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A Storm of Crows



The sun was shining high over the swamps of Sedgemead as Amardal turned away from the hill where she and Nenaras had interred the fallen prince. She had not wished to leave the Elf to finish the rites alone. As the boy had lain unburied in the swamp for the better part of two thousand years, his kinswoman, however distant, should have lingered to see him laid to rest. Yet the task of finding her horse was more urgent. At the sight of the barrow-candle, Hithluin had bolted into the hills. Amardal knew that the mare might be lost in the swamp if she did not find her soon.

Retracing her path, Amardal returned to the ruined court where her company had spied the candle's gleam. The waters of the bog were murky in the morning light. On the far bank, a bald patch in the snow marked the place where Hithluin had thrown her from the saddle.

She looked down, expecting to see her riding boots caked with mud. The waters caught her eye instead. Once cloudy, they began to run clear, revealing the prince's waxen face. Her thoughts turned to the knife-wound she had seen in his back and the fine dagger the company of Rangers had found with him.

A veil of clouds passed over the sun. It shone white as the moon, its light dimming to a gentle glow before disappearing completely. The prince beneath the water was gone. In his place lay a girl a few years older than he. Her hair was cropped short, her face sun-browned. She wore no prince's raiment, only a loose linen tunic and breeches rolled up to her knees. Amardal found herself reaching toward the bog when the waters rippled again, clouding and clearing like a dirty mirror wiped clean. The girl who had taken the prince's place was replaced by another, a blue-lipped girl of seventeen years whose long dark hair floated in the water like a spill of ink.

The cold stung at Amardal's cheeks as she staggered away from the pool. Mist rolled over the earth, shrouding Sedgemead in shades of gray. Noisome vapors rose from the pools in thick white plumes. To the south, the hills into which her horse had fled were faint shadows behind a cloak of fog.

Calling for Hithluin, Amardal braced herself against the chill and strode into the mist. She prodded the ground with her walking-staff as she went, feeling for firm earth in the morass. Moisture beaded in her hair, dripping down the back of her neck in cold rivulets. The fog smelled of stale water and rot. Where it thinned, she caught brief glimpses of the swamp around her: a tangle of reeds, a muddy incline, a broken column sinking into the muck. Each soon dissolved back into the gray haze.

Her feet had gone sore, then numb from the cold, when a bellow sounded from ahead. "Hithluin!" she cried. The muck sucked at her boots as she staggered toward the sound. There, obscured by the mist, she made out the contours of a four-legged shape—not her gentle mare, as she had hoped, but a horn-crowned hart bounding past her. She did not know whether the hart was fleeing or leading her to safety, but she ran after him regardless. Splashing through the swamp, she followed the hart to a muddy bank, watching mutely as he leapt into the hills. The earth turned to sludge beneath her feet as she clambered up after him, but she was undeterred, ignoring the ache in her legs as she ran.

Stumbling uphill, Amardal followed the hart to higher ground. A dull thudding filled her ears as she watched the blanket of fog begin to fray, revealing a bald brown hill ringed by shallow drifts of snow. There, resting curled on the hilltop with his eyes closed, was the hart. It was then that she recognized the sound in her ears as his heartbeat, not hers. Although he lay unmoving, the hart lived still. She stood beside him and gripped her staff, unsure of whether to approach or turn back and let him be.

Shadows stirred against the milky sky as she watched the hart sleep. A carrion crow swept down from the air and alighted on his shoulder. Its talons pricked at his hide, but the hart would not wake. Amardal cried out in protest. "He's alive!" The crow regarded her with its beady black eyes, then began to peck. Another landed on the hart's antlers, then fluttered down to start tearing at his thigh. "Stop hurting him! He lives still."

A wave of revulsion rose in her chest as she watched the crows pick at the hart as if he were dead. Yet when she tried to move, her body would not obey; her limbs were clumsy and stiff. She watched helplessly as another crow descended upon the hart, then another. Tearing chunks of flesh from the hart's bones, they ate greedily, speckling their feathers with blood and gristle. She peered between his ribs and saw that his heart was still beating.

Before she could protest once more, a fury of wingbeats arose from the flock of crows. They rose from their meal and flew toward her, plunging the world into darkness.

She awoke on the cold earth, dry grass prickling against her cheek. When the shadow of a horse fell over her, Amardal recognized the blue roan and her empty saddle. "Hithluin," she groaned, pressing a hand against her aching ribs. "We should go home."