On the Origins of the Crow Company

    “We will take it from here, Seth.”
    The knight commander scowled, “Just as well that the bitch takes your lives rather than my men.”
    “You forget our specialty,” Kinneth grinned and pointed at the mercenary standard a dozen paces away, held by one of the new recruits. On the flag thirteen brass rings stacked right below the pennant gleamed in the sunlight.
    “This will be our fourteenth.”
    “If you’re are lucky,” Seth growled, “And a bastard like you has to run out sometime.”
    “Well then you better hope it’s not today, friend. Because your soldiers won’t be able to do anything to that brood mother,” Kinneth told him. The mercenary captain opened his palm, the knight commander dropped a purse of gold coins in his waiting hand. He stood a foot over the captain in all his gleaming armor, a tall man with a medium build, a black beard, matching hair cropped short, his eyes grey. Seth spun and returned to his horse, armor clinking as he did.
    He put a foot in the stirrup and said, “She’ll be waiting for you in the valley below. She has four stripes.”
    Kinneth nodded, he did not try for humor, “We’ve already got scouts looking for the best ways to get to her.”
    Four stripes, damn. An Archphegan is no easy kill, why do I suddenly feel underpaid?
    “You will get the remaining bounty when she is dead.”
    Kinneth looked down at the purse in his hand. Kinneth’s brows furrowed, he tied the purse to his belt and warned a now mounted Seth, “After this I want double what you offered or you can take your damn money. An arch and a brood mother is too damn dangerous a combination.”
    Seth studied Kinneth for a moment. “I will see what I can do.”
    Kinneth glared at the coward as he rode away. Normally no one hunted phegans but the stupid, but Kinneth filled his company with idiots: big, bulky ones with deep scars, bulging muscles, and the natural compulsion to take orders. They made a tidy profit by expelling brood mothers from an area, if they didn’t outright kill the beast. And it was easier to kill the monster, a female spent half its life looking for a nest and refused to give one up. When one like this settled close to a city it spelled doom if the people did not react soon enough. Within weeks of arriving tens to hundreds of males would flock to the nest and compete in games for the right to mate—slaughtering a city of innocents counted as one of those games.
    This isn’t the first to settle in this area, either. My first encounter with a brood mother came from here while I served in the militia right next to that arrogant whoreson Seth. We lost fifty men that day, my half-brother included…
    Kinneth heard a squeak from behind, “Sir?”
    Kinneth sighed and turned to face his second, Dainty. A thin, short man, he had a face of scrubby hair and a premature crown on his blond head, but he was the only one who Kinneth trusted to make decisions in his place. Kinneth asked, “You found her?”
    Dainty nodded, “She already dug her pit and filled it, sir.”
    “Fantastic,” Kinneth shook his head. The smell of surrounding pines and blue spruce drowned out the scent for now, but when they approached they would smell the redolent phegan piss for miles to come. The pheromones attracted males and their acute senses for fifty miles. And now the only way to fix this disaster is to cover the pit and salt the whole valley. For the love of the Tuist did they not think to at least harass the bitch so she wouldn’t have gotten this far?
    “We will need to move fast. Get the boys rolling, besiegers up front.”
    Dainty nodded, “Sir.”

    The Tescool Valley was a sight out of Kinneth’s childhood now butchered by sociopath. The earth arced down until it collided into a rocky face of sheer mountain, it looked like a Colossal took a spade, stabbed the mountainside with it, and unearthed the paradise that used to be. The brood-mother ruined a pond to one side, half dried from drainage into the nearby pit filled with water and phegan urine, the wide meadow scarred by dirt mounds, some rising to twenty feet, scattered through the valley and marking ditches prepared for future dens the males would dig for the mother. A dozen carcasses of steer and cattle dotted the valley, slaughtered before they could escape. The brood mother already took her fill of most.
    Kinneth stood on a ridge overlooking the valley, his nose wrinkled. The crisp mountain air only made the stench more cutting. A mountain pass half a mile led to the city of Irulia, Kinneth’s stomping grounds. He remembered traveling here as a child, spending long summer afternoons in the water with friends and family. The first males will probably arrive with tomorrow’s dawn, even if we kill her we won’t be able to mask this scent in time. What was Seth thinking, waiting this long to mobilize a response?
