Beneath The Raven Skies

Soren Torrey had seen villages burn before.

He had watched thatched roofs catch beneath thrown torches and had smelled smoke rolling over fields where men fought over grain, livestock, and whatever else could be carried away before the flames consumed it. He had seen doors splinter beneath axes, frightened families dragged from their homes, and defenders throw down their weapons when they realized there would be no mercy waiting for them. He knew the sounds that followed a raid: women calling for their children, men shouting warnings, warriors demanding surrender, animals breaking loose from their pens, and the desperate cries of those who understood too late that their homes would not survive the night.

Even when a village was taken quickly, there was always noise.

This village was different.

The fires were still burning when Soren passed through the broken gate, yet the streets were almost completely silent. Smoke drifted between the houses, turning the pale winter sky gray, while flames climbed along the remains of a thatched roof near the western edge of the settlement. His warriors moved cautiously through the streets, searching the buildings for defenders and survivors while the black raven banners of the Torrey clan shifted above them in the cold wind.

Soren raised one hand, bringing the men behind him to a halt.

For several moments, he simply listened.

There were no voices calling from the houses. No wounded men begging for help. No children crying for their parents. Even the animals seemed to have vanished. The only sounds were the crackling of burning wood, the occasional groan of a damaged building, and the wind moving through the empty streets.

"Spread out," Soren ordered quietly. "Stay close enough that you can hear one another."

The warriors obeyed, moving between the houses in pairs.

Soren remained near the gate and studied the settlement.

There were signs that the villagers had fled in a hurry. Several doors stood open, and one house still had a pot sitting above an extinguished hearth. A wooden bowl had been left beside it, half-filled with food that had long since gone cold. Near another doorway, a woman's wool cloak had been abandoned in the snow, its hem blackened by ash.

Whoever had left had not taken time to gather their belongings.

Soren stepped farther into the village.

That was when he noticed the footprints.

They covered the snow between the houses, crossing over one another in every direction. He saw the heavy impressions of adult boots, the smaller marks of bare feet, and the uneven tracks of children who had clearly been running.

Most of them led toward the northern edge of the settlement.

Toward the forest.

Soren crouched and pressed his fingers into one of the deeper prints. The snow around it was still loose, suggesting that the people who had made the tracks had passed through recently.

His eyes followed the trail.

There were dozens of them.

Perhaps more.

Yet as he looked farther toward the trees, he noticed something that made him slowly straighten.

None of the tracks returned.

"Soren." He turned.

One of his warriors was standing beside a damaged house, holding something in his hand.

The man approached and offered it to him.

"A child's toy."

Soren looked down.

It was a small wooden horse with one broken wheel. Most of the paint had been worn away, although a faint trace of red remained along its mane.

He turned it over in his palm.

For a moment, he imagined the child who had owned it carrying it through these streets. Perhaps the child had dropped it while running. Perhaps someone had promised to come back for it.

Soren closed his fingers around the little horse.

"Keep it with the other belongings," he said.

The warrior nodded and stepped away.

A shout suddenly came from farther down the street.

Soren looked up.

"Eirik!"

One of his warriors had disappeared between two buildings.

Soren immediately moved after him.

He rounded the corner and stopped.

Eirik was gone.

His shield rested against the wall, and his axe lay several feet away in the snow. There was no blood on either weapon and no body hidden behind the building. Soren searched the ground, expecting to find footprints, but the only tracks were those already scattered throughout the village.

"Eirik?"

His voice carried between the empty houses.

There was no answer.

Soren took another step.

A faint clicking sound came from somewhere beyond the buildings.

He stopped.

The sound came again, dry and deliberate, as though something were striking pieces of bone together.

Several warriors nearby heard it and turned toward the noise.

"What was that?" one of them whispered.

Soren drew his axe.

"I don't know."

The clicking came again.

This time it sounded closer.

"Stay together," Soren said. Nothing answered.

Then a voice came from the darkness.

"Soren."

His grip tightened around his axe.

He knew that voice.

His father's.

