“And thus, the Sword of Necrom wilt be born of the flames of war and hammered out on an anvil of death, and the burning sorrow in that sword wilt be extinguished by the blood of the armies of the beast.”
Profits of The Trinity, Book of Necrom
Chapter Two
Exhausted, he stood alone, bloodied sword in hand, on the hill overlooking the carnage and destruction of the city he once loved. Black smoke billowing from the burning buildings and homes of his beloved people. The fields of bodies with rivers of blood flowing senselessly into the dusk as the sun set over the mountains.
A tear welled up in his eye as he heard the moans and cries of pain and fear coming from the dying. He blinked, and the tear ran down his dusty cheek as the cool breeze of the evening chilled him to the bone. Ten thousand dead or dying, and he has not one mark on him.
The desolation of Mitéra Olon was such a grotesque and frightening sight. He saw bits of light looking over the carnage, which looked like fireflies gathering above many of the broken bodies.
The flies will eat well tonight, he thought. He fell to his knees and emptied his stomach. Kneeling in a pool of entrails, the smell of the shit, vomit, and iron left him dry heaving.
His stomach was devoid of all its contents, and his heart was filled with anguish. He closed his eyes, wishing he didn’t have to breathe anymore as he fought to keep his feelings at bay. He got up and ran down the hill into the blazing city to examine the remains of his home, hoping beyond hope that his family had survived this brutal butchery.
The sight of his little son Micah greeted him in front of the house by the wood picketed fence they built together. He lay with a crushed skull in a pool of his own blood, wooden sword in hand.
His wife and daughter impaled on spear shafts, hands and feet bound, stripped naked, with blood still dripping from their lips. Oebalus had nothing left in him but rage and fury.
He dug their graves out by the giant old tree they would all sit under in the evenings by the light of the moon and the dinner fire, talking and laughing with one another, each sharing their day’s adventures and follies.
It was a chilly evening but digging the graves, and the burning house had him sweating profusely. Finally, he gently laid their bodies in the shallow hole, and he kissed them one last time.
Ebb yelled into the night, “I swear by Artriuss Zane’s name; I will have my vengeance on the legions of Athroth!”
The sound of nocturnal creatures and the crackling of burning wood was the only response he heard. He filled the graves in and carved their names into the tree and above and wrote mi agápi, which means with love in the old language.
He stood and prayed, “Oh mighty Artriuss, I beg that you open your home to my family, that they may wait there for my arrival, for I shall not be long.”
Ebb sat at the edge of a precipice, staring into the canyon below him. He had lost everything and everyone who had meant anything to him. His blood boiled with rage at the Athroth for what they had done to his beloved. The loss of them crushed his spirit.
He picked up the open bottle next to him and emptied it. Wiping the burn of alcohol from his lips, he tossed the empty bottle over the edge and watched it fall to its demise.
He uncorked the next bottle hoping to find the courage to throw himself off at the bottom of this one, but he did not. He only found more sorrow and anguish. He passed out sitting there with his feet hanging over the edge halfway through the third.
It was the first day of autumn, only three days later. However, the heat of summer was still lingering as the bodies were already decomposing. The air was hot and putrid with the smell of dead flesh and voided bowels. The bodies lay strewn about as far as the eye could see.
A crow as pitch as night stood before him. It had a small white streak of feathers on his head like a crown. As it balanced itself on the plumed helmet of the corpse of an Athrothian soldier, it plucked a juicy, white, stringy eyeball out of its socket.
Flies swarmed, and maggots ate from a wound in his chest and his severed hand lying next to him, still holding a mace in a tight grip. The crow bit into the eye and pulled it out. It burst like a bloody grape, tilting his head back and swallowing it. Sickened by the sight of it popping like a grape, it took everything he had not to vomit.
The crow cawed, “Caw, from death brings life, caw, from life brings death caw, caw, caw,” almost as if he was laughing, “Caw, caw, caw.”
He could hear the flapping of wings as the crow flew away. Ebb turned back, watching as the bird flew into the bright light of the sun.
He staggered a little, struggling to keep his balance. The smell of the spirits on his breath was as strong as the foul stench of rotting flesh and shit that surrounded him for what seemed like miles.
The bottle fell from his hand and broke against the stone path as he stumbled and fell to his knees in the sharp shards of glass. He ignored his bleeding knees and couldn’t feel the pain of it through the grief of his loss.