    Below, teams of horses pulled wagons with besiegers mounted on them, four in all heading down a switchback road to the valley. A series of cranks, slings, wood, and spear shafts as thick as a narrow pine with steel barbed ends, their existence in the company courtesy of Dainty’s engineering knowledge. The brood mother watched from the far side, half a mile away and so huge Kinneth could see her clearly. She roared and he winced as the sound bounced through the valley, up the ridge and shook loose pebbles by his feet. These monsters aren’t ortor, but damn can they make some noise.
    Kinneth turned away while men scrambled below to calm the horses. Dainty stood beside him along with his third, a spectralist named Tizzy. She was a haggled witch in her four hundreds and looked it. She stood at height with Dainty, right under five feet, with an exaggerated sized head and long grey hair, several rings on her fingers, a dark blue robe, a belt around her waist, several pouches and charms tied to it.
    She spoke up, “I can see this isn’t the first brood mother to nest here…”
    “That intuition, or did Dainty tell you that story?”
    A crooked smile stretched Tizzy’s wrinkles and Dainty’s gaze went to his boots. “You know how good Dainty is at keeping secrets. I can see some of those men, though more importantly, I can see the last brood mother who tried to nest here.”
    “Can you conjure the beast?” Kinneth asked, a flutter of hope. If we can fool the phegan with an illusion it may make her leave. With our pressure and the pressure of another female…
    “It won’t work, even if I could fool her that phegan you killed had no grizt. It is lesser.”
    Kinneth cursed. He chewed his lip, glanced at the brood mother, watched her tale lash in the distance before he demanded, “Is there anything you can do?”
    She shrugged. “I can conjure some of those old corpses to fool her, I suppose.”
    “Useless…” Kinneth grumbled.
    “Want do you want with a woman, eh? I can’t do anything but follow the rules?”
    “The men are nearing the valley floor, sir,” Dainty interjected, “We should head down there.”
    Good old steady Dainty, where would I be without your obvious advice?
    “We are on a tight clock.”
    Kinneth turned and headed for one of the three horses waiting for them, their reins tied to an aspen. Kinneth unknotted the leather strips and contemplated their possible strategies: With those damn grizts its regenerative powers will be so great I doubt even a straight shot in the heart from a besieger will kill her. That means destroying or severing the head, an impossible feat with our resources. Dammit, why an Archphegan? If it were any other city I could look the other way…
    The three mounted and headed down the road, passing the auxiliaries lingering behind the main line. Tizzy complained about the bumpy ride. They slowed their horses and picked their way through a thicket of comrades by the time they reached the final bend of the switchback.
    Kinneth asked, “How are we equipped, Dainty?”
    “Mostly siege crossbows and longbows for the men, sir. I dispersed fifty of our soldiers with the last of our halberds, the mounted thirty we just passed have their lances to flank her with once we engage,” Dainty answered.
    “Good,” Kinneth grunted. He already knew that, but he needed something to stop him from grinding his teeth.

    They reached the valley floor, the Arch-brood mother now a quarter mile away. The position they held entered her territory, she would attack already if their concentrated force did not concern her. She watched them for another half hour, the meager humans milling about as they filled the valley with flesh and wood. Above she heard birds scatter, she craned her neck to look up the mountainside, ten wingspans above her the rock wall leveled off into a small plateau. She saw nothing move above her but a few dozen birds, in the distance she heard an eagle cry.
    Shouting.
    She glared at her invaders and found them approaching. She reared onto her hind legs, fanned out her weakened wings and roared again.

    Kinneth flinched this time, his ears nearly popped. Damn that bitch is loud! His horse snorted, Kinneth brushed the roan’s neck and leaned over and whispered in her ear, “Easy girl, just an overgrown bird.” He sat up and raised a fist, “Halt!”
    His officers shouted the orders down the line; he could pick out Dainty’s distinctive squeal among them. They stood a thousand paces from her now. Close enough for the besiegers to make accurate shots. When they fired she would pounce, they could manage maybe two and half volleys before she destroyed them.
