His onlookers protested. Their fear, combined with the frenzied zeal of his most exuberant supporters, stirred them to crave some price for the loss they’d faced this evening. There’s always a primitive desire in man to seek retribution. Eye for an eye was instinct among the race long before it was ever written in one of their laws. Dorga knew he needed to tamp that down. If his enemies could remain after death to taunt him, Dorga couldn’t take the risk of his supporters murdering anyone in their eagerness. He would simply have to devise a new crueler option to deal with doubters, something to delay their death until he could think of another solution.
“We must make an example for our enemies. Tie him to a post to face his masters. Let the foul demons see what we do to their messengers. We don’t fear them.”
“Keep with your lies, you fraud. You’ll be caught out soon enough,” Golak hurled the words back as if they were stones he could strike Dorga with. But Dorga didn’t even flinch at the accusation.
“Should we gag him? Silence his blasphemy?”
“No,” Dorga replied. “We have no need to fear his lies. Those of pure heart could never believe such things unless they prove themselves tainted by death’s touch as well.” It was doubly important to leave the prisoner free to speak. It proved Dorga had no fear of the man’s words. His challenge would remain with the villagers after he was gone. They would work to ignore Golak’s words for fear that those words might sound reasonable. And such thinking might prove themselves tainted as well.
Dorga was impressed with how well he was able to win them over, despite all of the unexpected disruptions. But in all honesty, he wasn’t sure if he would’ve been able to achieve such success without these supernatural foes. The raven’s presence was almost like a gift that placed the people in Dorga’s hands. He didn’t know the raven’s plans or purpose for the future. For the moment, he planned to take what pleasure he could from the wins he made so far. Drena awaited him, and the villagers were scared into obedience for the time being.
“I must see to the poor woman’s soul,” Dorga announced, at last, feeling comfortable enough to leave his people untended. There would be more deaths before dawn. And Golak was certain to continue ranting through his imprisonment. But the fear of the ravens would hold everything in check for now. “You should be safe until morning.”
“You would leave us, Lord Dorga?”
“The dark forces are held at bay.” At least, he hoped. “We have imprisoned one of their own. And still, they do not dare intrude upon the barrier I have erected. We’re safe for now as long as the faith of the people remains. Keep vigilant. Should a weakness show, don’t allow it to endanger the rest of us. For now, I must think on matters, to prepare for what they will, inevitably, throw at us next time.” Dorga was fairly certain there would be a next time.
If Dorga had his father’s gift to look beyond the veil, what he may have beheld taking place as he returned to his hut would surely have terrified him. It was almost innocent-seeming, the ghostly apparition of a child walking along the forest’s edge. The innocence of the macabre scene ended the moment a dark messenger descended from the overhanging branches. For those who could see such things, boy and bird began to talk, for both now spoke the language of death. No one but raven or spirit knew what was said. But like with all of raven kind, once the gift of the Raven’s Fel was learned, they were always eager to make bargains with the dead. And this was likely no exception.
Chapter 4:
The First Whispers of Madness
The eerie cadence of a child’s laughter filled Dorga’s new quarters, in the late-night hours when all the children should already be long abed. He was laying there, thinking upon the events of the evening and how he’d approach the villagers in the morning. Drena, her devoted services already rendered, was passed out on the far side of the sleeping mat, undisturbed by the unsettling mirth. It was possible he may have dozed off and imagined it. But the hair on his arms was standing straight up, as a testament to how real his body believed it was.
“Hahaha ha,” the laughter came again, closer this time, more defined to a location than before. There was no one there.
Dorga bolted out of bed. He reached for an old clay oil lamp nearby and lit it hastily in an effort to cast back the concealing shadows and find the source of the laughter. It was his father’s house, still littered with bones, skulls, masks, and all the assorted unsettling baubles of the shaman’s craft. The addition of the child’s ghostly laughter only added to the disturbing atmosphere of the place, but it was uncomfortable enough on its own.
As the fire hungrily enveloped the wick, it smoked profusely. A thick black cloud billowed from the flames as if some impurity tainted the fuel within. Dorga choked on the vapors and tried to reach to extinguish it, but the smoke suddenly coalesced into a more solid form as his hand passed through it. The raven cried as it erupted from the black cloud, its beak striking out towards Dorga’s eyes.
Dorga screamed and dropped the lamp, flailing at the attacking bird. He stumbled backward over Drena’s slumbering body and collapsed to the floor. The old clay lamp shattered as it struck, the oil spreading across the ground in a wet sheen. Flames chased the expanding boundary in a rolling wave. It was only by sheer luck he wasn’t caught in the path of oil and fire.
Drena awoke as he fell atop her. She screamed in surprise and terror as she opened her eyes to find her world engulfed in expanding flames and choked with smothering clouds of smoke. They barely escaped with their lives. Although, for a moment, Dorga thought he saw the flames withdraw, just short of catching him as if they merely chased him from the hut. When it came to spirits, anything was possible, he supposed.
