Everearl: The Second Rising

Where was I during the Second Rising? Began it on a fool’s errand, a day’s ride into the forest past the East Boarder. At the time, the whole thing seemed like a family emergency. Nothing more. That was all I could think of to do for it.

I didn’t see it coming before anyone else. I didn’t predict the Second Rising exactly, but you see, I knew HER. I knew her personally, when her most influential title was ‘Tinky Baby and the Minister of Armies was just a tired markswoman from the War, who would carry her around under one arm. Upside down as often as not. The Sorceress was a fidgety child.

Some have sneered at this, as if the advent of the Second Rising were utterly foreseeable. It was not. When it started, the first Rising was only seventeen years in the past and no one was eager for another. It was not quite summer, but the cluster flies had woken, even in the woods past the East Boarder. I batted them away from their endless orbits around my head. At every motion of my hand Crimson jerked her head back in cantankerous surprise and whipped her reins into my face.

We had dismounted to avoid the low hanging branches but the brush was so thick that I suspected Ira was just getting agitated as we got closer, that she just wanted the feel of the ground under her feet. Her eyes were trained upward, towards the singing birds above us.

We were searching for birds, but not the kind that sing.

During the original Rising the first reports The Dark Lady was using birds for spies came mere months after the War had started, just before I enlisted. In livery, she and hers had always been depicted as black, unsavory animals; a wolf, a panther, a beetle, a crow. Word was she even had such beasts woven into the fabric of her dresses. She began to be seen carrying an actual bird of carrion on her shoulder, or displaying them in her audience chamber. No doubt, this association is what fueled the rumors.

It was just young soldier talk at first, the sort of things older soldiers whispered to younger soldiers when they were drunk and the youngest believed them. The rumors were so specific however, so consistent, that when a large black bird perched next to your house, or your shop, or your camp for too long, you got rid of it. Then you hoped the armies of Malfia weren’t in its wake.

Ira had already learned to pensively watch the sky before the rest of us had. She had when I met her. She was always ahead of the game, at least when it came to watching.

I didn’t believe any of it, really, until the first time Ira mentioned it. She was sitting with her spyglass and bow in the blackened maw of a tavern, in a village Malfia’s armies had burned some weeks before. I was searching for fireweed in the silent remains of a stables, but the two buildings were no longer separated by any meaningful walls. I was a new herbalist in the King’s camp, she a new scout. This was in the early days of the war, before the maimed became a constant and heavy burden on every aspect of society, and I would coincide my forages with her assignments, when practical. The charred beams still jutted from the ground, or dangled from the floor above, like broken teeth. Beyond them Malfia’s Tower besmirched the horizon. Between them Ira sat still and watched. It made me uneasy.

I tried to focus on the living things reclaiming the wreckage before me in the light. A vole scampered between my fingers as I sifted through clods of roots. It landed hard on its velvety back before it managed to hide amongst the grass covered boards again.

“Whatever you say about Malfia,” I said, “She loves her pets.”

Ira didn’t often answer me, but I knew she was listening. “She’ll flay you alive as soon as look at you, but they say she’s never without that crow. Or crows. Then, maybe she kills it all the time and just replaces it.”

“Raven,” Ira said. She’s more picky about her beasts than I am about my herbs, I think. “She hasn’t killed it.”

I found a patch of sprouts which I could almost be sure where fireweed and I didn’t answer her for some minuets. It surprised me when she spoke again.

“And not really a raven at that. It’s a Crabine. Do you want to see it?”

“It’s here?” I stood up sharply and then froze, not sure what I should do.

“No, at the Tower. Crouch along the wall so you won’t be seen. I’ll give you my spyglass.”

“I’ve been standing in a field, I’ve already been seen,” I hissed as I crouched along the wall to her.

“You’re a woman gathering herbs. That happens within view of the Tower hundreds of times every day. You don’t want to be seen pointing a spyglass at the Tower.” I sat next to her, facing the black remains of a wall. She passed me her spyglass and I put it through a gap just as she had done. She adjusted the angle until I was seeing almost what she had.

“Do you see it?”

