[Rimbaud]

Even the soft haze of the dimming light seemed an assault on his senses. All was fugged, indistinct, a tumult was within him, of pain and confusion. One of his wings flapped awkwardly, the other bent beneath his body; his limbs shifted, as bewildered as the mind. Slowly, sense and instinct returned, and with them, the urge to be airborne.

He struggled to his clawed feet, scrabbling and flapping aand cursing. His head swam. A nauseating red mist danced before his eyes and he found it difficult to focus on the unusual shapes and forms scattered beyond the veil. He felt light-headed yet heavy-bodied, as if miasmas of pain dragged him down divergent paths.

He staggered a little on reaching an upright status. He could feel earth and leaves slicked damply upon his feathers, and encrusting his beak. Awkwardly he tried to preen, slowly at first and then frantically as he realised his great exposure, blind and upright and immobile on the ground.

Peculiarly, he felt that his wings were undamaged, although bruised. He judged flight would be painful but not impossible, and at his age, such a state was not unusual to him.

He shook his head with an instinctive 'caw' and forced his sense to his command. He sat on a plain of death, amongst the broken bodies of men, orc and crebain. A fierce lust grew within him, a brief taste of youth.

********

Take-off was a struggle, and a sensory nightmare, but he managed it. Once airborne, and awkwardly striving for height, he scanned the darkening skies for fellows, but found none. Mitatkaw would not have deserted him so easily, he judged. He decided to search northwards, which at least would have been the direction of the main murder.

So he flew, slowly, a bedraggled and vulnerable old crow, making his last journey. Behind him, amongst the corpses, some way from the main battle-field, Mitakaw and his cohorts searched in vain for Fingot Sparrowbane, oldest of the crebain.

[ January 17, 2003: Message edited by: Rimbaud ]