The Seal of Karga Kul_ A Dungeons & Dragons Novel - Alex Irvine [46]
“Why not?” Remy asked it.
“No time to talk,” the crow said. It flapped over to Remy and landed on his shoulder. Leaning in close to his ear, it said, “Found you. They found you. Time to watch you die.”
He would learn later that some of those who had died building the Crow Road returned as spectral undead, yearning for their bodies to live again—or, failing that, to at least be buried with the ceremonies of their gods. There were undead in Avankil, of course. Bodies rose from the slack waters under the piers, or dug their way out of the rubbish heaps where murderers disposed of their victims. Ghosts haunted the lower corridors of the keep and the places near the walls where the specters of soldiers remembered invaders long since gone to their own rewards. The Crow Road, though, built on death, gave rise to undeath with every step.
They turned after the crow spoke and saw behind them the insubstantial shapes of wraiths and specters. They did not pursue; they shepherded. “We’re being walked ahead to meet something,” Paelias said. “I wonder what.”
“I’d rather not find out,” Kithri said. She rubbed at her forehead over her right eye. Remy had noticed her making that gesture frequently these past few days. He wondered if she was still suffering the effects of the ogre’s kick back in the orc lair. Lucan seemed to have recovered, but the Eye of Gruumsh’s spear point had passed only through meat; his joint and bones were unhurt, and Keverel had sewn his wounds up so well that Lucan was already complaining that the scars would be too small to impress the barmaids of Karga Kul.
The crow still sat on Remy’s shoulder. “Ever get the feeling that you had a crow on your shoulder so the enemy knows who to aim at?” Paelias said loudly.
Feathers rustled in the surrounding trees, and out of the deepening darkness came more crows, to festoon the party and the horses. “Wrong again,” croaked the crow on Remy’s shoulder. They kept a stead pace, moving forward, always forward, even though the time for camp had long since come. Remy’s eyes jittered back and forth from fatigue. He couldn’t focus on anything for long.
“Found me, you said,” he said to the crow.
“Awk,” the crow said. “Aye.”
“How come they don’t attack, then?”
“Because of us,” the crow said. Its voice grew clearer the more it was used.
“How droll,” Lucan said. “It tells us it’s time to watch us die, then says that we are not dying because of it.”
“Perhaps you have failed to attune yourself to the crow sense of humor,” said Biri-Daar. She was riding out in front of the rest of them, scouting to make sure the mass of undead behind them had not somehow raised reinforcements ahead.
“Are you suggesting that a crow has more of a sense of humor than I do?” Lucan said.
“If she wasn’t, I will,” Kithri said.
The crow on Remy’s shoulder followed this back-and-forth with cocked head. “Awk,” it said at the end.
“Really, they’re not attacking us because of you?” Remy asked it.
“Really.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“The elf, awk,” the crow said. “Speaks our language. Few Tenfingers care. Awk.”
“Who would like to apologize first?” Lucan said smugly.
“What I want to know,” Kithri said, “is why the wraiths back there are afraid of a bunch of crows.”
Paelias chuckled. “This is the Crow Road, isn’t it?”
The crows on their shoulders and on the pommels of their saddles awked.
All night they rode, until the horses’ heads drooped and their riders were slumped forward over the horses’ manes. Even some of the crows rode silently, heads tucked under one wing. Remy remembered little of that night except the occasional flutter next to his ear as his first crow passenger shifted in its sleep.
The sun rose directly ahead, bringing them out of sleep with sandy eyes and frayed nerves, not to mention bruised backsides. The crows were gone. When they looked behind them, so were the wraiths. “Well,” Paelias said. “If that’s the appetizer, I wonder what the main course will be?”
Biri-Daar yawned, showing teeth that seemed to go all the way down her throat. “That will be funny exactly until we