Day 293 - The Shadows Fell

 

 The Shadows Fell

Matthew Ryan Fischer

 

The crow flew across the graveyard, finding a station atop a crypt, next to a dozen other crows. There were more on the ground and more in the trees and more upon more landing all the time, over and atop dozens and dozens of different graves. The squawked and cawed and flapped their wings as if to beat back any danger that might come their way.

The crow watched as the ghosts arrived. It had watched when the dead began to walk. It saw the solider swallowed by the shadows of the night. And the captain and the lady who emerged from the woods at the wrong time and place, only to join the ranks of the dead. The crow remembered; its spirit knew another life. If it understood envy, it understood what it had, had lost, and would fight to have again.

The crow watched as two women fought. One of them had two spirits, forced together inside her one body. Something very old had invaded and tried to steal the body. A war was raging internally. A war was raging externally too. The one woman had a glow, a glimmering halo about her. She was trying to pull the merged souls apart and separate them. The women struggled, physically and spiritually simultaneously. They wore trinkets and cast spells at each other, both suffering and in a great deal of pain.

Nearby the spirits of the dead surrounded a woman with her cat. The man in the robe directed the dead towards her. The cat hissed and the crow could tell some of the spirits were afraid. The crow didn’t understand the powers at play, but it could sense the danger within the furry one. The woman stood her ground, waving her hands and chanting the words. Little did she know it wasn’t really her that was casting the spell.

A man with a stiff arm pulled small rocks and stones from his pouch and cast them high into the air. He pulled a charm from a chain around his neck and began to hold it before his face, saying his own sacred words.

The man in the robe turned from the woman and her cat and charged this man with the stoney arm. They locked arms and butted heads, but the man with the stoney arm was weak and tired and began to fail. His legs dropped and he slipped to one knee. The man in the robe ripped the charm from him and crushed it in his hands. He threw his arms up and the dead soldiers came his way. The man with the stoney arm was surrounded.