A Short Story

I wrote this for my creative writing class the other night. Hopefully you have as much fun reading it as I had writing it.

The Raven

When I woke the bounty hunter was sitting next to the fire frying a couple sausages in a pan. He was a big man, not tall so much as broad, with a few days growth of beard.

“Don’t bother trying to escape,” he said without even looking in my direction. “I took the liberty of securing you while you were sleeping.”

“That’s not possible,” I mumbled. I rolled over and the sound of a rattling chain confirmed his words. My head was swimming, and I wasn’t quite sure if I was feeling all of my appendages correctly.

“Your provisions were drugged. I’m on good terms with a few of the merchants back in town.” He laughed. “You’ll feel better in the morning, just in time for the beginning of our journey to the Crown Seat.”

I shook my head, but regretted it as the world seemed to tip under me. When things settled down again I said, “You’ve got the wrong man. I’ve done nothing.”

He reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a yellowed parchment and shook it in my face. It was too dark to see, but I knew well enough what was on it. A fair likeness of my face, a brief description, and a promised reward.

“Don’t bother denying it. This is you,” he held the parchment close to the light of the fire and began to read. “Wanted: the Black Messenger,” he looked over at me and chuckled at my alias, “for crimes against the Crown. Reward: 10,000 in gold.” He leaned over, shook his pan of sausages a bit, and then turned back to me. “That’s a hefty sum. You must be a first class bastard for the Crown to be willing to pay that much for you.”

I tried to act nonchalant through the drugs. “I’m worth more than that.”

He laughed.

“So who are you,” I asked.

“The Raven,” he said.

This time I laughed, and I didn’t care what it did to my head. He got up and kicked me a couple times in the ribs for it, but I barely felt it, thanks to his drugs.

“You’re the Raven,” I asked when my laughter subsided, “You’re the most wanted, the most feared assassin in the world?”

“Yes,” he said. “How do you know I’m not?”

“You’re a little too portly to be the Raven. Stories say that he can be found anywhere a rodent can go. Somehow I don’t see you slipping through mouse holes.”

He shrugged. “You can’t believe everything you hear. Stories get blown out of proportion.”

“OK,” I said, “I can agree with that. But I still don’t believe you are the Raven.”

“Believe what you will,” he said as he reached for a sausage and began to eat.

“Did you make one of those for me?” I asked.

He snorted in derision and continued to eat. I fell asleep soon after.

Predictably I woke in the morning with a bucket of water in the face. “That’s original,” I said as I wiped the water away with my sleeve. Thankfully the world was more stable now that the drugs were out of my system.

“Get up,” he said. There was no humor in his voice, and I could tell it was lesson time. I’d done it enough myself to know what was coming.

I stood, curious to see how he would react to compliance.

“So that’s how it’s going to be,” he said, and he punched me upside the head with a fist the size of a small boulder.

I hit the dust, with pinpricks of light in my head. Maybe those drugs from last night were still in effect after all. Before my head could clear he picked me up only to punch me down again. I hit the ground and came up fighting. Or at least that was my intent, but what really happened was that I came up floundering with the chains that bound my arms and legs.

“That’s the spirit,” he said before he leveled me again.

He left it at that, and while I lay with my ears ringing and face in the dirt, I was forced to reassess this man. There was a power in him that belied his soft and portly appearance.

After a brief moment he lifted me up again and tied my hands behind my back, and then with thick secure knots he looped a rope around my waist and fastened it to the horn of his saddle. My weapons were tied in front of him, safely out of my reach, but the rest of my gear, including my boots, was tied onto my own horse.

“Your belongings are going to make some peasant very happy,” the man said before he slapped my horse on the rump and sent it galloping away in a panic.

“I‘ll milk your blood for that,” I said. “That was a valuable beast.”

“True, but I can’t afford the risk of watching it,” and then he said something very intelligent, “because you’re a more valuable beast.”

Maybe intelligent was a little generous.

He spurred his horse forward and I was forced to step quickly to keep up.

The day passed as well as could be expected. He traveled at a rapid pace, my bare feet were torn to shreds, and I tried a couple token escapes which he quickly and effectively stopped with violence. For my first attempt I gathered some speed and then, using a large rock to gain height, jumped him from behind. It was a tricky plan, requiring that he fall off the horse, while I remained on it. But the man sat in the saddle like he was built into it. I bounced off of him and fell to the ground where he was sure to drag me for a good distance.

I can’t even remember what my second attempt was, but I do remember the image of one of his big fists, wrapped around what I can only describe as a log, coming towards my face. When I woke up with him looming over me, I said, “You don’t know how much I want to kill you, but I’m not going to.”

He laughed, slapped me across the face, and then climbed back into the saddle.

In short, the result was that by the time we camped for the night I was a bloody mess.

After tying me to a large tree he tossed a canteen and a sausage in the dirt in front of me. “Enjoy,” he said. And I did, because the water was divine.

Later he brought long strips of cloth and tossed them at me. “Sorry about your feet, but escape won’t be so easy now will it?”

I snorted and began to wrap my feet. It was a painful process so I made conversation to distract from the waves of fire rising through my legs.

“Today went well,” I said. “How many days until the Crown Seat?”

He lifted a bushy eyebrow. “The day after tomorrow,” he finally said.

“How long have you been doing this,” I asked.

He smiled. “Longer than you’ve been hearing stories about the Raven.”

“Do you like it?”

“I’m good with weapons, strong, and I have a knack for sniffing out wanted men, so it suits me.”