“Why, Artriuss? Why?” he sobbed.
Then he yelled in anger, “I have been faithful, and yet you still have forsaken me!”
Clenching his fists, Ebb whispered, “Can there be no peace in my life?” as the tears rolled down his cheeks.
“These are my friends, my family, THIS WAS MY LIFE!” he raged as he hammered his fists into the ground.
“Your will, be done, and vengeance will be mine. Artriuss! Your will, be done!” he yelled and then muttered, “from life brings death….”
Ebb stood as blood ran down his knees, and large shards of glass fell back to the ground. He walked down to the river swearing and muttering oaths of revenge against the Athroth and his allegiance to Artriuss. He washed in the river and then fell into a deep drunken sleep against a nearby tree.
When he awoke several hours later, he was naked. His hands were bound with hemp, and his feet chained and shackled. Ebb was lying in a wooden horse-drawn cage. He saw two other prisoners. One of the prisoners had fireflies hovering over his body, looking near death if not dead already. An Athrothian centurion with a plumed helm and a legionary soldier with a spiked helm sat in front, driving. Ebb’s head was throbbing from all of the liquor he had consumed, and his vision blurred by the pain.
“What is this? Where are we?” Ebb roared indignantly.
The centurion turned to look at him as the carriage hit a rock and jostled the cart. Bile and stomach acid came burning up to the back of his throat, causing him to spill his guts all over the bottom of the cage and the other prisoners.
Laughing, the centurion motioned the legionary to pull the cart over and stop. They both got down and walked around to the side where Ebb was lying. The centurion pulled a lid off a jug fastened to the cart and pulled a ladle with water out, splashing it on Ebb.
“You are a drunken swine and soon to be a slave of the empire. Clean yourself, pig.”
Ebb licked a little dribble of the water from his lips and then spat it into the centurions’ face. The legionary soldier beat him with the shaft of his short hasta through the bars. With his eyes black and swollen and his upper lip torn and bleeding, Ebb sat up and spat blood into the faces of his captors again. The legionary was furious. He turned the spear around and stabbed Ebb in the side. As he pulled the spear out, blood gushed out, flowing into his groin and down the crack of his ass.
The centurion backhanded the legionary soldier, “He is to remain alive, Sabinus! Now go tend his wounds before you have to explain why our prisoner has died before his questioning.”
“My apologies Teglatese, I meant only to nick him.”
Disgusted, Teglatese wandered up a hill to get his bearings. Sabinus leaned his spear against the cage and grabbed some rags from a storage compartment. He dipped the cloth in the water jug. Unlocking the cart, he climbed up into the cage.
Sabinus began wiping the blood away from Ebb’s wound with the clean water as he heard the fluttering of wings. He looked up and saw that a black crow with a white crown-like streak on its head had landed on the top bars of the cage. Sabinus looked back to where he had been wiping the blood away and saw no wound where there should have been.
Ebb felt the hemp rope holding his hands behind his back begin unwinding and then heard the click of his shackles. His body was tingling all the while.
Sabinus was shocked at the sight of the healed wound. As he was staring at it, he heard the shackles click open, then saw them fall from Ebb’s bare feet.
Startled by what was happening, he called out to the centurion, “Teglatese! He’s healed, and he is freuug- aaaahh….”
As he was standing up, yelling, his spear shot up through the cage bars under his breastplate, into his heart.
“Caw, caw, caw.”
Ebb instantly rejuvenated. He heard the crow and opened his eyes just in time to see it flying off the top of the cage that was blazing with a hot blue and red fire. Ebb laid there bewildered for a moment, then tried to move when Sabinus fell dead across his body. He saw firefly lights flowing into his skin.
He tried to push Sabinus off him, but the shaft of the spear and one of Sabinus’ legs were caught between the bars of the cage, limiting his movement. He turned and saw the door was open. Ebb pulled himself back and out using the bars and fell out of the slave pen on his bare bottom. He landed on a smoldering piece of wood that had turned to ash and hot coal. Feeling the singe of his flesh, he quickly rose and pulled one of the prisoners out of the cage, also trapped beneath the body of Sabinus. Ebb dragged him into the grass away from the fire. Unfortunately, it was too late for the last prisoner; the entire cart was engulfed in flames.
Ebb saw the poor man’s remains and uttered a short prayer to Artriuss Zane, begging him to open the doors to his house in Olanta for this unknown man.