The blaze didn’t take long to engulf the entire primitive structure. Bone, wood, and thatch united to create quite a splendid conflagration. Then, suddenly, the flames raged green, the last of Dorga’s conman supplies expended in mere moments. Were he less focused on searching out the attacking form of the raven, he may have mourned its loss. He was frantic to find where the bird had gone, desperate to avoid its deadly strike. But it had vanished, nothing left to mark its presence but the smoldering remains of Dorga’s inheritance. He hadn’t even had a chance to search it fully for valuables yet.
The villagers, who were still awake, stared at the scene, alerted by their shaman’s behavior that an attack was underway or imminent. Others poured out of their own homes at the first sounds of commotion. They were too exhausted by now to exhibit the same wild fear after their chaotic day, but they were weighing their savior as they watched. This didn’t look good. Dorga was supposed to be in control. Yet here he was being chased out of his hut by aberrant laughter and a raven that may or may not have been there. The smoke of the lantern was certainly black. And the unbelievable events of the past day certainly had him primed to see anything. But he knew the raven had to be real. He just didn’t know where it went.
A new laughter arose, but it wasn’t from a child this time. “Hahaha. Hahaha. The spirits call your bluff, Dorga.” Golak was mocking him from where he hung, bound to a large post sticking out of the ground. “We may all die for your sins. But at least I know you will pay. Hahaha. Hahaha.”
“Hahaha ha.” It was the child’s voice again rising to join Golak’s while flitting in and out of the smoldering flames of his father’s hut. No one but Dorga seemed to hear it.
“What happened?” The chieftain approached. He still refused to call Dorga my lord, but he showed a slight bit of deference, likely brought on by his current fear and exhaustion.
Once more, Dorga had to be quick on his feet. “The beast that attacked my father’s soul must’ve left its taint upon his things. When I discovered it, I had no other choice but to destroy it all, to save the village.”
“But you fled. What were you running from, Dorga?” Golak taunted from his bound perch.
He ignored the turncoat, hoping the others would do the same. Yet he could see the vermin’s question mirrored in the chieftain’
s eyes. He had to answer unless he wanted more issues.
“Dark powers always fight back when the light vanquishes them. I was required to act quicker than I would have liked. We had no choice but to flee the flames as the spirits were banished.”
“Banished? Hahaha ha.” The child was closer now. The young boy’s words rose from the air all around him. Every hair on Dorga’s body stood on end as he felt a chill sensation pass through him. “I’m still here,” the boy’s voice called. Yet, no one seemed to notice.
It took every ounce of willpower to keep from crying out as the child’s spirit frolicked around and occasionally through him. Dorga couldn’t see it. Somehow he was the only one who could hear it. But he could feel it each time the child’s essence slipped through his. He could feel the cold icy touch of death. It was everything he dreaded from that first attempt at glimpsing beyond the veil, only condensed down to a sensation scurrying across his flesh. Yet still, somehow, Dorga didn’t give in to terror and flee.
“Our enemy is among us in many forms,” Dorga warned, biting off a whimper as death danced through his soul once again. “We must watch out for each other. Stay together, so those among us who are tainted cannot take advantage of a moment alone. I will sleep out here near the fire and among those of you who wish my protection.” He truly didn’t wish to be among these peasants. But he was hoping the presence of others would make it more difficult for the ravens and the spirits to play their tricks upon him. Or, at the very least, it would prove whether or not he was going mad.
“Hahaha,” Golak’s laughter interrupted again. The man was grating on Dorga’s nerves, but he feared to kill him even more now. What damage could his spirit do? He didn’t want to find out. So, he would simply have to put up with his taunting. “Poor, Dorga. You went through all this trouble so they would keep you in luxury. And you’re already homeless and sleeping in the dirt.”
For a moment, Dorga thought he heard someone among the villagers laugh too. He searched the faces with piercing resolve, hoping to identify the culprit. But the child spirit’s laughter broke in once more, and his search was forgotten. It was likely more spirit delusions anyway, he reasoned. He would be wary, though. No one must be caught laughing at Dorga the Great. The thought soothed him as he found a place and attempted to sleep, but the laughter of Golak and the child spirit chased him down even into slumber.
Chapter 5:
A Blind Man’s Vision
They were like no screams Dorga heard before. They clearly rose from excruciating pain, but there was a maddened glee mixed in. The sound tore Dorga from his restless sleep and back to the faded grey of dawn. The sun hadn’t yet cleared the tree line, but threads of lessened shadow seeped through the branches to break up the cloak of night around the slumbering village.
“Hahaha,” Golak laughed and screamed in equal measure as ravens tore his eyes out. His face was lost amidst an unnatural mask of unfurled wings, ravaging beaks, and talons, as multiple birds extracted the tender vittles in a feathered feeding frenzy. How any man could laugh through such an assault, Dorga couldn’t imagine. The longer the birds fed, the more Golak’s screams of agony turned to cackling hysterical laughter.
When the feast was finished, death’s messengers fled upon shadowed wings. Golak was left alive but blinded. Gaping sockets where eyes once resided, stared hauntingly back at Dorga, though there was no possible way the man could tell he was there. Blood ran down his face in clotted streams, but the edges blackened immediately around the torn flesh, the venom of the ravens’ fel killing tissue so quickly the bleeding simply ceased.