The roughness of it was almost perfect, including the low tone and faint rasp that always appeared when the old jarl had spent too long speaking beside the fire.

"Soren," the voice called again. "Come here."

One of the warriors looked toward him.

"Your father?"

Soren did not answer.

He stared into the darkness.

Something was wrong.

He could hear his father's voice, but there was no emotion behind it. No impatience. No anger. No affection. It sounded like someone repeating words without understanding why they had been spoken.

His father would never have called to him that way. "That is not my father," Soren said.

The darkness shifted.

Something unfolded from behind the house.

At first, Soren thought a man had stepped into the shadows.

Then the figure continued to rise.

It was far too tall to be human.

Its arms hung unusually low, almost reaching its knees, and its narrow torso was covered in overlapping black plates. They resembled armor at first glance, but Soren immediately saw that they could not have been made by human hands. There were no straps or buckles, no seams, and no places where metal or leather had been fastened together. The plates appeared to have grown directly from the creature's flesh.

They shifted whenever it moved.

Its neck seemed almost swallowed by its shoulders, while its head stretched forward into a smooth, elongated shape. There were no visible eyes, only several narrow openings along either side of its neck that opened and closed in small clusters.

The creature tilted its head.

Click.

Click-click.

Soren felt one of the warriors beside him take a cautious step backward.

The creature opened its mouth.

The plates surrounding its face separated, revealing darkness beneath them. Something smaller moved inside the opening, unfolding for an instant before withdrawing again.

One of the warriors shouted and charged.

Soren barely had time to raise his voice.

"Wait!"

The creature moved before the warrior reached it.

Its body seemed to fold inward before suddenly unfolding again, crossing the distance between them with unnatural speed. The warrior raised his shield, but the creature struck him hard enough to send him crashing into the frozen ground.

Another warrior thrust his spear.

The iron point slipped between two of the creature's black plates and sank into the softer flesh beneath. The creature recoiled with a shriek. The sound seemed to contain several voices at once, layered over a rapid clicking noise that made Soren's skin crawl.

Dark fluid ran down the spear shaft.

"Again!" Soren shouted.

The warriors attacked. One spear struck beneath the creature's arm while another found a gap near its ribs. The creature twisted violently, its plates scraping against one another.

"Fire!"

A torch was thrown.

It struck the creature's side.

The black plates immediately contracted away from the flames. The creature recoiled, folding its limbs closer to its body as smoke rose from beneath the armor-like surface.

"It fears the fire!" someone shouted.

"Between the plates!" Soren ordered. "Do not waste your blows on the armor!"

He rushed forward.

His axe struck the creature's side and cut through the softer material beneath the plates. The creature screamed and swung toward him. Soren raised his shield just before the blow landed. The impact drove him backward several steps. He stumbled, recovered his footing, and looked up. The creature was staring at him. Or at least, he thought it was. There were no eyes with which to meet his gaze. Yet somehow, he knew it was watching him.

Then it changed.

Soren saw it happen.

The creature shifted its body away from the warriors, protecting the places they had already discovered were vulnerable. When one man raised his spear toward its neck, it lifted an arm. When another moved toward its side, the creature twisted before the weapon could reach it.

Soren's stomach tightened.

"It knows," he said.

"What?"

"It knows where we're striking."

The warriors hesitated.

The creature lowered itself.

Soren watched as the black plates along its shoulders moved into a slightly different position, covering the wounds they had already created.

It was learning.

They were not simply fighting a beast that reacted to pain. It was remembering what had hurt it and changing its behavior accordingly. Soren had fought men from rival clans, foreign mercenaries, and animals driven into a corner. He understood how living things fought when they were afraid or wounded.

This was different. Whatever stood before them was watching. It was learning. And if it survived long enough, it would learn everything they could do. "Fall back!" Soren shouted. The creature suddenly turned toward the forest. Its body folded low, and the plates along its back shifted and darkened. For a moment, its outline became difficult to distinguish from the trees beyond the village.

Soren blinked.

The creature was gone.