The lens of the spyglass was flecked with the ash Ira had used to keep sun from reflecting off the glass and rim. Through the grime I could see the individual stones of the Tower itself. I moved the view up and then down the tower, the slightest movement of my hand resulting in dizzying motion. Then I saw a balcony set into the Tower. On the balcony I could make out the tiny shape of a person standing. It was dark, a woman wearing a dress. There was a shape on her shoulder which could have been the bird.

“It’s Malfia!” I gasped and pulled back, nearly dropping the spyglass.

“Yes. And her raven,” Ira said. Her face was tinting red, which never happened except in normal social situations. “Look at the way she strokes its feathers.”

Anyway, I took the birdsong as a good sign, that day past the East Boarder. At least nothing would hear us coming. Ira pressed on and I followed. The Forest growth became thicker, more difficult to navigate. A bramble nearly ripped open my eye and I was forced to take my attention off the tree tops in order to carve a path for myself. Until I heard the tell-tale flap of a large bird’s wings.

I looked up immediately. I caught a dark shape with the tail of my eye, before it disappeared through the perforated canopy. Crimson walked into me with an angry snort and I had to elbow her back. Ira had frozen, squeezing Palomino’s reigns in one hand.

“Falcon!” screamed an inhuman voice above us. “Falcon! Falcon is coming!”

The birds stopped singing.

“There’s no falcon up there,” whispered Ira.

I wished Ira had her bow. She had refused even to string it so near to the home of the ravens. I sighed.

“It’s code, then,” I muttered.

“Falcon!” we heard the cry picked up further into the forest, rough voices overlapped and carried the message. “Falcon! Here! Falcon!”

Well, we were looking for ravens, and there were raven voices ahead. I put a hand to Palomino’s rump and pushed her forward. Ira followed holding to her reigns. I pulled Crimson along behind me.

My mind wandered back to a time when I was younger but there was no joy in it. The smell of blood in the air had given way to that of the sun-warmed gristle of the battlefield. The camp had moved as far from it as possible without giving up sight of Malfia’s camp or the even, defendable ground of the plain. We had buried those we could, but it wasn’t enough. Most tents were pitched out of sight of the dead, but we all had as many friends there as we had in the camp. We didn’t just forget it.

It was after sunset when I stumbled away from the wounded to look for Ira there.
I knew she wasn’t slain, but I knew she was restless. The days after a battle were when the hearts of men drive to labor the hardest. It’s when I did work the hardest, to keep those ever present fields from claiming more, if I could. For soldiers though, when they most need to be busy they are idle. Ira had not been given leave to scout and I knew she would be here, wasting time and arrows on the scavenger birds.

Except now it was dark and there was no excuse for her to wade through the corpses, the fumes of which could make a woman become sick and minor wounds become dangerous.
It was far too dark to be slinging arrows and I was about to announces myself lest I catch one by accident when I saw her near me in the twilight. She was turned away from me. I could see the silhouette of her bow lowered in the last orange rays of the sky.
“Come away from here,” I called to her. “The dead will give you the plague and the soldiers are getting merry enough we shouldn’t pass near them much later. Even together.”

“Already?” she asked but she didn’t turn toward me.

“Only the bad ones,” I shrugged. I took a couple more steps into the putrid field. I had smelled many unpleasant things of late, wounds that would make the weaker of stomach faint, but even I almost retched as the clean air blowing off the knoll gave way to the warm, wet, stagnant air of the field. As I neared, I saw a large crow gorging itself on the opening in a young solider. This is what her grey eyes were trained on.

“Are you going to kill it?” I asked impatiently as I held an arm over my mouth and nose.

“I am sick of killing,” she sighed. “If I could only kill the one that was the servant of Malfia, I wouldn’t have to kill the others.” She spoke matter-of-factly, but she never took her eyes off the crow.

“Then are we going to go?” I prompted.

“Does this one look like a servant of Malfia to you?”

“It looks like its eating a boy. That is reason enough to put an arrow through it.”

“They do not choose when they are born what they eat. If we cannot clean the field of our dead, we should be grateful that they do their part.”

“You don’t believe he’s the soul of a corrupted priest then?” I gave her a sideways glance to see if my joke annoyed her. She was particular about matters of the church. She was in good spirits, but she didn’t take the bait, or look at me.

I turned my gaze back to the foul and its work. The laughter died in my throat.

