Ravens Cross chapter 1

She watched. Her eyes burned and watered, they hurt, yet she watched. She would watch it all till the end, till the last ember lifted into the sky and darkened to float into eternity. She owed them that at least. To watch and to remember, and someday to revenge. She knew that she should leave, should have left long ago in fact. The Grog might come back to pillage or just to admire their handiwork and if they did she would have no chance against them, and would join her family in deaths fiery embrace.

Unsure whether her eyes were watering from tears or the burning smoke that she could not escape, she stood in a state of shock, unable to move or tear herself away from the funeral pyre she had hastily created for her loved ones. Mon, Chuno, Das, Cara, Nohas and Olgra. Dead and maimed and tossed about like lifesize dolls by the hulking, shuffling, stinking and stupid Grog.

When Ara had still been a half days trek from her home she had smelled them and taken to the trees hoping and praying to Raven that her family had been similarly warned. She was afraid for them because the Grog party lay between her and her home meaning that while she was downwind of them, her family was not. She traveled swiftly through the treetops gliding when possible, and came upon the ugly, smelly hoard traveling toward her. Her hopes were crushed when she spotted Olgra's long walking stick, lovingly and beautifully carved for her by her son Nohas, held loosely in the filthy claws of one the beasts.

Ara had held on to the hope that someone had escaped. They were such a peaceful people, even if they had fought all together they would have been easily overwhelmed by a hoard this large. When she had arrived at the smoking chaos that had been her home for eleven years, her hope had collapsed. It was replaced by a coldness that was total and brutal. She had begun to gather their pitiful broken bodies together and had sung the songs of her people, asking Raven to come and guide their spirits into the skies of Graenhold on the smoke from the fire of their deaths.


Mon had found Ara in the mountains when she was in her seclusion, a time spent apart from the rest of the family during her moontime. Ara was about a year old, wrapped in leather and tucked into a nest high in a tree. She had been crying lustily from hunger and had obviuosly been there for a day or more. Mon had been praying for a child since her moonblood started thirty years ago, and now at the age of forty two her blood had ended. This was her final time of seclusion and as the youngest female in her clan, she would be the last person to visit this site. She took this fact as irrefutable proof that Raven had finally given her the child she had prayed for all these years. She had not cared that Ara was small and stocky instead of long and lean like the rest of Mon's clan. Nor had she cared that Ara's hair and feathers were of the darkest black,(almost appearing blue in certain lights)instead of lightest brown to pale yellow to almost white like her clan. This babe was a gift to her from Raven, the Goddess Mother of her people, therefore it was only right that she should have the black and be named Ara, which meant from Raven.

Festas had disagreed, saying that the child was an evil omen and should be exposed to die as she had obviously been left to do before Mon had interfered. The tribe had been split, Festas was a high Priestess along with Olgra. Olgra, being Mon's old grandmother, had sided with Mon and taken their clan away to live isolated from the tribe. Her family had given up everything they had known for her.

They had raised her with love and kindness, and never a bitter word or sign of regret for their decision.Even when she had shown signs of aggression that were alien to her peaceful family. Olgra had told the stories of the dark warriors that had protected the people in the old days, Ravens fierce guardians of her children. Supposedly they had all died protecting the people as they fled to the mountains from their enemies. No one had seen them for many generations, some did not even believe they had existed at all. No one even remembered who the enemies were that had chased them into the mountains. Ara suspected that Olgra had been making up stories for her benefit, to try to make her feel better about being different. They were such a wonderful family.

Now they were gone from this world, and she was alone again. As the last embers died down and cooled, Ara lifted her leanly muscled arms and stretched her black as night wings to their full extent, she opened her mouth to the stars and let loose a scream from her twelve year old lungs that told of her hate, her fear, her sorrow, and her future.
Far off in the night, she was answered by a raven.

Ara set up a small camp three days travel from her destroyed home, along the path that the Grog had taken. She was slowly following them, a rather simple task considering they took no care whatsoever to hide themselves. And why should they? They had no predators, they were very strong and fast and extremely hard to kill, even on their own. As a pack they were challenged by no one and no thing. Inner turmoil was their biggest problem.

Today, Ara had come across a dead male. He had been disemboweled by the claws of another Grog, and bitten several times on his arms face and neck. She thought he might have been the one that had been carrying Olgra's walking stick. Maybe that was what had caused the fight, her stick wasn't anywhere nearby. She had studied the thing closely, as closely as she could stand, he smelled awful.

The Grogs humonoid, biped, about 6 foot tall, thick bodied and mostly covered in coarse, matted hair. Most of the thickness was in the chest and shoulders. Hanging from the heavy shoulders were massive arms, thoroughly muscled and disproportionately long, hanging nearly to mid calf. Ending the arm was not a hand so much as a hook made of long nasty claws, each longer than Ara's own hand. Short muscular legs with long feet and some more nasty claws finished out the things body. She decided that the claws on its feet were probably used more for traction than for anything else. These monsters did their killing with tooth and arm. The face was mutilated for the most part, but what she could see reminded her of the nasty wild pigs that her clan had sometimes hunted. Sharp canine teeth protruded form upper and lower lips and the rest of his teeth looked equally formidable.

Ara had shivered as she thought of the fear her loved ones would have felt seeing these monsters bearing down on them. In a moment of anger and hatred, she had decided she would have his hand.

She had taken her small pack from her hip, and removed a sharp hand axe. Mon had fashioned it for her to fit in her shorter hands. She had hesitated, holding the axe above the thick hairy wrist, thinking of the horrified expression that would have been on the faces of her entire family at the thought of the sheer brutality of what she was about to do.

Her people only killed for food. They never allowed physical fights between themselves and strongly discouraged even simple arguments. A grim smile touched her lips.
"I never did quite fit in did I." She had hacked at the wrist, severing it with four quick, sure strokes.

Now, as she sat by her fire, she finished cleaning the hook shaped bone that had been the Grogs hand. The four claws lay at her feet. She planned on reattaching them with rawhide and making a belt to wear it as a reminder. A necklace would have been more decorative, but the whole thing together was about as big as her head. Maybe when she got older she could change it.

She put her work aside cleaned her hands and then proceded to preen her silky black wings. Each feather had oil glands at its base which secreted a protective cover to the delicate feathers when rubbed. It was a chore performed nightly to keep her wings healthy and strong. As she worked her way through them, her double jointed shoulders and elbows making her arms twist and turn in all directions, she hummed a song that Mon had sang to her while preening her feathers in the evenings.

She remembered her soft hands and long fingers, her sweet voice and calming presence, her smell of lilac and rosehips...the tears finally came. She sobbed great ragged sobs and held herself, rocking and crying long into the night.

As morning broke, she slept. In her hand, curled tightly to her chest, was the hand bone. She had carved their names into it before she collapsed form exhaustion.