A Murder of Crows
Glossy-backed, the crows / Ward the garden-rows / One turns to watch the farmer
The past weeks have been a long walk indeed. The retinue of Sir Trousdale of Lorchester has slogged its way out of the doldrums of the great city of Asgulan and you have spent hardly more than a night or two in any given inn or caravan camp, crossing the plains of Shem, crawling up into the craw of winter you have dragged yourselves from the warm salt seas where men loll on velvet divans, now into the tree-cloaked foothills where the mighty River Eamon pours out of the Stone Heart Mountains a gust of watery violence. Across these many leagues you have followed your lord, the famous hero Sir Trousdale of Lorchester, who sits upon his mighty warhorse and gazes at the horizon, his glorious dragonscale armor gleams on the sun and he tips his silver chased flask to his lip and stains his white mustache a delicate pink. He speaks rarely, and then with few words. At times it seems that the camp’s quiet nickname “Sir Drousdale” is more than apt.
The small caravan consists of now more than a dozen souls. Two oxen pull a four wheeled carriage which holds the victuals, arms, and raiment of the Dragonslayer, as well as his campaign tent and various tools of camplife. This cart is driven by one Aphra Behn, Herald of the Dragonslayer, a small man, a hobbit he calls himself, not much taller than a child, but full of great confidence and broad smiles, he seems to read his master’s mind and often speaks with Trousdale’s authority. He is the steward of the camp. Others must walk alongside the cart, trading off as Aphra Behn’s buckboard companion. These others include cooks, men-at-arms, squires, pages, standard-bearers, and camp followers. You are among these who have sought to glean a small gleam of the glory that is (or was) Sir Trousdale of Lorchester.
Your liege has driven you with purpose on this errand home. Sir Trousdale must have had some vision or sign from his god to tear himself from the fleshpots and warm breezes of Asgulan’s civilized delights, for how could he have known! Yesterday at the crossroads a minstrel was singing a crudely rhymed tale of woe to all comers, and now you walk with purpose and trepidation, hoping that these lines are but the doggerel of a fevered imagination.
The Sorrow of Daha
All men now tear their beards
And women beat their breasts
The King Daha is Dead
Torn apart in his bed
Made some wild beast a bloody feast
Now the crown of this accursed land
Must pass to the heir close at hand
But nothing of his voice is heard
Only the cry of the that darkling bird
While the people in the street
Wail and cry and shriek
Long live the King!
Where is the King?
Where and whither shall our fortunes seek?
- You have followed this River Eamon for much of your journey, watching it transform from the tidal estuary at the coast, through lush valleys studded with farms and hamlets, past mighty rapids and walled towns, walking the old Imperial Road, the river’s steadfast companion from sea to source, built by dwarves in ages past. Yesterday the two parted ways. The Imperial Road began its arduous climb towards the Grey Citadel, and the Eamon bore west, towards the valley of Delver’s Dale, where it bursts most dramatically from the mountains of her birth in a great waterfall taller than the tallest tower in Asgulan. You travel now not on a cobbled road, but a rutted dirt track which skirts the brooding edge of a great forest, called the Darkwald, which rises in undulating stands of evergreen timber from the western shore. The Eamon winds through a narrowing valley that rises in a series of benches, so that road is usually at least 50ft or so above the river at a steep slope. Soon, you think, your journey will find its end, it can only be a few more miles before you begin to see the smoke from the chimneys of Delver’s Dale and the tower of the Black Eagle’s Castle. It is a sunny day, the air is crisp and biting. A fine layer of snow dusts the treetops and crusts the meadow. Birds wheel lazily across the sky…
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