He stared into the forest... Snow fell between the branches. Nothing moved. "Where did it go?" one of the warriors asked. Soren did not answer. He could still hear the faint clicking somewhere beyond the trees. The creature had not fled.

It had simply decided to wait.

----

Three months earlier, the Torrey longhouse had been filled with the warmth of the central fire, the smell of roasted meat, and the voices of warriors returning from the fields.

Soren sat beside his father beneath the black raven banner while the older jarl discussed the coming season with several of his men. Outside, winter was beginning to settle over the northern lands, and the first snow had already dusted the roofs of the settlement. "There is enough grain in the southern settlements to carry us through winter," Soren's father said. "If their harvest is as good as the scouts claim, we will take what we need before another clan reaches it."

Several warriors nodded.

The conversation continued around them, moving from grain to livestock, from livestock to ships, and eventually to the strength of neighboring clans. It was an ordinary discussion for a people preparing for another season of raiding. Across the longhouse, however, Halvar was watching the fire.

The old man was one of the few people Soren knew who could make silence feel deliberate. His silver hair fell past his shoulders, and a pale scar disappeared beneath his left ear before continuing toward his jaw. He had spent most of the evening saying very little while observing everyone around him.

Eventually, his eyes settled on Soren.

"Do you know why old men tell stories about things beneath the earth?" Soren smiled. "Because old men enjoy frightening young ones." Several warriors laughed. Halvar did not. "You laugh because you believe the old stories were meant to frighten children."

He looked back into the fire. "Perhaps they were. That does not mean they were untrue." Soren's smile faded. "Stories are stories."

"Sometimes." Halvar's voice was quiet enough that only those closest to him could hear. "There were things here before our grandfathers built these halls. Things that did not belong beneath the sun." Soren studied him. "What things?" Halvar's expression changed slightly. It was not fear.

Not exactly.

It was the expression of a man deciding whether something should be spoken aloud.

"Things that learned to wait."

The fire cracked between them. Soren waited for Halvar to continue. The old man did not. Instead, he turned back toward the flames. The conversation moved on. Soren eventually forgot about it. At least, he thought he had.

----

Three months later, the Torrey ships reached another settlement farther north. The village was already burning when they approached. At first, Soren believed they had arrived in the middle of an attack, but as the ships drew closer to shore, the truth became increasingly difficult to understand.

There was no organized defense.

No enemy force waited along the beach.

No warriors stood upon the rooftops.

The village had simply been torn apart. Bodies lay among the houses, while others had disappeared entirely. Several doors had been broken from the inside. Food stores had been scattered across the ground, and one building had suffered damage that did not resemble the work of an axe, spear, or fire. The wooden wall had been torn open.

Not cut.

Not broken.

Torn.

Soren stood in front of it for a long time. "Search the forest," he ordered. His warriors returned before sunset. They had found nothing. No enemy. No large animal capable of causing the destruction. No tracks that made sense. Only the same unsettling absence that had followed the earlier village. The survivors were eventually discovered hiding inside a storage cellar. Several families had crowded together in the darkness.

Some were injured.

Some were barely conscious. One child was so frightened that he refused to let go of his mother's clothing. Soren ordered water and blankets distributed among them. The dead were gathered and prepared according to custom. The survivors were brought aboard the ships. Among them was a young woman who never spoke.

She remained apart from the others whenever she could, usually sitting near the edge of the deck with a wool cloak pulled around her shoulders. Her long dark hair had become tangled during the journey, and there were scratches along her hands and arms that appeared to have come from the forest. She was young. Younger than Soren had first assumed. And yet there was something strangely composed about her. She did not behave like someone who had survived a massacre.

She watched.

The warriors.

The sea.

The coastline.

The other villagers.

Everything.

The villagers watched her too. Some crossed themselves whenever she passed. Others whispered behind their hands. Soren heard the same word more than once.

"Witch."

He did not ask why.

Not yet.

The first night at sea passed quietly.

