Chapter 5 Blackbird

This sun might have begun like so many others, but it would end my world as I have known it. Foraging in the forest for shrooms and herbs we did not have in our garden, I had done this same thing countless times past. The clouds were grey with their underbelly a sickly green. A storm appeared imminent. Da had promised a grand meal of sorts as he was expecting Moor the following eve and had invited Grayce and Effie and Argo as well. It was just a few suns till my seventeen-year-ender and the meal he was planning would be to its honor. Well past high-sun, from the skies, you could not imagine it so. Thick clouds had buried the sun and the forest had gone quiet. I heard then what I never in all my years had ever heard afore. The home bell rang clear, three times.

I jumped with a start. Rising up, my heartbeat was increasing as well. First wondering if I had heard wrong, for it was not the time of sun to hear any bell tolling, certain that I had not. In years past, I might have thought it a game, devised by Da for my year-ender celebration. But near to seventeen, I held little doubt this would not be the case. I dropped my harvested foodstuffs. This did not seem right…. This was not right! Running away to the Frost Cellar was not even an option to my mind. 

Over the past year since I’d finished it, I wore my pack at all times when I was away from the cottage. I carried my bow and my short sword which was sheathed against my back as well. My days as a seven-year-ender came to mind at once and Da’s secret of the three tolls of his bell surfaced to the fore of my mind.

But I did not run to the Frost-Cellar as he had once charged me to do. I was no longer a younger of seven or eight year. I would not run and hide.

Instead, I ran towards home. An inner urgency propelled me.

Sprinting to the edge of the tree line, I stopped to catch my breath and stared down from the high point at the edge of our pasture. Da was in front of the cottage with his newly forged haälberd in his hands. This was wrong. It was his weapon of choice beyond his bow. He and Argo had crafted it this year past from a pole he’d kept for himself from the Ænt-wood and Sky-stone metal. These were not friends.

Da held the axe head to the ground as he faced twelve mounted men in matching burgundy tunics and dark gray capes. A uniform of a sort, it was clear. There was a sigil woven into the leather breast plate.  One of the mounted men was yelling at Da. I must do something! These men held their hands to the pommels of their long swords. Three others held cross bows to their sides. Could there be bolts already loaded to them?

Da must have seen me as his head turned slightly towards me.  He turned back to the man who was yelling, answering him with words I could not hear. This man sat on the saddle of a mighty warhorse near to the size of Bregœ. Even at this distance, I noted a scar running from his ear to his chin.

Of a sudden, Scarface, yelled an order. Four men dropped from their horses to the ground. Each drew his broad sword. These soldiers moved with a trained precision I’d never seen afore. They moved forward to attack Da. 

I jumped from the tree line and yelled, “Nay!”

Scarface turned my way. Da did not. He was a man possessed and in chaotic motion. Scarface barked another command and two of the riders were suddenly headed my way at a gallop. Da was swinging his halberd. Three of the men were already crumpled to the ground as two more sprung from their mounts and pulled their swords. 

“Pickles, go!  Bregœ, to him!” Da’s voice boomed and then he gave a great whistle.

I hesitated no more and began to run towards Da, watching as the three with cross bows loosed their bolts. Da had finished the fourth and fifth attacker with one swing that first hit one swordsman and then another on the upswing. He powered through broad swords and nearly decapitated the fifth man. But two of the crossbow bolts had struck him. The cross bowmen dropped their weapons and leapt from their horses to draw their swords as well, even as Da ran another through the heart.

The two dispatched to me were nearing when Da went down on one knee. One bolt struck high in his chest and another embedded in his thigh.  Bregœ came thundering past me and struck one of the charging horses from the front and side, with hooves high, in a bone-crushing crash. There was a roar as the horses met. The second rider, unable to stop, collided with the first rider and Bregœ, to his deadly fate. He was thrown from his mount. An audible crack could be heard as his head hit the ground.  

The first rider had somehow managed to dismount with his short sword drawn, his steed limping back and away. Bregœ kept the swordsman fighting for his life as he remained a flurry of anger in motion, kicking in all directions, his jaws snapping afore him. 

I continued my race towards Da.

Da had risen. Despite his wounds, he charged the three bowmen as they were pulling their swords. Two never finished drawing them from their scabbards as the curved blade of Da’s haälberd, swinging in a mighty arc, struck straight across their necks. He stopped the weapon’s forward momentum and with a twist of his body thrust the spearhead of the haälberd into the chest of the third bowman.

I was nearly there, but for all my speed, I would not reach him in time.

“Da! Behind you!” 

