Legends: The Crow Who Feasts Upon The Corpse of War

Long ago there was a noble, a great lord, who fell in love with the beauty of a young maiden commoner, daughter to a simple farmer and the village’s medicine woman.

The only problem was the maiden did not love the noble.

Sadly, the noble didn’t care.

The noble sent his men to the young maiden’s home to collect his bride to be.

When they demanded the young maiden, the father refused, seeking to protect his child.

And so they ran blade run through his stomach and left his corpse to rot as he was forced to watch them steal his daughter.

When the mother returned home from a day of aiding her fellow villagers, the only life she found was the sole crow already picking at her husband’s corpse.

Driven mad with grief, she refused to accept this, the medicine woman dove into her family’s tombs in search of some art capable of saving her husband who’d been alive but that morning.

And as the sunset she found what she was looking for amongst images stained in blood.

Delving into these darkest of arts, the woman captured the crow before riding into town and seeking the man who killed her husband, drinking and making merry in a tavern as if he hadn’t had a hand in destroying her life.

The woman seduced the soldier, luring him away to a dark corner of the forest.

As the man disarmed and disrobed, the woman took his blade that killed her husband and drove it through the man’s heart, staining the blade in the blood of her husband’s killer before cutting out his heart.

Moving before the blood could try, she walked to a hastily made grave where her husband’s yet to be buried corpse lay.

Using the bloodstained blade she cut open the still living crow, and filled it with the heart of her husband’s killer before stitching it shut and using the blade to pin it to her husband’s corpse.

As the night grew long, she buried the wretched souls and prayed for the pale lady not to take her beloved away.

And she sat and prayed throughout this cold dark night, until finally with morning’s first light a hand burst from the ground, and with it climbed out a corpse twisted and distorted, carrying the bloodstained blade of her husband’s killer.

Looking upon the thing she had done, she felt fear filling her soul at the unnaturalness of the thing before her, but as she met its blood red eyes she saw only fear, pain, and confusion on the face of her husband. Thus she embraced the beast with tears streaming down her face as she explained the evil thing she’d done to her husband, unwilling to let him go.

Her husband assured her that this wretched fate was not her doing, and that there was something far more distressing that they must deal with, for the nobel still held their daughter and as much as the fates had damned them, perhaps they’d grant them the mercy of saving their child before the worst could happen.

The wife warned her husband that while she’d brought him back from the darkness, the darkness still lingered inside of him. And while this darkness would grant him power, it would come at a terrible price as it devoured what was left of his light.

‘No price is too much to save our child.’ The father swore upon his soul.

And so the mother and the father set out for the noble’s castle, allowing nothing to stop their desperate gamble to save their child. But as they walked through the village they stumbled upon a party of the noble’s soldiers, members of whom the husband recognized from the day prior.

Upon seeing the faces of the men responsible for stealing his daughter away, the darkness in his soul raged forth demanding vengeance for what these wretches had done to him and his family, and like a demon from the darkest depths of hell he raged forth slaughtering them all with the very same blade that had killed him.

As the last of the soldiers hit the bloodsoaked ground, his mind began to clear, and he finally noticed the eyes watching him.

Perched all around him were crows watching him with blood red eyes, and after a moment to count them he realized that there was one crow for every man that he had killed.

From behind him he heard a gasp, and with a turn he found a soldier he had missed with a knife to his wife’s throat, demanding that she call back her demon.

With a snarl he pointed at the man and pulled on the darkness within himself, causing murder to rise and decend upon the man ripping the soldier away as the crows devoured him alive.

Despite shielding his wife from the horrific sight before him, the father realized that this was how he was going to save his daughter from an army.

And so as they continued towards the castle he and his crows descended upon every soldier and bandit they could find, adding more and more to their ever growing flock.

All the while unaware of how as his murder spread his form was changing bit by bit, in a way not even his wife could see just yet.

When the father and his flock finally descended upon the noble’s castle, some say he unleashed a murder so great that for a moment he blocked out the sun itself, and in turn they devoured each and every man who stood between him and his daughter until he finally found the noble cowering upon his throne.

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‘Where is my daughter?!’ He demanded, his voice echoing with an inhuman growl.

Rather than answering, the noble began pleading with the man turned demon, offering him land, wealth, and women in exchange for his mercy.

In disgust the father drove his killer’s blade through the noble’s hand, and asked once more, ‘Where is my daughter?!’

The noble did not answer him, but instead through the eyes of one of his crows he saw his daughter chained in the castle’s dungeon, beaten and bruised with her clothes torn.

Upon seeing such a terrible sight, the father’s darkness took over once more as with clawed hands he ripped the wretched noble limb from bloody limb.

With blood still dripping from his maw he flew through the castle, crashing through every door and barrier until he stumbled upon the cell with his daughter inside.

Ripping away the metal bars, he stumbled forward clutching at his daughter so much smaller and more fragile than he could ever remember.