“That boy is a King’s messenger,” I told her, as I observed the hairless neck that stretched mercifully away from me, the tight skin of the hand that fell stiffly by.

“Yes. He is,” she said and she didn’t move a muscle.

“But only a very stupid bird would let you get so close to it. A smart one would know what a bow is for.”

“My thoughts exactly,” She took another step closer to the bird. It raised its head for a moment and looked at her with one eye and then the other. I heard the quiet “thuk” as Ira knocked her arrow. The bird buried its head in the dead again.

“See?” I asked.

“Accept it was biting the silver clasp of the messenger’s pouch when I came. I don’t think it noticed me approach.”

“Crows like to steal shiny things.”

“Yes.”

“But it’s still here. Malfia’s would be smarter, and we should leave.”

“Unless… Unless it’s smart enough to know I’m too close to aim well and it’s waiting for darkness to make its escape.”

At this the creature picked its head up, raised its great wings, and screamed.

Ira’s bow snapped back before I had seen her raise it. The raven ducked behind the body and the arrow buried itself in the earth behind it. Ira’s arm snapped behind her head to pull another arrow and the bird flew at me.

“Don’t shoot!” I cried as the bird attacked me with gore wetted talons. I shielded my face with an arm and struck out with my other but though it was close enough to beat my head with black wings and fill my ears with hideous cries I never managed to hit it.

Then it was past me, flying low to the field, disappearing into the darkness. I stopped flailing and stumbled out of Ira’s way. I heard her release her breath and her arrow twanged away from her. The bird would be lost to the night before she could knock another.

We heard an avian cry and a feathery thud. I crowed in triumph and Ira and I raced into the dark, feet slipping on human arms and legs.

The last of the darkness fell as we reached the spot where the bird must have fallen. We turned slowly on our heals, searching for some sign of it amidst the nightmarish lumps of the battle field. Ira held her breath to listen.

“I didn’t hear him take off again,” she whispered to me in the dark. “He must be here, dead or hiding.” I kicked a likely sized lump in the blackness and had to shake ants off my foot.

Eventually I went back to the camp for help and torches. That did nothing for my popularity or credibility. We never found so much as a feather to prove we’d seen the bird.

I harbored hope that he was dead anyway, for about three weeks, until credible word came of Malfia’s taking audiences with the crow on her shoulder. Ira told me she suspected he hadn’t been flying though.

We followed the raven voices. The forest became thicker if that were possible. Finally, we came to a clearing. The brambles fell away under the shadow of five towering pines. Ira moved Palomino aside a bit to make room for Crimson and me. As I cleared Palomino’s rump a saw the lowest branches, which were high above the horses’ heads, were bowed with great ravens. They raised their black wings and bobbed sleek heads in anticipation. Every glittering eye rested on us.

I remembered the chills I had gotten in one of the healer’s tents as Ira helped me clean my tools after dark.

“It’s a Crabine,”she said. “My grandmother told me of them. It has as many clear thoughts in its head as you or I. Likely more, knowing that one. It’s said she turns it into a man when she wills, and as a man it can speak.”

That was the kind of fey-tale I used to keep the children from under foot while my mother was in the birthing room. It was utter non-sense. Yet hearing these things from Ira of all people as the lamps flickered made me shutter.

“That can only be nonsense,” I said dumping the red wash water out the door of the tent, “There is no need to exaggerate the power of Malfia, yet people do it anyway.”
Behind me Ira uttered something even lower than I had.

“Come again?” I turned around.

“I said, I’ve seen it.”

We stopped, hesitant to enter further into the clearing uninvited. The largest bird was perched nearest. It beat its great wings and silenced the others.

“Well come, old ally,” he said softly. His voice wasn’t that of a raven.

“Master Everearl,” Ira addressed him by his name and bowed. “I am pleased to find you
well. I have come to bring you hard news, I fear, of times long past.”

“Is she dead?” he asked.

“Not that I have heard, my Lord.”

“It is bad news, then?”

I knew Ira well enough to tell when her throat was tightening, her eyes reddening, though I’m not sure anyone else would be able to tell.

“No,” she said with difficulty.

The raven beat its wings again, with the sound like the flap of a bearskin flag, and rose from his perch. He touched the ground before us with human feet.