Scarface had dismounted and came at Da from behind with a short sword. Coward! The blade entered into Da’s left side just below his ribs. Da roared. He swung back to his right with the tail end of his haälberd in a tremendous thrust that took Scarface directly in the front of his neck and lifted him off the ground. He flew backwards and to the ground. 

I reached Da just as he too collapsed. Falling to my knees, I held Da’s head to my lap.

Blood covered everything. It was pooling under Da from the sword thrust to his back. The crossbow bolt to his chest entered too close to his heart. The bolt to his thigh was literally pumping blood from his body as I watched.

Confusion on what I should do. Fear. Anger. Hate. Raw emotion welling within me. 

How could I save him? I had to save him.

Da opened his eyes and whispered to me, “Kingsmen, Arias, you must find the Druid now. Frost-Cellar. Pickles.”  Then, of all things, he chuckled, and tried to smile. Confusion.

He drew an agonized breath and his eyes glazed over. I knew in that moment that Da would not see me again. There was nothing I could do to keep him. I sat silent with his head in my lap for a short time, all thought beyond me. My eyes stayed dry, even as my heart pounded  grief.

Finally, I rose to stand above the carnage. I lifted my bow and pulled my short sword from my pack, walking now, around to each of the soldiers. These Kingsmen.  Anger. Hate. Da had said in his tales that the Kings sigil was a great black raven over a gilded häalberd. But these men were no longer a threat. There were ten men down here around Da, and it was clear that they would not be getting up. Each wore a thick leather cuirass with the Kings sigil embossed upon the breastwear. 

Behind me came a pained whinny and a great snort. Bregœ. My heart was breaking and I was moving on with the force of necessity and the surge within me that, Mãamel Bræder had once explained, came with one’s fear, a trauma, or extreme emotional exertion.

Bregœ was clearly suffering and there were still two more soldiers I needed to check on. I glanced to the homestead trail thinking of Grayce and something caught my eye as all these happenings were being processed in my overtaxed mind. I found that my eyesight sometimes became clearer to great distances when I was excited or stressed and I spied another soldier at the tree line, not eighty paces out. 

Another Kingsman. 

I stared right at him and started running towards him, nocking an arrow and stopping to loose it, just before my feet made haste.  He just watched, remaining still as I continued towards him. Finally, as my arrow struck a tree nearby to him, he reigned his horse, turned, and galloped away.

I would not be able to catch him. 

I ran back to Bregœ. He thrashed about in severe pain caused by two broken legs, one his hind leg. A wound pierced his belly. These soldiers, like the others, were not going to rise again. One lay with his head clear around behind him. The other was crushed and smashed and lay in a heap. Bregœ lay, occasionally still thrashing, next to him. I pulled my dagger and kneeled. With a sigh, I took Bregœ’s great head into my hands and stared into his eyes. He huffed and whinnied and then became very still and relaxed. In a quick and deliberate motion, I thrust my long dagger up through the underside of the majestic steed’s jaw and into his brain to relieve his pain forever.

Resigned that I could do nothing more for Bregœ, I turned back towards where Da lay. Of a sudden, the sky now turning even darker and nearly black as the sound of hundreds of cawing ravens assaulted my ears. They were descending upon the carnage in front of the cottage where great buzzards had already landed. A great sickening wrenched at my stomach. My heart wailed.

I ran towards Da’s body, not willing to let the carrion birds desecrate his remains. But as I approached, the most amazing sight presented itself. A score of ravens, maybe more, had formed a circle around Da’s body and even as great vultures approached, the ravens beat them back. All the other bodies were being decimated by the carrion birds. But the great black birds kept vigil, in a wide circle around Da. Not a single predator or scavenger bird came near. As I walked over, the ravens parted afore me and I approached, unmolested to him.

The other horses had panicked and stood well away also, either from the scent of blood or the myriad of ravens, I was not sure which. With great effort, I pulled Da’s body away from the carnage and lay him down, covering his body with a great canvas tarp from the barn.

I did not want to delay the task, so I hitched one of our burden horses to a buckboard and brought it over to Da’s body. I somehow managed to get Da’s great body atop the wagons backbed. I used the wagon to take him to the great oak behind the barn. With a weighty determination, I dug and dug. Da’s grave.

Sweating from exertion that no thought could invade, I placed Da into it with as much care as I could manage. Across his body, I laid his great bow and to his right, the haälberd. 

And then, I buried him. 

I covered the grave with large stones as well. At the head of the grave, I fashioned with large stones, an "E" and a "B"

Ètœn Bard. 