    He gave orders, the besiegers stopped but the remainder of the company approached. They circled around a mound of dirt and there she stared, a snarl on her snout. Fangs glimmered in the sunlight, and the feather plume on her back stood straight. She folded her massive wings, the feathers at the edges tipped red, jade green splashed the feathered mane of her chest, like a blood splattered slash. One of the grizt her Colossal rewarded her with for some deed. Another, bile yellow, spiraled up her tail, and another blue splotched across her face. The fourth Kinneth spotted on her right wing, the obsidian streak flowed from end to end, crooked and crazy like a lightning bolt. Those four markings spoke of a life filled with battle and war and triumphs. But no scars marred her body, females never allowed scars to remain on their hides.
    She waited, two hundred paces away, so close she could pounce on them. She released a low, throaty growl that made the men falter. Kinneth called for another halt, the besiegers would strike first.
    The mercenary captain sat on his horse, behind the square of men armed with halberds. Tizzy rode on his right, and their standard bearer waited on his left. Kinneth nodded to the lad, he turned his saddle, raised the flag and waved it. Kinneth watched besiegers launch and the wagons shake with recoil, the projectiles few through the air, he heard them rush overhead, neck twisting to observe their flight. Two missed the brood mother by twenty feet, one pierced the dirt before her, the fourth glided over her head.
      Dammit.
      Tizzy cursed aloud. Kinneth turned to her and she told him, “She has Herést protecting her.”
      Kinneth watched the brood mother fan out her right wing, the obsidian pulsed and an aura of night glowed from it. The besiegers fired again, Kinneth watched three divert in their path, ten paces from the beast. The fourth brushed against her shoulder.
    Her left wing unfurled, it sounded like a sail blown open in the middle of a storm. She leaped into the air, wings flapping, body climbing. Her wings blasted them with air and made a gale wail in their ears.
    Kinneth turned to Tizzy and shouted, “I thought brood mothers couldn’t fly!”
    “Well they don’t get too big for their wings overnight you damn-”
    Boom! Both recoiled and Kinneth screamed “Shit!” as the brood mother landed, talons first on one of the wagons eight hundred paces away. He saw men flee, the phegan’s tail lashed and figures flew into the air. Kinneth waved his arms, desperate to save those men, “CHARGE! CHARGE!” he roared. He yanked on the reigns, his horse reared and turned on its hind legs, Kinneth kicked the beast into a gallop. The cavalry saw him speed ahead and followed.
    The phegan buried her snout under another wagon and flipped it. Kinneth kicked the flanks of his roan, “Run you stupid!-” the brood mother roared and smashed the third besieger. He spotted on the fourth a man cranking the weapon furiously, changing its aim. With her back to the wagon, snapping at the scrambling horses of the other besiegers, she did not notice Dainty aiming a missile at her. He had cut the holsters to the wagon’s horses, so they wouldn’t muddle his shot.
    Dainty if you make this work I’ll name my firstborn after you!
    Some of the auxiliaries left behind took crossbows and fired them at the mother’s side. The quarrels’ beestings made her snort and turn on the ten men. They scrambled, she swiped at one with her claws, tore the man in half. Dainty got the besieger pointed at the brood mother. He started working the other crank to lower it.
    “Just fire damn you!” Kinneth shouted. His horse charged to the brood mother, only a hundred paces away from her. His roan leaped over a cow carcass and he drew his sword, the worst possible weapon to use on a phegan. Behind him his cavalry followed, lances lowered at the monster.
    More soldiers rose from the ground, twenty Kinneth hadn’t seen in decades. Tizzy was invoking her powers. The twenty roared and charged, they swung their axes, stabbed their spears at the air beside the phegan. Tizzy could only make the imprints reappear, she couldn’t control them. But it worked, the brood mother turned to them and growled, her broad back exposed. Herést or no, Dainty wouldn’t miss.
    Dainty grabbed the lever beside the besieger, screamed something and yanked backwards. Kinneth heard the massive projectile release, its barbed point flew ten feet and plunged into the small of the brood mother’s back. She shrieked and twisted, her tail flew right over Kinneth’s head as he reached her, he made a blind swipe into her back leg, his blade barely sank an inch into the bitch.