The captives were given food and water, and the warriors divided blankets among those who were cold. The wounded were treated as best they could be, while the dead were committed to the sea according to custom. The girl remained awake for most of the night. Soren noticed her sitting alone near the stern, staring into the darkness behind the ship. He wondered what she expected to see. The following morning, he found her separating damp grain from the dry sacks.

"You know which ones are spoiled?"

She looked at him.

Soren gestured toward the grain.

She nodded.

"Useful."

A faint smile touched her mouth before disappearing. Soren moved on. A few moments later, he heard quiet voices behind him.

"Do not speak to her."

"Why?"

"You know why."

Soren glanced over his shoulder. The villagers immediately lowered their voices. He decided not to interfere. Not yet. By the third day, the sea had become rough enough that several of the captives were sick. One of the children was particularly weak, and while his mother struggled to keep him upright, the silent girl brought him water and stayed nearby until the boy stopped trembling.

Soren watched from across the deck.

The child's mother eventually pulled him closer. She did not thank the girl. Instead, she looked away from her. Soren found that more troubling than anything else. Whatever fear the villagers carried toward the girl had existed long before the Torrey warriors arrived. On the fourth day, the weather finally settled. The sea became almost unnaturally calm beneath the pale sky. Soren found the girl sitting near the bow.

"You understand me."

She looked at him.

"You understand everything I say."

She remained silent.

Soren leaned against the railing.

"You simply choose not to answer." Her expression did not change, but her eyes remained fixed on him.

"I suppose that is your choice."

A faint movement touched the corner of her mouth. Soren almost smiled. "Most people would consider it rude to make someone talk this much without answering."

She looked back toward the sea.

"Fair enough."

For the first time, Soren noticed something that had escaped him before.

Her silence was not ignorance.

She was listening.

She understood far more than the others seemed willing to believe. He studied her for another moment. "Do you have a name?" Her fingers tightened slightly around the edge of her cloak.

Soren noticed.

He did not press her.

Instead, he nodded toward the horizon.

"Never mind."

She looked at him again.

He wondered if he had imagined it, but there seemed to be the faintest trace of gratitude in her expression. By the fifth day, birds had begun appearing overhead, and the distant shape of the Torrey coastline could be seen beyond the morning mist. The captives gathered along the deck, staring toward the land that would soon become their new home. The girl stood among them, but she did not seem relieved.

Soren watched her.

Her eyes were fixed beyond the settlement.

Beyond the fields.

Beyond the hills.

Toward the forest.

For a moment, her expression changed.

Soren could not tell whether she was afraid or simply remembering something. The ships continued toward shore. The black raven banners snapped in the wind. And somewhere beyond the coastline, hidden beneath the trees, something made a faint clicking sound.

The girl turned her head.

Soren followed her gaze.

There was nothing there.

Only forest.

Only snow.

Only the wind.

Yet she continued watching long after Soren had looked away.

~

The Torrey shoreline was busy when the ships arrived. Men gathered near the docks to unload supplies, while children ran between the buildings to see the returning warriors. Horses stamped impatiently in the cold, their breath rising in clouds, and smoke curled from the roofs of the longhouses farther inland.

Soren stepped onto the dock first.

His father was waiting for him.

The old jarl's gaze moved over the ships before settling on the captives. "That is fewer than I expected."

"The village was already half-empty when we arrived," Soren said.

His father's expression hardened.

"Another clan?"

Soren shook his head.

"Something had reached it before us."

"What?"

Soren hesitated.

"I don't know."

His father studied him. Soren rarely gave that answer. Several captives were led from the ship. Then the silent girl stepped onto the dock.

She stopped.

For the first time since Soren had met her, uncertainty crossed her face. She looked toward the settlement. Then toward the surrounding forest. One of the warriors reached for her arm. Soren stopped him.

"Leave her."

The warrior looked at him.

"She does not need leading."

The man withdrew his hand.

The girl glanced at Soren. He could not tell whether she was grateful or merely surprised. Behind them, one of the northern villagers muttered something under his breath. Soren heard only the final word.

"Witch."

His father heard it too.

