The Raven, Melissa Nichols [top 10 novels to read TXT] 📗

What a night! I thought as I made my way home. I had gone to town yesterday morning to buy some supplies my family and I needed. Now, with my belly full and my knapsack filled with the needed supplies and an extra day’s worth of food slung on my shoulder, I was headed home. The bow and quiver  I had brought along were in case I saw some rabbits or small game and decided to hunt them; extra food never hurt anybody. I had my small, low-quality sword because it was never very safe walking for two days all alone, destination regardless. A vast amount of forest divided my home and the small family ranch and farm from the first signs of civilization that led into town, a small establishment of houses and small shops named Jinkstown. A lot of bandits could be lurking in those shadows under the trees, or even in the shadows of Jinkstown, and I was a firm believer that it is far better to be prepared for everything and carrying too much, then to be caught unprepared and killed. So, I was prepared for everything, right down to a dagger hidden in each leather boot.

My father, four brothers and three sisters and I lived a full day’s walk from town. It was quite normal for me, being the oldest boy, to leave home at dawn one day, and not arrive home until the next day late at night.  My father didn’t like I left home for so long often, since I’m only eighteen years old and the second oldest child, but he was needed on the homestead to guide my brothers and sisters through the day’s work. Besides, he was too old and bent at the back to walk around very far. Also, all of my brothers were too young, and my sister was needed in the house to care for the twin infant boys and guide the girls through their chores to leave for two days as I do. At eighteen, I am more than capable and am very experienced in the workings of the field, as well as hunting, and I’m still young and unhurt. I’m the only option, the only way my family has of getting what we need from town.

Jinkstown had been founded many generations ago, so long ago that there was no longer a person alive who remembered that early time. Several families, along with a few stragglers and rogues, had been travelling the land, most of them wishing to escape the big city, or what had been a big city back then, and live a quite, rural life. The Jinkston family had led the way, and, in time, had become the town’s leaders, settling into the role of aristocracy. The aristocrats were the leaders of the town due to their vast wealth. They were the ones with the good stock horses pulling wagons, clearing out the shops inventory in a single transaction. Because of this, they often left that shop empty for a week or more and making the lower classes wait and run low on supplies while the shopkeepers restocked. Oh, they ran the town fairly. Crimes were punished with fair sentences, and the butcher’s shop was always full with their hunting games’ prizes, but they had the best medicine, the best smiths and builders and thought their wishes took priority over everyone else’s survival, which is how my mother had died a year ago. She had been sick, very sick, after giving birth to the twin boys. While my father, brothers and oldest sister, the firstborn and at the age of twenty summers at the time, stayed behind to take care of Mother, I went to town to bring back a physician. He was sympathic to Mother’s plight and came back out to the house with me, but there was nothing he could do. There had recently been an outbreak of an illness in the aristocratic families, and he didn’t have the medicine he needed to treat Mother. And so Mother died three days later. I’ve had a resentment of the aristocratic class after that. Nothing they did could make me change my mind about that. Because if their greediness, my mother was dead.

My hand tightened on my knapsack’s strap at the thought of Mother and her passing. Our bond had been strong. Dad said she had coddled me when I was a baby, like how he had coddled my sister. Mother had just felt more attached to me than she did to my sister. Dad said it was normal, that his mother did the same thing with his brothers and his father with Dad’s sisters. But I loved Mother as much as any son could love his mother. She was fair, mild-tempered, and never punished one child for the misdoings of another child. She rarely raised her voice, and never to the kids. She never hit us, and always made sure we had dinner in our bellies and clean beds and a clean house to sleep in. Yes, Mother had been a true gem, and, I’m sure, one I’ll find it difficult to find in a future wife.

I smiled now at those happy memories of my mother and I absently wiped away a couple of tears. I never sobbed and rarely. But, a couple tears were nothing to be ashamed of when I’m alone. Besides, the main reason I never cried with others around is if I cried one single tear noiselessly, then everyone else would bawl like babies. If that happened, then nothing would get done for the rest of the day since everyone would undoubtedly sit around holding hands and sharing happy memories of Mother until the next day. Then, we wouldn’t have dinner and we wouldn’t have any clean clothes, and the fields would have a day’s worth of weeds to be plucked, and the livestock, a few sheep, goats, cows and a bull and an old horse, wouldn’t have been fed. So, I kept my tears inside until I was alone so life could go on.