    And he rode past her, the wind blasting his nose and watering his eyes. He stood in his stirrup, looking over his shoulder as the cavalry collided into her side, those heavy steel-tipped lances drilled into her and snapped in half. Kinneth turned his horse about as the brood mother shrieked again, louder this time. She tried to jump away, but thirty lances pierced her hide, five her ribs, each a foot deep. She fell on her side and thrashed about, her shrieks raking Kinneth’s eardrums. He saw Dainty wasted no time, already he deposited another missile onto the besieger and cranked it again. Men who first fled ran back with crossbows and longbows. They fired into the bitch, the goal to keep causing pain so she wouldn’t know what to heal. Some got too close and were smashed by the ten ton phegan’s thrashing, but they swarmed her, dauntless to death. Like two hundred rats trying to kill a mountain lion.
    Kinneth heard Dainty squeal, “DIE BITCH!” and fired another round into the thrashing phegan’s throat. She cried out, one final time, and then lie still. Her corpse stretched eighty paces, snout to tail tip, all of it pincushioned by projectiles. Kinneth breathed, blinked, he could not believe it.
    They weren’t done, yet.
    “The head!” He kicked his horse into the motion, “Severe her head now! Get out the saws and get to work!”
    His men cleared a path and Kinneth came along the dead phegan’s shoulders. He went to her neck and the roan hopped over the trunk thick throat. She trotted to the remaining wagon as men scrambled around the back of it to retrieve saws and axes. They would cut through her neck like any oak.
    Dainty leaned against the besieger, his head hung low, panting. Kinneth congratulated, “That was one hell of a gambit Dainty.”
    Dainty looked up, smiled and nodded, “Sir, I suppose that’ll make up for the last time you saved my life?”
    “Don’t relax yet, fool!”
    Kinneth turned and saw Tizzy walking to him. She pointed at the phegan’s groin and snapped, “Or did you just miss that!”
    On the Arch-brood mother’s groin was a patch crimson not blood or part of phegan plumage. A fifth grizt, and it pulsed power. Kinneth cursed and shouted, “Come on lads! Get that head off her now, dammit!”
    His men scrambled, most confused, not armed with the right tools for the job. Kinneth snarled and dismounted, he paced to where the brood mother’s throat met her jaw and raised his sword. He chopped down with all his might, his blade sank half an inch. He waved over the men wielding axes and two-handed saws, screaming, “Over here damn you, move!”
    The brood mother’s throat bobbed, like she swallowed. Kinneth froze and glanced to his right, at the open and alive eye of the brood mother. The large yellow iris, reptilian pupil, looked down at him. Kinneth’s blood froze.
    Schlip-fwish! The lances, arrows, quarrels, even the two besieger’s missiles ejected from the phegan and blasted the mercenaries. Men cried out, Kinneth’s wrists jerked and he yelped as his sword flew from of his hands, spun in the air, and landed on the ground behind him. His mercenaries watched in horrified silence as the brood mother snorted, rolled over, her gaping wounds regenerating. She craned her neck and spotted Dainty. Her neck coiled like a snake, and in a blur she snapped him into her jaws, Kinneth’s gut rolled over as he heard Dainty’s scream, his legs protruding from the brood mother’s jaws before her teeth gnashed and the legs tumbled out, his screams rose in intensity, and then the phegan cut them off with a sickening squelch.
    Kinneth coughed, fighting the compulsion to wretch. Men fled on all sides, they held no hope now, lances gone, besiegers ruined, they could do nothing. The Archphegan roared and pounced at the most concentrated group of men. The fifty with halberds, they did nothing to her. She snapped, slashed, and lashed, she slaughtered them. Men died screaming, flying through the air, cut to pieces, eaten whole.
    Kinneth fell to his knees, the battle with his stomach now a war. His whole body trembled, he wanted to lie down…
    “Are you listening!” a wrinkled hand grabbed him by the hair and yanked his gaze up, he met Tizzy’s eyes, “We won’t stay alive staying here you bastard now get up!”
    Kinneth nodded and stumbled to his feet. Tizzy grabbed a nearby crossbow and tossed it to him, a quiver of quarrels came after it. Kinneth caught both and Tizzy ordered, “Load that and follow me.”
    Kinneth nodded and slung the quiver over his shoulder, cranked the crossbow and fumbled to place the quarrel, while he did he jogged after the old witch. They did not head in the direction of valley entrance. Crazy bitch is leading us to the monster's nest!
    Tizzy yelled over her shoulder, “Shoot her to get her attention!”
    Kinneth cursed and turned, he planted his feet, aimed, and pulled the trigger. The quarrel flew and disappeared into her hide. The brood mother snorted, but did not give up her slaughter.