He sipped from a tin cup full of a thick brewed tea and watched me.

“How’s the pay,” I asked.

He took a long sip before he said, “It’s a living.”

I waited and eventually he began to elaborate. “From seeing the wanted posters you would think the pay would be good, but you have to realize that there aren’t that many criminals in the world. And I am sure as hell not the only bounty hunter. It tends to be a long wait from one bounty to the next.”

I chuckled to myself. “So on the side you work as an assassin, or is it the other way around?”

He laughed but didn’t answer the question.

I was about to egg him on a little more when I heard the soft swish of wings in the tree above me. I looked up to find a pair of black ravens peering down at us with dark beady eyes.

The bounty hunter didn’t miss a beat. “They’re drawn to the smell of your blood. Don’t sleep too well tonight or you may wake up missing an eye, or a kidney.”

He laughed, splashed the dregs of his drink onto the fire, and then rolled up into his blankets.

I fell asleep soon after.

The ravens were still above us in the morning and they stayed with us throughout the day. The bounty hunter took special pleasure in pointing them out to me almost incessantly.

“Shut up about the god-forsaken ravens!” I shouted at one point. My outburst earned me a boot to the face. I didn’t care about the ravens, really, I was just testy because my feet were burning like the wrath of hell. The boot print in my face distracted me from my feet and the ravens, briefly.

When we made camp for the night, there were more, six in total. They fluttered about in the tree, like feathered ghosts. They never called out, which was strange. My captor noticed it too, and he watched the ravens almost as much as he did me, though he grinned wickedly at me when he caught me watching.

“So what made you choose to call yourself Black Messenger,” he asked.

I shrugged. “What made you call yourself the Raven?”

He pointed into the tree and smiled. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“Fair enough,” I said. “Somebody I killed once named me the Black Messenger. I thought it was fairly clever on his part seeing as he had a knife in his gut, so I just went with it.”

“Hey, that works,” he said.

“Yep.”

He was silent for a moment before he said, “We’ll be at the Crown Seat tomorrow.”

I nodded.

“I hate to turn you over to them, I know what they do to people, and you seem like a decent fellow.”

“I appreciate your sentiments,” I said. “I understand that you’re just trying to make a living.”

He nodded. “Good.” And then he rolled out his bedroll and went to sleep. He didn’t even wake when I got up in the middle of the night, chains rattling, to take a piss.

When morning came the ravens were gone. The bounty hunter gave me a larger portion than usual for breakfast.

When I was finished he mounted his horse and tied me to his saddle. He seemed resigned. “Let’s go,” he said.

I motioned, graciously, for him to lead the way.

We soon reached the Crown Seat, this year the city of Brylyrd, and made our way through the crowded cobblestone streets towards the palace.

The soldiers at the gates were familiar with bounty hunters and the whole process of bringing in prisoners, so we were soon well within the castle walls escorted by a pair of burly guards, on our way to the throne room where my execution would be ordered and my bounty hunter would receive his payment.

We paused at the door of the throne room while one of our guards announced us. Within moments the normal petitioners were ushered out and we were ushered in. The room was still rather full of nobles and guards.

“Majesty, a bounty hunter is here claiming his bounty.”

My bounty hunter stepped forward and pushed me to the floor, at the same time he bowed to reverence the king.

“I just want to let you know that I’m not really the Raven,” he whispered. “I just tell people that so they’ll be more docile.”

“I know,” I said.

“At ease,” said the king. “Let me see your claim.”

The bounty hunter straightened and held out his parchment with my picture on it. A servant took it from his hand and gave it to the king.

“The Black Messenger,” the king said in confusion. “Who the hell is that? I never ordered this.”

Understanding dawned in the bounty hunter’s eyes, as he heard the click of my manacles opening.

“I wrote the bounty,” I said, as I stood, ignoring the pain in my feet and my aching muscles.

Chains are good weapons, and chains with big heavy steel weights on the end are even better, in short, I made short work of the two burly guards next to me using the manacles provided by my bounty hunter. Then I took their various weapons and embedded them in the various guards stationed throughout the room. It was quick, and bloody work, though in truth I could have done it better if my feet hadn’t been turned into sausages. The nobles, of course, ran like cowards so I ignored them. Soon, only the bounty hunter, the King, and the Queen were left in the room with me, alive.

“I should have known,” muttered the bounty hunter. “I should have known when I saw those bloody ravens.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I needed you to bring me here, so I won’t kill you, today.”

“Majesty,” I said to the whimpering king, “you really are the lowest of despots, you’ve been petty, violent, and ineffective and I’ve been hired to remove you. In short, your rule here is over. Your life too.”

He ran from me then, naturally, and I chased him. And I’ll be damned if the fool coward ran outside and jumped off the wall to escape me. The result was the same, but not as noble with his guts splattered about him and all. I watched for a moment, just to make sure he wasn’t shamming. After a few moments ravens began to swoop in and pick at his corpse. I knew he was dead then.

I walked back inside, hobbled really, and picked up the bounty that had fallen to the floor. It wouldn’t do to leave my picture lying around.

“Lady,” I bowed to the queen, this was my first time seeing her in person and she was quite nice looking, “the kingdom is yours.”

She smiled, very faintly, as she pulled a bag from the folds of her robe and tossed it to me. It clinked with heavy metal.

I motioned to the bounty hunter who was nervously pulling a black feather from his shoulder. “Pay this man his bounty,” I said.

And then I was gone.

~J. A. Devenport