"King of the Birds"
Prologue
Our home the one I was born in 8 years ago. My father's bedroom feels so large compared to my brothers and mine. My older brother Murphy and I, sitting on the foot of our father's straw bed "Why do we always try to climb higher?" my father's baritone voice asks from under his full red beard "To reach the top." I answer. "To carve our name and stories into legends like we are destined to." Murphy pipes up before he can answer, our father lets out a laugh clasping our shoulders with a twinkle in his blue eyes. "Well one knows why they want to reach the top. What about you Conner, why do you want to reach the top?" "It has the best view." I tell him. His laugh intensifies, "So," Murphy says. "you will be what, King of the Birds?" "Yes." I tell him, "I see no reason why not. I will be King of the Birds, the Trees, and the Sky." I declared standing on the bed. I tell murphy "You can have the rocks and wolves and moles." Pointing to him. "I'll take the wolves, I have no interest in moles." He said through a chuckle.
My father smiles and pats us on the shoulders then tells us, "Alright now go, gather your things we need to leave in an hour if we are to make it to Criset by night fall." My brother and I ran into our room almost knocking our mother over in the door way and start collecting our things onto the beds. "Are people in Criset nice?" I ask throwing a pile of clothes on the bed, "What do you mean?" He asks, "Are they nice like dad? What if they're mean?" "I'm sure they're nice, why would The King choose someone that was nice if everyone else was mean?" "I mean the other kids, what if they are mean?" I explain "Why would nice people let they're children be mean to other kids?" he says tying his sheets into a bag. My brother is always right. I want to be as smart as him when I'm grown up. "Yeah, You're right again." I always am he says putting a stick through the loop he left, hoisting the bag to his shoulder. "Once again. Make sure you mark it again before you leave. I tie my bag into a knot. Then go to the wooden wall, pick up my rock, and mark another point under M. There must be at least twenty their now. I still have one though. I pocket the stone and drag my bag out of the room.
My brother runs back into the house and helps me drag the bag out to the cart and our dad throws everything into the back, careful to leave room for Murphy and me to sit. "Careful boys." Mom says helping us up into the cart her red hair getting in my mouth for a second, I sputter for a moment to get the taste out of my mouth. My dad climbs up into the front seat. Seemingly rocking us back and forth.
After travelling a time, we came across some men giving a woman lady trouble. Her skin was unlike that I'd ever seen a deep rich ebony. And little girl with deep tan skin"Stay in the cart Ella, keep the boys safe." He then steps down from the cart I peek over the railing and see the two men one with an axe and one with a bow. I can hear father's voice barely in the woods, "What is going on here ma'am?" He asks the woman. "Not your concern, move along." the man with the bow answers him in a gravelly voice. "I had no idea you were a woman, the beard and lack of tits through me off apparently." the other man chuckles, "look I'm really in a rush if you two would leave these women alone we can all be on our way." The one draws his axe and says, "If we don't?" approaching father. My dad pulls his sword from his sheath cleaving into the man's stomach, sending him tumbling back into the dirt with a grunt. As the other man shoots the woman with his bow. Before he can draw another arrow it's too late my father's sword now cuts through the man's bow string and his neck. I wince in pain.
He must have immediately run to the woman on the ground with the arrow in her chest. She grabs him by the shoulder and says something I can't hear, then something to the girl then drops her grip. My father takes the little girl in his arms holding her close and brings her to the cart to mother then takes a tarp from the cart and brings it to the woman he then rolled her up in it and said a prayer, setting her necklace on top of it. He then carried her body over, giving the necklace to the little girl, a wheel with thirteen spokes in it hanging from a silver hook like an extension of the top most hook.
The girl still crying, I reach into my pouch and pull out a sweet root and hand it to her she looks confused I then take out another one and put it in my mouth and chew lightly. She takes follows suit. "Don't swallow it though just chew it for the taste." She nods, "I'm Conner." I say. Tears are still running down her cheeks. "Darcy" she utters faintly.
Chapter 1
The Castle
We reach town a few hours later, dusk just breaking behind us, no one says anything the rest of the time. The walls would tower over our old house, I can't see the inside. It's a kingdom on a mountain. Upon reaching the gates father hands a guard a note. The guard turns his head and yells up, "Open the gates and send a messege to the king that Fergal Collins and his family is here." "Yes sir" a voice says, and the gate begins rising, father then turns to the guard and whispers something to him. The guard says "Yes, straight ahead seventh building on your right. Your house is in the Culhan quarter make a left after you drop her off it'll only be a short way up the hill," He pulls a map out and shows him, "the Market runs on this line from the center. You're in the top left here, Welcome to Criset soon to be Baron Fergal Collins. It's all a formality at this point."
It's a steep hill leading upwards It seems the houses butt against each other, only a man's width between them. Yells from merchants selling their wears, a bidding war between two men over the last side of beef. We make a turn to the right suddenly another world, old buildings marked by moss and ruins. Age has not been as kind to the people over here. Curtains close a baby cries, the smell of moss in the air the moisture more apparent, the aroma of smoke emerges from some unseen source. Its smell something familiar among the new sensations.
The cart rattles along the damaged path, whispers emerge from windows, one indistinguishable from any other. A building marked by a painting of an ebony tree, with white and grey leaves, atop an orange hill, sits at the end of the path way. As we approach the building a figure in a white robe emerges from the wooden door, the light from the door giving a faint orange aura reefs the woman's robe. The cart stops, my mother with Darcy in tow climbs down and approaches the woman the woman's face still obscured nods then kneels to eye level with Darcy and lifts her, before turning around and climbing the steps back inside.