    “Fire again damn you, before she gets out of range!”
    Kinneth cranked the bow back again, muttering, “Come on… work!” He placed another quarrel and fired. This time the phegan looked up, and spotted Kinneth. She roared at him. Kinneth’s eyes watered, so did the crotch of his trousers. He looked behind him and saw Tizzy stood at the top of a mound, and behind that mound stood another brood mother.
    By Tuist two of them?
    The other roared right back, but Kinneth noticed her gaze a few paces north of the first brood mother.
    “Are you going to follow me or not?” Tizzy snapped. Kinneth spotted her speeding down the mound and around it. He glanced at the real brood mother and found her coiling to pounce, her wings half opened, her body hunched like a stalking mountain lion. He chased the spectralist, his feet pounding the dirt. He leaped over the same cow carcass his horse did not ten minutes before and felt the ground shake when he landed. Dirt blasted his side, the mound upturned as the Archphegan landed. He cursed as dust stabbed his eyes. He clutched the crossbow to his chest and continued to run.
    When he cleared the dust cloud he found Tizzy a hundred paces from the rock face. She turned around and cupped her hands over her mouth, “Shoot at her nest!” she jabbed a finger at a massive cave dug into rock wall where the brood mother would give birth to her first clutch.
    Kinneth looked over his shoulder and saw the massive head and neck of the monster arch over the dust cloud and spot him. She snapped her teeth and snarled. Kinneth cried, “Oh shit!”
    He aimed the crossbow, closed his eyes, and squeezed the trigger.
    The phegan roared and Kinneth pried open his eyes as he heard the massive sweep of wings. The Arch-brood mother leapt to her nest, she landed right in front of it, ten paces from Tizzy. The spectralist dug into a pouch tied to her belt and retrieved two grey jewels. She invoked the power of those zems and created a flare, Kinneth covered his eyes as a trail of light raced up the mountainside.
    He stopped and watched Tizzy run, the phegan’s eyelids flickered, as stupefied as Kinneth. Then he heard rumbling, the ground trembled, and blasts of light erupted from the rock face. Like a volcanic explosion, the mountainside jettisoned away, toppled with a roar that deafened Kinneth.
    He heard a muted shriek from the brood mother, then a ringing stung his ears. He watched a large boulder crash on the phegan’s skull, then a pebble whipped by and skimmed his cheek. Kinneth slapped his free hand over the stinging cut and watched the brood mother collapse under enough rock to build half a city wall. A tidal wave of dirt washed down, struck Kinneth, and flushed its way throughout the valley. He coughed, dropped the crossbow and raised his shirt to cover his mouth. He squinted, but could not see farther than five feet in the brown blizzard.
    Then a silhouette appeared, Tizzy, scowling, a scarf  wrapped over her face. She grabbed his shoulder and he heard a muffled, “Come on, this is no place to stay.”
    Kinneth’s eyes widened. He wrenched away his arm and demanded, “How the hell did you do that?”
    She glared at him. “I didn’t do anything. It was the Knight commander’s plan, I just listened to his orders.”
    “You mean to tell me!-”
    “He will explain things to you—he and his men will be waiting at the other end of the valley by the time we get there,” Tizzy explained. “Now come on.”
    Kinneth obeyed, but vowed to wring her neck later. That bastard knowingly sent us into a slaughter, when he already had a plan to kill her. I’ll kill him and that witch both.
    Tizzy did not offer any condolences for Kinneth, she led him to the valley entrance. He remembered the purse Seth gave him earlier, found it still tied to his belt. He ripped it off and chucked it. In the distance he could see the gleaming armor of Seth’s knights.
    When they reached them Seth stood in front of nine mounted soldiers, his arms crossed and a smirk contorting his face. He said over his shoulder as Tizzy passed him, “Make sure the spectralist gets paid-”
    “Who the hell do you think you are sending all my men to their deaths!” Kinneth snapped.
    Seth sighed and appraised Kinneth glance, Kinneth watched his gaze slip from him to the valley behind. The Knight commander said, “I suppose you want an explanation.” Behind him Kinneth saw a soldier untie a sack of gold and drop it into Tizzy’s waiting hands—she turned to him and winked. Kinneth’s fists clenched.
    “It’s the only thing keeping me from killing you right now.”
