The History of the Crows
— By Scario Corpuscana, Historian of the Purple Court
The Crows. Now, that is introduction enough. Two words. But a hundred meanings.
Every child and man, from the snowy vales of the north to the salty shores know of them. Tavern songs bellow loudly of their exploits, awe-struck children repeat their stories in hushed breath and even the scornful sermons of sanctimonious priests acknowledge their numerous feats – a list that is as long as the day of creation. And far away be the end when it does. The Three Day Battle. The Defense of Almor. The Attack at Bara Garash. The Battle at the Tomb of the First Men where they killed the Necromancer. They have been portrayed as heroic figures crusading against evil, or as malfeasant raiders ravenous for coin, or even idle idiots who have lucked themselves to undeserved fame. Sometimes, even as supporting cast in another’s story like the Last Stand of Eugen Orcbane.
Now you may wonder what another scholarly work seeks to add at this point? But this work doesn’t seek to be another interminable iteration of the Saga of the Crows.
In the many blood soaked pages of the Crow’s exploits, truth has always been the first casualty. Too many authors have been eager to colour them in this way or that way, preferring them as they want or need them to be. Or think they are. And therefore my first objective is simple as any other scholarly work – to establish historical fact. And the second is to traverse into new territory, back into the morass of the past, at the beginning. To that bloody day, on a wet autumn morning when the ragged standard of the Crows was first raised…
A wet autumn morning, when the mud is unsteady under your feet, the skies grey and the damp wind seeping into your skin.
It was just outside the city of Dornen, amidst malnourished farmland and razed barns that the banner was raised up – On a piece of tattered sailcloth with a charcoal smudge crumpling the center with a sketch of beak, talon and feather. Contrary to popular perception, the brothers were in fact old friends, Companions from the King’s Shieldwall newly returned from the war across the sea rather than unruly strangers tumbling down a mad venture by chance.
Meniolf has always been marked as leader of the Crows though there was never a formal leader, he did fit that title. A shock of blood-red hair rippling to wind, a handsome young face disfigured slightly by an unhappy frown and a singular drive or madness (depending on who you asked) to get straight to the dirt(and sharp-end) of things – Nobody in the Crows has killed more men or things. And nobody else bears the weight of a killer harder. His body after the long years of fighting is now disfigured by grievous scars and numerous nagging injuries, but most of all under that bloody violence, is a heart that is full of too much love.
And it was Meniolf who tipped the Crows rolling down the hill. A drunken wager unwisely accepted sent Meniolf and a collection of slack-jawed hungover idiots to chase a small camp of bandits that plagued the highway. Little did they know what this excursion would lead. Or where.
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