A Prologue

The stairs were smooth and slippery under Keary’s bare feet. The wood had been worn smooth by decades of boots and the rain made it slick, so the young boy held the equally smooth rail carefully as he watched the jagged lip of the wall. From somewhere below, he could hear his mother begin to call his name, the panic rising in her voice dulled under the heavy rain and the sound of men and women calling out in pain. With a curiosity that trampled his fear, Keary finally made it across the walk to the wall. He was too short to see over it however. In a moment of dejection, he felt sure that his small height would hold him back once again, before he spotted the rain slicked chair, knocked over in the rush of the guards and laying just a few steps away.

He moved over and picked it up, the heavy wood slipping in his hands. The leg caught his foot and he felt tears bead at the corner of his eyes and flow into the rain which fall harder now. Gently rubbing the spot, he found the fear rise again as he looked at the lip of the wall. He shouldn’t look. He could carefully climb back down the stairs, walk through the fresh mud and find his mother again... But then he wouldn’t have a story for his brothers and the Twain twins. They’d call him a little coward and ignore him for another week. So carefully, he rested first a knee on the now wet seat, before he placed a muddy foot down. With shaky legs, he looked over the sharpened trunks that made the wall.

The rain was pushing up the smell of smoke. There were torches scattered around the base of the gate, a loose and broken wall that barely protected the men and women behind it. Their faces were familiar, as familiar as the back of Keary’s hand; Parents of his friends, an uncle, the old wanderer who lived by himself. Each one stood, injured and weary against the wall of monsters that lashed at them. He watched as they lashed out with blades and brought up shields in a hope that claws would bounce away from their haphazard armour. Keary found himself looking at one of the warriors who had fallen, laid out in the mud with his shield broken around him. It was the father of an older girl. They had the same blonde hair, but hers was not matted down with blood.

The little boy found his eyes wondering away from them now though, his heart beating cold and frightened in his chest. The monsters came clearer into view now; no longer a writhing mess of darkness, lashing out with many limbs and calling out for blood with many mouths. The Green Men clawed at each other in their attempt to get to the front of the line, but kept at bay when they reach it, snarling with amusement as they were cut down or pushed back. Keary could see, in the patches where mossy earth that now acted as flesh and twisted burnt bark that acted as skin gave way, the skeletons of the long dead grinning madly. Bright sockets and cracks in the chests glowed with a green fire that cast strange shadows.

Keary covered his mouth and whimpered, thankful that a shout from the old wanderer below covered it. A Green Man had lashed out with sharp wooden claws and left a deep set of groves in his shield arm. Keary’s father rushed to his aid, slashing out with an old worn axe which split the skull of the Green Man and sent him spinning back into the throng. His father paused for a moment, glancing over his shoulder and shouting something under the rain that Keary could never quite hear, even after dreaming of the moment again and again. It was a foolish thing to do, his shield slipping in his hand as he spoke the words. To his left, the aunt of the Twain twins was trying to keep back one of the monsters, which left the smallest of openings for another to rush forward. If Keary’s father had lifted his shield by a hand, the monsters arm would not have been able to reach his neck. Its claws would not have sunk into the flesh and pulled away, leaving a dark and deadly wound.

If Keary hadn’t looked away for a moment, to check that one of his comrades was well, he would not have been buried days later at the foot of the road.

Keary didn’t watch him fall back into the mud, rainwater and blood mixing into the soil. He closed his eyes when he saw the splash of dark blood on the creature, which made a terrible gurgling laugh as the Wanderer cut it into two. He felt dizzy, no longer wanting to impress his brothers or the Twain twins. He didn’t care if they called him a coward. He wanted to be back in his mother’s arms and to never look over the wall again.

There was a gentle fluttering that sent Keary falling back from his chair, landing with a heavy thud against the walkway as he scrambled back and covered his face. He was sure it was one of the monsters; one of them had clawed their way up the Cliffside beside the path and was now about to pounce upon him and cut at his throat like they had at his father’s. But no. There was a sound of an even gentler flutter that was barely audible under the sound of the rain and the calling from below. Keary opened his eyes slowly, find his hands had moved from his face to wrap around his own neck in protection.

There, perched on the jagged tree trunks of the wall was a black bird, turned away from the boy it had startled so badly. It was stretching one wing out and lifting a leg, something the boy had seen many birds do before. In that moment, he pushed everything out of his head and simply watched the bird, because it was normal and because it was alive. And then, under its breath, as if it was even thinking of it, it gently squawked, “Jack.” Keary stopped breathing as the bird turned its head. And then he couldn’t stop screaming.