I walked over and all but collapsed against the great oak and sat there numb and silent. I shook uncontrollably for a time, until I managed to pull myself into my Calming and let the nothingness embrace me. I did not want to wake from it. A while later, I emerged from the Calming. It was near to dusk. Life must resume.

Around me, the murder of ravens caught and feasted and with them, the other great carrion birds, helping to rid the land of the murderous Kingsmen who had taken Da from me. They worked tirelessly as the skies cleared, a full moon rose and a myriad of stars appeared. Plenty of light for their feast of the dead.

After a time, I made my way over to our cottage, mine, I guess now. I entered and did not bother with the fire. With deadened heart and fatigued beyond measure, from the grief and numbness within, I collapsed onto my cot to sleep, despite the eerie sounds of cawing ravens and the screeches of the other carrion birds.

I awoke with a start, afore the morn’s sun broke upon the horizon and with Da’s last words crystal clear in my mind. I set a fire going in the fireplace and washed at the sink basin. Dressed, I exited the cottage. I milked our two cows and mucked the stables and put the goats and horses and cattle to pasture setting them out the rear doors of the barn and furthest away from the carnage near the front of the cottage, where many carrion birds kept up their feast. These were the every-sun things I did throughout my life with Da. They gave me little comfort.

The huge ravens, however, had all retreated to the great oaks branches that overlooked Da’s grave. 

I kept Paint with me and saddled him and donned my pack with Lilit and Jilly aboard for the ride. They having scurried from their second home under the cottage to join me. They did not want to be left here amongst our raven guests, I was sure. I would deal with them upon my return. Heading out to the Frost-Cellar, Da’s words again surfacing in my mind.

It wasn’t a long trip riding Paint. Dismounting, I entered the top cavern of the Frost-Cellar quickly, pulling the torch from its bracket and lighting it. It had struck me, our secret from long ago and its meaning now, and the meaning of Da’s password as well.

Da had known that one day, what had happened would come to pass. I didn’t understand the why of it, however. Da must have been made a wanted man by some lord who insisted he had been wronged, and petitioning the King to serve justice. But I have known him always to be only the most honest and honorable of men. This scenario, therefore, made no sense to me. But these thoughts would have to wait, for Da had wanted me here for a reason. Da’s special password held the key.

I have always thought Da’s special password a joke, as his favorite treat being pickles and we always had plenty on hand. In fact, the largest barrel in all the Frost-Cellar held just that, pickles. Da’s garden had always grown cucumbers; it was the first thing he planted of all his vegetables each spring. As he harvested his cucumbers, he prepared and pickled a good portion of this special crop. Da would have his cucumbers mixed with greens and onions and tomatoes with vinegar and oil mixed atop. But the special treat remained always the pickled variety. He often said he rated taverns not only by the quality of their ale, but by their pickles. It brought a great smile to my face even now as I thought it.

I held the lit torch above and in front of me and proceeded to the back of the top cavern. Making my way past the hanging meats and rolls of cheeses in niches in the cave’s walls, and back to the hidden passage and the stair to the Frost-Cellar below. I did not need to go all the way to the bottom of the stair into the icy Frost-Cellar itself, the landing at the turn of the stair would be far enough. There sat a few barrels of varying sizes holding things Da wanted to stay cool, such as ales and ciders for the most part. And in the biggest barrel amongst these were pickles. A large wood burned ‘P’ prominently displayed upon the side of the barrel. I had seen and opened this barrel many a time, so I knew Da was not meaning me to do that.

And then, with the torch afore me, something else about the alcove became apparent. The barrels were stacked against a slatted wood wall of a sort.  As I held the torch near to it, I could see betwixt the wooden slats and that the alcove actually continued deeper behind it.

Muscling the pickle barrel aside, I found the wall in truth opened as a hinged door that swung inward to hide the hinges of it. For all the times I had been here, I had never afore noticed.  Finding the hidden latch, I pushed a squeaky door open and stepped into an even deeper alcove. It extended near three-paces deep and the ceiling here tall enough that I could stand upright.  As I shined my torch, I found four items in the alcove afore me. The first that caught my eye was an intricately carved bow, then a small chest, a rolled leather secured with an elven-vine cord and a small wooden box of a size that would fit upon my lap. I swung the torch about the space but could find nothing more.

Removing these items from the alcove and onto the landing in front of the barrels, I pulled the door shut once again and secured it. Gathering the bow, chest, box and parchment, I carried the items out of the cave to examine them in the light of the sun. I made to secure them upon Paint’s back, noting as I did that the bow’s intricate carving was of a scaled serpent. A fiercely carved head clearly represented the head of the mythic Drægon as it sat atop the bow’s upper limb; a theme I’d seen afore. The lower limb of the bow carried the remarkable likeness of the spiked tail of a Drægon. There could be no doubt that I had found my seventeen-year-end gifting from Da. Another piece of my finger resided within the grip.