He whispered her name with a gentleness none would expect from a monster, only to receive no response as her dull eyes saw nothing in front of them.

Clutching his daughter close to his chest, he carried her through the castle, uncaring of anything but the fragile life in his arms as he made his way back to his waiting wife.

With tears in her eyes she examined their girl and discovered marks on her body defensive in nature and a blow to her head that had damaged her mind in a way the mother did not understand.

‘Can you heal her?’ He asked, with a desperation deeper than the darkness lurking within.

His wife shook her head and explained that she’d traded all of her magics to resurrect him, and that there was nothing they could do but wait and hope for her to heal.

And so with heavy hearts the damaged and scarred family returned home, broken but at least together.

But unbeknownst to the father and mother their actions these days would bear haunting consequences across the land.

With the noble dead, others set their sights upon his lands arguing and bickering amongst themselves until the king of the land told them the rumors of the demon who had descended upon their fellow and murdered him so savagely in his own home.

So the king declared that the lands would belong to whichever house killed the demon and stopped it from harming any other noble.

While the nobles gathered their men the father and mother had returned home with their daughter and tried to resume their lives as best they could. With the husband tilling the lands as he had before taking on the changes that made him something other than a man. The wife attempting to heal those she could without her magicks while being ostracized for her husband’s monstrous nature. And the daughter bed ridden and unresponsive no matter how much care the mother and father gave her.

Eventually word of the witch married to the demon reached the ears of one of the nobles searching for the one who killed his fellow and the noble sent his best men to the farm to smite the beast.

Upon seeing the man who was not a man they drew their weapons, and the husband warned them, ‘Leave and I’ll leave you be, but threaten my family and face a murder most foul.’

The men did not listen to this warning, and the husband found a dozen more crows for his flock.

With the death of these men of lesser houses the noble summoned his banner men, unwilling to risk more deaths without seeing the demon dead. And so hundreds of soldiers descended upon the family.

And hundreds of crows filled the forest around their farm, before hundreds more descended upon the noble’s castle and saw him as dead as the first.

With so many deaths some of the nobles felt fear in their hearts, but others saw only greed as they saw not one but two dead houses for the taking.

Not willing to stand for this and seeing the growing tensions amongst his nobles the king sent his own men, the greatest knights and mages in the land to deal with the demon.

And while it took several moons, this small army did eventually find and march upon the family’s farm much like the noble prior and much like then the father once more issued his warning.

And once more his murder grew.

Only this time he took the head of a king rather than a noble.

With the king dead, the nobles fractured from both fear and greed, going to war with each other to either defend themselves or to lay claim to the throne.

The old crow was willing to let them rage and war amongst themselves, uncaring for anything beyond his wife and child.

Especially since amongst the books of one of the fallen mages the mother had found a method of saving their daughter.

While the wife had lost her magic and the husband was incapable of any beyond his own innate darkness, the wife had discovered that through he could use the magic of a mage by binding himself in a contract of servitude to the mage.

Servitude he was more than willing to enter if it meant saving his child.

And so he sent his crows far and wide in search of a suitable mage before kidnapping a young mage from the battlefield and making them an offer of servitude in exchange for the power necessary to heal his daughter.

This deal was a dream for many a mage, the kind that offered them power and prestige far beyond what many of them were capable of.

Sadly… the mage he had chosen was loyal to his lord and his faith, and attacked the husband’s wife as a dark witch for marrying a demon.

While his wife was not outright killed she was cursed to a state little better than their daughter, save a consciousness that lasted but a few moments each day.

And so in his grief and his rage, the father descended upon all the armies of the land, his crows feasting upon the corpse left in the wake of a pointless war, and forcing an end to it as they realized the old crow was more dangerous than anything that could be hoped to gain from the war.

With the end of the war came a tense peace amongst the nobles who had each become their own small kingdom, and the demon who still maintained enough humanity to not slaughter those at least attempting to live peacefully and far too tired to go any further from the family who needed him.

Thus in this peace the father and husband did the best he could to take care of his wife and child in their ill fortune states, despite knowing his best would never be enough to see them well once more. And in this mourning state he lived until eventually one of his crows that had spread far further than he was willing to travel heard something.

A young girl crying.

A young girl crying because she was betrothed in a political marriage.

A young girl crying because she’d been taken from her home.

The father looked upon his daughter and then his wife as he remembered her ill fated idea from so long ago. An idea that while he lacked the skill to perform himself, perhaps he had the will to at least attempt it for someone who needed a savior, much as his own daughter had.

And so the father took control of the crow so far away and made the tearful girl an offer to save her from her fate, in exchange for the power to save his family from their own.

The young girl swallowed before giving her answer.

And thus murder rose through the skies as the Crow Who Feast Upon The Corpse of War decended upon those who held her captive, just as he would for every other young girl stolen from their families when asked.