    Seth shrugged, “Fair enough. We both know brood mothers will make nest to nearby deposits of zems if they can. After two tried to nest here we could not ignore the coincidence, look behind you and see for yourself.”
    Kinneth did, the mountainside now gleamed in the sunlight, veins of multicolored zems now exposed, throbbing with power. Kinneth gaped, he never saw so many in his life.
    “The city will be rich,” Seth laughed. Kinneth snapped his glare back at the man and he grinned, “We were ready to blow the cliff a week ago, but were too worried the brood mother would escape the blast, and with all those zems uncovered she would never die with that raw power radiating on her. So we hired your group and your spectralist separately, in hopes one of you would get her just close enough. Then it was only a matter of a dozen or so pyralist igniting some of crystals and blowing off the rock. It worked beautifully-”
    “BASTARD!” Kinneth roared, he lunged and struck Seth in the jaw. The knight commander’s men leaped off their horses as the mercenary tackled Seth. He managed one more blow on the arrogant whoreson’s lips before four men ripped him off.
    Seth sat up, wiped blood off his split lip, and with the help of one of his men got to his feet. He spat and told Kinneth, “You know, I never liked you. Even when we were in the same unit, it only seems fitting that I put you in a dungeon now.”
    Kinneth howled, he ripped himself away from one of the knights, Seth stepped back and another gauntleted hand snatched Kinneth’s shoulder, the metal pinching and tearing his skin. Seth ordered, “Restrain him and get him out of my sight.”
    Kinneth kicked and thrashed and screamed, but they dragged him away. Then the canyon shook with a familiar roar, hands released him and he fell on his back. “She’s alive!” someone yelled. Men panicked, Seth shouted orders, the knights mounted and fled. Kenneth coughed and watched the ten armored figures race up the switchback. He glanced down the valley and watched a brood mother take to the air and stomp down in the ruins of the besiegers. She swiped, bit, and crushed invisible enemies.
    Kinneth gawked.
    He heard a witch’s cackle and rolled over to find Tizzy sitting on a boulder. She grinned and told Kinneth, “We are even now.”
    “Wh-what?” Kinneth gasped.
    “Oh so a four hundred and seventy-two year old spectralist still cares about money, huh? Is that what you think?”
    Kinneth blinked, got to his feet and growled, “Why did you not just tell me?”
    She shrugged, “You would have driven her into the corner or not. It would have been the most natural strategy from the very beginning to pin her against the rock. You could lob missiles at her to your heart’s content then.”
    Kinneth scowled, Damn her. “What are you after then?”
    “That.” She pointed to the unearthed mountain of zems and flicked her wrist.
    Kinneth heard water surge and turned around. He gasped, the pond below swirled and spun into a column, it writhed in the air like a serpent, climbing until it hung over valley, then the torrent blasted the mountainside—like foaming sea spray, water droplets cascaded the mountain and an explosion of sound climbed the valley and roared like a point-blank waterfall. Then the coruscated liquid fell and soaked into the boulders below. Kinneth blinked, he rubbed his eyes and stared and cursed. The zems were gone.
    “Your helping me has earned you the Colossal of Illusion’s favor. The next time you find yourself in mortal peril he will save you,” Kinneth turned and gasped, he jumped back as the spectralist’s skin liquefied. She grabbed a sack beside her, grunted, and threw it at Kinneth’s feet. No mouth moved, but he heard her say, “You can also have this. You humans and gold, you’re just like ravens.”
    “Y-y-you’re a merune!”
    She nodded. “Thank you for helping me nab all those zems darling, it was fun.”
    And she winked out of existence. The clothes fell in a heap, Kinneth stared. He knew she was around, they couldn’t teleport, but now she was as invisible as water vapor, probably in her true form, whatever it may be. Men had few recordings of what those looked like.
    Kinneth looked down at the hefty sack, at least twenty pounds of gold coins in it. He knelt and touched it to make sure it was real. The corner of his lips twitched. This doesn’t make up for all those deaths, but damn my gemmed heart, it’s a good start.
    He took the bag and swung it over his shoulder, he walked into the wilderness to sneak by Seth’s troops, feeling lighter and richer than ever.


        On the Origins of the Crow Company,
        In the Summer of 1576 After Scarring
 





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