Afore I headed back to the cottage, something niggled at my brain. I paused for a minute to cypher what it could be. Then a dawning came. Da had expected Moor and Grayce and Mãamel Bræder to come calling to the homestead today. Then, like a huge stone, the ache filled my heart again, but the practical side of my brain also came upon me. Going back into the Frost-Cellar I gathered into sacks; meats, cheeses and vegetables for the makings of a few meals. As a last thought, I brought a small barrel of Da’s special ale. I thought to lift some cups to his life and memory and drown out other thoughts I was having just now.

With the added burdens secured atop Paint, I trudged back to the cottage, leading him. Lilit and Jilly scurried from my pack and climbed atop Paint. He had become accustomed to the furions racing to and fro upon his back and paid their scurrying and play no mind. But they did none of that this day, sensing as they always do, my state of mind.

Stocked and packed, we approached the cottage through the open grasses of the pastures and as we did, I spied Moor standing at Da’s grave and witnessed his shoulders slumping as I’d never seen afore. The hundreds of coal black ravens having retreated to branches of the great oak under which he lay, it appeared just as it did when we returned from our trip to release Bane back to the wild. I recalled that Da had called it an ‘omen’. I reckoned he had been right. The ravens now held vigil over his grave and it became a great, black oak silhouetted against the sky. All but a few of the buzzards and carrion birds had left from their gruesome task of clearing the blight. The flies and insects were still at work.

Moor turned to face me as I approached, moisture in the bottom of his deep blue eyes. Gazing past him to the east, I heard and then saw a gray speckled mare with Grayce astride. Her mare, of a sudden, bucked a bit and I could reason why as the odors had probably wafted to them by now. Grayce noted us and kicked her mount into a gallop, heading our way.

She reined in her horse and fairly leaped to the ground. Her eyes immediately went to the grave, and then back to me.

“Oh, Arias,” is all she said and pulled me into a hard hug. Her body shook with a sob.

To battle the deep despondency and despair that gripped my heart, I reached for normalcy.

 “Grayce, I’ve just come back from the Frost-Cellar. I have two sacks of meats and vegetables and the like, could you mayhaps start our meal?  Mãamel Bræder is expected by mid-sun.”

 Her eyes widened and new moisture pooled in her eyes as she thought, I think, of the coming of Da’s Effie.

“And Moor, I’d like to speak with you about some things, would you help me dispose of… this carnage. It’s man’s work and nothing Grayce and Mãamel Bræder need to see. We can discuss what has happened after, when Mãamel Bræder and Argo have arrived,” I continued in a soft voice, breaking a bit.

“Aye, Arias, but I see Argo arriving now, he will give us a hand.”

Grayce took the two sacks, stopping to glance a moment at all that lay about and peeking back and up into the branches filled with Ravens, black as night. She hurried then into the cottage. 

I received furtive glances from both Moor and Argo as we went about the ugly and grueling task of loading in a wagon what remained of the Kingsmen’s corpses, but they asked no questions as we worked. We transported them to a depression in a rock-strewn clearing a good bit clear of the cottage.  There, we dragged branches and kindling and small logs into the makeshift fire pit also. Dousing some lantern oil amongst the bodies and branches, we lit a pyre. The flames soon rose close to the height of the surrounding trees for a bit and burned on hot and hard for a while more.

A few of the soldiers’ steeds were still wandering close by and had even joined our own burden horses in the pasture. Moor rounded them up, removed their saddles, and brought the saddlery and bags to the fire. Argo and I rounded up the weapons from the bloodied battle field and brought them as well. We did all this with few words and no explanations. It was though they didn’t need to hear from me at all. We fed the fire some more with any wood readily available, and then we three returned to the cottage. 

We were finishing up at the outside well and trying to remove any traces of our morns travails as Effie arrived in her buckboard wagon. Meeting her, I solemnly guided her over to Da’s grave. Her eyes grew wide at the site and she fell to her knees and wailed. 

Grayce came running from the cottage and straight to her. They held each other for awhile before Grayce guided her back to the cottage. Moor, Argo, and I gathered the remaining things I had brought with me from the Frost-Cellar and we carried them into the cottage to join the women.

The time had come for me to tell the tale of events from yester’s sun.  I was not wholly prepared to do this, but I knew his friends needed to know the how of Da’s fate.