“I see, Dorga. I see now what you could never see,” Golak’s hollow haunting voice called. “You are damned, pretend shaman. The ravens bring your doom with the dawn.”
No matter how badly Dorga longed to slit Golak’s throat and silence him for good, he feared the man’s spirit, untethered from his capturable flesh, more.
“Do not listen to him. He is fully taken by the darkness. His words are meant only to corrupt other minds,” Dorga warned the villagers, but he knew it was hard to ignore the ghostly voice and words coming from the prisoner. Something disturbing must’ve happened to him when the birds took his eyes, beyond just the savaging of flesh and orb. But what?
“Do the birds lead the spirits, or do the spirits lead the birds to this village? Perhaps they come to witness your light, my lord.” Golak cackled. “I see them gather in hazy mist. A bargain struck with Raven’s Fel. But what price is asked of a dead thing? What service could so many spirits offer a raven? What horrors do they prepare for Dorga the Great?”
Like the previous night, Dorga heard a peal of unstoppered laughter as someone in the village revealed themselves, but there was no sign of the culprit when he turned to gaze across the faces. No one among the crowd acknowledged the offense. But Dorga knew. They were laughing at him. And as soon as he figured out who it was, he would make an example of them.
The words of the traitor haunted Dorga. There was something the blind man said, which awoke an old lesson his father taught him. When Dorga first experienced the horrific visions while attempting to glimpse beyond the veil, his father had been consoling. The old shaman tried to assuage his feelings of failure by offering other ways in which the boundary between worlds could be drawn back and viewed.
An old legend spoke of a man whose eyes were taken by death, long before the rest of his body went to join them. Since his eyes had pierced the veil, he could forever see the world of the dead around him, despite his lack of physical sight. It was frightening to consider. But the messengers of death had taken Golak’s eyes. The taint of death’s venom tinged the festering margins of the torn sockets. Was there any doubt his eyes now glimpsed some supernatural congregation of the dead? Would Dorga’s luck lead to anything less? But why did the ravens gather spirits? What treachery was this?
The ghost child’s laughter chilled Dorga’s flesh, as a presence cold as ice slid through him, simultaneously. He almost screamed from the contact, but he knew, above all else, he must maintain his cool. People only looked to those unaffected by fear to lead them. If he began crying out at unseen specters, his tenuous hold over the village would crumble.
“Should we slit his throat now, my lord?” It was the larger of the two men who took Golak prisoner. Dorga hadn’t paid much attention at the time, but, seeing how this man was clearly a loyalist, he deserved to be noticed. He knew him, of course. They were about the same age and had grown up together. Ivus was a little slow but incredibly large. He never made fun of Dorga growing up. Although, this was likely because he didn’t have the imagination to think up something cruel to say, not from any residing virtue. Either way, he was clearly useful and willing to follow.
“No, Ivus.” Dorga turned around to everyone gathered then. “We mustn’t add to the power of death here. We cannot risk giving our enemies more strength. It’s true that there are some among us who will seek to weaken us and try to lure us away from the light. But they must not be killed. Every death is a win for them.” There was no need to identify who he referred to. The flock of ravens was more than active and visible in the early morning hours. What were they up to? Gathering spirits?
“Three more joined the child overnight,” Drena informed him. She was making a circuit through the village, checking on the state of their play. There was clear concern in her eyes. And she was going to great lengths to avoid looking at the hollow-eyed face of her husband. “The two girls and Dra… the one-eyed man. They were all dead before the sun rose.”
“Please, Lord Dorga, send their spirits across before the ravens get them,” a voice pleaded from the crowd.
“Yes, Dorga. Send them across. You can do it,” Golak called. “Make the flames burn green with your magic light.”
Dorga heard several people laugh at the traitor’s mockery. He spun around, searching for the culprits, but all he found were questioning looks filled with concern. They think I’m going crazy, he realized. Why does no
one seem to hear this laughter? At the very least, no one was acknowledging it. Maybe I am. He was at last able to shake off his doubt when no more laughter was forthcoming. It was likely just more of the raven’s trickery. He just wished there was a way to be sure.
“Their souls,” the chieftain interrupted. “It’s your duty, shaman. My wife cannot bear the thought of this child’s spirit being lost. Or worse corrupted by those things out there.”
“I can do nothing for them,” he nearly spit the words. “Their souls are already lost. The black touch of the raven devoured their spirits as they were ripped from their bodies. There is nothing left in them to save.” He knew it was too harsh, but Dorga’s mind was spinning desperately to make sense of this situation. Every choice seemed to lead to more humiliation and failure, even as he held onto control by his fingernails. He honestly could care less about the feelings of the chieftain and his wife, who never cared a thing about Dorga until he had something of value for them. “Burn the bodies. And be done with it. Who knows what the forces of death might do with a corrupted corpse.” There would be outcries at such a proclamation, and they were already stirring. But the suggestion these bodies could be turned to the raven’s will was enough to silence most.
Ravenfell Chronicles: Origins Page 7
