was forged in iron, and now these hell-spawn have broken our line!"
Upon the high balcony of the palace, King Argus raised his staff. Wyrald stepped forward into the torchlight, his black plate armor gleaming like oil on water.
"People of Evergard!" Argus shouted. "The old blood is gone, and the kingdom is reborn! Shout for your new Queen and the young Prince who shall rule after me!"
Wyrald reached down and took the small child up in his two massive hands, holding him high above the crowd. The smallfolk shouted, their voices loud but hollow, for the spears of the Vanguard were at their backs and the great beast Wyrald towered above them like an executioner. They cheered because they feared to die.
Then, in the space of a single breath, the new Queen's eyes turned black as midnight oil—a deep, void-like dark that seemed to swallow the light of the torches and the stars above. And as her gaze shifted, the child vanished from Wyrald's hands like mist before the sun.
Far out in No Man's Land, Daker looked up at the sky. The crescent moon had turned the color of fresh-spilt blood, and its curve twisted into a wide, malicious grin—a true devil's smile across the stars.
The youth felt his joints turn to water; a primal horror seized his throat. He gripped his hands so fiercely that his fingernails tore into his palms, and his own blood ran hot down his wrists.
In the courtyard, Wyrald roared, staring into his empty palms. Seeing the ancient doom come down, the beast cast off his human guise and let his true Karatha form burst forth.
His bones cracked like dry wood as his stature grew to twice its size. His lower jaw split down the center into two snapping mandibles, wet with green slime. A dozen black, spider-like eyes burst from his brow, twisting and blinking in the torchlight. His fingers fused together until only three great talons remained on each hand, and long, jagged spikes of cartilage tore through the flesh of his elbows and shoulders.
The beast leaped for the Queen to tear her throat out, but ere his claws could touch her, the earth beneath Evergard groaned and tore asunder. It was a sickening crack of bedrock, splitting into jagged, bottomless chasms. From the deepest fissures of the broken stone, a thick, greasy black light poured forth, defying the night. And from the very bowels of the earth, the Black Sun rose into the weeping sky.
THE CATACLYSM OF EVERGARD
The Black Sun did not merely fall; it drank the world. It descended upon the spires of Evergard like a swelling womb of midnight, heavy with cosmic spite. Where its negative shadow swept, the very marrow of the land turned to salt and ash. The pristine mountain streams curdled into grey dust in the turning of a leaf; the great oaks of the outer court rotted to the root in mere seconds, their bark sloughing off like diseased skin.
It hung low over the doomed city, a great, swelling ball of negative fire, and within its dark, churning crown dwelt countless black, hollow faces. Whilst the air remained empty of prey, these faces bided in a deathly, frozen stillness, their features carved of silent stone.
But no sooner did the first ranks of the living fall within the shadow of that abyssal orb, than the matrix of the spell awoke.
The black faces within the sphere began to writhe and howl in a frantic, maddened frenzy. Their mouths tore open, wide and ravenous, screaming in a chorus of unholy hunger. A terrible, unseen vacuum seized the host of Evergard, drawing the meat, the blood, and the vital fluids of men and steeds alike upward into the burning vortex of the star.
As the living were dragged into this celestial crucible, a multitude of white, smoke-like souls burst forth from the crown of the sun. Yet, they wrought no havoc, nor did they strike at the living below. They emerged only as pure, ghostly wisps of mist, drifting upward into the starlight for a fleeting single moment before dissolving softly into the cold night air, vanishing into nothingness like a snuffed flame.
Beneath them, the grim work of the harvest was instantaneous. The living were torn to remnants where they stood, their vitality sucked clean into the vacuum of the fire. The remnants of men were cast aside, and naught but dry, hollow skeletons clattered upon the stones, collapsing into heaps of nameless bone.
King Argus was torn to pieces where he sat, his royal flesh scattered among the ruins. Daki, General Valerius, Commander Seraphina, old Khyber, and the five hundred Crows were dissolved in the breath of the blast, turned to white smoke and skeletal frames where the meat still hissed upon the bone. Even the monstrous Wyrald was reduced to a blackened cage of cartilage.
When the reaping was done, and no living breath remained to feed the hunger of the spell, the white spirits ceased to rise. And within the burning orb of the Black Sun, those countless black faces became instantly mute, freezing back into that dead, unblinking silence, staring down upon the grand graveyard they had made.