Teglatese stood atop the hill, looking out across the distance, his cape bustling in the wind. Their new castrum was not far away. He could see it at the edge of his vision on the horizon line. It was only about a day away by carriage. He heard a scream, turned in the direction of the cart, and saw a fire.
“What in Tull’s Name?”
He drew his gladius from its scabbard and ran. Ebb had just finished his prayer when he looked up and saw the centurion barreling down the hill at him with his sword in hand.
He thought to run, but when he turned back to the wagon, he noticed that the spear lay unscathed on the burning edge of the cart, still stuck in Sabinus. He grabbed the short hasta and could feel it burning his hands. He smelled his flesh burning, but he continued to pull with all his strength. The spear came loose. He stumbled back and fell to the ground with it in hand.
Teglatese advanced upon the base of the hill. Charging as rapidly as he could, he raised his sword, hoping to cleave Ebb’s skull in two.
Ebb jumped up quickly, raising the head of the short spear. He charged at the centurion, ramming the spear upward with a brutal force into the throat of his enemy. The spear's head went up through the base of his skull, and Ebb felt the crunching of bone vibrate through the spear shaft.
The firefly lights swarmed Ebb as the sword fell from the centurion’s hand, clattering on the rough road. The centurion fell back as Ebb kicked him in the breastplate pulling his spear out. The centurion sent a cloud of dust up when his body hit the dirt road. Ebb choked on it as he studied his surroundings to ensure no other foes were in the area. His thirst for Athrothian blood was momentarily quelled.
He turned to the corpse of the centurion. Kneeling, he removed the helm and stood, kicking his dirty face one last time. Ebb stood there in full glory, bloodied head to toe, helmet in hand, and he heard a voice.
“Lord, Lord, I am your servant. You have saved me, and my life belongs to you. I will follow you to the ends of this land. You need not but ask, and I will do your bidding.”
Ebb looked to the side of the road and saw the gaunt, sunken-cheeked prisoner he had pulled from the cart trying to rise to his willowy body from the ground. Ebb dropped the spear. Reaching down, he picked up the centurion’s gladius and whacked the plume from the helmet.
“I am no lord! I am Oebalus of Mitéra Olon, which is no more.”
He placed the helm on his head and walked toward the prisoner, reaching his hand out to help him stand.
“Did you see the flies?”
They grasped each other, hand to arm, and the prisoner stood.
“You can call me Ebb, and I am no man to follow.”
Ebb pulled his hand back, noticing the burn was gone. He reached his other hand to his rear, touching the other spot where he had been burned. It was also healed.
“Indeed, Master, I saw flies, and they surround me yet. It has been nary a month since last I bathed. I am Florentius De Animi of Gallia, and I am forever indebted to you. I owe you my life and my allegiance.”
Ebb looked at him hard, then disgustedly said, “I am a master to no man. I did not but drag you out as I would have for anyone. You owe me not!”
Ebb turned to the body of the centurion. He stripped him of his breastplate after rolling him on his side, unclasping his cape, and tossing it and the clasps at Florentius.
Ebb said, “Wrap this around yourself. Why are you here?”
Florentius caught the cape as the clasps bounced off his bare chest. “I am a slave. Your slave now,” he said as he tugged on his iron collar.
“I will own no man. You are a free man now, Flo!”
“Please, Ebb, don’t call me Flo; it’s my mother’s name,” Florentius said as he wrapped the red cape around his waist, attaching the clasps he had just picked up from the road.
“Okay, so how about Ani?”
“Sorry, that’s my sister's name,” Entius said, lifting his shoulder in a half shrug while smiling.
“Well, by the god's teeth, Florentius, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Likewise.”
Ebb grinned and pulled the red woolen tunic over his head; it was a perfect fit. Then he laced up the sandals. He and the centurion were of a size. Florentius moved to Ebb to help with the belt and plating. The cuirass was a beau tiful blackened bronze plate in a muscular form with a gold inlay that highlighted the muscle shaping.
“My friends call me Entius,” Florentius said as he tightened the clasp attaching the segmented shoulder plating to the cuirass.
They heard a horse whinny and just about jumped out of their skin. Ebb and Entius both looked at the wagon. The cage was burned out, but the base carriage and horses remained intact. They inspected it and salvaged anything they could use.
They unhitched the horses and fabricated riding reins. Bundling up as many of the supplies they could roll into blankets. They fled to the northwest away from Mitéra Olon and the new Athrothian castrum. They rode for most of the day through light rain and came upon a forest where they camped for the evening.