The sun began to set and, as the shadows lengthened and all light fled the world, I took out my torch and lit it with my flint set. The light lit the trail far enough ahead of me for me to see where I’m stepping, and the oil would last me until I get home, just up a couple of hills and down the other side.

As I neared the house, sweaty, exhausted and tired, but happy to be home, I called out. I opened the door, fully expecting my younger brothers and sisters to tackle me, as they do whenever I come home, but, strangely, it was silent, not even a sound came from the livestock barn not too far from the house. I shrugged and thought everyone had already gone to bed, but the fire wasn’t burning in the hearth and, I noticed as I stepped inside, the dinner table had collected a bit of dust, the air was cold and Father’s snores were absent. Feeling a sense of warning and eeriness, I crept forward, unsheathing my sword in my right hand while I held the torch with my left. I went from room to room and poked the blankets. No one was in their beds. Something was very wrong.

With my heart beating quickly, I went back into the main room and looked around carefully. The rug was trampled and crumbled, disturbed violently, and black feathers littered the floor and furniture, even in the bedrooms. Then, I heard a sound. A bird call. But not just any bird…

I turned around and saw, perched in a window, a black raven, staring at me with his unmoving, beady, evil eyes. It opened its beak as it flared its wings and cawed again, the sound that reminds those who hears it of death. That’s when it clicked. For as long as I can remember, we had been plagued nightly by ravens that scoured the countryside, looking for victims who stayed out too late and couldn’t hide in time. The feathers, the empty beds, the cold hearth and the crumpled rug were all proof.

The ravens had kidnapped my family.

I didn’t have a lot of time to absorb this because, shortly after it cawed, the raven flew at me, obviously intending to take me with it. But I wouldn’t let that happen. I didn’t really think about why. If the raven captured me, it would take me to my family. Yet, I was resistant. I couldn’t go. So, I raised my torch and swiftly knocked the raven aside with the torch, a great mass of solid wood, sending it flying across the room, clamming against the mud brick walls of the house. It fell to the floor and stayed there a moment, then it got up, shook itself and charged again. I hit it with my torch again, a bit lower this time, I noticed,  and its black head cocked to the side in a nasty angle. The bird dropped and didn’t move beyond  couple of twinges that soon ceased. It was dead. Then, before my eyes, the body disintegrated, leaving, in its place, a piece of parchment. Bending down to pick it up, I read it.

Alphadega1983

Blackstone

Alphadega 1983 was probably the name of the bird. Blackstone sounded familiar, but I couldn’t exactly place it. Thinking, I made my way to a closet and pulled out the newest map of the country, Castaneda. Spreading it on the dusty table, I held my torch over the parchment and studied every marking until, finally, I found it. There. Nestled in a valley beside a river and a forest, was the country’s capital, Blackstone City.

After letting this sink in, I nodded and moved about the house. I grabbed knapsacks, food, coins, the rest of my clothes, and the map. I packed swiftly, the panic of discovering my family gone pushed to the back of my mind. Now, I was preparing for my journey and I had vengeance on my mind.

An hour later, I had all of the knapsacks packed. One was packed with meat, another packed with fruits and berries. A third was packed with my clothes and extra boots, a fourth with extra weapons I could find, including the kit I needed to keep my sword and daggers sharp. A fifth sack held the map, folded up neatly, and my bag of coins, which was now filled, as well as other crucial items, and I had a sixth sack filled with water skins and wine horns. The wine I had dumped out and refilled with water, and I had all of the rope and leather, along with a couple of blankets from the beds, I could find in a seventh sack. I was ready to leave on my new mission. Deciding sleep was the best thing I could do now, I went to my room and tried to sleep. Tomorrow, the biggest event of my life would begin.