The Ravens of Carrid Tower: A New Epic Fantasy Series

Lornevale

Three dark ships cut silently through gentle lapping waves as they rounded the Jut of Khuburi, tacking towards the remote coastal town of Lornevale. If anyone was watching, and there were none but this distraught chronicler, they would notice the first of the ships had once been a Carridean war galley, while the other vessels behind were smaller and sleeker. Clippers built for speed. Unmistakably Drorean, with a giant stag carved into each prow.

Their sail cloth had been replaced with black hemp and the already shadowy timbers stained darker still. They hung no flag. It wasn't needed.

Half a league from shore the warship and one clipper slowed to a halt as the other began its nocturnal patrol. Hidden from view on this moonless, misty night, the decks of the stationary ships were a flurry of silent activity as six long row boats were swung out on cranes and slowly winched down. Oars paddled the waves in practiced unison and the boats crossed the shallows towards the small, sparsely lit fishing town nestled on the adjacent cliff face.

The harbour master, asleep in his net hammock didn't hear the first boat knock against the jetty. He didn't hear his cabin door being opened and snored still as three men stood above him. One of the intruders suddenly kicked him savagely, almost knocking him out of the netting.

"Get up!"

The man's eyes flashed open, his face expressing shock, then a moment of pain before finally fixing in dread terror. He put his hands out in front of him instinctively, before another kick took him from below.

"P... Please... Who...?"

"Get up you damned oaf. Now!"

A blade flashed, cutting the hammock's cord just above the man's head and he collapsed on the floor. With a quick nod, his compatriots dragged the cowering figure outside to the pier.

"Drop the harbour chain. We're coming in."

The harbour master, looking around at the thirty or so men adorned with weapons varying from cutlasses and war hammers to crossbows, simply nodded blankly.

"Go with him." He said to the two restraining the terrified man. Then pointing at the last group to climb up, "stay here and wait for the boss. Rest of you. Come with me."

With the confident strides so similar to men returning home to a warm welcome, they walked into this quiet, peaceful town. Only they were not welcome. Their sure step was more akin to wolves approaching penned-in prey. Salivating. Each one examining and ordering their own priority of desires. For tonight, these men would do... Well, whatever they wanted. No one in Lornevale was strong enough to stop them. Like countless towns and villages that dotted the continent's coast, there never was. And that is why they came.

A bell later the town had been roused by three hundred pirates. The inn was opened and the landlord forced to serve ale, still dressed in his night gown and hat. A party of men had travelled deeper into town, up the cliff's steep steps to wake the mayor and drag him down to the tavern.

The captain sat on the second floor with three officers, the noise from the tap room below growing louder by the minute. He had no intention of calming them down. They had been at sea for weeks, added eight new blue water vessels to their already vast fleet, while managing to completely avoid the Carridean Navy. Discipline at sea was brutally enforced and like all good leaders, he understood the importance of balance.

And there would be a great deal of that on this night. The captain thought to himself.

The door swung open and a fat, sweating man was pushed towards the table. They calmly watched him stumble and right himself before them.

"Mikon. I... We weren't expecting you until next moon."

"Take a seat, Padonius."

"Thank you." The mayor said deferentially and quickly sat in front of the men, staring at him with emotionless faces. Eyes sharpened with studied contempt. The mayor wiped his moist brow, anxiety building in the silence.

Finally Mikon spoke, "we have had a change of plan. We'll winter beyond the straights."

"I see, but the navy?"

"Do not concern yourself with that. You will pay your tribute early. You will pay it now. We also require ale and grain. Salted fish too."

"Mikon, it's so late in the season, we have food and ale left, but the gold... We've just paid taxes to the Crown collectors. Three days ago. The town treasury is almost empty."

"How much is left?"

"Fifty pieces. Maybe less, I need to talk to the treasurer."

"You disappoint me."

"Captain, we never knew you were coming so early. Payment for the last catch is on its way, but the Crown has cleared us out. Then you arrive. Can we have some more time? Just a few days? Please Mikon."

The captain smiled at the man coldly, pouring himself a drink from a glass jug. Water. The mayor recalled that Mikon does not drink.

"We will take the gold you have. The ale and grain too. But you are short. So, we will need some other form of compensation, to ensure you still have our... Protection next year."

"Captain we have nothing."

"You have row boats."

"You can have them. All of them." Padonius replied quickly. "We do need the fishing boats though, Mikon. We won’t get through winter without them."

"You can keep them."

The mayor was surprised by this answer and a glimmer of hope rose within him.

"See Padonius, we can be reasonable you and I. Negotiate like men."

If only you were that. The pirate considered.

"Thank you Mikon, we..."

"You're still twenty pieces short though."

"I..."

"So, let's see. We'll take twenty women. Twenty less mouths to feed through the winter. That seems fair, doesn't it?"

The mayor's face was ashen. Eyes wide in shock at the captain's request, before suddenly breaking down in tears. The captain stood from his chair and walked around the table to the sobbing man. He knelt beside him and said softly, almost paternally, "don't worry, Padonius. We'll only take twenty. You can keep your wife and that lovely daughter of yours. Find us some other maidens. Pretty ones, eh."

"Please Mikon, don't ask this of me." He said looking at the pirate with pleading, red shot eyes. "Of us. Anything else, you can take. Take it all."

The captain slapped the man across the face, shocking him out of his whimpering. “You will give us the addresses of twenty maidens. Otherwise your wife and daughter will be entertainment for them down there. After that we'll go house by house and get them ourselves. Might just take all of them. In fact, while I’m at it, it would be worth taking the whole damned town. Make a tidy profit at the slave markets. Do you understand, Padonius?"

"Yes" he sobbed.

"So, what will it be? Give us the names or do you want us to look?" The man wept again uncontrollably, hands covering his red face, sweat and tears mixed together to stream between his fingers.

"I'll tell you." He said in helpless defeat. The last shreds of spirit and resolve crushed.

And so, the night continued. A frenzy of lust and violence. Women dragged from their homes, screaming parents and lovers behind them. More than a few protested too much and were quickly silenced. By morning the pirates would be gone, leaving a hollowed-out town to mourn and starve. The bitterness would never pass. The loss would never be recovered.

A young boy would wake with his mother gone and father lying dead on the steps just outside their once happy family home. A trail of blood marked his slow, excruciating crawl through the house as all life left him. An impossible, desperate effort to change a fate he and his community alike were never prepared for. Too late for.

A mayor would never wake again. Hanging still in the air below roof beams. Perhaps it was shame. Perhaps it was the only way he could protect his own family from reprisal, who almost alone in this tiny town had escaped being shattered.

The fate of the women... Most sad. A stain on this already bleak history I pen. This record of our demise.

------

I really hope you enjoyed the opening chapter of "The Ravens of Carrid Tower".

The book is currently going through a Kickstarter. You can read more of the book here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/davidcblack/the-ravens-of-carrid-tower-epic-fantasy-fiction-se

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