"Why do they call her that?"

No one answered.

An elderly villager eventually stepped forward.

"She is strange."

His father frowned.

"That is not an answer."

The old man lowered his eyes.

"She does not speak."

"There are many people who do not speak."

"It is not only that."

Soren looked toward the girl.

She stood several paces away from the others, apparently ignoring the conversation. Yet her eyes were moving constantly.

She studied the settlement.

The buildings.

The animals.

The people.

The hills.

The forest.

She seemed to be memorizing everything.

"What is it, then?" Soren asked. The old man hesitated. Then he looked toward the girl. "You should ask her."

Soren did.

The girl looked back at him.

Neither spoke.

The old man walked away.

His father watched him go.

"Have the captives given you any trouble?"

"No."

"The girl?"

"No."

The jarl studied her for another moment. "Then leave her alone unless she gives you reason otherwise."

Soren nodded.

~

By evening, the settlement had returned to its usual rhythm. Fires burned inside the longhouses, animals were fed, and the smell of stew drifted through the cold air. The returning warriors gathered to eat and drink, already turning the raid into a story that would probably sound very different by the time winter ended.

Soren sat beside his father while the warriors described what they had found in the northern settlement.

"How many dead?" the jarl asked.

"Too many to count properly."

"And the enemy?"

The warrior hesitated.

"There was no enemy."

Soren's father frowned.

"You said the village had been attacked."

"It had."

"By whom?"

The warrior swallowed.

"We don't know."

Soren lowered his gaze toward the fire.

He could still see the creature moving between the houses. He could still hear the sound of its voice wearing his father's words, and he could still remember the way its body had changed when the warriors discovered where it was vulnerable.

"We found signs of something in the forest," Soren said.

His father turned toward him.

"Men?"

"No."

"What, then?"

Soren hesitated.

For a moment, an old memory surfaced.

Do you know why old men tell stories about things beneath the earth?

Soren could almost hear Halvar's voice beside the fire from three months earlier.

Perhaps they were meant to frighten children. That does not mean they were untrue.

Soren looked back into the flames.

"We found something we could not identify."

The men around the table exchanged uneasy glances.

One warrior gave a nervous laugh.

"Perhaps the northern villagers were right about their trolls."

A few others laughed with him, but the sound died quickly.

Soren did not join them.

He remembered Halvar's final words from that night.

Things that learned to wait.

At the time, Soren had thought the old man's stories were nothing more than the warnings of someone who had spent too many winters listening to ancient tales. Now he was no longer certain.

Later that night, after the longhouse had quieted, Soren stepped outside.

Snow had begun falling, covering the settlement in a thin white layer. The fires inside the houses glowed faintly through gaps in the shutters, while the sounds of the returning warriors gradually faded into the darkness.

Soren walked beyond the nearest houses and stopped at the edge of the settlement.

The forest stretched before him beneath the moonless sky, its branches heavy with snow.

He thought about Eirik.

He thought about the missing villagers.

And he thought about Halvar.

Three months ago, the old man had spoken of things beneath the earth as though he had known them personally. Soren had laughed at him then. He had believed the stories belonged to another age, to a time when men explained every unexplained death with spirits and monsters.

But tonight, standing beneath the black trees, Soren could no longer convince himself that the old stories were only stories.

Something moved at the edge of the forest.

His hand went immediately to his axe.

He waited.

Nothing came from the trees.

The wind moved through the branches, sending loose snow drifting from the limbs.

Then, very faintly, he heard it.

Click.

Soren stared into the darkness.

A second click answered from deeper within the forest.

Click.

He stepped forward.

Nothing.

The forest remained still.

Yet somewhere beyond the trees, something was watching.

Soren knew it.

He could feel it.

And for the first time, he wondered whether Halvar's warning had never really been about the past at all. Far beneath the frozen earth, something ancient shifted in the darkness.

For generations, it had waited.

Now, after centuries of silence, it had begun to stir.

And somewhere above it, beneath the raven-black sky, Soren Torrey stood listening to the sound of something coming home...