The abduction of Elwin Ravenblack

When she was a girl, Elwin Ravenblack had run through green fields, heard the birds and gulls cry out high above as they circled her coastal home or flew out to sea. She felt the sun warm her face and bronze her arms and legs, and smelled the salty tang on her lips as the breeze blew in. At night, sometimes she would sneak away from her home to lie in the grass on her back and look at the stars, listening as the waves crashed against sharp rocks at the bottom of the cliff. On warm nights like this, she would count the stars, imagining that the sky was a great sea, and the points of light were islands, waiting to be explored, and she was captain of her own ship, sailing far out into the night. She imagined she could feel the swell and sway of the water beneath her strong, fast ship, like she were riding some great animal, and with these thoughts she would fall asleep, content.

This was before the oars of the black ships scraped against the shores of her home, the wind unfurling the flag that smelled of death.

The ships had made landing a few miles further north, in a sandy cove, and men with silent steps and sheathed weapons crept into the town. The screams of women and children in the night and the clash of iron drowned out the grating of gulls, and the town of Lorlinden was set ablaze, sparks ascending into the sky before winking out. Elwin was not in town this night, but had gone out to the field near the sea. She awoke to the sound of the screams and blazing light, and an image of her mother came to her mind, and she panicked.

With feline grace, she crouched and ran to the edge of Lorlinden, back to her home to see if her mother, father, and two brothers had escaped. She ran from room to room of her house, but there was no one there, until she ran into her own room. She stepped to the windowsill--it was still unlatched from before--and had stuck one leg out the window when a man stepped from the shadows, grabbed her by the hair and pulled her back. She fell to the ground with a thud, and then all went black.

She awoke to taste copper in her mouth and a pain in the back of her head. She was hanging upside down, being carried like a sack over the back of a giant of a man who smelled like sweat and sour beer. Her head pounded and pain shot like knives and glass up her spine, and then she was in darkness again.

She woke again, this time overwhelmingly thirsty, as a cup was roughly brought to her lips and something foul and bitter was poured down her throat that made her stomach turn to fire. She coughed and spat it up, but was merely laughed at by her captor, slapped, and then the cup came to her lips again. This time she held it down. She lay on rough boards in the dark, opening and closing her eyes to see if she were blind, and felt the swell and sway below her and knew she was at sea. She lay there for a moment, exhausted, trying to catch her breath and pray that the burning in her stomach would go away. It did, but its heat spread through her body, to her arms and legs, and up to her neck, until she felt warm and fuzzy headed, and closed her eyes, dreaming of green fields and the days she had been a princess.

* * *

Ten years went by, and the world had changed. She had grown into womanhood, her body had hardened under hours of hard labor, her hands had grown calloused, and her mouth ran like a scar across her face to match the lines that crisscrossed her back from countless beatings. The ocean spread out before her, rising and falling, with little distinction between the gray surf, and the gray sky overhead. The world indeed had changed, and trouble was brewing at land and on the seas. She had looked once for green fields, but over time had stopped. They now seemed like a dream from long ago.

Still, there was a change coming. She could feel it in her soul, see it in the fearful glances of the crewmen as they tried to mask it with sneers and bravado and sharp cuffs across her jaw she no longer felt. She would bide her time for a little longer; she had become a master of waiting. But make no mistake, the day was coming, and it would arrive soon.