It was all I could do not to step backwards. His face was older now, though his hair was just as black as his wings had ever been. His clothes were green and brown now, instead of black, simpler than the embroidered silks he had worn at Malfia’s side. At the sight of his human form, I was plunged instantly back into the War, as if seventeen years of peace had been a dream. I felt the sort of hatred I hadn’t felt since I feared Malfia, as I suddenly did now. I prayed our faces didn’t make the ravens feel the same way.

Ira bowed again, though to me it seemed a bit stiff this time.

“Come up to our hill, friends,” Everearl said, extending his hand. These were words and gestures that never would have existed during the war. As Ira and I took his hand the action put all three of us at ease a bit, as if it were a counter to one of Malfia’s spells.

“Falcon! Falcon! Name!” cried the birds in the trees with course voices.

We looked to Everearl.

“A falcon watches its prey carefully and long before it strikes,” he said to Ira. “In that you are like a bird. I never learned your name, in all my spy work. My children named you Falcon long ago.”

Ira gazed up at the ravens with wide eyes.

“Will you honor us with your name now?” he asked gently.

“I am also called Ira, but Falcon seems to me an honorable name indeed.” She looked genuinely pleased. The birds cackled and bobbed their heads in delight.

“And this, if memory serves,” said Everearl turning to me, “is the healer who so gently sued for my execution.”

For a moment I thought of trying to deny this. Then I found I didn’t really feel the need to.

“Sara” I said and I bowed. The ravens continued their ruckus. I assumed they were amused.

Everearl tilted his chin up and cawed, in what must have been his real voice, and another raven alit from a tree and landed on human feet. This one was a maiden, with a sheet of black hair and the kind of direct smile so often lacking in maidens.

“This is one of my granddaughters,” said Everearl. “She will be pleased to care for you steeds.”

Ira bowed to her as low as she would to any princess, indeed, lower than I had seen her bow to several. The girl grinned. After that I had to bow, and suppress my snort at the thought of Crimson being called a “steed.” I had become uneasy all over again. I liked the girl enough, yet here was another raven who could change its form at will. Possibly they all could. This maiden could never have met Malfia, still, in her Malfia’s power lingered.

“Come,” said Everearl. We followed him up the pine covered hill. Above us the ravens flapped between the towering trees.

At the top of the hill a great tree had fallen. Its trunk had been stripped of bark and the side that faced the heavens had been cut flat and polished to form a kind of long-table. At even intervals the smooth surface had been interlaid with large plates of iron. In these nested glowing peat bricks, to keep the premature night of the forest from hiding our faces.

Beside the great table stood a smiling woman in a grey gown. A thin white streak or two shot through her midnight hair. This, then, was Everearl’s wife, whom few knew existed.
She took Ira’s hand in both of hers. “I had hoped for the chance to meet you again one day,” she said, “and thank you in your own tongue for all you have done for my family.” Ira bowed as she would to a queen and was speechless.

Ira had told me how she had found the caged ravens during the Fall of the Tower, abandoned amidst twisted iron upon the ground, and had kept them from being trampled. I also knew she had been called to speak before the King, to explain her observations of the Crabine. It had sounded like her comments may have helped Everearl secure banishment in place of an execution, for good or ill. Now, though, the earnest face of Lady Everearl made me wonder if there was more to these stories.

We followed her up into the fallen tree table. Its foot and its crown rested on the ground, but for most of its length the uneven hilltop rolled away from it, leaving it suspended more than half my height in the air.

For chairs there were only the bows and branches. We sat, open air as a backrest, feet dangling below us. The whole thing swayed with the breeze beneath us. Around us the birds perched, equally comfortable in either form. The forest darkened as they arrived and they fanned the peat bricks into fires with their great wings. They brought us water still cold from the stream in chalices which were mismatched but pure silver.

Everearl introduced his children one by one as they landed at the table and grew into people. There were five in all, and each had a mate. Those that stayed as birds in the surrounding trees were his grandchildren. As the introductions ended the table fell silent. The family turned faces brushed by firelight to us and every glittering eye fell expectantly to Ira.

“Lady Ira,” murmured Everearl. “We would like to hear your news.”

At this even the birds in the trees fell silent. The cooling air pricked my skin but Ira began to sweat. To her credit she did not look to me for help.

