The Crow Wife

Bediwyr stumbled, his feet snatched out from under him by a stray root across his path. He cursed as he fell, then cried out as the wound on his leg opened again. He lay still, waiting for the pain to pass, and tried not to cry out. The beast could still be near.

All this for love, he thought. A fool’s love, aimed arrow-straight at a mark far beyond his reach. Bediwyr grinned through gritted teeth. No more foolish than he was for following his King.

His left side was a wall of pain. His armour had saved him from being killed outright when the beast charged into him, but it was so heavy that if he kept it on any longer it would likely as not finish the job. With his right hand he reached for the buckles that held it in place. Loosening them was a fresh torture. The first one came free, but only with a great wrench of pain that stabbed diagonally down through his chest. He hesitated at the second, but pressed on. To have endured the first for the sake of achieving nothing was worse than fearing the pain to come.

With the last, the armour sprung free and a terrible weight was lifted from Bediwyr’s chest. He took a breath that was cold and sweet, sending new life into his limbs and lifting his spirit. He struggled free of his chestpiece and made to stand. As he straightened his left leg, he felt the ragged edges of the gash on his thigh shift unnaturally against one another. It was tightly bound and didn’t seem to be bleeding, but he knew it wouldn’t carry his weight for long. Even so, he had been lucky. The beast’s spines were poisonous, and the poison deadly enough to kill a man in minutes. Bediwyr had seen eight men dead to it - he was the only survivor.

The forest was growing dark, and Bediwyr looked around in confusion. How long had he been lying on the ground? He couldn’t tell if it had been a minute or an hour. His spear lay far behind him, broken and tossed aside when the beast’s hide had turned it. His sword was no longer at his hip; he had no memory of losing it. Bediwyr stooped, and groped around for something that he could use as a crutch - something to get him moving again - but the undergrowth was little more than twigs and brush. The forest was silent, and Bediwyr began to feel the panic rising in his chest. The wilderness was no place to be caught after dark, not least alone and unarmed. There were creatures that loved the night as much as men feared it, and his injuries would draw them to him like scavengers to a carcass. Huldra walked these forests; troll-people, Eve’s hidden children. They were fair to look at face-to-face, but their backs were hollow like a mouldering tree trunk. They took the weak, the unwary, and the injured. They would take him, if they could. He took a hobbling step forward, then another, and reached out to a nearby tree to steady himself. From one tree to the next, he moved through the gathering darkness at a pace that was little better than standing still.

Bediwyr stopped and held his breath. He had heard movement in the forest. Something was coming.

He turned from the noise and started moving, the rising panic making him ignorant of the pain. He managed five steps before he forgot himself and lifted his leg to take a full stride. When the foot landed, it wouldn’t bear his weight and he collapsed back down onto the forest floor. A stump rose to meet him, and he cracked his head against it.

He was barely aware of the footsteps that grew louder until they were almost upon him. There was a vague feeling of being turned onto his back, and the sound of a voice not unlike his own crying out in pain. There was liquid, thick on his lips and cloying with sweetness, and as Bediwyr sank down into sleep, he could feel the pull on his heels as he was dragged along the ground.

“I hope you have a back.”

“I do. Just like the last time you asked.”

Bediwyr came fully awake and opened his eyes. The wooden cross beams of a roof looked back at him, orange in the glow of fire light. He was certain that he hadn’t spoken aloud, and yet someone had answered him. “Did I just ask-”