Raven Swordmistrees of Chaos by Richard Kirk - Prologue

1978 Genre: Sword & Sorcery / Swordwoman

RAVEN

She escaped the slave pens of Lyland—a beautiful girl with hair the color of summer sun, eyes as blue as the heavens, and a body that invited love.

RAVEN

Rescued by sorcerer priests, she was schooled in every art of weaponry and combat. Her sword stained by the blood of legions, no man could defeat her.

RAVEN

With her mysterious companion-mentor Spellbinder, and a great black bird to watch over them, Raven journeyed forth to her destiny—and the happy day of slaughtering Karl ir Donwayne, the cruel master who had tortured her mercilessly as a slave...

SWORDSMISTRESS OF CHAOS

PROLOGUE  

The hut settled against the bare ground like a hunched beast, crouching under the lee of a stonefall from the farther edge of the promontory. It was set apart from the others, though like them in construction: a crude affair of bent wood and roughly cured hides. The wind howling in from the dark sea tugged at the hides, playing fitfully with the pale glow of the tallow lantern that was the only illumination within the dark interior. The hut was cold and damp, and not even the furs piled around its earthen floor warmed the occupants enough that they felt comfortable.  

One young man fumbled a pile of twigs into a cone, striking his tinderbox to light the wood. Others passed a stone jar from hand to hand, sucking enthusiastically on the fiery contents. In the cold times, inner fire might serve in lieu of real comfort.  

They wore furs, the three young warriors, and small pieces of metal and chainmail, little tidbits of armour looted from dead men. They carried swords of a dark metal that were never far from their hands, but their eyes were fixed upon the face of the man seated across the growing fire. He was old, his face lined with the deep cracks of age, his skin spread taut over the fine bones of his skull. A mane of silver hair cascaded from his high-domed forehead onto his broad shoulders, hunched in now against the cold and the inexorable passage of the years. His eyes, though, were bright, darting pale blue sparks through the faint light, seeking out each watching gaze and holding it as a stalking ferret holds the rabbit's eye in hypnotic trance, bending it to the hunter's will. He was very thin—even amongst a company of men starved of meat—and his clothes were rags and furs that spoke silently of better days, long past. On the earth beside his left hand rested a great sword, its blade shining silver in the growing light, the hilt wrapped round with golden wire, a huge green gemstone set into the pommel. His right hand was bound in rough bandages, the contours of the dirty cloth showing where his fingers had been severed from the palm.  

He smiled and began to speak:  

'Aye, you laugh at me. I know that. Youth is a gift that can afford laughter. When the arm is strong, the lips stretch easily; for a woman, a clean kill, a blue sky ... an old man. I am old now, but once I was young like you, and as foolish. I gave up more than you whelps will ever dream to know. Once I sat in halls of marble, their pillars girt with gold and precious stones. The food came on platters of silver, roasted meats and spitted birds, pure bread and fruits long forgotten, cheeses and wines nursed carefully as the offspring of a chieftain.  

'Aye, in the good times. The old times.  

'You hairy savages are too young to remember, though I do. I cannot forget. Shroud of the Stone, I wish I could; it would make this damp exile easier. But what can an old man do? He sits in his cold and stinking tent wondering where his next meal will come from, remembering things best forgotten.'  

The timeless blue eyes glazed over, though whether from pain or delight, it was impossible for the young men to guess. They continued to pass the stone flask around, watching the old man, waiting for him to continue his story.  

At last he nodded, pointing the stump of his hand towards them, and spoke again.  

'She was a woman, Raven! There are none like her today. Tall, she was; her hair as golden soft as the sun on a late summer evening. And her eyes blue as a mist-kissed sea pool, blue and green and grey mingled together in a manner that could suck the soul out of a man, if she chose. Though I've seen them red with blood and cold as the wind from the northern ice wastes. She was a woman you whelps might dream about, damping your blankets with the thought. She smiled as she killed, and if she chose a man, he went to the furs ready to die for sheer pleasure.  

'Two men only, in all the hundreds she slew, could stand against her. I was one—and I still bear the scars of knowing her, albeit they are gladly borne. The other was Karl ir Donwayne, and if he went to the hell he deserved, I trust his soul rots there, for he did her a mighty wrong. Not even the omnipresent sorcerers of Kharwhan would degrade a woman so.  

'But I ramble. Donwayne is long-ago fed to the worms. So, too, is Raven, unless she survived that last armageddic battle. I know not: I fell there, and Gonda, took my hand. I never saw her again, except in dreams. Perhaps dreams are the best way to remember, now.'  

The wind renewed its attack on the hut, howling through the seams of rough-tied skin like the keening of a widowed woman. The fire sparkled, struggling against the draught, and the lantern flickered shadows over the watching faces. They were tensed, now, staring at the empty blue eyes that looked into a distance reaching beyond the goat-hide hut into an age gone down into chaos, reaching out for a dream, a memory, a woman.  

'She was a woman, aye. A swordmistress, too. But always a woman. Raven, we called her. I shall tell you how she got that name, tell you of our first meeting ...'  

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