“My Lord,” she stuttered, “my tidings date back to a time of war. Of personal sorrow. They may not need to burden the hearts of all here.” Ira paused, willing Everearl to understand more than she had said.

“We decided long ago,” answered Everearl, leaning back, “that what is of importance to me is of importance to us all. We bear all things from the war together. I have no secrets from these.” His wife shifted closer to his side. His children were expectantly silent, but they were calm. It was plain to me that these were creatures well used to bad news, sturdy in that way. I glanced my approval to Ira. She caught it and bowed her head.

“That seems very wise,” she conceded. She took a deep breath but the words didn’t come. The moment for her to speak came and went, and came and went again. Still she didn’t speak. I felt my own eyes fall to the table. This would have been difficult for anyone. For Ira it was proving impossible. The ravens waited.

When I lifted my eyes again Ira had colored red, even in the firelight.

“I have made many presumptions,” Ira said finally. Her voice was not loud but it did not falter. “For which I should beg pardon now.”

“We trust you observations, Falcon,” answered Everearl softly when she did not speak again, “as we have learned to trust the conclusions you draw from them.” Anyone who knew Ira, which wasn’t many people, did. She did as well.

“I was in the camp outside the gates the night before Malfia fell,” Ira began. I fought in the battle the next day, as you know. When she was captured I remained, as you know, and through her trial and the cowardice of her sentencing I remained as well.

They feared, you know, to put her to death. To hang a woman who could fly or burn a person who could spit flame. It is still believed to this day that there are curses in her body so that anyone who does her violence may become a poison to his fellows in one way or another. So she was imprisoned.

I was there, and I did not fear to kill her, so I volunteered to guard her. There were five of us who did, but I watched her most closely of us all.

She was bound with iron at her wrists and ankles. Both over and under her skin. No doubt she could not care for herself as she usually would have.

After a time she grew thin and bloated. It happens to those doomed to live in the King’s dungeons. I don’t know if she was aware of what was happening to her at first, but if she was she did not tell me.

One night, not yet a year from the end of the war, when I came to her cell I found but one of my fellow guards there, her eyes cast to the floor, and she would not look at me. The other was inside the cell dealing Malfia blows for some trivial thing. I caught her arm but her final kick landed upon Malfia’s gut and made an audible “crack,” thin and wet. The hothead left then, and the other must have left with her, for I did not see her again.

Malfia was in a pitiable state, one reflective of our own dishonor, whatever she had been before. She was also frantic as I had never seen her. Blood was running out of her, and not from a wound. As I knelt by her side I could see a dent in her bloated belly. It was her abdomen that had made the crack.

There on the floor of the prison, nine months to a day since the end of the war, she bore a baby girl. The child smelled of egg yolk and not of placenta. Her hair was black as jet.
I had no doubt then as I have no doubt now that she was your daughter.”

Ira paused here. I had been watching the raven-peoples’ faces. Everearl’s face was drawn but unreadable. Lady Everearl was visibly pale, her widened eyes trained on him. Seeing they made no gesture, Ira continued.

“There had indeed been an egg inside Malfia’s womb. The pieces tore her as they followed the child. I tried to crush them small while they were inside.

Malfia curled herself around the infant, as a snake around a mouse and was quiet.The cloth to polish my bow became the child’s wrap. It was the cleanest thing I carried.”

“What happened to the child?” asked Everearl, and for once his voice was hoarse as a raven’s ought to be.

“I took it from her. If she had had any magic left in her she would have used it on me then. I don’t know if Malfia had thought she was going to keep the infant. Perhaps she knew that until this day, if the King had decided to execute her she could have obtained a stay for the sake of the baby and she was reluctant to give up the protection. I think she just wanted another sympathetic living thing inside her cell. Whatever the cause, it was clear to me that the child must be taken from Malfia. Life in the prison, of course, would have killed it, or more likely the prison keepers would have. But if none of that were true than because Malfia had swallowed up enough innocent lives and I had become her keeper in order to prevent the destruction of even one more. Well, the one more was before me.

I wrapped the little one in the bow cloth and as I turned to leave the cell Malfia spoke my name. I did not know she knew my name, but she spoke it then. I turned to face her and she said “The huntswoman Ira, take the child to the huntswoman Ira.”

