The Raven's Unkindness

Chapter One: Hunters and Prey

On that day we couldn't find her anywhere. She had always been at his side, but on the day we cast him down she was nowhere to be found. So we went to her small corner of the world and disposed of her creations, we left them alone in the cold with no shelter and no hope.

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Icicles hung from the branches of the trees, and snow covered the boulders on the side of the mountain. The land beyond was covered in a fresh carpet of snow reflecting the light of the sun, making a field of light amid the frozen tundra. The forest at the foot of the mountain swayed in the wind; snow dislodged from the boughs and fell to the ground, causing a perpetual snowstorm amid the trunks. Beyond the forest were the Great Northern Mountains rising on the horizon like great teeth biting into the sky.

Callum was on the slope of the mountain behind a tree, with his bow raised, and his quarry in sight. He pulled the bowstring back to the corner of the mouth as he lined up the arrowhead with his prey, a large stag nibbling at the few bits of ground already exposed. It was one of the last stags still this far north.

He breathed out slowly, quietly, and smoothly as the wind died down for a second, and released, the arrow. It leapt from his bow and sped towards the animal. Callum cursed as the wind started up again and pushed the arrow off its mark, slamming into the stag's midsection instead. The stag stumbled for a second then got its legs under itself and galloped into the forest down the mountain before Callum could fire again. Cursing again, he trotted over to where the stag had been, to pick up the trail. There was a small spot of blood, but it was bright red, not the dark red of organ blood.

He followed the trail down the mountain, through the snow-covered trees, around buried rocks, and past iced over brooks before the wind started in earnest. It whistled through the trees, causing the boughs to sway in the wind. The windblown snow began to fill the tracks in, but Callum stuck to the trail, following the blood that dotted the white carpet. The trail continued for well over a mile, occasionally losing him for a little while, but after casting around for a few minutes he was able to pick it up again.

Callum cast about, his eyes glued to the ground, as he followed the drops of bloodstained snow ever further into the forest. The wind continued its mad flight north carrying snow through the woods with it, and creating great drifts, half obscuring the trail. He continued to follow the pinpricks of red that dotted the snow-covered forest floor, until he came to a stream. The trail stopped abruptly a few strides from the banks and didn't reappear anywhere that he could see. Sighing in frustration, Callum began circling around the last mark of blood, hoping that he wouldn't have to cross the barely frozen stream.

He was on the fifth circle, each one bigger than the last, when he found it: a thin red line in the snow leading south along the stream bank. Following the trail once more, he began to pick up speed as the trail became easier to follow, instead of small drops of blood now there were long red lines marring the snow.

The dashes of blood soon became a solid thick line of blood, and then the line was joined with indents into the snow as if the stag was dragging itself. "About time," Callum thought as he walked beside the track. The sun had already passed its apex and he would be hard pressed to skin, gut, and haul the stag all the way back to his cabin before nightfall.

The wind continued to blow through the scraggly trees, causing a constant snowfall from the weighted boughs. The trail continued to drag alongside the frozen river before it veered off into a small copse of pine trees. Callum slung his bow onto his back and crept along the ground underneath the needles of the pines. Knife in hand, he stood as the trees thinned, and stopped in shock.