Early the next morning, none of them were doing anything except some snoring and farting and gradually wondering if anyone else was awake yet and did they have to wake up or not. But eventually they all did get up, and before long there was a scene on the battlement of the barracks, with the crows and ravens and rooks and jackdaws and every scruffy corvid the forest could sustain, perched in sooty ranks along the remains of the tower.

The Ravenmaster in his finery stood there, with a basket of soggy fish-biscuits, and with him stood Trashscarf and the Woodstrider, having a whispered argument behind his back. The Elders of the crow tribe, five black birds, in size from a raven as big as an eagle to a little jackdaw the size of, well, a jackdaw, but all with a certain gravitas of plumage, perched front and center, watching them with mingled suspicion and curiosity.

Trashscarf stepped forward with a modest flourish of his scarf, and bowed with rusty grace before the birds. "My cosmopolitan comrades, my feathered fellows of the fringes and fans of small shiny trinkets, I, Trashscarf the Waywalker, thank you for your audience! Your friend the Ravenmaster vouches for me, and the Woodstrider--" He indicated her with a sweeping gesture, and she rolled her eyes, "--is here to translate your words into those which we might understand."

"Arsehole! Gies a bikkit!" cawed a medium-sized crow, and the Elders chortled in their beaks in agreement.

"She says--" the Woodstrider began,

"Yes, I got that part," Trashscarf said, a bit nettled, as the Ravenmaster made soothing noises and tossed some fish biscuits to the Elders, who squabbled and gobbled over them. "Really, where do they learn this stuff?"

"They're very intelligent," the Ravenmaster said defensively. "They picked up a lot of words from the people of Bridgetower, before we had to move out here. But I'm sure they don't actually know what the words mean."

"Feckin' nevermore, feck fecker!" croaked a raven smugly.

"This would be a lot easier if we were actually -in- the city," Trashscarf grumbled, trying to remember how to actually do this.

His years of urban druidry were stained with pain, and it was like tiptoeing through tulips mixed with landmines in his memory. Waywalking was easy, in comparison. He toyed fitfully with the far end of his scarf, but it was shredded into nothingness far newer than any scrap of his old life could cling to. At least the presence of the barracks around them was a tangible tie to civilization, however long lost.

He realized he was trying to concentrate, which was the exact opposite of what he should be doing, so he took a slow breath and let his mind go back towards the hazy ease of other days, but found it difficult.

"Anyone have anything to drink?" he asked, looking back towards the barracks doorway where Garbleday and Offswitch were lurking. "I was usually drunk off my ass back then," he admitted sheepishly.

Offswitch grinned and tossed him the flask of kobold whisky. It was almost empty, but such was its strength that Trashscarf only needed to wave it under his nose like smelling salts, and his eyes rolled and reddened.

"Right, ya feathery farts," he slurred, tossing the flask back towards Offswitch and hitting Garbleday in the face. "You've been being right unsocibabble and I wanna know why." He tried to fold his arms and put his hands on his hips in the same motion and sort of ended up looking like a broken teapot. Ridiculous as he looked, a faint breeze seemed to stir his curls and set the fibers of his scarf slowly swirling.

The corvids exchanged glances of surprise and then erupted in a flurry of caws, croaks, clicks, squawks, and the occasional scrambled insult. The Woodstrider listened intently, her eyes shut in concentration.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"They're scared, confused, angry. They're trying to protect Foodman," she translated slowly, "And there was a big white predator that ate a bunch of them and it was very upsetting."

"Foodman?" Trashscarf blinked in puzzlement, and Woodstrider indicated the Ravenmaster with a jerk of her head. He looked a little crestfallen.

"That's how they see me? Just the guy who feeds them?"

"It's high praise," the Woodstrider reassured him.

"The predator is gone, you're fine now, so wass the problem?" Trashscarf retorted to the crows. Sarcastic caws of scepticism greeted this, but Trashscarf ignored them. "Why you gotta be a buncha jerks about it, huh? Something about clouds or something?"

