A Circle Of Crows Read online

  Down her faced leaked a steady stream of blood. As she reached the shelf and began to fight her way toward the shoreline, she was waving her arms wildly instigating the flock to come to her.

  Colin could hear many hoofbeats now. So could the flock. Simultaneously, they rose and as if one flowing black body, flew north.

  Colin replaced his sword, and as quickly as he was able, began wading toward the bloody feminine figure.

  When he was four feet from her, she lost consciousness and he quickly pulled her from the water. Then he removed the bloody algae entwined in her hair.

  Christian had reached the shore and dismounted. “Captain, is she alive?"

  "Yes, Christian. However, I fear she has lost a significant amount of blood. We must get her out of the water and tend to her wounds."

  "Yes, sir. I saw her calling to the flock as you battled them, sir. She is either superbly brave, or quite mad,” he stated, as he made his way to assist Colin with her limp form.

  The other soldiers began to head back toward the camp.

  Colin pushed the woman's hair back from her face, and peered closely through the dark.

  "Oh, I believe she is quite mad. It is my outlander's sister,” he said and grinned broadly.

  * * * *

  Rachael opened her eyes and peered around the dim room. She was completely disoriented and wondered if she had slept through her alarm. She took note of the stillness of the inn, and as her mind began to unfog, realized it was a Tuesday, the day there was no breakfast served or library time.

  Stillness, though ... Rae should be in the kitchen clattering about, as the only time Rachael had ever seen her not rise before six was when she was ill, or when she had too much to drink the night before, which happened more than she liked to admit lately. It had gotten worse again since Bella was lost.

  She moved to get off the couch, and nearly stepped on Eva's long blond mass of curls. Morgana had her arm around the sleeping girl. Rachael sighed at the sight of the two of them safe.

  "Powerful word—safe,” she whispered to herself, as she limberly slid over the back of the couch and pulled back the shade a bit, attempting to ascertain the time of day by the amount of light outside.

  The sight in the courtyard made her feel a tightening in her chest, and a foreboding feeling rose within her.

  The wisteria tree, now devoid of flowers in November, was uprooted in the center of the courtyard. Two trellises, which served as climbers for morning glories and clematis, were both on the ground, ripped from the inn and the cottage. Black leaves were strewn everywhere around the yard. “Black leaves?"

  Rachael rubbed her eyes hard, flicked the latch and opened the window for a better view.

  The dark feeling, held at bay by the sight of the two children safe, came barreling out; panic flooded Rachael as she whispered, “Feathers."

  She ran from the room. Raena? Where's Cloe? I'm alone, if she's gone ... not another one, it's not fair ... Sam ... I have to call Sam to come home.

  She called to Chloe, who came slowly trotting out of Raena's suite.

  Rachael flew past her and pushed the door wide, hearing the doorknob hit the plaster with a crunch.

  "Rae? Rae, are you here? Answer me this instant!” She knew, in her heart, her call would go unanswered.

  Rachael quickly assessed the situation: the window was fully open with the drapes gently blowing in the morning air.

  Absinthe sat open on the tea trolley, and a shattered glass lay on the floor beneath the window. Rae's covers on her bed were mussed and thrown back.

  Rachael began to whimper softly as she fought to stay focused.

  Crying, something she used to do annually—whether she needed it or not—seemed to have become part of her new daily existence.

  "So much for my heart of stone, Rae."

  She turned from the scene, while functioning on auto-pilot, and kept thinking, Call Sam.

  * * * *

  Bella lay on the floor of the nursery and howled with pain. Her contractions were now three minutes apart, and were lasting about a minute each, according to her watch anyway, which surprisingly, still worked.

  She clenched her teeth and waited this one out with her arms wrapped around her massive middle while crouched on the floor. As it past, she lay down, sweating and panting, and thought of Sam. He would miss all this. He didn't even know the baby existed. She began to cry. However, from a very tender age, she had become pragmatic; probably from her days of being left in a playpen for days at a time before her adoption.

  She had learned to help herself, and made a quick prayer to a God she still believed existed, despite all her hardship. She got up and removed the extra blankets from a trunk in the twins’ room and placed them on the floor. She walked ungainly into the other room, knowing she only had a few seconds left before she would be immobile, and grabbed the silver mirror Colin had given her.

  She slid down in front of the trunk and propped herself upright against it. Her shirt was soaked with her breast milk, since it was time for the twins to be fed. A feeling of horror for their safety struck her again, and she knew as soon as she could walk, she would search for them. She had grown to love them desperately since they were born, and she was torn between the urge to find them and to have her own child join her.

  Another contraction hit and she screamed in pain. They were becoming more forceful now. Since she had suffered years of infertility, she had read every baby book imaginable, and was familiar with giving birth. She had assisted the midwives in delivering three babies since her arrival, and assisted in their concealment due to the infanticide they currently faced.

  She took the mirror and angled it between her legs so she could see her progress. She was shocked at what she saw. Her baby's head was already crowning, and she could see a tuft of hair. By this point, she had to be close to being ready to push.