“Where are we going, Ebb?” Entius asked as he gathered the driest wood that he could find, to make a fire, which was still slightly damp.
“I don’t know, just away from here for now. I thought, perhaps Gallia,” Ebb said while rummaging through the bundles of supplies. He found twine amid the mess and made snares he would set later in the evening in hopes of catching some hares.
“I have many friends there,” Entius said as he was stripping wood with the hasta blade to make kindling.
Entius fashioned a bow and drill from twine to start a fire. Although the rain had died off, he could not produce a spark no matter how hard Entius tried. Ebb sat down next to Entius and took the bow and drill as the evening cooled, giving it his best shot. He looped the string and made friction but to no avail. Even with his best effort, it only produced a small puff of smoke. Frustrated, he laid back on his bedroll, holding the bow in one hand, shaking it toward the sky.
“Will you not even allow me one spark!” He bellowed.
He felt a damn mosquito having dinner on his neck. Ebb hated mosquitoes. He slapped his neck and the mosquito popped with a tiny splash of blood, and in his other hand, the bow caught fire.
“Quick! Put the bow in the kindling, Ebb! It’s on fire!” Entius exclaimed. Ebb sat up and put the end of the bow into the kindling, and the fire ignited.
“Caw, Caw, Caw,” screeched the crow.
They both looked up to see the crow flying into the canopy of the forest they camped. “That was miraculous! How did you do that?” Entius asked.
“It was that cursed crow! It has plagued my life with its incessant cawing these last few days,” Ebb Said.
“I have heard legends of a Crowned Crow from the north. Tell me of your home and this crow,” Entius said.
“It is gone...” Ebb closed his eyes and remembered.
It had been a quiet morning in his little city; then suddenly, “To arms! To arms! The Legions of Athroth are just over Great Hill!” a young lad cried as he ran through the street, going to every door and opened window. Men were slowly filing out into the streets, armed and ready to defend their homes.
Ebb and his family had been sitting under their tree, preparing the mid-day meal on the open fire. Jalyn complained to Ebb that someone had stolen a pie and two loaves of bread from the sill yesterday morning. Ebb jumped up and yelled at the boy.
“Come here, lad!” as the boy approached, Ebb asked, “What is happening, boy?”
The boy responded, “The Athroth come, five legions, just over the Great Hill ready for war. General Beauregard says all men must report for duty; we all must defend Mitéra Olon! Please, Captain! I must go tell the others!”
Ebb opened his eyes. “The legions of Athroth were approaching the great hill when the call to battle was sounded. Messenger boys ran through the streets calling soldiers to arms,” he told Entius as he remembered.
He turned and ran to the house, calling his wife Jalyn and children to help him into his armor. Micah ran in and stood on a chair, helping him tie his shoulder plating to his cuirass.
“Dah, can I ride with you? I can fight too.”
His lovely Aurelia was clasping his grieves as Jalyn was tying his belt and scabbard.
“No, boy, I need you to stay and protect your mother and Aurelia.”
Aurelia handed him his helm and said, “No, Dah, I don’t think so. He is afraid of the mice in the barn! I will protect myself, thank you!”
Ebb smiled as he gazed into her beautiful eyes for the last time. He knelt next to her, pulled her close, and kissed her cheek.
“For your Dah, just this once, maybe you can pretend he can protect you and Mah,” he whispered in her ear.
Jalyn handed him his gladius, and he stood to sheathe it.
“Yes, Dah, only for you.”
“My family trusted me,” Ebb moaned as he told Entius.
Aurelia turned away and put her arm around her brother’s shoulder, “Let’s go get Anemos from the barn for Dah. You can protect me from the mice, Micah.”
They ran off together.
“I will protect you and Mah from the mice!” Micah exclaimed as he grabbed his wooden sword on the way out the door.
Ebb beamed at the beauty of both of their beautiful little lives as they left the house. Jalyn grabbed him by the chin, then turned his head to face her.
“Protect yourself, Ebb, so that you may return to us,” she said. Ebb kissed her. It was their last kiss.
“Go, take the children, flee to the west,” he begged her.
She shook her head, “Oh, Oebalus, you will rout them and come home to us.”
He considered her fierce sparkling eyes and said, “mia alithiní agápi,” which means one true love in the old language. He turned and walked out the door, grabbing his long spear as he exited.