The raucous cacophony shifted in tone and pitch, as all the crows tried to talk at once, and Trashscarf talked right over them in similar fashion.

"Enough with the noise!" Trashscarf bellowed, his eyes ablaze with whisky. "I'm trying to do you a favor here, so listen up! If you don't start making sense right now, I'll leave you to your predator problem and you can fend for yourselves!"

The birds fell silent, intimidated by the urban druid's outburst. Trashscarf took a deep breath, steadying himself before he continued speaking in a calmer tone. "Now, tell me about these clouds and why they're bothering you."

The Woodstrider listened intently once more before translating for Trashscarf. "They say that the clouds are bad. Unnatural. Upsetting. Uh, there's no Human equivalent for that word. Or that one. Oh--sad. Yep, the clouds are sad but it's a mad kind of sad that makes them frantic, like being trapped. Scared. Wow, they have a lot of words for scared." She shook her head.

"If you're so scared, why don't you just leave?" Trashscarf argued with the crows directly now, rather than looking at the Woodstrider.

The crows all spoke at once, a chaotic symphony of voice and wing. The Woodstrider listened to them with her eyes closed, then translated their reply. "They say that they can't leave because of Foodman. They've lived in Bridgetower for generations and it's where they belong, and Foodman is the only thing they have left. They're protecting him."

"Me?" the Ravenmaster said, sniffling a little, deeply touched.

"All right, well, we'll deal with Bridgetower later," Trashscarf said, "Back to the clouds. Where are they coming from?"

The Woodstrider listened to the crows, and then said, "The ground."

"That narrows it down," snorted Offswitch, quietly, back in the doorway. Garbleday was rubbing his forehead where the flask had bounced.

"Ha!" Trashscarf aimed an unsteady accusatory finger at the crows. "Caught you! Clouds come from the sky, not the ground! Stupid birds!"

The crows responded indignantly; apparently they understood insults a lot better than politeness. One of them bit Trashscarf's extended finger, and the Ravenmaster glowered at him.

"They insist; the clouds come up from the ground. They can't go closer to the source, though, because there's --" She frowned, concentrated. "Fake people, but real."

Offswitch was still not a badger, but if he had been, his stubby little ears would have pricked up somewhat.

"Fake people?" Trashscarf arched an eyebrow at the crows. "Like undead? Uh... like dead people but not holding still when you eat them?"

Caw, caw caw. "No, like the fake people humans make."

"Children?" Trashscarf frowned.

"Scarecrows?" Garbleday blurted.

"Scarecrows?" Trashscarf quoted, and the crows responded emphatically.

"They're divided on whether that's a 'yes' or a 'no'," the Woodstrider reported.

"Oh come on, you can clearly recognize a scarecrow, can't you? I mean, that's literally what one is all about, isn't it? If it's not scaring you, then it's not doing its job!" Trashscarf's intoxication was getting argumentative.

The smallest Elder gave a caw.

"He says, if they can't tell the difference between a real person and a pile of rags and string stuffed with trash, then it's clearly a common problem, as your mother obviously made the same mistake nine months before you showed up," translated the Woodstrider.

Trashscarf swayed unsteadily and his frown deepened. "You got all that from 'caw'?"

"It's contextual," said the Woodstrider, poker-faced.

"Where's this ground cloud fake people place, anyway?" demanded Trashscarf of the birds. "I think you're making it all up, so you're all going to tell me something different."

The hundreds of crows all turned their heads, or fluttered up to reland, or hopped and shifted-- so that every beak was pointed in one direction, roughly east, where even now, in the light of morning, they could see a shadowed place, deep in the thick dark decaying woods, where the sun seemed reluctant to shine.

Trashscarf looked at the Woodstrider, wide-eyed, and she just shrugged and pointed in the same direction as the birds.