  When another contraction hit, she dropped the silver mirror, which shattered with the impact. She felt an amazing desire to push, so she beared down with everything in her.

  Exhausted, she lay down with her legs apart and panted for a minute. Then another contraction hit, and she grabbed her middle while attempting to bear down, but she was not prepared for it. She slowly raised herself back to the sitting position and waited, taking long, deep breaths.

  She reached her hand between her legs and felt that the baby's head was still in the same position. Panic was beginning to rise in her throat. Years of trying for a child, simply to have it die during birth? Probably followed by her own death?

  She morbidly thought of her husband and then her sisters hearing the news, their subsequent reactions, and she was mortified.

  Another contraction come upon her and she beared down with everything she was worth, grabbing her legs and flexing them at the hips to create extra passage through her pelvis. She could feel the baby was halfway out and she beared down again while screaming with a near insane pitch. The baby finally slid onto the blanket on the hardwood floor in a sea of blood.

  She swooned and began to lose consciousness, so she lay her head on the floor for a moment. She picked up the baby and cleaned his mouth—it was a him! She then did as she had seen the midwives do and smacked the baby's rear—he began to howl—then she burst into tears.

  She wrapped her newborn son in a blanket and held him close to her. Then pulling out her knife, she cut the umbilical cord and was grateful she had been the midwife's apprentice, or they would both most likely be dead now.

  She put the baby to her breast, which he immediately took to, and lay back on the trunk.

  She stared at the mess on the floor and the umbilical cord which trailed out of her uterus. She knew she needed to remove it, but she had usually tended to the babies once they were born. The midwife would stay to finish with the afterbirth, which she usually kept for “medicinal purposes."

  She began to drift off and her eyes drooped with exhaustion and stress. She realized she mustn't fall asleep, but her eyes seem to
have a mind of their own at the moment.

  She was startled by the sound of the cabin's door being shoved open and footfalls approaching the nursery. She had no strength left to fight, so she closed her eyes and waited for the worst.

  "Isabella! Good God, the cord is still attached! Have I not taught you anything, child? If you close up and we cannot get it out, you are done for!” said a familiar voice. As Bella opened her eyes one last time, she could see her mentor towering over her.

  "His name is Finn...” was all she uttered before darkness overtook her.

  Chapter 28

  Colin stared off at the horizon, which was still black and ominous. He clucked to his horse and urged her to trot along the perimeter where he had assumed position as the north guard. The mare's ears laid back flat against her head and she whinnied softly.

  Immediately shifting himself in his saddle, he strained his ears.

  Caws.

  Caws could be heard far off, probably about half a mile away by his estimation. His uneasiness grew, and he turned to head back toward the south guard when he saw them: Selpulchars—roughly translated means “the winged evil."

  A flock of magpies were in the lead, swerving madly. They were followed by huge, black, manlike creatures. In their wake, a windstorm followed, caused by the turbulence they created with their massive wingspans.

  Colin blew his horn and the south guard responded to the call. Men began to wake and grope for their quivers and arrows. In no time, the Selpulchars were swooping among the men and ripping off limbs with their clawed appendages.

  Colin saw her from across the camp. Rising into the air as the Selpulchar's claws dug into her scalp, she was swinging wildly over the raging battle below.

  He began firing arrows at the fiend, which were sticking out at odd angles from its thorax as the Sepulchar swooped over him.

  He aimed straight up above him, but Raena's body kept swinging into his shot. He waited a heartbeat, then loosed the arrow, flying within an inch of her face, and striking the creature in the center of its back where its wings met.

  She fell twenty feet and lay still on the ground.

  Carnage was everywhere he turned. Men were being disemboweled; others were being dragged into the distance by their hair. Some of his more experienced officers had lit torches and were catching the beasts on fire, which was holding the creatures at bay. The Sepulchars rose fifteen feet off the ground as men swung torches riotously into the air above their heads.

  Colin went over to Raena, picked her up and slung her over the back of his horse. Then he brandished his own torch in a perimeter around the horse.

  Suddenly, they were gone, just as quickly as they had appeared.

  He screamed to Christian over the noise, “Get a count of the dead! We need to regroup."

  * * * *

  Nathaniel crouched behind the boulders, watching the men around their campfires.

  In the tent beside them, the muffled cries of the infants could be heard as the wet nurses made feeble attempts to quiet them.

  "I will take the first watch,” said the older of the two. “Maximus may be by at any time to remove the brats and take them to the queen."

  "All right, sir,” was the only reply as the younger man arranged himself by the fire.

  Nathaniel waited for several hours, then he inched his way as close as he dared to the tent to await the opportune moment.

  The older man's head bobbed as he attempted to stay awake. Soon, his snoring could be heard echoing slightly off the rocks in the canyon.

  Nathaniel snuck into the tent and from behind, struck the women in the back of their heads with the wooden handle of his short blade. They slumped over onto the floor. He quickly picked up the twins and placed them into the pack on his back.

  He made his way out of the door of the tent and turned to begin to scale the embankment from which he came, when Hope began to wail.

  Scaling the wall, he heard a bowstring being pulled. The arrow would be headed directly for his back—directly for his pack.