“I begged her to take the children and flee,” he closed his eyes again.
The children had saddled Anemos and were waiting with him at the mounting stand. He climbed the short stairs and stepped over, sitting in the saddle.
“May Artriuss watch over you! If they break the hill, flee to the west, I will find you,” Ebb said as he urged Anemos forward.
His last sight of them was Jalyn standing in the door, tears in her eyes and Aurelia reaching up to her for comfort, and Micah battling a tree with his sword.
What a valiant warrior he would have been, he thought as he smiled at the memory of his lost son.
Ebb rode out to meet his men in the streets. It was too late to organize; the Athroth were already breaking the crest of the hill.
He cried out to all, “Attack! Charge men! Defend your home!”
He hurried Anemos up the Great Hill to join the fray as many had already charged up the hill and were engaged.
“We were unprepared for the attack. It was too late to rally the troops and organize a plan, so we charged the hill in a shamble,” he explained.
As he neared the top, two horsemen came over the crest; he hurled his spear into the first and drew his sword for the next. Anemos reared back as the second horse came over and hit him in the breast. Anemos fell back as Ebb flew off, knocking the wind out of him as he hit the ground.
There as he lay faint and disoriented, he felt a stone beneath his head and the flow of blood rushing through his fingers. He looked around, but everything was a blur. Ebb felt panicked as he knew the legionnaire would be back around to finish him. Then a tingle, he looked to his side and saw the soldier he had felled with his spear and there were fireflies all about him.
That was when he heard the crow for the first time, “caw to them, caw, caw to them.”
He reached out his hand, grasping at them, and could not touch them. Just then, he saw the shadow of a horse over him and rolled away as the horse came down where he was.
He reached out again, saying, “Come to me.”
The fireflies hit his skin and disappearing inside; He felt revitalized. The horseman was almost upon him again. Ebb jumped up and dove back toward the corpse and pulled his spear free as he rolled over. He turned and flung it through the eye of the horseman, who flew off his horse. Fireflies flowed from the fallen soldier, Ebb called to them, and they came. His strength and speed began to surge within him. He didn’t have time to reflect on what was happening to himself.
He turned back into the battle, swinging his sword, beheading a charging soldier. Ebb parried, chopping through the arm of another, then dashed his skull in with the hilt of his sword, even as he swung the blade into the torso of another soldier.
The fireflies kept filling him with more and more strength and speed, and then suddenly, he felt a sharp pain. He looked down to see a hand on his thorax. He realized the hand held the hilt of a broadsword against his body.
Ebb stared into the eyes of his attacker, who grinned back at him. Ebb raised his arm and smote his head from his shoulders. The fireflies flowed out of his decapitated attacker as Ebb fell back to the ground pushing the sword out.
There Ebb lay in a forced slumber holding the sword that had just killed him, dreaming of a crow and a castle with two heads mounted at the entry. The crow keeps telling him the same thing repeatedly.
“Caw, from death, brings life, caw from life brings death, caw, caw, caw.”
“I know not what it means, but if I could just get a hold of it, I would wring its neck and hear it no more,” he told Entius.
Ebb awoke to the clanging of iron and the cries of death all around him. His head was spinning as he wondered what in Tull’s name had just happened. He inspected his wound and found that his cuirass had a hole in it, but his chest had none. All that remained was the drying blood. Could he have been dreaming? He was in awe at the strength of the sword and how it could penetrate his bronze plate as though it were butter.
He stood lifting the massive sword with two hands; it was not light like the standard gladius that he had just dropped, but he liked the feel of it. Thinking to give it a practice swing, he raised the sword. Just as he was about to swing, two enemy soldiers saw him and charged.
Stepping back, he repositioned himself. When they were about three feet away, he began his stroke. He was amazed by the sword and how it cut right through both of their breastplates in one swing.
As fast as he turned, three more soldiers were upon him. One was coming at him from the left and two more from the right. The one on the left had a spiked cudgel already in motion in a downward stroke. The two on the right were closing in.
He didn’t have time to fight from both sides with this massive sword. Suddenly he was surrounded by the fiery flies and could not even see his foes. But somehow, he knew the blow was coming from the left. He could not see it. Ebb reached out and, in some way, caught the cudgel in his left as he was swinging his new sword more effortlessly than he would have guessed possible with his right hand.
