Chapel of Crows

The letter had said to meet at the chapel in the woods. At first he had thought to burn it and think nothing of it, but the details within had stayed his hand: Phrases known only in certain circles that caught his eye.

Whoever this was knew about his old family business - the business of banditry... the life he had sworn off.

Let my family hang themselves with the nooses they wove, he thought. Sooner or later the hangman would find them, or the crossbow bolts of the caravan guards.

They were dead to him, and he to them.

So why had this letter been sent to him? Who had sent it? Who had tracked him all the way to Westhills?

Egeus could very well have just burned the parchment and been done with it, to show that he was indeed done with his old life. But he knew the questions would haunt him no matter how much he said he didn’t care.

“Damnit,” the man muttered, running a hand through his dirty blonde hair.

Who would want to meet him anyway? He was just a grumpy woodsman.

Egeus knew the place. He had passed by it many times in his forays into the woods: a chapel established by some order or another to spread their word. As nature reclaimed it, it now lay abandoned and decaying.

As the ranger crept through the woods, the crisp autumn air kissed his cheek he held his trusty longbow at the ready, hunting knife and hatchet on his belt should things get too close to shoot.

A cacophony of crows greeted him as he came upon the collapsed roof of the chapel. He cursed himself for coming alone. He could see no sign of others, so he skirted around the chapel looking for signs of ambush.

Hesitantly he drew closer, an arrow knocked and ready. The crows seemed to mock him with their cries, laughing at his paranoia... or were they laughing at his inevitable demise?

Egeus shuffled to the doors that had fallen from their hinges and moved within what remained of the chapel, roof, ceiling and floor had combined, into a mess among the pews. His boots crunched against the rubble.

He searched to the end and back and found no one.

“This someone’s idea of a joke?” Egeus muttered.

Only the crows replied, in their cries and rustle of feathers.

A cold draft slipped through the broken panes, curling around him like ghostly fingers. Egeus’s breath fogged before him as the faint light of dusk filtered through the collapsed rafters. The place reeked of mold, rot, and something else:

Something metallic, faint, and somehow wrong.

He turned over a fallen pew with the tip of his boot, scanning for any hint of the sender’s presence: tracks, a note, a corpse, anything. The silence was nearly absolute now. Even the crows had gone still, their earlier noise cut off as though they were listening for something, too.

“To the hells with this,” Egeus muttered under his breath, though his own voice sounded distant, muffled by the stillness. He reached into his cloak and withdrew the letter again. The wax seal was broken, the ink smeared where his thumb had brushed it.

A faint clang - like iron upon stone - echoed from deeper in the chapel.

Egeus froze. His bow came up automatically, the string creaking faintly as he drew.

“Who’s there?”

No reply. Only that same faint metallic scrape, again, followed by a low, breath-like rasping sound.

He stepped over the ruined pews - his boots careful on the rubble, eyes straining through the dim. The source came from what had once been the altar. A crude iron gate had been half-buried beneath the debris, leading to a stairway descending into shadow.

He remembered the stories how the priests had sealed something below when the order fell: A sickness, or a curse, or a relic they should not have tampered with. Until now, he thought it was drunken gossip.

A soft light shimmered across the walls, followed by a gentle chime that did not belong to this place. Egeus turned, startled, just as the air rippled behind him and a voice with warmth and certainty broke the stillness.

“Well I’ll be. Egeus, skulkin’ ‘round where he shouldn’t - again.”

He spun around. There she was: the dwarf, Eilwen - her copper-red hair glinting in the faint glow that haloed her. She wore her travel-stained cloak over the white and silver vestments of Desponia’s clergy, the holy symbol of the cat goddess: an onyx pendant shaped like a feline eye, resting at her throat. Her boots were muddy, her expression equal parts relief and disapproval. Her hand rested on the mace at her belt.

“Eilwen?” Egeus blinked, lowering his bow slightly. “What in the hells are you doin’ here?”

“Well, someone had to keep you from gettin’ yourself killed,” she said, hands on her hips. “Despoena sent me a sign; three black cats crossin’ my path this mornin’. I reckon that means trouble, and trouble usually has your name on it.”

He would’ve laughed if the air didn’t still feel so thick and wrong. “You followed me?”

“I found you,” she corrected, stepping closer. Her holy symbol glowed faintly, casting small flickers of light into the shadows.

“You didn’t think I’d let some half-rotted chapel swallow you whole, did you?”

The glow from her symbol spread, chasing back some of the gloom until it reached the stairwell. The light stuttered, flickered, and dimmed.

Eilwen frowned. “Something down there don’t take kindly to Despoena’s light.”

Egeus felt the hairs on his neck rise. “I got a letter telling me to come here. They... well, they knew things I haven’t told anyone in Westhills.”

He’d never told anyone about his family history.

A cold wind blew up from the stairwell, and with it came a faint whisper: a man’s voice, thin and broken.

“Egeus… come see what we found, cousin...”

He knew the voice, but it couldn’t be them. They’d been hanged years ago. Eilwen’s hand found his arm.

“That ain’t no livin’ man, sugar.” She reached for her holy symbol, murmuring a prayer under her breath. “Despoena, lend us your grace, for somethin’ wicked prowls this house.”

Light flared and there was a shriek and hiss from the thing below as it retreated into the gloom. Egeus moved forward but the dwarf woman had a grip on his arm like forged steel.

“We’re leaving. You’re better off not knowing what’s down there.”

The human found himself dragged out of the chapel and she didn’t release her hold until they were well into the woods among the familiar bird calls, even a few crows.

Egeus pulled the parchment out again and it crumbled to ash in his hands.

Eilwen blinked her large blue eyes, “I’ll report this to my superiors. We’ll give that old chapel a proper cleansing.”

Egeus nodded.

“You going to be okay darlin?” the cleric asked.

“Eventually,” Egeus replied.