  He turned around just in time to be struck by the poisonous arrow directly in his chest.

  * * * *

  Bella dreamt, again.

  She dreamt of home, her mother and her sisters and of the roaring fireplace where crazy Gran Moira would spin her Scottish yarns.

  She was on fire. She was confused, had she caught on fire from the fireplace?

  Her fever raged on and she thrashed back in forth in her bed in delirium.

  She could hear a baby crying. Was it Hope? No, it sounds more like boy, Cullen. Finn! Oh my word. I have a son. She attempted to sit up, but she only managed to roll to her side.

  She felt a coolness on her forehead. She could hear singing; the lullaby her mother used to sing.

  "Am I dying?"

  Her eyes opened into slits and she could see the dim outline of a woman's face. Her long auburn hair fell past her shoulders and brushed against her arm.

  "Mama?"

  "No, baby girl, it's me."

  Bella reached out for Rae's hand as tears leaked out of the sides of her eyes, then she lost consciousness.

  * * * *

  Sam had moved into Rae's suite. He kept telling himself it was only temporary till both sisters came home. Although he was beginning to have serious doubts that he would ever see his wife again, or his sister-in-law.

  He was living in limbo—unable to move on—since he had no idea what had become of Bella, but he was unable to stay in his own home and stare at all the belongings he and his wife shared. The housed was permeated with Bella.

  However, Eva would not come upstairs to stay with him. Foremost, because of the mirror in the Autumn Room where she first spied Morgana, and she was terrified the doorway would open again.

  Secondly, she knew her aunt had disappeared from upstairs as well.

  So she stayed in Morgana's room with her, making very quiet and lonely bedtimes for him.

  The truth was, he and Rachael had no idea what to do at this point. They had all previously deduced that the portals were related to lunar cycles, but many had passed without any trace of abnormality in either the bodies of water or at the inn itself.

  They were helpless, a state which did not suit either of their personalities very well. They had begun to spend as little time together as possible, since they were constantly reminded of their predicament when they did.

  They had taken to spending time with the children separately, leaving the other to find their own way to cope with the situation.

  A storm was brewing outside. The breeze could be heard outside the window, whistling through the old crevices and into the room.

  Sam opened the window and thrust his head outside. He could hear them ... they were out there somewhere and somehow, they were a puzzle piece to this bizarre conundrum.

  He decided that tomorrow he would bring his shotgun over from the cottage.

  Chapter 29

  Colin rushed around the cottage, picking up his weapons and his pack as quickly as he was able. “Ellena, how long since they have departed?"

  "'Tis nigh on four days now, Colin. I told the lads who were with Nathaniel, and he set out straight away to inform you. That was two day ago."

  He turned to Raena and looked her squarely in the eyes. “They have my children, I have to go. Stay here and care for Bella. I am grieved to leave her in this condition, but Ellena and yourself can care for her better than I could."

  "I wish I could go with you, but I must stay here with my sister and help care for Finn. If you need me, please send word through one of your officers in the village."

  Ellena rose up to her full height, which was taller than Colin at six feet. “Do not worry, sir. I have a special welcoming planned if they decide to return to our village,” she said as she fingered a large machete usually used for harvesting.

  Raena walked him out to his mount and she handed him his pack.

  "Raena, if I should not return, I would like to tell you t
hat I never thought I would ever even glance at a woman again, but I find you interesting and beautiful and...” his face flushed a bit, “headstrong. Please do not take offense at my words, as I feel it is a trait to be admired. If I should return, may we talk of this?"

  "Yes, I would like that. Please be careful, and send word as soon as you are able."

  "I shall.” He whipped his mare around and set out at a full gallop across the farmlands.

  * * * *

  The cave was dank and dark, and the wailing of the infants echoed through the narrow chambers.

  "Honestly, send that wet nurse to tend to those spawn as I cannot think with this level of pandemonium.” The queen walked out of the corridor and into the sunlight. Their itinerant meeting tent was swaying slightly in the strong breeze.

  She sat and opened the book, and as she did, she felt the familiar sense of electricity that flowed from it with merely touching its pages. She turned to the page she had been examining for months, and reread it for the thousandth time.

  A pot boiled and simmered; a thick, green concoction was inside it, and bubbles regularly rose to the top and burst. She added a dried ingredient and the mixture turned black.

  "I believe it is ready,” she said as her eyes quickly swept the page.

  "Your Highness, the other captains and myself are wondering how much longer it shall be till we sacrifice the spawn of McCullough. The beast is growing restless again and we fear he may take flight at anytime, despite his weakness. He has aged without the sacrifices."

  "I have learned from the book how we may enslave the beast's mind, and use him as our servant, forever ensuring our reign."

  Maximus glanced at the simmering cauldron. “How in the world will we get it into him, Your Highness?"

  "We feed it to the children first; and when he devours them ... we will have him."

  "An estimation of days, ma'am?"

  "I would say that in four more days, we will be prepared."

  Maximus left the tent and the queen watched his progress across the field of troops now assembled outside the Caves of Sinnistrada.