On the rare occasion a prisoner delivered a baby, there was no great ritual. The infant was left at a church house or orphanage, or, if the prisoner knew the name of someone in the city, delivered to that person. I do not know what possessed her to command me to commend the babe to myself. Perhaps her mind wasn’t right and for a moment she thought I was one of her other guards, any of whom might have drowned the child. More than one of them owed her as much. Perhaps she thought it would make me desire to save it. Perhaps she thought it would make me do what I did, in the end, and that thought haunts me still.
I didn’t answer her a word but I bolted every iron lock on her door and buried the child in the bin of clean flooring straw so deep I feared she might smother – where she would remain warm and unheard. I brought a pail of water back to Malfia and without a word between us we erased every sign of travail. Malfia was gaunt indeed, still bleeding, but she had been beaten and that, I hoped, would mask it.

When my relief finally came I did not report the birth. There is no formal law that I had to do anything but deliver the babe to the person the prisoner had named. That I did. I resigned that day, citing familial obligations, and as soon as the child was strong enough to leave the wet nurse I left the city.

I did not foresee news of this child bringing you any joy, but I did foresee danger if it were ever known Malfia had a daughter. So I took her far from Malfia, far from you, and far from anyone I thought might suspect, few indeed. Sara has been my sole confidant.

I know I had no right to the actions I just described. But I knew not what else to do.”

“You raised the child?”

“To the best of my ability.”

“She’s missing,” I said. All the eyes at the table jumped to me suddenly. I thought it had been a very well placed, very self-explanatory comment. “She’s run off.”

“I never told her of her parentage,” Ira said. “I told her only that she was a foundling of the war. We lived in the forests of the Northern Ranges where few have even seen Malfia in person. Then, several months ago, she found out.”

My own face began to burn and I leaned away from the firelight.

“She said little to me about it,” continued Ira, “Little except ‘This explains some things.’ But she disappeared with her hunting pack a few days later. I thought initially that she had taken a hunting trip alone to clear her mind. But when I followed after her a week later I discovered none of our camps had been used.

I fear there was something about her which needed explanation, something I never knew about and don’t understand. She didn’t take, indeed, doesn’t own, many personal bobbles. But she took a pair of ear studs and a wrist cuff. Both made of iron.” Ira nearly whispered this last word with downcast eyes.

“We have not been able to find her. I do not know if she will reveal her parentage to any living soul, but if she does, word will spread quickly. It would have been wrong for you to hear it like that, and to have to wonder. Also, she will want to meet you,” she said looking at Everearl, “She didn’t know of this place, but if she learns of it, she will come here.”

Ira finished speaking and watched Everearl steadily. I glanced around the table to catch the temperature of the reaction. The table was silent but there were many glances past between Everearl’s children. No expression that flicked over my face or Ira’s was lost on these. Everearl was still and so was the Lady. The birds in the trees began to murmur.

“It seems the girl could be in some danger,” spoke one of Everearl’s sons. “We would help you find her, but we are all banished on pain of death from your land.”

“I thank you,” replied Ira. “I did not expect an offer of help. The desire alone is very kind.”

“We can gather information though,” chimed a daughter of Everearl’s. “We can send word among the birds. She never learned to speak the language of the Raven’s did she?”

“No,” answered Ira, brow furled.

“It seems we have reason to owe you thanks again, Falcon,” said Everearl. The table and the trees fell quiet. “You saved her life, and you raised her when she should have been my responsibility and I was not there.”

“She is a good girl, Everearl,” said Ira. Her words were uncharacteristically drawn out, as if that were really what she had come here to explain and being Ira, she didn’t have the words.

“I need time to think about what should be done,” said Everearl.

Ira nodded.

I sat back in mute awe. I thought there was going to be more questions. More anger.

“What did you name her?” spoke Lady Everearl.

“___, my lady.”

“Any child of Everearl is a child of mine,” said the Lady. Every creature at or around the table fell unnaturally still. Then her children began to nod.

“We will help you find her safely, and when we do we will help answer her questions. We will teach her to become a raven if that is possible. Only tell us this, please, Falcon: Is she dangerous?”

“No,” Ira answered. I couldn’t help turning away. Ira and I disagreed on this point. “…Not to us here,” she added softly.