A final, thunderous explosion tore through the western flank of the battlements. A mountain of shale and ancient stone snapped loose, hurtling down into the mists of No Man's Land. Daker, mad with the sudden shock of his kin's destruction, never saw the mass descending upon his redoubt. The great stones took his collapsed tower, burying his sanctuary deep within the belly of the earth.
With one last, earth-shaking roar, the entire structure of the Well of Justice collapsed inward, leaving naught but a smoking crater, leagues wide. The demonic host that had stood in prayer fell upon the rim of the pit like starving wolves, snapping and snarling as they fought over the scorched bones of the dead, gorging themselves upon the remnants of Evergard.
THE LAST CROW
When the morning sun rose, pale and sickly over the vast ash-heap, a single hand thrust out from beneath a grey slab.
Daker crawled forth into the light, coughing up black dust and bitter bile. A deep gash crossed his brow, and a steady stream of dark blood ran through the soot upon his face, drawing a red line from his hairline down to his nose. His Crow's armor, wrought of blackened iron, had held against the falling grit, but the linen tunic beneath was reduced to bloody rags that climbed to his torn skin.
He took up his heavy axe, fitted his dented helm, and ran toward the great crater where the Well had stood.
There was nothing. For hours he labored under the unblinking sun, throwing aside stones that tore the skin from his fingers until his palms were raw and weeping, hoping against hope to find one living soul—Gabriel's iron glove, Khyber's staff, or the hem of Daki's samite gown. But there was only the terrible silence of the waste and the heavy, sweet smell of death. He was the last.
By afternoon, his tongue was swollen with thirst; his throat felt as though it were lined with sharp sand, yet every well and cistern within the ruins was filled to the brim with grey ash. He turned his back upon the grand graveyard of his kin and began to walk. He had no path, no purpose; his boots simply moved.
He walked until the sun grew red and low, deep into parts of No Man's Land where no man had ever drawn breath since the first age. The soles of his boots split open upon the sharp shale. The ground beneath his feet was a waste of jagged stones, each edge as sharp as a bravo's dagger, and the rock was so hot from the unnatural fires of the cataclysm that his feet began to bake within the leather.
With every stride, the fresh blood from his cuts and the yellow pus from his blisters ran down his heels; when the fluid hit the burning stone, it hissed and spat with a sickening sound—like a rasher of salt pork dropped onto a hot iron skillet. Yet he did not halt. His armor grew so hot against his bare skin that it began to peel the flesh from his shoulders; he unbuckled the heavy straps and cast the iron plate into the dirt, pressing forward with naught but his axe in his hand.
After another mile of torment, his eyes caught the dull, leaden gleam of water in a hollow. He dragged his bleeding feet across the last ridge and fell heavily to his knees by the pool. The water was thick and grey with mud. As he leaned over the surface, he saw his own ruined face staring back at him from the muck. Two heavy tears fell from his eyes, breaking the image into a hundred ripples—and with that splash, the long, dark memory faded, and he was back in the bitter present.
Daker dipped his bare hands into the foul pool and flung the muddy water into his face, scrubbing away the crust of the road. He drank deep of the bitter stuff to cool his burning vitals.
As he drew back, a sharp stench of rot hit his nostrils.
He turned his head. A few paces off lay a heap of fresh bones, large as timber-beams, and great black flies were buzzing thick over the remaining strings of grey meat. To his right, the hillside opened into a yawning cave, dark and deep as a tomb. Daker swallowed one last gulp of mud and gripped the ash-wood handle of his axe with both hands.
A pair of yellow eyes flared within the depths of the cavern.
With a heavy, earth-shaking tread, two Primal Giants stepped out into the light of the dying sun. Their massive frames were clad in the untanned hides of great beasts, and thick, matted hair grew coarse over their limbs. The hair of their heads hung down in greasy ropes, filled with twigs and dried blood.
One of the monsters bore the fresh skeleton of some great elk upon his shoulder, the ribs still dripping grease while a cloud of black flies swarmed about his head. The second giant held a great lump of raw, purple meat between his yellow teeth, the blood running down his chin into his hairy chest.
They stood forty to fifty feet from crown to heel, their colossal shadows falling long and dark over the muddy pool, completely swallowing the solitary youth within the gloom. Their yellow eyes found him, fixing upon his ruined form in a deathly, unblinking glare.
CHAPTER 20 END
VOLUME ONE END