The impact of the cudgel left his hand throbbing, but he held fast, nonetheless. With the momentum of the sword swing, he pulled the cudgel free while cleaving off the head of the closest soldier to his right. Ebb’s sword hit him in the ear with a slight downward arc exiting through the soldier’s chin as his head slid off.
Blood sprayed across Ebb as he continued to spin around in a circle. He hit the soldier to his right on the helm with the cudgel. Hearing the crunch of bone as he brought his sword back up and sliced right through the body and breastplate of the soldier on the left.
He watched as the three soldiers fell to his feet, and the firefly lights swarmed him again. The battlefield became a blur as he swung his sword in the full rage and fury of a man possessed.
“Everything became a blur and foggy; I felt great strength within me. I remember fighting, but not much of who or what, and then getting hit but having neither wounds nor scars when it was over. I remember nothing else of the fight except standing exhausted and alone at the end of the battle but a few hours later. I buried my beloved wife and children, and then I drank until I could no longer remember their faces. When I awoke, I was in the cage with you.”
Entius considered everything that Ebb had told him and said, “A strange tale indeed. I am sorry for your loss. I’ve heard tales of the Crowned Crow enchanting soldiers on the battlefield to do his bidding but know not to what end.”
“How did you become a slave?” Ebb asked.
“err… uh… bad business decisions,” Entius replied.
“What is your trade?” Ebb asked.
“I was in the reselling and information business. If someone has something to sell, say a crate of swords that fell off a cart, I find someone who needs to buy swords. If a customer needs help collecting a debt, I find them a debt collector—for a small percentage, of course,” Entius explained.
They sat quietly building a fire. Finally, Ebb asked, “Tell me what you know of this crow? It has plagued me these past days with its constant cawing and prattle.”
Entius considered Ebb for a moment and asked, “You don’t know of the Crowned Crow?”
“I will tell you the legend, but please let us eat first. I am so hungry.”
Ebb got up and grabbed the sack with dried meats and a skin of wine and sat back down, handing the jerky to Entius and opening the flask for himself. He took a deep pull of the wine and said, “okay….”
Entius finished chewing the piece of dried meat and swallowed it. He spoke as he was stuffing another piece into his mouth. “Well, num mic the Crownm nm Crom mum gulp.”
Ebb put his hand on Entius’ shoulder. “Artriuss’ name, man! Finish eating first. Have some wine to wash it down,” he said with a chuckle. Entius took the flask and finished it, tossing it to the side.
“Ah, much better. The tale of the Crowned Crow comes from the lands across the water to the north of Gallia.
"As you know, there are three gods. Well, I presume you do. Many moons ago, it was believed that Necrom, the father of gods, was a god exclusively to Elvenkind, as they were made in his image. He has two sons, Tull and Artriuss Zane. Tull was supposed to be a god to the Dwarves who were made in his image. The two-faced god Artriuss Zane was supposed to be the god of mankind, made in the image of all three gods, for Artriuss Zane was made in his father's appearance and that of his older brother Tull.
He was cursed with two faces that altercated one another, such as the mental confusion of humankind. All of these alleged rules and speculations were convoluted by the interbreeding of all three races. Now everyone worships who they please or like the best.
Many years ago, the druid magus Anileís of the North Isles, Tull's high priest and vassal, was feuding with his brother, Ischyrós. The latter is also a druid magus and the high priest of Artriuss Zane, the two-faced god. The details are sketchy as history is always written by the victor of any battle and is usually only one side or opinion of how everything went down.
Anyway, they were alleged to have been fighting one another through their familiars. Anileís had a sizable white falcon, and Ischyrós had a great black crow. I know not why he would choose a silly crow when so many more fascinating animals choose a familiar form. Anyway, I am not well-versed in the inner workings of magic or the stories surrounding it. It is said that Anileís snuck into Ischyrós' tower and burned his body while his mind was in his familiar's, thus trapping his soul inside that cursed crow.
The stress and blow to his psyche when he found himself entrapped caused the shock of feathers at the top of the crow’s head to turn white and kind of emulate a crown. That's why they call it the crowned crow."
Ebb stared at the fire for a little while, contemplating everything; he threw another branch in the fire.
“So why do you suppose this crow is cursing my life now? “
“That, I do not know, friend.”
“We’ll need to locate a smithy to remove that collar. Lest we attract too much attention in the larger towns,” Ebb pointed out to Entius as he leaned back on his bedroll, closing his eyes.