Chapter One:
Explosions of dirt, rocks, plants, shattered constructs, and gore pounded the field as the sky tore apart in streaks of burning magic. Detonations rolled like thunder, tearing across the once lush forest as spells collided mid-air, raining fiery iron boulders onto fleshy targets. Screams of agony and war sickeningly chorused with the eerie cries of the war drums and trumpets.
The bloodied gleam of broken metals was strewn atop mangled siege constructs. Great broken war machines lay in heaps, still twitching with fading enchantments tethered to dying great hulking beasts.
Sobbing voices strained out for help while a few bravely continued incanting their spells, hands trembling as they tried to compile components together.
Above it all hovered an armada of massive wooden and metal ships shaped like tall thin towers, twisted upwards into impossible shapes by sorcery. They bombarded the land with magical rune-covered iron rods as tall as a house. The iron rods would spike into the ground, creating massive craters. Then their runes would glow and shoot varying spells of carnage and destruction.
As suddenly as an explosion, all the floating towers stopped attacking—all but one, which rose above the clouds. The last tower-ship was bigger than the rest and arrogantly hovered over the destruction below.
Further away on a hidden knoll, a peculiar dome made of twisted roots sat.
"They go soon," an inhuman voice sighed, satisfied.
Yellowish pupils peeked out from the small dome.
Within the gnarled dome, a hobgoblin adorned with hanging baubles, feathers, and a myriad of finger bones turned to a group of wildly unkempt, barely clothed children with full-body tattoos and backsacks.
"Time to go, crows. Get me shinies," chuckled the hobgoblin.
A part of the wooden dome shifted aside to reveal a small opening. The children cautiously surveyed the battlefield but were quickly shoved out by the hobgoblin.
"Go, go, go, crows. No quota, no food!" she whisper-yelled, covering the hole with roots snaking up from the ground.
The children spilled from the dome and rolled down the knoll.
Tall wooden spikes suddenly jutted out, brutally impaling several of the children. The other crows didn't acknowledge the deaths as all of them scrambled away with dead expressions, except for one.
The one exception was a small child who didn't run but walked about the chaos.
The child carefully maneuvered and paused as if counting his steps between jutting wood spikes, corpses, wreckage, acid pools, and shattered arcane engines. A child, thin as bone and caked in a mixture of dried blood, mud, and what might’ve once been entrails, moved as if the battlefield was a dangerous maze he had conquered before and was now conquering again. His eyes flicked from flash to shadow, registering every pulse of danger.
He stopped to quickly pick up a brooch, which he softly flicked and listened to its tone. He grimaced as his skin, crisscrossed with glowing tattoos, glowed faintly with heat. As soon as he tossed the brooch into his battered backsack, his glowing tattoos dimmed, and the child resolutely blew out a breath. He stretched his neck to look at the other "crows" frantically picking up items and running about.
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Kilu didn’t run. He calculated.
A blast ahead—he shifted left. Screams to his rear—he turned into a crater and vanished. Like a shadow born of smoke and bone, he slipped between ruptured stone, ruined ballistae, and the dead.
He moved using the battlefield's rhythm and flow.
A curdled scream begging for help snapped Kilu's attention. A crawling soldier didn’t seem to understand that she was dragging along her innards. Her entire lower half was gone.
18 breaths left.
Kilu was about to follow her when he stopped and saw a small dot of light speed across the ground in front of him.
Kilu took several steps backward, then sidestepped into a trench.
A large, violent hose of fiery liquid followed the small light.
When the fire subsided, Kilu looked up and nodded. The last remaining floating tower was systematically shooting out jets of liquid flame as if plowing the ground below. Anything touched by the liquid flame instantly became charcoal, covering the entire battleground in toxic smoke.
Kilu picked up small blue and pink flowers growing on a long-dead tree. He squeezed the flowers' nectar onto his eyes, then stuffed the petals into his nostrils. He opened and closed his eyes until he was able to peer into the toxic cloud and nodded to himself as he was able to shallowly breathe in, helping him withstand the toxic stench of burned bodies, equipment, and magics.
He approached the now dead crawling soldier and, with a crow’s instinct, he quickly plucked low-magic items from the body and threw them into his backsack. He shook off the nagging warning of his magical body tattoos.
With his thumb, he opened the soldier's mouth, placed a coin inside, and gently closed her lifeless eyes. He touched charcoal nearby and traced a black line down the soldier's nose and across her lips.
Suddenly another light dot passed across the soldier's face. He quickly rolled back and dove under a collapsed war machine as the soldier's body was engulfed by a passing liquid flame.
3 breaths, wait.
He was about to leave his hiding place when he heard a groan. A real one—not the involuntary rasp of punctured lungs.
Kilu narrowed his eyes, cautiously pulling aside a charred shield. Under the mess lay a figure—a human mage, leather armor torn and blood seeping from his mouth. An arm and both legs were twisted at an impossible angles.
82 breaths left.
Kilu crouched, silent, and offered his empty palm to the mage.
"Coin," said Kilu.
Focusing his eyes on Kilu seemed enough to kill him, but the mage was able to shake his head.
"N-no...listen, little crow..."
Kilu tilted his head.
The mage spat out viscous blood, pain choking his voice. "...sparker...in my satchel..."
Kilu blinked once. Then, wordless, he reached into the mage's weathered satchel and pulled out a tiny, neatly bound bundle of small black twines. He plucked out a twine and handed it to the mage.
51 breaths left.
The mage smiled at Kilu through bloody teeth.
"G-good. You can run but it won't matter. My coin is in my pocket watch but I think you'll need one also."
30 breaths left.
Kilu nodded, took the pocket watch, and opened it. He caught a small silver coin from the opened pocket watch. Within were small paintings of two young smiling faces, a boy and girl. Pain from his tattoos told him that this watch strong in magic. He slipped it in his backsack.
25 breaths left.
Kilu pinched the "sparker" twine and it sparked to life as if to celebrate the mage's last stand. The mage nodded and incanted magical words. To Kilu, it was all gibberish. The twine's spark danced up into the air and entered the collapsed war machine atop the mage.
"Go...I'm sorry..." The mage died.
Kilu shook his head out of his contemplation. No one apologizes to a crow.
Kilu, with his thumb again, pulled the mage's mouth open and placed the silver coin atop his tongue, then drew a black charcoal line down his nose but not his lips. Smeared charcoal on the lips were for females only.
The broken war machine above him hummed to life.
The floating invaders' tower bellowed a shrill warning, quickly stopped its jets of flame, and started floating up and away.
The broken war machine above Kilu —a Star-wheel trebuchet—launched numerous iron boulders with shimmering runes carved onto each one. The iron boulders crashed and embedded themselves into the tower.
Their runes started to glow brighter and brighter.
Kilu ran through the battlefield, never encountering a dead end or impassable area. He reached down, picked up a wooden skull, and while running blew into the hole at the back of it. A deathly sound blasted from the wooden skull.
Anyone who heard the sound started frantically running in every direction.
The top of the tower detached and tried to float away, but the following explosion created a fiery electrical tornado that engulfed the tower and everything underneath.
